Dysfunctional Duos (with Couples Therapy Podcast)

This week we have Andy Beckerman and Naomi Ekperigin from the Couples Therapy podcast to discuss some of the most chaotic creative partnerships and rivalries in Hollywood history. Join us as we lay out an array of feuds from Tom Cruise vs. Anne Rice, to Patrick Swayze vs. Jennifer Grey, and beyond. Grab yourself a bucket of Liz Taylor’s favorite chili and get ready to pick a side. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Lizzie Bassett?

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• 0:45Lizzie Bassett?

  reality contestant in TV history be able to keep the family happy? And if they're overthrown by the mob, who will step up and become the new Don? Let the games begin. Watch the new Hulu original series, The Mob, premiering October 26th on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 1:04Chris Winterbauer?

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• 1:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone with somebody who may be your creative soulmate, but also you kind of want to murder. I'm not talking about our guest. I am talking about Lizzie. Just kidding. As always, I'm Chris Winterbauer, joined by Lizzie Bassett. Joined by Lizzie, who do we have with us today?

• 2:10Lizzie Bassett?

  We have the hosts of Couples Therapy, who of course are also an actual couple and extremely talented comedians. We have Naomi Ekperigin and Andy Beckerman. Welcome to the show.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 2:22Lizzie Bassett?

  Hey.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Hi. Chris, can I jump in for one second? Your intro reminded me a little bit, now I know you didn't mean it, what you said, but it did remind me, Naomi and I watch a lot of House Hunters International. And you can watch and see the passive-aggressiveness on some couples.

• 2:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Who's?

• 2:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, yes.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Who's out of their pores as they are, as they're saying like a little joke about their spouse or partner or whatever like that. So I just want to, I don't, I don't want to take over, but I do want to ask, was there any truth in there? Was there any truth in there?

• 2:58Lizzie Bassett?

  No, shockingly, we still don't want to kill each other. And actually, we got the chance to talk on your show, we came on your show, and you provided a bit of therapy for us, coworker therapy, if you will. Could you explain what your show is and what you do on it?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Sure. Naomi?

• 3:15Speaker 03

  Well, on the show, we have folks we enjoy, ala Lizzie and Chris, come on and we talk about relationships, we talk about mental health, and then we answer some listener questions. And often, you know, we'll have an individual, we'll have some actual romantic couples, but you know, you guys, we had to just get to the bottom of this working relationship. We had to say, how are you staying sane? Also, because you also are like, are in a weird kind of throuple with your husband, Lizzie. So we really wanted to unpack the throuple angle there. And so how does that affect the work?

• 3:44Speaker 02

  And just to note, we do own the interstate copyright on the name Couples Therapy. We have owned it for over a decade. And maybe there's other Couples Therapies out there that maybe didn't check before they named their show that, but.

• 3:58Lizzie Bassett?

  Wow.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Just wanted to, just wanted to throw that out there.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  He loves to mention the interstate copyright.

• 4:02Chris Winterbauer?

  Looking at, looking at you, Dave. Doesn't David Ellison technically own the copyright on, because isn't that on Paramount Plus?

• 4:09Speaker 03

  I guess so. Showtime, Paramount Plus, honey, it's all owned by three dudes in a trench coat, right? So, yes.

• 4:14Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah. Two Ellison's and a Trump in a trench coat. That's right. All right.

• 4:19Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, we've brought you here today because we have covered a lot of very dysfunctional couples, both romantic and working relationship couples over the course of the show. And we've selected three very dysfunctional ones that we thought it would be fun to present to you today and kind of get your thoughts on the situation, what you would have done in the situation, what they should have done, could have done, anything you want to talk about with these. Does that sound good?

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 4:49Lizzie Bassett?

  All right.

• 4:50Chris Winterbauer?

  Lizzie, can I name like just one or two honorable mentions?

• 4:52Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Because they, they didn't get, so because she passed away recently, we, we removed that. We were gonna maybe present Marcia Lucas and George Lucas.

• 5:01Lizzie Bassett?

  Very interesting relationship.

• 5:02Chris Winterbauer?

  Really interesting relationship. Marcia did, you know, just pass away, but kind of the head and the heart, you know, of a, of a creative duo in, in many ways. I also want to mention Francis Ford Coppola and Bob Evans. Just an ego-fueled, cocaine-laced, explosive dynamic for the ages. And then I also want to mention Marlon Brando and anybody he ever worked with, which would also be an incredible relationship to explore. But those were my three honorable mentions, Lizzie, that I just wanted to get out there before we dive into the great slouchies today.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Marcia was black, correct?

• 5:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  No, Marcia's not a black.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  His second wife.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  Second, honey, isn't it always the second wife? Anyway, continue. Sorry. Sorry, continue. I do keep tabs on who has black wives. And so that's why I was like, wait a minute. But okay. First wife.

• 5:50Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, first wife. First wife, very painful divorce. And she's maybe responsible for why the first Star Wars movie is pretty good. Anyway. All right. So we thought that we would kick this off with one of my favorite dysfunctional relationships we've ever covered and someone who we have sort of accidentally been going on a deep dive on recently, which is Tom Cruise and.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  Zenu.

• 6:16Lizzie Bassett?

  Anne Rice. Do you know anything about this?

• 6:19Speaker 03

  Really? No, I do not.

• 6:21Chris Winterbauer?

  Lizzie picked the not expected relationship, right? It could have been Katie Holmes.

• 6:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Right. I don't want to touch that.

• 6:28Chris Winterbauer?

  It could have been David Miscavige.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Sorry. I was making my Zenu joke, so I, I heard exactly what you said, but I, take me back. Literally, this is a not, this is a romantic relationship.

• 6:40Lizzie Bassett?

  No. This is not a romantic relationship. This is a working relationship.

• 6:44Speaker 03

  When they were doing the Interview with the Vampire movie, he was, he was a nightmare to poor Anne.

• 6:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, so have you seen the movie?

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay. What are your thoughts on that movie and his performance in it?

• 6:57Speaker 03

  Well, look, I am an AMC Interview with the Vampire stan. So knowing that, you know, I'm not really, it's fine. I don't really care all that much. So I'm not, I wasn't really into either of them. They were the guys of the moment to be in that movie, and we understand why. Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise. Were they the right ones to be in it? No. Was Tom Cruise giving theater production? Yes.

• 7:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Can I ask?

• 7:25Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, great.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Where was this in Tom Cruise's oeuvre? Like, what was before and what was after, please?

• 7:31Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay, so you would have had, you know, he's coming out of the eighties, he does Top Gun, Rain Man, The Firm. This is 1994. He's gearing up and he's working with all the best directors in Hollywood. And this is really pretty different. I mean, Legend with Ridley Scott in the eighties, he'd kind of done fantasy, but this is very different than that. He's never done anything quite like this. It's different in a lot of ways. I think it's different in the sexuality of the character, which is somewhat unstated in the movie. But it's also heavy prosthetics work. It is a period piece, which he'd kind of stayed away from again outside of Legend, which isn't even really a period, it's just high fantasy and he plays an elf, basically.

• 8:13Lizzie Bassett?

  No, what's that one where he's Irish?

• 8:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Far and Away with Nicole Kidman, which I just, I don't know if he had done that yet.

• 8:22Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Lizzie, do you count Irish as fantasy?

• 8:24Lizzie Bassett?

  No. He was saying period piece. Because I tried to watch it recently and the accent is.

• 8:31Chris Winterbauer?

  That was the, yeah, Ron Howard directed, I believe, Far and Away. But so he's really, he's peaking or about to peak. Mission Impossible will be shortly after this. So he is, he is as, as big a movie star as there is on the planet, really.

• 8:47Lizzie Bassett?

  A much bigger movie star than Brad Pitt at this point, it should be noticed. So, you know, it's the early nineties. Anne Rice, obviously, she's the author of Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Chronicles. This was a truly revolutionary series of novels when it comes to how vampires were portrayed. Prior to this, they were really like monsters. After this, we get this sort of world of vampires as people, like vampires as sexy, vampires as, you know, emotional and potentially even sympathetic. So they're turning Interview with the Vampire into a movie. She should be super stoked, but instead, she's really pissed because David Geffen

• 9:30Lizzie Bassett?

  had gone around her to cast Tom Cruise as Listat.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Oh. DreamWorks David Geffen?

• 9:37Lizzie Bassett?

  DreamWorks David Geffen. Yes.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  Wow. Okay, so she wasn't even involved at this point?

• 9:43Lizzie Bassett?

  No. Well, she was not involved in this decision, that's for sure.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Was that in her contract? I'm sorry, these authors, these authors trying to get into Hollywood. Read your contract.

• 9:59Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 10:00Chris Winterbauer?

  It was not. But Lizzie, she had, she had written drafts of the script.

• 10:03Lizzie Bassett?

  She had.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:05Lizzie Bassett?

  She was decently involved. Yeah.

• 10:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Lizzie Bassett?

  Um, and also like, this was an extremely personal work for her.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:11Lizzie Bassett?

  She said that Lestat was based partially on her husband, partially on herself. And also, I didn't know this until we started diving into this, but the character of Claudia in Interview with the Vampire kind of came to her after her own daughter had passed away from leukemia.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:25Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, five or six. So this is like, I understand why she cared as much as she did. And also, it had an enormous fan base.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:34Lizzie Bassett?

  So let's talk about why she was pissed. First of all, physical appearance wise, Lestat is supposed to be six feet tall, blonde, blue eyes, androgynous, kind of like, you know, moves like a lion a bit. Does that sound like Tom Cruise?

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely not.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  But he has a history of play. He played Reacher.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Right. He lives in denial. He is, again, but this is where it goes back to the Xenu of it all. Like, in his mind, he is seven foot, feet tall. Okay. In his mind, he's seven feet tall. He moves like a lion. He can have whatever he wants. And so he has this image of himself and nobody's gonna tell him no. So he was like, why wouldn't I do this? Because I'm shocked that he would even choose to do this for, I think, and again, they toned down the sexuality, but you know, if you had ever read any of that source material, I'm surprised Tom would even take the chance, which is probably yet another reason why they didn't water it down so much for like, for him to be happy.

• 11:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Between, between him and Pitt, he embraced the sexuality more.

• 11:29Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 11:29Chris Winterbauer?

  Than Pitt did, if you want, in my opinion, if you watch the movie.

• 11:32Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Where's the eyes wide shut?

• 11:35Lizzie Bassett?

  That's.

• 11:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Five years after this.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Okay, so this is like, five years of, of him, kind of like, playing around and then he's like, fuck this.

• 11:42Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  And I'm just gonna go do like Spielberg and Mission Impossible.

• 11:46Lizzie Bassett?

  That's exactly it. He had a really interesting period where he actually was, I think, pushing himself in terms of the types of roles that he was taking. And this is like smack in the middle of that period. But Anne does not like this idea. The ideas that she had thrown out were Julian Sands, John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, I can see Irons.

• 12:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Irons would have been pretty good. Basically, anyone but Tom Cruise. So this is a quote from Anne Rice. "I do think Tom Cruise is a fine actor, but you have to know what you can do and you can't do."

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Savage.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Just the word fine.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  I think he's a fine actor. I think he's a fine actor.

• 12:28Chris Winterbauer?

  This is, this is happening during, like, pre-production on the movie or development of the movie. This is not, this is not years later.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Right, right. She's saying this as it's happening.

• 12:37Chris Winterbauer?

  Leading up to shooting the movie. She's trying to get him off the movie.

• 12:41Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 12:41Chris Winterbauer?

  She said, you know, "I'm tempted, I'm tempted to call up CIA chief Mike Ovitz and tell him everyone will be gunning for his client. Cruise should do himself and everyone else's service and withdraw."

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Whoa. Oh, she wasn't playing. See, that's why I like Anne Rice. She was messy as hell. That is so rude. And it's so inappropriate to do, to decide to handle this in the court of public opinion. But I think it's also because she was also thinking about, again, and you're, you're joking about these, like, right, you know, these authors and their contracts. But it's like, because the books were such a smash, I think she thought she would have more power than she did when it came time to do the movie. Because she was like, I come with like, a strong fan base. This is a huge property. The shit, the fact that you get to make it, I should get to call shots. And it's like, no, Anne, you don't.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Don't sell the rights. Look, you didn't have to.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  I know.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  I'm sure you had enough money from the books. You could have been fine the rest of your life. You didn't have to sell the rights. I don't, look, all these, like, all these small town hicks come into Hollywood.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Wow. Savagery. Small town hicks.

• 13:44Lizzie Bassett?

  You better be careful. The Anne Rice Army can mobilize.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Honey, they'll come get you a half a second.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  They know I'm kidding. They know I'm joking. The Anne Rice heads love me.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  They know that.

• 13:55Chris Winterbauer?

  But she did.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  They know I'm goofing.

• 13:56Chris Winterbauer?

  She said of Hollywood producers, "I think they're awful. I can't warn writers enough to stay away from them. They will kill you. I hate them. I hate."

• 14:04Speaker 03

  Well, she's not wrong.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Great, but don't sell the rights.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  That's accurate, actually, Anne. That's accurate.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  It's like that, what was that, that Bad Mamet movie? Was it Mamet?

• 14:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Which one?

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:16Chris Winterbauer?

  I like David Mamet, but.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Welcome to my home. Andy's, is that Bad Mamet movie? And I go, I don't know what you're saying. I need more information.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  State in Maine or something like that, where like, it takes place in like a small town. It's like a bunch of like Hollywood folks descend on it.

• 14:33Lizzie Bassett?

  I believe that's correct. Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Well, thank you.

• 14:35Chris Winterbauer?

  We'll have to cover it on the show.

• 14:38Chris Winterbauer?

  But, uh, Lizzie should tell you about the Anne Rice Army.

• 14:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 14:40Chris Winterbauer?

  Cause Anne Rice mobilized it. When she realized her voice alone was not gonna make a difference.

• 14:44Lizzie Bassett?

  She did. She, she started stirring the pot big time. There was actually a book signing in Houston, her book signing, where a crowd of a thousand people showed up and started chanting, "No, Tom Cruise. No, Tom Cruise."

• 14:58Speaker 03

  Wow, that's good.

• 15:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Which is crazy.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Respond to that? Like, how do you think he emotionally, like, he heard about that at some point?

• 15:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, yeah. He actually did talk about it. He said, "When it first hit, it really hurt my feelings." To be candid about it, her venom hurt. Ooh, spicy venom. He also said, "There were certainly some nights where, uh, you know, there was anxiety and I was very surprised by the controversy that came up by it." You know, it's interesting because all of us were like, yeah, this is, uh, this is a strange role for him to take. I think he'd read the books in high school. He liked the books. He was, to your point, he was like, I'm Tom Cruise. I can do anything.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:36Lizzie Bassett?

  This should not be a problem. And he, I don't think had ever been met with this kind of aversion to him. And he had no idea how to handle it.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Honey, they were all suppressive people. Honey, he said, "I got to go clear my Thetans. These SPS are coming to get me and I will not let them stop me on my train." That's the thing. I think if you try to resist Tom, he is gonna mobilize the church.

• 15:58Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  Right. He's gonna take that energy. He's, he's clear. He's level 10 and he's not gonna let it stop him.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  I gotta pitch Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master, Part Two, about this.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Wow. That's good. I'd watch that.

• 16:13Chris Winterbauer?

  Basically, the character he's playing in Magnolia, I mean, a little bit. But, but what's interesting about, you're mentioning some Scientology, which we just did an episode on Scientology and Tom Cruise, though, I agree with what Lizzie's saying. He, rejection only means he will double down to make you like him that much harder. And he, he's, every quote of how he wins over everybody on the crew, he wins over, you know, his collaborators in so many instances.

• 16:39Lizzie Bassett?

  He learned piano.

• 16:40Chris Winterbauer?

  Yes, exactly.

• 16:41Lizzie Bassett?

  He lost 12 pounds. He wore vampire teeth.

• 16:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 16:44Lizzie Bassett?

  He studied lions.

• 16:47Chris Winterbauer?

  It's not just, you think I can't do this, I'm gonna do it. It's, I'm gonna prove to you, I am the only person who could have done this. It, it's just such an extreme. He really dedicates himself to it.

• 16:59Lizzie Bassett?

  And also, one thing about Tom Cruise, though, is like, he will not badmouth people unless you're Matt Lauer. And in retrospect, I'm kind of like, well, um, but, you know, he really would not.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  At all.

• 17:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, I don't know, Andy. He really will not badmouth Anne Rice. Instead, he just, to Chris's point, like, goes to work and he works so hard. And I will say, do I think that he is the best Lestat? No. Is he fun to watch? Yes. Which is more than I can say for Brad Pitt in this movie. So, you know, I think like, he did his best and I don't begrudge Tom Cruise for doing this one. Um, Anne Rice, though, did. Filming had already started and she was still publicly talking about the ludicrous miscasting. That is a direct quote.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 17:50Lizzie Bassett?

  She said, "I'm still at a boiling rage over the whole thing. The things I'm hearing now in the press, things the studio and producers are saying are very upsetting."

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Wow. It's, uh, one hand, you know, my thinking is like, Anne, girl, you gotta let it go. But then on the other hand, I'm like, I understand. To say you're at a boiling rage months later over something that actually was not your decision, I relate. I said, Anne, we've all been there.

• 18:17Lizzie Bassett?

  She doesn't stop there. She gets like, she gets kind of mean. She said, "They're very cocky in Hollywood. They don't care about the thousands of loyal readers who cherish this character. And now we're gonna hear that Tom Cruise is hurt? Well, you can't just take everything you want in this world." Anne, he can, though, is the only one.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  But also. If only there had been like a 60 or 70 year period of Hollywood where people come to this town, get chewed up and spit out for her to learn from before this experience happened. If only there was.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  There were plenty of movies and books about that.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  She's the first person to be done wrong by a Hollywood producer. But now here's a question. How, how soon after this did Anne Rice die?

• 19:03Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, a while because she was involved in the early development process of the AMC show.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. Just making sure. Again, once you're declared an SP, anything can happen. And I just want to make sure the end didn't come out here.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Well, we don't know something didn't happen that just took decades.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  That's true. That's true.

• 19:24Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 19:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, I think she was okay because, I mean, Chris, do you want to tell them how this resolved?

• 19:31Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah. So the funny thing was that obviously it just made Tom work harder and harder. And it was, it really, there are so many instances in the show where we meet the immovable object of Anne Rice and the unstoppable force of Tom Cruise. And they're just, they just hit each other for what feels like an eternity. And then eventually Anne Rice sees the movie and she actually, and now I'm convinced it's partially that she appreciated how much Tom Cruise did at least try to bring to the role. And I also think it's just how much the, how good the movie looks. I think Neil Jordan does an amazing job directing it. His production design is gorgeous. Kirsten Dunst is fantastic as Claudia. So I think it was more the whole package. She was pretty wowed by it. And she, I think she saw it and realized, oh, they care about the book.

• 20:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Right? Like, it's not exactly the book. There are definite departures from the book that some fans definitely don't like. But it's not that they didn't care about the book. And I, what I, the question I have, this is obviously an unhealthy relationship in so many ways, but had Anne Rice not been such a pain in the ass, would Tom Cruise have worked so hard to, to try to win her over and all the fans over with his portrayal of this character? I know he would have tried hard at the role no matter what, but there was a zealot-like adherence to the text as if it was, you know, biblical in some way because she did not provide her approval in advance.

• 20:59Lizzie Bassett?

  And it should be stated, she afterwards, to Chris's point, she did turn, turn around and say like, oh, he was pretty good.

• 21:05Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, she did. Yeah.

• 21:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Did she say just like that? Did she like ignore the fact that she had been?

• 21:11Chris Winterbauer?

  Yes.

• 21:12Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Never brought it up again. She said, yeah, well, Tom was good. No, no, like, I'm sorry. No, it was, it was really, I really, I actually respect her thinking. She said, I wasn't wrong before, but he was pretty good.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Which is quite the tightrope to walk at the end of the day.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Has anyone delved into Tom Cruise's past? Like, what happened in childhood where, because this is so Freudian. Someone says, you stink. And he's like, I'll prove you wrong.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Well, sure. Yeah, that's a certain.

• 21:44Chris Winterbauer?

  I think a lot of siblings, absent father, moved a lot as a kid, you know, found something in theater, was not an obvious, I don't think was an obvious huge leading man talent, et cetera, much in the way James Dean kind of, you know, had faced early rejection too, and just wills himself in so many ways into superstardom in the mid 1980s. And then it's, I like, I think it's the Church of Tom, so to speak, you know, he, he is his own, Christ-like figure would be a too exaggerated way to put it, but you know, I will put the movies on my back.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, that's how he would put it. Exactly.

• 22:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Off this cliff and, you know.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  There's also, I think, an element too, though, of, as you said, Chris, of sort of, oh, you know, remember he was married to Mimi Rogers. He does have this complicated relationship. Is Anne a mother he needs approval from? Okay. You get a mean mommy in there saying, you can't hack it. Tom says, I'll show you, mom. I'm playing piano. And that is, to me, a very big part of it, too. There is like, and he's, to me, it's like, it's classic cocky dude. You had to nag him. Anne Rice had to nag him.

• 23:00Lizzie Bassett?

  I think you're right.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Anne Rice had to use pick-up artist moves. She is mystery. She's wearing dynamic outfits. We know that she peacocks in her ensembles. Okay. We know she does. R.I.P. Okay. Rest in peacock.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Do her and Amy Sherman-Palladino both have bigger hats?

• 23:16Speaker 03

  I believe so.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Bigger hats?

• 23:17Speaker 03

  Bigger hats. Oh, bigger hats. But no, I think it's so, I think she was like, I have to nag this man. And I don't think she did it thinking I'll get a better performance about, out of him. I think what.

• 23:26Chris Winterbauer?

  No, I think she genuinely wanted him.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Correct. No, she's also, she is mean. She is petty. She is bossy. I love her. And so that is, you know, that's, that's what we're gathering from there. But the side effect of that with a man who is delulu is that it makes him go to the max.

• 23:42Chris Winterbauer?

  I empathize with that. I, there were so few girls that like, I got assigned to sit next to them in high school or something, and they clearly didn't like that I was sitting next to them. Yeah, a couple, a few times. And I remember thinking like, oh, I'm, I like you. I'm going to make you like me. Like, I'm going to work really hard at this. Like, you're clearly smart. You don't think, like, you don't like me. You're, you're clearly a smart person. I need to make you like me.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Wait, but what would you do, Chris? What would you do to try to win them over?

• 24:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, usually because I was, I liked being a classic clown. And then I would, I was like, I'll show that I'm actually not a complete idiot. Like, I'm going to slowly reveal that I'm, so because I don't, can't do it quickly. I will slowly reveal that I'm somewhat intelligent underneath all of this. And just try to, you know, slowly, I'm not saying I was successful. I'm just saying like, this was something I enjoyed. But the other, the other thing with Cruise that you point to, I don't, who knows? But as we've explored, Lizzie, on the show, a lot of his closest collaborators, women, not the directors necessarily he worked with, but you know, Paula Wagner, his longtime producing partner, Pat Kingsley, his trusted publicist. When he did replace Pat Kingsley at first, it was with his sister, Leanne Devett.

• 24:52Chris Winterbauer?

  So there was certainly something, I mean, yes, on the one side, he was seeking the approval in a Freudian sense from the father figure directors from, you know, Kubrick on down, and Kubrick being The Failed Experiment, that turned him maybe toward more generic roles in the 2000s. But there was a guidance, I think, from many of the women around him that he sought as well.

• 25:16Chris Winterbauer?

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• 26:18Lizzie Bassett?

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• 27:24Chris Winterbauer?

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• 28:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, that wraps up Tom Cruise and Anne Rice.

• 28:40Chris Winterbauer?

  We diagnosed it.

• 28:41Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, we did it.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:42Lizzie Bassett?

  We fixed Tom Cruise.

• 28:45Lizzie Bassett?

  Chris, do you want to tell them what our second couple is?

• 28:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Absolutely. So in the late 80s, there was a couple with, I would argue, some pretty solid on-screen chemistry that you may be surprised to hear did not extend behind the scenes. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey on Dirty Dancing.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 29:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Have you guys seen Dirty Dancing?

• 29:09Speaker 03

  Yes, indeed.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  I've heard the soundtrack a million times.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  You've never seen Dirty Dancing?

• 29:14Speaker 02

  No, my parents, my mom loved the soundtrack and so played it a million times while she was cooking dinner or just, uh...

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. We gotta watch that.

• 29:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, it's an amazing movie, like genuinely very good.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  I've had the time of my life.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  I mean, that's the end of every bar mitzvah. Did anyone else play that, have that played at the end of every bar mitzvah? That was the vibe.

• 29:37Chris Winterbauer?

  That and, um, what was the Green Day song?

• 29:41Lizzie Bassett?

  Was it called Graduation, the time of your life or whatever?

• 29:45Chris Winterbauer?

  You know, it wasn't called Time of, it's Good Riddance.

• 29:46Lizzie Bassett?

  Good Riddance. There we go. Thank you.

• 29:47Chris Winterbauer?

  That one, they'd all end with Good Riddance.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought you were talking about a Green Day song in Dirty Dancing.

• 29:53Chris Winterbauer?

  No, no, no, they weren't. Green Day would not form for a few more years.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Do you remember when they did that dance to Basket Case?

• 30:01Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, so good. Pull apart of broken dreams as he drives his car. The movie made an incredible amount of money.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Six million dollar budget made over $200 million worldwide. Despite mixed reviews, it was a cultural phenomenon. Andy didn't see it once. There were 100-plus clubs for people who wanted to see it 100-plus times in theaters.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:23Chris Winterbauer?

  That's a lot. Lizzie saw Lord of the Rings 13 times in theaters. Just wanted to drop that in front of everybody.

• 30:28Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  What year did it come out again, please?

• 30:31Chris Winterbauer?

  1987.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Eighty-seven. What else, what else might a child see that year?

• 30:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, Dirty Dancing is not for children.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying. I was a child, so that's...

• 30:40Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, okay.

• 30:40Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, Goonies, I think, was the year before, something like that. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Um, Die Hard would be there within a year or two.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Full Metal Jacket in the theaters.

• 30:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, Mannequin? A classic.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, I love it. But I will say I'm partial to Mannequin 2 on the move. Okay?

• 30:59Lizzie Bassett?

  I have not seen that.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  You haven't seen Mannequin 2 on the move?

• 31:02Lizzie Bassett?

  No.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Girl, you need to get with the program, okay? Because she is from medieval village and then she comes into present day and Meshack Taylor gets her together.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Hold on a second. Are they like trying to do a riff on Bill and Ted for that?

• 31:16Speaker 03

  No, it's just a mannequin. They said the second version, why don't she come from far away?

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Why aren't we talking about Meshack Taylor more?

• 31:24Speaker 03

  I know. All right.

• 31:25Chris Winterbauer?

  Let's talk about Patrick Swayze.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Yes, okay, yes. Keep us on task, Chris. Apologies.

• 31:28Chris Winterbauer?

  Who had, they'd worked together before, so they had done Red Dawn together. The 1984 inaugural PG-13 recipient. One of the best high school boy fantasies movies. What if our country was invaded? Could we fight off the invaders? The football team?

• 31:52Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, there's no.

• 31:53Chris Winterbauer?

  No.

• 31:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, but they do.

• 31:54Chris Winterbauer?

  Especially not with, especially not with Patrick Swayze. Lizzie, you want to tell them about the antics of Patrick Swayze on that movie?

• 32:01Lizzie Bassett?

  Sure. Look, according to Patrick, he was super intense. He was very in character from day one. You know, he wanted to be very method about this. However, he and his co-stars...

• 32:12Chris Winterbauer?

  He's playing the high school version of himself, to be clear. I don't know how method you need to go.

• 32:17Lizzie Bassett?

  He had to go hard and that involved going out drinking every night and, uh, pulling pranks like rigging director John Milius's toilet with dynamite, which is just fun. It's just fun, you guys.

• 32:27Chris Winterbauer?

  If you know John Milius, that's kind of funny.

• 32:29Lizzie Bassett?

  That's true.

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Do you know John Milius?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  He pulled a Die Hard 2, or not a Die Hard 2, a Lethal Weapon 2 on him?

• 32:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, have you seen, you've seen The Big Lebowski, right?

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 32:40Chris Winterbauer?

  So John Goodman's character in The Big Lebowski is based on John Milius.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 32:45Chris Winterbauer?

  So imagine rigging John Goodman's character in The Big Lebowski's toilet with dynamite.

• 32:50Lizzie Bassett?

  It is funny.

• 32:51Chris Winterbauer?

  It's pretty funny. It's dangerous, but it's pretty funny.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  You know, I don't, I'm not for pranks, so I'm not in general, I'm not into pranks in general, so I can't even get on board with this. But also something that could involve scorching a butthole?

• 33:03Speaker 02

  Scorching, blowing up a butthole?

• 33:04Speaker 03

  I know, I was trying not to be so hateful. You know, I was like trying not to be so negative because I'm like, oh, maybe it would. But, okay, so he's doing pranks of the director.

• 33:13Lizzie Bassett?

  On the director and some others.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  It's just a scam.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 33:17Lizzie Bassett?

  That is true. So he, he's like, you know, I could tell that Jennifer Grey was not super into me. He said, "It's probably safe to say Jennifer couldn't stand me once I started barking orders at everyone." Okay, fair.

• 33:27Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, rightly so.

• 33:29Lizzie Bassett?

  But this is where it really takes a turn. So according to Jennifer, who I'm gonna choose to believe a little more here, she said when it was time to shoot their sex scene, they had one love scene in this movie. Patrick Swayze showed up so drunk, still drunk from the night before, that he could not remember his lines. And so John Milius was like, "Ah, just, we'll get this later. We can't do it right now. We'll shoot this scene later." They never shot it later. They ran out of time, so she never got to do that scene. And then when it came time for the scene that she was excited about because it was her big emotional moment, it was her death scene, spoiler alert. She was not too happy because the night before, Patrick Swayze, and to be fair, other guys in the cast as well,

• 34:13Lizzie Bassett?

  had been setting off firecrackers outside her hotel room because they thought it was funny to make her think that there were gunshots going off.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  What the fuck?

• 34:23Speaker 02

  What's wrong with him? What's wrong with all these people?

• 34:27Lizzie Bassett?

  First of all, it was the 80s. Second of all, um, he, he was intense. He was a really intense guy and I think, you know, he...

• 34:33Speaker 03

  That's not intense. That's rude as hell. You at work. This is a workplace. This is my thing.

• 34:37Lizzie Bassett?

  I agree.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  What? You have to be up at like 4, 5 in the morning and someone's like, "Why don't we do that?" I'm just like, you're annoying.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Also, that's not a prank. I'm sorry. These are not pranks. They're just being an asshole.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's...

• 34:49Speaker 02

  There's a lot of, there's a lot of being an asshole in quotes that gets miscategorized as a prank.

• 34:56Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. Yeah, I agree. And I think he actually, to be fair, would later on very much admit to that. But Patrick Swayze, as a person, we've covered him a couple of times on the show and he's very interesting. I think he's a fucking awesome actor. He's obviously an incredible dancer. Um, he's really, really super duper intense. He was a classically trained ballet dancer. His mother was his choreographer and she was, she drove him so hard. Uh, he also was a high school athlete and got a horrible knee injury during that. He's just, he works himself to the bone and I think doesn't understand people who don't operate the same way that he does. And Jennifer Grey really did not operate the same way that he did, so...

• 35:41Speaker 03

  This is so similar to Cruise. I'm already sensing...

• 35:43Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, is there an actor that doesn't have some kind of strange home life at their origin?

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, yes, not only the mom relationship, but also just he's working himself to the bone, going to the mat, like, and not understanding anyone who doesn't. And, and not just not understanding, but it's also like, what it sounds to me more is like not respecting anybody who doesn't.

• 36:04Chris Winterbauer?

  You know what I mean?

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:05Lizzie Bassett?

  I think...

• 36:06Chris Winterbauer?

  We talked about, yeah.

• 36:07Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, and I will say I think Swayze in later years was a bit more honest about that than I've heard Tom Cruise be.

• 36:17Lizzie Bassett?

  But so Jennifer Grey gets basically cast in Dirty Dancing and she's an early member of the cast because obviously like this movie is gonna center around her. And this is her big break. She'd been in other stuff. She has a very small part in The Cotton Club. Obviously, she's the sister in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. She's wonderful in that. But she's not a big name and like, this is it. This is the big thing. So she screen tested with a bunch of actors, including Val Kilmer, hot, Benicio del Toro, also hot.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  Whoa, Benicio del Toro, Dirty Dancing.

• 36:46Chris Winterbauer?

  But Val Kilmer, who may have been even more difficult.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:50Lizzie Bassett?

  Seriously, she honestly probably would have had less fun with Val Kilmer, I think. Scott Plank and Billy Zane, but...

• 36:59Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, you can see some of the footage with Billy Zane in the audition tapes.

• 37:02Lizzie Bassett?

  You can. Uh, the casting director, this is, I feel, this is sad. They said it looked like he was dancing at his bar mitzvah, which like, give him some credit. He's not a professional dancer.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Well, I was gonna say, can any of these guys dance? Because I was like, the other names were mentioned. I'm like, not to the extent that Swayze could dance.

• 37:19Lizzie Bassett?

  No, that's the thing. That's the thing, is that she was like...

• 37:23Chris Winterbauer?

  I'm guessing like Del Toro could fake it a little bit or Kilmer could fake it a little bit. They're both very good with their bodies, but you know, not like...

• 37:30Lizzie Bassett?

  Literally an intensely trained professional ballet dancer in terms of Patrick Swayze. So she has all these guys coming in and she said, "The second any of the guys who came in put their hands on me, I just knew." She's like, this is, they're not, it's not it. And the casting directors were saying the same thing. And then they said, "Hey, we have an idea. What about Patrick Swayze?" And Jennifer Grey said, "Anybody else, please."

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 37:59Lizzie Bassett?

  She begged them. She was, she told them too. She was like, "I worked with him on Red Dawn. It was bad. Like, please do not make me do this." And they were like, "Too bad, so sad. It's Patrick Swayze."

• 38:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, he was the only one really. And it's funny, there's a movie here that, you know, you mentioned, Lizzie, um, you know, he's, he's Patrick Swayze is still, he's up and coming to, he's probably more known than Jennifer Grey, but they're, they're pretty close, you know, in terms of relative Q rating internationally. But I, I was thinking about, in retrospect, Lizzie, Kevin Bacon.

• 38:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, cuz Kevin Bacon really can dance.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  He's got the moves. He's got the moves. He's got the vibe, too.

• 38:42Chris Winterbauer?

  I've heard he's, I've never heard a bad thing about him on set.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  I saw him on the street once. He seemed pretty nice. He was talking to someone.

• 38:49Chris Winterbauer?

  I know his daughter. She's lovely.

• 38:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Footloose was out in 84. You know what? I wonder if he was too expensive.

• 38:54Chris Winterbauer?

  I wonder if it was that, too.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  He's already Footloose.

• 38:56Lizzie Bassett?

  Footloose is 84.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  He's already Footloose. I bet he was like, I don't wanna get stuck being the dancing guy.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Where's Tremor?

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:01Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, my God, I love Tremor.

• 39:02Chris Winterbauer?

  Tremor's wouldn't be for a few years. I think Tremor's is 89. Let me just double, 90.

• 39:05Lizzie Bassett?

  One of my favorites.

• 39:06Chris Winterbauer?

  Tremor's is one of the best bromances of all time. Um, just, why do we need her? It's just about these two guys.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Two guys and a grab boy.

• 39:14Chris Winterbauer?

  Just let them have each other.

• 39:15Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 39:15Chris Winterbauer?

  It is. That's what they should have called it.

• 39:19Chris Winterbauer?

  Two men and a little grab boy. Um, yeah. But yeah, Kevin Bacon was the only other person I could think of. And I'm sure you're right. He was probably too expensive. I'm sure you're right, Andy. He probably just didn't wanna get typecast at this point in time. It is a very similar movie. It's just almost gender swapped in some ways from Footloose, so.

• 39:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, and I mean, Swayze was also concerned about being typecast. He'd actually turned down a lot of dancing movies because he didn't wanna be known as the dancing guy. But the reason Dirty Dancing appealed to him, Andy, you don't know this cuz you've never seen it, but yes, the dancing is great and it is amazing, but that's not like the driving force of the movie. There is actually like a very engaging plot and you care about these characters. So I think that's what really drew him to it. So it came time to do the screen test. And apparently, and this is according to Jennifer Grey, he pulled her aside, he started crying, and he apologized.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 40:16Lizzie Bassett?

  He said, whoa, you clean up good, girl. And then he said, this is a great part for you. Congratulations. So she's really softening up. And then he said, I know you're probably thinking, oh, no, not this idiot again. And then his eyes started to well up, real tears, and in the most earnest delivery imaginable, said, you know, I've always loved you. And I've been really working on getting my shit together. So if I get the chance, I swear I'm gonna make it up to you. You will not be sorry.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Oh, he's a sociopath.

• 40:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, I think he means it, but she started crying too, except she was crying because she knew he was gonna get the part and she really didn't wanna do it with him.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  She knew it was not genuine. She knew that he was using all his actorly abilities to try to fool her.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  This is what I'm wondering, cuz I'm like, that's, I was literally saying, like, do we think he, do we think he meant it? Or do we think he was like, I know this is a part that, he's like, I need this part, and she's my hurdle.

• 41:13Chris Winterbauer?

  I think it's both. I think he knows he fucked it really bad.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:17Chris Winterbauer?

  And, but I think he, he wasn't seeking her out to apologize.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  Before that. Exactly. Exactly.

• 41:23Chris Winterbauer?

  Of the situation. So I think it's both. I think in the moment, he probably was remorseful, but he also realized, like, I can't keep being like this, or, you know, I need to clear this hurdle in some way. So, yeah, I, I wouldn't go quite so far as to say sociopath, but I also wouldn't say.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  He drops a part and then immediately dynamited the director's toilet.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  No, no, that was the first movie. That was Red Dawn.

• 41:48Lizzie Bassett?

  That was Red Dawn. There's no dynamite in toilets on Dirty Dancing, although they did continue to hate each other.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Sorry, I got lost. I got lost trying to figure out whether

• 41:59Lizzie Bassett?

  You got lost in the sauce.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  who the character was, the, uh, Murtaugh's name from Lethal Weapon 2, who got a dynamite toilet.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  I got lost trying to think of.

• 42:09Chris Winterbauer?

  That was a long time ago when you referenced Lethal Weapon.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Yes, it was, Chris.

• 42:12Chris Winterbauer?

  You've been gone for 15 minutes.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  That is correct. Thank you.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Welcome to our household.

• 42:16Lizzie Bassett?

  Well.

• 42:16Chris Winterbauer?

  I just love how Andy's mind has just been this little treadmill, like, going in a completely

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Is it Murtaugh, Riggs? Who's, which one is it?

• 42:22Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, Riggs and Murtaugh.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Yes. But wait, okay, wait, but Lizzie, go back, though. You said he did do one prank on Dirty Dancing?

• 42:29Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, Chris, you should explain this.

• 42:31Chris Winterbauer?

  Do you guys know the infamous story of Chris Pratt in Parks and Rec? Leslie's at Anne's house. She opens the door. The joke is Andy, Chris Pratt, is nude on the front porch, but he's supposed to be wearing spandex or something that they'll then just pixelate out. And on one of the takes, I don't know which take, and you can actually see the footage of this online, blurred, he lost the spandex and just stood nude at the door. And Amy Poehler opened the door and, I mean, started laughing, but freaked out cuz, you know, and Patrick Swayze on this movie, in the scene where they're in the car and she's like laughing and says, like, you're wild, he pulled his penis out to like shock her.

• 43:10Lizzie Bassett?

  Hold on. Hear me out.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  What, go, what, Lizzie?

• 43:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Hear me out. Normally, I would not defend this, and I still don't defend it, but

• 43:16Speaker 03

  But.

• 43:17Lizzie Bassett?

  apparently what was happening is she was having a really hard time with this. She could not get a genuine laugh out. It was not going well. They'd been doing it over and over and over and over again. And so Patrick Swayze's solution was to unzip his pants and take his penis out, which did, in fact, make her laugh hysterically and say, you're wild. Um, she actually said this was fine. Of all the things that happened on the set, she was okay with this. I don't know if I would be okay with this, but that's the context.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Hollywood is so sick and so depraved and so dead because there's nothing that would make me laugh less. And I'm like, and you know, on one hand, it is like.

• 43:57Lizzie Bassett?

  If you were dead serious, that would be incredible.

• 43:59Speaker 03

  I would just be like.

• 44:00Chris Winterbauer?

  That would be very funny.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Who's that for? That would be my response, is who's that for?

• 44:05Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay, but if you were laughing really hard on set and having trouble

• 44:09Speaker 03

  Being serious.

• 44:09Chris Winterbauer?

  being serious, we know what.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know exactly what'll work.

• 44:13Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm laughing too much. Could someone sexually harass me so that I am now angry and stone-faced?

• 44:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Today's episode is sponsored by Mars. You might not realize it, but Mars is behind so many of your favorite Halloween treats, and I'm not just talking about your candy bowl. Yes, Mars makes iconic candies like M&M's, Snickers, Starburst, my personal favorite, and Skittles. But they also have salty snacks, easy to make meal options, and even treats for your pets. There's something for everyone to enjoy this spooky season. David and I are too old to trick or treat, so we've been getting creative with our Halloween movie night spreads for our friends. I put together a char bootery board with some classic sweets like Rice Krispie treats and peanut butter M&M's. And because I'm a salty girl, I added some Pringles and my all-time favorite snack, Cheez-It crackers. Scary delicious. For Halloween night, I'm making a spooky seven-layer dip using Ben's Original Ready Rice because there is nothing that my kid loves more than a rice and bean dip. And don't think I forgot about our dog Q. Mars knows he needs a celebration, too,

• 45:08Lizzie Bassett?

  so I put together a special Halloween treat jar packed with Greenie's Original Pumpkin Spice Dental Chews and Pedigree Tasty Biscuits. He's agreed to share with the neighbors because he's a very good boy. Find Mars products in a retailer near you or on Instagram at Mars Global, M-A-R-S-G-L-O-B-A-L, where you can shop everyday favorites and limited-time Halloween offerings.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  That is so nut, okay, so that's, and, but, but somehow it worked. Okay, well, good, whatever works for Jennifer.

• 45:39Lizzie Bassett?

  This, this worked, yes. But so, they did still not get along super well on set. I think by the end, they tolerated each other. But the problem, the problem was, and honestly, this is like why the movie works so well, I think, because they are supposed to be frustrated with each other for most of the movie. It's genuine. Um, he, he was such an incredible dancer, and he like expected the same level of dance ability from her. And she's like, I'm not a professional dancer.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:12Lizzie Bassett?

  That's the whole point of this.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  The whole point of the movie, right. Okay, baby don't know what she doing. She just trying to find herself as a woman.

• 46:19Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes, yes. So that's exactly what was going on. And according to Patrick Swayze, she was very emotional, sometimes bursting into tears if someone criticized her. Like, sir, are you the one criticizing her? I think the answer to that is yes.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  Yes. Yes is yes. If someone criticized her.

• 46:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Um, he also opted to do the scene where they're walking across the log himself instead of using the stunt double, and immediately fell off and, and re-injured his knee, which cost the production an enormous amount of time and money.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 46:51Lizzie Bassett?

  And by the way, the lift, the famous lift in the movie, I believe that is the only time she got it 100% right, because she was very scared of it. And that's something that really pissed Patrick Swayze off, too. He's like, why can't you just do it?

• 47:06Speaker 03

  Wait, what? Wait a second, wait a second. Right, cuz he basically lifts her up, they're in the water, the big jump. And also, and also, there's something I even remember from that movie.

• 47:14Lizzie Bassett?

  The end. The end is the one time she, the one take she got it right.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  It never looks, um, comfortable. It looks like he's like gripping her ribs in a way that I'm like, that must really hurt. And like to have done that over and over, or as many times as it took to get it, I was like, this is not pleasant. This cannot be pleasant. And you're in the damn lake, everything about it. But it's true, that movie, that's wild to think that they really couldn't stand each other, and it still came out so well. I mean, you were rooting for them, you know?

• 47:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. And I think like, I think that they, they ended up respecting each other by the end of it. Did they like each other? I don't know. Maybe not. That works for the movie because of the context of the situation. And, you know, they both admitted, like, they're both very hot. So there is also that, uh, working for them, um, in that movie. And she said, you know, there was no question that our bodies liked each other in spite of what my head was saying.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Wow. Okay, so her, you know what? Okay, so you know that's giving. It's giving Genie in a Bottle. It's giving Christina Aguilera. It's giving my body saying, let's go, but my heart is saying no.

• 48:19Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. My heart is saying no, no.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  No. Okay, all right. Well, so now we know. Now we know that's Jennifer Grey's truth, and that's beautiful.

• 48:26Chris Winterbauer?

  But to that end, yeah, keep it in your pants when you're at work.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  Please do. Please, please.

• 48:30Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Chris Winterbauer?

  Good general rule that we like to promote on this show. Uh, and that's happened, it's happened a number of times.

• 48:37Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, yeah, so many times.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Wait, Andy would like to give you another peek into his brain, guys.

• 48:41Chris Winterbauer?

  Please, Andy, where have you been?

• 48:42Speaker 02

  I've just been thinking about how RFK Jr. Uh, is, looks a lot like Sloth from Goonies. He's like kinda transforming into him.

• 48:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Let me see this.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  As time goes on.

• 48:52Chris Winterbauer?

  Just one brain worm away from Sloth.

• 48:55Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh.

• 48:55Chris Winterbauer?

  If you ate a dead bear from Central Park, you too could be a picture of health, um, and wellness. Yeah, I don't know. That, let's not talk about him.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was gonna say, would you like to go to the third couple? I understand.

• 49:09Chris Winterbauer?

  But there've been a number of times, so Paul Verhoeven took his pants off on the set of Starship Troopers, um, when

• 49:18Speaker 03

  God, I love that movie.

• 49:19Chris Winterbauer?

  In to inspire actors to do a nude scene. And they said, just put your pants on, we'll do the scene, stop it, which I do think that was, that was a bit of a cultural difference between. The Dutch and the Americans.

• 49:31Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't think the Dutch are just peeing out all day.

• 49:34Speaker 03

  I agree. I don't think they are.

• 49:35Chris Winterbauer?

  Never been. Can't say for sure. But then, we haven't covered it yet, but Paul, the infamous one is Paul Schrader on the set of The Canyons with Lindsay Lohan.

• 49:43Lizzie Bassett?

  There's another infamous one.

• 49:45Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, okay. Well, you tell me the next one. But she would, she didn't want to do the nude scene at the end of the film. And he said, if I direct it naked, will you do it? And I think she said yes, thinking he was bluffing. And he's like, okay, let's go. And so I think it was just like him and the actors in the room.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  All naked?

• 50:03Chris Winterbauer?

  And Schrader was, yeah, and he shot the scene. And that's, uh,

• 50:06Lizzie Bassett?

  I can't think of anything worse.

• 50:07Chris Winterbauer?

  We still have to cover The Canyons.

• 50:08Speaker 03

  The way, and to think we just got intimacy coordinators like five years ago.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  I was gonna say.

• 50:15Lizzie Bassett?

  It's crazy.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  It's insane.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  How can people not say we do not need intimacy coordinators? When the history of film is littered with these.

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Well, it's also what drives me crazy is that in, in, I think, all forms, people forget, and I don't know if it's just because, I think both you and Andy, we came to this, um, we came to this industry after having had other real jobs. What's wild to me is that people seem to, uh, forget that just because something's creative, or they think that because it's creative, it's not still a workplace. Because it's creative, somehow the rules of like decency, respect, and boundaries no longer apply, just because we're playing make them ups. And that is what makes me like so crazy. I'm like, this is work. I am being expected to provide a skill set in exchange for US dollars.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Hey, Andy, if you stock the shelves faster at Pathmark, I won't pull out my ding dong.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  And now, there you have it. That's what gets people to work. It's like, what are we talking about? Why do people think that's okay?

• 51:16Lizzie Bassett?

  It's a great question, and one that we wrestle with often here on the podcast, because it happens really more than it should. So the other one that is truly horrifying is, uh, Peter Farrelly. This came out around the time of Green Book.

• 51:28Speaker 03

  Yes, I remember this, yes.

• 51:30Lizzie Bassett?

  A serial penis flasher in the past.

• 51:32Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

• 51:35Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 51:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, who was it? It's like an article.

• 51:36Chris Winterbauer?

  Not like one time. It was just like all the time.

• 51:39Lizzie Bassett?

  It was a lot.

• 51:39Chris Winterbauer?

  It was like Dwight in that episode of The Office where he's wearing the disguise as everybody else. And he keeps turning to the camera to reveal it's Dwight. So it's just Peter Farrelly turning to the camera to reveal his penis.

• 51:49Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  I remember it was like an article. There was an article, maybe Vanity Fair. It was, because it was basically like, they were like, we cannot let Green Book win the Oscar for Best Picture. What can we do? Can we talk about how Peter Farrelly always has his penis out? But it's just like.

• 52:00Lizzie Bassett?

  And that may have helped it. Who knows?

• 52:02Speaker 03

  Who knows? Who knows? Sick.

• 52:05Lizzie Bassett?

  All right, we have one more for you all. So before West and Amanda, or Lily Allen and David Harbour, or Brangelina, there was an original toxic couple in the press, one that I am endlessly fascinated by, and that is Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  Hmm, classic, classic.

• 52:27Lizzie Bassett?

  Multiple marriages and divorces. They married each other several times, which is just wild. It's wild. If I go to the trouble of divorcing someone, you will never see me again.

• 52:38Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 52:39Chris Winterbauer?

  Have you guys seen Cleopatra?

• 52:41Speaker 03

  I did, but don't remember it.

• 52:43Lizzie Bassett?

  It's worth watching.

• 52:44Speaker 02

  I read about it. Does that count?

• 52:46Chris Winterbauer?

  Are you a fan of the soundtrack?

• 52:50Lizzie Bassett?

  I, you know, it gets so much shit. And like, it is a bit of a disaster, but it's pretty fun. The costumes are amazing. The set pieces are amazing. Rex Harrison is such a messy bitch. Richard Burton is also like messy fun, for sure drunk, um, in a lot of it. And it's just like, all of the, all of the women have like, you know, bright blue 1960s eyeshadow and like sparkly bikinis on.

• 53:18Chris Winterbauer?

  It looks like the Katy Perry music video.

• 53:20Lizzie Bassett?

  It does. It does. I kinda liked it. It was not the worst thing that we've seen. And I love Elizabeth Taylor.

• 53:25Chris Winterbauer?

  But at the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made.

• 53:28Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 53:28Chris Winterbauer?

  Forty plus million dollars in 1963.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 53:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Elizabeth Taylor got paid a million dollars, more than any other actress had ever gotten paid for one movie at that point in time. It was a monster payday. They're basically mortgaging the studio on it. And it is just a press gadfly gathering machine from like day one.

• 53:53Lizzie Bassett?

  It's a disaster.

• 53:54Chris Winterbauer?

  Including the obvious, if you even watched the movie, affair taking place between who, Lizzie?

• 54:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Now, it should be said, this is a surprisingly age appropriate relationship. He was in his mid 30s. She's in her late 20s. We love to see it.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 54:11Lizzie Bassett?

  They were, however, both married to other people, so that's not great.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 54:16Lizzie Bassett?

  She was married to Eddie Fisher, who of course is the father of Carrie Fisher. He had left Debbie Reynolds to be with her. And Burton was married to Sybil Williams. I will say, it is interesting, you know, everybody always gives Elizabeth Taylor so much shit for having a million husbands. Um, and she has said, everybody's like, oh, she had all these toxic relationships. She had one husband, Mike Todd, who was prior to all of this, who it sounds like she actually had a really wonderful relationship with, that it was very secure. He really loved her. She loved him. He like made her feel like she deserved to be loved, she said. Like, he was actually her great love, which I think people don't realize, because they think of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

• 55:01Lizzie Bassett?

  as like the great love. They were a mess. They were an absolute mess. And she was also a mess because of Mike Todd.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  What happened? Did he die?

• 55:09Lizzie Bassett?

  He died. Yeah. He died only about a year after they got married.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 55:14Lizzie Bassett?

  Which was really traumatic for her. And Eddie Fisher, who she's now married to, was actually Mike Todd's best friend. So she had jumped from.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. Yeah, so this is trauma. This is trauma bond.

• 55:25Lizzie Bassett?

  This is trauma bonding.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  All Freudian. Everything is Freudian.

• 55:28Speaker 03

  Everything is Freudian.

• 55:30Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, according to Freud, yes.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Well, they're not, it's not Jungian. We're not talking about these people's dreams or their collective unconscious.

• 55:37Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. So there were some other red flags I want to call out. Um, for one, first of all, Elizabeth Taylor did not like Richard Burton. When they first met, she's like, he's a huge flirt. He's completely full of himself. He will not shut up. She said, I had given him the cold fish eye. Uh, and apparently his opening line to her was, has anybody ever told you you're a very pretty girl? She was like, um, I'm Elizabeth Taylor, so.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  Yes, right.

• 56:05Lizzie Bassett?

  But she changed her mind about him because he got hammered. So apparently, he showed up to their first day of work so hungover that he was like about to die, basically. Couldn't get any of his lines right. And this is what Elizabeth Taylor said. She said, he ordered a cup of coffee to sort of steal his trembling fits, and I had to help it to his mouth. And that just endeared him so to me. I thought, well, he really is human. He was so vulnerable and sweet and shaky and terribly giggly that with my heart, I kvetched him. That's Welsh for hug. I probably mispronounced that. I'm so sorry. Then, when it was time to do some work, he blew a line. I think she means flubbed it, not a line of cocaine. Um, if it had just been a planned strategic campaign, Caesar couldn't have

• 56:48Lizzie Bassett?

  planned it better. My heart just went out to him.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  Oh, this poor.

• 56:52Chris Winterbauer?

  Little munchy, little munchhouse.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  I would say little munchy by proxy. It's also, okay, this is such a sad lady, right? Like, she's like, oh, wow, when he is like weak and incapable, my heart goes out to him.

• 57:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Alcohol shakes.

• 57:06Speaker 03

  Exactly. It's like, okay, ma'am, well, you need to see a professional.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  There's a little delirium tremens in her heart.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  The DTs for life. The DTs for life.

• 57:17Chris Winterbauer?

  But also, just to bring it back to Parks and Rec, when Anne is intimidated by Chris, and then he gets the flu, and he's finally vulnerable, and he says, stop pooping, that's when she realizes, no, it's okay. This guy is the guy for me. It's just, it's like, this is a tale as old as Parks and Rec.

• 57:35Speaker 03

  The fact that Parks and Rec is your touchstone for so many emotional moments is what's concerning. Okay, Chris?

• 57:41Chris Winterbauer?

  I happen to have, I've rewatched a number of episodes. I'm working on a pilot. And I was like, this is a good reference. I've like, watched five episodes randomly that I'm pulling all of my life lessons from. Uh, but Lizzie.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Why are all of these, every one of these stories, and, and it spreads out to real life, obviously, but like, it seems, there's a, a core of like patriarchal kind of masculinity, and the inability to be actually genuinely vulnerable. And then, when like alcohol or the need for a job in Patrick Swayze's, again, I still think that he was, uh, he was.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  He was faking it.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Sociopathing.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, you think he was faking it.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Then, then they're like, oh, I've seen one vulnerable moment. But it's, it's never like the person genuinely being vulnerable, it seems. It seems like it's all like some kind of like coercion.

• 58:34Speaker 03

  Coercion.

• 58:35Lizzie Bassett?

  I don't know if it was his intent to actually coerce her in this situation because he was just. Physically so slammered, you know, he was not doing well. But he, I mean, he was a difficult person for sure.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Oh, really? The man who showed up to work so hungover from the night before that he couldn't even say his lines? Was he difficult, Lizzie?

• 58:58Lizzie Bassett?

  He was a little difficult.

• 59:00Chris Winterbauer?

  To be fair, to be fair, very consistent with the time. And Elizabeth Taylor loved staying up until four in the morning.

• 59:07Lizzie Bassett?

  She was into it.

• 59:07Chris Winterbauer?

  Drinking before every night of shooting. We just covered Giant. And she and Rock Hudson, Rock Hudson, Rox Hudson, she and Rock Hudson would just throw ragers. Every night before going to shoot the next day. I don't know how people did it. And that was 1956.

• 59:21Lizzie Bassett?

  They literally, they literally had to run outside to vomit in the bushes in Giant because they were so hungover during some of their scenes. So she's done it too. She's done it too.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Well, of course she has to be down with it because you can't marry, you can't have one person born again Christian, another person a crackhead. Somebody, you gotta kind of be on the same page as with part of it.

• 59:37Chris Winterbauer?

  That was the problem.

• 59:38Lizzie Bassett?

  That actually was the problem with Eddie Fisher is that he wanted to go home and go to bed. Elizabeth Taylor wants to go vomit in the bushes with Richard Burton and Rock Hudson.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:47Lizzie Bassett?

  I'm on her side of that. To be fair, that does sound more fun than hanging out with Eddie Fisher. So.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  But I'll say this, Eddie Fisher had to have done something right to create Carrie Fisher.

• 59:55Lizzie Bassett?

  That's true. I mean, he also married Debbie Reynolds, who's incredibly charming and, you know, lovely.

• 1:00:01Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, they all did. And Elizabeth Taylor, Lizzie just talks about this. She would, you know, later in life, really take on the mantle of advocacy for the AIDS crisis that was happening. And she helped raise an incredible amount of money and awareness for that campaign. Richard Burton was the voiceover on a Jeff Wayne War of the Worlds concept album that I really liked. Those are the same.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  Contributions to society and culture.

• 1:00:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 1:00:27Chris Winterbauer?

  But no, I mean, yeah, and Eddie Fisher was, I think, he was a very charming performer and whatnot. And same with Debbie Reynolds.

• 1:00:34Lizzie Bassett?

  Look, he wanted to go home and eat dinner in their PJs, which like, that sounds great to me, but not to Elizabeth Taylor, who wanted to go out and rage. And so she and Richard Burton obviously started having an affair on the set of Cleopatra, which was pretty clear to, I think, basically everybody.

• 1:00:53Chris Winterbauer?

  And Elizabeth Taylor's going through like massive health problems on the shoot as well.

• 1:00:56Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, always. Yeah. Cause she was just treating her body like an absolute garbage can. And.

• 1:01:00Chris Winterbauer?

  Flying chili from Los Angeles to Rome.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  What do you mean, what do you mean flying chili?

• 1:01:06Lizzie Bassett?

  She had them put chili from, it's from Chasens, right? Onto a plane in like vats so she could have her chili that she wanted to eat on the set of Cleopatra.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  I'm sorry.

• 1:01:18Lizzie Bassett?

  She is not with her foibles.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Of everything you have said, the idea that someone loves chili so much.

• 1:01:27Lizzie Bassett?

  I get it.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  I wouldn't take one step to my right

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  for a spoonful of chili, let alone waste jet fuel, flying it intercontinentally across the Atlantic.

• 1:01:41Lizzie Bassett?

  She needed it.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  I'm just dying because not just chili, just imagine like a drunk bitch throwing up chili.

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  Chili in the bushes, chili in the bushes. She got a good base of chili before a cocktail.

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  It's the smoothest thing coming up. So she's like, I gotta have my chili.

• 1:02:01Chris Winterbauer?

  But can you imagine their breath as they're kissing each other? And like he's, they're both have been smoking and drinking martinis.

• 1:02:06Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, hopefully they can't smell anything because they've been smoking so many cigarettes.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  You can kyan.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  My God. That's crazy that she's so, cause you know, obviously again, Cleopatra, like this is a woman who is known for, you know, this beauty, this, you know, high class, high status. And the idea that she is flying in vats of chili is killing me.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  I can't believe this is the film that destroyed old Hollywood.

• 1:02:32Chris Winterbauer?

  I mean, it really is. This was like Cleopatra was kind of the beginning of the end. And then we got off to her cinema.

• 1:02:42Lizzie Bassett?

  She said, Richard and I really fought and hurt each other terribly to keep it from happening, meaning the affair. My God, we told each other to leave a hundred times. It was really more off than on, which does sound like, you know, their entire time together. So she actually does, she told Eddie Fisher the truth while they were making the movie and they did break up towards the end of it. Not Richard Burton though. He actually stayed with his wife throughout all of filming.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:03:05Lizzie Bassett?

  And here's some things that he said and did.

• 1:03:10Lizzie Bassett?

  So at one point, he apparently burst into the makeup trailer and told everyone, I've just fucked Elizabeth Taylor in the back of my Cadillac.

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:03:19Lizzie Bassett?

  He was also allegedly sleeping with one of the dancers on set.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  Jesus.

• 1:03:23Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, he denied everything and stayed with his wife. And after shooting wrapped, he told Playboy, quote, Elizabeth is a pretty girl, but she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest and she's rather short in the leg. So I can hardly describe her as the most beautiful creature I've ever seen.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Jesus.

• 1:03:36Speaker 03

  And she wanted him.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  And she wanted him. This is somebody she wanted.

• 1:03:42Lizzie Bassett?

  Also, like, have you seen Richard Burton?

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  I mean, look, I know he busted. That's not even a question.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  I'm gonna look him up right now.

• 1:03:50Lizzie Bassett?

  But he's handsome, like he's attractive, but he's not Elizabeth Taylor levels of handsome.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  I mean, I just don't know. These men, men are a scourge. A scourge.

• 1:04:02Lizzie Bassett?

  Okay, he is handsome. I take it back. He's pretty handsome.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  He's fine. He's fine. He's mid.

• 1:04:08Lizzie Bassett?

  He's got a great voice.

• 1:04:09Chris Winterbauer?

  If Richard Burton's mid, what am I? Come on, guys.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  Well, Chris, it wasn't, we weren't trying to make it about you, but you forced our hand.

• 1:04:18Chris Winterbauer?

  I am gonna force your hand. I've been sitting on Mid Island very happily for a long time. Don't put Richard Burton here with me.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  Look at this hugover freak.

• 1:04:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, he's sweaty as hell.

• 1:04:27Speaker 03

  He's so sweaty.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  You can see the beans coming out of his pores. He was eating too much chili with, with a lid.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  With Liz.

• 1:04:34Lizzie Bassett?

  That is a handsome sweaty man though. You gotta, listen, Elizabeth Taylor, like she's, I get it. I understand. She shouldn't have. She could have done a lot better. But also the press was all over this set. They were all over the affair, which obviously they didn't do a great job of hiding, probably due to Richard Burton announcing that they were sleeping together any chance he got. They, the press would apparently dress like priests or plumbers to get inside of the house they were staying in. They'd use ladders to climb up and peek in windows.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  We need to come in here and pray real quick. It's like, why would a, being a priest get you into a house unless someone needed last rites?

• 1:05:10Lizzie Bassett?

  They just let them in. They let them in anywhere, I think.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  She needs her chili blessed.

• 1:05:14Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes. Also, the headlines were insane. There were headlines like Liz wants her bottom smacked and one of her four husbands should have done it.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Wow. Savage.

• 1:05:25Lizzie Bassett?

  Uh, the Vatican newspaper published an open letter, including this excerpt, quote, even considering the husband that was finished by a natural solution. Referring to Mike Todd.

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  The one who died, yeah.

• 1:05:36Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. Uh, there remain three husbands buried with no other motive than a greater love that killed the one before. But if we start using these standards and this sort of competition between the first, second, third, and the hundredth love, where are we all going to end up? Right? Where you will finish in an erotic vagrancy without end or without a safe port.

• 1:05:55Speaker 03

  What? What does that mean, Lizzie? I don't understand the text.

• 1:05:59Lizzie Bassett?

  I think it means don't aspire to greatness in your relationship. Stick with the first one.

• 1:06:05Speaker 03

  But did anybody ask them for that? I prefer when the Pope says AI is bad. I don't need the Vatican telling me not to get another man.

• 1:06:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, a Congresswoman from Georgia actually tried to stop both Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton from reentering the US because Americans have the right to, quote, ostracize those who show no concern for either flag or people, particularly innocent children, or show no respect for either cherished institutions or God. It is my hope that the Attorney General in the name of American womanhood will take the measures necessary to determine whether or not Ms. Taylor and Mr. Burton are ineligible for reentry into the US on the grounds of undesirability.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  I bet that person is still serving in Congress today.

• 1:06:46Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  Fully on their 27th term.

• 1:06:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:51Speaker 03

  Jesus, always doing the most.

• 1:06:54Lizzie Bassett?

  They got married in 1964, divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, and then finally divorced again in 1976. And during that time, they co-starred in 11 movies together.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 1:07:10Speaker 02

  I bet those were fun sets.

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  Exactly. I was like, God, the dramatics there. And were they good movies? Were all, were they good movies?

• 1:07:16Chris Winterbauer?

  No, no. I think this was, this is the.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  The downturn.

• 1:07:19Chris Winterbauer?

  Twilight of, of Taylor's career in a lot of ways.

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Chris Winterbauer?

  And same with Burton. Um, but you guys work together and, and I, do you think you could do, continue to do what you do? If you were to divorce, like I couldn't, if David and Lizzie divorced, it would ruin the show. Don't do it, David and Lizzie. No.

• 1:07:41Speaker 03

  Andy will get the podcast in the custody arrangement. Okay. He can do it every once on mic. You go ahead, take the pod. It's a wrap.

• 1:07:47Chris Winterbauer?

  He has couples therapy interstate, right?

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Do you think there was ever like a nine and a half week scene of them sitting in like with the fridge light? Spoon feeding each other chili.

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  Yes, he's back to chili, Lizzie.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  I can't get over how insane that is. I will never get over the dynamited toilet in real life. I will never get over the

• 1:08:09Speaker 03

  Flying.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  The intercontinental chili.

• 1:08:12Lizzie Bassett?

  Do you seem angry at Elizabeth Taylor for the for the intercontinental chili than you are at Richard Burton?

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  So it's true.

• 1:08:18Lizzie Bassett?

  What does that say about you?

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  What's the?

• 1:08:19Chris Winterbauer?

  I do. I do think film sets become like so often, especially maybe in earlier eras, like summer, summer, adult summer camps, where it feels like the reality of the world stops. And this is affairs happen, weird immature pranks or scams, as Andy rightly calls them, happen. Because people think like this is a bubble that, you know, time has stopped outside.

• 1:08:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:08:48Chris Winterbauer?

  And nothing that happens here impacts anything else. And also, anything that's done here is done in the name of furthering the movie. And so there's always that justification to your point, Naomi, where you can say, oh, well, it's a creative environment. Or, you know, it's, this is basically the circus. You know, it's not, it's not, which is kind of what, you know, the movie industry has roots in. But like you said, like, this is a profession. This is a workplace.

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:09:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Beholden to the same OSHA requirements and, you know, sexual harassment standards.

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  It should be.

• 1:09:16Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, yeah. And I think the film industry has gotten better over time, especially on safety fronts. We talked like, you know, about the Twilight Zone movie a lot on this episode, which I don't think would happen again. I hope not.

• 1:09:27Lizzie Bassett?

  I really hope not.

• 1:09:28Chris Winterbauer?

  But, but yeah, what is, I'm curious if, you know, there is that feeling of it's like, is it the vacation? Is it the summer camp element? Is it just that feeling that what's happening here is separate from everything else?

• 1:09:41Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah. Why do you think the rules don't apply on these sets?

• 1:09:44Chris Winterbauer?

  Exactly.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  I got an answer.

• 1:09:46Speaker 03

  What's your?

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  It's not a fun one, but it's, if you have an environment like that, it's easier to exploit people than it is if there, if you're really adhering to the rules.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  If you create a summer camp environment, you can more easily get people to do what you want.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  If you keep it casual, I understand what you're saying. We were like, yeah, we're just gonna stay here and work 15 hour day. Oh, yeah, we're just gonna start up again tomorrow in seven hours.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  We're doing this creative thing. Can you imagine on like the set of White Chicks? They're like, look, I know everyone's pulling their wieners out and we're doing all this stuff, but it's in the name of art.

• 1:10:24Chris Winterbauer?

  To be clear, we have no idea if anybody pulled their wiener.

• 1:10:27Lizzie Bassett?

  The first White Chicks.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:10:29Lizzie Bassett?

  The special episode, special episode of what went wrong. Why don't you look into it?

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:10:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, we'll probably have to, because I think they just got White Chicks 2 green.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Oh, God. But also, I think, I agree with you, Andy, in part, but I also think it is, I think it is because usually it's that, as you said, you are away from your daily life when you are acting in a movie, and that's all you have to do. The assumption is that when you are in that space, you got one job and it's to show up for that movie. And I also think that, you know, I've in no way done any of this stuff to the extent of any of the famous people we're talking about. But even when I have to do something like, you know, the movies I've been in where I've, you know, shown up for more than a day, it's a lot of, it takes a lot of energy. And if you are doing it remotely well, which granted, we all know they were doing it, they weren't doing it that well in Cleopatra.

• 1:11:20Speaker 03

  But like, if you are trying to like, show up and learn your lines and be like a decent person to people, it takes a lot of energy out of you. And then I think that if you're separated from home and friends and all the people who you, who would probably be healthier means of sort of processing and unwinding, now you're left with like just these like, you know, dudes in cargo pants and like your coworkers where you're, who you may or may not be pretending to be close with, you know, in the, in the project. I think it's really easy for people to blur the lines and to get really inappropriate.

• 1:11:52Lizzie Bassett?

  And also, like, there is the physical separation of it, which I do think lends itself to, because you are oftentimes physically separated from your home, your family, whatever. It does feel like this kind of liminal space of like, we're all playing make believe, we're not at home, you know, kind of, I, I understand how the anything goes mentality starts to slip in there. But that's why rules and regulation and professionalism are so important on these sets. And also, like, look, it is a creative endeavor. I understand that, you know, when you're acting, especially if you're being required to engage emotionally with another actor,

• 1:12:35Lizzie Bassett?

  I totally understand, like, lines can get blurred, things can happen. But I just maybe don't, don't cheat on, don't cheat on your husbands and wives. Like, let's not, I wouldn't do that.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  Let's not do that. Let's not do, or also too, if you're gonna do it, I'll say this.

• 1:12:50Lizzie Bassett?

  Wait until after.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  Or don't walk into the makeup trailer and then tell everybody you have sex with somebody. It's like, to me, it's like what I'm hearing of a lot of this behavior. It's giving terrorizing. I feel like, I feel like, for instance, Patrick Swayze was terrorizing Jennifer Grey on Red Dawn. And then decided to just like, kind of bully her a bit during Dirty Dancing. Richard Burton terrorizing the whole damn set. You show up so drunk, you can't hold a coffee to your lips. That's, that's terror. Okay, you've taken over the space, you've stopped everybody else from being able to do what they came to do.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  And it's not cute.

• 1:13:25Lizzie Bassett?

  Don't forget Anne Rice publicly terrorizing Tom Cruise.

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  Imagine if Ron Swanson had walked into the Parks and Rec building and said, I just had sex with Xena, whatever her name is.

• 1:13:38Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  Yep. Imagine that.

• 1:13:40Speaker 03

  Everyone would say.

• 1:13:41Speaker 02

  Horror.

• 1:13:42Chris Winterbauer?

  He did come in and say, I just had sex with Tammy, but that was a different episode.

• 1:13:46Speaker 03

  Okay. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Chris.

• 1:13:49Lizzie Bassett?

  And I think it was not well received.

• 1:13:50Chris Winterbauer?

  It was not. He also had dreadlocks and cornrows, I believe, actually it was in that episode.

• 1:13:56Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:13:57Chris Winterbauer?

  And, yeah.

• 1:13:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:58Chris Winterbauer?

  Anywho.

• 1:13:58Lizzie Bassett?

  I have one last question for you all about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, which is that, you know, this, and actually, every couple we've covered today took place prior to the advent of social media. So how do you think it might have played out differently had this happened today?

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  I think that, okay, if social media had been in place, I think Tom Cruise definitely wouldn't have been in Interview with the Vampire. Because if what we've seen from the AMC show, honey, the Anne Rice heads, they're active, they're out on line, they will bring you down if they're not having it. And I think if she had had that, there would have been no question, we would have been dealing with Tom Cruise. And I think that certainly, you know, if there had been, Andy, you know, social media, we would have known about that chili situation within weeks, within weeks.

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  There would have been so much fan art of them eating chili in bed with each other.

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. That would have been the difference. Chili, chili fan art.

• 1:14:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Great. All right, well, thank you so much for helping us go back down memory lane with these three couples. Folks, if you have not listened to Couples Therapy, please go listen to it. It's really so fun. You're both such wonderful hosts and great interviewers. The guests that you get are absolutely amazing. So please go listen to their show. It's, it's an absolute comfort listen. I love it and you will too.

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  Thank you guys so much for having us. Good to see you again and we'll see you again soon.