Mailbag! Marvel’s Future, Johnny Depp’s Comeback, L.A.’s Recession, and Awkward Celeb Interactions.

This episode of The Town is presented by HBO Max. HBO Max presents the Pit, nominated for 26 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. The staff of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, Juggle Personal Crisis, Workplace Politics, and High Emotions in this Emmy-winning drama series. Don't miss the series USA Today called The Absolute Best Show on TV. The Pit is now streaming on HBO Max. It is Friday, August 21st. Today is a town hall episode. Haven't done one of these in a while. It's a male bag of listener questions. Some from the twitter/x.com and others from emails people have sent. Random DMs. No, I do not know who's playing James Bond. The producers of James Bond don't even know who's playing James Bond yet. But we're going to hit a few newsy topics today from the LA Recession to Johnny Depp's comeback to the future of Marvel and Netflix and much more. Today is the town hall episode from the Reaward Puck. I'm Matt Bellany and this is The Town. Okay, we are here. No guests today. I guess I'm the guest. We've got a town hall episode, a male bag. Craig, it's been a while since we've done this. It's been a long time. We should do more. We get good questions. I know. We actually do. So we put some feelers out on the Twitter and we took some emails from the town email address, the town pod, what is it? Craig, the town at Spotify.com. The town at Spotify.com. Okay, so you can always email us. I try to respond to everyone. Don't always get to them, but you do. You're good about that. You can get a response from Matt if you want to. I try my best not always, but I get there. All right. So we're going to go through the questions. I will do my best to answer them. And if you don't like it, suck it. Okay, perfect. Great way to start. We're going to start with a question from Andrew who asks, with continued job cuts and consolidation in Hollywood, what do you think when you hear people say that LA is the next Detroit? Good question. This was a Scott Galloway thing, the pundit. He has been pushing this. The difference here and I know the Hollywood stuff gets so much attention. There was just a study that came out this past week saying that if this Warner Brothers Paramount merger goes through 4,500 jobs will be lost in LA County, which is definitely a lot. Paramount pushes back on that a little bit. But yes, it's a lot. When you look at the overall LA economy, the entertainment sector, and this is according to the local economic development group, it's only three to four percent of the total employment in LA County. And that includes direct entertainment, motion pictures, film TV, it's around like a little less than 200,000 workers. Now, if you include the larger community and all of the wider creative economy, meaning like influencers and the service industry and the daycares and all the other things that support the entertainment economy, they say it gets up to like 7, 8% of the region, which is still I think a smaller number than people would have guessed. Absolutely. I mean, LA people who don't live here, they don't realize like it is such a gigantic place, gigantic economy, guess crack. What do you think the number one employer in the LA County area is? What industry? I don't know tech, care, 22%, which makes sense because there's like 40 million people that live in the Southern California area. So like that makes sense. There's, you know, accommodation and food services, 11% retail is 10% professional services and scientific services and different consultancies are 8% and it really is a global trade economy, aerospace tech, you know, the SpaceX IPO. It has done more for the region. I know it's mostly in the Bay Area and some in Texas, but the SpaceX IPO is creating like hundreds and hundreds of millionaires and that's all concentrated in the LA area of the South Bay for this region, mostly in the Bay Area in Texas, I said. So what you're basically saying is like the rise and fall of Hollywood, the fluctuations of Hollywood is not as impactful to the bottom line of Los Angeles than people think. Yes. However, let me caveat that the kinds of jobs that are associated with the entertainment industry are pretty valuable jobs. They are considered mostly white color jobs, upper middle class jobs, people that have had some pretty extraordinary wealth created around the entertainment industry. I'm talking, you know, from the talent community and screenwriters and directors and executives that get paid a lot of money to green light the movies. So there is the kind of jobs that you want in a community. These are good jobs when you hear the politicians talking about the kinds of entertainment jobs that might leave. That's what they're talking about and to be honest, that is worth saving because they can be an engine. You don't want a Detroit style downward spiral where first the good jobs leave and then kind of everything else follows. So I see what they're talking about. And now this is like an issue in the LA mayor's race. We saw this week that Karen Bass, the current mayor, she is pro settlement of the Paramount merger and Nithya Rahman, the challenger, she wants this decided in court. So you have a real difference there of the two candidates and the Paramount side represented by the current mayor. The Rob Bonta side represented by the insurgents. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Also, like the whole is LA the next Detroit. There's a million reasons why those are not that's not a good comparison. I mean, sure, like the idea of Detroit getting depleted because the auto industry, hurting the city is a fair argument. However, Los Angeles is a better place to live than Detroit, even if Hollywood completely left LA. People are always going to want to live in Los Angeles. It's the best weather in the country. And we were talking about this last week, like the ability to to live a certain kind of lifestyle in LA near big business and commercial business in LA is kind of unique to any other city in the country. It is where you can like live in the hills, but still drive down the hill 10, 15 minutes and get to your white collar corporate job. Like that's pretty unique. The weather is unique. Doesn't mean there's not challenges. Listen, like I see this stuff and I say these studios and and Rob Bonta, they are playing a dangerous game with this Paramount merger. Like they could lead and it could cause a domino effect. And when you take a studio like Paramount out of an area like Hollywood, it will cause problems. Like that whole large-mont area around Paramount, like that's just starting to come back after COVID. And I do think it's because Paramount is five days a week in the office now. And the writers rooms and all the corporate employees. And it's just there's more activity. And LA has a lot of problems with homelessness and with the cost of living and all of these other reasons why people complain about it and take business elsewhere. And if that continues, it could impact not just this small aspect of entertainment, but the wider economy. And that is problem. I don't want to be seen as downplaying here. It's a real problem. But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's becoming Detroit anytime soon. Yeah, this does tell us that we got a question from Jeff. This is how closer we to the Bonta Ellison fight over Warner Mount, turning into another self-inflicted wound that kills any momentum that the industry bounce back has had. Basically, is this just another extended writers guild strike or COVID? Like is this the third body blow to Hollywood in the last six years? Do you think it'll be that significant? Well, it's interesting because this delay is causing a lot of stagnation. And uncertainty and people are just kind of in a waiting period. And I do think it impacts the market because people are like, well, I don't want to greenlight that for development because the new regime might not believe in this project. On the other hand, you still have two robust buyers in Paramount Plus and HBO and HBO Max that are trying to compete with each other. A friend of mine was just talking about this the other day about how there's a movie in the market right now, a project, a package, and Paramount and Warner Brothers are both bidding on it. And they're like, guys, you're running up the price here. And sellers love that. And that could be good if they are still doing this for the next eight months, trying to outbid each other. But ultimately, it's a stagnation problem where the longer this drags out, the more there's uncertainty and there's no clarity on what's going on. And that ultimately does her thing. So yes, it is a momentum killer. All right. Let's pivot here to what you wrote about your newsletter last night. Somebody asked us, this is from XX. Will Johnny Depp's comeback work? Okay. From XX, anonymous XX person on Twitter. Do you think this is Johnny Depp to asking you if his comeback award? No, it's clearly a Russian bot because Johnny Depp seems to have a lot of Russian bot fans. All right. So I wrote about this in my newsletter at puck last night. Paramount thinks this is a smart move. They bet a $40 million version of Christmas Carol called Ebenezer on him. The trailer is out. He showed up at Comic Con in costume, of course. He doesn't want to answer any questions as himself. He came out at Cinema Con too, I believe. He did come out at Cinema Con, but that's another safe environment. No media questions there. And the numbers on this movie, at least from the first test screening, were positive for the movie but really positive for Johnny Depp and that is is what's interesting here. That movie, Ebenezer, and as test screening in New Jersey, scored an 86 for depth, which means 86% of the people who saw the movie rated depth's performance good or excellent. - I mean, look, if Americans can do one thing, it's compartmentalized, and they can overlook problematic behavior if they like a guy in a movie. - Yeah, but for some, they do some, they don't. Like, it's interesting, it's, you know, I think that depth is particularly amenable to a comeback, because he's always been weird. He's, you never have bought into Johnny Depp as a person, or personality, you buy into the weird characters that he does. - It's not like Will Smith, or when Will Smith is in a movie, he's kind of playing Charisma Will Smith. - Totally. - And that what you buy into, Johnny Depp disappears into these people, you don't really know what normal, don't Johnny Depp, who that is. - Yes, I agree, and that's why when Will Smith showed his real personality, hitting Chris Rock, people were like, holy shit. And it's, you know, it's taken a while for him to come back. I do think Will Smith. - Bad boys worked, but yeah. - Bad boys did, yeah, it was fine, but it's taken a while for him to get off the ground on the comeback. And I just think with Johnny Depp, that this is the kind of thing people expect to see him in, a weird character, doing a voice, and under makeup, and, you know, the trailer looks fine. It's got kind of a gothic look to it. - Yeah, it's kind of like slapstick Ty West directed who's traditionally just a lot of horror. It's kind of like supernatural silly. It almost looks like an episode of Wednesday. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. - But yeah, you do. (laughing) - It's kind of like super natural, funny horror elements. - But this is a $40 million movie. If this were a $200 million or a $140 million movie, then Paramount should be questioning their judgment. But if this movie makes $200, $300 million around the holidays, then the Paramount executives look like geniuses. You know, they bet on this guy. And ultimately, the audience is what decides. This was the point of my column. The audience is going to decide whether Johnny Depp is back or not. Not these executives, not, you know, the Twitter police or anyone who has come after him for the, frankly, and objectively pretty awful behavior over the years. The audience, if they want them back, they want them back. And we'll see, very soon. All right, next question. - Yes, speaking of, are they back or are they not? This question came from multiple people. Why didn't Megan and Harry succeed in Hollywood? - All right, there's such a thing as product market fit. - What does that mean? - Harry and Megan, as a product, they did not sell themselves as a product that people want to buy. And I know I'm commoditizing them, but this is the first rule of Hollywood. The audience is in charge. They didn't do what people wanted them to do. If you look at the projects that they made for Spotify and for Netflix, who wants to listen or watch Megan, Duchess of Sussex, talk to like founders of startups. That was what her podcast was. Well, that was her new one, right? She had archetypes of Spotify. She's a new one that's like something about female CEOs that did one season and I don't know if it's coming back. - They don't want to see her that way. Like, I know for, I mean, this in Bill Simmons got a lot of attention for calling them grifters and I happen to agree with him on that, but they were never willing to go there. I know for a fact, they were offered projects that would be more fun or would show them in a more traditional reality show, or would take advantage of their access to the royals and Harry talking about the royal family and growing up and all of these things, that is what people want out of them. They don't want them taken seriously. And the problem is is that they wanted to be taken seriously. And you know what, there's no market for that. - I thought it was always thin. I thought the well of possibilities out of the two of them was very shallow. Like, I don't really know what you can get out of them that could extend into this larger universe of podcasts, the documentaries and features and shows. I don't think there's enough there for them to even deliver on that. Like, to me, it felt, they just felt like a much smaller entity than what they were sold at. - If there was a real reality show showing the behind the scenes of their life and living in Montecito and dealing with problems and her acting career and him trying to figure out what he wants to do, like, that would have worked, I think. But they don't want that. They don't want to be reality stars. - Also, to me, that feels short-lived. It's like, I feel like you get that for a year and once you kind of see it, you can move on from it. I don't know if that's a five or 10 year show. - But she's an actress. Listen, she's doing this project in the UK, apparently. The guy Richie show for Netflix. Like, she could have taken acting roles, but she never did, because they probably weren't up to what her ideal of herself as a princess is. - So you didn't watch with Love Megan? - I did not. No, nor did I sample her jam. And also, trying to brand herself as this, like, goop style influencer, American Riviera orchard. Like, nobody in Montecito calls it American Riviera. That is not a thing. Like, it's just not. Like, I know jam session has covered this extensively. If you want Megan Markle coverage, go to jam session. The career stuff, like, it was just wrong from the beginning. And it's them. I know people in their inner circle who have tried to coach them and help them. They have WME. They've had publicists. They've had people around them from the business that are smart. It is them. They are the problem and good luck to them. - Well, I'm excited to see the third podcast they launched and what that is. - Yes, exactly. - All right, next question here is from Steve. - So, Craig, we did see Cookie Queens at Sundance. - We did. - Which is the Girl Scout Cookie documentary. - Megan produced that, yeah. - Produced, please. She slapped her name on it and agreed to promote it. - She came out and spoke. - Yeah. - The documentary was very cute. It was good. - It's cute, but, like, that's not what people want from her either. That is not, like, a career plan. - Yeah. - That's, like, when the Obama's came to Hollywood and they had lofty goals and they were like, "Oh, we're doing high-brow stuff." Then they realized that that only goes so far. Putting your name on documentaries that already exist only goes so far. You actually have to produce stuff that people would actually want to watch. And when they figured that out, they had a little bit more success. - I just feel like there was never enough there to begin with. And if you're, if the interest around you depends on you revealing secrets, it's just inherently hard to grow that way because once you say the secrets, there's nothing else to say. And people like Obama doing his podcast or Megan and Harry, it's like, there's only so much you're willing to say. And after that, there's nothing there. - Yeah, but Obama at least used his clout to get a Julia Roberts movie made by the Mr. Robot creator and that did very well on Netflix. - Yeah. - So they were never willing to go there and it's over. All right, let's go. - Okay, Steve asks, does Netflix move to a movie theater window of 45 days or longer in 2027 or 28 as a way to keep and attract top directors and actors? I'm assuming Steve is thinking about Greta Gerwig doing Narnia, this Charlie versus the Chocolate Factory movie that's getting a 45 day window. The Cliff Booth Fincher movie, which might be pushed to 2027 also. - No, no, no, they say that's coming out. - It's coming out? - Yeah, it's gonna stick to the Thanksgiving window that Narnia had for IMAX. - And that's getting like a month, right? A month in theaters? - It's getting a month of a theatrical window, but it's only two weeks in IMAX. - Yeah. - Okay. - And then it'll be on Netflix and Christmas. - Yeah. Another answer is yes, they will continue to, they call experiments, they say we're not changing our model, even though every single one of these is changing their model. They are increasingly realizing that it's very tough for them to win awards in the Oscars if they don't give these movies theatrical releases, they bought a movie it can, and they are now giving that. I think it's called La Bolsa Negra, which they are trying to stuntize or eventize by giving it a 45 day or longer theatrical release. Not that the theaters are clamoring for a foreign language film from Netflix, they want the big star driven movies, but Netflix is using the window to promote its movie for awards because it knows that the awards crowd wants to see that theatrical window. And for the bigger movies like Narnia and like animated family tent poles, I do think we're gonna see more of this experiment. They have this relationship with IMAX now, they have the relationship with AMC, where AMC is willing to give them theaters for a 30 or 45 day window. I do think we're gonna see more of it, despite what Ted Sarando says. - And do they release, do they distribute them wide themselves or do they get help from Sony? - They get help from Sony, Sony helps distribute, and that's the real thing. It's like if they were gonna go all in on theatrical distribution, they would create a theatrical distribution arm for themselves, which is what Amazon did. Amazon first started with domestic distribution, and now they're working on building out international, which is much tougher. Amazon has used Sony as well. So Netflix hasn't gone there yet, and that would be the big tell. If they all of a sudden hired a big crew to do domestic and international distribution, that would be the signal, they haven't done that yet. But I think they'll continue to do these stunts. Do you think it's mostly about awards or do you think it's about making money? in theaters. - I think it's about filmmaker relationships. They know that it's not getting better, it's getting worse. They thought, Ted thought by now, that everybody would come around to his point of view, theaters are over, only for the big IP driven movies, and everything else is direct to platform or short windows, and the filmmakers are not buying that. The big ones that they want to be working with, they see what Ryan Kugler got out of centers. They see what Greta got out of her deal. Like, they want that. And for the right filmmaker and the right project, I think the agents feel like they can get it. So that's where they are, and Ted wants to work with the best people. It kills him that they have a deal with Spielberg's Amblin to make movies for Netflix, but Spielberg himself will not make an Netflix movie. - Yeah, I maintain that it is damn near impossible to make a cultural moment out of a streaming-only movie. - We don't have to get into that. I agree with you. - There's outliers here and there, but-- - I know, it's definitely impossible to create a star out of Netflix. You can have Netflix stars or streaming stars, but you put Millie Bobby Brown in a big Universal Summer 10 poll, it doesn't open. - Well, I'll make you do a quick prediction like it's a call sheet. Do you think the K-pop Demon Hunter sequel will get a 45-day window in theaters? - Yes, yes, I do. Too much money there, and they will recognize the promotional marketing value of it, and they will give it a 45-day window. - I mean, it could make half a billion dollars or more. - And I think by the time it comes out, I think we will have moved closer and closer to the big movies all getting theatrical releases. - Yeah. - Could be wrong on that one. Netflix is pretty steadfast in their beliefs, and that is their biggest franchise by far, so it would be a huge statement for them to just put it on platform, but I could see them. You know, it's like, why not? Why not take an extra four or 500 billion dollars? - Who knows? By then, it might be Paramount Warner Brothers Netflix. - Yeah. By then, they might have Warner Brothers, so they would have a slate of the theatrical movies anyways. - Yeah. - Yeah, we don't know. - This episode is brought to you by Peacock, presenting all her fault nominated for seven Emmy awards, including Outstanding Limited Series, and nominations for both Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning. NPR praises the series exceptional performances, and the rap calls the series an adrenaline-filled psychological thriller full of jaw-dropping twists and turns. All her fault is streaming now only on Peacock. - Okay, we got a lot of people asked this question, so I'll just kind of turn it into one simple question. Basically, a lot of people are just wondering, what's up with Marvel going forward? What's their plan after Doomsday? What is the state of Marvel? - Good question, because there's Marvel TV, and there's Marvel film. So Marvel TV is sort of interesting, because at D23, the Disney conference, they didn't plug any upcoming Marvel shows, except for this Vision Quest show with Paul Bettany, that is a follow-up to WandaVision. That was from what, like four years ago now, three, four years. And beyond that, the Marvel TV mandate is not to do these big, expensive, limited series that connect into the larger MCU, they believe, and I think they're right, that diluted the brand. It made the Marvel movies feel like homework and not special, and they are focused on Marvel as a theatrical franchise. Doesn't mean there won't be TV shows, there will be. But I think they will be sort of separate, more animation, and more separate stuff that doesn't connect directly to the MCU. My colleague, Julie Alexander at POX, she reported this past week that Marvel does have a number of projects in development for TV, but the thinking is that they're likely not going to be as continuous with the MCU movies. They're going to be sort of standalones and things on their own, and stuff that is not necessarily homework for understanding what the movies are. Yeah, if you look at the calendar now, like assuming Avengers Doomsday works, and that Spider-Man, brand new days, successfully got people interested in this new storyline, and Doomsday works, they've got stuff lined up, like 2027, they've got another Avengers with Secret Wars, and then 28, they've got three Marvel movies already scheduled. They've got the Black Panther 3, which is coming out in December, which Kugler is directing. Kugler is directing that one, yeah. And they have a new Black Panther guy from industry, and they've got Ghost Rider, which is a Ryan Gosling, Sean Levy, July 28th. By the way, feeling pretty good about my Sean Levy prediction for franchises and people to pick for the draft. Yeah, Gelt, which Gelt Von came on and gave some good buzz about the new Star Wars movie, I guess. I know, I'm telling you, man, the audience wins. He's an audience guy. All right, then they've also got X-Men on that May 5th. A lot of buzzer on the new casting. They're definitely trying to usher us into a new younger Gen Z generation with these characters. Right, and I hate to back Lucas's pick here, but they are going all in on X-Men. I do know from the deals that these X-Men stars, like Sadie Sink and all of them have signed, that these deals include appearances in X-Men movies and other Marvel movies. So you'll see like Storm pop up in Black Panther 3, and you'll probably see the other X-Men are in Doomsday and Secret War, obviously, but also probably in Ghost Rider. And they're using the power of the MCU to incorporate the X-Men and make their team up that much more impactful when it comes in 28, which is very smart. - This is still relatively thin, though, I would say, like this is like-- - Well, it's not heyday time when there were three a year. Next year, there's only one, but I think it's a ramp up. And after 28, you will see at least two a year. Assuming it all works. - Did you hear anything, or do you have any thoughts on the-- It was all over Twitter that Indy Navarredi chose X-Men over Heat 2, a role in Heat 2. Did you see any of that? - Yeah. You know, it's hard to evaluate when you don't know what the roles were. - I was gonna say, the role in Heat could have been 10 minutes. It could have been some minor character, and if you're turning down-- - It could have been like, you know, prostitute that gets murdered and like, you don't wanna do that, right? - And she, yeah, then she would have been turning down like a four-movie deal with Marvel and all of that comes with that. But if it was a significant role, if it was the lead female role alongside Leo, do you think that's surprising to you as she would have turned that down? - Yeah, I probably would have done that, but we don't know. - Really? - We don't know what the role is. I don't wanna comment on Indy Navarredi's career choices when we don't know what the path was. I do think she's got an incredible opportunity right now where she's in the surprise state of the year. And unlike last year with Mike Madison and Anora, a lot of people saw a obsession. - True. - She's a CAA entitled, they'll figure it out, but she will have choices. And honestly, it's a little depressing that she feels she needs to do a Marvel movie, would love for her to chart a more interesting path, but she'll have the opportunities to do that stuff too. - She basically like advertised herself for the role. She was apparently a fan of X-Men and wanted to play that role. And honestly, maybe she just doesn't give a shit about heat, doesn't know what heat is and probably doesn't care. - Well, she knows who Leonardo DiCaprio is. - Certainly, but I don't know. Maybe someone her age is like, you know what, I'd rather be an X-Men. Maybe, but maybe not. That has not been the trend. You know, Mikey Madison had that opportunity as well. And ever since Brelarsin won her Oscar and then went to do Captain America or Captain Marvel, like it hasn't been the same path, Marvel. But we'll see, maybe they're cool again. - Okay, this is the last question. Last question, this is a fun one. This is from Going Off Topic. Is the Twitter name. They want to know what our most awkward and or fun celebrity interaction has been. You have one million more than me, so you can, I'll let you go. - Oh man. - I want number one, most fun and number one, most awkward. - Most awkward, maybe was my Matthew Reese story. Have I told you this? - I don't know. - So I used to do the Hollywood Reporter round tables. And that's where the Oscar and Emmy contenders get in a room, six people for the actors. It's very competitive. People get pitched and we choose, based on a big formula, but how big the star is, how likely they already get nominated, what would make a cool room. We try to have some diversity as well. And I was a huge fan of the Americans. Matthew Reese was gonna be on the actor round table that year. And the weekend before I was driving with my wife in the car and I get a phone call. And all my friends knew that I was a big Americans fan. So I answered, it's an unknown call. And he's like, Matt, it's Matthew Reese. And he has the thickest Welsh accent you've ever heard, comically Welsh. So of course, I didn't believe it was him. And you kept saying like, did you hang up on him? I didn't hang up on him, but I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, this is stupid, who is this? And he's like, no, it's Matthew Reese from the Americans. And I'm like, stop, like this is silly. And I think I haven't said that. I even said like get the fuck out like stop calling me this is stupid and my wife who is a talent manager and Know's that he is very Welsh and knows how actors sound when they're calling people They don't know on the phone looked at me and is like it's him and I was like Is this really you? It's like it's me you're like prove it tell me what happened at the end of season 5 in the Americans I did not do that But he was calling very nice of him to tell me that he could not do the roundtable a personal thing had come up And the publicist for FX was so scared of cancelling that the publicist made him call and do it himself Which he was happy to do and I was very you know flatter that he did it But that was a very awkward experience is that awkward enough? I don't know. Have you had a follow-up with him? Like I told John Travolta at the governor's ball after the Oscars about what happened with Adele de Zeme Dude did I tell if I told that story you what do you mean you you told him about that you informed him what he did So I went up to him after and you know Travolta's one of those stars that nobody around him actually tells him the truth or has any real conversation with him Sure, yeah, so I went up to him and everybody was talking about the hilarious Adele de Zeme moment at that year's Oscars I saw him at the governor's ball Went up to him. I had met him years ago at a roundtable said hello, and I said so you're like going viral right now He's like what what what and I'm like, yeah, like the whole Adele de Zeme like you mispronounced her name And it was like a thing online everyone's talking about it He had like no idea He's in such a bubble. He like didn't really know what going viral men He didn't really know like I think he knew that he had screwed up and Mispronounced her name, but like didn't think anyone would care or notice and I like basically had to tell him that he was being Brutally mocked online. Well, and it's not even that he just mispronounced her name. He like put so much flair on it He's amazing. The wickedly talented Adele de Zeme Still one of the greatest moments of the Oscars. I don't know. Is that awkward enough? I did have I told the story of the Carrie Mulligan story where I did her I did a sag Screening an actor panel for her movie shame With just her and me and it was when she was dating Marcus Mumford, but they were not married and Someone in the audience we did a Q&A after someone in the audience noticed that she was wearing an engagement ring Which was not public and she had forgotten to take it off and they asked Carrie are you engaged? Oh like the Q&A somebody from the audience asked someone from the audience and the Q&A got up And normally they're like tell us about your process the idea that this was Carrie are you engaged and she went bright red She grabbed her hand like she had forgotten to take it off her publicist in the wings was like Freaking out because this was supposed to be a secret. Yeah, and I Think I did a nice thing. I diffused the situation and was like ah, you know We're not talking about that now or whatever sure so much so that after the fact I got a very nice Signed set list from Marcus Mumford saying thanks for taking care of my girl. I really appreciate it That's very nice very nice that one has a happy ending sure that was extremely awkward. Yeah, okay. That's a good I mean I mean Mickey Rork stopped a roundtable in the middle because he wanted to cigarette with like The camera's rolling and a bunch of other that's not that that's kind of cool though. That's fun Guys, I need a cigarette and it's like Hugh Jackman and like a bunch of other stars were there His dog also peed on the carpet at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel Annoying, okay. I don't know these good. I have no idea what what is considered good. No, those are good I like those what do you have a what's the cool one George Clooney thought I was an assistant and Try to get me to get him lunch or get get him food when when we had Spielberg on the rewatchables I went out to meet him with Bill and he got out of the car shook bill's hand and he looked at me and he went I know you and then shook my hand. I was like you do and Yeah, you're on the town and then he went. Oh, actually no, sorry. I think I'm confusing And did you say that you you just had your heart ripped out like in Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom? I got it down into the fire Exactly. Oh, that's bad. Who did you think you were though? It was a good question. No idea I think he thought I he's like, oh, I thought you worked for me. Oh Not like I thought I cast you in 1942 or something. He's like aren't you the guy from Ready Player One? No Let's tie Sheridan Steven My most awkward interaction you were there for. Oh, we were at the Indiana Jones premiere the new one And we went to the after party and Kathleen Kennedy was there. Oh, yes She went to San Diego State as did I yes, and I don't know. I think I don't know The fan of the town Kathy Kennedy. Yes, and you were like you should go talk to introduce yourself And I was like no, I hate going up to celebrities. I don't do it Not you know, and you were like no, no, you you need to go do it like what are you doing? Just go tell her you went to SDS you and you guys can chat. Yeah, that's a great icebreaker like what do you know? Who cares? I don't think she would connect you to the town and to me because obviously she hates me because I Have had a contentious relationship with her and called for her to have Star Wars movies taken away from her Yeah, but you have never said anything like that you went to the bathroom and said when I come back You need to have spoken with Kathleen Kennedy So I did I went up to her and it's everything felt flat. I said The issue thing went nowhere. I think I mentioned I produced the town. It was just she wasn't mean But it was it just went absolutely nowhere and I kind of left with my tail between my legs, but Great. That's I'm brand I'm not surprised but whatever you tried listen, man I encourage you all the time at these events to go up to people. It's not my style No special man. No one is special celebrities must be bothered all the time with people going up to them I never want to walk up to somebody be like oh, I thought the movie was so good. I'm like they don't need to hear that Oh, yeah, you don't do that, but you're like hey, you know, I'm a fan like Yeah, I guess all right. You can always email us questions the town at Spotify. That's the show for the day I want to thank my guests. I guess me and Craig Horobak and our editors Jesse Lopez and Stefano Sanchez and I want to thank you We will see you next week