Sunday Special: Springsteen, Dylan and the Art of the Biopic

this is the sunday special i'm gilbert cruz it's possible you've seen somewhere on the internet or somewhere in your social media feeds images of the actor jeremy allen white looking a lot like bruce springsteen that's because this friday the film springsteen deliver me from nowhere is coming out and it's a movie about a brief and dark and very specific period of springsteen's life and that's what we're going to talk about today not just that upcoming movie but we're going to be talking generally about the music biopic it's a genre that hollywood loves to dip into and it's a genre that the academy really loves to reward with lots and lots of oscar nominations today i'm here with two of my colleagues lindsey zolads a pop music critic here at the times and author of our amplifier newsletter welcome lindsey hi and joe cascarelli a culture reporter and one of the co-hosts of popcast thanks for being here joe hey gilbert so let's start off by talking about the springsteen movie uh so deliver me from nowhere is about the making of his album nebraska it's the early 80s he's just come off several hit records a hit tour and as we all know now he was driven to record and release this very stripped down extremely lo-fi album without the east street band uh i saw this movie a couple months ago at the telluride film festival joe you recently saw this movie what sort of expectations did you have going in what were you curious about i was curious about a music biopic that was about a rock star watching terrence malick's badlands yes great taste uh yeah very uh very solitary movie and it's trying to do this thing where it's a zoom in instead of a cradle to grave movie i think this one seems to be trying to potentially have it both ways in that it is a very narrow story about a critically beloved springsteen album but not the biggest springsteen album and yet it has these black and white flashbacks uh over and over again to his uh semi-traumatic childhoods not that traumatic at least in this film um which is an interesting wrinkle uh and then it has big hits both from before he started recording nebraska and the songs like born in the usa that he started writing while recording nebraska so you get a little bit of both where it is a little bit more quiet and direct and specific uh but you still have all these springsteen trappings and easter eggs for the real fans you wanna know the album nebraska it is a as i said it's dark it's lo-fi pretty quiet pretty interior which uh the film sort of mirrors in its own way the vibe of that album a very quiet film yeah i think we got that oh yeah we got that one so this song got a name i was gonna call it stark weather but now i'm thinking nebraska lindsey are you a nebraska person i am i'm a i'm a bruce person generally yeah i'm a dirt bag from new jersey so and you've interviewed bruce i have interviewed bruce which not a lot of people on earth can say i think that's true i have interviewed bruce i think that for all of these reasons i'm i'm keeping my expectations sort of low i haven't seen the film yet but generally with biopics i think the bigger a fan you are and the closer you are to that artist the more potential there is for disappointment for sort of having too precious a relationship to that artist and you're kind of only seeing what's not there you're fact checking it in real time you're taking you know so i think the less familiar you are often with an artist the more successful a biopic can be for just like telling a story i think you know i i can see myself getting a little caught up in the details of this and um you know just just going a little too bruce nerd about it it's an interesting choice to focus the film on you know the creation of this album rather than something like born in the usa or born to run absolutely i mean it is definitely a counterintuitive choice and i'm very curious to see how fans receive it to see how the general public receives it as an oscar nerd i'm certainly curious to see whether or not jeremy allen white's performance as bruce springsteen or jeremy strong's performance as john landau his manager um whether or not those get any nods from the academy joe what did you think of jeremy allen white yeah that's a guy who did some singing that sounds like bruce springsteen uh you know i think there is a real authenticity play with these movies in general but specifically in something like this which again with the choice of focusing on nebraska is sort of saying we're doing a little bit of an art house thing with this and i think jeremy allen white a professional brooder uh whether he's whether he's cooking or wearing calvin klein's on the top of a skyscraper like what he does is brood and i think that allows him to inhabit bruce i think the jeremy strong character has a little bit more potential because unless you're like lindsey and i have spent a lot of time writing and reporting on music and focus on the lore of the background figures like john landau doesn't have this sort of mythic uh omnipresence that bruce springsteen does i mean one of the things again i feel like with this one and the bob dylan movie from last year a complete unknown i remember talking to uh the director of that movie james mangold and he was talking about how he was attempting to not make this your typical and he would know because he made walk the line uh in which joaquin phoenix plays johnny cash many many years ago and i i was sort of want to talk about what we think characterizes your classic your classical music biopic because you have to have a form to divert from lindsey tell me about the beats that a music biopic has to hit well we need to know where the artist comes from both a place and you know as we're talking with bruce a sense of perhaps familial trauma that a core memory that sets them on the path to expressing themselves in music um you know we need to see sort of the early artistic awakening happening yeah yeah the the early inklings of you know they're they're becoming a musician in some way and then there's arguably the most exciting and fun part like the the sometimes it's it's a great montage you know but the the rise to success the you know you can really have fun with that beat i think and shooting up the charts you see the camera pan over the billboard chart we need a yeah an arrow going up um it's like the version of like a spinning newspaper you know telling you the headline yeah yeah and then perhaps success is not all it's cracked up to be there's that beat you know sometimes that involves some sort of other sort of problems um you know he's getting left behind yeah a big third act conflict and then i think we we land either with death if the person is no longer around and and posthumous canonization um or you have to figure out some sort of moment of triumph where they get back on the stage after they've been kicked down and yeah you know show that they are a true musician and a worthy subject of a triumphant biopic good god that was perfect someone hiring me to uh read your script and provide notes i would be happy you were also just doing walk hard beat for beat oh yeah well you were reading the script of the er parody of a musician biopic yes which many thought had invalidated the need for any future biopics and yet here we are uh no that capitalism returns to the mean you know it's like we we don't acknowledge that anymore that movie came after walk the line which was the uh biopic about johnny cash and june carter cash and ray which was the movie in which jamie foxx played ray charles in which both of them lost siblings when they were a child um which is why in the movie walk hard in which john c riley plays an up-and-coming rock and roll star he accidentally cuts his brother in half with a machete dewey i'm cutting half pretty bad in case i don't make it then you have to be double great for the both of us it is the trauma that haunts him for the rest of his life yes the music biopic has been around for quite a while i just do a little research and there was a period in the 50s in which you had the glenn miller story the gene krupa story the hank williams story and the betty goodman story right so this was a thing which i think jimmy stewart played all of them all of them yes Um, so we've had these forever, uh, but it really, I think hit, uh, the, this, this moment where we can sort of easily sort of rattle off the beats like you just did so wonderfully Lindsay with those two movies, Ray, which came out in 2004 and walk the line, which followed in 2005. Um, and I'm wondering, you know, what do you think it is about that very predictable outline beat for beat movie experience that seems to continue to appeal to people because we're going to talk about some movies that did not work, but there are a lot of these movies that people just go to, they know what they're getting and they still want to see it. I have an economic argument, which is that I think these movies that you're talking about came in a fallow period for the record business. This was like the sort of end of the CD era, right? Music sales peak in 1999, 2000 file sharing. Comes, you know, everything is very now, now, now, and these movies are always a good way for the people who own this music to point back to the catalog, especially for a new generation and say, Hey, like ever heard of this guy, Johnny Cash, like Ray Charles, like pretty cool cats, uh, you know, go buy these boxes. Yeah. They got some greatest hits albums too, if you, uh, need a primer. Yeah. And, uh, estates of, uh, dead musicians. Uh. And, uh, you know, I think that's, I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. or anecdotally people in your lives, do you feel like these movies send people back to the music? I definitely found like I went through a month of just going back and listening to early Dylan after watching this movie. Not songs I was unfamiliar with, but I hadn't really sort of dug down on them in a while. And the movie just compelled me in that direction. Well, yeah, I think that goes back to Joe's point about, you know, the estate thanks you. I don't think we would continue getting as many of these as we do if it didn't work in that way. I'm sure streams go up, especially when these movies become successful. I think we're focusing a lot on Complete Unknown because that was a real win, I think, for the genre after something like Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody, which were, you know, successful in various ways, but I think a bit more polarizing. But the Dylan thing, I think, really broke through. And one of the reasons I knew it did was when there started to be, like, TikToks about, like, oh, my God, this guy Bob Dylan, or how about this situationship between Joan Baez and Bob Dylan? And I actually, after the movie, made a playlist called Bobby and Joanie that's just all their songs about each other one after the other in chronological order. I'm going to need you to share that. Yeah, is that a public playlist? I can make it public for this podcast. I think that also gets to the point that there's something generation bridging about these two. It's a way, you know, at its best for, for parents to share their music with their kids and, you know, show that, like, once I and this person whose music I admire were young, too, and, you know, there was something a little youthful and rebellious about, you know, this person that you think of as just this old established figure now. And I think it helps that. Like, I've definitely watched some of these movies with my parents, and then, and I'm sure that's a common experience where people, showing them to their children and stuff, and then, and then sharing that music in a way that feels like a bonding experience. And it can go in the inverse, too. I'm thinking of, like, when 8 Mile or Get Rich or Die Tryin', the 50 Cent film, came out, like, in the early 2000s at the peak of Eminem and 50s powers, and that sort of worked in, like, a legitimizing sense where you could say, oh, you think Eminem is making little white kids too rebellious, but look at this movie. Like, he comes from a factory town and he really made it out. Like, I think that there's probably a lot of parents from that era who learned something about rap music from these commercial endeavors. Yeah. I want to talk about performances, because it feels like many of these movies sort of live or die based on who is playing the person in the title. And I watched this week in a movie that I had avoided, to be honest, which was Elvis, which was the Bosler movie. It was a Bosler-man film telling you about the life of Elvis Presley, but also telling you about his relationship with his longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker, played by a man who I love. And out of his mind, Tom Hanks. But who I think is absolutely terrible in this movie. No offense to Tom Hanks. Well, some offense to Tom Hanks. Like, he made some choices. He made, yeah. The accents. The many accents. Makeup. So I watched this movie Elvis, and I don't really want to see it. I actually am sort of grappling with turning it off. But Austin Butler as Elvis was so compelling that I pushed through to the end of this extremely long, involved movie. This long and not very good movie. Austin Butler. I don't know. It's like. Half good. Half great. You watched it. If it's good, it's because of Austin Butler, who I think. I think at one point, I may have mentioned this before, I said to myself at 11 o'clock at night, is this the most beautiful person that's ever been on screen? Which is what you're supposed to feel when you watch Elvis. Sure. So, mission accomplished. Right. And I think that's an interesting casting one because it's, you know, with the casting of these films, it's the tension between do we get the person that looks uncannily like the person they're playing, or do we take some liberties, but, you know, find the person that can most project the aura. And I think that was something that worked for me about Austin Butler playing Elvis. He doesn't look anything like Elvis. And you're not sitting there doing the thing you're doing, you know, in, say, A Complete Unknown, where you're like, I, you know, I'm seeing an overlay of Timothee Chalamet and Bob Dylan. You kind of, you just are focused on the performance of Austin Butler playing this incredibly charismatic, beautiful person. And it, you know, that film has, because it's so stylized and so over the top in all it's doing, there is a lot of artifice about it. And, like, it's not going for that authenticity in the way that, say, like, the Springsteen movie, it sounds like, is. So, I think that's something that works. That's a choice where they didn't get the guy that looks the most like Elvis, but that's okay. And in some ways, that actually even makes the performance more convincing. Yeah. And I think it helped that people didn't have a ton of baggage with Austin Butler. Sure. I like when an unknown plays a very. A complete unknown? Plays a very well-known person. And that allows the sort of entrance of them and their star light turning on to really land, because there's that early scene in the film, Austin Butler's first performance, as Elvis, in an auditorium full of young women. And he comes out and he has the crazy eyeliner on. You know, he's. The incredible pink suit. Yes. And he's really, really, really making his debut, both as Elvis, but also, like, for the world. Well, you may go to college You may go to school You may have a pink Cadillac But don't you make nobody's room Baby, come back, baby, come on And when the women's heads are, like, almost literally exploding and they're, like, turning into puddles and they're screaming and, like, tearing each other apart to get closer to him and his mom is just like, oh, my God, what is going to happen to my boy? And you're like, yeah, like, yes, the aura is off the charts. It doesn't matter that the rest of the movie is completely ridiculous because it nails the heart of the thing that made Elvis good, which is, like, it's not just looking and sounding like Elvis. It's embodying the vibes of Elvis. So there is that type of performance in which you're trying to convey to the audience the spirit of the person. And then there are performances in which the person really tries to go for more of a mimic-type performance. I don't know if we would consider Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line to fall into that category. But, you know, particularly because Jotty Cash has such a distinct voice. Hello. I'm Johnny Cash. Really trying to hit that voice. Really trying to hit, you know, the clothes, the hair, everything. Definitely Ray Charles, the Jamie Foxx performance. Well, I got a woman Way over town It's good to meet Oh, yeah I'm thinking, like, Val Kilmer in The Doors. Really, really, really trying to nail Morrison. They go out on the stage and howl for people. Me, they see exactly what they want to see. You know, Jennifer Lopez as Selena. First of all, I would like to thank my family. I think that's a big one where it's like, I'm both making my debut and I'm really looking and sounding like this person. Like, that sort of has the best of both, I think, in that sense. And I'd especially like to thank the fans. Because without you, we'd be nothing. Thank you. And then you have the really weird twist where the person plays themselves. You know, I mentioned Nate Myle, Eminem playing a version of himself. Purple Rain, which we've gone this far without talking about, in which Prince plays a version of himself. Well, for starters, you have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. What? You have to purify yourself in Lake Minnetonka. And that can really work if it's done at the right moment. I think a recent version of that that I really liked was the Kneecap movie. I don't know if anyone saw that. Okay, the Irish rap group. Yeah. Tell us about that one. Kneecap, the imperiled, shall we say, Irish rap group, played themselves in this movie that came out, I think, last year. And it's sort of their dramatization of, of their origin story, but they're really good on camera. At being themselves. Yeah. When I said I booked this a gig, what I meant was my Uncle Potter said we could play in his bar if I sorted some old folks smoke for his guy. JJ only agreed that DJ if he could set up his dachs in the store cupboard just in case he was spat at by any pupils. My boyfriend thought that at least one of them was, like, a hired actor afterwards we were talking about it and was like, no, that guy, like, he's actually the DJ in the band. And so I think that was one where that was, that was, a group that I didn't know much about. I didn't know their sort of backstory, but them. playing themselves and sort of presenting their story to a new audience. For me, like, it worked. You also have something that is, for obvious reasons, pretty rare, but a relative of the person playing one of the people, most famously in the past few years, O'Shea Jackson, playing his father in the movie Straight Outta Compton. If America's Most Wanted blew up, you'd pay me the advance for the follow-up. Now, is that not what the f*** you said? That is what I said, but it is more complicated than that, Cube. Right there are metrics. Come on, Brian! I got a baby on the way and a house I just paid for off the strength of what you told me. I mean, you gave me your word. Cube, would you just calm down? Calm down. The movie that spawned a million T-shirts. A million. Parodies. Straight out of college. Yeah, straight out of blank. Yeah, and, you know, that's one where you get a little bit of Easter egg out of the sun. And, obviously, the resemblance, which is there, the voice, helps also. But that, I don't know that you can really get a ton of mileage out of that if the movie itself isn't working. People liked Straight Outta Compton. It made a lot of money, I think, because there wasn't that much like it. You don't often get these sort of serious, recent-ish history rap biopics. They come in clumps. There was a Notorious B.I.G. one that flopped. It came out a little bit before Straight Outta Compton, which then became this big hit. And then, immediately after, you have something like the Tupac one, which, again, just came and went. Yeah. We've really focused on rock biopics, country biopics. Do you think that there is a reason that more hip-hop biopics are not made or not successful? I think it's probably the obvious answer, which is that hip-hop has long been underrated for its commercial abilities. And, you know, there's white executives in charge of largely white companies. And I think that, you know, there's just less appetite. You know, I think the reason we get a lot of movies about boomer icons is because a lot of boomers are making these decisions of what gets made. And it stems all the way back to publishing. A lot of these movies are based on books. There are way more books about Bob Dylan. And there are probably about all rappers put together. So, you know, the source material is also severely lacking. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about some biopics that really mess with the form. We'll be right back. All right. I'd love to get into a few biopics that are unexpected, that are not what we have been talking about, which is the sort of cradle-to-grave depiction of a musician's life. I would love to start with one that I saw at this point so many years ago. It is Superstar, the Karen Carpenter story, which was directed by Todd Haynes. And this tells the story of Karen Carpenter essentially through Barbies. Like, it's just a bunch of Barbies. I'm showing how difficult her life was, how she dealt with. Incredible movie. I remember pirating this. Yeah, exactly. It is how she dealt with anorexia and other issues. And it was a movie that the Carpenter estate, of course, was not interested in approving because of how negatively it depicted all the people around her. As a result, it uses all the Carpenter's music, but it is not. It's not something I could really legally watch. But it was a fascinating, certainly for me as a. I don't know, a 19-year-old college student to think that there are, you know, after having seen La Bamba and Selena when I was growing up and movies that were very stereotypical biopics that you could actually just be completely wild and do something like this. It's amazing. What are some other movies, some music biopics that have been surprising to either of you? Well, I think you really put your finger on the fulcrum here, which is, is the musician or the musician's estate. Participating in the film. I think if something is authorized, if something is collaborative, which is often the way that they get the rights to use the music, you know, to have a music biopic, you need the big songs to have the big songs. You need the participation of whoever wrote and performed them. And that often means they're going to have approval over the script. They're going to have approval for the marketing. Someone is going to be keeping a very close eye on this IP. The workaround is to. Sort of fudge it. Either you don't use the music. There's a little scene, Jimi Hendrix biopic in which Andre 3000 of Outkast plays him with no Jimi Hendrix music. Instead, it has him covering the Beatles in front of the Beatles, which is something that really happened. But that's the sort of climactic moment because I don't have access to any actual Jimi songs. I think movies that are really inspired by musicians or their stories, but can composite a bunch of different. Different acts from that same era and sort of skirt the rules of authorization with the understanding that that means they won't have the songs, you know, and love can be really successful. You know, I'm thinking of Last Days, which is the Gus Van Sant movie that is very obviously about Kurt Cobain and his suicide. What's going on at the house anyway? Who's all over there? What do you guys do all the time? Are you going to play the tour? It's going to be a shame if you don't make these days. It's this very, very eerie, quiet, dark sort of arthouse look at one of the biggest rock stars of the 1990s. On the flip side of that, Alex Ross Perry made a movie called Her Smell a handful of years ago. How can I be expected to grow up? That is sort of a cobbled together version of a lot of female 90s. These rock stars, both from the grunge era and Riot Grrrl, you know, you might see some Courtney Love in there. You might see a little bit of Kathleen Hanna in there. But it is a fictional version that feels truer to that world or that life or even those characters than someone actually trying to impersonate them. Lindsay, do you have a couple suggestions on movies that sort of mess around with what we expect from a biopic? Yeah, I mean, my favorite movie about Bob Dylan is not about Bob Dylan at all. It's Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers movie from about a decade ago. I rewatched that after seeing A Complete Unknown, and it actually made me appreciate Inside Llewyn Davis that much more. It's the story essentially of not the winner of music history. Bob Dylan, but a loser. Someone, you know, this made-up musician who essentially represents the many, many people in the Greenwich Village folk scene who did not become Bob Dylan, who did not, you know, find the success that he did. How's the music going? Pretty good. Pretty good. Oh, good. So you don't need to borrow money. Actually, I was wondering. And in telling the story of, you know, the loser, it's a much more compelling and kind of unfamiliar narrative. It also has a great performance by Oscar Isaac, but you're not, the fact that he's playing a fictional musician, you're not, again, doing that thing where it's like, oh, does he look enough like him? You're just fully in the story. And I think it's a really beautiful film, and there is kind of, you know, not to spoil the ending, but Bob Dylan himself. Yeah. And that, you know, a fictionalized version of Bob Dylan. He's in the post-credits sequence to tease the sequel. Yeah, exactly. Marvel style. Outside the window. But, you know, I think that's one where sometimes telling the story around the more familiar story is a more satisfying film. And I think another sort of fictionalized one that does that in a more crowd-pleasing way is That Thing You Do, which is a movie, you know, not about the Beatles. At all. Yeah. About a band with a song better than a Beatles song. I'll leave that there. Half joking. If Tom Hanks did it wrong in Elvis, he certainly did it right with That Thing You Do, which he starred in and he wrote and he directed. He did it so right in That Thing You Do. Oh, he did it so right. Yeah. And, yeah, that twist, that sort of trick of following the loser is, I think, a great frame for a biopic. A biopic that can be about a legend but not get bogged down in the details. I'm thinking also of Amadeus, which tells the Mozart story through Salieri, his peer who's obsessed with him and hates him because he's a mediocrity, as he calls it, and can't believe what it's like to be in the presence of this idiot genius. The only trouble is no one will hire me. They all want to hear me play, but they won't let me teach their daughters. as if I was some kind of a fiend. Like it takes the air out of Mozart in this way where, you know, you're expecting this looming sort of all-knowing genius and instead you get this pervert with an annoying giggle and you have Salieri being like, I can't believe that this work is coming from this guy for almost three hours. Following The Loser, also one of my favorite music movies, Eden, a French film by Mia Hansen-Love, which sort of tells the story of somebody on the periphery of Daft Punk, of the 90s French electronic music scene. And, you know, you get flashes of them, but you're following a guy who doesn't make it. And that, I think, can tell you more about the world. These people are coming from and just sort of freeze up the storytelling and the filmmaking. You know, I come back to this question a lot with a movie like The Dylan one, which I enjoyed, and also with the Springsteen one, which is like, does this need to exist? Does it have any artistic value outside of the art that already we already have? Even the Elvis movie, the choice to make Colonel Parker the sort of vantage of the film and Elvis as this sort of specter. In the background, that's cool to me. Yeah, I think that was the part of Elvis that I actually thought didn't work. But I think it gets at another tension that, like, in trying to narrativize these stories, you have to have a love story. You have to have some, like, interpersonal thing. And I think the problem with the Elvis movie was that it overestimated how much people care about Colonel Tom Parker. Well, especially in the way that. Tom Hanks chose to play him. So, like, tripled down on that. And then I think, you know, that's not necessarily the most interesting emotional arc of his life. But, you know, trying to find that foil, like you mentioned Amadeus and the kind of unconventional use of, you know, a rather poor celliary. He's just a pathetic guy. Yeah, that movie did him dirty. But having to find. Having to find that foil, is it a love story? Is it, you know, me against the label? Or, you know, but finding that antagonist, that not necessarily a villain, but what's the sort of core, you know, love story to tell? Did you like Priscilla? The Sofia Coppola movie about Priscilla Presley? I was mixed on that, but I was fascinated by, you know, did that come out the same year as Elvis? Yeah, or soon after. It was very close to. The different choices. So, Austin Butler is Elvis in Elvis. And then. Pure sex. Yes. And then Jacob Elordi plays him like a total himbo. Even more so than Austin Butler's. Pure blank brood. Yeah, which was like a fascinating choice. And I think I understand, again, why the Elvis estate was not as happy with that film, perhaps. But, you know, I like the plurality of that. I like, you know, sort of coming at the story from. Different vantage points. And obviously, you know, telling Elvis' story through the eyes of his very young, at the time, wife. Right. was a refreshing choice that, you know, I think those two movies in conversation are, you know, present some interesting tension. When you talk about different vantage points, there's I'm Not There. This is another way to come at Dylan. And it's to come at Dylan from a bunch of different directions as little vignettes. You have Cate Blanchett. Cate Blanchett playing the most literal version of him. But, of course, Cate Blanchett is a woman. So that's a little bit of a twist. You have a small black child. You have Bob Dylan as outlaw Richard Gere. Like, what do you think of the sort of abstract take on a legend like that? I think this is one of the great music biopics. It's certainly not for everyone. It is also directed by Todd Haynes, an arthouse director. And it is a fractured portrait of a man and a musician who purposefully has tried to make himself unknowable. To his fans and to the world at large. And so the strategy of picking Cate Blanchett, as you say, sort of depicting him during those years that we that we saw in the black and white documentary that was made about Bob Dylan. You have Christian Bale doing a version of Bob Dylan, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Richard Gere. It's one of the smartest, if not always totally legible or crowd pleasing decisions that I've ever seen. In terms of how to make a different sort of story about a musician. It makes you understand the guy, which is like, it's a very impressive feat. Like, it's a real tightrope walk that he does where you don't exactly you're not learning plot points in his life, but you're sort of understanding who he is and where he comes from spiritually, dare I say. We cannot leave this topic without talking about. Some of the parodies that have been made. We touched briefly on Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story, which stars John C. Reilly, and it's just so funny. But there's another movie I know that we are all fans of. Yes, I did rewatch Popstar, Never Stop Stopping. Never Stop Never. No, it's Popstar. Never Stop Never. Stop. Never Stop Never. We're leaving this in. Never Stop Never Stopping. This is Andy Samberg, Connor for real. Justin Bieber, you know, basically a rap influenced white pop star who starts in like a Beastie Boys-ish group and goes solo. This is a mockumentary. I think that we've sort of skirted around the other elephant in this room, which is that there are a ton of really amazing music documentaries about basically all of the people we've talked about. Obviously, Don't Look Back, the canonical Bob Dylan. Don't Look Back, the canonical Bob Dylan film, and then No Direction Home, the later one by Martin Scorsese, et cetera, et cetera. So I do think it's interesting that one of the best music biopics ever made is a fake documentary about a fake musician. Yeah, and Spinal Tap, too. Yes, and Spinal Tap, of course. Like in the tradition, you know. Yes. And many, many others along the way. But there's something so both specific about Popstar. It's really nailing the message. It's like a mid-2010s version of pop culture featuring real musicians doing, you know, talking head interviews about a made-up musician. The industry parody is just so – such a fine point on it. It's really, really lacerating but also loving and just knowledgeable and accurate. You know, it's – what can we even say? Like are we allowed to – Are we allowed to play a little bit of one of these songs or are we just going to have to bleep the whole thing? Incredible thoughts. We made a new song at the farm. We found Lawrence's journals and they were just amazing. Amazing. Just full of incredible thoughts. Just like ideas and poems and stuff. Nothing special. And then Connor had the idea to take a piano line from my solo shit. Connor put it all together. And the Poppies paired us with the craziest special guest to perform with. But the songs are so funny. That's the main – it's the Lonely Island guys. So it's, you know, you get the satisfaction of the sort of Spinal Tap narrative arc but then you get some Lonely Island digital shorts in the middle with, you know, star-studded musical cameos as well. It's great. I think we should – We should talk very quickly about a few biopics that are on the way. Again, this is a tried and true source of story for Hollywood. There's a Michael Jackson movie coming. There's a Britney Spears movie that is in development. Based on her memoir. Based on the memoir. The Woman in Me. There's a Joni Mitchell biopic directed by Cameron Crowe or that he is working on. And then there is also the most fascinating biopic experiment. Possibly ever. That's coming in several years. The Ur-biopic. Yes. Do you want to tell us about this? The Ur-biopics. The biopics, yes. So we're talking about Sam Mendes, Beatles. What's – not a trilogy. What's the four? What's the four word? Quadrilogy? Quadrilogy. We're going to learn when these movies come out. It's the BCU, the Beatles Cinematic Universe. There we go. Peter Jackson started it. Sam Mendes is continuing it. Yes. So this is four different biopics, one for each Beatle. And the casting is pretty brilliant, I would say. It's incredible. I think they got it. right paul mescal is playing paul mccartney joseph quinn is george harrison barry keoghan playing ringo star love that and harris dickinson as john lennon so um not to not trying to name drop no go but like i did interview ringo star this summer yes congratulations thank you and when i was talking to my dear friend i was talking to my dear friend ringo um about this actually and and he was saying like even having read the script of at least his film and given some notes on it he was like i don't know how they're gonna do this because he's like so many things like we're all in the same room this happened to all of us so he's like are we gonna get the same scene from my perspective yeah it's gonna be weapons but about the beatles i do think there will be at some point some weave together cut yeah there's gonna be a four-hour cut of this movie that you're gonna be able to see whether soon after the four release individually or 20 years later when some film student uh makes it the get back of its time um you know but i i think it's a brilliant idea both um economically because they get to make four times the profit if you're gonna you know gotta see them all but it's gonna be so sad when the ringo movie makes less than all the rest of them no the ringo movie is gonna be the highest grossing of all you're calling it now or is he's gonna go i'll see you back here yeah no for real uh i think they're actually all going to be released theatrically the same month that's a lot of beatles in one month but you know i think there's a huge market obviously for beatles biopics and this will really be a test of that we are going to take a break and when we come back as we always do we're going to play a game let's go yay we are approaching the end of the show and that means as always it is time for our weekly quiz we've talked about a lot of biopics today but hollywood really really loves to make these kind of movies there are many many more that we need to do so we're going to take a break and we'll see you next time on the show we are approaching the end of the show and that means as always it is time for our weekly quiz we didn't even get to talk about today so i'm going to test your knowledge on the wider world of musician biopics there are three rounds please put your fingers on your buzzers round one is called appetital for destruction i'm going to give you the name of a biopic and you tell me what musician it's about behind the candelabra lindsey um oh my god i'm blanking no the pressure got to me oh um liberace liberace that is correct i would be so bad born to be blue joe for real i don't know but i'm guessing mild davis incorrect this is chet baker this movie stars ethan hawke oh wow okay next control joe droidavision who in joy division uh ian curtis ian curtis correct the lead singer of joy division next get on up joe james brown james brown this stars chadwick boseman as the godfather of soul next till the clouds roll by oh deep cut i don't know it this is the composer jerome kern all right and you got a biopic good for him you know what good for him final question in this category bound for glory oh i know this sorry you guys should not study this is what do you got three david caradine right i don't know all right ready next round round two sergeant pepper's clonely hearts club band i'm going to give you the name clonely hearts club band i still don't have it i'm gonna get i'm gonna explain it to you and then you will get the pun i'm going to give you the names of two actors got it and you tell me what musician they have both portrayed on screen good jack white and jacob alordi lindsey elvis elvis presley jack white played him and walk hard jacob alordi and priscilla next david caradine and scoot mcnary joe woody guthrie woody guthrie thanks i'm going to give you the name clonely hearts club band i'm going to give you the name clonely hearts caradine and bound for glory which we just mentioned and scoot mcnary in a complete unknown in which he did not speak once next jennifer hudson and cynthia erivo oh who is it oh lindsey aretha franklin aretha franklin oh my god hudson in respect and erivo in genius colon aretha diana ross and andre day lindsey billy holiday billy holiday diana ross and lady sings the blues and day in the united states versus billy holiday final question in this category john cusack and paul dano joe oh god um yeah what are you ringing about knowing i knew it and then i lost it you lost it i lost it can i steal yeah steal it brian wilson brian wilson they both played brian wilson in the film love and mercy paul dano was young wilson john cusack was old wilson not a good movie all right i'd say half of it round three me and my shadow me and my shadow all right i'm gonna play you a clip of a famous song you tell me if it's the actual artist singing it or an actor playing the artist first one lindsey it's not the artist it is the artist elvis singing suspicious minds from a live show in honolulu in 1973 could have sworn it it was austin butler that is the point of the game next song lindsey oh that's joaquin that's that is joaquin phoenix playing johnny cash performing at fulsome and the 2005 movie walked alive next song joe that's the real one incorrect oh that's christian stewart and dakota fanning from the 2010 movie the runaways good movie it is not joan chet and sherry curry next song joe fake that is actually judy garland not renee zellweger man this is a clip from judy garland's last public performance i was gonna say is renee zellweger a better singer than judy garland but it's just that it's her last performance just before she died have some respect that's all right all right all right you guys are real these are tricky all right a couple more once upon a time you're just so fine that's timmy joe yes that is timothy chalamet from the film a complete i don't know that voice anywhere it's beautiful next song lindsey that's j-lo no that's selena that is not j-lo from a live concert at the houston astrodome in 1995 the concert that is portrayed at the beginning of the film selena all right next song lindsey that's the doors correct live on the ed sullivan show next song well sometimes i go out lindsey that's not amy correct that is marissa abella that ain't amy it sounded all right though all right amy winehouse didn't sound all right final question of this round final question of the quiz lindsey that's i don't know the guy's name but it's not elton john that is not elton john i don't know how we're gonna score this that is taryn egerton okay playing elton john in 2019's rocket man all right lindsey won uh lindsey's oh wow you won the quiz congratulations i've never been prouder i have something for you that was good yeah i have a thing for you in this bag here wow comes in we've awarded it's an oscar nomination oh my god it is the eighth one of these that we have awarded we call it the gilby it is a small golden plastic trophy that we bought in bulk and then pasted my face on this will have pride of place in my home congratulations lindsey beautiful congratulations lindsey and thank you for coming on this week's episode of the sunday special thanks for having me joe cascarelli wonderful wonderful wonderful to see you here thank you so much it was fun i will be back to redeem myself in the game you will if it's the last thing i This episode was produced by Tina Antolini with help from Kate Lepresti, Luke Vander Ploeg, and Alex Barron. We had production assistance from Dalia Haddad. It was edited by Wendy Dorr and engineered by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Etup, and Diane Wong. Special thanks to Paula Schumann. Thanks for listening. See you next week.