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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 1: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Thursday, March fifth, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty six. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co

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Speaker 1: editor and chief for Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in

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Speaker 1: LA He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around

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Speaker 1: the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,

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Speaker 1: we'll hear from Variety's Mark Malkin on how the somber

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Speaker 1: mood in Hollywood will affect this year's Oscar Week celebrations

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Speaker 1: leading up to the Academy Awards on March fifteenth, and

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Speaker 1: Variety's Ethan Schanfeld joins us to paint a colorful picture

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Speaker 1: of all that he observed while attending a Baywatch open

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Speaker 1: casting call last month. But before we get to that,

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Speaker 1: here are a few headlines just in this morning that

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Speaker 1: you need to know.

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Speaker 2: Shawna.

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Speaker 1: Thomas has exited her post as executive producer of CBS

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Speaker 1: Mornings after five years at the helm. Also comes on

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Speaker 1: the heels of the news that Gail King will remain

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Speaker 1: an anchor of the CBS Morning Show, as she has

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Speaker 1: been since twenty eleven. Television Academy chief Chris Abrego has

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Speaker 1: tapped the four bold face names who will make up

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Speaker 1: the Academy's executive committee. De Uzo Aduba, Buol TV's Matt

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Speaker 1: chernist Flix's Jenny Howe, and Disney's Deborah O'Connell will help

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Speaker 1: Abrego steer the Academy for the next two years. Netflix

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Speaker 1: has acquired Interpositive, an AI startup founded by Ben Affleck.

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Speaker 1: Interpositive focuses on creating AI tools for filmmakers. The Big

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Speaker 1: n does have some cash on hand after all, although

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Speaker 1: financial details were not disclosed. All of these stories and

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Speaker 1: so much more can be found on Variety dot com

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Speaker 1: Right now. And now it's time for conversations with Friday

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Speaker 1: journalists about news and trends in show business. We'll hear

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Speaker 1: from Mark Malkin for a preview of next week's Oscars

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Speaker 1: celebrations in the lead up to the Big Night on

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Speaker 1: March fifteenth. As Mark reports, the revelry this year is

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Speaker 1: likely to be muted by real world events at home

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Speaker 1: and abroad. Mark Malklin, thank you so much for joining me.

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Speaker 3: So good to be here.

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Speaker 1: You are getting ready for one of your marathon weeks

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Speaker 1: next week will be OSCAR week leading into the big

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Speaker 1: show on March fifteenth. Mark, you've been breaking bits and

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Speaker 1: pieces on bridy dot com about the elements of the

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Speaker 1: ceremony that will air on ABC. Tell me what are

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Speaker 1: you gathering in terms of the theme the image that

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Speaker 1: they want to promote for Hollywood.

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Speaker 3: Right now, there's a few things. We're here and we're hearing.

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Speaker 3: You know that there are meetings going on about talking

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Speaker 3: about Plan B, Plan C, Plan D. Depending on where

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Speaker 3: the world is on March fifteenth, you know what kind

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Speaker 3: of red carpet will it be, what kind of production

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Speaker 3: will it be on stage? Of course, you know they

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Speaker 3: have their plans to make it a big, glamorous night,

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Speaker 3: but they do have to be a pivot sort of

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Speaker 3: at the last minute. But one segment that is always

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Speaker 3: part of the Oscar it really doesn't depend on what's

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Speaker 3: going on in the world, is the in memoriam segment.

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Speaker 3: It's done different ways different years. Sometimes it's one singer

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Speaker 3: singing and you're seeing clips and headshots of people have passed. Well.

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Speaker 3: This year, he twenty twenty five saw the passing of

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Speaker 3: Robert Redford, and the Academy right now is in talks

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Speaker 3: with none other than Barber streisand to perform at some

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Speaker 3: point during the in memoriam segment as a tribute to

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Speaker 3: Robert Redford, as we know, her co star of the iconic,

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Speaker 3: legendary movie The Way We Were. Right now, though, they

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Speaker 3: don't know if it's going to be a bunch of

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Speaker 3: different artists performing in memoriam or will it just be

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Speaker 3: Barber by herself. I have a feeling, the sort of

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Speaker 3: energy that I'm getting is that she'll sing a little

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Speaker 3: part and then it'll be other artists.

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Speaker 1: That song breaks my heart every time. That will be

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Speaker 1: a powerful moment, for sure.

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Speaker 3: Will The last time Robert performed at the Oscars was

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Speaker 3: in twenty thirteen, singing The Way We Were for the

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Speaker 3: late composer in one of her closest collaborators and friends,

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Speaker 3: Marvin Hamlish. So this will be her return in thirteen years.

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Speaker 3: When you look back at the history of the Oscars,

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Speaker 3: the Oscars have never been canceled outright. They've been postponed

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Speaker 3: for things like the assassination of Martin Luther King, the

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Speaker 3: assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. We certainly don't know what

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Speaker 3: it's going to look like on March fifteenth. The other

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Speaker 3: detail that I exclusively reported today is not only are

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Speaker 3: Meg Ryan and Billy Christo reuniting for the in Memoriam

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Speaker 3: segment as a tribute to Rob Reiner, the details that

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Speaker 3: I received today from sources is that Billy Crystal will

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Speaker 3: be doing the talking about Rob Reiner and that Meg

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Speaker 3: Ryan will join other stars of Rob Reiner films on

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Speaker 3: stage as Billy is talking.

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Speaker 1: That will be an audience of people in the business

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Speaker 1: that knew him and many of them worked with him,

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Speaker 1: and it would be painful, but it also might bring

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Speaker 1: us a somewhat kind of closure for people to really

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Speaker 1: salute Rob Reiner. There's no question that the global geopolitical

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Speaker 1: situation is creating some tension and some uncertainty. But closer

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Speaker 1: to home, there is so much drama, so much turmoil

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Speaker 1: going on in the industry. The Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery

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Speaker 1: merger has raised so many questions. The plan to merge

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Speaker 1: with Netflix also raised a million questions. But just as

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Speaker 1: people were getting used to the idea of Netflix and

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Speaker 1: Warner Brothers, then the table's turned and now it's Paramount

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Speaker 1: and Warner Brothers, and that you know, we know that

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Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of jobs will go

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Speaker 1: by the wayside at a time when there aren't a

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Speaker 1: lot of people in the traditional entertainment business hiring. So

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Speaker 1: it is the moment of transition.

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Speaker 3: You know. Obviously a lot of my time is spent

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Speaker 3: living on a red carpet, and this last year has

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Speaker 3: been a really interesting time on the red carpet. You

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Speaker 3: definitely feel there is a different energy, and I think

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Speaker 3: it's everything, like what you just said, the combination of

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Speaker 3: whether it's geopolitics, consolidation, layoff. It is heavy on everyone's minds.

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Speaker 3: If you know, if you haven't been laid off, you're

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Speaker 3: thinking about are you going to be the next one

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Speaker 3: to be laid off? So it really is creating this

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Speaker 3: really fine line, this balance of being able to celebrate

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Speaker 3: the accomplishments of the past year while also respecting and

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Speaker 3: having grace about people who cannot celebrate right now because

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Speaker 3: times are tough and they've been laid off or their

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Speaker 3: spouse has been laid off. And the Academy has a

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Speaker 3: very tricky job of balancing that celebration while acknowledging, like

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Speaker 3: you said, the industry it's an upheaval.

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Speaker 1: It is not easy. I ran into Academy President Lynette

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Speaker 1: Howell Taylor at the Producer's Guild Awards over the weekend,

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Speaker 1: and she told me that the plan was to keep

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Speaker 1: it about the movies. Anything else, Mark that you're hearing

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Speaker 1: about the Oscars, anything that you're excited to check out

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Speaker 1: in the Oscar week leading up to it.

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Speaker 3: You know, all of the trying to find the balance

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Speaker 3: of celebration versus the real world realities. You know, the

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Speaker 3: party scene next week is in full force. Eaa WME

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Speaker 3: fashion houses like Dior, magazines like Vanity Fair, Few magazine,

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Speaker 3: They're all having their parties. Disney is having a pre

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Speaker 3: Oscar party. Chanelle will have their very iconic pre Oscar

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Speaker 3: party on Saturday night before the Oscars. So right now

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Speaker 3: the party scene is happening. I'm really interested how does

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Speaker 3: it all sort of play out because every conversation you

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Speaker 3: have in this town now turns to the shakeups, the consolidation,

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Speaker 3: the mergers, and then geopolitics. So you know that said,

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Speaker 3: the invitations have been sent out, and again, like we said,

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Speaker 3: depending on what happens next week, we'll see if He's

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Speaker 3: parties are scaled back to sort of respect what is

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Speaker 3: going on in the world or not.

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Speaker 1: Thank you Mark for being on the case. We are

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Speaker 1: grateful to have a seasoned veteran because you pick up

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Speaker 1: on the nuances because you've done this once or twice before.

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Speaker 1: So I just hope you get your rest and take

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Speaker 1: your vitamins because it's going to be a busy week.

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Speaker 3: It sure will.

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Speaker 1: And now we turn to Ethan Schenfeld, one of Variety's

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Speaker 1: most intrepid young reporters. He attended an open casting call

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Speaker 1: for Fox's reboot of Baywatch last month in Marina del Rey,

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Speaker 1: and he brought us back a hell of a story.

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Speaker 1: Ethan Schonfeld, intrepid reporter, extraordinary, Thank you for joining me.

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Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. Well.

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Speaker 1: Your story on the open casting call for Baywatch that

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Speaker 1: was held last month in Marina del Rey was one

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Speaker 1: of the best, most enterprising features that we've run in

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Speaker 1: a long time. I want to ask you about what

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Speaker 1: inspired it and your experience, but I just want to

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Speaker 1: set the tone.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to read your lead.

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Speaker 1: Usually I don't like to spoil the story for listeners,

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Speaker 1: but in this case, this lead is so good. It's

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Speaker 1: up there with Frank Sinatra. Has a cold fanfare. Please,

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Speaker 1: you simply cannot wear a red speedo in the rain.

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Speaker 1: If that sentence doesn't make you want to read more,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what will Ethan tell us? What was

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Speaker 1: the spark of interest for you attending this open casting call?

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Speaker 1: Have you secretly harbored a desire to be on Baywatch

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Speaker 1: for all of your life?

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Speaker 4: To answer your last question, the answer is no. But

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Speaker 4: if you read the story you might assume differently. The

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Speaker 4: inspiration behind the story was we got an email from

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Speaker 4: Fox about this open casting call, and I have a

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Speaker 4: knack for some of these weirder stories where I seem

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Speaker 4: to always find myself, you know, in a movie theater

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Speaker 4: at five in the morning, interviewing people you know, watching Dune,

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Speaker 4: or sleeping over at the Times Square. Amc putting myself

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Speaker 4: through these situations where you're talking with normal people, not

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Speaker 4: necessarily celebrities or publicists or managers or agents. And so

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Speaker 4: anytime there's an opportunity to do something like that, I

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Speaker 4: will try my best to do it. So I'm based

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Speaker 4: in New York. I was coming into LA for a

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Speaker 4: bachelor party that weekend, and I ended up moving my

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Speaker 4: flight a few days earlier so that I could cover

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Speaker 4: this casting call. And I had never seen Baywatch. I

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Speaker 4: watched some day watch in anticipation of this story, but

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Speaker 4: I really didn't understand or grasped the phenomenon that it

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Speaker 4: was until I got there.

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Speaker 1: When you first got there, when did the outline of

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Speaker 1: the story start to take shape in your head?

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Speaker 4: The story gets very meta, So I would not say

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Speaker 4: that the story really took shape until the very end

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Speaker 4: of my day there, when I actually snuck into a

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Speaker 4: audition's holding room and sort of pretended to be somebody auditioning.

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Speaker 4: But at the beginning of the day, when I was

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Speaker 4: outside at the beach with all of these contests and

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Speaker 4: trying to get a part on the show, you know,

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Speaker 4: I would talk to people, some people who were actors

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Speaker 4: and had jobs in Hollywood, and then other people who

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Speaker 4: I talked to a mother and a daughter who flew

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Speaker 4: in from Colorado with a zero acting experience and just

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Speaker 4: wanted They were fans of Baywatch, so they just wanted

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Speaker 4: a chance to have a small part on the reboot.

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Speaker 4: I talked to one woman who actually won the Greek

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Speaker 4: version of The Bachelor, and so that, you know, I

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Speaker 4: got some colorful quotes from people like that. She told

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Speaker 4: me that she's been acting for a while, and she

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Speaker 4: was always told you're too blonde, your boobs are too big,

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Speaker 4: and so she said, but now this is finally the

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Speaker 4: part for me.

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Speaker 1: I'm always interested in how everyday people stake their hopes

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Speaker 1: and dreams on getting to something in entertainment. You see

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Speaker 1: it a lot at conferences, people that spend a fortune

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Speaker 1: to attend something in the hopes of shaking the hand

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Speaker 1: of a producer that could change their life. Did you

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Speaker 1: feel that sense of ambition and anticipation among these people.

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Speaker 4: Something that struck me was how positive everybody was and

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Speaker 4: how nice everybody was. You talk to these actors who

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Speaker 4: send out two hundred auditions and they're lucky if they

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Speaker 4: just hear back. And so when I was talking to

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Speaker 4: the actor at the end of the story, he was

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Speaker 4: just so happy to be there. And a lot of

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Speaker 4: the people I talked to were speaking about how it's

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Speaker 4: just such a blessing to be able to live out

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Speaker 4: your dreams, and every day is a blessing, and you

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Speaker 4: know you miss one hundred percent of the shots you

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Speaker 4: don't take, there is like a motivational through line, you know,

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Speaker 4: with a lot of these people.

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Speaker 1: For sure, it's heartening because as you well know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the headlines right now are doom and gloom

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Speaker 1: for Hollywood, for the entertainment industry, for the world itself.

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Speaker 1: What I enjoyed reading your story was just feeling people

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Speaker 1: so hopeful and eager, and that Hollywood and the mythos

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Speaker 1: that is wrapped up in that word still really inspires people.

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Speaker 4: The narrative around the reboot is certainly that it's like

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Speaker 4: a big bet on Los Angeles that the show. There

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Speaker 4: had been attempts to reboot Baywatch throughout the years, and

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Speaker 4: those were always going to end up shooting in South

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Speaker 4: Africa or Australia. None of them ever came together. But

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Speaker 4: with this show, they secured a twenty one million dollar

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Speaker 4: tax incentive. They're shooting right on Venice Beach. The network

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Speaker 4: and the city are both touting it as this project

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Speaker 4: that could bring back jobs to LA that could be

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Speaker 4: a very sunny, very optimistic show. You know, a thing

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Speaker 4: I heard a lot from the producers is there's so

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Speaker 4: much going on in the world, and you know, people

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Speaker 4: want to sit on the couch and watch people living

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Speaker 4: out their fantasies and.

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Speaker 1: Running down the beach. Let's be real. They call these

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Speaker 1: auditions cattle calls for a reason. What were your observations

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Speaker 1: about the people that were organizing and doing the logistics

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Speaker 1: of stand here, now you group, go over here?

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Speaker 2: Were they brusque with people?

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Speaker 4: It seems pretty gentle. Remember there was a lot of

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Speaker 4: press there. They treated this as not only a legitimate

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Speaker 4: casting call where they were looking for roles from series

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Speaker 4: regulars to extras, but also it was a promotional event.

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Speaker 4: They had several different step in repeats, They had the

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Speaker 4: talent available for interviews. There were a lot of journalists,

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Speaker 4: so that might have played into that. I also when

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Speaker 4: I did sneak into the holding room, I sat next

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Speaker 4: to one of the curtains where they were holding these auditions,

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Speaker 4: and so I was listening to some of the actors

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Speaker 4: read their lines, and one of the things I noticed

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Speaker 4: was you did not hear a no in the room.

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Speaker 4: It was very much thank you, very much. We really

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Speaker 4: appreciate you coming in. And so I talked to a

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Speaker 4: lot of people that came out and were really excited

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Speaker 4: in the story.

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Speaker 2: How many people in total was it a couple one hundred?

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Speaker 4: There were two thousand people auditioning. They said that they

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Speaker 4: received fourteen thousand submissions, which was people sending in their

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Speaker 4: reels their headshots online, and then from that they took

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Speaker 4: two thousand.

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Speaker 1: Well, Ethan, I did not read all of the stories

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Speaker 1: that came out of that, but I know that there

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Speaker 1: is not one better than what you did with this experience.

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Speaker 2: Listeners, it is so good.

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Speaker 1: Get your Baywatch on and run to Bridy dot com

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Speaker 1: and read this piece. Let me ask you, Ethan, if

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Speaker 1: you could do an open casting call for any show

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Speaker 1: that's on now, any show in history, what would you choose.

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Speaker 4: My first thought was Saturday Night Live, just because there's

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Speaker 4: such a lore around the auditions, and they've done documentaries

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Speaker 4: where they show some of these auditions and people like

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Speaker 4: Kevin Hart and Stephen Colbert auditioned and did not get

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Speaker 4: the part. So it'd be interesting to see an open

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Speaker 4: casting call where you have a lot of people who

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Speaker 4: are potentially very famous people in the future.

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Speaker 2: That's a good one.

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Speaker 1: Well, Ethan, I cannot wait for you to set your

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Speaker 1: sights on another enterprising feature story. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for delivering this terrific read.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Cynthia.

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Speaker 1: As we close out today's episode, here's a few things

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Speaker 1: we're watching for. James Vanderbeek would have turned forty nine

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Speaker 1: this coming Saturday, March eighth. To mark the occasion, Samsung

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Speaker 1: TV Plus's Fast Channel platform will serve up a marathon

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Speaker 1: of all six seasons of Dawson's Creek that day. May

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Speaker 1: the Beak Rest in Peace. The trailer is out today

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Speaker 1: for Lorn, the new documentary on Saturday Night Live creator

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Speaker 1: and leader Lorne Michaels. The Focus features film from documentarian

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Speaker 1: Morgan Neville, Bows and Theaters on April seventeenth. April seventeenth

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Speaker 1: is also the premier date for another documentary of note.

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Speaker 1: The latest Skeptical cryptocurrency project from actor Ben mackenzie is

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Speaker 1: a documentary Everyone Is Lying to You for Money. It's

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Speaker 1: based on the book Money, Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the

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Speaker 1: Golden Age of Fraud that mackenzie co wrote with Jacob Silberman.

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Speaker 1: Indie distributor The Forge has North American distribution rights to

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Speaker 1: the documentary. We love to hear from our listeners, so

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Speaker 1: please send thoughts, scripes, and other feedback about Daily Variety

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Speaker 1: to podcastsat Variety dot com before we go. Oh, congrats

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Speaker 1: to filmmaker Peter Jackson. He'll be awarded an honorary Palm

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Speaker 1: d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival on May twelfth. Past

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Speaker 1: honorary palmd'or winners include Jody Foster, Meryl Streep, Robert de Niro,

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Speaker 1: and Tom Cruise. Thanks for listening. This episode was written

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Speaker 1: and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Mark

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Speaker 1: malkoln And, Ethan Schanfeld.

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Speaker 2: Styx Nicks Hick Picks.

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Speaker 1: Please leave us a review at the podcast platform of

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Speaker 1: your choice, and please tune in Monday for another episode

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Speaker 1: of Daily Variety