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Speaker 1: Hello, strictly business listeners. This is your host Cynthia Littleton.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited today to give you a sneak listen

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Speaker 1: to a podcast project we've been working on for a

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Speaker 1: few months, Daily Variety. On this show, we talked to

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Speaker 1: Variety journalists and guests about news, personalities and trends that

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Speaker 1: are making headlines and showbiz. Variety has the most incredible

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Speaker 1: masthead of journalists covering media and entertainment. In addition to

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Speaker 1: our strength in La, New York and London. Almost every

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Speaker 1: day of the year, Variety is somewhere in the world

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Speaker 1: covering a festival, or a market or a premier. We

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Speaker 1: want to showcase all this great work in a new

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Speaker 1: way with this program. Of course, we'd love to hear

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Speaker 1: your feedback at Variety dot com. Thanks for checking us out,

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Speaker 1: and away we go. Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily

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Speaker 1: dose of news and analysis for entertainment industry insiders. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's Tuesday, July fifteenth, twenty twenty five. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton. I am co editor in chief of Variety

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Speaker 1: alongside Ramin Setuta. I'm in LA. He's in New York,

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Speaker 1: and Variety has reporters around the world covering the business

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Speaker 1: of entertainment. Today is no ordinary day. It's Emmy Nominations Day.

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Speaker 1: The contenders for the seventy seventh annual Emmy Kudos were

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Speaker 1: unveiled this morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning everyone, Thank you for joining us for the

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Speaker 2: seventy seventh Emmy Award nominations announcements. We are up right

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Speaker 2: and early to celebrate the standout work of the past year.

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Speaker 1: HBO Max leads the field among platforms by a wide

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Speaker 1: margin with one hundred and forty two bids. Casey, Blois

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Speaker 1: and Coe pulled out a new personal best thanks to

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Speaker 1: the heft of the Penguin, The White Lotus, The Last

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Speaker 1: of Us, and Hacks. Apple TV Plus drama Severance was

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Speaker 1: the most nominated program overall, with twenty seven Apple TV

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Speaker 1: Plus leaders Zach van Amberg and Amy Erlicht. We're probably

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Speaker 1: toasting with kool aid, as Apple also had the most

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Speaker 1: nominated comedy this year with its buzzy freshman show The Studio.

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Speaker 1: In today's episode, we'll hear from TV editor Michael Schneider

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Speaker 1: and Chief Awards Editor Clayton Davis on the Emmy nominations,

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Speaker 1: What made sense, what didn't, and what was a pure

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Speaker 1: surprise to these expert prognosticators. We'll also talk about what

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Speaker 1: an Emmy means to a platform as a business proposition

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Speaker 1: these days. After that, we'll take a ninety degree turn

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Speaker 1: to a discussion of the fiftieth anniversary of a movie

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Speaker 1: that had enormous influence on pretty much everything that came

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Speaker 1: after it, Robert Altman's epic Nashville. It changed the life

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Speaker 1: of Variety chief film critic Owen Gleiberman. He'll explain how

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Speaker 1: other than the Emmy nominations, here are a few things

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Speaker 1: from this morning that you need to know. Fox News

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Speaker 1: is the latest TV network to court podcast talent. The

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Speaker 1: channel has cut a deal to distribute the current events

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Speaker 1: podcast Ruthless, that is hosted by four GOP insiders. Certainly,

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Speaker 1: after this deal, you'll probably be seeing more of Josh Holmes,

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Speaker 1: Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook, and the host who goes by

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Speaker 1: the pseudonym Comfortably Smug on Fox News very soon. As

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Speaker 1: something of interest for fans of early early Fleetwood Mac,

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Speaker 1: the song catalog of co founder Peter Green has been

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Speaker 1: sold to Primary Wave Music for an undisclosed fee. Green's

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Speaker 1: notable tunes include black Magic Woman, Yes, although Carlos Santana

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Speaker 1: made it famous, Fleetwood Mac was the first to record

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Speaker 1: that spooky song in nineteen sixty eight. Now it's time

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Speaker 1: for conversations with variety journalists about what's making news and showbiz.

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Speaker 1: Let's get right into the Emmy conversation with Clayton Davis

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Speaker 1: and Michael Schneider. Michael Schneider, Clayton Davis, thanks for joining me.

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Speaker 1: It's been a lot day for you already. Happy Emmy

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Speaker 1: Day to those who celebrate. And you know who's really

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Speaker 1: celebrating is one Casey Bloys who Cynthia's you know, I

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Speaker 1: had a chance to talk to this morning, and needless

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Speaker 1: say he is over the moon. With their one hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty two nominations a best ever for HBO and

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Speaker 1: HBO Max pretty astounding. And you know, you look at

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Speaker 1: just these shows, the sheer strength of the penguin, the

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Speaker 1: Last of Us, the White Lotus hacks the pit. It's

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Speaker 1: it's you know, they spread that wealth around.

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Speaker 3: Clayton.

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Speaker 1: Of course you are famous. Everybody knows you for your predictions.

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Speaker 1: So tell me how to excore yourself.

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Speaker 3: How you feel in this morning?

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Speaker 4: I actually feeling really really well, like in some areas.

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Speaker 4: It was pretty business as usual. Comedy series went exactly

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Speaker 4: the way we thought. Limited series went exactly the way

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Speaker 4: I thought a lot of the some of the acting races,

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Speaker 4: there were a lot of great stuff there. I mean,

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Speaker 4: HBO flexed more than I've ever seen them flex. And

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Speaker 4: I think if you especially look pound for pound by

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Speaker 4: how many series were nominated overall, Penguin was across the board.

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Speaker 4: White Lotus did exactly what it did last time with

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Speaker 4: twenty three nominations. But then a lot of shows that

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Speaker 4: never got any love before the rehearsal somebody somewhere like

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Speaker 4: they all did really well. That was, like, you know,

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Speaker 4: some of the real surprising things.

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Speaker 1: Severances atop the leader board with twenty seven nominations. Did

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Speaker 1: that twenty seven tally? For Severn's surprise you.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it did, considering that the first season got fourteen

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Speaker 4: and it took so long to come back, the fact

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Speaker 4: that it came soaring back the way it has, I mean,

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Speaker 4: it's really going to show some muscle there. And then

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Speaker 4: it's one challenger is the Pit got thirteen nominations, which

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Speaker 4: sounds like not like a lot, but it's a show

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Speaker 4: that doesn't have a score doesn't have special effects. It's

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Speaker 4: one set the whole time, so production design and cinematography

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Speaker 4: aren't exactly like you know on on on the docket, Poard.

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Speaker 4: But those two are really going to be a great

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Speaker 4: epic battle that I can't wait to see play out.

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Speaker 1: Mike, what what other thoughts? Are there any nominations that

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Speaker 1: stood out to you as things that just came out

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Speaker 1: of nowhere.

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Speaker 5: I'll throw a couple things out at you that shocked me.

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Speaker 5: I think he was the fact that Squid Games did

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Speaker 5: not get a single nomination, you know, from a show

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Speaker 5: that in season one did huge. But you know, beyond that,

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Speaker 5: you know, shout out to Apple TV plus because you know,

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Speaker 5: obviously they dominated in both drama and comedy, with the

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Speaker 5: two most nominated shows in Severance and the Studio. One

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Speaker 5: of the most interesting thing is Jimmy Kimmel was dominated

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Speaker 5: four times, but for four different things. For his show,

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Speaker 5: of course, you can't get enough Jimmy for hosting Who

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Speaker 5: Wants to Be a Millionaire? He's had four different nominations

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Speaker 5: this year, which was pretty interesting.

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Speaker 1: Clayton, on a much more serious note, you are a

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Speaker 1: chronicler of how how the different awards bodies do on

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Speaker 1: the issue of diversity and inclusion. Clayton, what do you

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Speaker 1: think today's tally tells us about this year? And I'd

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Speaker 1: also like to ask you for more of a longer

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Speaker 1: you know, like the five year sweep since you joined us.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so since twenty twenty I got here, they had

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Speaker 4: their least amount of actors of color recognized in the

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Speaker 4: last five years. So it's twenty.

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Speaker 3: Four this year.

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Speaker 4: For this year, twenty four out of ninety four available slots,

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Speaker 4: we're occupied by people of color about twenty five percent.

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Speaker 4: Twenty twenty two is a record year for them, which

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Speaker 4: was forty two. I always come into these conversations to say,

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Speaker 4: it's easy to blame the TV Academy, the Film Academy,

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Speaker 4: Roscar so White, Emmy so White, and we can there

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Speaker 4: are some responsibility upon the voters to watch as much

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Speaker 4: as they can. However, they are a reflection of the industry,

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Speaker 4: and in this time where we see a three percent

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Speaker 4: drop and submissions from last year, which last year had

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Speaker 4: a six percent drop from the year before, and deeis

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Speaker 4: constantly under attack at the moment. But even with that said,

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Speaker 4: twenty four out of space it really looked bulkier than

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Speaker 4: I had anticipated, because I thought we were going to

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Speaker 4: be in like the nineteen range. So twenty four actor

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Speaker 4: was better than I anticipated in.

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Speaker 3: Terms of number. You're not talking about numbers.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I was encouraged by that, but we still we

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Speaker 4: have some work to do, and there's some great strides there. Certainly,

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Speaker 4: Ky Brown is now tied with Don Cheatle. You know,

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Speaker 4: his seventh show that he's been nominated for some most

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Speaker 4: ever by a black man, tied with Don Cheatle. That

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Speaker 4: that that's incredible.

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Speaker 1: He's definitely Emmy bait going into Emmy bate category.

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Speaker 4: Quince is the third most nominated black woman ever in

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Speaker 4: her category. Like, you know, we have the most women

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Speaker 4: of color nominated supporting actress comedy for the second time

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Speaker 4: after two years ago. So we're making tries. It just

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Speaker 4: we want them every year.

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Speaker 1: Let me close out by asking also, you know, on

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Speaker 1: a serious note, the Emmys have always, for seventy seven years,

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Speaker 1: have been a form of bragging rights for the television business.

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Speaker 1: But it does seem like the value of an Emmy

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Speaker 1: has become more crystallized at this end of time in

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Speaker 1: the industry, when it's harder to say I'm the number

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Speaker 1: one show in the country because people aren't watching the

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Speaker 1: way they used to, Mike, why are they fighting so

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Speaker 1: hard to get these these What do these do for

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Speaker 1: them as a business?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think here you you hit it

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Speaker 5: in the streaming age, where you know, these streamers are

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Speaker 5: constantly dealing with chur and they really have to sell

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Speaker 5: themselves to the public on their value proposition. And what

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Speaker 5: better value proposition than telling your customer that we have

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Speaker 5: the best programming, we have quality programming, and here's proof,

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Speaker 5: we are the most Emmy nominated, we have the critically

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Speaker 5: acclaim shows. It really matters now as a business proposition,

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Speaker 5: and for these companies in the way that it didn't

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Speaker 5: back in the broadcast days, where you really were more

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Speaker 5: focused on advertising and other means and ratings. We're different

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Speaker 5: kinds of currency now. That currency is about convincing people

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Speaker 5: to spend their money to subscribe to your service, and

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Speaker 5: HBO started that, you know, back in the nineties, and

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Speaker 5: eventually that was adopted by the streamers as well, and

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Speaker 5: now that's a real big part of their business. So

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Speaker 5: the whole awards game and obviously admittedly self serving in

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Speaker 5: this aspect, but it's the last remaining measurement that consumers

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Speaker 5: can understand. Nielsen ratings are are not really like the

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Speaker 5: way they used to mean or translate to consumer Viva

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Speaker 5: la Emmy's.

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Speaker 1: Thank you both so much for taking the time. It's

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Speaker 1: been a busy day and it's not over yet. Deeply appreciated.

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Speaker 4: Nice too. Here we go.

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Speaker 1: From scoping future award winners, now we look back fifty

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Speaker 1: years at Robert Altman's landmark of American Cinema, Nashville. My

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Speaker 1: colleague Owen Gleiberman, Variety's chief film critic, pens a powerful

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Speaker 1: column in this week's print edition of Variety about the

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Speaker 1: impact the movie had on him as a college freshman.

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Speaker 1: Once I proofed that page last week, I knew Owen

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Speaker 1: had to come on and share that story with Daily Variety.

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Speaker 1: Owen Gleiberman, Variety's chief film critic, thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: joining me.

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Speaker 3: Nice to be here, Cynthia Owen.

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Speaker 1: You wrote a column that will be published in this

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Speaker 1: week's print edition of Variety. You wrote a column that

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Speaker 1: was so moving, so touching, so personal. You talked about

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Speaker 1: the movie Nashville, Robert Altman's epic Story of America that

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Speaker 1: was released in June of nineteen seventy five, and your

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Speaker 1: column really takes us back to that moment in time,

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Speaker 1: both for the country and for where you were. You

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Speaker 1: write so movingly about what this movie meant to you.

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Speaker 1: Tell me what it was like for you to write

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Speaker 1: that column and take yourself back to that place.

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Speaker 3: Well, it was kind of cathartic. Actually, Nashville is my

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Speaker 3: number one all time favorite movie. And it's not a

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Speaker 3: movie I chose to be in that place. It chose me.

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Speaker 3: It had an effect on me unlike any other film

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Speaker 3: I'd ever seen. I saw it when I was a

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Speaker 3: freshman in college college Film Society the year after it

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Speaker 3: came out. Actually, I went to the University of Michigan.

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Speaker 3: This a crowded place in with twenty thousand other kids.

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Speaker 3: You're trying to find out who you are, trying to

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Speaker 3: find your niche. My niche was that I was a

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Speaker 3: film geek. So I was going to all these movies,

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Speaker 3: and then in December, first semester, I saw Nashville and

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Speaker 3: it literally blew me away and blew my head open

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Speaker 3: the way that nothing ever had. I'd never seen a

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Speaker 3: movie that mirrored life the way that Nashville did. It

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Speaker 3: seemed to be literally, these twenty four characters wandering around

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Speaker 3: the country, music capital, stars, fans, politicians, hangers on. It

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Speaker 3: seemed as rich and full as the life off screen,

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Speaker 3: and the movie as a result, possessed me. It kind

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Speaker 3: of took over my imagination. I thought about nothing else

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Speaker 3: for six months, and it was almost like a religious

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Speaker 3: experience before and after Nashville.

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Speaker 1: Who among the cast members really stood out to you?

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Speaker 3: The funny thing is it's the kind of movie where

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Speaker 3: every actor in it becomes your favorite actor when they're

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Speaker 3: on screen because you just love them all and they

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Speaker 3: all seem so real and so human. But there are

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Speaker 3: some that stand out. Lily Tomlin as this gospel singer

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Speaker 3: who's married to a celebrity lawyer and has an affair

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Speaker 3: with Keith Charrodine's country singer. Keith Garrotine as that singer

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Speaker 3: just capturing that kind of moody narcissism of a mid

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Speaker 3: seventies rock star like I've never seen. And Ronnie Blakely

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Speaker 3: as a character kind of modeled on Loretta Lynn but

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Speaker 3: doing her own thing with it.

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Speaker 1: So you're in college and you are studying this movie.

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Speaker 1: How did this religious experience lead you to your career today?

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Speaker 3: Well, I became so obsessed with Nashville that I literally

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Speaker 3: wanted to write about it. And they had a Robert

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Speaker 3: Altman Festival the next semester, coincidentally, and I decided to

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Speaker 3: cover that for my school newspaper, and that kind of

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Speaker 3: got me into writing. But more than that, I wanted

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Speaker 3: to figure out what it was about this movie that

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Speaker 3: had so moved me. In the middle of the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 3: America really had become this kind of lost and broken place.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we'd broken away from the middle class ideals

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Speaker 3: of the fifties. The whole dream of the counterculture had

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Speaker 3: sort of fallen apart. This was post Vietnam, post Watergate.

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Speaker 3: What did we believe in anymore? And what Nashvill showed

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Speaker 3: me is it showed me what the country was, and

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Speaker 3: it showed me that as flawed and has kind of

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Speaker 3: lost a place, and as it had become, it was

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Speaker 3: still a place that you could fall in love with,

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Speaker 3: because you kind of fell in love with all the

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Speaker 3: characters in this movie, and it showed you that there

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Speaker 3: was something about what it was to be in America

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Speaker 3: that you loved. It was a kind of freedom. There

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Speaker 3: was a feeling of American freedom somehow right in the

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Speaker 3: DNA of the movie.

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Speaker 1: Owen, did you ever meet Altman? Did you ever tell

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Speaker 1: him of his incredible influence on your career?

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Speaker 3: I did finally get to meet Altman. I think by

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Speaker 3: that point I was probably passed gushing about Nashville, because

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Speaker 3: I met him in the late eighties. I had lunch

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Speaker 3: with him at a hotel in Boston when he was

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Speaker 3: doing a publicity tour for one of his films, Streamers, and.

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Speaker 4: He was not in a good mood.

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Speaker 3: He had a real dissent after that. The movies he

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Speaker 3: made in the second half of the seventies were not good,

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Speaker 3: and he kind of fell out of popularity and was

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Speaker 3: in the wilderness for a while. It really was not

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Speaker 3: until nineteen ninety two when he made The Player, which

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Speaker 3: is another truly great film.

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Speaker 1: A landmark movie, and the reason why Seth Rogan's character

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Speaker 1: in The Studio is named Griffin Mill. It is a

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Speaker 1: total nod to The Player.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. The Studio, which I love, is very much son

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Speaker 3: of the Player, and knows that The Player was just

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Speaker 3: a visionary film.

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Speaker 1: But Hollywood, it's quite a legacy for an auteur who

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Speaker 1: left us in two thousand and six. At the age

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Speaker 1: of eighty one.

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Speaker 3: When Alman died, a movie theater in my neighborhood decided

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Speaker 3: to program a number of his films in tribute. I

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Speaker 3: went to see Nashville. I hadn't seen it in a

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Speaker 3: lot of years, and I wanted to know would it

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Speaker 3: hold up. It did. But more than that, something hit

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Speaker 3: me with a really surprising force of revelation, which is

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Speaker 3: at seeing this film in the middle two thousands, its

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Speaker 3: meaning had changed to me. What I saw was that

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Speaker 3: Altman in nineteen seventy five had foreseen the Internet age,

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Speaker 3: and by that the whole metaphysic of what we talk

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Speaker 3: about when we talk about how the Web changed everything

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Speaker 3: and how we're all in our own little worlds, our

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Speaker 3: own little niches. That the fragmentation of America was really

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Speaker 3: accomplished by the Internet. Altman foresaw all that quality. That's

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Speaker 3: actually what Nashville is about.

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Speaker 1: Well, Owen, I've really enjoyed chatting with you about this,

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Speaker 1: but once again, your writing in this column is so beautiful.

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Speaker 1: I thought it would be great if you would end

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Speaker 1: by reading us a couple passages, and folks, do not

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Speaker 1: miss it. Go get your print edition of Write on

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Speaker 1: Wednesday look Forward on Variety dot Com on Wednesday, Owen,

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Speaker 1: please take it away.

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Speaker 3: This section is just about how Nashville kind of captured

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Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies. I was a teenager in the nineteen

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Speaker 3: seventies and eurro that's romanticized now, and for good reason.

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Speaker 3: There was a lot of freedom, a lot of passion,

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Speaker 3: a lot of great music, a lot of pinball. But

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Speaker 3: there was a weird spiritual waywardness to that time. As

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Speaker 3: a culture, we no longer believed in the suburban dream

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Speaker 3: of the fifties, We no longer believed in the hippie

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Speaker 3: dream of the sixties. The moon Landing was a sci

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Speaker 3: fi dream that within five minutes came to feel like

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Speaker 3: a rerun. The era was full of fake religions, est

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Speaker 3: alien visitors, Lou Reed's solo albums, and as each of

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Speaker 3: these things kind of let you down, you were left

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Speaker 3: with a haunting question was there anything left that united America?

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Speaker 3: I think that is a lot of what Nashville is about.

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Speaker 3: Let me just finish with a passage in my column

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Speaker 3: that talks about what is probably my favorite scene in

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Speaker 3: the history of motion pictures. I don't think it's too

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Speaker 3: much of a stretch to say that Alman in nineteen

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Speaker 3: seventy five foresaw the Internet age as well as the

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Speaker 3: era were in now and America fraction splintered, adam mines balkanized,

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Speaker 3: separated from itself. What Nashville shows us is the great

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Speaker 3: American crack up. Yet, when Ronnie Blakely as the country

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Speaker 3: star Barbara Jean gets up on stage at the Opry

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Speaker 3: bell to seeing tape deck in his tractor and dunes,

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Speaker 3: it's one of the most transcendent sequences in the history

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Speaker 3: of cinema. For a few heartbreakingly blissful moments, the down

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Speaker 3: home incandescence of her performance seems to pull the world

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Speaker 3: of America together, giving us all a desperate reason to believe.

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

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Speaker 1: things we're watching out for. The SP's and Variety Sports

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Speaker 1: and Entertainment Breakfast will be held Wednesday night and Thursday morning, respectively.

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Speaker 1: One cool thing they have in common this year is

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Speaker 1: honoring Alex Morgan, the pioneering soccer player, for her work

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Speaker 1: to promote pay equity and women's sports. I can't wait

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Speaker 1: to talk to her and her business partner Dan Leavy

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Speaker 1: that full interview will be featured on this week's Strictly

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Speaker 1: Business podcast, which will be out on Friday. Thursday also

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Speaker 1: brings Netflix's first quarter earnings report. We'll get a curtain

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Speaker 1: raiser on tomorrow's Daily Variety on what to expect from

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Speaker 1: Variety Business writer Jennifer Moz before we go. Congrats to

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Speaker 1: three executives at Warner Brothers Games who have been promoted

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Speaker 1: from studio heads to senior vice presidents. Eve La Chance

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Speaker 1: oversees Harry Potter and Game of Thrones Games. Sean Himmerick

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Speaker 1: is the main man for Mortal Kombat and DC Studios Games,

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Speaker 1: and Stephen Flennery steers All Tech and Central Services. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening. This episode of Daily Variety was written and

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Speaker 1: reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Clayton Davis,

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Speaker 1: Michael Schneider, and Owen Gleiberman. It was edited by Aaron Greenwald.

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Speaker 1: Stick's next hick Picks. Please leave us a review at

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Speaker 1: the podcast platform of your choice, and please tune in

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Speaker 1: tomorrow for another episode of Daily Variety