Speaker 1: Have you ever seen that? That me, that's Ginger Bell
Speaker 1: getting sucked by a cockroach. No, no, I have to
Speaker 1: have to show it. I'm scared. I'm really scared. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. It's so much more emotive than I think.
Speaker 1: It's very romantic, it's very Yeah, this is giving. Like
Speaker 1: Julia robertson Closer, Well, let's talk about Julie Rock. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Julia Roberts. No transition needed, Yeah, because this
Speaker 1: is like a virgin and we are going to um
Speaker 1: give yesterday's pop culture, today's takes. I'm Rosdamu and I'm
Speaker 1: Fran Toronto. Anyone who has listened to this podcast knows
Speaker 1: that Julia Roberts is very important to me personally and
Speaker 1: I as well. She is mother, Um. She also once
Speaker 1: started in a film called Mother's Day wearing a truly
Speaker 1: horrible orange wig. And when she's not mother, she is sister,
Speaker 1: and when she's not sister she is Auntie. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I have watched sometimes and said she was so aunt
Speaker 1: for that. She was, she was so second cousin for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's in She's in Mother's Day, and she's also in Stepmother,
Speaker 1: which I did watch that plane step Mom, step Mom, Yes,
Speaker 1: I did watch that on a plane recently. Very good. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I'm trying to think back and figure out
Speaker 1: what my first encounter with the Julia Roberts was, and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was my best friend's wedding, which
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense because my best friend's wedding
Speaker 1: is my favorite Julia Roberts film. It's my favorite romantic comedy.
Speaker 1: It is one of my favorite movies. I would say,
Speaker 1: like top ten. Wow, okay, I um, I'm I honestly
Speaker 1: only seen it one so I kind of want to
Speaker 1: maybe we'll pin that and I want to know more
Speaker 1: about my best friend's wedding. I will say true to
Speaker 1: like the way I grew up. My first Julia Roberts
Speaker 1: movie was Hook, where she plays tinker Bell. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: maybe Hook was mine too? Really Okay, I just don't
Speaker 1: think of Hook. It's because the role is so small
Speaker 1: and yet literally she adds something to Tink that no
Speaker 1: one else could. Like, there's a Julian is that like
Speaker 1: is just so specific? Well, she's very sexy in it.
Speaker 1: She's well, okay, so here's the mean, this's a very
Speaker 1: sexualized tinker Bell. You I would okay, So I would
Speaker 1: actually wager this is like very theoretical just about Julia
Speaker 1: Rolls in general. I would actually say that a Julia role,
Speaker 1: whether it's tinker Bell, my best friend's wedding, Aaron Brockovich, whatever,
Speaker 1: is a little less sexy and a little more gorgeous.
Speaker 1: Like she has an innocent not innocent. She has a
Speaker 1: beauty that is quote unquote family friendly or like, she
Speaker 1: has a beauty that I think fits into so many
Speaker 1: different narratives, and she's able to get yes, she's able
Speaker 1: to give sex appeal in a way that you know,
Speaker 1: men watching will be like, oh my god, she was
Speaker 1: so hot, and then people, you know, people that aren't her,
Speaker 1: guys jerking off to Julia Robert. I think that's my point.
Speaker 1: It's like she doesn't give sex. I think I think
Speaker 1: she gives romance. She's immediately romantic with everything. And it's
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't think of Tinkerbell as a role that
Speaker 1: would be romantic, and of course the way they wrote
Speaker 1: it and also who they put in it, it's like
Speaker 1: she's going to bring the love element, like the gorgeous
Speaker 1: love infatuation, Like yeah, I don't know, but okay, hook
Speaker 1: my best friend's wedding. What did you latch onto when
Speaker 1: you first watch either of those with Julia Well, I
Speaker 1: do remember thinking, well, I think this is a weird
Speaker 1: thing about Hook in general, is that I, um like
Speaker 1: the scene where Robin Williams um goes walks the plank
Speaker 1: and the mermaids rescue him and breathe into his mouth.
Speaker 1: I found that very erotic as a child erotic, and
Speaker 1: for some reason that's also tied into Julia Roberts when
Speaker 1: tinker Bell becomes big and kisses um Peter pan Um.
Speaker 1: I also found that weirdly hot as a child. As
Speaker 1: a child, it was wish fulfilment because like I I
Speaker 1: for sure maybe like Peter Pan, I loved growing. I
Speaker 1: mean it's so it's like, you know, obviously promedic, but
Speaker 1: like as a kid, I love the cartoon Peter Pan
Speaker 1: And like I as a kid who was kind of
Speaker 1: love crazy, like like the idea of romancing tinker Bell,
Speaker 1: like that was like wish fulfilm. And I think even
Speaker 1: as a kid. So maybe we can go into my
Speaker 1: best friend's wedding. I maybe you can induct me into
Speaker 1: this movie. So okay, here's let me give a sort
Speaker 1: of um a brief synopsis of My Best Friend's Wedding.
Speaker 1: UM So, My Best Friend's Wedding is a romantic comedy film.
Speaker 1: It's about Julia Roberts plays a food critic who I
Speaker 1: forgot that she it's very important to the plot. Uh
Speaker 1: not really, it's very important to her character. So she
Speaker 1: plays a food critic who has this old friend from
Speaker 1: college and they made a pact that if they reached
Speaker 1: some arbitrary age, which now in my mid thirties looking
Speaker 1: back on it is like so young. It's like twenty
Speaker 1: nine or thirty years old. If they got that old
Speaker 1: and never got married, they would marry each other. And
Speaker 1: so Julia Roberts when she gets this call from her
Speaker 1: old friend, is like, oh he he's like remembering the
Speaker 1: bet and like there's still something between us. But actually
Speaker 1: what he has to tell her is that he's getting
Speaker 1: married to a like twenty two year old who is
Speaker 1: played by Cameron Diaz, one of her best roles in
Speaker 1: my opinion, And Julia Roberts decides that that's her man,
Speaker 1: and she's going to go break up their wedding, and
Speaker 1: she spoiler alert kind of does and then kind of doesn't.
Speaker 1: They do still get married, but I think this is
Speaker 1: a radical rom com, especially for the time. In several ways,
Speaker 1: Julia Roberts's character is very obviously the villain of this story.
Speaker 1: She is a bad person. She does bad things all
Speaker 1: throughout the movie. She tries to get Dermott mulroney fired
Speaker 1: from his job so that or or she tries to
Speaker 1: like come but so Cameron Diaz. His parents dad is
Speaker 1: like really rich and has offered um the Germott Maroney
Speaker 1: a job, and like Julia Roberts tries to like just
Speaker 1: like get between them, and she very she like is
Speaker 1: the villain. She goes into this with the purpose of
Speaker 1: breaking up their marriage and like, yes, she is the
Speaker 1: protagonist of the film. But she's not a good person,
Speaker 1: and I think this movie makes that very clear. And
Speaker 1: she doesn't get well, she doesn't get the traditional rom
Speaker 1: com happy ending that we are familiar with, because I
Speaker 1: think in a softer movie, the the romantic lead would
Speaker 1: break up with his girlfriend who would be like a
Speaker 1: shrew or like some kind of horrible person. But Cameron
Speaker 1: is genuinely like you root for her to yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: she is like she is so magnetic and um, so
Speaker 1: funny and so vulnerable and beautiful, and you understand why
Speaker 1: this guy has fallen in love with her, and you
Speaker 1: also understand why him and Julia would never work out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think you know, Julia is kind of a
Speaker 1: perfect anti hero, like Julia coming in saying like it's me, hi,
Speaker 1: I'm the problem. But like also like um, and when
Speaker 1: we're talking about like the Julia cinematic universe and the
Speaker 1: roles she adopts, like she in xis kind of permeable
Speaker 1: likability And I obviously hate that term, but like in
Speaker 1: in this era of rom comes right like film exects
Speaker 1: like are like women need to be likable, like we
Speaker 1: need likable characters, likable blah blah blah, and like using
Speaker 1: the word like likability as critique for like a character
Speaker 1: is so like it actually has it just like doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense as a critique and usually it's like thinly
Speaker 1: veiled misogyny or like whatever. But Julia does embody this
Speaker 1: like quintessential likability so that even when she's doing the
Speaker 1: most deplorable things, you can't help but like love her character. Yes,
Speaker 1: well what I think she has is and this I
Speaker 1: really think is the thesis of this episode is that
Speaker 1: Julia Roberts is one of our last movie stars exactly,
Speaker 1: and that is what she has. It's it's not just likability,
Speaker 1: it's she has star quality. Julia Roberts from an era
Speaker 1: of movie stars that does not exist anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: have them next to Angelina Jolie and you know, all
Speaker 1: those classic A listers. And there is a reason not
Speaker 1: to get to ahead of ourselves. Why her movie Ticket
Speaker 1: to Paradise with George Clooney, which whatever you want to
Speaker 1: say about it, was a huge box office success purely
Speaker 1: because of the two star quality of the leads. What
Speaker 1: what Julia Roberts has, going back to our drag race
Speaker 1: conversation earlier, is charisma, uniqueness, nerv and talent. Actually say
Speaker 1: that she is the star package. And that's why something
Speaker 1: like my best Friend's Wedding, where I think if she
Speaker 1: had been played by a different actress who didn't have
Speaker 1: that real world connotation of being a movie star, of
Speaker 1: being America's sweetheart, people would have been against her and
Speaker 1: would have seen the way the movie ends as her
Speaker 1: like getting her come up and rather than the ending
Speaker 1: actually being in credibly sweet and pretty radical for the time,
Speaker 1: because the way the movie ends is that you know,
Speaker 1: this man that she's been trying to get marries this
Speaker 1: woman and she is left alone at the reception and
Speaker 1: her gay best friend comes and dances with her, and
Speaker 1: it's like this very beautiful, like um instance of you know,
Speaker 1: like a chosen family moment in a straight asked nineties
Speaker 1: rob car Yeah, and her as a movie starts. So
Speaker 1: what you're basically saying is like if the kind of
Speaker 1: Hollywood actress Pipeline was drag race, this current generation of stars,
Speaker 1: like the Emma Roberts so to speak, are giving Marsha.
Speaker 1: I don't know the Emma Roberts. I'm saying, Emma, Emma
Speaker 1: Roberts is giving Marcia Marsha. Marcia, and Julia's giving mystress.
Speaker 1: Julia is giving mistress. I would not. I would not
Speaker 1: in anyways. Um I yeah, No, I tend to agree
Speaker 1: with you. I think there's a there's a genisiqua about
Speaker 1: like what Julia and people like Julia can do that
Speaker 1: just like can't be done as much anymore. Well, because
Speaker 1: you think about a lot of her early roles and like,
Speaker 1: even though she became known as a rom com queen,
Speaker 1: her early roles were very sort of non traditional and
Speaker 1: were the things that maybe would lead to an actress
Speaker 1: usually getting pigeonholed, because like her first movie, if you
Speaker 1: look at her filmography, what is it her first well,
Speaker 1: I mean not her first movie, but like one of
Speaker 1: her one of her big break performances was Pretty Woman,
Speaker 1: in which she played a hooker. Yeah. And and I
Speaker 1: think in that in that same vein like the women
Speaker 1: that Julia tends to play are women that are, even
Speaker 1: though she's dropped dead, gorgeous like that must be said,
Speaker 1: women who are off the beaten path, women who are
Speaker 1: emotionally complex, women who will not be beholden to their
Speaker 1: you know, romantic um you know, co lead or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like she has this autonomy, this gumption, I think, um,
Speaker 1: and this kind of like you know, laughy sexy resilience. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean not even sexy as the iconic we smile
Speaker 1: is iconic, you know what. I think the thing with
Speaker 1: Julia is is that something that she does which I
Speaker 1: think we don't like in other actors, which is that
Speaker 1: she cannot disappear into a role. You always know, you
Speaker 1: always know that you're watching Julia Roberts. But with where
Speaker 1: with with other actors, that would be a negative with her.
Speaker 1: It's additive because you are so aware of who she
Speaker 1: is and she is such a magnanimous, like um vivacious,
Speaker 1: vibrant presence. I r l that she brings that to
Speaker 1: every role she plays, and she like fills it up.
Speaker 1: So even though she's not doing some like fucking method
Speaker 1: work where she's disappearing into a role and like making
Speaker 1: herself look ugly, you wouldn't want her to do that
Speaker 1: because that ineffable Julia Roberts thing that she brings is
Speaker 1: why we love her and why we want to watch
Speaker 1: it over and over again. Her playing different versions of
Speaker 1: the same woman, which is just herself. That's what makes
Speaker 1: her a star. And you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about the Oceans franchise, but it is why in
Speaker 1: Oceans I think twelve or whatever, it's so genius that
Speaker 1: Julia Roberts. And did you see Oceans twelve. There's this
Speaker 1: scene where she does she plays, you know, just a
Speaker 1: woman she plays, you know, she's a character in this franchise,
Speaker 1: and there's a scene where she pretends to be Julia Roberts,
Speaker 1: and that and the fact that she can't disappear into
Speaker 1: a role makes that element of the plot so doubly
Speaker 1: triply funny. Yes, it's so. I thought it was so good.
Speaker 1: But I also haven't watched Oceans in a really long time,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how I would think about it now. Well,
Speaker 1: it's also why she was kind of the only person
Speaker 1: in who could play her role in notting Hill. I've
Speaker 1: never seen. Okay, So I rewatched notting Hill recently for
Speaker 1: the first time since when I originally saw it. Um,
Speaker 1: which was like when it first came out, and it's
Speaker 1: not a good movie. And I and you used to
Speaker 1: used to love it, right, No I did not. Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought you had told me to watch it before.
Speaker 1: And so I like, I really love Richard Curtis, who
Speaker 1: is the writer director behind Four Weddings in a Funeral
Speaker 1: And like a lot of Grant's films, Um, notting Hill.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a very good movie having rewatched
Speaker 1: it recently. But Notting Hill is about this bumbling English
Speaker 1: guy played by Hugh Grant also doing this like Hugh Grant,
Speaker 1: like is the male Julia Roberts. You know, he plays
Speaker 1: the version of himself in all these movies and you
Speaker 1: think Andrew okay, okay, continue, So he is this like
Speaker 1: bumbling English guy who owns a travel bookstore, which is
Speaker 1: a thing that used to exist when you could not
Speaker 1: only own a physical bookstore, but one that only sold
Speaker 1: one particular type of books. And it wasn't like why
Speaker 1: a fantasy romance um And one day and erstwhile movie
Speaker 1: star played by Julia Roberts stumbles into the bookstore. They well,
Speaker 1: actually they stumble into each other. He pours coffee over her,
Speaker 1: takes her back to his apartment, and they fuck like
Speaker 1: immediately and then have this little love affair. And the
Speaker 1: only reason that movie works is because it's Julia Roberts.
Speaker 1: And you're like, oh, I believe that this isn't that
Speaker 1: this is the biggest movie star in the world, because
Speaker 1: she's being played by the biggest movie star in the world. Well,
Speaker 1: Julia can push emotional steaks in any movie, right, It's
Speaker 1: you know, It's so I maybe haven't watched enough Hugh
Speaker 1: Grant movies. I really feel like George Looney is like
Speaker 1: the male Julia Roberts, because I think Hugh Grant gives
Speaker 1: a little more like kind of like mumblecore, kind of
Speaker 1: Emma Thompson kind of like I don't know, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're not thinking about it's not because George Clooney
Speaker 1: was a TV star on e Er then. Really the
Speaker 1: biggest movies he ever made were the Oceans movies, and
Speaker 1: those were like his big crossover moment. Hugh Grant was
Speaker 1: the king of rom consent. He played the same version
Speaker 1: of every character and all these rom coms, and he
Speaker 1: ruled the nine in the same way that Julia Roberts did.
Speaker 1: And that's why, in a lot of ways, them coming
Speaker 1: together in notting Hill was the perfect marriage of the
Speaker 1: thing he did, which was star in all of these
Speaker 1: British romantic comedies that were like very smart, very quick,
Speaker 1: uh like a little sad um, and then the thing
Speaker 1: that she did, which was be the big Hollywood agastar,
Speaker 1: you know, like with the iconic head of hair and
Speaker 1: smile and laugh, and it was like on paper, the
Speaker 1: perfect marriage of those things in the movie does work
Speaker 1: because of them, it's just not a very good movie
Speaker 1: and not a very good performance of hers um. I
Speaker 1: think also because she's not playing exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: actress she was. She's playing like a serious actress rather
Speaker 1: than Julia Roberts. It's like not as maybe complex or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just not as Julia or something. There's also
Speaker 1: a scene where there's she goes to dinner with him
Speaker 1: and his friends and they're sitting around the table a table,
Speaker 1: all talking about why they deserve the last brownie and
Speaker 1: the way that they win the game is like they
Speaker 1: say how awful their life is, and like they all
Speaker 1: tell their like sob stories. Um, Hugh grant sister who
Speaker 1: uses a wheelchair like says something about how she like
Speaker 1: can't have a baby or something, and then it comes
Speaker 1: around to Julie rob She's like, well, I got all
Speaker 1: you gaged because I'm famous and like my ex boyfriends
Speaker 1: sell our stories to the tablets blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh no, baby, this is you actually still
Speaker 1: have a pretty nice life. And it is kind of
Speaker 1: funny because they're all like are like, okay, whatever, it's
Speaker 1: not that bad, you know. It's like when you think
Speaker 1: about like Julia Rolls and those like this era of
Speaker 1: rom coms forget forgive me. I don't actually know all
Speaker 1: of the chronology, but like it's kind of like Aaron
Speaker 1: Brockovich like to me stands out in a sea of
Speaker 1: Julia roles because it is romantic. It is part rom com,
Speaker 1: but it's illegal drama where and she is the beating
Speaker 1: heart and like primary character, you know, like she pushed.
Speaker 1: I mean that Aaron Brockovich is probably top ten for me.
Speaker 1: I've only seen it once. What I will say from
Speaker 1: what I remember is that I actually think that Julia's character, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Aaron Brockovitch was a real person, but
Speaker 1: the way Julia plays her, it's very similar to Vivian,
Speaker 1: the character she played in Pretty Woman, which is the
Speaker 1: sort of you know, like down on her luck, can't
Speaker 1: get any can't get anything right, can't get any luck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: woman who like is used to being seen only as
Speaker 1: a sexual object obviously, and like it's in a much
Speaker 1: more like obvious way and Pretty Woman because she's playing
Speaker 1: a sex worker, but it is something that she like
Speaker 1: as her career progressed inn do a lot, which was
Speaker 1: play like one of the people. Yeah, And in the
Speaker 1: kind of I guess sexiness of Julia Roberts that we're
Speaker 1: talking about in something like Aaron Brockovich or Pretty Woman,
Speaker 1: her sexiness is like I hate using this word because
Speaker 1: it sounds so loaded, but it's like non threatening. Does
Speaker 1: that even make sense. No, I get what you mean
Speaker 1: because even in so this like she's not sexy and
Speaker 1: that blonde bob you know what I mean? Like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because there's the scene in Pretty and listen, pretty Woman
Speaker 1: is a perfect I I love Pretty Woman so much.
Speaker 1: The first time I ever um went out um in
Speaker 1: women's clothing. I won't say like drag because like that's
Speaker 1: not what it was. Um. The first time it was
Speaker 1: for Halloween my freshman year of college. I was Julia
Speaker 1: robertson Pretty Woman in the blonde wig. Like that's because
Speaker 1: to me that was like she was the tannacle of
Speaker 1: feminine of like feminine beauty. To me, does that look
Speaker 1: even though she looks so much better when she takes
Speaker 1: the wig off, But that scene where she goes to
Speaker 1: the hotel with Richard Gere and she like gives him
Speaker 1: a blowjob where she's wearing that wig, it's like she's
Speaker 1: not sexy, and I actually she give him a blowing
Speaker 1: in that way. Yeah, she literally puts a pillow down
Speaker 1: on the floor and sits at his knees, And like,
Speaker 1: I think that's the point of the movie, is she
Speaker 1: is not sexy. They're trying to communicate as much as
Speaker 1: possible that this is someone who shouldn't be a sex worker, because, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's obviously problematic because she's like quote unquote
Speaker 1: better than that, and there's a lot of like like
Speaker 1: it was, yes, it was literally it was made in
Speaker 1: the eighties, but it's pretty transgressive for a romantic comedy
Speaker 1: of that time to have the leading lady beat excuse me,
Speaker 1: to have the leading lady be a sex worker. But then,
Speaker 1: the one scene that I do think is actually sexy
Speaker 1: in that movie is when she um Richard Gear has
Speaker 1: gone down to the bar in the hotel to play
Speaker 1: the piano, and Julie Roberts comes down in a bathrobe
Speaker 1: and Richard Gear asks all the guys who work at
Speaker 1: the tell to leave the room, and he lifts her
Speaker 1: up onto the piano and like opens the robe and
Speaker 1: like puts his head in her stomach and like presses
Speaker 1: her down into So it's so hot. So that's such
Speaker 1: a good scene. I'm so erotic. It's erotic. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and I god, I can't believe you've only seen aer
Speaker 1: Brock of wch once. I honestly feel like we could
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on erin. But you know we
Speaker 1: would have to bring Hunter Harris. I was just so
Speaker 1: about to say, like we we I wish we could,
Speaker 1: you know, pull out our Hunter Harris phone like allah,
Speaker 1: like power Puff Girls like Hunter get here right now,
Speaker 1: right now, because Hunter Hunter is you know, a noted
Speaker 1: a scholar of Aaron brockoviciology. Um, but that movie is
Speaker 1: I think encapsulates everything that Aaron Aaron, everything that juliacy
Speaker 1: she disappeared into shell. Um. No, everything that you know
Speaker 1: Julia does best in a movie which is like have
Speaker 1: this insurmountable gumption and and and create this engine with
Speaker 1: her face a own um and her hair, yes, and
Speaker 1: her hair and all of course Julia Roberts is the
Speaker 1: story of hair and her boobs as as Phoebe just
Speaker 1: chimed in to say, yeah, um but yeah, I I
Speaker 1: oh god, that movie Rose We have to rewatch because
Speaker 1: it is a stunning film, amazingly written, great legal drama. Um.
Speaker 1: Have you ever have you ever in your own life
Speaker 1: how an Aaron Rockovich moment where you were fighting some
Speaker 1: sort of bizarre legal drama, any sort of like did
Speaker 1: you ever like go to get into housing law, you know,
Speaker 1: were you over squatting? Did you ever have to in
Speaker 1: your name change or something like that. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about changing my name, but I don't want to know.
Speaker 1: Changing my name was actually like a very smooth process.
Speaker 1: It was really easy, and it does involve a lot
Speaker 1: of bureaucracy, but like it's actually the closest I came
Speaker 1: was when I went to get my name changed. So
Speaker 1: there is a requirement that you are supposed to publish
Speaker 1: your name change in a newspaper. And actually, like this
Speaker 1: is this is some t All the dolls in New
Speaker 1: York do it in the Irish Times because it's like
Speaker 1: the cheapest way you can do it. So it's just
Speaker 1: funny for me to think that there's this like small
Speaker 1: Irish newspaper that literally only exists so trans people get
Speaker 1: published their their like name changes and it's just like
Speaker 1: full of dead names. Oh my god. But when I
Speaker 1: when I went to um City Court to do this,
Speaker 1: what I said to the judge was I asked to
Speaker 1: have that requirement waived because at the time I was
Speaker 1: still a journalist, And what I said was, look, you know,
Speaker 1: like my name is out online and is connected with
Speaker 1: my dead name, so like they're kind of already exists
Speaker 1: this public record. And also if something were to be published,
Speaker 1: it might have like harmful consequences for me, just because
Speaker 1: I am like on a very minor scale, like a
Speaker 1: public figure or whatever. Did they and the judge did
Speaker 1: waive the requirement so I didn't have to get it published.
Speaker 1: So I did kind of have an Aaron Brockovitch moment.
Speaker 1: I love. UM. I was mulling actually on my own
Speaker 1: question and I can't I'll just I'll be extremely vague
Speaker 1: because you know, the tea, but I can't actually like
Speaker 1: fully talk about it. I somewhat recently, UM got a
Speaker 1: service done. And this very recently UM went to go
Speaker 1: do something, UM, who was highly recommended get a service
Speaker 1: done by from someone who came recommended by a lot
Speaker 1: of my friends. And this service was um botched for
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, and UM it was. It
Speaker 1: was very very difficult to go through because I actually,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't believe in in our legal system
Speaker 1: and I hate bureaucracy, and I also think that like
Speaker 1: suing people is like white people behavior, and so I
Speaker 1: just had to like go to this girl and be hey, UM,
Speaker 1: what happened is not okay. And these are all the
Speaker 1: ramifications that it now has on my life months out
Speaker 1: from this experience. And I don't believe in suing people,
Speaker 1: but I do believe injustice. And I need X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z paid for. And I got five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: You did, I got five thousand dollars. Yes, I did.
Speaker 1: I got five thousand dollars. And I let me tell you,
Speaker 1: I had to send some email length texts in order
Speaker 1: to get it, but I got it and um um
Speaker 1: no through Zel And so there was there was a
Speaker 1: written agreement, you know, there was some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: there was some kind of Aaron Brockovichian elements. So I
Speaker 1: felt very proud of myself though, and I also and
Speaker 1: I also did it in a way that was not cruel, right,
Speaker 1: Like I I said to this person, I was like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: I don't wish ill on you. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: like malign your business like I you know, I just
Speaker 1: one like to be well and I want my stuff
Speaker 1: taken care of. So this is what it's going to cost.
Speaker 1: Here is And I literally sent the invoice of all
Speaker 1: of the things that I needed to pay for in
Speaker 1: order to fix what had happened. Um yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1: I think the only the only difference between our stories
Speaker 1: and Aaron Brockovich is that she was doing this to
Speaker 1: help other people. We were doing it to help myself. Yes,
Speaker 1: but that was the beauty. It's such a it's a
Speaker 1: very satisfying ending. I won't spoil it if you've never
Speaker 1: seen Aeron Brockovich. But if you have never seen Aeron Rockovich,
Speaker 1: it's a very old movie, you can spoil it. I well,
Speaker 1: you can probably guess that she wins in the end,
Speaker 1: But like, come on, that movie is perfect. We have
Speaker 1: to rewatch as And it also is tied to the
Speaker 1: Real Housewives franchise because Erica Gardy's husband is the Aeron
Speaker 1: Brockovich lawyer. Yes, oh my fucking god. I always forget
Speaker 1: that movies that are not very good. I watched Love recently. Girl,
Speaker 1: have you when was the last time you watched that movie?
Speaker 1: I watched it once, like very long after, in theater.
Speaker 1: I did not see it in theaters. I was not
Speaker 1: part of the Eat, Pray, Love craze. I was the
Speaker 1: only thing I remember about it is that the food
Speaker 1: looked very good. I was basic mama, so I read
Speaker 1: the book when it came out, like I studied Italian
Speaker 1: diva like I went to Italy and I sat in
Speaker 1: the exact booth that Julia Roberts sits in in the
Speaker 1: best pizza place in Naples, and I took a picture
Speaker 1: of me laughing like Julia Roberts. You know, it's probably
Speaker 1: still on my Facebook. Um. I loved the Prey Love
Speaker 1: is on the movie, you know, was like Ryan Murrafeed
Speaker 1: But like I forgotten Viola Davis. Isn't that movie. I
Speaker 1: totally forgot what the funk? And this is what that
Speaker 1: movie gave us is um dog Days are over by Florence.
Speaker 1: The machine was used in the trailer and that is
Speaker 1: kind of the reason why Florence blew up in the
Speaker 1: way she did. What really? Wow, I actually didn't know that.
Speaker 1: And this was also which was the year of James Franco,
Speaker 1: and James Franco was in that movie. And god, that
Speaker 1: movie just was not very good. But I do that said,
Speaker 1: I do want to watch. I do want Ryan Murphy
Speaker 1: to direct more films. Ryan Murphy doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: doing anything else, anything more than what he's already doing. No,
Speaker 1: I think you should do films instead of TV, because
Speaker 1: I think that a contained story is his strong suit.
Speaker 1: I think like you know series, like they always get
Speaker 1: away from him because he's usually not even like working
Speaker 1: across them. Um, have you ever you pray loved? What
Speaker 1: was your bolly? Was it Berlin? Have I ever eat
Speaker 1: pray loved slash? What it? That really just means is like,
Speaker 1: have you ever like I mean, like flown internationally with
Speaker 1: a kind of um vague existential slash romantic driven like life? Um? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I guess I would say that, you know, like, um,
Speaker 1: the first summer I spent in Berlin, I know, but
Speaker 1: it was it was more of a um it was
Speaker 1: a snort dance fuck that yeah mine? Okay. I I
Speaker 1: studied abroad in London, and I'm very sorry for that sentence.
Speaker 1: Um I and that was probably my e pray love.
Speaker 1: But mine was not wait what did you say, snort
Speaker 1: snort dance fuck, snort dance fuck. Mine was not snort
Speaker 1: dance fuck. It was more like eat eat social anxiety
Speaker 1: like it. But you but you went for an academic purpose,
Speaker 1: So I don't actually think that fulfills the requirement. Love
Speaker 1: is like you're abandoning your life to do something that
Speaker 1: is purely for pleasure. So let me embellish I did
Speaker 1: abandon my life. I was at a university at Indiana
Speaker 1: that I hated. I had chased my friend there, and
Speaker 1: I you know, hated studying there. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: out as as soon as humanly possible and not spend
Speaker 1: any more time in Indiana. I was sick of most
Speaker 1: of my friends. I was sick of the curriculum, and
Speaker 1: I was like I had to un enrolled from my
Speaker 1: like university in order to take this like research class
Speaker 1: at University College London that wasn't even like you know,
Speaker 1: endorsed by like my my school. And so I really
Speaker 1: did go out of my way to like have like
Speaker 1: a kind of find myself moment. And this was also
Speaker 1: very important probably for you as well as pre iPhone.
Speaker 1: So there's a way more like I mean, this is
Speaker 1: probably I mean I don't know if this was for
Speaker 1: you because of the drugs, but like there's so much
Speaker 1: more um stuff going on inside of you when you
Speaker 1: don't have an iPhone, Like there's so much more inner
Speaker 1: You have so much more of an inner life. You're
Speaker 1: thinking so much more about yourself and your interiority. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I was doing the most drugs, I still had
Speaker 1: not oh okay, um so, but to that effect, when
Speaker 1: I did study abroad in London, I was is traveling
Speaker 1: every single weekend by myself. So I went to Italy
Speaker 1: by myself, I went to France by myself. I went
Speaker 1: to all these different countries, book festivals, a Robin concert,
Speaker 1: like all this different stuff, searching on my own for
Speaker 1: like the meaning of life, you know, like I was looking.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even looking for love. I was looking for
Speaker 1: for meaning out of my life, which is like, even
Speaker 1: though this E pray love is not very good, it
Speaker 1: is why I pray love was like such a mega thing,
Speaker 1: is because it was able to tap into this like
Speaker 1: white womanhood that I unfortunately was very adjacent to, um
Speaker 1: where and it's like all these there's a whole class
Speaker 1: silver hair. Yes, no, no, no no, actually this is pre
Speaker 1: silver hair. But I had self died a strip of
Speaker 1: my bangs with bleach and so and I have black hair,
Speaker 1: so it was like straw yellow. Yeah. So, but that
Speaker 1: I did have a straw yellow strip in a very
Speaker 1: long Rihanna esque bang because it was inspired by Rihanna
Speaker 1: and her hair at the time. Um but yeah, that
Speaker 1: was my that was my prey love. So if you
Speaker 1: were going to do and Eat Pray Love. Now what
Speaker 1: would it be? Where would you go? Very good question. Um,
Speaker 1: my instinct is maybe to say Mexico. I would love
Speaker 1: to do a Mexico tour because I haven't properly explored
Speaker 1: a lot of different cities throughout Mexico that all of
Speaker 1: my friends say are like cultural hot spots and nightlife
Speaker 1: hot spots that I'm like always you know, been adjacent to,
Speaker 1: have like followed artists and creators on Instagram that you
Speaker 1: know makes stuff there. I feel like I have another
Speaker 1: one that maybe will come to me. What would what
Speaker 1: would you say? Well, so I actually was thinking of
Speaker 1: going to Italy. I like was literally looking into booking
Speaker 1: a trip to Italy next month. I haven't I need
Speaker 1: to get off this continent international have not. I have
Speaker 1: not traveled internationally since pre covid Um, and I've never
Speaker 1: been to Italy. I've spent a lot of time in
Speaker 1: Europe and I have almost gone to Italy a couple
Speaker 1: of times, but I always said I didn't want to
Speaker 1: go just for a couple of days. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to do like a big Italy trip. But I actually
Speaker 1: think my Eat Pray Love is also a mom and
Speaker 1: me a moment. I need to go to Greece. Oh,
Speaker 1: Greece would be really good. Oh I could see that
Speaker 1: for you. Like I just want to go um and
Speaker 1: forget all my responsibilities and I just want to like
Speaker 1: go travel and eat and fuck and see ruins and
Speaker 1: art and go swimming in the Aegean Ce and like
Speaker 1: you know whatever. You know, I've never been to Berlin.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I should. Maybe Berlin it is my eat
Speaker 1: pray love. Yeah, but okay, this is what this. The
Speaker 1: thing is why I don't think that can be and
Speaker 1: eat prey love for you is because you will still
Speaker 1: find a way to turn that into an approximation of
Speaker 1: your life. Here. You will still find, you will find friends,
Speaker 1: you will network, you will check your email, you will
Speaker 1: see all these caustle. I'll be there and probably the
Speaker 1: same week that a bunch of drag friends are there.
Speaker 1: I I think for you to do a true e
Speaker 1: pray love, you need to go somewhere where you don't
Speaker 1: know anyone and just figure it out. I agree, And
Speaker 1: you should throw your iPhone into the ocean. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do that, because then how would I go
Speaker 1: on TikTok and find, you know, like the best place
Speaker 1: to go for dinner or whatever. Um, okay, so zooming
Speaker 1: out of this Julia convo, like what is what is
Speaker 1: Julia now? Like I feel like she's among these celebrities
Speaker 1: that are in press junkets being like there are no
Speaker 1: more stars anymore, like when Jennifer Aniston said in that
Speaker 1: a lower intervition that there and like I said before,
Speaker 1: that's the reason why Ticket to Paradise, which we will
Speaker 1: saw wasn't very good but still was a huge, huge
Speaker 1: commercial hit, because those are the last movie stars. Like
Speaker 1: can you name one, like a new IFH celebrity who
Speaker 1: is a movie star? No? You can't. Well, I just
Speaker 1: don't think. I mean, I I think there are tons
Speaker 1: of um new celebrities that are, yes, but but a
Speaker 1: celebrity is different than a movie star. I do think
Speaker 1: that there are people that come into this generation of
Speaker 1: movies and yeah, I would absolutely say they are movie stars,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to be movie stars like Julie
Speaker 1: Roberts ever again. And I think that that's part of
Speaker 1: Like I think it's like I personally like mourn this
Speaker 1: era of movie stars, but also know that like pop
Speaker 1: culture written large, especially in movies is always shifting into
Speaker 1: something that kind of it can reference the past, but
Speaker 1: it's never gonna go backwards. And so what I'm kind
Speaker 1: of thinking about, and maybe you can like noodle on
Speaker 1: it with me, is like, if we can never get
Speaker 1: Julia Roberts again, because we can't, like what, who are
Speaker 1: the new people that inhabit the same um spaces as
Speaker 1: Julia that make us feel the way Julia makes us
Speaker 1: feel on screen, Like I'm trying to think of, like, well,
Speaker 1: it's also about a business thing, because the thing about
Speaker 1: the movie star is that like why they exist and
Speaker 1: why they're they don't exist anymore, is a movie star
Speaker 1: as someone who can sell them a movie purely by
Speaker 1: being in it. That's why Ticket to Paradise was such
Speaker 1: a huge success, not because I had like an interesting
Speaker 1: premise or a good trailer or anything. It was Julia
Speaker 1: Roberts was in it, Cluney was in it. People were
Speaker 1: buying tickets, That's it. So that's why I think, like
Speaker 1: the closest thing we have to a movie star now
Speaker 1: who's like currently making movies would be someone like the
Speaker 1: rock I don't know, not interesting, not even like if
Speaker 1: you think about, like what are the biggest movies now
Speaker 1: Marvel movies. None of the people in them are movie stars,
Speaker 1: you were not like what movies outside of Thor is
Speaker 1: Chris Helm's worth making or Paul Rudd. They are not
Speaker 1: selling movies on their name alone. They're part of a machine.
Speaker 1: We're actually them as people are secondary to the characters
Speaker 1: they're playing. Like I would argue that the famous person
Speaker 1: is not Chris Hemsworth, it's Thor and he is part
Speaker 1: of a machine. Even someone like Chris Evans, who like yes,
Speaker 1: has done things like knives out like he is famous
Speaker 1: because of his proximity to the franchises he stars in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the Rock. I think the Rock, and like
Speaker 1: this like Marvel Universe thing is like totally accurate. I
Speaker 1: also think that maybe in a different version of this idea,
Speaker 1: I think part of the stars that could maybe do
Speaker 1: something that Julia does are the ones that are like
Speaker 1: as not online as possible. And I think that honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, this is stupid, but like Timothy shelle may
Speaker 1: or like or like Florence Welch, Florence Welch, Florence Pew
Speaker 1: are like I mean, now that she's had that, don't
Speaker 1: worry Darling Junkett. It's like that the mysticism has gone now,
Speaker 1: but like Florence Pugh could have been that girl, you know,
Speaker 1: like they're are just that are classically like there. Maybe
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say, because I don't really know
Speaker 1: if what I'm saying is accurate, but it's like there's
Speaker 1: a kind of attention to acting and everything they do
Speaker 1: and a focus on the acting that you know protects
Speaker 1: them because they're not on social that much, and so
Speaker 1: we're able to bring our opinion of how much we
Speaker 1: love this celebrity, like a Timothy. It's like I'm going
Speaker 1: to go see a Timothy movie no matter what. That's
Speaker 1: not necessarily true, but there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: where that is true for them. That's kind of maybe it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I do. I do think someone like
Speaker 1: Timothy is the closest thing we have to a contemporary
Speaker 1: movie star. But I do think you're right and that
Speaker 1: social media um keeps us from being able to abstruct
Speaker 1: the person from the persona and or or maybe there
Speaker 1: is a lack of I mean, it's funny because we
Speaker 1: were talking about this in our episode with Harry Enough.
Speaker 1: There is a lack of mystery around these celebrities. And
Speaker 1: I think that's why we don't have the movie star
Speaker 1: of at all, because Julia in her heyday felt larger
Speaker 1: than life in a way that celebrities simply aren't now.
Speaker 1: And but even though Julia was a huge tabloid figure,
Speaker 1: but her she only existed to us either in the
Speaker 1: films we were seeing, or on the red carpets, on
Speaker 1: the cover of magazines, or in the tabloids where we
Speaker 1: were getting the most sensationalized parts of her personal life,
Speaker 1: like Aloe Vera, which I think I told you about
Speaker 1: on the podcast before. Okay, so this is I mean,
Speaker 1: like very juicy um celebrity celebrity tabloid gossip. So Julia
Speaker 1: Roberts um fell in love with this guy who was married.
Speaker 1: I think he was maybe like a director, like worked
Speaker 1: on a film or something that she worked on, and
Speaker 1: he was married to this woman named Vera, and Vera
Speaker 1: would not divorce him. And so Julia Roberts went out
Speaker 1: in public wearing a T shirt that she had made
Speaker 1: herself on which she wrote a low She wrote al Vera.
Speaker 1: But it was like she was saying a low Verra,
Speaker 1: like like Vera was a low person or it was
Speaker 1: just like it was like stupid, but it was also
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, Like Julia Roberts is kind
Speaker 1: of a mean person. There actually, how are several stories
Speaker 1: about her having like run ins with the paparazzi where
Speaker 1: she has told them off and like, which we won't entertain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not being that's not being mean, Like
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure like being Julia Roberts comes with
Speaker 1: so much and the way she's hounded by the press
Speaker 1: and has been for almost her entire adult life, like
Speaker 1: will never be able to understand that. But what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is that Julia Roberts is not someone who ever
Speaker 1: gave unfiltered access to her life in the way that
Speaker 1: celebrities kind of have to do now, and so because
Speaker 1: of that, I think that turned her into a bigger
Speaker 1: and more mysterious and more magnetic figure that was like
Speaker 1: so separate from us in a way that celebrities now
Speaker 1: like think they need to be super connected to their fans,
Speaker 1: and maybe they do, But you know, Timothy Shalamay, who
Speaker 1: is I do think you're right, like the closest thing
Speaker 1: we have currently to and sendea, but like they still
Speaker 1: are they have social media and Mary there maybe not
Speaker 1: very online, but because they're definitely I think Zindia is
Speaker 1: an elusive Timothy is elusive, but they're definitely online. They're
Speaker 1: definitely online, I mean, and they're social media like truly
Speaker 1: only exists as a way to promote their projects. But
Speaker 1: there's still something where like you you can reply to
Speaker 1: one of Timothy's instagrams. He's never going to see it,
Speaker 1: but you can still do it. And like you can
Speaker 1: get Julia Roberts would never you could never get you.
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't engage with her. That is that
Speaker 1: is it. It's you. I mean, it's not even that
Speaker 1: it would ruin it. It's like you. It's not possible.
Speaker 1: It's not, it never has been, it never will be.
Speaker 1: You were, you will. The closest you could ever come
Speaker 1: to Julia Roberts is like if you went to the
Speaker 1: premiere of one of her movies and stood on the
Speaker 1: side of a barricade and watched her walk and screamed her.
Speaker 1: That's the closest you would ever get. Timothy Sham I've
Speaker 1: hugged him twice, Okay, say that you always say that
Speaker 1: because I have and I will and I will continue,
Speaker 1: I will get a third hug in, and when it happens,
Speaker 1: I'll whisper in his ear. This is the third time
Speaker 1: we've thought slide intowards MS and tell us what your
Speaker 1: favorite Julia Roberts role movie is. UM, who's your favorite
Speaker 1: movie star? Do you think there are contemporary movie stars?
Speaker 1: We want to hear your opinions. UM, let us know
Speaker 1: At Like a Virgin, Please rate and review us on
Speaker 1: Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really helps us out. My
Speaker 1: name's Rose Damn You. You You can find me anywhere online
Speaker 1: at Rose Damn You. And my name is Fran You
Speaker 1: can find me at friend, squish Goo any where you like.
Speaker 1: Like a Virgin is an iHeart Radio Production are producers
Speaker 1: Phoebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etre.
Speaker 1: Until next week, Our Revoir Virgins