Speaker 1: I am all in again. Oh, I guess you. I
Speaker 1: Smell pop culture with Eastern Allen and I heart Radio podcast.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's Easton Allen. I Smell pop Culture one
Speaker 1: eleven productions. I Hurt Radio, I heart Media, I hurt Podcasts.
Speaker 1: We're back. We're smelling pop culture. We're taking a big
Speaker 1: deep breath, and we're smelling another reference. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: to go so deep into a pop culture reference this week.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about it. So, you know, this one
Speaker 1: has to deal with what is considered one of the
Speaker 1: worst movies of old time, and I found that with
Speaker 1: these types of movies, they're often not that bad. Like
Speaker 1: there's a quote that says, the opposite of love is indifference.
Speaker 1: It's not hate. If you hate something, then that means
Speaker 1: you're giving it energy, you're giving it emotion, you are
Speaker 1: remembering it. That's the most important part here. I think
Speaker 1: truly the worst movies of all time are the ones
Speaker 1: that just come and go, don't elicit any reaction in you,
Speaker 1: that don't have any staying power. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: to the person who wrote a movie that's on this list,
Speaker 1: a movie that gets, in my opinion, an undeserved amount
Speaker 1: of hate for the last twenty years. And it has
Speaker 1: a connection to Gilmore Girls. I know that we're playing
Speaker 1: fast and loose with what connects to the show, but
Speaker 1: this does connect to Gilmore Girls, and we're going to
Speaker 1: go deep into the world of glitter right after these words.
Speaker 2: iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 1: Listen on the iHeartRadio app. All right, Wow, you know,
Speaker 1: every time I hear those commercials, I am just overcome
Speaker 1: with the desire to purchase, to spend money, to use
Speaker 1: promo codes. It's just so such a fun ride. This
Speaker 1: is Easton Allen. We're here on I am all in.
Speaker 1: I smell pop culture.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm the sound guy here. I always like we've been
Speaker 1: doing the show for a few years now, and I
Speaker 1: always make sure the Scott's microphone works, that it sounds good,
Speaker 1: that his computer works. I do all that stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: now in front of the microphone and I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: to be doing that, and I'm grateful for you guys
Speaker 1: to be in here with me. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I need friends. I desperately need friends, and you guys
Speaker 1: are my friends. Will you come to my birthday party? Please?
Speaker 1: What we're doing today we're really excited about this is
Speaker 1: I smell pop culture and we're going to dive deep
Speaker 1: into a reference from season two. So let's take it.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to season two here. This is season two,
Speaker 1: episode eight. The episode is the ins and Outs of Inns.
Speaker 1: Lorlai and Suki are trying to start their own in
Speaker 1: but Lourai realizes that she has to tell me that
Speaker 1: she's leaving her job to start her own to take
Speaker 1: she wants to take over the Dragonfly. In this episode,
Speaker 1: there's a part where she has to convince Fran to
Speaker 1: sell her the Dragonfly. There's a lot of moments like that.
Speaker 1: But while this is happening, Jess has been pulling some
Speaker 1: pranks around town. In this episode, he draws a chalk
Speaker 1: outline of a dead body in front of Docy's market,
Speaker 1: and since Luke won't do anything about this, they hold
Speaker 1: a town meeting to discuss Jess's crimes against the people
Speaker 1: of stars Hollow, and they're kind of going around the
Speaker 1: room and listing their grievances, like one person says he
Speaker 1: stole a nome from Babbette's garden. He set off the
Speaker 1: fire alarms at school and then Lorelai chimes in and says,
Speaker 1: I heard he controls the weather and wrote the screenplay
Speaker 1: to Glitter. The worst crime you could possibly commit is
Speaker 1: writing the screenplay to Glitter at this point in time.
Speaker 1: This puts a time stamp of when this was written. Glitter,
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar, is a movie starring Mariah Carey.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's kind of like a star
Speaker 1: is born. It's it's about Uh, it's a fiction. It's
Speaker 1: not about her life. It's a fictional story, but you know,
Speaker 1: inspired by a lot of her life. But Mariah Carey
Speaker 1: plays a character named Billy who gets separated from her
Speaker 1: mother at a young age. And then she discovers that
Speaker 1: she has a very powerful voice. And she hooks up
Speaker 1: with a DJ named Dice and they create a hit
Speaker 1: song and it kind of she kind of becomes the
Speaker 1: biggest star in the world.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But there are some challenges along the way. There are
Speaker 1: some relationships that go awry. I have watched this movie.
Speaker 1: I have watched Glitter. And if you want to watch Glitter, uh,
Speaker 1: it's on YouTube ad free. You cannot stream this anywhere.
Speaker 1: You can't rent it on Apple TV, you can't the
Speaker 1: DVD isn't available. You you got to watch this on YouTube.
Speaker 1: There are again, there are no ads. Uh So I say,
Speaker 1: have yourself a good night and fire up Glitter. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting. I was always aware of Glitter. Obviously when
Speaker 1: it came out, it was just the butt of the joke.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: The joke was that no one was watching it. And
Speaker 1: the reason no one was watching it is because this
Speaker 1: movie came out on September fourteenth, two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: and if you can remember back to two thousand September
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, something was happening in the country.
Speaker 1: There's a thing called nine to eleven that kind of
Speaker 1: changed the entire world, and people weren't really going to
Speaker 1: the movie theater, especially that week. So I think that
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with how this movie was received.
Speaker 1: I think if it had come out six months earlier,
Speaker 1: it would have been much It would have been held
Speaker 1: in a much higher regard. But Lorelei says Jess wrote
Speaker 1: the screenplay to Glitter. He didn't. He did not. He
Speaker 1: is a fictional character. He doesn't exist. If you go
Speaker 1: on the if you go on the Wikipedia for Glitter,
Speaker 1: it does say Jess. Mariano is the writer of Glitter.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonn to fix that. But the actual
Speaker 1: writer is a woman named Kate Lanier, and she is incredible.
Speaker 1: She has a huge resume. I mean, listen to these movies.
Speaker 1: She's written What's Love Got to Do with It? That's
Speaker 1: the Teama Turner story. Set it off with Queen Latifa,
Speaker 1: I mean set it off. That is an iconic, historic movie.
Speaker 1: She wrote Beauty Shop, another Queen Latifa joint, The Mod Squad,
Speaker 1: and of course Glitter. In two thousand and one. She
Speaker 1: wrote Glitter with Mariah Carey. I think that is incredible
Speaker 1: to collaborate with a star of that power on her
Speaker 1: first movie. So we're going to talk to Kate Lanier today.
Speaker 1: We're going to get the whole story behind Glitter. We're
Speaker 1: going to find out how it feels to be to
Speaker 1: contribute to popular culture, to be I'm going to break
Speaker 1: the news to her that unfortunately Jess actually wrote this movie.
Speaker 1: She did not write it. We're going to get into
Speaker 1: all that. I see Kate in the waiting room right now.
Speaker 1: I'm going to open the door here and let her in.
Speaker 1: Kaitlinear thanks to doing this. We're so excited.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm excited to.
Speaker 1: So I want to start at the beginning. You've written
Speaker 1: so many incredible movies. Your resume is just so impressive. Well,
Speaker 1: how did you first discover that you loved screenwriting? Like,
Speaker 1: how did you discover that passion?
Speaker 2: Well? I actually started as an actor. So I was
Speaker 2: in you know, a kid. I grew up in Harlem
Speaker 2: and you know, just because there was nothing, like, we
Speaker 2: just played on the street. So when I was like,
Speaker 2: I know, eleven twelve, my mom put me and my
Speaker 2: brother into different like free acting workshop things around town.
Speaker 2: So we ended up being in you know, The Sound
Speaker 2: of Music and all these like off off Broadway theater
Speaker 2: productions and then by so I did that kind of
Speaker 2: through high school and then I started doing some indie
Speaker 2: movies for like NYU has this great film program Tish School. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so I somehow hooked up with these guys who
Speaker 2: were making shorts you know, for their for their you know, thesises,
Speaker 2: and I ended up being in this movie that Alan Taylor,
Speaker 2: who's now a big director.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sopranos, stuff like that, right exactly.
Speaker 2: This was his first movie. It was called That Burning Question,
Speaker 2: and it was me and John like Guizamo and Andrew
Speaker 2: this other actor and it was like a thirty minute
Speaker 2: black and white but very clever, very smart, well written piece.
Speaker 2: Alan wrote and directed it, and that blew up. It
Speaker 2: was in the you know, New York Film Festival at
Speaker 2: one a Nissan Focus Award, and he had that kind
Speaker 2: of big picture experience at being flown out to LA
Speaker 2: and meeting you know, David Geffen and Spielberg and agents
Speaker 2: and whatever. Meanwhile, I had been writing some plays and screenplays,
Speaker 2: but just like privately, you know, like I just you know,
Speaker 2: just I had ideas because I'd been acting, and Alan
Speaker 2: very generously passed on a script that I'd written to
Speaker 2: this agent at Triad that he was meeting with, Rondi Gomez,
Speaker 2: and so she ended up calling me and saying, I
Speaker 2: love this. We can sell it. You know, here, make
Speaker 2: some changes and we can you know, we can sell it.
Speaker 2: So I didn't initially really go into screenwriting as like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be my career. I really thought it
Speaker 2: wouldn't be an actor, and then I just got diverted
Speaker 2: into writing, which now I'm actually really glad that I did.
Speaker 1: You have such a talent for it, but one of
Speaker 1: your first like big movies. Is what's love got to
Speaker 1: do with it? Tina Turner story? And you got to
Speaker 1: act in that one too, Yes, yes, I.
Speaker 2: Had a little small part.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: What was the experience like of writing that script? I mean,
Speaker 1: do you take this like iconic person and you have
Speaker 1: to condense their life down into a movie? You know,
Speaker 1: how does that work?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It was, Well, she had written a book it Tina, right,
Speaker 2: and but it was really dense, and I had to
Speaker 2: find sort of the emotional through line of what her
Speaker 2: story was, right, like going from this talented little girl
Speaker 2: to you know, her success, and then how she was
Speaker 2: going to essentially reinvent herself get away from I like
Speaker 2: I could. I just sort of could see the pieces
Speaker 2: of the arc of it. And so just picking out
Speaker 2: those those pieces and stringing them together right was was key.
Speaker 2: It was like being selective. But then also I did
Speaker 2: speak to her a few times and she I don't
Speaker 2: even know, I probably still have these in a box somewhere.
Speaker 2: She made type recordings where she would talk about her life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was like, well, when Tina was a little good
Speaker 2: and she talked about herself as a third person. Right,
Speaker 2: when Tina was a little girl, she loved to have
Speaker 2: a tall glass of milk after she came back from working,
Speaker 2: you know, and she she would like give, you know,
Speaker 2: talk about these little moments in her life. And yeah.
Speaker 2: It was fantastic.
Speaker 1: I mean, how lucky to be able to hear her
Speaker 1: talk about her in her own words and you can
Speaker 1: like learn her voice and like one incredible resource to
Speaker 1: have for working on that script.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you were on the set when they were
Speaker 1: filming that, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I thought, you know, my, it was like my
Speaker 2: you know, I'd sold a couple of scripts prior to that,
Speaker 2: and but it was really my first experience of having
Speaker 2: a movie made that had like a sizeable budget. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They were you know, the producers and the director. They
Speaker 2: were all like, come on, be on the set and
Speaker 2: if we need some rewriting, you're there. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is what it's like, you know, be a screenwriter.
Speaker 2: And of course that is no, it's like you know,
Speaker 2: in general, you know, directors and producers are like, see
Speaker 2: thanks for the script. Yeah yeah, later, you know, we're
Speaker 2: going to do what we want with it. So it
Speaker 2: was an amazing experience with the the two producers, Doug
Speaker 2: Chapin and Barry Cross were phenomenal and so smart, and
Speaker 2: I ended up from that movie Doug became my manager
Speaker 2: awesome for thirty years. Wow, were just retired, and he
Speaker 2: is like a freak literary genius. You know, he could
Speaker 2: like read something and figure out exactly you know, what
Speaker 2: wasn't working, what was working, and yeah, amazing. But I
Speaker 2: met him on the set you know, of What's Love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean, did you, uh, what kind of
Speaker 1: training did you go through to write these feature film scripts?
Speaker 1: Was it just like from being an actor or.
Speaker 2: H Yeah, I mean, I, like I said, I had
Speaker 2: written stuff on my own. I was an English major,
Speaker 2: you know, I did go I got a skullarp to
Speaker 2: college and I wrote you know, pros like fiction like
Speaker 2: short stories, right, But I hadn't. I think it's one
Speaker 2: of those things that you you you just get an
Speaker 2: instinct for. And I don't think I'm any more talented
Speaker 2: than the next screenwriter. I just kind of got lucky
Speaker 2: and who I met, you know, and how like where
Speaker 2: I was sort of placed in the right time, the
Speaker 2: right place. But I think also being an actor, you
Speaker 2: get a feel and I feel for like what works
Speaker 2: in terms of dialogue and character. So I think that
Speaker 2: really helps, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, whenever people say like, oh I was lucky,
Speaker 1: I was in the right place. There's a quote that
Speaker 1: I love. That's luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Yes,
Speaker 1: someone else could have been that exact same position and
Speaker 1: not done what you were able to do because you
Speaker 1: were prepared and you had all these experiences. Uh so
Speaker 1: let's you're just lucky, Kate. You you were you know,
Speaker 1: so you know, you do. What's love got to do
Speaker 1: with it is Angela Bassett's is a huge movie, and
Speaker 1: then what do you go straight from there? To set
Speaker 1: it off? Is that the next no I wrote, like.
Speaker 2: I think three movies at Disney, at Touchstone at that point,
Speaker 2: and then I got then I wrote set it off. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that I got that stat script was originally like
Speaker 2: a rewrite project, and the original script was not for women.
Speaker 2: It was completely different characters, but the general sense of
Speaker 2: it was, you know, bank robbers who are in a
Speaker 2: desperate situation in the hood, go rob banks, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: But the characters were like, you know, klios, like very
Speaker 2: much based on my sister Sheiba, right, who's like all
Speaker 2: boy and completely you know But anyways, the once we
Speaker 2: knew that Jada and Dana Queen Letsifa had had like
Speaker 2: joined you know, sign on, then it was easier to
Speaker 2: kind of figure out who the characters were going to be.
Speaker 2: And Yeah, that was great.
Speaker 1: I've always been so curious, like how you you know,
Speaker 1: because I know a lot of screenplays come together before
Speaker 1: there's an actor attached to it or something like that.
Speaker 1: But in this situation, you're able to kind of tailor
Speaker 1: it knowing who was going to be bringing this character
Speaker 1: to life.
Speaker 2: That's so cool, exactly exactly. I've had both experiences, you know,
Speaker 2: I've had the experience where you know, there's an executive
Speaker 2: at a studio who says, hey, we want a comedy
Speaker 2: for you know, X, y Z, Like can you come
Speaker 2: up with something for her or him? So you get
Speaker 2: sort of parames to work through, which in a way
Speaker 2: makes it easier. You know, you have like a sense
Speaker 2: of like, oh, I know what that actor can do, right,
Speaker 2: I know the kind of character they can do, so
Speaker 2: I know how to write this. Yeah. And then other
Speaker 2: times you write a script and you know you have
Speaker 2: no idea who they're going to cast. Yeah, No, it's
Speaker 2: completely different. Every project is different that way, you know. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at the point you come into Set it Off,
Speaker 1: you said you were brought in for a rewrite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did it feel to watch? Like, because you get
Speaker 1: you brought in, you put your spin on it. You
Speaker 1: kind of add, in my opinion, you add the elements
Speaker 1: that make it the movie that it is. It's a
Speaker 1: beloved movie at this Like, uh, so I loved Set
Speaker 1: it Off, like all my friends like still we talk
Speaker 1: about it all the time. So how did it feel
Speaker 1: watching it come to get like come to life and
Speaker 1: then watching it release in theaters? I'm so interested in
Speaker 1: that part of the process too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was amazing, Like, uh, you know, yeah, it
Speaker 2: was incredible. Part of I remember when they were shooting
Speaker 2: the rooftop scene. I don't know if you remember, it's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, four the girls were like on the rooftop
Speaker 2: and I had worked on that dialog, like had changed
Speaker 2: it like maybe five or six times, you know, because
Speaker 2: I wanted it to feel like natural but also reflective
Speaker 2: of who each of the characters were. But I didn't
Speaker 2: want it it didn't. I didn't want it to feel
Speaker 2: kind of stagy and like this is what I feel,
Speaker 2: this is what I you know, so I worked on
Speaker 2: that a lot and then that was I remember when
Speaker 2: I saw like The Daily's and the final foot I
Speaker 2: was like, oh that works, you know that it really works.
Speaker 2: And also, you know, the actors were all incredible. You know,
Speaker 2: every single one of those women was phenomenal. So if
Speaker 2: you had lesser, you know, lesser talented actors, it wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been the same same movie.
Speaker 1: You know, had you had you wanted to write like
Speaker 1: an action kind of movie like that before or was
Speaker 1: it oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh totally like I had wanted to do. It's weird
Speaker 2: because there is like kind.
Speaker 3: Of a a little bit of a sexist thing in
Speaker 3: Hollywood about like, you know, the people have broken through,
Speaker 3: definitely women who have broken through and directed.
Speaker 2: Action, but not very many. For of all, not many
Speaker 2: directors are women because the culture is, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're the director, you're the boss. You got to make
Speaker 2: all the hard calls, and like a woman can't really
Speaker 2: do that, right, So the percentage of directors who are
Speaker 2: women is this small, and the percentage of women who
Speaker 2: are doing action stuff, you know, for the same reason
Speaker 2: like oh can't make that call, can't do that, you know,
Speaker 2: thing I've always loved, like, you know, the ship I
Speaker 2: like to watch is like violent serial killers on a rampage,
Speaker 2: you know action. So yeah, I've always wanted to do that.
Speaker 1: Is there is there a style or like a genre
Speaker 1: of movie that you've always wanted to do and you
Speaker 1: haven't yet.
Speaker 2: Hmm. That's funny because I've almost done like every single
Speaker 2: genre except for like a superhero oh wow kind of film,
Speaker 2: Like I haven't done that, and I'm that I have
Speaker 2: a lot of curious curiosity about how you develop, like
Speaker 2: some of the good ones, right, like spider Man, right
Speaker 2: that the Toby McGuire one like is my favorite, and
Speaker 2: the evolution of who he starts out as and then
Speaker 2: becomes like, to me, that's such a great character arc.
Speaker 2: And you know there's something that's such a metaphor, right,
Speaker 2: Like superheroes are just like pure symbol, but you're gonna
Speaker 2: have so much fun with what they can do, right
Speaker 2: because it's so unreal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never done that.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't wait to see the Kittlinear created superhero.
Speaker 1: That's that's gonna show it exactly. We have so much
Speaker 1: more to get into with the great Kitlinear. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for for sticking around. We're gonna take a
Speaker 1: really quick break and we'll be back after these words.
Speaker 1: Kaitlinear is with us, the U screenwriter behind so many
Speaker 1: great movies. Set it off. We're just talking about what's
Speaker 1: love got to do with it? But now there's a
Speaker 1: big part of your resume that we have to talk
Speaker 1: about today. That's a movie called Glitter from Chasen to One. Yes,
Speaker 1: I watched Glitter for the first time recently, and I
Speaker 1: was I loved it. I thought it was great. I
Speaker 1: thought it was great because it has a reputation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I went in, like a lot of the movies
Speaker 1: that people say are like, you know, the worst movies
Speaker 1: of all time or whatever, I feel like they're not.
Speaker 1: Actually they're never that bad, Like like the worst movies
Speaker 1: are truly forgettable, you know, like you don't think about them.
Speaker 1: And so I went into I was like, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: let's just see what this is. And I was actually
Speaker 1: had a great time during it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me tell you the backstory please, Yes,
Speaker 2: Because all right, I was initially approached, you know, to
Speaker 2: write something for Mariah, not a biopic. She had an
Speaker 2: idea for a real story right about a character that
Speaker 2: was not her. And she was working and had been
Speaker 2: working for years with this acting coach, Sheila Gray. And
Speaker 2: Sheila is like a famous, famous acting coach. She's coached
Speaker 2: de Niro, you know, I mean, if you go to
Speaker 2: her website, right, you'll see her client list is unreal. Right.
Speaker 2: She was working with Mariah and they they were just
Speaker 2: you know, really getting into the craft of acting. And
Speaker 2: Maria had wanted to act from the beginning. So I
Speaker 2: met with Mariah and Sheila and the three of us
Speaker 2: sort of hit it off, and we had she Ryan
Speaker 2: had this idea of doing a real alan On story
Speaker 2: like a Star is Born, where like, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a couple and the guy's so heavy into drugs that
Speaker 2: everything turns to shit and she tries to save him
Speaker 2: and gets dragged down but then eventually has to walk away.
Speaker 2: But the way that we had conceived of it and
Speaker 2: pictured it and all the notes you know, I'd written,
Speaker 2: and we were really dark, really gritty. I spent two
Speaker 2: years with her, Like I was traveling with Mariah, like wow,
Speaker 2: oh yeah. We would come up with scenes and she
Speaker 2: would act them out. Here's the thing about Mariah that
Speaker 2: people always underestimate her. They think she's this character that
Speaker 2: she presents as like the diva, right, but she is
Speaker 2: one of the smartest, most creative people I've ever met.
Speaker 2: Like she's sharp and has brilliant ideas. Like she's completely different,
Speaker 2: you know, one on one, like she is really really
Speaker 2: on the ball and super smart, super creative, willing to
Speaker 2: do anything. You know. We would go like we were
Speaker 2: staying in some house, you know, a friend of hers
Speaker 2: house in Acapulco, coming up with these scenes for the
Speaker 2: movie Wow, which at the time was gonna be called
Speaker 2: like not everything that glitters is gold, right, working on
Speaker 2: this stuff, She's improving, crying sobbing, like we're doing all
Speaker 2: this stuff. And what happened was, you know, we we
Speaker 2: finished the script after two years, and Sony, the studio
Speaker 2: that I wrote it for, suddenly whatever they realized Mariah's
Speaker 2: audience is like fourteen year old girls, Oh so we
Speaker 2: have to make this PEG thirteen and they essentially cut
Speaker 2: everything out of the script. So it became like like
Speaker 2: when I finally saw it, I went and I saw
Speaker 2: it with Sheila in a movie theater and we both
Speaker 2: left like crying because we were like, this has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with what we originally had conceived of. Right.
Speaker 2: Not only that they released it like two days after
Speaker 2: nine to eleven, it is.
Speaker 1: It September fourteenth, I think it came out.
Speaker 2: It's like everyone was watching The Towers fall on TV.
Speaker 2: No one was going to see a movie. But anyway,
Speaker 2: So that's really the backstory, is that it was really
Speaker 2: compromised from what it was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: You know, I wish we could have seen that original version,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Yeah, I would. I mean, I'd love
Speaker 1: to read that script too, But I wish like that
Speaker 1: had been made because I I hear you talking about
Speaker 1: what went into and you can see kind of echo
Speaker 1: of that in the movie. Yeah, And that would have
Speaker 1: been such a more compelling story, I think, especially for
Speaker 1: Mariah to be.
Speaker 2: Totally totally and and and it would it would have
Speaker 2: been more, you know, distinct from her sort of singer persona. Right.
Speaker 2: She really wanted to do a character who goes through
Speaker 2: like something traumatic, right, Yes, and all that was cut out. So,
Speaker 2: I mean it's just what happens in Hollywood. You know,
Speaker 2: you have like people. It's that marriage of creativity and business. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's always one, right, because the business side is like, hey,
Speaker 2: we need to sell this to thirteen year olds fourteen
Speaker 2: year olds.
Speaker 1: So yeah, was it always going to be set in
Speaker 1: the eighties? Was that always part of the idea? Or Okay,
Speaker 1: I love that. I thought that was such a cool detail.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the music's so fun too.
Speaker 2: You know, only I worked in. One of the reasons
Speaker 2: is that we like I was a bar tender in
Speaker 2: nightclubs in the eighties in New York. Wow, like this
Speaker 2: club area, Madame Roses, the Palladium, like I bartended all
Speaker 2: all these different clubs, right, And it was such New
Speaker 2: York at the time was such a different scene because
Speaker 2: you could be like or dirt poor and have like
Speaker 2: an apartment on the Lower East Side and be an
Speaker 2: artist and be creative and you know, you didn't have
Speaker 2: to have a lot of money. So these clubs were like,
Speaker 2: you know, people like Zo Michel Bascot and Andy Warhol
Speaker 2: and mixing with like Fab five Freddy and you know,
Speaker 2: it was like this great mix of people who were
Speaker 2: all doing something interesting and creative but not necessarily like
Speaker 2: super successful yet you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you read do a lot of guys like
Speaker 1: Die the DJ?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly totally.
Speaker 1: Okay. So my favorite line from the movie is when
Speaker 1: they're they're making the music video and the director walks
Speaker 1: over while they're on the setter's confetti raining down and
Speaker 1: he says, the glitter can't overpower the artists. And I
Speaker 1: still have been cheered during that par I thought that
Speaker 1: was a great line. Yes, was that. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember or not, but like, was that that part?
Speaker 1: Was that anything? Was that? Did it come from you
Speaker 1: or was that a Mariah idea or Yeah?
Speaker 2: I I remember correctly, I had. We did like different
Speaker 2: versions of it. There were like three or four takes, yeah,
Speaker 2: where the actor tried different things, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like I had some lines written and then he also
Speaker 2: improv some it. So I can't remember like which of
Speaker 2: the takes was whose, But yeah, it was a general
Speaker 2: sense of that, you know, pompous whatever kind of director.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did it feel? The movie comes out? You know, again,
Speaker 1: like we're setting the context here. It's September. The soundtrack
Speaker 1: came out on nine to eleven. The movie came out
Speaker 1: on that Friday, and eleven was on Tuesday. It comes
Speaker 1: out on Friday. There's this there's a scene, there's a
Speaker 1: picture that goes around of like a glitter billboard with
Speaker 1: the twin towers like coming down in the background. It's
Speaker 1: this really powerful image. I mean, you're you're thinking, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: no one's going to go to the movie theater, Like,
Speaker 1: no one's going to go see this. The country is
Speaker 1: in such a weird place right now. But then it
Speaker 1: also gets this like it gets a terrible response from
Speaker 1: the public, like Saturday Night Lives making fun of every
Speaker 1: It becomes the butt of a joke. How did that
Speaker 1: feel as a you know, as the creative force behind it?
Speaker 1: How did how did how did you deal with that?
Speaker 1: I would have been I would have called new hole
Speaker 1: and never wanted to come out. How did you deal
Speaker 1: with that? At the time?
Speaker 2: What was it? You know? Because I at that point
Speaker 2: written enough movies that I'd gotten enough of a thick
Speaker 2: skin and the ability to detach, right because a very
Speaker 2: specific part to blaye in the making of a movie,
Speaker 2: and then the rest of it is out of my control,
Speaker 2: so you have to let go of it, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I at that point I was used to
Speaker 2: like having the leg even if I put my heart
Speaker 2: and soul into a script, I had no idea what
Speaker 2: would happen once I turned it over, right, So I
Speaker 2: kind of was used to that, but I will say
Speaker 2: it was devastating because it was something that I really thought.
Speaker 2: I really thought Mariah deserved to show her skill and
Speaker 2: her talent and her ability and also her creativity and
Speaker 2: smarts all of that, Like she really deserved that because
Speaker 2: she worked so hard. And so that was devastating. Like
Speaker 2: I said, I went, Sheila, and I went, you know,
Speaker 2: into a movie theater, thinking like, okay, let's just see
Speaker 2: it like very neutral, not a big red carpet screening.
Speaker 2: Let's walk into a movie theater and watch it with
Speaker 2: other people. We walk into this movie theater and it's
Speaker 2: wrecking empty because it's after nine eleve right, like no one,
Speaker 2: no one's going out to see movies. So we're in
Speaker 2: this movie theater, there's like two other people there, you know,
Speaker 2: and we're watching it and we both like looked at
Speaker 2: each other and started crying, just crying, crying, like and
Speaker 2: it wasn't about like the reviews or the reputation or anything.
Speaker 2: It was the loss of something that could have been great,
Speaker 2: you know. And so that was really that felt really
Speaker 2: sad and really tragic.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, Marie could have she could have had
Speaker 1: a like she's a great I thought she was a
Speaker 1: great perform in the movie, and she could have had
Speaker 1: like a Lady Gaga, you know style, like career. I
Speaker 1: think totally. Obviously, Marie Carey is doing just fine, obviously,
Speaker 1: but Joe recovery, She'll get back on her feet. But
Speaker 1: how much I want to know how much of your
Speaker 1: life went into that script, like other story?
Speaker 2: A lot? Yeah, yeah, a lot. I mean, just because
Speaker 2: you know, I had been like a crazy club you
Speaker 2: know kid. I mean I started like going out to
Speaker 2: clubs when I was like fourteen fifteen downtown. I started
Speaker 2: bartending when I was seventeen. I mean the drinking gage
Speaker 2: at the time was eighteen. So it was a huge leap,
Speaker 2: right to say, like, oh, I'm eighteen. No one was
Speaker 2: looking at anyone's ID at that point. But looking back,
Speaker 2: when I look at pictures of myself at seventeen, I
Speaker 2: look like I'm twelve. You know, how anyone could have
Speaker 2: put me behind the bar, I don't know, But yeah,
Speaker 2: definitely was a lot of There's a lot of sort
Speaker 2: of life experience in that in that era.
Speaker 1: Uh So there's a There's a social media site that
Speaker 1: I go to called Letterbox where people like rate movies. Okayeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're probably familiar Letterbox. I went on there to uh
Speaker 1: to log my review of Glitter, and I saw so
Speaker 1: many good reviews on there from people that are watching
Speaker 1: it now and people that are going back and be like,
Speaker 1: hey what is Glitter? Let's go watch it? And you
Speaker 1: go like, hey, this is actually this is a fine movie.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like terrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you have how often do you like talk to
Speaker 1: Do you ever talk to people that are like that,
Speaker 1: really like realize that you wrote Glitter and have something
Speaker 1: good to say about it or curious about it. Do
Speaker 1: you hear people come up? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Totally. There was the review of Glitter in the New
Speaker 2: York Times that came out like if you I don't know,
Speaker 2: if you can google it or whatever, it's actually pretty good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I can't remember who wrote it, but there was
Speaker 2: a there was a point that I met him, whoever
Speaker 2: that reviewer was, I mean it was this is again
Speaker 2: we're talking twenty years ago, and he was like, you
Speaker 2: know what, that was not a terrible movie like it
Speaker 2: has really been, you know, underrated, like it was not bad.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: We have again, we have more to get into. We
Speaker 1: got to take a really quick break here. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about Gilmore Girls. When we get back. It's Kaitlinear.
Speaker 1: This is I am all in. I Smell pop Culture.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after these words. Kaitlinear hanging out with
Speaker 1: us on I Smell pop Culture this week. So in
Speaker 1: season two of Gilmore Girls, they they mentioned Glitter, Laura,
Speaker 1: I mean character they're talking about Jess who is it,
Speaker 1: who is one of Rory's boyfriends at a certain point,
Speaker 1: and he'd been pulling a lot of pranks around town.
Speaker 1: There's a part where there's like a town meeting and
Speaker 1: everybody's going around listing all the crimes he's committed. And
Speaker 1: Laura Lai says, I heard he controls the weather and
Speaker 1: he wrote the screenplay to Glitter. And as we record this,
Speaker 1: if you go to the Wikipedia page for Glitter, it
Speaker 1: says the writer is Jess Mariano, who is the character
Speaker 1: from Kilmore Girls. And I thought it was so it's
Speaker 1: such a It makes so much sense to take an
Speaker 1: accomplishment from a woman and then give the credit to
Speaker 1: a fictional. Man, I think that, right, that is hysterical.
Speaker 1: I'm going to change it when we're done here so
Speaker 1: that it's accurate. But I did think that was a
Speaker 1: funny thing to notice, how I mean, like especially you know,
Speaker 1: after it came out, but like even still today, like
Speaker 1: glitter pops out, like you'll hear people reference it and
Speaker 1: in TV shows and movies and stuff like that. How
Speaker 1: does that feel to like have contributed to pop culture
Speaker 1: in such a significant way.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't really know, because there's also
Speaker 2: like this, you know, there's like also a group of
Speaker 2: like rabid glitter fans. Like there was someone showed me
Speaker 2: a website that was like, you know, it was a
Speaker 2: Mariah website and all these girls were like I love glitter,
Speaker 2: I love gletter And I was like really, yeah, it
Speaker 2: was really surprising. You know that people you know have
Speaker 2: very very mixed feelings, right, so it's waited then the
Speaker 2: people who love it. So yeah, it's it's a weird
Speaker 2: experience definitely, And also to have it it was it
Speaker 2: was such a quick sort of mention on Gilmore girls,
Speaker 2: but they're so snappy. Yeah, you sometimes missed stuff, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh wait, oh wait, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was been exciting to hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, you know, Gilmore Girls, we always talk on this.
Speaker 1: This is the Gilmore Girl's podcast obviously, and we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about you know that that show is about
Speaker 1: relationships between mothers and daughters. And I know your mother was.
Speaker 1: She was creative, she was a painter, she was an activist.
Speaker 1: Were you guys close growing up?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean she was a Holocaust survivor,
Speaker 2: so she was deeply troubled a lot of the time,
Speaker 2: you know, as people who've been through trauma, serious trauma are,
Speaker 2: but she always she focused that on into her art. Right.
Speaker 2: So as like my dad was writer, mom was a painter.
Speaker 2: Like not, they didn't make any money, you know, we
Speaker 2: were on like food stamps. But I did get like,
Speaker 2: you know, you can channel your feelings, you can channel
Speaker 2: your thoughts, your experience into art, right. So that was
Speaker 2: like a great, you know, great lesson that I got
Speaker 2: from her. And yeah, we were super close. She died
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, I believe at ninety two. Wow, And yeah,
Speaker 2: she was pretty amazing person.
Speaker 1: There's there's this there's a moment in Glitter that that
Speaker 1: got me in my heart where Billy played by Maria
Speaker 1: was talking about performing on TV and saying like, I,
Speaker 1: I hope my mom sees this and realizes that we've
Speaker 1: made it, because my mom will always be a part
Speaker 1: of me, right, and that that always, I mean, that
Speaker 1: stuck with me when I when I watched it. But
Speaker 1: is do you feel like connection you feel like connections
Speaker 1: with your own mother? Was that? Did that? Did you
Speaker 1: bring that relationship into that scene or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit. But also it was part of
Speaker 2: really understanding the psychology of people who get in that
Speaker 2: kind of elan on situation right where you are trying
Speaker 2: to rescue someone, okay, and a lot of times those
Speaker 2: are women or men who have been abandoned by their
Speaker 2: own parent right and feel or that parent was you know,
Speaker 2: not present mentally, emotionally, and so they feel like they
Speaker 2: need to rescue, right, And so that dynamic was what
Speaker 2: we were trying to go for in terms of abilities
Speaker 2: like backstory and so yeah, you know, I definitely related
Speaker 2: to that and have felt that and a lot of
Speaker 2: people I've known, you know.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate your vulnerability for sharing that. That's uh,
Speaker 1: it's incredible stuff. Before we wrap things up here, so
Speaker 1: you say you're a Girlmore Girls fan, Yeah, would you
Speaker 1: what would you order Luke's diner? What if you got
Speaker 1: to go there? What would you order from him?
Speaker 2: Oh? My god, Like, I don't know, pancakes or something,
Speaker 2: you know, some breakfast, Like there's always some great like breakfast,
Speaker 2: you know, a thing on the menu. I mean what
Speaker 2: I loved and what I appreciate about Gilmore Girls. I mean, now,
Speaker 2: since it's come out, there have been other shows that
Speaker 2: have done this, but Gilmore Girls really was the first
Speaker 2: show where women were not primit merrily there s sex objects, right,
Speaker 2: they were not just someone's girlfriend, someone's wife right on
Speaker 2: someone's they said, smart, witty, you know. Although it was
Speaker 2: you know, it was a little elevated for reality.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 2: You had the sense of like, oh, these are intelligent
Speaker 2: human beings. They are not just you know, the other half, right,
Speaker 2: Like there was something about that that was really surprising
Speaker 2: and new and hadn't been done really on TV, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's what hooked me. I was like, oh, okay, oh,
Speaker 2: it's not only about who she's going to fall in
Speaker 2: love with. I mean, yes, there were moments, whether there
Speaker 2: was a boyfriend or this, but that was not what
Speaker 2: it was about, you know, about their humanity and there
Speaker 2: and they're smarts and their intelligence and their relationship and
Speaker 2: so that was I thought something that was really new.
Speaker 2: You know, like most think about shows TV shows prior
Speaker 2: to that, like women's roles were really like either sexualized
Speaker 2: or minimal. You know, they were not driving characters for
Speaker 2: the action or the arc of the show, right, they
Speaker 2: were like part of some set piece of looking good.
Speaker 2: You know, not that of course, Gilmore. You know, both
Speaker 2: the women, both Rory and Laura, are beautiful, but that
Speaker 2: is not what they're about. You know, that's not what's
Speaker 2: going for them. That's not what the show's about. You know,
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I mean, we love the show for the same reasons.
Speaker 1: And you know, you think about like the Bechdel Test,
Speaker 1: and if for anyone ure's here's a white man explained
Speaker 1: to you what the Bechdel test is going to be.
Speaker 2: That's perfect.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what the Bechdeal test is, it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very simple test. You can put
Speaker 1: anything through that will tell you if it's and it's
Speaker 1: surprising how few things pass. And it's it's why there's
Speaker 1: two female characters that have a conversation about something that
Speaker 1: isn't a man. Yes, and it's wild how often things
Speaker 1: do not pass that exactly. Yeah, but uh but gimmergirls,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the story and that's why why
Speaker 1: we love it totally.
Speaker 2: And like young Melissa McCarthy, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah right she.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's always been brilliant, you know, like from
Speaker 2: the get go. I was literally just watching on YouTube
Speaker 2: if you google like funny outtakes Melissa McCarthy. There is
Speaker 2: the most brilliant like riff where she's clearly improving on
Speaker 2: This is forty right, that movie and as Paul Rudd
Speaker 2: and Amy I can't remember her the actress's name, but anyways,
Speaker 2: it is so brilliant because she's just going off on
Speaker 2: this insane tangent and.
Speaker 4: They're laughing so hard, like you know, you can hear
Speaker 4: the director yelling cut, but she's just going on and
Speaker 4: everyone is hysterical.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it's fun to see, like looking now seeing the show,
Speaker 2: like how young she was then and just fresh starting out.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where like you turn it on,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, most McCarthy, this is like okay,
Speaker 1: you know, this is early in her career. This is
Speaker 1: really cool to watch. Yeah, you you were working on
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff right now, and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about it just a bit here. So you've got
Speaker 1: a we call it a proof of concept, a short
Speaker 1: called Lucky that you wrote and direct. You tell us
Speaker 1: a bit about that.
Speaker 2: I mean, well, that came about because I really am
Speaker 2: sort of obsessed with this line between tragedy and comedy,
Speaker 2: Like there's a fine line, right, And I had thought
Speaker 2: of these like very sort of absurd, deluded characters who
Speaker 2: are actually kind of tragic, but then find themselves in
Speaker 2: this really comic situation, right, which is, you know, to
Speaker 2: make a long story short, they believe that this guy's
Speaker 2: actually a matred d at a restaurant and has been
Speaker 2: kicked out by he's sleeping in his car. But he's
Speaker 2: a good looking guy and they think he's Bobby Kennedy Jr.
Speaker 2: And they're broke, so they decide to kidnap him, and
Speaker 2: the kidnapping just turns into total chaos and it turns
Speaker 2: into a dance party. Anyway, that's the essential story of it.
Speaker 2: But the theme in the idea, if it were to be
Speaker 2: picked up as a series, is just the way life
Speaker 2: is so chaotic that your best laid plans, you know,
Speaker 2: are often, you know, often turned into something completely different.
Speaker 2: And I love the idea of these sort of cringey
Speaker 2: characters who are you know, like really clueless but funny
Speaker 2: and tragic at the same time.
Speaker 1: Clueless characters getting themselves into going over their head in
Speaker 1: situations is like my favorite style. I love, I love
Speaker 1: sort of. I can't wait to see Lucky as it
Speaker 1: becomes a serious because I'm going to speak it into
Speaker 1: the world. It's going to happen. Okay, Uh, you have
Speaker 1: a You've written a feature called Lost and Found. We'll
Speaker 1: talk a bit about that too.
Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of a story, like it's like a
Speaker 2: crash type story where you have very disparate like you're
Speaker 2: jumping from you know, a father and his son and
Speaker 2: the son's having a hard time in school, and then
Speaker 2: you you're jumping to a guy who's in prison, and
Speaker 2: then you're jumping to a woman who's a cop and
Speaker 2: she's alcoholic and she's you know, on a case. And
Speaker 2: the very different desperate characters end up impacting each other
Speaker 2: and changing each other's lives right in a way that
Speaker 2: is really surprising, And there are connections there that are
Speaker 2: really unexpected. So yeah, that's what it is, and it's
Speaker 2: very much it's not a comedy, it's very much a
Speaker 2: heart heartfelt piece. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean so excited to see everything coming from
Speaker 1: the world of Kate Lnear. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: hanging out with us today.
Speaker 2: Yes, I loved it.
Speaker 1: If people want to keep up with you and see
Speaker 1: everything you're working on, where should they go. Do you
Speaker 1: have a website or a social media You.
Speaker 2: Probably Instagram, which is you know at Lanear Kate there is.
Speaker 2: We're doing a website right now for Lucky, So that
Speaker 2: will be up and a few days and that will
Speaker 2: just be you know, Lucky, it'll say Lucky the film. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's you know, that's it.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, thank you again for doing this my pleasure.
Speaker 1: I have a great rest of your day. This has
Speaker 1: been so much fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. Hey, everybody, and don't forget
Speaker 2: follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast
Speaker 2: and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.