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Speaker 1: For years.

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Speaker 2: I think I've been like a Vulgarian, and I thought

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Speaker 2: it was waiting for GOODO. But it is not.

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Speaker 1: Only for Vulgarians.

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Speaker 3: It's whatever. Beckett did not like being dragged into the debate.

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Speaker 3: It just made him irritated. So people asked him how

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Speaker 3: he pronounced it. He told them to pronounce it however

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Speaker 3: they felt like it. But it's notable that in every

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Speaker 3: production he directed, whether it was here or in Germany,

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Speaker 3: or in Ireland or in England, it was always gotto.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 4: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Tuesday, October seventh, twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co

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Speaker 4: editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in

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Speaker 4: La He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around

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Speaker 4: the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,

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Speaker 4: we'll turn the mic over to my colleague Brent Lang,

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Speaker 4: Variety's executive editor. He interviewed Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves

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Speaker 4: on stage on Monday about their partnership in Waiting for Godo,

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Speaker 4: the latest staging which just began its Broadway run at

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Speaker 4: the Hudson Theater. That was Alex Winter. You heard in

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Speaker 4: the cold open discussing with Brent the pronunciation of Goddo

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Speaker 4: we also hear in this episode from Elise Schaeffer, senior

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Speaker 4: news editor in London, about the reaction in the UK

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Speaker 4: to the Ozzy Osbourne documentary that premieres this week. She

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Speaker 4: grew up in an Ozzie loving household in the Midwest

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Speaker 4: and she has perspective on what this son of the

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Speaker 4: UK's Midwest Birmingham meant to his fellow Brits and fellow rockers.

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Speaker 4: But before we get to that, here are a few

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Speaker 4: headlines just in this morning that you need to know.

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Speaker 4: The Motion Picture Association is not amused Sora too. The

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Speaker 4: video AI platform is fueling an explosion of copyright infringement

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Speaker 4: of MPa members work, basically clips from your favorite movies

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Speaker 4: being altered. The MPa put out a statement very late

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Speaker 4: East Coast time on Monday night on this aspect of AI.

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Speaker 4: The studio's interests are aligned with those of artists. Wholesale

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Speaker 4: reproductions of copyrighted material are not cool, As MPa chairman

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Speaker 4: Charles Rivkin says, quote well, established copyright law, safeguards the

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Speaker 4: rights of creators and applies here end quote. Obviously more

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Speaker 4: to come on this. A twenty four had a surprise

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Speaker 4: on Monday night for New York Film Festival attendees through

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Speaker 4: a surprise world premiere for the new drama Marty Supreme

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Speaker 4: starring Timothy Chalomy. Director Josh Safti told the crowd he'd

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Speaker 4: just finished the film at two am the night before.

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Speaker 4: Charlomy plays an aspiring Ping pong champion. The Safti brothers

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Speaker 4: are really having a moment. Benny Safti has been raking

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Speaker 4: in accolades for the Smashing Machine since the Venice Film Festival.

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Speaker 4: All of these stories and so much more can be

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Speaker 4: found on Friday dot com. Right now, now we turn

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Speaker 4: to conversations with Friday journalists about news and trends in

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Speaker 4: show business. Brent Lang did a terrific interview with Waiting

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Speaker 4: for Gato stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. I've been

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Speaker 4: saying it wrong all these years too, for those of

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Speaker 4: us of a certain age. The idea of the stars

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Speaker 4: of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure starring as Vladimir and

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Speaker 4: Estragon is a punchline from an old Johnny Carson Tonight

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Speaker 4: Show monologue. But it's happening Alex Winter, as you'll hear,

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Speaker 4: grew up on stage. Keanu talks about Comedia del Arte

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Speaker 4: and the real life friendship between these two comes shining through.

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Speaker 2: How did the idea of appearing on stage and reviving

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Speaker 2: the show come up?

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Speaker 5: I was in a hotel room around one am with

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Speaker 5: jet lag in London, and I was in the fugue state,

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Speaker 5: and then something came from the universe and said do

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Speaker 5: waiting and I said, GOODO. Back then waiting for GOODO

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Speaker 5: with Alex and so then I facetimed him and then

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Speaker 5: this part I'm about to make up, He said no,

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Speaker 5: it's waiting for Goato and I was like, cool, do

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Speaker 5: you want to do that play? And he was like yes.

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Speaker 5: Then we went on the journey to kind of make

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Speaker 5: the dream reel and Alex kind of spearheaded. He was,

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Speaker 5: of course being experienced with Broadway and he.

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Speaker 1: Was like a great idea, we need a director.

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Speaker 5: And Alex went on that and you know, gratefully we

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Speaker 5: connected with Jamie Lloyd and who's amazing.

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Speaker 2: So what made you think of Jamie Lloyd for this?

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Speaker 1: Alex?

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Speaker 3: He had done a lot of work with Pinter, who

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Speaker 3: was kind of the natural successor to Beckett.

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Speaker 1: But it also is a.

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Speaker 3: Real visionary and Keanu and I had spoken early on

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Speaker 3: about wanting to do a version of this that was

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Speaker 3: the sort of approached Vladimir and Estragon in a grounded way,

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Speaker 3: and so they felt like human beings are not like

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Speaker 3: kind of academic caricatures and a revered historical document. And

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Speaker 3: Jamie's work is very very good at both being visionary

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Speaker 3: but also being very true to human emotion and character.

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Speaker 5: I read Vladimir first and then I read estra Gon

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Speaker 5: and vice versa, just to see who would play who,

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Speaker 5: and we did that in one day, or Jamie to

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Speaker 5: hear that reading of the play twice, but anyway, and

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Speaker 5: we learned a lot that day, I think, And what

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Speaker 5: really came across was, and this is something Jamie remarked upon,

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Speaker 5: was that our friendship, our history together really suits the

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Speaker 5: play because of the friendship and connection and history that

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Speaker 5: the two characters.

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Speaker 3: Have, Like Kean, you said, and it's been an asset

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Speaker 3: for us in this play, which is very challenging to

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Speaker 3: have that kind of Shorthand are.

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Speaker 2: There similarities between Bill and Ted and Beckett. What ways

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Speaker 2: was your experience on those films helpful when it came

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Speaker 2: to doing this production?

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Speaker 5: Gosh, which one do you, rud? I'll speak about the physical.

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Speaker 5: I mean when we did Bill and Ted, we both

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Speaker 5: kind of fell into like a classical approach in terms

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Speaker 5: of panto or comedia de la arte, you know, and

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Speaker 5: then making these characters flesh and blood.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure if it's Bill and Ted as much

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Speaker 3: as a consistency between Keanue and I and Bill and

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Speaker 3: Ted and these guys. But I always say that the

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Speaker 3: only real difference between Bill and Ted is that Bill

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Speaker 3: thinks he knows everything and it's absolutely no idea about anything,

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Speaker 3: and Ted doesn't think he knows anything but actually always

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Speaker 3: knows what's going on. And Vladimir and Astrogon are very similar.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the plays arc such as there is one

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Speaker 3: is sort of Vladimir coming around to understanding Estragon's point

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Speaker 3: of view, which in the.

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Speaker 1: Case of this play is quite tragic.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of Kianu and Estragon, and there's a

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Speaker 3: fair amount of me in Vladimir, so and that carries

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Speaker 3: through the Bill and Ted movies.

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Speaker 2: How difficult is it to learn the lines because you

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Speaker 2: know the dialogue is kind of elliptical.

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Speaker 3: Yes it is. It's it's a monster. I mean it's

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Speaker 3: it's a monster of memorization because it defies Beckett is

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Speaker 3: a cheeky bugger, and it defies logic intentionally, like there

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Speaker 3: are sand traps in every line, almost like no, you

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Speaker 3: think it's going this way, No, it's going to invert.

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Speaker 3: And I found for myself the way I ended up

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Speaker 3: memorizing was almost more like memorizing a piece of music,

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Speaker 3: like it's this rhythm, it's that's how for me, that's

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Speaker 3: why Gotto made so much sense, because gotto potso go

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Speaker 3: go all of those rhyme and I would keep hitting

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Speaker 3: a brick wall if it was like Potso go go goodo.

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Speaker 1: I was like, well that doesn't work, you know.

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Speaker 3: So it's a lot of its alliteration in rhythm and

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Speaker 3: rhyme and repetition, and a consonant starts here and then

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Speaker 3: it repeats there. It's bananas.

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Speaker 2: Do you find yourself just thinking about the lines constantly?

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Speaker 5: Even now? Oh yeah, this for me, I mean I

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Speaker 5: think for you as well, Alex, if I can speak

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Speaker 5: for you, The life and art intersectionalization of this play

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Speaker 5: is quite strong, and it's also fun. I mean, part

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Speaker 5: of the process is trying to get comfortable internalized lines,

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Speaker 5: what do they mean? And so I know for me,

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Speaker 5: you'll you'll be in a moment and you'll just come

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Speaker 5: up to like nothing to be done, or off we.

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Speaker 3: Go, or you kind of end up living, dreaming, sleeping,

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Speaker 3: reciting the dialogue all the time, all day every day.

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Speaker 1: We're just kind of in god ittle man.

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Speaker 5: And Jamie, you know, was saying in rehearsal, like it's

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Speaker 5: a play of three thousand moments.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so he kind of gave us the heads up.

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Speaker 2: He's like, it's going to be.

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Speaker 5: This moment, then this moment, this moment, then this moment,

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Speaker 5: this moment, and you must be precise, confident and commit.

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Speaker 1: The upside of that is it doesn't get wrote.

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Speaker 3: I grew up doing long running Broadway shows, and you

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Speaker 3: would shows where you're on stage every night, it shows

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Speaker 3: a week for like three years, and you'd get bored.

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Speaker 2: You were in Peter Pan and and.

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Speaker 3: You'd be like, gosh, I've done this so many flipping times,

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Speaker 3: like how do I find a way into this.

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Speaker 1: That's not rote? That is so not going to happen

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Speaker 1: on this show. But just not. It's just every night

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Speaker 1: is like, oh God, okay, let's go boom, you know.

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Speaker 2: You, let's go do.

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Speaker 1: Let's god, let's god do.

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Speaker 3: Players does signed as a trap for the characters and

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Speaker 3: the audience, and it feels that way, but it doesn't

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Speaker 3: feel oppressive to act in. Yeah, it's interesting. It's a

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Speaker 3: brilliant design.

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Speaker 1: I have to say.

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Speaker 2: The play is very funny, but it is at some

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Speaker 2: level about refugees and some unseen conflict. I mean, did

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Speaker 2: it feel kind of pressure more topical than you'd remembered.

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Speaker 5: It is timeless, and it's talking about the human condition

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Speaker 5: and human experience that doesn't seem to change much. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: I mean even has the line in the play let's

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Speaker 5: not talk of the past generations now, let's not talk

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Speaker 5: about the present. Let's not talk about it at all.

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Speaker 5: But what that intimates to me is also that the conflicts,

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Speaker 5: the questions, the relationships, our friendships are universal and through time.

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Speaker 5: And so a play to me is one of those

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Speaker 5: classics that can all be topical and finds itself quite

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Speaker 5: topical today.

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Speaker 1: It's heavy, you know.

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Speaker 3: I mean, sure there's funny moments in it, but the

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Speaker 3: play is you know, came out of Beckett on the

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Speaker 3: run from the Nazis Durer world War two and he was.

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Speaker 1: In the French resistance.

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Speaker 3: And you know, we're obviously refugees, and we're obviously in

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Speaker 3: some autocratic or fascist environment. That's dangerous. And you know

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Speaker 3: Keanu's point, that's a timeless thing. You know, we have

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Speaker 3: existed through time. We're in kind of a time slip.

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Speaker 3: We talk a lot about time being stopped and wanting

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Speaker 3: to un moore ourselves from time. So the idea is

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Speaker 3: very is very universal, but it is very timely. To

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Speaker 3: say yes to doing this play is no joke and

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Speaker 3: I'm glad we had three years to get prepared for it.

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Speaker 1: It's like climbing Mount.

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Speaker 5: Everest every night.

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Speaker 4: Now we'll hear from Alice Shaeffer in London about the

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Speaker 4: reaction in England to this week's release of Ozzy No

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Speaker 4: Escape from Now. It's a documentary about the final years

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Speaker 4: of Ozzy Osbourne's life as he battled illness and the

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Speaker 4: march of time after a life lived on stage. Lee Shaeffer,

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Speaker 4: thanks so much for joining me.

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Speaker 6: You're welcome, happy to be here.

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Speaker 1: Elise.

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Speaker 4: You are well established on the variety masthead as a big,

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Speaker 4: big music buff and you reacted like much of the

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Speaker 4: world in July when Ozzy Osbourne died at the age

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Speaker 4: of seventy six after a life lived in public and

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Speaker 4: especially the last couple of years were pretty hard with

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Speaker 4: some illness. This week has seen the premiere of a

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Speaker 4: documentary on the famous Black Sabbath front man and solo

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Speaker 4: artist for many years. That was just so timely because

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Speaker 4: it was in post production as he went into his

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Speaker 4: decline an unexpectedly died during the post productions. I can

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Speaker 4: tell from your coverage and the coverage of others in

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Speaker 4: our London bureau, this has really been a This has

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Speaker 4: been a huge moment for the UK. Ozzy Osbourne was

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Speaker 4: a proud son of Birmingham. As someone who grew up

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Speaker 4: with him, appreciated him as somebody that your parent liked

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Speaker 4: and oh my god, this music actually is cool. What

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Speaker 4: was it like for you to be there in the

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Speaker 4: UK and process how the nation was losing the favorite son.

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Speaker 6: My dad from a very young age showed me all

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Speaker 6: of his favorite bands and he was very into the

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Speaker 6: hair metal scene in the seventies and eighties and big

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Speaker 6: Sabbath fan. So I grew up listening to Ozzie, watching

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Speaker 6: Ozzie's reality show all of that, and I actually was

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Speaker 6: with him when we found out the news.

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Speaker 1: In London.

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Speaker 6: They were here to see another iconic British band, Oasis,

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Speaker 6: and we just sat down for a really lovely steakhouse

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Speaker 6: dinner sort of about a very classic London establishment, and

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Speaker 6: there was actually a sign that said no phones, so

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Speaker 6: we were all unplugging, having our stake, and a man

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Speaker 6: next us at the table next us glanced down at

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Speaker 6: his Apple Watch and audibly gasped and said, Ozzy Osbourne

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Speaker 6: just died and kind of announced it to this restaurant

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Speaker 6: and just seeing the reaction of everybody in there. It

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Speaker 6: was mostly Brits in there besides us, and everybody got

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Speaker 6: a little emotional, but we all sort of bonded in

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Speaker 6: that moment over finding out this news together and the

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Speaker 6: rest of the dinner we talked to the table next

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Speaker 6: to us, we talked to each other and just shared

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Speaker 6: memories of Ozzy and, like you said, truly just such

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Speaker 6: a beloved figure, not only in the UK but around

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Speaker 6: the world, but especially here. He is this hometown hero.

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Speaker 6: He was a working class man, grew up in Birmingham

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Speaker 6: and just truly rose to such great heights, but did struggle,

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Speaker 6: struggled with substance abuse, got famously fired from Black Sabbath

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Speaker 6: in seventy nine because of that, and then was also

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Speaker 6: a reality tea pioneer. I mean, there's so many facets

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Speaker 6: to Ozzie and of course his enduring love for Sharon,

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Speaker 6: and we really get to see all of that in

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Speaker 6: this paramount plus documentary that is out. It's titled No

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Speaker 6: Escape from Now and really just gives such an intimate,

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Speaker 6: close up look at the past six years of his life,

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Speaker 6: which he's undergone a ton of health struggles. One of

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Speaker 6: the biggest things I took away watching this documentary is

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Speaker 6: just how much he was unfortunately in pain, but also

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Speaker 6: how much wanting to get back on the stage really

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Speaker 6: drove him. It's so sad but also beautiful and poetic

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Speaker 6: that he did pass away just a couple weeks after

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Speaker 6: his final concert. I think that he had to do that,

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Speaker 6: he had to make it for that, and then he

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Speaker 6: was able to let gov. It's a beautiful story.

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Speaker 4: Our coverage describes that Billy Corgan, so many other musicians

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Speaker 4: came out to make sure that he could have his

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Speaker 4: last show. We saw something similar around Chris Christopherson a

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Speaker 4: couple of years ago before he passed. Roseanne Cash literally

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Speaker 4: walked him out on stage so he could have that moment.

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Speaker 4: Your heart catches when you see that and to see

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Speaker 4: that kind of love. Ozzy, for all of his theatrics

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Speaker 4: in the eighties and the crazy hair and all the

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Speaker 4: showmanship and the pyrotechnics, he always had the respect of

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Speaker 4: musicians because the music was always there, always pushing the envelope.

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Speaker 4: And boy, I remember the Osbourne's. I can just tell

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Speaker 4: you MTV had no idea what they had. If anybody

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Speaker 4: tells you that it's revisionist history, from night one of

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Speaker 4: that show, you realize that not only was it a

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Speaker 4: new era for Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne and their kids,

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Speaker 4: but it was a new era for television in terms

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Speaker 4: of putting a lens on a famous family. But I

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Speaker 4: digress from the main point that the gen xer and

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Speaker 4: me must make, which is when I was in junior

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Speaker 4: high and early high school, there was no every kid

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Speaker 4: mostly boys, but some girls had the jersey shirt, the

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Speaker 4: Ozzy Osbourne classic black and white jersey shirt. If you

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Speaker 4: didn't have one, you did not have social status. It

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Speaker 4: was either Ozzy or def Leppard. British bands were having

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Speaker 4: a moment back then there in the early eighties.

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Speaker 6: This documentary. They didn't know that he was going to pass.

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Speaker 6: They were in the middle of editing when that happened.

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Speaker 6: The director Tanya Alexander. She mentioned that it was a

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Speaker 6: decision they had to make whether or not to push

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Speaker 6: forward with the documentary, but Sharon told them that they

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Speaker 6: needed to keep going.

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Speaker 4: And to your other point, a life on stage takes

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Speaker 4: a physical toll. I can only imagine what the inside

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Speaker 4: of Ozzy's throat looked like. Polyps, throat cancer. That's very real. Again,

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Speaker 4: a lifetime on stage and in the public eye. Well

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Speaker 4: at least, thank you so much for coming to us

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Speaker 4: from a soundproof booth in the basement of our London office.

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Speaker 6: Thank you, and rock on.

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Speaker 4: That's what Ozzie would want. As we close out today's episode,

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Speaker 4: here's a few things we're watching for Today marks two

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Speaker 4: years since the Hamas terror attacks that ignited the war

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Speaker 4: in Gaza. There are two dramas premiering tonight that address

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Speaker 4: this Somber anniversary Tonight on HBO max Is one day

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Speaker 4: in October on Paramount Plus, there's Red Alert Reviews of

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Speaker 4: both can be found on Variety dot com. As for Variety,

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Speaker 4: We're gearing up next week for activity at two events

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Speaker 4: that start with the letter m MIPCOM, the International Content

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Speaker 4: Sales Gathering in can France and Middelburg, the Film Festival

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Speaker 4: in Virginia. More to come on both before we go.

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Speaker 4: Congrats to Louis Provost. He's joined Sony Pictures as executive

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Speaker 4: vice president of Production. He's spent the last fifteen plus

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Speaker 4: years at Walt Disney Studios. Thanks for listening. This episode

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Speaker 4: was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions

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Speaker 4: from Brent Lang and Alish Schaeffer. Stick Snack's hick Picks.

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Speaker 4: Please leave us a review with the podcast platform of

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Speaker 4: your choice, and please tune in tomorrow for another episode

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Speaker 4: of Daily Variety