Mamamia Out Loud: Hollywood Has A New Difficult Woman

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are talking about on Wednesday, the 22nd of March.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm a writer and a host and an executive editor here at Mamma Mia and I really like all those

basic TV shows that everybody else likes and Gwyneth and that's the sound of me ducking

for God.

I'm Mia Friedman.

I'm the co-founder at Mamma Mia and I can't think of anything else to say except I own

the same shirt Jesse's wearing right now.

I was worried Mia was going to wear it and then I was going to pick a fight because I

was going to say I have so many less clothes than you and I have three things to choose

from.

I'm Jesse Stevens.

I am an executive editor at Mamma Mia.

I am an author.

I do a few other things.

How many weeks pregnant?

Twenty-five-ish, I think.

Way more than halfway, so exciting.

And on the show today, Rupert Murdock is trying to beat me to the altar announcing this week

that he's getting married for the fifth time at 92 years old.

The question is what drives a post-divorce proposal?

Plus, should Molly Meldrum just stay home?

A video went viral this week taken by someone at a concert and we have some thoughts.

And a young actress has become very unpopular in Hollywood for openly questioning the writing

on her hit show.

So is Wednesday's Jenna Ortega the new Catherine Heigl?

And is it fair enough?

But first, in case you missed it, it's been a week for Gwyneth Paltrow.

First, she had to defend not eating food.

Now she's having to defend slamming into a dude on the ski field, actually literally

defend herself in court.

Holly, how are we only just finding out about this?

I know.

Where have we been?

So this is the case of Terry Sanderson versus Gwyneth Paltrow, case number 190500048, beginning

trial here today.

It's really very unfair for Gwyneth because she's had to travel to Utah for the trial

and everyone knows that going to Utah when it's not ski season is not on brand for goop.

No.

No, it's really not.

But she is there and she's wearing, I'm just checking my notes for the fashion update,

she is wearing a beige knit tweed harem pants and aviator style reading glasses.

I tuned in live to the court.

You didn't.

You did, yes.

Oh my God, she's there.

Don't you want to talk more about what she's wearing?

Because what she's wearing, you described it, but it actually is such a flex because

she looks like she's in a ski chalet.

She's wearing like a cream-coloured cashmere oversized roll neck jumper.

Roll neck jumper.

Like the kind of thing that Diane Keaton would wear in a Nancy Meyers movie.

The mortals among us could never wear such a colour or such a knit because we would ruin

it.

It's beautiful.

But you get food on it.

No, but I don't mean that.

You don't wear that to court.

Like you wear a shirt, you wear a jacket, you don't wear grandma coastal chic to court.

You know that Mia is the expert in decoding clothes, so I'm very willing to defer to her

on that.

But what Gwyneth is there accused of is that, and this is what the attorney for retired optometrist

Terry Sanderson, who's 76 says, that back in 2016, Gwyneth caused his client serious

injury and didn't really care.

He said Gwyneth Paltrow, skied out of control, knocking him down hard, knocking him out and

causing a brain injury for broken ribs and other serious injuries.

Paltrow got up, turned and skied away, leaving Sanderson stunned.

I'm not laughing.

It's just the hyperbole of the language, stunned, lying in the snow, seriously injured.

Gwyneth says BS, the case continues, passed the popcorn.

Bit more.

He was trying to sue her for $3 million.

I watched it, right?

God.

And I saw a little snippet of an interview with him.

Didn't he get a brain injury?

Yeah, but when you say brain injury, there's lots of different types of brain injury.

So it's not like he's incapacitated.

He's obviously claiming medically that he's got some problems.

So this has been going on since 2019 that Judge said you can't sue for $3.1 million.

You can sue for about 10% of that.

So he's suing for about $300,000 and she's countersuing for $1.

And she said he's just taking advantage of her celebrity.

Now the timing of everything that's been happening in the last week is unfortunate because if

I were his lawyers, I would be saying she was hungry.

She was malnourished.

She was lightheaded.

She was fasting.

And she just was reckless.

Two things I love most about this story.

First, the image of Gwyneth Pato smiling to herself, floating down a ski slope, oblivious

to the world around her, hitting random men.

It's so Gwyneth to just be hitting ordinary people as she goes down a ski slope at her

fancy chalet.

Second detail I love is that he might be 76, but this detail has been in every report.

He's a retired optometrist.

What I'm getting from that is that Terry has great vision.

And so the collision was Gwyneth's fault because he might be older, but I read that

in Go.

He's got a great set of eyes on him.

He saw her coming.

She didn't see him because she is oblivious.

Rupert Murdock is a busy boy.

He is, of course, the man who owns all the media in the world.

His company News Corp owns news.com, Foxtel, Sky News, Binge, the Australian, the list

goes on.

And Murdock himself is worth about 25 billion Australian dollars.

But he's a man driven by love.

Such an old romantic.

Yes, he's an old romantic.

He's 92 and he finalised his divorce with wife Jerry Hall in August 2022.

One month later, he met a woman and her name is Ann Leslie Smith.

She's 66 and this week he was overcome and he proposed to her.

He said he was nervous.

He was so nervous.

It was only the sixth time he'd done it.

He shared the news that we know of.

He shared the news with New York Post.

That's true.

I don't know who turned him down.

He owns that publication and said he personally selected the ring in New York City on St Patrick's

Day.

He added that he was nervous, but he was confident that this marriage would be his last.

They are planning to marry in the next few months.

Yeah, better hurry up.

In fact, this is Murdock's fifth marriage.

I said sixth.

No, this is his fifth.

That is an important detail.

There was a column in the age yesterday by Samantha Selinger Morris that asked what drives

a post-divorce proposal.

And she examined whether there are any drivers that a person should be concerned about.

So she makes the point too that he married Wendy Ding in 1999 and that was only 17 days

after his divorce from second wife, Anna Murdock Man.

Who he was married to for a long time.

Yeah.

He has like Lachlan Murdock, Elizabeth Murdock and James Murdock, the three main women.

He's weak to move on.

And for context for everyone listening, I mean, this is who succession is based on, right?

Is this like-

Ish.

Ish.

Okay.

That's what I always think of.

According to clinical psychologist Dr. Rowan Burkhart, following a relationship breakdown,

we are often wired for connection.

And he would advise that someone wait a little while after this because what happens is that

after a divorce, the situation probably wasn't good.

So your reference point for a relationship is quite negative.

Then you meet someone else and you've got your butterflies.

There isn't the distress and pain.

You cling to the nearest person.

You don't have to talk to each other through lawyers yet.

Exactly.

And it's all looking just lovely.

You've got the chemistry, you've got all the good vibes, but that wears off pretty quickly.

Mia, the man is 92, he has six kids, he's running the world.

What do you think is behind his desire to marry again?

Okay.

A few theories.

The first is that this is a very elaborate part of the promo campaign for the new season

of succession, which is coming out really soon.

The second is that he's enjoying trolling his children, which is something that not

enough parents talk about, how fun it is to troll your children.

I think that's a really good one because they must hate this shit.

They must want to kill him.

Every time he gets married, they see their very considerable inheritance drop down another

notch.

And they must hate it.

I mean, the last wedding that really, marriage that really shook things up was Wendy Deng,

but that's because she had children with him, they had two children together.

So this woman doesn't have kids, hey?

Well, she's not going to have kids with him.

No, no, no, but does she have pre-existing children?

Unclean.

I haven't seen that anywhere.

She's a widow, I think.

But even if she does, they're not Murdochers.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So Jerry Hall, for example, had kids, many, but they didn't get part of Rupert's inheritance.

So obviously, the prenup will be extensive, which brings me to my next theory, which is

that it's his lawyers who keep setting him up with these women because it's a lot of

more work for them.

That is so good.

Because I mean, I know.

Someone's making bank.

I know.

So much bank.

The lawyers are making a lot of bank.

I know I'm well known for not knowing why anyone would get married even once.

But I genuinely do not understand why anyone would get married five times.

I do not understand.

Holly, he's romantic.

It's optimistic.

Talking about optimism, the man said, and let's remember again, 92, we're both looking

forward to spending the second half of our lives together.

That's what he said in his announcement statement.

He's 92.

He's 92.

He's not keen on dying, but his mother lived until she was about 105.

But still.

So longevity is in the family, and he's quite famously said that he's not interested in

dying.

Or retiring.

Or retiring.

And maybe that's what money can buy.

Immortality.

I cannot get my head around why you wouldn't just live together.

So he's clearly one of those men, and I think we all know them, who can't be alone, right?

Who may be, and I don't want to infantilize him or suggest that there are a number of

tasks in his life he can't do.

Let's remember that he's not an ordinary person.

Yeah, true.

He can also hire people.

I don't think he has to make his own dinner, for example.

But he obviously loves companionship, and he can't be alone, so he keeps finding new

ladies.

Well, he's clearly a serial monogamous.

He likes being married.

There are some people who just really like being married, right?

I've got some divorced friends who are like, I'll never get married again.

Then I've got another friend, Catherine Mahoney, who called her book, Currently Between Husbands,

because all she wants to do is get married again.

Now with Rupert, what I think is really interesting is that you get to a stage in your life where

people stop thinking of you as someone who has sex, someone who needs love, someone who

wants companionship, someone who has a future.

It's kind of like we're waiting for Rupert to die, but this is very clearly putting a

flag in the future and saying, I am going to do something that is something that usually

a much younger person would do.

You know, and people are like, oh, isn't that sweet?

Those little old people in the nursing home who are getting married, I think it's an incredibly

hopeful life affirming thing to do.

You have sold it to me.

That is very insightful, because I think that as you get older, it is true that everybody's

like, well, this is it now, isn't it?

These last few years, right?

And what Rupert's doing is choosing life, right?

He is.

He's choosing life.

You just still don't understand the getting married bit of it.

Like I get the falling in love bit of it, living in all their beautiful homes around

the world together, taking it to all the families functions just to piss off all the kids like

that.

I can totally get all that.

But the whole wedding scenario.

Well, I think that's because, you know, for a 66-year-old woman, I'm going to give him

the benefit of it out and say, well, you know, it's a bit undignified.

Like what are you?

Where do you stand?

What status do you have in his world with his children?

He is looking for his person, right?

So he's got his employees.

He's got his kids.

They can all say they've got his interests at heart.

But when the time comes, who is his person?

Who is just looking after him?

And that's going to be his wife.

And she will have the authority at this end of his life.

Is he religious?

Do we know?

I think a little bit.

Yeah, right.

I don't think he could.

Not deeply.

Many deep ethical positions.

I would like to be in the group chat.

With Conor and Kendall and Shiv and all the other children and just be like, I can only

imagine the conversations they're having about, are you going to dad's wedding?

I don't want to fucking go to dad's wedding.

Can I do the reading I did last time?

Can you imagine?

Now, this is another story about an iconic elderly Australian, but it's at the other

end of the sadness spectrum because there's a narrative playing out in the news at the

moment about Australian music legend, Molly Meldrum.

And in case you missed it, Molly made headlines over the last few days when he was seen exposing

himself while he was sitting in the crowd at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena for the Rod

Stewart concert.

The Daily Mail, bless their cotton socks, published a video and images of Molly, who

is 80 years old, and it showed him pulling out his penis and urinating on the ground.

Meldrum's assistant, Alan Evers Buckland, gave a statement to the Herald Sun providing

some context to the incident, which was thoughtfully filmed by someone sitting close by and then

given to the media.

His assistant said that he and several other people were with Molly at the concert and

he said, we have a dedicated and wonderful team of people that care for Molly.

Unfortunately, you can't control everything or see everything no matter how dedicated

you are or vigilant you are.

Molly is embarrassed and of course, sorry, he is given so much, he needs our love and

support.

Now, two months ago, Molly was similarly criticised for moaning audiences while he was on stage

with Elton John in Melbourne and witnesses then described his behaviour as disgusting

and some publications this week also are saying disgusting, shocking, outrageous.

Now, Samuel Johnson, who played Molly Meldrum in the biopic of his life and who won a Logie

for that, has come out swinging and he's basically complained that when he won the

Gold Logie, Molly came out and made a speech and spoiled his chances of raising money from

charity and he was very angry in this interview and he said, is he okay?

Who are his minders?

He shouldn't be allowed out in the PM, he's sozzled by that time.

He has two shots of vodka in his coffee in the morning, if I want to make any sense out

of him, I've got to see him before midday, stop, Molly.

And he said, now I've seen him do it again at the Elton John concert, maybe it's time

to hang up your hat, mate.

And all of this is very sad because Molly Meldrum is an 80 year old man and there's

many men and women who are 80 years old and older who are perfectly fine but Molly fell

from a ladder in 2011, you might remember, he was in a coma, everyone thought he was

not going to make it and he suffered a permanent brain injury and he's been permanently impaired.

I want to talk about what Samuel Johnson said, Jesse, what do you think about this?

Should Molly be locked away?

I've seen this commentary bubbling away over the last 24 hours, a lot of, we need to keep

Molly at home, he should be locked up for his own dignity and I am horrified.

And I think it's so interesting, the double standards that we hold that five minutes ago

we were talking about sensory rooms at stadiums and the importance of people who are neurodiverse

or who have a mental illness and inclusion and how locking someone away and just assuming

that they don't come out at night, it's an archaic way of dealing with people whose brains

don't work like your brain.

And then Molly Meldrum, who's 80, who we know has a brain injury, does something which

is antisocial, urinating at a concert is antisocial.

I've even seen people say, a brain injury doesn't make you do that.

Yes, it does.

That's exactly what a brain injury makes you do.

Not for everyone.

It manifests in different ways, but it means that you're disinhibited and you have a cognitive

impairment and that's clinical.

But our empathy, it is for people who have a mental illness or whose brain works differently

and they can stand up on stage and coherently talk about it for 30 minutes.

Maybe be on Instagram.

Exactly.

Give it a TED talk.

And be someone who can really articulate, there's a place for that and that's really

important.

But what we don't seem to be able to do is accept people who don't have that capacity.

And a lot of people are saying, even like that was 10 years ago, I miss the old Molly

Meldrum.

I'm sure he does too, the poor man.

Like, there are lots of people who will have a stroke and for 30 years, they won't be the

same.

That is not how the brain works.

And I was listening actually to Kyle and Jackie Yeoh who got the woman on, who filmed it.

And they asked, why'd you film it firstly?

And she was filming Rod Stewart and then she went, oh my God, it's Molly Meldrum.

And then she got Molly Meldrum.

That doesn't answer the question of why you've released it.

She did not have an answer.

They pressed her, they then went back and they said, hang on, hang on.

You're saying it's really sad.

She kept using the word shame, which I thought was a really illustrative word.

In what context?

Like it's such a shame.

It's such a shame that he's like this now and it's such a shame that a lot of criticism

of the carers, I just thought.

So she took that video of a man and she sold it to the Daily Mail.

That's your why.

That's your why.

I mean, like, that's the why.

Exactly.

You sent it to the Daily Mail and the act of doing that to compound the shame of this

man who deserves to be going to a concert like anyone else, you can criticise the carers.

Carers are doing the best they can.

You turn your back for two minutes.

I mean, I've never been a full-time carer like this for someone with a brain injury.

So I just don't feel completely comfortable casting judgment on how well they did.

She told security.

In fact, I don't know if that's the worst thing.

I think if someone's urinated, you could probably say.

To the people here.

Can you check?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can you check they're okay or is there a way to clean this up?

But to film it and distribute it is a way of going.

You are just not accepted in the world.

Go home and basically die alone in peace and leave us alone.

I agree.

I think it's abhorrent that someone filmed that and sold it to the mail.

But I think the context is the Elton John concert a couple of months ago, right?

Because what happened with that is Molly Meldrum was on stage, which is not what happens to

the average 80-year-old with a brain injury, right?

He's on stage with Elton John and he exposed himself then too, right?

The Samuel Johnson commentary that you talked about Mia has established a narrative about

Molly.

That is, he is a drunk, dirty old man.

That is what the narrative that has been established is.

So then this happens and that is the context through which a lot of people saw it at first.

And I think a lot of the commentary, the immediate commentary was just the classic case which

we see over and over and over again of people opening their mouths before they're thinking,

which is I saw it in our internal comms at Mama Mia.

People posting that story and going, oh my God, what's wrong with Molly Meldrum?

Through the lens of the drunk, dirty old man narrative that's been established, right?

By Samuel Johnson and various other people.

And then you take two minutes and you let a few things click into place and you go,

oh, that's right.

Yeah.

He's an elderly person with a brain injury and music is his absolute passion and he

can and should be able to go to any concert he wants to and he'll get a front row seat

because he's Molly Meldrum, right?

And he's earned it.

And he's earned it, exactly.

And so I think that it's a classic case of people jumping to this easy narrative they've

been handed and then they consider it and they think about what you're saying, Jesse,

and they go, oh yeah, that's right.

And it's like, well, why didn't you shut up long enough to think about that?

To think that.

Or why didn't you think about that long enough before you sold the footage to the Daily Mammal?

And him standing on stage, mooning the crowd, which you can argue whether or not you think

it was a good idea for the people around him to put him on stage.

I think probably not.

Probably not, I heard people say, oh, public appearance, public appearance about this.

And I thought, it's not a public appearance to go at like, if you are going to a concert

and sitting there like everyone else, he didn't go there for a public appearance.

He went there because he loved music.

The thing with some people's conditions is that they're unpredictable.

So to say they shouldn't have put him on the stage, maybe he's done that lots of times

at lots of concerts and this is the first time.

So now clearly he wasn't on the stage at the Rod Stewart concert.

But carers are doing their best and you made a disclaimer that Jesse, you're not a full-time

primary care of someone with a brain injury.

So you feel not able to comment.

I think you're a great person to comment because you've been in public situations at a lot

of performances and musicals and things with Simon, your cousin who has an intellectual

disability and you've had to deal with his behaviour.

So what's that been like?

Yeah, I have a few relatives who have different intellectual disabilities and we had this

recently where we were at an event and we had actually had the carer come along.

Often it's for the person's own dignity and safety that you have a carer come along.

In case they wander off or in case they need help going to the bathroom.

Exactly.

Anything like that.

And you just go, let's make this as easy as possible for everyone involved.

And he went and did something that he had never done before.

We all kind of watched him and it was a bit of a funny moment and we were able to go and

grab him before it escalated.

It wasn't going to hurt anyone or anything, but it would have been something that would

have embarrassed him if he had done it.

And so I know the feeling of exactly that, which is that the behaviour is unpredictable,

that I don't think Molly Meldrum goes to every concert and urinates.

All of a sudden something happens and you go, God, that is not what I thought was going

to happen when I took you out today.

There are two things that I think are interesting.

The first is everyone jumping in and saying, this is not what a brain injury looks like.

And I understand that because they're trying to fight stigma.

However, what you say and what Freddie DuBois has written about a lot is about we end up

seeing the face of mental illness and chronic illness as being the people, as you say, who

can make TikToks and do those kinds of things, which is what Elfie Scott, Mama Mia's editor,

recently wrote a book about this because her mother has schizophrenia and she says, you

know, we're fine with people talking about ADHD and they're even now they're autism

and they need a sensory room at the Harry Styles concert and that's all fine and we're

comfortable with that and hashtag are you okay day?

But things like schizophrenia, things like dementia, things like brain injuries.

Sometimes they are unpredictable.

Sometimes they are confronting.

It's confronting when someone pulls their pants down or urinates.

You can only imagine how mortifying it is.

But let's just take that to what Samuel Johnson said.

So anyone that does anything that might be a little bit upsetting or confronting to anyone

around them, should they stay inside?

So does that mean people in wheelchairs?

Does that mean people with Tourette's?

Does that mean children?

Children do bloody stupid things in public all the time.

Should they all stay home?

Is that the society we want?

Because that sounds a little bit hand made.

Of course not.

But just a little bit of temperance on this.

Like there would be some people who would be thinking about Molly's dignity.

Molly Meldrum is a very famous man and when he dies one day there will be much discussion

of his legacy and I'm probably pretty certain to say I'm sure he doesn't really want it

to be this.

Do you know what took away his dignity?

The picture of his ass on the stage at Elton John which went around the world and was talked

about everywhere and this footage of that this woman should never have released.

She's the one that took his dignity.

I entirely agree, I don't think of course I'm not blaming Molly but to give a slightly

generous read to some people who are like maybe it's time to reconsider what Molly's

doing with his time.

So it's not dignified for him.

So then the best way to avoid that is for Molly to never go out in public.

Is that what we're saying we want?

Is this the best way to avoid that would be for people not to film him and sell the footage

to the Daily Mail?

Exactly.

That's where the shame lies.

If you want to make out loud part of your routine five days a week we release segments

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To get full access follow the link in the show notes and a big thank you to all our

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I can't watch my work but I can go home from set and say the scene that we shot today felt

good.

Wednesday there was not a scene in that show that I went home and was like okay that should

be fine.

Now a lot of people know me from that.

It's not my proudest moment internally so it's...

Oh that's so interesting which I think also adds an extra level of insecurity and stress

because it's like no I'm finally getting these offers to these places that I want but I don't

want to be known specifically for that.

There's a new Catherine Heigl in Hollywood and her name is Jenna Ortega.

You might remember that Catherine Heigl for one hot minute in the Nordies was the sweetheart

of every rom-com TV show.

She was a gorgeous blonde.

She was on magazine covers.

She was Grey's anatomy.

She's not a Grey's anatomy.

Knocked out.

She's knocked out.

And then the narrative started that she was difficult very quickly.

She disappeared.

Anyway, if you're scratching your head about the name Jenna Ortega it's because you didn't

watch Netflix's Wednesday which most of the world did, right?

But if you did watch Wednesday you might be disappointed to hear what the 20-year-old

Disney star says about the process of making that show.

She was on Dax Shepard's armchair expert last week and she said this about working on Wednesday.

I don't think I've ever had to put my foot down on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday

because it's so easy to fall into that category especially with this type of show.

Everything that she does, everything that I had to play did not make sense for her character

at all.

Her being in a love triangle made no sense.

Her going, there was a line about like a dress that she has to wear for a school dance and

she said, oh my god I love it.

I can't believe I said that I literally hate myself and I had to go, no, there was times

on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines.

The script supervisor thought that I was going with something and then I would have to sit

down with the writers and they would be like, wait what happened to the scene and I would

have to go through and explain why I couldn't do certain things.

I grew very, very protective of her but you can't lead a story and have no emotional arc

because then it's boring and nobody likes you.

Not everybody was chuffed with what Jenna said on Dax Shepard and while no one who actually

worked on Wednesday has gone on the record about it, not least because season two is

definitely underway, TV writer and producer Stephen Denight went viral with his take where

he labelled Jenna's behaviour toxic.

He tweeted, I love talking with actors about their lines and stories but by the nature

of the beast they don't have the full picture in TV of where the story is going and why

some lines are needed for the whole show.

She's young so maybe she doesn't know any better but she should.

She should ask herself how she would feel if the showrunners gave an interview and talked

about how difficult she was and refused to perform the material.

This kind of statement is beyond entitled and toxic.

I love her work but life's too short to deal with people like this in the business.

Those words, entitled and toxic, went around the world with picture of Jenna Ortega in

about two seconds.

Now as Laura Brodnick wrote on Mamma Mia this week, it's a truth universally acknowledged

that once a young famous woman becomes immensely popular, she's due for a brutal public tear

down.

Everyone from Anne Hathaway to Jennifer Lawrence to Lena Dunham to Kristen Stewart and Amy

Schumer have felt the wrath of public hatred swing their way following a period of adoration.

And that's certainly true.

But can an actress just like change your lines?

Can she question the arc of a character that yes she's bringing to life but a whole team

of people created, does that mean she is a diva and difficult or does that just mean

she has agency?

Now luckily for me, the two people I'm sitting at the table with are currently immersed in

the world of TV production for the first time and so I get to ask you, what do you make

of it?

Is Ortega being toxic?

She's only 20, let's remember.

Or is this fair enough?

God, I hate the word toxic.

I really do.

I just think it's like the word cancelled.

It's so permanent and disqualifying.

I just really hate it.

It's really lazy as well.

I think what she is being is unprofessional and I rarely disagree with Laura Brodnick.

I think she's brilliant but I would challenge her opinion.

I think she makes a very good point about famous Hollywood women who everyone loves.

I would draw a line and say there's a difference between Anne Hathaway and Amy Schumer where

the public turned and I agree with that tall, poppy thing.

Catherine Heigl and Jenny Ortega, that's about the industry turning.

It's not about the audience and I think if you look at what she said, take any workplace

that has a project, right?

And what Jessie and I have learned is that we might just see the star of the project

at the end on a show or a movie but there are hundreds, usually thousands, people working

on it.

If you've ever watched the credits at the end of a show or a movie, you'll see all

their names even though you might come away and go Wednesday was all about Jenna and that's

all you could say.

There's so many people that go into the making of that show.

So imagine if you were in any workplace, you did a project, you presented the project,

someone was asked publicly about that project and they dished a whole lot of dirt about

the arguments that you had while you were making that project.

That is really unprofessional.

It's really unfair because the star of the show has the opportunities to do all this

media but no one's actually interviewing the showrunner or the writer or the whatever.

And also they don't want to now go out and defend themselves.

So she's pulled all of them into having to comment.

The sound I can hear is her people tearing out their hair because she will not work.

I'm not saying she won't work again but there are a lot of great actors in Hollywood and

if you have the choice between someone who's going to go out and trash you, air the dirty

laundry that there is in any workplace and someone who's going to go out and be gracious,

you're going to choose the gracious person.

You could say though that it's the star of the show who publicly has to wear everything

too, right?

So if General Tager and Wednesday was brilliant, by the way, I watched it all with my kids

as I'm sure lots of listeners did, if the dialogue's bad, if the storylines don't ring

true, the public don't name the writer and the producer and the director, the public

go General Tager's in a shit show.

So the stakes are higher for the performers than they are for the behind the scenes, right?

That's why you get paid so much.

Yes.

And that's the big difference, right?

I am completely on the side of Stephen Denyne.

Although let's remember he didn't work on this show.

I totally thought he did reading the headlines and then I saw no, he's just like the person

in the industry who'll wear it.

None of the people who worked on the show could say anything because season two is definitely

happening.

And importantly, when he did tweet that, a lot of people from the industry jumped on

and kind of went, you just said what we all want to say.

The reason why I hate that he used the word toxic, that sucked and entitled as a TV writer

and producer.

What Denyne knows is that the writing of a script takes months, if not years, Jesse

and Claire were part of the writer's room and wrote for stripes for stripes.

So you've literally done that.

Yes.

So what happens?

And I didn't know any of this until very recently.

You sit in a room for weeks and weeks on end with in our case, it was about seven other

writers, you brainstorm, you brainstorm, you come up with all these storylines and you

think this storyline is so great, but there are a hundred reasons why you can't do it.

This character needs this kind of tension and this kind of contradiction.

And it is, you know, so complex how you get there.

Then you are given a sort of story arc and you put it together.

And I thought once that was in there, I've written my script.

I reckon it gets rewritten 15, 20 times.

Who gives notes on it?

Oh, everyone.

So everyone from the lead writer, the other writers, all of the producers, the creators

and sometimes, and in fact, the general Tager thing, it's important to note that she wasn't

a producer on Wednesday.

If she was a producer on Wednesday, I would have taken more stock of what she said.

Which is why so many actors want producer credits.

Want to be producers.

And I'm sure that now that she's a big star with lots of clout, her next production, she

will get producer credits.

Yes.

I don't know.

But the episode that Claire and I wrote is being filmed and we can go and watch it, right?

If I went and watched it and I saw a character completely on a whim go, I don't think this

runs true.

I would listen like, and I think we all would.

We would hear them out.

But there are so many stakeholders.

It has gone to so many people that part of you, especially if that person was 20, would

roll your eyes and Jenna or Tager, yes, she's been working for 10 years.

She was a child.

Star Disney.

The creator of this was Tim Burton.

And Tim Burton has made 20 films, a bunch of them are Academy Award nominated.

He's 64 years old.

There's an element of challenging Tim Burton that you kind of go, come on, like, I think

that what we're seeing is, is a 20 year old who's looking at this thinking that they know

more than they do.

Well, I think she cares a lot.

And I think what, what Holly said is true.

It's like, at the end of the day, it is her face up there having to say those lines.

And she talked about caring passionately and here's what I think.

And of course, the actor, depending on who they are, can have a voice.

But I think it's a little bit like the Molly Meldrum thing.

There's what happened, which is her having a voice and pushing back.

And then there's taking it public.

Yeah.

That's the thing.

It's like, it's what Molly did at the concert, but then there's filming it and selling the

photo because that's, they're two different things.

So it's not that she shouldn't have had a voice and spoken out, but to then go and betray

all those people, the arrogance of that and the disloyalty of that.

And it's unprofessional.

But the thing is though, the producer who tweeted the entitled and toxic thing has made

this storm 25 million times bigger than it would have ever been otherwise.

Because really, I watched Wednesday, she does wear the dress.

She is in a love triangle.

Like none of that got written out or whatever.

You know, she's just expressing her opinion about that and saying, she would have been

asked a question about like, how involved are you in the projects you do, whatever.

And she's answering it.

And as you have rightly said, Mia, I can just imagine the publicist just going, oh my God.

No.

But if Steven Denight had not tweeted that, it probably would have rolled on down the

river.

I completely disagree.

It blew up way before Denight jumped in.

All the headlines were about admits she was unprofessional on set and for the denights

of Hollywood, they don't get a voice.

And that must be so frustrating because the work that they do and the way in which they've

got to negotiate with so many different people is completely overlooked.

And then you get this person come up and she's the only one who gets access to the public.

Like it doesn't feel fair.

Mia, I wanted to point out something.

And then she also gets absolutely hammered.

Like the stakes again are much higher for her than anyone else.

That's what the money is for, because she's earning a different amount of money to the

writers and the producers.

I feel sorry for her.

I mean, I feel sorry for anyone who's in this situation, but you know, you asked what

we think and no, and I'm really interested.

That's why I asked.

And I can totally understand it.

But I look at General Tager, who I think is brilliant and she's 20 years old and she's

not the skinny white blonde who we've always seen in the league of shows.

And she's so good in this.

And now there is no narrative we like better than a difficult woman.

I question us all about if you flip the gender on this, whether or not we would be so excited.

Before we go, I have a recommendation.

I've struggled a little bit with finding non-alcoholic wines that I really like the taste of because

they can be very, very sweet, like a lot sweeter than a normal wine.

And the thing when you're pregnant and you're trying to, obviously you're not drinking alcohol,

so you're drinking something else is that you've also got to be careful of things like caffeine

and what else is in your drinks because you can't have too much.

So anyway, I was out recently and someone handed me something called a crudino.

Has anyone heard of these?

Yeah.

No, it's a crudino.

A crudino is a non-alcoholic aparol spritz and it comes in these little bottles, right?

This is not a like a sponsorship.

No, no, no.

No.

This is like, I was just blown away by how good this tasted.

I sometimes find aparol spritz a little bit bitter, but this was like a really nice, summery

cocktail that didn't taste just like pure sugar.

So it didn't taste like a soft drink.

No, no, no.

It tasted like alcohol.

Yes, exactly.

So non-alcoholic spritz, there are quite a few brands of them that do these like Negronis

and spritz is a really good non-alcoholic.

And then I find if you're not pregnant and you do on alcohol, just put a splash of alcohol

in them.

Oh, great idea.

Well, I know a lot of people who they've found that they get really bad headaches or they're

just not drinking at the moment.

The other thing is that it looks and feels like alcohol.

I know that sounds silly, but.

You know what you should do is put them if you've got teenagers.

Here's a tip that I might try, put it in the fridge and your teenagers think there's dealing

alcohol from you.

There's a sticker posted that says, do not drink alcohol.

Unfortunately, I could only find them online.

You can get a four pack for $18.

I think you can also get them at Dan Murphy's.

I haven't been able to find them yet.

So they're a special occasion drink.

They're a special occasion drink and I reckon that there I've been asked what's the drink

that you want at your wedding, like your fancy non-alcoholic cocktail and I'm going to go

with a credino.

I think there might be Italian or something really fancy.

Those cute little bottles.

Yes.

Those little glass bottles.

That are just fancy and lovely.

We're finally getting to grips with the idea that you can have tasty non-alcoholic drinks.

I was at a trendy bar in Melbourne a while ago and the whole cocktail list could either

be alcoholic or non-alcoholic.

See, I like that.

And it was $3 more if you wanted alcohol, which I was like, wow, that's not much difference.

But like, so you could have any of all the exciting things that any drinker would have,

but not with alcohol in it.

I like that because I always think of non-alcoholic drinks as only being cocktails, but I like

that there are like spritzes and wines and that seed-lip stuff is good too.

Quick complaint on that, actually.

If I go and get a non-alcoholic cocktail at a restaurant and you charge me $17 for it.

I know.

I got a lot.

Come on.

I did, my eyes did nearly fall out of my head when I saw the price difference was only

$3, but then people said, oh, but all the other, anyway, it's interesting.

I just have a problem with that.

Thank you for listening to today's Mamma Mia out loud.

If you're looking for something else to listen to yesterday's subscriber episode, we talked

about early sexual encounters.

It is the most raw we have ever, ever been or something like that.

I know.

I'm quite, feel quite nervous about it, actually.

We recorded it and I was like, yes.

And then when it went out yesterday, I actually felt a bit like, oh, is it out?

I didn't mean to ask if I could listen to it before it went out.

We talked about it because we have a bit of a theory that your first sexual experience

sort of shapes your sex life on going.

It was something Nikki Gimmel talked about on No Filter.

And we stress-test that theory and I think there's really something to it.

The link to listen to that, if your game, is in the show notes.

Thank you for listening to today's Mamma Mia out loud.

It was produced by Emma Gillespie with Audio Production by Leah Porges and Assistant Production

from Susanna Makin.

We will see you tomorrow.

Bye.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and want to support us as well, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very

best way to do so.

There is a link in the episode description.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.