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0:42

Heads up before we start the show, there's a

0:44

little spicy language in

0:47

this episode. Michael

0:53

Schulman gets to go to the Oscars now.

0:56

He covers Hollywood for the New Yorker. But

0:58

in his heart, he is still the

1:00

guy who runs the office Oscar's pool.

1:03

The guy who memorized all of Merrill

1:05

Streep's acceptance

1:06

speeches. As a party trick.

1:09

What I'm saying is, he's a fan.

1:12

I started watching the one I was, I think, eleven.

1:14

I I have a very clear memory of watch the Billy

1:16

Crystal Medley in nineteen ninety three.

1:20

It's a wonderful

1:23

night for us. Us

1:26

Who will win? The nominees,

1:29

the best picture are. He's

1:32

saying about the crying game and

1:34

unforgiven and all these movies I was

1:36

too young to have watched, but I still

1:38

loved the Medley and thought it was so funny

1:40

and loved the joke that I didn't understand.

1:43

And I just get started. As

1:47

you get older, did you ever get jaded about them?

1:49

Or did you just always it was just always straight love?

1:51

No. I mean, I think the Oscars are ridiculous

1:53

and absurd. I have a healthy irreverence

1:55

toward them now, while also thinking

1:58

like they're

1:58

important. They're important as a cultural event.

2:02

You say they're an important cultural event.

2:05

Why do you say that? Because I feel like, at

2:07

this moment in time, there are so many

2:09

people who think of the Oscars as just pretentious

2:14

or racist or sexist, but

2:17

why do you think we can't just

2:20

let go of them.

2:21

They are important in giving you a window

2:24

into how the culture is

2:26

changing, how Hollywood is changing. And

2:28

every every Oscar year is kind

2:30

of a moment in time where

2:32

you can see these growing

2:34

pains and generational clashes

2:37

that come up. I

2:40

called Michael Up to talk through this

2:42

year's generational clash at the Academy

2:44

Awards.

2:45

In the biggest categories, bright

2:47

young directors like the Daniels, the

2:50

duo behind everything everywhere all at once,

2:53

will be going head to head with Hollywood

2:55

giant Steven Spielberg. Spielberg

2:58

is nominated for his autobiographical film,

3:01

The Fableman's. And

3:03

Spielberg. He's got something to

3:05

prove. You've

3:06

written that Steven Spielberg has something of an Oscar's

3:09

curse. But the man has

3:11

Oscars, like, plenty of

3:12

them. Like, why why do you say he's cursed? Why does

3:14

it feel like he's cursed? Well, I

3:16

mean, yes, he has won several. But

3:19

he's lost a lot. And I think people don't

3:21

appreciate how often

3:23

he's

3:23

lost. You know, only one of his

3:26

movies, Schindler's List has one

3:28

best picture. Do

3:29

you think Steven Spielberg likes

3:31

the Oscars?

3:33

Yeah. I mean, I think he likes winning.

3:35

No.

3:36

Don't we all? I mean, who doesn't, but

3:38

I think he has showed these

3:40

glimpses through the years of

3:43

really wanting it. And

3:45

someone who's worked with him actually told me,

3:48

you know, like he awards validate

3:50

him. He craves oscars. He loves

3:51

them. I'm projecting a little

3:53

bit, but I would imagine that if

3:55

he was gonna win a sort of late

3:58

career

3:58

Oscar, it it he would want it for

4:00

this movie because it's so personal. It

4:02

would make sense. Today

4:05

on the show, Steven Spielberg. Has

4:07

been blessed with box office success, but

4:10

cursed at the academy. Why

4:12

this weekend, you should not count

4:14

the so called king of entertainment out.

4:18

Mary Harris. You're listening to what next.

4:20

Stick around.

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This podcast is brought to you by Progressive

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5:48

Hi. I'm Dahlia Liswick, host of

5:50

Slates and Lucas Podcast, and I'm here to

5:52

tell you that we have a special offer

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on slate memberships. You can

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6:37

Let's start this show by saying, no one should

6:40

be feeling a whole lot of pity for Steven

6:42

Spielberg. He's a

6:43

billionaire, a world famous movie

6:45

director. He's doing alright.

6:48

But

6:48

Michael Schulman says, if you're gonna

6:50

feel a pang of sympathy for Spielberg,

6:52

You're gonna do that while watching the Oscars.

6:55

Because for five decades, Spielberg

6:57

has been chasing awards show glory.

7:00

And more often than not failing

7:02

to catch it. Michael wrote an article

7:04

about all this for slate recently. He

7:06

called it Steven Spielberg's Oscar

7:08

curse. It was based on reporting from

7:10

his new book, Oscar Wars, a history

7:12

of Hollywood in gold sweat and tears.

7:15

The very first story Michael tells about

7:18

Spielberg's mixed up relations up with the Academy

7:20

goes all the way back to nineteen seventy six.

7:23

Spielberg was coming off the whirlwind

7:25

release of jaws, which had broken box

7:27

office records. And he'd invited

7:29

documentary film crew to watch as he

7:31

waited for Oscar Knott's to come

7:33

out. My name is

7:35

Steve Spielberg, and I just directed

7:38

a movie called Jaws,

7:40

and Jaws is about to

7:43

be nominated in eleven categories you're

7:45

about to see a sweep of the

7:47

nominations. We're very confident at this

7:49

very moment.

7:49

Can you just explain what happened?

7:52

Right. So there

7:55

was AAA documentary being made

7:57

about the Oscars that year by

7:59

something called TV TV. And

8:01

I actually have a whole chapter in my book about

8:03

the nineteen seventy six best picture race,

8:06

which was an incredible year. It was one flew

8:08

over the Kukka's nest, Nashville, dogged

8:10

afternoon,

8:11

Barry Linden, and and Jaws, which is kind

8:14

of the odd man out. You know, when you look

8:16

at all of them.

8:17

Wow. Like, that's the popcorn movie

8:19

in there. It

8:21

is as if God created

8:24

the devil and gave him

8:27

jaws.

8:31

It was the first modern

8:34

Summer blockbuster. It beat the record

8:36

for high school racing movie ever made. Finally

8:39

beating Gone With The Wind. I mean, it was a it was

8:41

a pop culture phenomenon and Spielberg

8:43

was in his

8:44

twenties. But

8:44

guess the question was, like, does that an

8:47

Oscar make? So

8:49

the movie was nominated for Best Picture.

8:52

But Spielberg was not nominated for

8:54

best director. And he was the only person

8:57

who directed one of those five best picture nominees

8:59

who was left off of best director.

9:01

He he the slot went to Thalini.

9:04

Mhmm. But in that moment, the

9:06

the day of the nominations, He was

9:08

in his office, and this crew was filming

9:11

him, and he is watching the

9:12

the, you know, the announcer's read off

9:14

the list of nominated directors. And

9:17

And meanwhile, I didn't get it.

9:20

I didn't get it. I

9:22

wasn't

9:22

nominated. You can see in his

9:24

face he just crumbles. You know? He's

9:26

so devastated to not

9:29

be nominated for best director. And he

9:31

he starts joking immediately. He's like, oh, Felini.

9:33

Got it. Felini. Oh, oh, best actresses up

9:35

next. The shark was an actress. You know, just doing

9:37

all this schtick to try to cover over.

9:40

How palpably disappointed

9:42

he is.

9:42

There's a dog day in Hollywood. Absolutely.

9:46

There's a dog day from Alrighty. A picture

9:48

of all time was made and they haven't recognized

9:50

the

9:50

director. Who made it? The shock?

9:53

It's a lot of logic. And

9:54

he didn't show that year. didn't go to the awards.

9:56

Wow. Wow. And he does say in

9:58

the clip, like, this is a commercial

10:01

backlash. Like, basically, people aren't

10:03

nominating me because

10:05

I was I was winning too hard already.

10:08

Yeah. He says, everybody loves

10:10

a winner, but nobody loves

10:13

a winner. To

10:15

you watching this footage? Like,

10:17

what did it tell you about Spielberg and

10:19

his relationship with the academy?

10:22

I mean, it's just it was an

10:24

embarrassing human moment. I mean, I can

10:26

only imagine, like, the instant

10:29

regret he felt at having a documentary

10:31

film him because you would do that if you thought they were

10:33

gonna capture you being humiliated.

10:36

Right. Right. And

10:37

then the guy who the guy who wrote

10:40

screenplay of jaws, Karl Gottlieb.

10:42

Tom, I interviewed him for the book,

10:45

and he said something so basic. Wait. Where's this

10:47

quote? I have to pull it up to get it exactly right.

10:50

He said, it didn't fit his master plan at

10:52

all. He was going to be acclaimed as an author

10:54

director who was like Hitler getting to the

10:56

English channel and not being able to cross

10:58

it. Brutal,

11:03

but also, like, so honest

11:05

about what they were seeing. Yeah.

11:08

So after this loss,

11:11

it's not totally lost. I mean, Shaw's

11:13

amazing film did very well in lots of

11:15

ways. It's just that he wasn't nominated for best director.

11:18

After what happened here with jaws, like,

11:20

what happened next for Spielberg? Did he

11:22

shift what he was doing to

11:26

become more Oscar's

11:28

friendly, or did he go in a different direction?

11:30

No. I mean, we all we all remember the

11:32

Spielberg movies of the eighties. I mean,

11:35

ET. Raiders

11:39

the lost arc. In

11:42

the arc. That's something that men was open

11:44

to you know,

11:47

these are gigantic blockbuster crowd

11:50

pleasing hits. And you

11:52

know, no one can be too sorry for this book

11:54

of the eighties who is becoming

11:56

the most successful director of all time.

11:59

And yet, the Academy just would

12:01

not give him an Oscar. And

12:03

I think basically the reason is that he was seen

12:05

as, you know, the the hit maker,

12:08

not necessarily the artist. And

12:10

even when he made a kind of prestige

12:13

movie, like the color purple, people

12:15

still didn't want to give it to him. And

12:18

the next year after that, he was given the

12:20

the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award,

12:22

which was obviously kind consolation prize.

12:24

It's like they they do this every so often when

12:26

someone is clearly not winning who

12:28

should have an

12:29

Oscar, they the academy feels like they should have

12:31

something. They give them one of these honorary awards.

12:33

Eventually, in nineteen ninety

12:36

three, Spielberg made Schindler's list,

12:38

and this was the film that

12:40

kind of broke that initial

12:43

curse. guess you could call it with the Oscars.

12:45

Mhmm. Can you tell me about that year and

12:47

what it was about Schindler's list that you

12:49

think shifted the tide for

12:51

Spielberg? I mean, Schindler's

12:53

list was really an event. You

12:55

know, I remember going with my parents

12:57

and grandparents. You know, we're a Jewish

12:59

family. We all went together. It was

13:02

an important thing for people to see

13:04

because it was a movie that hadn't really

13:06

like, no other that had been made about the Holocaust.

13:08

And it was far from just an entertaining

13:10

movie. It was almost like AAA referendum

13:13

on what what the holocaust was and

13:15

how we should remember it and how it should be

13:17

depicted. Yeah. It was

13:18

interesting at some point, I was talking to my husband about

13:20

the holocaust. We were watching TV show that had depiction

13:22

of the holocaust. And he was like,

13:24

yeah, when I was growing up, like, it would have been

13:26

in really bad taste to depict

13:28

the Holocaust. And I thought about Schindler's list

13:30

and how big of a deal it

13:33

must have been

13:35

for him

13:35

and his family when it came out because it was a depiction

13:38

of Holocaust by a Jewish director

13:40

who was,

13:41

like, writing this story and

13:43

telling it, you know? Yes. And I think it

13:45

felt like an important movie. No matter what what

13:47

people thought of it in the end,

13:50

it was inevitable that it would win

13:52

the Oscar. I mean, I even spoke to

13:55

the guy who was in charge of running

13:57

the Oscar campaign for Schindler's List and he

13:59

told me, like, basically, just

14:01

Doug, don't fuck it up. You know, there was really

14:03

no competition. And he was right.

14:05

It won seven Oscars. It won best picture and

14:07

best direct and that is, to this

14:09

day, the only time schoolwork has pulled that off

14:11

those two

14:12

awards. In

14:14

the years since Schindler's List, how many

14:16

best pictures, Oscars, Is Spielberg

14:18

one?

14:20

Nope. None. That was the only one.

14:24

After the break, is Spielberg missing

14:26

out on Oscars? Or being robbed.

14:29

And will the fablements break his

14:31

so called curse?

14:42

After Schindler's list, The question for Steven

14:44

Spielberg was how to keep the Hollywood momentum

14:47

going. He answered that question

14:49

with DreamWorks, his own movie studio,

14:51

which he co founded with Jeffrey Katzenberg and

14:53

David Gaffin. Michael Schulman

14:56

compares the studio to a rock and roll super group,

14:58

and that meant there were high expectations. At

15:01

the box office and on the award circuit.

15:03

In nineteen ninety eight, it seemed like those

15:06

expectations

15:07

were being fulfilled. With the release of saving

15:09

private Ryan.

15:11

Some private in the hundred and first lost

15:13

three of

15:13

his brothers and he's got a ticket home. It's

15:15

not gonna be easy to find one particular soldier

15:17

in the whole damn war. Starting

15:20

Tom Hanks and Matt Damon, Spielberg's

15:22

World War two story, seemed

15:24

like a shoe in for best

15:26

picture, for a lot of reasons. And

15:28

was not only his

15:30

his tribute to, you know, the greatest generation,

15:33

he very explicitly

15:34

said it was it was about honoring his father and

15:36

he had had a rift with his father for

15:38

many years. He

15:39

blamed his father for his parents' divorce. Yeah.

15:42

So it was really part of his own personal reconciliation

15:44

with his father, Arnold Spielberg. And

15:48

so it was important historically, it was

15:50

important personally for

15:52

him, and it was, you know,

15:54

a a craft achievement. You know, everyone

15:56

talked about that running sequence, that

15:59

long d day storming the beach of Normandy, a

16:01

sequence which was, you know, a battle seemed

16:03

like none had ever really been shot. So

16:06

anyway, comes out in that summer. Months

16:09

go by. Everyone's

16:10

thinking, okay, we've got our best picture

16:12

winner. And then along comes Shakespeare

16:14

in love in December at the very

16:16

very end of the year.

16:19

Young Will Shakespeare is having a

16:22

bad year. His last two shows

16:24

flopped. And

16:25

this was a Miramax movie, so it

16:27

was Harvey Weinstein. And it was basically

16:30

everything that Saving Private

16:32

Ryan was not.

16:35

Come on. The last thing he needs

16:37

right now is a nasty case

16:39

of writers

16:40

blog. Light. It's fluffy. It's clever.

16:42

It's about love, not war. It's, you

16:44

know, it's about actors, which is

16:46

very appealing to actors branch of the academy,

16:49

which by far the largest, it's about theater

16:51

people, it's about women.

16:53

And you read about how the how Harvey

16:55

Weinstein, like, really went

16:57

for it in terms of campaigning

17:00

for Shakespeare and Love to win. Can you just explain

17:02

how he did that? Yeah. So he had been doing

17:04

that throughout the decade and getting more

17:07

and more aggressive about Oscar campaigning.

17:10

So some of the things that Miramax

17:12

did were they would they

17:14

basically leave no stone unturned. They would

17:16

call academy members and, you know,

17:18

say, have you seen the movie? Have you seen the movie? Can we

17:20

set up a screening? You know, if there were three academy

17:23

members living in Santa Fe, they would find those people

17:25

and arrange screening for them, they would

17:27

blanket the airwaves with radio

17:29

ads, they blanket the trades

17:32

for your consideration ads. One guy who

17:34

worked with him told me they they printed up this

17:36

like really fancy sort of glossy making of

17:38

the movie book and they quote

17:40

unquote accidentally printed an extra

17:43

ten thousand copies or something and then just left them in

17:45

Starbucks all over Los Angeles so that, you

17:47

know, you know, they just had this way of, like,

17:49

just cramming it down people's throats and

17:52

making sure everyone knew Shakespeare

17:54

in Love, you gotta take it seriously. More

17:56

controversially, was that

17:59

DreamWorks got word through

18:01

the grapevine, that Weinstein was telling

18:04

journalists to write that

18:07

saving private rent was only good for the first

18:09

twenty five minutes. And after that, it kind of became

18:11

a standard World War two movie. And

18:13

when DreamWorks heard that they were just

18:16

enraged. I mean, they

18:18

were coming for Spielberg's movie

18:20

about his dad and, like, the greatest generation,

18:22

how dare they So they

18:24

went to the press. Press started writing

18:26

about how dirty what dirty pool, Weinstein

18:29

was playing, Weinstein denied denied denied.

18:31

He said, oh, I loved the movie. I would never say anything

18:33

against it. I recommended saving private Ryan Hillary

18:36

Clinton. But but

18:38

just from that moment through

18:40

the Oscars, it just got nastier,

18:43

nastier. Damn. mean,

18:46

it just it feels like so

18:48

much like about

18:50

movies. You know what I mean? The movies are important

18:52

and wonderful and great, but like you just realize

18:54

like how invested

18:56

folks are that they they would like

18:58

smear each other in this way, you know? Well,

19:01

in a way it started to resemble political

19:03

campaigns, you know, which have

19:05

long, long, and longer

19:09

campaigning seasons and, you

19:11

know, Apple Research and, you know, trying

19:13

to play the press against the other movie. I mean,

19:16

this was, you know, all happening against the backdrop

19:18

of Monica Lewinsky and the

19:20

impeachment of Bill Clinton. And there was the

19:23

people were writing at the time, oh, like,

19:25

how did the Oscars race come to resemble,

19:27

like, the, you know, the

19:29

the grossness of Washington? So

19:31

then when you get to Oscar's

19:34

night, What happened?

19:37

So Spielberg won best director.

19:40

A good sign. A good sign.

19:42

The movies are really neck and neck all through the night,

19:45

and then Harrison Ford comes out to present

19:47

the best picture. Let

19:51

me ask her goes to And

19:55

everyone I talked to from both sides said, okay.

19:57

The Shakespeare Let People basically were like, okay, we give

19:59

up. We're not gonna win. This saving pride. Ryan, people

20:02

were like, oh, well, of course, they send out Indiana

20:04

Jones to give the prize

20:06

to the Spielberg movie. We're

20:08

we're set. We're gold. And actually,

20:11

Multiple people told me,

20:13

as Harrison Ford was saying the name of

20:15

the movie, like the

20:17

s sound started,

20:20

This this saving private writing people, like one of

20:22

them actually stood

20:22

up. Yeah. And then it turned out

20:24

to be Shake, spare love, and

20:27

it hit everyone like a frying pan. Actually,

20:29

the the the head of marketing at DreamWorks

20:31

at the time Terry Press said that she was watching

20:33

from the mezzanine and she's felt like her

20:35

face was on fire because all the blood

20:38

was rushing to her head. She was so

20:40

furious. Because to her, this meant

20:42

Weinstein had taken it

20:44

from them. He had stolen this Oscar, and

20:46

they were just the the

20:49

the the enmity all around just

20:51

bubbled up and and erupted. But

20:54

then everyone in Hollywood started

20:56

stealing that playbook. They realized, oh,

20:59

if Weinstein can do this, we better do it too.

21:02

And that's how you got the birth of the modern campaign

21:04

season.

21:05

The Fableman's might be Spielberg's most

21:07

personal movie yet. It's

21:10

all about his parents and their divorce and

21:12

his near obsessive desire to

21:14

make sense of his world through a film camera's

21:16

lens. You can hear how

21:18

intense it is just by listening

21:20

to the trailer. You

21:24

always have to be the center of attention. I'm

21:26

sowing in her. There has been nothing but

21:28

disrespect from you. I don't know her.

21:32

Family heart. It'll

21:35

tear you into. The Academy

21:37

has rewarded Stephen Spielberg for this

21:39

kind of emotionally raw filmmaking in

21:42

the past, the way they did with Schindler's

21:44

list. But Michael Schulman says,

21:46

talking candidly about himself and his

21:48

family, it doesn't come naturally

21:51

to Steven Spielberg. And when

21:53

he does talk about this movie, it's it's

21:55

quite touching. I mean, I saw him when

21:57

it premiered at the Toronto film festival, I was

21:59

there and went to a press conference and he

22:01

was on stage talking about how basically

22:05

he wrote this movie with Tony Kushner

22:07

during the shutdown

22:10

during during the pandemic, and it

22:12

really came out of this almost mortal fear

22:14

of like extinction. He was like, I don't know

22:16

how long. I'm gonna be here don't know how

22:18

long humanity is gonna be here. This

22:21

is the movie I need to make, basically,

22:23

before I die. It's it's that's what he was

22:25

saying in so many words. And then he he he talked

22:27

about how he Zoom with with Kushner, and

22:29

it was almost like having going

22:32

through therapy, like being on the couch. And it's very

22:34

freudy in this

22:34

movie. I mean I mean,

22:35

you said Kushner was like, I should have charged him by

22:37

the hour. Right. Right. You know,

22:39

like, that's the kind of jokes they were making because

22:41

it it really did seem like we were looking into

22:44

his AEKi in a way that hadn't

22:46

even looked at his own self.

22:48

But I still

22:50

think that he may go home empty handed.

22:52

I mean, when I it's funny when I

22:54

wrote this this piece piece for slate

22:57

just about a month ago. I

23:00

I sort of had in my head, okay. Maybe, you

23:02

know, this this is this might be

23:04

his third win. He's like the

23:07

the the the third win to cap off this

23:09

long historic career

23:11

But now I think that the momentum is kind

23:14

of getting away from him and, you know, it might

23:16

well be everything ever all

23:18

at once and and and the Daniels.

23:20

So wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg loses

23:23

again. Yeah. I'm

23:25

glad you brought up everything everywhere all at once.

23:27

Because thinking about this conversation, thinking

23:30

about the Oscars this year. I

23:33

couldn't help but be reminded

23:35

of the Grammy's when Harry Styles

23:37

won and Internet just exploded

23:40

at, like, why not Beyonce? And,

23:43

you know, if he won these

23:45

categories, best director, best picture,

23:48

I could see the Internet exploding little bit

23:50

the same way about the Daniels and everything

23:53

everywhere all at once. Which is an incredibly

23:55

fresh movie with a primarily Asian

23:57

cast. Mhmm. I don't know if you see that

23:59

too. Yeah. I mean, everything everyone wants

24:02

really feels like a movie

24:04

of this moment. And

24:06

that's what's exciting about it. It's also

24:08

remember what I said at the beginning, the Oscars are

24:11

how the industry sees itself. And

24:14

part of the appeal of everything every role

24:16

at once is that it's a huge hit, you know,

24:18

and it's a huge hit that's not a franchise

24:21

movie, a sequel to something. It's,

24:23

you know, a weird, indie, personal

24:25

movie. It feels like the future. And

24:27

it is also, you know, not

24:30

a movie about white people. And so I think

24:32

next to that, the Fableman's looks

24:34

a bit old fashioned as the kind

24:36

of movie that would win the top

24:38

award, but it also hasn't

24:41

really done that great at the box office.

24:43

And I think the momentum is behind everything

24:45

everywhere so much because it represents a

24:48

kind of exception to all these downward trends

24:51

of of people not going to movie theaters.

24:53

Especially if something is not a Marvel movie

24:56

or Top Gun or Avatar

24:58

or something. And everything everywhere is

25:00

it's it's an underdog, you know. Underdogs

25:02

always do well at the Oscars because people

25:05

love that little, you

25:06

know, the little train that could.

25:08

So

25:10

if Steven Spielberg wins

25:13

best director, best picture?

25:16

Really, does he deserve it?

25:18

How do you feel about that? Does

25:21

he deserve it? I mean, if you're asking about

25:23

my own personal taste this year,

25:26

The filaments is my favorite movie this year.

25:28

You know, if he wins, I think

25:30

that it won't be undeserved,

25:33

but I think it'll also represent how

25:35

people feel about feel free as

25:37

a person, which is kind of inextricable from

25:40

how they feel about this movie. And

25:42

when I saw the movie, in

25:44

Toronto, you know, I didn't always

25:47

connect with it, but I always felt like, okay, this is a

25:49

valuable cultural document because

25:51

this person has given us so much

25:53

popular culture and ingrained, you

25:56

know, his imagination has

26:00

defined so much of our shared

26:03

cultural language. You know, if

26:05

it's from ET, it's jaws, all

26:07

of this stuff. And it's

26:10

it's important for us to know on that

26:12

level just what motivated him,

26:14

what got him into this. And I think no

26:17

matter what you feel about Spielberg, if

26:19

you're a fan, or if you if you're if you're not,

26:21

I do think in order to understand the

26:24

giant footprint he's had on American popular

26:26

culture, this movie is a major

26:29

source of information. It's funny

26:31

you say, like, if you

26:33

wins or loses whatever, like, the decision is

26:35

kind of based on how you feel about Spielberg.

26:38

Because I feel like a lot of times with these

26:40

measurements of success. You

26:42

know, if you're the person being measured. You

26:44

try to think of it as like, oh, it's not about

26:46

me, it's about the work. You

26:49

know, like, this is not a judgment

26:51

of me. This isn't a yardstick of me. You're actually saying

26:53

the

26:53

opposite. You're like, no, no, no, this is a yardstick

26:55

of him.

26:56

Well, I hate to shock anyone by saying

26:58

that Oscars are a popularity contest, but

27:00

they are.

27:02

Michael Schulman, I've had a great time talking to you.

27:04

Thank you for talking me about all things Thank

27:06

you. This has been fun.

27:10

Michael Schulman is a staff writer at The

27:12

New Yorker and author of Oscar Wars.

27:14

A history of Hollywood in gold, sweat,

27:16

and tears. Alright.

27:20

That's our show. If you're a fan of what next, the

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best way to support our work is to go join slate

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plus. Going over to slate dot com slash what

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Downing and Laura Spencer. We are

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Come Monday. Talk to you then.