Celebrities are the “scorching ones,” however they’re giving the chilly shoulder to conventional media, not less than in podcast type.
Within the shifting panorama of Hollywood publicity, a curious paradox has emerged: essentially the most press-averse celebrities are abruptly embracing the very medium that calls for essentially the most intimate dialog. The standard press junket, with its rowdy lodge suites and rotating carousel of journalists armed with the identical 5 questions, is giving method to podcasters.
Stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, who has spent a long time perfecting the artwork of strategic media avoidance, just lately settled into the surprisingly comfy confines of Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast to debate “One Battle After One other,” his $130 million Warner Bros. epic that struggled to search out its footing on the field workplace this previous weekend. For a full hour, the notoriously non-public actor shared anecdotes that might have been unthinkable in a standard press setting, together with the revelation that his childhood agent as soon as advised he rebrand himself as “Lenny Williams” as a result of “Leonardo DiCaprio” was deemed “too ethnic.”
Equally, and earlier this 12 months, Joaquin Phoenix, who has made his disdain for typical press obligations abundantly clear, made his podcast debut on Theo Von’s present to advertise Ari Aster’s “Eddington” — one other hefty-budget gamble that did not ignite opening weekend audiences. Phoenix’s look felt much less like a promotional obligation and extra like a real dialog, a stark distinction to his expressed hatred of “TV stuff.”
This migration to podcasts represents a major media evolution and a strategic pivot towards demographics that studios desperately must recapture. The younger male audiences that populate the listener bases of those celebrity-hosted reveals are the identical moviegoers who’ve been steadily abandoning theaters. It’s a sample that extends far past Hollywood — politicians and enterprise figures have equally embraced long-form podcast appearances, with figures like Joe Rogan taking part in more and more influential roles in shaping public discourse and, arguably, electoral outcomes.
But this new panorama comes with its personal problems. Whereas podcasts provide the promise of extra genuine dialog, they not often ship the journalistic rigor that conventional media aspires to keep up.
These aren’t adversarial interviews designed to problem or probe; they’re largely collaborative workout routines the place superstar company are invited to be charming variations of themselves with out vital pushback.
The enchantment for notoriously non-public stars turns into clearer when thought of towards the backdrop of conventional superstar media obligations. Beyoncé hasn’t granted a standard interview in over a decade, not since releasing her self-titled album in 2013. Since then, her uncommon media appearances have been solely on her phrases — private essays submitted to magazines or rigorously curated profiles the place her silence speaks louder than phrases.
“F1” star Brad Pitt as soon as articulated the elemental stress: “There’s this complete different entity that you simply get sucked into. It’s important to go and promote your wares. It’s one thing I by no means made my peace with.”
This reluctance stands in stark distinction to performers who view publicity as integral to their craft. Jamie Lee Curtis has change into legendary for her promotional enthusiasm, with many crediting her tireless advocacy as instrumental in “All the pieces In every single place All at As soon as” securing seven Oscar wins, together with her personal supporting actress victory. It helped Pamela Anderson together with her marketing campaign final 12 months for “The Final Showgirl” and had an important opening weekend for the sequel “Freakier Friday.”
“I want I had 10 Jamie Lee Curtis’s on each considered one of my movies and titles,” an awards strategist tells Selection. “It will make my job, and yours, infinitely simpler and much more gratifying. There’s nothing like somebody who will get it and is optimistic about it.”
However Curtis represents an more and more uncommon breed in an trade the place privateness has change into each extra valuable and extra unattainable to keep up. As social media continues to erode the boundaries between private and non-private personas, the podcast format affords one thing unprecedented: the phantasm of intimacy with out the adversarial undertones of conventional journalism.
That doesn’t imply these large podcasters aren’t good at what they do. Sean Evans has constructed a recognizable model with spicy discuss sequence “Sizzling Ones,” and is consistently praised for his insightful and thought-provoking questions.
The success of superstar podcast appearances like DiCaprio’s says that audiences are hungry for genuine reference to stars, whilst those self same stars change into more and more cautious of conventional media publicity. It’s a fragile steadiness that speaks to bigger questions on superstar, privateness, and the evolving relationship between performers and their audiences.
I believe we’d prefer to see a world with each, proper?
