Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / A Close Reading of an Emily Henry Profile, Naina Kumar on Rom-Com DNA, and the Yearner Hall of Fame

Transcript

A Close Reading of an Emily Henry Profile, Naina Kumar on Rom-Com DNA, and the Yearner Hall of Fame · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio eight three one podcast.
0:09
Speaker 1: We're your hosts.
0:10
Speaker 2: It's then John Obasker and Tyler McCall, and we're so
0:13
Speaker 2: excited to talk everything romance, from the novels and the
0:16
Speaker 2: tropes to the book discreen adaptations, and of course the
0:20
Speaker 2: drama of it all, you know, unpacking what the genre
0:23
Speaker 2: says about who we are and how we love.
0:25
Speaker 1: Big stuff, important stuff. Tyler, I'm so excited to be
0:31
Speaker 1: chatting today. I know it's been like a whole week
0:33
Speaker 1: for us in real life. I have some news I
0:35
Speaker 1: want to discuss with you.
0:36
Speaker 2: I want to discuss actually an article from Bloomberg of
0:39
Speaker 2: all things, how business thee have you so business y
0:42
Speaker 2: of me? And you know we love Q three, we
0:44
Speaker 2: love profits and laws.
0:46
Speaker 1: I love using terms that I've heard in passing incorrectly absolutely.
0:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, But actually truly the thing I wanted to
0:54
Speaker 2: talk to you about is this article that Bloomberg published. It
0:57
Speaker 2: was an interview with Emily Henry talking about the Beach
1:00
Speaker 2: Read adaptation and her journey in publishing. And I was
1:04
Speaker 2: fascinated by the fact that this interview was in Bloomberg.
1:07
Speaker 2: Second of all, fascinated by the timing of the publishing,
1:10
Speaker 2: and third of all, have a bunch of questions for
1:12
Speaker 2: you about what you think the signal is about, like
1:15
Speaker 2: the production of romance adaptations going forward. Did you read
1:19
Speaker 2: the article? What did you think?
1:21
Speaker 1: I did listen. I love Emily Henry's writing. I read
1:24
Speaker 1: everything she writes, like I put her release dates on
1:29
Speaker 1: my calendar for some reason, every profile I ever read
1:32
Speaker 1: of Emily Henry the writer is always like, and she's
1:37
Speaker 1: a special lady who's writing romance on anyone else has
1:40
Speaker 1: ever written romance before? And it's like I always find
1:43
Speaker 1: that and I do not think that that's something that
1:45
Speaker 1: Emily Henry projects. I think that that's more like reflective
1:49
Speaker 1: of the interviewer. But I always find it so interesting
1:53
Speaker 1: because that's always the lens through which her work is presented,
1:56
Speaker 1: which it gives me kind of a hard time, do
1:58
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah?
2:00
Speaker 2: I have also historically had a tough time with the
2:03
Speaker 2: way that she's been covered. This was interesting in that,
2:06
Speaker 2: like she is quite significantly quoted, like as a sort
2:09
Speaker 2: of summary the article. It starts with, you know, just
2:13
Speaker 2: a summary of her journey how she started out as
2:16
Speaker 2: like a midlist author writing ya and then became like
2:20
Speaker 2: a best selling author when she's published Beach Read. She
2:23
Speaker 2: had never really read romance before, but very quickly, I think,
2:26
Speaker 2: became like a champion of the romance genre. Like when
2:29
Speaker 2: she was more publicly on social media, she was posting
2:32
Speaker 2: about romance novels a lot, but learned a lot from
2:34
Speaker 2: romance novels in the writing of Beach Read, and then
2:38
Speaker 2: you know, became a romance novelist. And she talks about
2:43
Speaker 2: what she's loved about writing within genre and the like
2:47
Speaker 2: publicity that's been happening around her adaptations. The end of
2:52
Speaker 2: the article talks about the adaptations piece of it, which
2:55
Speaker 2: I think is really the key of our discussion. Absolutely
2:58
Speaker 2: what is it like to adapt a romance novel? And
3:02
Speaker 2: does Hollywood actually understand the ingredients of what makes romance
3:07
Speaker 2: work and what makes a romance adaptation work, which we've
3:09
Speaker 2: talked about on here and sort of agreed that they don't.
3:13
Speaker 2: They don't understand that they the one off successes of
3:16
Speaker 2: things like Heated Rivalry are novel Emily Henry makes the
3:20
Speaker 2: same point. She makes the same point about how people
3:23
Speaker 2: don't seem to take these stories seriously despite realizing that
3:25
Speaker 2: there's a lot of money to be made, that they
3:27
Speaker 2: don't necessarily understand the DNA of a romantic story, even
3:31
Speaker 2: if they are interested again in the kind of money
3:34
Speaker 2: that a romantic story can make.
3:36
Speaker 1: One thing that really stuck with me was like this
3:38
Speaker 1: feeling that, yes, romance is this huge genre. Now she's
3:44
Speaker 1: a huge seller, so it must mean that people are
3:47
Speaker 1: taking romance seriously. And she's like, when people stop coming
3:50
Speaker 1: up to me and telling me that it's their guilty pleasure,
3:52
Speaker 1: that's when I'll know people are taking it seriously, which, like,
3:55
Speaker 1: that's very real, and I think speaks to the respect
3:58
Speaker 1: for romance as a category that you were talking about.
4:01
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find the exact quote, the one that
4:04
Speaker 1: I like genuinely had a good little chortle over is
4:08
Speaker 1: talking about how actors don't want to be in romances
4:11
Speaker 1: and how they think romances beneath them. And she says
4:13
Speaker 1: a lot of actors think that it's less humiliating to
4:16
Speaker 1: pretend to be a beetle than it is to pretend
4:18
Speaker 1: to be in love. And I was like, well, get
4:19
Speaker 1: their asses, Like God, so true. Also, who are you
4:23
Speaker 1: talking about like that was saying, it's Paul mescal it's
4:26
Speaker 1: not Paul Meskal. I simply do not believe it's Paul
4:29
Speaker 1: mescal for one second.
4:30
Speaker 2: People said that they think that it's direct shade at
4:32
Speaker 2: him because she at one point reposted a picture that
4:36
Speaker 2: he posted of himself an Iowa deebriis and people were
4:39
Speaker 2: like casting and she's been.
4:40
Speaker 1: Following him for years.
4:41
Speaker 2: But this actually kind of gets into the second piece
4:43
Speaker 2: of what I wanted to talk about with this, which
4:45
Speaker 2: is the like climate that this article is being published in, where, Yeah,
4:49
Speaker 2: the betreat adaptation is underway. The people we meet on
4:53
Speaker 2: vacation adaptation received mixed responses, like even you and I
4:57
Speaker 2: have very different reactions to it. Yes, every summer after,
5:01
Speaker 2: which became every year after by Carly Fortune adaptation got
5:04
Speaker 2: mixed responses. Be Tried so far has not received a
5:10
Speaker 2: positive response at its early coverage, Like, I actually have
5:14
Speaker 2: never seen the book community so united in its distaste
5:18
Speaker 2: for an adaptation.
5:20
Speaker 1: I'm scared for them.
5:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've seen technically no official material. There's no trailer,
5:25
Speaker 2: there's no sneak peeks. It's just stills. We've seen functionally stilled. Yeah,
5:30
Speaker 2: and casting announcements. We've seen that Phoebe Denniver is January.
5:33
Speaker 2: We've seen that Patrick Schwarzeneker regrettably is Gus, and we've
5:38
Speaker 2: seen a single still of them doing a chemistry test.
5:42
Speaker 2: We've seen a couple of shots on set that seem
5:44
Speaker 2: like curiously staged of the filming curiously many things. It's
5:49
Speaker 2: interesting because it feels to me, you know, conspiratorially, like
5:54
Speaker 2: it is an attempt on production's behalf to sort of
5:57
Speaker 2: secure the consent of readership to proceed with this project,
6:00
Speaker 2: or at the very least, to anticipate their potential frustrations
6:03
Speaker 2: by being like, look, this is what the project was
6:05
Speaker 2: the whole time. We've been very transparent with you. Don't
6:08
Speaker 2: be shocked when the movie looks like this is set
6:10
Speaker 2: in winter, When Pete's coffee shop, which is like a
6:13
Speaker 2: key location in the book, looks different from what you imagine,
6:15
Speaker 2: when the lake house looks different. You've seen it all,
6:18
Speaker 2: so none of this is a surprise, so you can
6:20
Speaker 2: just go in and pay attention to the story.
6:22
Speaker 1: That's yeah, it feels like to me, I agree with that,
6:25
Speaker 1: and I also thought it was interesting. I found the
6:27
Speaker 1: quote because the article talks about how she was consulted
6:31
Speaker 1: during the production of people we meet on vacation and
6:34
Speaker 1: it is explicitly said, and experience that reshaped how she
6:37
Speaker 1: thinks about adaptations. And then the quote from her is
6:40
Speaker 1: I understand now that it really ultimately won't be my
6:42
Speaker 1: vision and that's okay. And that, to me was the
6:45
Speaker 1: most telling component, which is, I think as an author,
6:50
Speaker 1: you know and understand to varying degrees, maybe less so
6:55
Speaker 1: if you're like el James, but like you understand that
6:58
Speaker 1: an adaptation of your work isn't going to be faithful
7:03
Speaker 1: to the book, down to the word choice. And that quote,
7:07
Speaker 1: to me was just so telling because it's a very
7:09
Speaker 1: polite way of distancing herself from beat Read specifically of
7:14
Speaker 1: like I did the consulting job on this one and
7:18
Speaker 1: it didn't turn out right, and so whatever is happening
7:20
Speaker 1: on this one is like, let go and let god
7:23
Speaker 1: you know.
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Speaker 2: Well. Her silence on Patrick Schwartzeneker's casting has been quite pointed,
7:27
Speaker 2: hasn't it like the Foss to me very pointed. She
7:30
Speaker 2: didn't make a statement in her substack grocery list being
7:33
Speaker 2: like welcome, I'm so excited about this Gus, which she's
7:36
Speaker 2: done for every other character. The fact that she was
7:39
Speaker 2: on Jenna bush I think saying like an adaptation belongs
7:43
Speaker 2: to many people. She's giving very First of all, this
7:46
Speaker 2: is like the most vocal I've heard her be in years,
7:48
Speaker 2: literally years.
7:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
7:50
Speaker 2: Second of all, she's not just like smiling and being
7:53
Speaker 2: like it's going to be great. She's being quite pointed.
7:56
Speaker 2: I think about her criticisms in the most polite way.
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Speaker 1: It's so polite, it's so Midwestern. It's so polite, it's
8:03
Speaker 1: so but like also it's the absence of anything. So
8:06
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the Jenna bush Haeger podcast in which
8:10
Speaker 1: Jenna Buschheger is like, for a dollar, say something nice
8:12
Speaker 1: about Patrick Schwarzenegger, and she st goes on this like
8:16
Speaker 1: really round about like I hear he's really nice. Yeah,
8:20
Speaker 1: so I do like to your point, like the timing
8:22
Speaker 1: of this article is interesting because she doesn't have a
8:24
Speaker 1: book coming out, the movie's not coming out, so like
8:28
Speaker 1: it's possible that Bloomberg just saw all this conversation around
8:31
Speaker 1: the beat Reade adaptation and was like, let's get in
8:33
Speaker 1: on this, which I mean not wrong, but specifically the quotes.
8:38
Speaker 1: There's just a few little quotes in there that are
8:40
Speaker 1: like and I have released this into the hands of
8:42
Speaker 1: the maker. Also the fact like it almost makes a
8:45
Speaker 1: big point of making it clear that she's retained the
8:49
Speaker 1: rights to Great, Big, Beautiful Life and that she's thinking
8:52
Speaker 1: about releasing it independently. And that was the one that
8:54
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, she like really has not been
8:57
Speaker 1: happy with the way that the productions have been going.
9:01
Speaker 1: It's also interesting.
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Speaker 2: Because we come off of this like string of nineties
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Speaker 2: and two thousands rom coms that are so iconic and
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Speaker 2: so formative and have shaped my taste in such a
9:13
Speaker 2: foundational way. I also cannot imagine this kind of conversation
9:19
Speaker 2: happening about those works, in part because they're not adaptations, right,
9:24
Speaker 2: and also because I think our culture around romance has changed.
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Speaker 1: I agree, we used to have stalwarts of the genre, right,
9:32
Speaker 1: Like you used to have like Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez,
9:35
Speaker 1: Kate Hudson, Sandra Bullock, Like actors or actresses like a
9:41
Speaker 1: Matthew McConaughey who you could put in a rom com.
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Speaker 1: They were bankable, you knew they had chemistry with each other.
9:47
Speaker 1: That's definitely part of it too. It wouldn't be this
9:50
Speaker 1: much spectacle because it would just be like, I don't
9:52
Speaker 1: know Julia Roberts, right, I'm thinking about Julia Roberts and Beatrade.
9:56
Speaker 1: She would have been so good in Beache. Young Julia
9:59
Speaker 1: Roberts is January. Actually, hang on, I think I kind
10:01
Speaker 1: of cooked here a little bit.
10:03
Speaker 2: You did, you did? But I'm glad we're talking about
10:06
Speaker 2: rom coms because our next guest is the wonderful Nana Kamar.
10:12
Speaker 2: She is a USA Today best selling author a Say
10:15
Speaker 2: You'll Be Mine and Flirting with Disaster, and she has
10:18
Speaker 2: this wonderful book called Just a Highland Fling coming out
10:22
Speaker 2: this month. She also was a former civil rights lawyer,
10:24
Speaker 2: so she's an incredibly clever person about many things, but specifically,
10:28
Speaker 2: I think it'll be fun for her to come on
10:30
Speaker 2: and talk to us about rom coms because many of
10:33
Speaker 2: her contemporaries have been deeply, deeply, deeply influenced by the
10:38
Speaker 2: iconic rom coms that came out in the nineties and
10:41
Speaker 2: two thousands that shaped and influenced us as readers and
10:45
Speaker 2: watchers of love stories. Welcome on to the show, Nana.
10:59
Speaker 2: I'm so glad we're getting to chat with you today.
11:02
Speaker 1: Thanks.
11:02
Speaker 2: I'm also like particularly delighted to have you on because
11:05
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about like a tried and
11:07
Speaker 2: true subject in romance space, which is the rom com
11:11
Speaker 2: and particularly I think we're really interested in the enduring
11:14
Speaker 2: influence of these tried and true nineties twenty twenty tens
11:18
Speaker 2: rom coms in romance fiction, like the actual writing of
11:22
Speaker 2: romance novels.
11:23
Speaker 1: And you felt like such.
11:24
Speaker 2: A perfect person for this, because say, you'll be mine
11:28
Speaker 2: flirting with Disaster and justin Island fling all. I don't
11:31
Speaker 2: want to say that they're not retellings. You aren't attempting
11:34
Speaker 2: to recreate rom coms, But to say that they aren't
11:36
Speaker 2: deeply influenced by rom coms would be an oversight. Is
11:40
Speaker 2: that fair to say?
11:41
Speaker 1: Totally?
11:41
Speaker 2: What would you say is like your works relationship with
11:44
Speaker 2: rom coms?
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Speaker 3: I guess I think they just feel like a natural
11:47
Speaker 3: way to describe the book. It obviously comes out of
11:50
Speaker 3: me loving nineties and two thousand rom coms. I think
11:53
Speaker 3: I grew up on those. They are very much like
11:55
Speaker 3: in my brain all the time. Yeah, I'm not setting
11:58
Speaker 3: out to do a retelling necessarily, but they are very
12:01
Speaker 3: much influenced. I can point to which movie really influenced
12:05
Speaker 3: which book, even though it's not a straight up retelling
12:08
Speaker 3: this book is like this movie, but with this twist. Like,
12:11
Speaker 3: I think that's just a really easy way to describe
12:12
Speaker 3: the books a lot of the time.
12:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I finished Just a Highland Fling last night, and
12:16
Speaker 1: it did give me very much like that exact same
12:19
Speaker 1: vibe as watching those really good rom coms of the
12:21
Speaker 1: nineties and two thousands. I was like, this is exactly
12:24
Speaker 1: what I want from a romance novel, and the like Leapier.
12:27
Speaker 2: I mean, even though Lee Beer is Ireland, not Scotland,
12:30
Speaker 2: and like and I was sort of thinking about this
12:33
Speaker 2: for flirting with Disaster and say You'll be Mine, and
12:36
Speaker 2: it made me think of the wedding date and obviously
12:38
Speaker 2: Sweet Home Alabama. I think flirting with Disaster is maybe
12:41
Speaker 2: the most direct, would you say, of the three?
12:44
Speaker 1: I think, So, why do you think we keep coming
12:46
Speaker 1: back to these stories?
12:47
Speaker 2: Why are these movies so influential on romance?
12:50
Speaker 3: Sort of broadly, I guess I was thinking about all
12:52
Speaker 3: these movies from the nineties and the two thousands, and
12:55
Speaker 3: some of the ones that stuck out to me were
12:58
Speaker 3: retellings of earlier works. So like, I was thinking of
13:01
Speaker 3: Clueless and Ten Things I Hate About You, and I
13:04
Speaker 3: was thinking about she's the man, and I don't know.
13:07
Speaker 3: I just feel like we're always retelling, right, Like we're
13:10
Speaker 3: always reaching back to some story from the past and
13:13
Speaker 3: wanting to put it in the modern context, and me specifically,
13:17
Speaker 3: like I want to put it in my cultural context,
13:20
Speaker 3: because all these movies of the nineties and two thousands
13:22
Speaker 3: that I loved didn't have Salvasian people in the leads.
13:26
Speaker 3: I loved the movie Sweet Home Alabama, but I love
13:29
Speaker 3: the theme of like coming back home and like what.
13:31
Speaker 1: Is home and what is your community?
13:33
Speaker 3: And I'm from Texas, not Alabama, but there is kind
13:37
Speaker 3: of this shared like coming back to the South. But
13:39
Speaker 3: it's really different when you're not a white person from
13:41
Speaker 3: the South and you have like progressive politics and like
13:44
Speaker 3: what does it mean to be from Texas and consider
13:46
Speaker 3: this your home? I think I was thinking a lot
13:48
Speaker 3: out that a lot and so yeah, it's Sweet Home Alabama,
13:51
Speaker 3: but it's set in Texas during a hurricane and speaks
13:53
Speaker 3: to you know, climate issues that we are all living
13:56
Speaker 3: in the midstuff.
13:57
Speaker 1: So I think it's fun.
13:58
Speaker 3: These are stories that have shaped me, and I want
14:00
Speaker 3: to get to tell them in a new time, in
14:03
Speaker 3: a new cultural context, in a new space that leads.
14:05
Speaker 1: Really well into something that I wanted to talk about
14:08
Speaker 1: because I think that what the best in the romance
14:10
Speaker 1: genre do that are borrowing from these rom coms is
14:13
Speaker 1: that they take elements that are familiar to us that
14:15
Speaker 1: we love, but that they're also updated to be more
14:20
Speaker 1: of our time and to be more inclusive and to
14:24
Speaker 1: be more like politically or sociologically aware. And I'm just curious, like,
14:29
Speaker 1: how do you choose which elements you want to bring
14:32
Speaker 1: forward and how do you choose which elements you're trying
14:35
Speaker 1: to kind of update or bring in. I think it.
14:39
Speaker 3: Kind of naturally comes, like I think for me the
14:42
Speaker 3: stuff that still works, and so like I think with
14:45
Speaker 3: Leap Eer, I was very much like I really just
14:47
Speaker 3: want to capture the vibes like yeah, I was like,
14:50
Speaker 3: I was like I wanted to, like the the obstacles
14:53
Speaker 3: in a road trip, the way these two people who
14:55
Speaker 3: are opposites are like forced together over and over again,
14:57
Speaker 3: Like I want to keep that? Do I want to
15:00
Speaker 3: follow it beat for beat? Not necessarily with flirting with disaster.
15:03
Speaker 3: I was pulling on the themes of Sweet Home, Alabama
15:05
Speaker 3: quite a bit, like the idea of home and community
15:07
Speaker 3: and coming back to your hometown with Sale Be Mine,
15:10
Speaker 3: which is like, yeah, wedding date, my best friend's wedding,
15:13
Speaker 3: Like there's a couple of things you could pull from there.
15:15
Speaker 3: I really was just like, I want this to feel
15:17
Speaker 3: like a nineties rom com.
15:19
Speaker 2: I think sometimes people go into a novel where they're
15:21
Speaker 2: expecting something that is like superficial and enjoyable, but the
15:25
Speaker 2: reality is that, like these stories end up being quite complex,
15:30
Speaker 2: Like just Highland Flink is about a one night stand
15:33
Speaker 2: and about a road trip, and you could, you know,
15:35
Speaker 2: tropify it in all these ways. And also it's about
15:38
Speaker 2: parental estrangement and like the rupture and repair of this
15:41
Speaker 2: like core relationship, or like Sale Be Mine being about
15:46
Speaker 2: a much longer legacy of like understanding how the politics
15:49
Speaker 2: of marriage works in these people's lives. And I think
15:52
Speaker 2: the reality is that, like these nineties and two thousands
15:55
Speaker 2: rom coms, not all of them, I don't want to
15:57
Speaker 2: like universalized, were similarly committed to very seriously telling stories
16:03
Speaker 2: about people's intimate lives. We can talk about the surface
16:05
Speaker 2: level pieces of You've Got Mail day in and day out,
16:09
Speaker 2: but at the heart of that story is Kathleen's grief
16:12
Speaker 2: over her mom. The most pivotal scene in that movie
16:15
Speaker 2: is her figuring out how to release her mom and
16:18
Speaker 2: her mom's bookstore and keep her memory alive in different ways,
16:22
Speaker 2: Like that is ultimately the core emotional reckoning that she has.
16:26
Speaker 2: I don't always see more contemporary rom coms committed to
16:31
Speaker 2: very seriously and sincerely and complexly telling stories of like
16:37
Speaker 2: intimate growth and development on screen. I mean, and I
16:40
Speaker 2: think there's also been a lot of think pieces about
16:44
Speaker 2: modern producers lack of willingness to take women audiences seriously,
16:48
Speaker 2: which feels like part of it.
16:50
Speaker 1: Maybe that's like a generous read is that they don't
16:52
Speaker 1: trust their audience. The less generous read is this idea
16:56
Speaker 1: of like you're just making things to be second screenainment,
17:00
Speaker 1: as they say, where it's like they fully expect you
17:03
Speaker 1: to be watching this rom com on Netflix while you're
17:06
Speaker 1: also on your phone or like folding your laundry or
17:08
Speaker 1: doing something else, and so you have to strip it
17:10
Speaker 1: down to its most basic elements.
17:12
Speaker 2: I wonder about this a lot for myself, as like
17:14
Speaker 2: also a South Asian person from the South who grew
17:16
Speaker 2: up watching very similar movies and very similar references.
17:21
Speaker 1: What do you make of the fact that, like so.
17:23
Speaker 2: Many of these deeply memorable works in our cultural like
17:27
Speaker 2: these deeply influential works were so white and may stuck
17:31
Speaker 2: with us anyway.
17:33
Speaker 3: There's something really universal about Kathleen Kelly. There's something really
17:36
Speaker 3: used universal about Harry and Sally to me, like, I
17:40
Speaker 3: why can we retell pride and prejudice in a South
17:42
Speaker 3: Asian context that it really hits? Like that is why
17:45
Speaker 3: why do I relate so deeply to these people who
17:47
Speaker 3: lived in like regency times? I mean, there's a universality
17:50
Speaker 3: to Austin's work where it's about people and relationships and
17:55
Speaker 3: love and class and society that feels still true today.
17:59
Speaker 3: And I think it's kind of the same thing with
18:01
Speaker 3: nineties rom coms.
18:02
Speaker 1: Okay, can I ask what the like letterbox top four
18:07
Speaker 1: rom coms are for you? Like the mount Rushmore of
18:12
Speaker 1: rom coms. I have one Harriett Sally and you've got
18:16
Speaker 1: nail right at the top. Yep.
18:18
Speaker 3: I think pomp Springs is underrated. Okay, it's going up
18:22
Speaker 3: there for me? Four right four? Yeah?
18:25
Speaker 1: I love this pic. Okay, Really, it's like, is it
18:28
Speaker 1: a wrong com?
18:28
Speaker 3: I think it is. It is, and it's I think
18:30
Speaker 3: it's underrated. I'm going to go with those three, and
18:33
Speaker 3: then I'm also gonna go with Okay. I think I'm
18:36
Speaker 3: gonna say.
18:36
Speaker 1: While you were sleeping, Okay, I love it's so good. Guys,
18:40
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. You haven't seen it. Guys, I
18:42
Speaker 1: haven't seen it. You gotta see it, You've gotta Okay.
18:46
Speaker 3: If I could add a fifth, that's a speculative that
18:48
Speaker 3: I don't thinks talked enough about. Is Kate and Leopold.
18:51
Speaker 1: Oh, I have not seen that. We should talk about
18:55
Speaker 1: Kate and Leopold Moore.
18:56
Speaker 2: I just think like it's really it's kind of wacky.
19:00
Speaker 1: It's Hugh Jackman and Marian right, yeah, okay, and he's
19:04
Speaker 1: like from old timey days and yeah, like he like
19:07
Speaker 1: comes to the present, and I just think we need
19:10
Speaker 1: more of that. It's very funny. First of all, I
19:13
Speaker 1: love that you have two picks that I was like,
19:15
Speaker 1: was not expecting. I agree on Palm Springs. I really
19:18
Speaker 1: want to rewatch it. I also love that you picked
19:20
Speaker 1: You've got Mail. I get into this sometimes with Nora
19:22
Speaker 1: Efron people, where like they prefer if we're doing Tom
19:25
Speaker 1: Hanks and Meg Ryan Sleepless in Seattle. I watched that
19:29
Speaker 1: very recently, and they're wrong. You've Got Mail is infinitely better.
19:34
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I could not agree with you more.
19:39
Speaker 1: Thank you so far.
19:41
Speaker 3: As to say I don't love sleeplessen Se.
19:43
Speaker 1: I don't love Sleepless in Seattle.
19:45
Speaker 2: I'm any territory.
19:46
Speaker 3: I mean so sorry, I'm so sorry Sleepless Seattle to
19:51
Speaker 3: be okay. I it's not that I don't love it,
19:53
Speaker 3: like I love it, but I don't maybe I maybe
19:55
Speaker 3: I don't.
19:56
Speaker 1: I do your work, I will say.
19:59
Speaker 2: I will say I don't think of Sleepless in Seattle
20:02
Speaker 2: as a rom com like it's I don't necessarily think
20:06
Speaker 2: it's funny, and I mean, there are really bright, funny moments,
20:09
Speaker 2: but I don't know. But I think it is deeply romantic,
20:13
Speaker 2: like I think Nora Efron pulls off the impossible and
20:16
Speaker 2: being like you're never going to see these two on
20:18
Speaker 2: screen at the same time except for three moments, and
20:21
Speaker 2: you're still maybe gonna believe something is real between them,
20:24
Speaker 2: and that I think is such a profoundly romantic thing
20:28
Speaker 2: to articulate on film that I think I can't not
20:32
Speaker 2: love it. But I think also like it's similar to
20:35
Speaker 2: You've Got Mailed the beating heart of that movie is grief,
20:38
Speaker 2: like it's it's his grief over the loss of his
20:40
Speaker 2: wife and the like processing of vestiges of love. I
20:45
Speaker 2: think will never not be like a successful project for me.
20:49
Speaker 2: From from Norah Fron in particular, like I think she's
20:52
Speaker 2: so and also when it's funny, it's really funny. I
20:57
Speaker 2: think about the part where Tom Hanks pulls down the
20:59
Speaker 2: map and is like, do you even know where Oklahoma is?
21:01
Speaker 2: And his son can't name it and he's like, the
21:05
Speaker 2: school system has failed you. Yeah, because moment from the
21:08
Speaker 2: nineties and also unfortunately tragically true currently yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:14
Speaker 2: One last question, if you could draw on one rom
21:19
Speaker 2: com in a future novel of yours, what would it be?
21:22
Speaker 3: Oh, I would love to do something like crazy stupid Love.
21:27
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah.
21:28
Speaker 3: I feel like we'd also don't talk enough about as
21:31
Speaker 3: like it is a little bit more ensembly, like it
21:35
Speaker 3: is a lot of moving pieces and storylines, but I
21:38
Speaker 3: would love to do something like it. Maybe would be
21:39
Speaker 3: more upmarket, but.
21:40
Speaker 1: I think that would be so fun.
21:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, to have like intersecting stories on this grand scale.
21:44
Speaker 3: Another one I think it was like crazy rich Asians,
21:46
Speaker 3: Like I would love to do a Seeing Glamorous Big Yeah, yeah,
21:50
Speaker 3: rom com I mean they're about family, and I love
21:53
Speaker 3: writing about families, both of those movies.
21:55
Speaker 1: Something like that.
21:56
Speaker 3: Would be really fun.
21:57
Speaker 2: That's so good.
21:58
Speaker 1: You have such good answers. Oh, this has been so fun.
22:02
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on. I'm so excited for just
22:05
Speaker 1: Hyland Flank to get into people's hands. So good, it
22:08
Speaker 1: was so good. Thank you so much for having me, Sanja.
22:21
Speaker 1: I loved that conversation with Nana, didn't you. I sure did.
22:24
Speaker 1: I love Nana.
22:25
Speaker 2: She's a delight.
22:26
Speaker 1: And I think that since we were talking about rom coms,
22:29
Speaker 1: now's a good time to introduce a concept that we're
22:32
Speaker 1: calling the Yearner's Hall of Fame, where we nominate people
22:37
Speaker 1: of various careers, apparently question Marky, who deserve to be
22:43
Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame of our all time great Yearners, Tyler.
22:47
Speaker 2: I delight in surprising you.
22:49
Speaker 1: I'll make my case first because it is probably the
22:52
Speaker 1: most obvious case in the world one could make, which
22:55
Speaker 1: is Ethan Hawk. I feel like I've talked about Ethan
22:58
Speaker 1: Hawk on this podcast before. First of all, I mean,
23:02
Speaker 1: speaking of rom coms. It's not a rom com, obviously,
23:04
Speaker 1: but the before Sunrise trilogy is like a fundamental text
23:09
Speaker 1: of Yearning as far as that is concerned to me,
23:12
Speaker 1: especially the first two The Yearning and Before Sunrise is
23:15
Speaker 1: actually so viscerally real that I almost can't watch it,
23:19
Speaker 1: Like I almost have to watch it, like through my fingers,
23:23
Speaker 1: because it's like watching these two people. If you haven't
23:26
Speaker 1: seen Before Sunrise, press pause, go to your nearest television
23:29
Speaker 1: or computer or smartphone and Sunrise Yeah, or your nearest Blockbuster.
23:37
Speaker 1: If you have to rent it, I personally will refund
23:40
Speaker 1: you the cost of renting it from like whatever digital
23:42
Speaker 1: service of your choice is. I actually won't do that
23:45
Speaker 1: because I don't know that I can afford that, But
23:48
Speaker 1: this is how strongly I feel about you watching Before Sunrise.
23:51
Speaker 1: It is Jesse, this American guy. He has just gone
23:55
Speaker 1: through a horrendous breakup. He's trying to get back to
23:58
Speaker 1: the States faster. And this French girl, Selene, who I
24:02
Speaker 1: believe is coming back from visiting her grandmother, and they
24:06
Speaker 1: are both on this train that is stopping in Vienna,
24:10
Speaker 1: where Jesse is getting off, and he's like, I have
24:13
Speaker 1: a crazy idea, like what if you get off with me?
24:15
Speaker 1: I have twenty four hours, so on my flight. They
24:17
Speaker 1: spend the next twenty four hours kind of not even
24:19
Speaker 1: it's like twelve like running around Vienna, no money, doing
24:24
Speaker 1: all this stuff, falling in love. There is a scene
24:27
Speaker 1: where the two of them are sitting across from each
24:29
Speaker 1: other at a restaurant. They are pretending to call people
24:33
Speaker 1: back home, like their friends back home, and talk about
24:38
Speaker 1: each other, like meeting each other, and how they feel
24:41
Speaker 1: about each other. That scene is so tender and raw
24:45
Speaker 1: to me that it genuinely makes me physically hurt. It
24:48
Speaker 1: gives me physical pain because she says, I like to
24:51
Speaker 1: feel his eyes on me when I look away. Oh okay, anyways,
24:55
Speaker 1: so at then sleep, ticketing, and then in the sequel,
24:59
Speaker 1: so they had agree that they would meet back in Vienna.
25:01
Speaker 1: They don't exchange phone numbers. This is in the nineties,
25:04
Speaker 1: so there's no Facebook, there's no way to digitally stock anybody,
25:06
Speaker 1: and they decide that six months later they will meet
25:08
Speaker 1: again in Vienna. The sequel before Sunset sees them several
25:13
Speaker 1: years later. He has sold a novel basically fictionalizing their
25:17
Speaker 1: time together, and she shows up at his Parisian book
25:21
Speaker 1: reading so romantic, and they end up wandering Paris together
25:25
Speaker 1: for a couple hours before his flight catching up. It
25:27
Speaker 1: is revealed that he in fact did show up in
25:30
Speaker 1: Vienna and she did not because her grandmother died so
25:35
Speaker 1: she couldn't go. And so there's this whole conversation about
25:38
Speaker 1: like what could have happened if they had met up
25:40
Speaker 1: in Vienna, and how like you only really have connections
25:43
Speaker 1: like this like every so often in your life, and
25:46
Speaker 1: when you're younger, you think they'll happen all the time.
25:48
Speaker 1: And then there's this very famous scene where she brings
25:51
Speaker 1: him back to her apartment. They're sitting in her apartment,
25:53
Speaker 1: she's like listening to music and kind of singing around
25:55
Speaker 1: and dancing, and she says to him, baby, you are
25:58
Speaker 1: going to miss that plane, and he just goes, I know,
26:01
Speaker 1: and it's I can't that alone. Those two movies alone,
26:06
Speaker 1: for me, would put Ethan Hawk in the Yearner's Hall
26:09
Speaker 1: of Fame. But like adding on top of that, first
26:12
Speaker 1: of all, like he has this kind of like scraggly
26:16
Speaker 1: tooth situation that he has said explicitly he's never gotten
26:19
Speaker 1: fixed because Jesse wouldn't have gotten it fixed. And if
26:23
Speaker 1: they need to make another movie, he doesn't want Jesse
26:27
Speaker 1: to have had his teeth fixed, which run me over
26:30
Speaker 1: with your car.
26:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:32
Speaker 1: And also very recently, Ethan Hawk. Every interview that he does,
26:38
Speaker 1: he reveals himself to be a true your lover and
26:42
Speaker 1: a lover boy. He's a lover boy. And then he
26:44
Speaker 1: did an interview on the Oscars Red Carpet with Amelia
26:48
Speaker 1: from Chicken Shop Date where she was like, do you
26:50
Speaker 1: have any advice for you know, people who are at
26:54
Speaker 1: unrequited love and he was like, the person who's in
26:57
Speaker 1: love always wins, because you know, it's good to feel,
27:01
Speaker 1: it's good to be that alive. He was like, you
27:03
Speaker 1: know that, does the sun worry about whether the grass
27:06
Speaker 1: appreciates appreciates that it shines its rays on it. That
27:12
Speaker 1: became like a fundamental text for me. So it did
27:15
Speaker 1: all that to say, lover boy Yearner Ethan Hawk I
27:21
Speaker 1: think has earned a spot in the Yearner's Hall of Fame.
27:24
Speaker 1: All of those things, plus the fact that he's like
27:26
Speaker 1: an artist who's so committed to his crafty, all of
27:28
Speaker 1: those things are like deeply romantic to me.
27:30
Speaker 2: This kind of ties into my pick as well. I'm
27:33
Speaker 2: inclined to think of like artists as sort of an
27:35
Speaker 2: inherently romantic species of person because they're like always in
27:40
Speaker 2: pursuit of a particular vision and rarely, if ever, is
27:44
Speaker 2: it like accomplished a satisfaction. And so there's this like
27:47
Speaker 2: again that thing that we've talked about with yearning, the
27:50
Speaker 2: act of like reaching for something relentlessly and maybe not
27:54
Speaker 2: getting it, but seeing fulfillment in that process anyway. Yes,
27:57
Speaker 2: so I think that all of that just delicious, delicious
28:02
Speaker 2: and delights too. Yeah, yeah, who's your pick?
28:06
Speaker 1: I'm literally dying.
28:07
Speaker 2: Okay, do you know the writer and poet Haneff of
28:10
Speaker 2: Dura Kieb.
28:11
Speaker 1: That name is super familiar.
28:13
Speaker 2: I would not blame you if you did that, because
28:15
Speaker 2: it's He's sort of an if you know, you know
28:17
Speaker 2: kind of situation I feel in that he's incredibly famous
28:20
Speaker 2: to a small subset of people, me specifically.
28:24
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm looking it up. I have not read his work,
28:27
Speaker 1: but I am familiar with his byeline, so to speak.
28:30
Speaker 2: Yes, he writes about music. He is like a music
28:32
Speaker 2: journalist of sorts. He's an essayist, he's an author, he's
28:35
Speaker 2: a poet. He does a show every year reading poetry
28:39
Speaker 2: with his dear friends at BAM. He is an artist,
28:43
Speaker 2: and I fell in love with his work when I
28:46
Speaker 2: first read his like iconic collection of essays they can't
28:50
Speaker 2: kill us until they kill us. I am not a
28:53
Speaker 2: person who necessarily understands music. I like music, I listen
28:57
Speaker 2: to music. I'm not a music theorist. I'm not someone
28:59
Speaker 2: who like feels deep devotion to musicians of any kind.
29:03
Speaker 2: This is just like a blind spot in my brain.
29:05
Speaker 2: It just is like whatever gray matter there is that
29:08
Speaker 2: was devoted elsewhere, it just was so like music is
29:11
Speaker 2: a part of my life, but not a highlight of it.
29:14
Speaker 2: But the way he writes about music and always in
29:19
Speaker 2: the process of writing about music, writes about love is
29:21
Speaker 2: something that I think is Urner Hall of Fame material.
29:26
Speaker 2: And he also self describes as a romantic and has
29:29
Speaker 2: these like really beautiful Instagram posts where he compiles poetry
29:34
Speaker 2: and reflections from his life to talk about how he
29:38
Speaker 2: is an artist and a writer singularly motivated by his
29:42
Speaker 2: love of love. Like he defines being a romantic in
29:46
Speaker 2: terms of something that June Jordan, the poet said, someone
29:49
Speaker 2: who is directed by desire, which I thought was so gorgeous. Yeah,
29:53
Speaker 2: And every time I hear him speak, every time I
29:56
Speaker 2: read his writing, I'm like, Oh, everything you make is
30:00
Speaker 2: an act of devotion, even in exploring the bad stuff,
30:04
Speaker 2: the hard stuff, the sad stuff. Like he's like committed
30:07
Speaker 2: himself as a writer to the project of writing about
30:11
Speaker 2: what it is like to be devoted to other people
30:13
Speaker 2: and to the self, and like, I find that to
30:16
Speaker 2: be Uriner Hall of Fame material. I'm always like reposting
30:20
Speaker 2: his stuff and being like preeminent romance theorist Tony fib Durky,
30:24
Speaker 2: which is so funny because I don't think he would
30:26
Speaker 2: describe himself in that manner, but I think of him
30:28
Speaker 2: as a romance theorist. Like the way he thinks about
30:31
Speaker 2: love and intimacy and relationships in his work fundamentally influences
30:35
Speaker 2: how I think about the politics of love and intimacy
30:38
Speaker 2: and relationships as well. He's like Hall of Fame for
30:41
Speaker 2: me for that reason alone. When he says he's directed
30:44
Speaker 2: by desire, I believe it wholeheartedly. That's the thing, right,
30:47
Speaker 2: Like Hall of Fame material to me are people who
30:51
Speaker 2: like the Ethan Hawk quote about the one who is
30:54
Speaker 2: in love always wins, Like you need someone who is
30:57
Speaker 2: able to give you a paradigm shift. Yes, So those
31:01
Speaker 2: are Hall of samers, people who, for whatever reason, because
31:03
Speaker 2: of how they perform, because of the art they make,
31:05
Speaker 2: because of what they're invested in, are able to create
31:08
Speaker 2: this paradigm shift into romantic possibility that Yeah, you're in
31:13
Speaker 2: a Hall of fame.
31:14
Speaker 1: That's the best way to phrase it, Like, that's exactly
31:16
Speaker 1: what it is. It's Oh, I have been thinking about
31:19
Speaker 1: love and relationships this way, and now I'm thinking about
31:22
Speaker 1: it in a different way, and like the different possibilities
31:26
Speaker 1: of what love and human relationships can be.
31:29
Speaker 2: I really like our first two picks for the Hall
31:31
Speaker 2: of Fame. Me too. To check back in as we
31:33
Speaker 2: get more amazing.
31:35
Speaker 1: That's the show. That's the show. Call us and leave
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Speaker 1: The Radio eight three one podcast is a production of
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Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, hosted by Sonjanabascar and Tyler McCall. The show
32:30
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32:33
Speaker 1: producer is Emily Meronoff special thanks to the whole iHeart
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Speaker 1: team and especially Ali Perry and Alison Kanter Graber. Our
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Speaker 1: executive producers are Claire Maser and Erica Serulo. Our music
32:45
Speaker 1: is Domino by James Ryan Carr and Love Is What
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Speaker 1: You Do by Alibi. We'll be sharing love here again
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Speaker 1: next week