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Sunday Special: Springsteen, Dylan and the Art of the Biopic
01:00:50
On Friday, “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” will be released in theaters. Rather than chronicling Bruce’s entire life, the film focuses on the making of his stripped-down 1982 album “Nebraska” and on his concurrent mental health struggles. This movie is the latest in a long history of musician biopics featuring stars like Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn, Eminem and Elvis Presley. Hollywood clearly loves telling the stories of influential artists. In this episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The Times, and Joe Coscarelli, a Times culture reporter, about the tropes of the genre and their favorite films that break the mold.
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- [00:00]
CBS Announcer
Tonight, the road to music stardom starts on cbs. From executive producers Taylor Sheridan, Blake Shelton and Keith Urban comes the road they're taking. Music competition where it's never gone before. On tour, 12 rising musicians, one bus and the chance of a lifetime. Every week, these artists perform in front of real people in real venues with one mission. Win the crowd or go home. Join the tour and take the ride the road. Tonight, part of CBS premiere week and streaming on Paramount.
- [00:34]
Gilbert Cruz
This is the Sunday special. I'm Gilbert Cruz. It's possible you've seen somewhere on the Internet or somewhere in your social media feeds images of the actor Jeremy Allen White looking a lot like Bruce Springsteen. That's because this Friday, the film Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere is coming out. And it's a movie about a brief and dark and very specific period of Springsteen's life. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Not just that upcoming movie, but we're going to be talking generally about the music biopic. It's a genre that Hollywood loves to dip into and it's a genre that the Academy really loves to reward with lots and lots of Oscar nominations. Today I'm here with two of my colleagues and Lindsey Zoladz, a pop music critic here at the Times and author of our Amplifier newsletter. Welcome, Lindsey. Hi. And Joe Coscarelli, a culture reporter and one of the co hosts of popcast. Thanks for being here, Joe.
- [01:36]
Joe Coscarelli
Hey, Gilbert.
- [01:41]
Gilbert Cruz
So let's start off by talking about the Springsteen movie. So deliver Me From Nowhere is about the making of his album Nebraska. It's the early 80s. He's just come off several hit records, a hit tour, and as we all know now, he was driven to record and release this very stripped down, extremely lo fi album without the E Street Band. I saw this movie a couple months ago at the Telluride Film Festival. Joe, you recently saw this movie. What sort of expectations did you have going in? What were you curious about?
- [02:15]
Joe Coscarelli
I was curious about a music biopic that was about a rock star watching Terrence Malick's Badlands.
- [02:21]
Gilbert Cruz
Yes.
- [02:22]
Joe Coscarelli
Being in space.
- [02:24]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah.
- [02:24]
Joe Coscarelli
Very, very solitary movie. And it's trying to do this thing where it's a zoom in instead of a cradle to grave movie. I think this one seems to be trying to potentially have it both ways in that it is a very narrow story about a critically beloved Springsteen album, but not the biggest Springsteen album. And yet it has these black and white flashbacks over and over again to his semi traumatic childhood. Not that traumatic at in this film, which is an interesting Wrinkle. And then it has big hits, both from before he started recording Nebraska and the songs like Born in the USA that he started writing while recording Nebraska. So you get a little bit of both where it is a little bit more quiet and direct and specific, but you still have all these Springsteen trappings and Easter eggs. For the real fans, you want to.
- [03:23]
Gilbert Cruz
Know why I did what I did, sir? I guess it's just a meanness in this world. The album Nebraska, it is a. As I said, it's dark, it's lo fi, Pretty quiet, pretty interior, which the film sort of mirrors in its own way, the vibe of that album.
- [03:49]
Joe Coscarelli
A very quiet film.
- [03:51]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah, I think we got that.
- [03:54]
Gilbert Cruz
Oh, yeah, we got that one. So this song got a name.
- [04:01]
CBS Announcer
I was gonna call it Starkweather, but.
- [04:04]
Lindsey Zoladz
Now I'm thinking Nebraska.
- [04:06]
Gilbert Cruz
Lindsey, are you a Nebraska person?
- [04:08]
Lindsey Zoladz
I am. I'm a Bruce person. Generally, I'm a dirtbag from New Jersey. So he.
- [04:14]
Joe Coscarelli
And you've interviewed me.
- [04:15]
Lindsey Zoladz
I have interviewed Bruce, which not a.
- [04:17]
Joe Coscarelli
Lot of people on earth can say. I think that's true.
- [04:19]
Lindsey Zoladz
I have interviewed Bruce. I think that for all of these reasons, I'm keeping my expectations sort of low. I haven't seen the film yet, but generally with biopics, I think the bigger a fan you are and the closer you are to that artist, the more potential there is for disappointment for sort of having too precious a relationship to that artist. And you're kind of only seeing what's not there. You're fact checking it in real time. You're taking, you know. So I think the less familiar you are often with an artist, the more successful a biopic can be for just like telling a story. I think, you know, I can see myself getting a little caught up in the details of this and, you know, just. Just going a little too Bruce nerd about it. It's an interesting choice to focus the film on, you know, the creation of this album rather than something like Born in the USA or Born to Run.
- [05:16]
Gilbert Cruz
Absolutely. I mean, it is definitely a counterintuitive choice, and I'm very curious to see how fans receive it, to see how the general public receives it. As an Oscar nerd, I'm certainly curious to see whether or not Jeremy Allen White's performance as Bruce Springsteen or Jeremy Strong's performance as John Landau, his manager, whether or not those get any nods from the Academy. Joe, what did you think of Jeremy Allen White?
- [05:42]
Joe Coscarelli
Yeah, that's a guy who did some singing that sounds like Bruce Springsteen. You know, I think there is a real authenticity play with these movies in general, but specifically in something like this, which, again, with the choice of focusing on Nebraska, is sort of saying, we're doing a little bit of an art house thing with this. And I think Jeremy Allen White, a professional brooder, whether he's cooking or wearing Calvin Klein's on the top of a skyscraper, like, what he does is brood. And I think that allows him to inhabit Bruce. I think the Jeremy Strong character has a little bit more potential, because unless you're like Lindsay and I and have spent a lot of time writing and reporting on music and focus on the lore of the background figures, like John Landau doesn't have this sort of mythic omnipresence that Bruce Springsteen does.
- [06:36]
Gilbert Cruz
I mean, one of the things, again, I feel like with this one and the Bob Dylan movie from last year, a complete unknown. I remember talking to the director of that movie, James Mangold, and he was talking about how he was attempting to not make this your typical biopic. And he would know because he made Walk the Line, in which Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny Cash many, many years ago. And I sort of want to talk about what we think characterizes your classic, your classical music biopic, because you have to have a form to divert from Lindsay. Tell me about the beats that a music biopic has to hit.
- [07:17]
Lindsey Zoladz
Well, we need to know where the artist comes from, both a sense of place and, you know, as we're talking with Bruce, a sense of perhaps familial trauma that. A core memory that sets them on the path to expressing themself in music. You know, we need to see sort of the early artistic awakening happening.
- [07:40]
Joe Coscarelli
Prodigiousness.
- [07:41]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah, yeah. The early inklings of, you know, they're becoming a musician in some way. And then there's arguably the most exciting and fun part, like the. Sometimes it's a great montage, you know, but the rise to success, you know, you can really have fun with that beat.
- [08:03]
Joe Coscarelli
I think shooting up the charts. You see the camera pan over the Billboard chart.
- [08:07]
Lindsey Zoladz
We need an arrow going up.
- [08:10]
Gilbert Cruz
It's like a version of like a spinning newspaper, you know, telling you the headline of the movie.
- [08:14]
Joe Coscarelli
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:14]
Lindsey Zoladz
And then perhaps success is not all it's cracked up to be. There's that beat. You know, sometimes that involves some sort of substance abuse, other sort of problems.
- [08:25]
Joe Coscarelli
You know, getting left behind, perhaps.
- [08:27]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah. A big third act conflict. And then I think we land either with death if the person is no longer around and posthumous canonization, or you have to figure out some sort of moment of triumph where they get back on the stage after they've been kicked down and, you know, show that they are a true musician and a worthy subject of a triumphant biopic.
- [08:55]
Gilbert Cruz
Good God, that was perfect.
- [08:57]
Lindsey Zoladz
Thank you. You were also someone hiring me to read your script and provide notes. I would be happy to do that.
- [09:03]
Joe Coscarelli
You were also just doing Walk Hard beat for beat.
- [09:07]
Gilbert Cruz
Oh, yeah.
- [09:07]
Joe Coscarelli
Well, you were reading the script of Walk Hard, the, er, parody of a musician biopic.
- [09:14]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yes.
- [09:14]
Joe Coscarelli
Which many thought had invalidated the need for any future biopics. And yet here we are.
- [09:23]
Gilbert Cruz
No, that capitalism returns to the mean. You know, like we don't acknowledge that anymore. That movie came after Walk the Line, which was the biopic about Johnny Cash and June Carter. Cash and Ray, which was the movie in which Jamie Foxx played Ray Charles, in which both of them lost siblings when they were a child. Which is why in the movie wacard, in which John C. Reilly plays an up and coming rock and roll star, he accidentally cuts his brother in half with a machete.
- [09:55]
Lindsey Zoladz
Dewey, I'm cut in half pretty bad. In case I don't make it, then you have to be double great for the both of us.
- [10:03]
Gilbert Cruz
It is the trauma that haunts him for the rest of his life.
- [10:07]
Joe Coscarelli
Yes.
- [10:07]
Gilbert Cruz
The music biopic has been around for quite a while. I do a little research and there was a period in the 50s in which you had the Glenn Miller story, the Gene Krupa story, the Hank Williams story and the Betty Goodman story. So this was a thing which I think Jimmy Stewart played all of them. All of them, yes. So we've had these forever, but it really, I think, hit this moment where we can easily sort of rattle off beats like you just did so wonderfully, Lindsay, with those two movies, Ray, which came out in 2004, and Walk the Line, which followed in 2005. And I'm wondering, what do you think it is about that very predictable outline Beat for Beat movie experience that seems to continue to appeal to people? Because we're going to talk about some movies that did not work, but there are a lot of these movies that people just go to. They know what they're getting and they still want to see it.
- [11:10]
Joe Coscarelli
I have an economic argument which is that I think these movies that you're talking about came in a fallow period for the record business. This was like the sort of end of the CD era. Right. Music sales peak in 1999, 2000. File sharing comes. Everything is very now, now, now. And these movies are always a good way for the people who own this music to point back to the catal, especially for a new generation, and say, hey, ever heard of this guy Johnny Cash, like Ray Charles, Pretty cool cats. Go buy these boxes.
- [11:47]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah, they got some greatest hits albums too, if you need a primer. Yeah.
- [11:51]
Joe Coscarelli
And estates of dead musicians combine with the rights holders or licensors in the record business can sort of come together as a conglomerate and say, how do we best sell this icon both to super fans, people who already love them, and introduce their music to new audiences. So, you know, Ray Charles, end of his life, he was winning Grammy awards that were controversial and, and, and I remember as a teenager at that time when, when Ray Charles was being feted in this way, that felt very manufactured to a cynical teenager. And I was rejecting all of this stuff out of hand. And I was saying, sure, Ray Charles might be an amazing musician, but stop trying to shove this IP down my throat. Though I did not yet know the term.
- [12:49]
Gilbert Cruz
You did not call that.
- [12:50]
Joe Coscarelli
I did not yet know the term that would come to define culture in our lifetimes.
- [12:54]
Gilbert Cruz
Right. Because this is musical intellectual property. Right. We think of IP in terms of superhero movies, in terms of franchises, but you are selling Bob Dylan IP to an audience, essentially.
- [13:07]
Lindsey Zoladz
Sure. And one thing I'll add on sort of the more film industry side of it is that, you know, Walk the Line and Rhea both produced Oscar winning performances. Reese Witherspoon wins for playing June Carter Cash and Jamie Foxx wins for playing Ray Charles. So, you know, you get this level of prestige too if you're, you know, an actor looking for an Oscar worthy role, a studio that wants to, you know, have a best picture contender. It also has that appeal to the film industry too.
- [13:40]
Gilbert Cruz
Absolutely. I mean, the Academy loves to award actors playing real people just in general. Right. If you look from Oppenheimer to Churchill to Lincoln to Margaret Thatcher to whoever. Right. But there is this. If you just go back and sort of look at Oscar history From the past 30 years, there is this way in which a musical performance is gonna get you at least nominated. You're not always gonna win. But if Bob Dylan, Leonard Bernstein, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Loretta Lynn.
- [14:15]
Joe Coscarelli
Yeah. And then going back to Billy Holiday.
- [14:17]
Gilbert Cruz
Before the real life composer Lydia Tarr.
- [14:21]
Joe Coscarelli
Obviously, most importantly, Lydia Tarr robbed for her Oscar.
- [14:27]
Gilbert Cruz
But it is. It sort of feels like a shortcut in a way.
- [14:31]
Lindsey Zoladz
Sure. Yeah.
- [14:32]
Gilbert Cruz
And there is also a way in which it allows actors to do a thing. Right. Which is maybe sing, maybe they're not. But if you are singing like Timothee Chalamet did, like Jimmy Allen White did. You can sort of like, sell that as I worked hard for this performance.
- [14:54]
Joe Coscarelli
Learning to play an instrument, just any sort of stunt that then becomes the driving force of the campaign.
- [15:02]
Gilbert Cruz
Right.
- [15:02]
Joe Coscarelli
It's sort of like losing an extreme amount of weight or putting on some crazy prosthetics. Like, if you can learn to mimic the magical skills of a legendary musician, then you are somehow, like, transcending the craft of acting.
- [15:16]
Lindsey Zoladz
Sure. I think to go back to the question of why these movies appeal, though, you know, it's. They're aspirational stories which always, you know, are always gonna have an audience. They're especially the sort of showing the birth to success story. You know, a lot of these are people transcending, you know, pretty modest roots and finding their talent that, you know, allows them to. It's a classic. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
- [15:48]
Joe Coscarelli
Of music stories. And, you know, this applies outside of biopics, fictionalized music stories, the sort of behind the Music run again, where everyone knows the shape of the arc. And that familiarity, I think, works twofold in these cases when it's about very famous musicians, in that the songs themselves are familiar, the people are familiar, and the beats are familiar. And then put that together and you get a crowd pleaser. I do think it's not a coincidence that even in the streaming era, like the most documentaries we see are also about music or sports. Two things that follow these very set paths and have built in fan bases to sort of flock to the content about pulling back the current.
- [16:39]
Gilbert Cruz
How much of the appeal is just going to see the songs that you remember or, like, in a movie theater? That's certainly the appeal for me. Right. Maybe I was always gonna see last year's Bob Dylan movie, but I went. I was like, o, thank you for reminding me. The most obvious thing in the world, which is that there are many Bob Dylan songs that are amazing and it's wonderful to hear them loud in a very good movie theater.
- [17:01]
Lindsey Zoladz
I mean, when I saw Bohemian Rhapsody, the woman next to me sang the whole time, oh, no. And it was actually an awful experience. It was worse than the movie itself, in my opinion.
- [17:13]
Gilbert Cruz
I'm very sorry for that.
- [17:14]
Lindsey Zoladz
It's okay. But I think that's like, not a terribly uncommon experience in some of these biopics with more, like, musical numbers and things like that. Like, there is this communal aspect. It's almost like going to a concert, you know. And I think Bohemian Rhapsody in particular, the real set piece of that is the really, like, just verisimilitude of Restaging the Live Aid performance.
- [17:41]
Gilbert Cruz
Yep.
- [17:41]
Lindsey Zoladz
You know, so an artist who is maybe someone you can't see in concert anymore. Cause they're not around anymore. You know, in the case of Freddie Mercury, in a way like going to a biopic in a theater is the closest you can come to having that live, communal concert experience.
- [17:58]
Joe Coscarelli
Don't erase Adam Lambert's queen.
- [18:02]
Lindsey Zoladz
He'll get his own biopic someday, I hope. Yeah, he probably will.
- [18:06]
Gilbert Cruz
Absolutely right.
- [18:06]
Lindsey Zoladz
Bohemian Rhapsody 2, the Adam Lambert story.
- [18:10]
Gilbert Cruz
Yes, I think you're right. Because again, back to the Bob Dylan movie from last year. I was not nearly alive when he went electric. And whether or not everything that happened in the depiction of that moment in the movie at the New Pork Folk Festival is actually accurate, I don't know that that many people punched each other. There's still something to wow. I am seeing something that looks great, sounds great, and I feel like I am in the moment.
- [18:42]
Lindsey Zoladz
Sure. And in that case, you know, Dylan infamously does not play his songs straightforward in concert anymore. Or. Yeah, like, so I was just talking.
- [18:53]
Gilbert Cruz
Some of this weekend why I never want to see Bob Dylan live for this week.
- [18:56]
Lindsey Zoladz
I mean, there's many other reasons to see Bob Dylan live now. It is awesome, but you're not gonna get, you know, the album, familiar arrangement of Flowing in the Wind, you know.
- [19:08]
Joe Coscarelli
So I actually thought that the real win for a Complete Unknown was exactly that. How crowd pleasing it was. It did a really expert job of taking this mythic figure who has a ton of music, not all of which is equally beloved. And it really boiled down not only the greatest hits and picking the most obvious stuff, but deploying it pretty well. Like when he plays Blown in the Wind, like you can get chills because it feels new. Even though you've probably heard this song a million different times.
- [19:40]
Gilbert Cruz
How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
- [19:50]
Joe Coscarelli
But both the songs, they focused on, usually the best ones, the. The crowd pleasing est ones, the ones agreed upon to be the classics, and then even which sections of those songs they use. Like, I'm. I'm really fixated on the editing of the songs in a Complete Unknown. Like, it's just like the best parts of the best songs. And I thought that was a really good to both remind people that, hey, I know there's a lot of noise around this guy, but like, at the core of it, like, it's just bangers. And also introducing those songs to a Timothee Chalamet audience.
- [20:27]
Gilbert Cruz
Right. Have you found whether yourselves or anecdotally people in your lives. Do you feel like these movies send people back to the music? I definitely found, like, I went through a month of just going back and listening to early Dylan after watching this movie. Not songs I was unfamiliar with, but I hadn't really sort of dug down on them in a while, and the movie just compelled me in that direction.
- [20:51]
Lindsey Zoladz
Well, yeah, I think that goes back to Joe's point about, you know, the estate. Thanks you.
- [20:57]
Joe Coscarelli
I don't think we would continue getting as many of these as we do if it didn't work in that way. Sure, streams go up, especially when these movies become successful. I think we're focusing a lot on complete unknown because that was a real win, I think, for the genre after something like Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody, which were, you know, successful in various ways, but I think a bit more polarizing. But the Dylan thing I think, really broke through. And one of the reasons I knew it did was when there started to be like, tiktoks about, like, oh my God, this guy Bob Dylan. Or how about this situationship between Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. And I actually, after the movie, made a playlist called Bobby and Joanie that's just all their songs about each other, one after the other.
- [21:42]
Lindsey Zoladz
Gonna need you to share that.
- [21:43]
Gilbert Cruz
Is that a public playlist?
- [21:45]
Joe Coscarelli
I. I can make it public for this podcast.
- [21:48]
Lindsey Zoladz
I think that also gets to the point that there's something generation bridging about these two. It's a way, you know, at its best, for parents to share their music with their kids and, you know, show that, like, once I and this person whose music I admire were young too, and, you know, there was something a little youthful and rebellious about, you know, this person that you think of as just this old established figure now. And I think it helps that, like, I've definitely watched some of these movies with my parents and then. And I'm sure that's a common experience or people showing them to their children and stuff, and then sharing that music in a way that feels like a bonding experience.
- [22:34]
Joe Coscarelli
And it can go in the inverse too. I'm thinking of like, when 8 mile or get rich or die tryin the 50 cent film came out like in the early 2000s, at the piece peak of Eminem and 50s powers. And that sort of worked in like a legitimizing sense where you could say, oh, you think Eminem is making little white kids too rebellious? But look at this movie. Like, he comes from a factory town and he really made it out. Like, I think that there's probably A lot of parents from that era who learned something about rap music from these commercial endeavors.
- [23:09]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah, I want to talk about performances because it feels like many of these movies sort of live or die based on who is playing the person in the title. And I watched this weekend a movie that I had avoided, to be honest, which was Elvis, which was the Baz Luhrmann film telling you about the life of Elvis Presley, but also telling you about his relationship with his longtime manager, Col. Tom Parker, played by a man.
- [23:37]
Joe Coscarelli
Who I love an out of his.
- [23:39]
Gilbert Cruz
Mind, Tom Hanks, but who I think is absolutely terrible in this movie. No offense to Tom Hanks. Well, some offense to Tom Hanks.
- [23:48]
Joe Coscarelli
Like he made some choices.
- [23:51]
Gilbert Cruz
The accents, the many accents, makeup. So I watched this movie Elvis, and I don't really want to see it. I actually am sort of grappling with. With turning it off. But Austin Butler as Elvis was so compelling that I pushed through to the end of this extremely long involved this long and not very good movie.
- [24:17]
Joe Coscarelli
Austin Butler, it's like half good.
- [24:22]
Gilbert Cruz
You watched it. If it's good, it's because of Austin Butler, who. I think at one point I may have mentioned this before, I said to myself, at 11 o' clock at night, is this the most beautiful person that's ever been on screen?
- [24:34]
Joe Coscarelli
Which is what you're supposed to feel when you watch Elvis.
- [24:38]
Lindsey Zoladz
Sure. So mission accomplished.
- [24:40]
Joe Coscarelli
Right.
- [24:40]
Lindsey Zoladz
And I think that's an interesting casting one because it's, you know, with the casting of these films, it's the tension between do we get the person that looks uncannily like the person they're playing or do we take some liberties and. But, you know, find the person that can most project the aura. And I think that was something that worked for me about Austin Butler playing Elvis. He doesn't look anything like Elvis. And you're not sitting there doing the thing you're doing, you know, in say, a complete unknown where you're like, I, you know, I'm seeing an overlay of Timothee Chalamet and Bob Dylan. And my. You kind of. You just are focused on the performance of Austin Butler playing this incredibly charismatic, beautiful person. And it, you know, that film has. Because it's so stylized and so over the top in all it's doing, there is a lot of artifice about it and like it's not going for that authenticity in the way that say, like the Springsteen movie, it sounds like is. So I think that's something that works. That's a choice where they didn't get the guy that looks the most like Elvis, but that's okay. And in some ways that actually even makes the performance more convincing.
- [26:01]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah.
- [26:01]
Joe Coscarelli
And I think it helped that people didn't have a ton of baggage with Austin Buckland.
- [26:06]
Lindsey Zoladz
Sure.
- [26:07]
Joe Coscarelli
I like when an unknown plays, completely unknown plays a very well known person and that allows the sort of entrance of them and their star light turning on to really land. Because there's that early scene in the film, Austin Butler's first performance as Elvis in an auditorium full of young women. And he comes out and he has the crazy eyeliner on, you know, the incredible pink suit. Yes. And he's really, really, really making his debut both as Elvis but also like for the world where you may go.
- [26:44]
Gilbert Cruz
To college, you may go to school, you may have green catalyst.
- [26:53]
Joe Coscarelli
And when the women's heads are like almost literally exploding and they're like turning into puddles and they're screaming and like tearing each other apart to get closer to him. And his mom is just like, oh my God, what is going to happen to my boy? And you're like, yeah. Like, yes. The aura is off the charts. It doesn't matter that the rest of the movie is completely ridiculous because it nails the heart of the thing that made Elvis good, which is not just looking and sounding like Elvis, it's embodying the vibes of Elvis.
- [27:33]
Gilbert Cruz
So there is that type of performance in which you're trying to convey to the audience the spirit of the person. And then there are performances in which the person really tries to go for more of a mimic type performance. I don't know if we would consider Joaquin Phoenix and Walk the Line to fall into that category. Pretty close. But you know, particularly because Johnny Cash is such a distinct voice.
- [27:55]
Joe Coscarelli
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.
- [27:59]
Gilbert Cruz
Really trying to hit that voice. Really trying to hit, you know, the clothes, the hair, everything.
- [28:04]
Joe Coscarelli
Definitely Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx performance.
- [28:07]
Gilbert Cruz
Well, I got a worm way over town it's good to me oh yeah.
- [28:18]
Joe Coscarelli
I'm thinking like Val Kilmer in the Doors. Really, really, really trying to nail Morrison. They go out on stage and howl for people. Me, they see exactly what they want to see. You know, Jennifer Lopez as Selena.
- [28:36]
Lindsey Zoladz
First of all, I would like to thank my family.
- [28:39]
Joe Coscarelli
I think that's a big one where it's like I'm both making my debut and I'm really looking and sounding like this person. Like that sort of has the best of both, I think, in that sense.
- [28:52]
Lindsey Zoladz
And I'd especially like to thank the fans because without you, we'd be nothing. Thank you.
- [29:02]
Joe Coscarelli
And Then you have the really weird twists where the person plays themselves. You know, I mentioned 8 Mile Eminem playing a version of himself. Purple Rain, which we've gone this far without talking about, in which Prince plays a version of himself.
- [29:17]
Gilbert Cruz
Well, for starters, you have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. What? You have to purify yourself in Lake Minnetonka.
- [29:26]
Joe Coscarelli
And that can really work if it's done at the right moment.
- [29:29]
Lindsey Zoladz
I think a recent version of that that I really liked was the Kneecap movie. I don't know if anyone saw that.
- [29:35]
Gilbert Cruz
But tell us about that one.
- [29:39]
Lindsey Zoladz
Kneecap. The Imperiled, shall we say Irish rap group played themselves in this movie that came out, I think, last year. And it's sort of their dramatization of their origin story. But they're really good on being themselves. Yeah.
- [29:58]
Joe Coscarelli
When I said I booked as a gig, what I meant was my Uncle.
- [30:00]
Lindsey Zoladz
Potter said we could play in his.
- [30:01]
Joe Coscarelli
Bar if I sorted some old folks smoke for his gout. JJ only agreed that DJ if he could set up his Dax in the.
- [30:07]
Lindsey Zoladz
Store cupboard just in case he was.
- [30:09]
Joe Coscarelli
Spotted by any pupils.
- [30:10]
Lindsey Zoladz
My boyfriend thought that at least one of them was like a hired actor. Afterwards we were talking about it and was like, no, that guy, he's actually the DJ in the band. And so I think that was one where that was a group that I didn't know much about. I didn't know their sort of backstory, but them playing themselves and sort of presenting their. Their story to a new audience, for me, it worked.
- [30:36]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah. You also have something that is, for obvious reasons, pretty rare, but a relative of the person playing one of the people most famously in the past few years, o' Shea Jackson playing his father in the movie Straight out of Compton. If America's Most Wanted blew up, you pay me the advance for the follow up. Now, is that not what the you said?
- [30:58]
Lindsey Zoladz
That is what I said, but it.
- [31:00]
Gilbert Cruz
Is more complicated than that, Cube, right? There are metrics. Come on, Brian. I got a baby on the way and a house I just paid for off the strength of what you told me. I mean, you gave me your word.
- [31:09]
Lindsey Zoladz
Q, would you just calm down?
- [31:11]
Gilbert Cruz
Calm down?
- [31:12]
Lindsey Zoladz
The movie that spawned a million T.
- [31:14]
Joe Coscarelli
Shirts, a million parody, straight out of.
- [31:18]
Lindsey Zoladz
Pod, straight out of Blank.
- [31:20]
Joe Coscarelli
Yeah, and you know, that's one where you get a little bit of Easter egg out of the sun. And obviously the resemblance which is there. The voice helps also, but that, I don't know that you can really get a ton of mileage out of that if the movie itself isn't working, people like Shade ad Compton. It made a lot of money, I think, because there wasn't that much like it. You don't often get these sort of serious recent ish history rap biopics. They come in clumps. There was a notorious big one that flopped in the late aughts, came out a little bit before Shade outta Compton, which then became this big hit. And then Amiga immediately after, you have something like the Tupac one, which again just came and went.
- [32:08]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah, we've really focused on rock biopics, country biopics. Do you think that there is a reason that more hip hop biopics are not made or not successful?
- [32:20]
Joe Coscarelli
I think it's probably the obvious answer, which is that hip hop has long been underrated for its commercial abilities. And, you know, there's white executives in charge of largely white companies. And I think that, you know, that's just. There's just. There's just less appetite. You know, I think the reason we get a lot of movies about boomer icons is because a lot of boomer are making these decisions of what gets made. And it stems all the way back to publishing. A lot of these movies are based on books. There are way more books about Bob Dylan than there are probably about all wrappers put together. So, you know, the source material is also severely lacking.
- [33:07]
Gilbert Cruz
All right, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about some biopics that really mess with the form. We'll be right back.
- [33:26]
CBS Announcer
Tonight, the road to music stardom starts on cbs. From executive producers Taylor Sheridan, Blake Shelton, and Keith Urban comes the road they're taking music competition where it's never gone before. On tour, 12 rising musicians, one bus, and the chance of a lifetime. Every week, these artists perform in front of real people in real venues with one mission. Win the crowd or go home. Join the tour and take the ride the road. Tonight, part of CBS premiere week and streaming on Paramount.
- [33:55]
Gilbert Cruz
Hey, I'm Joelle.
- [33:56]
Lindsey Zoladz
And I'm Juliet. We're from New York Times Games and.
- [33:59]
Gilbert Cruz
We'Re out here talking to people about games.
- [34:01]
Lindsey Zoladz
You like New York Times Games?
- [34:02]
Joe Coscarelli
Love them.
- [34:03]
Lindsey Zoladz
Okay. Love. I play with my husband every night. I refuse to let him play it without me. What's your favorite game?
- [34:08]
Gilbert Cruz
The crosswatch. The crossword. I do it with my brother.
- [34:11]
Lindsey Zoladz
My favorite is the mini. We try and get it under 30 seconds.
- [34:15]
Gilbert Cruz
You're pros.
- [34:16]
Lindsey Zoladz
I usually text my friend and ask her if she can bait me, but.
- [34:19]
Gilbert Cruz
She never has at lunch about a bunch of people at work will all be doing the same game at the same time.
- [34:23]
Lindsey Zoladz
There's this little tab down here called Friends so you can add your friend.
- [34:26]
Gilbert Cruz
That feels new to me. It is. It's nice to have the social aspect.
- [34:30]
Lindsey Zoladz
Oh my God. And you have all their times. That's crazy, right? You can look at spelling bee wordle connections. Oh my God. Amazing love that I have to get the app. Thank you so much for talking with us. I really appreciate it.
- [34:41]
Sandra E. Garcia
So much fun.
- [34:42]
Lindsey Zoladz
You can play all New York times games@nytimes.com games or on our app.
- [34:47]
Gilbert Cruz
Play on. All right. I'd love to get into a few biopics that are unexpected, that are not what we have been talking about, which is the sort of cradle to grave depiction of a musician's life. I would love to start with one that I saw at this point so many years ago. It is Superstar the Karen Carpenter Story, which was directed by Todd Haynes. And this tells the story of Karen Carpenter essentially through Barbies. It's just a bunch of Barbies showing how difficult her life was, how she.
- [35:26]
Joe Coscarelli
Dealt with Incredible movie. I remember pirating this.
- [35:28]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah, exactly. It is how she dealt with anorexia and other issues. And it was a movie that the Carpenter estate of course, was not interested in, in approving because of how negatively it depicted all the people around her. As a result, it uses all the Carpenter's music, but it is not. It's not something it could really legally watch. But it was a fascinating, certainly for me as a, I don't know, a 19 year old college student, to think that there are, you know, after having seen La Bamba and Selena when I was growing up in movies that were sort of very stereotypical biopics that you could actually just be completely wild and do something like this. It's amazing. What are some other movies, some music biopics that have been surprising to either of you?
- [36:15]
Joe Coscarelli
Well, I think you really put your finger on the fulcrum here, which is. Is the musician or the musician's estate participating in the film? I think if something is authorized, if something is collaborative, which is often the way that they get the rights to use the music. You know, to have a music biopic, you need the big songs. To have the big songs, you need the participation of whoever wrote and performed them. And that often means they're gonna have approval over the script, they're gonna have approval over the marketing. Someone is gonna be keeping a very close eye on this ip. The workaround is to sort Of Fudge it either you don't use the music. There's a little scene, Jimi Hendrix biopic, in which Andre 3000 of Outkast plays him with no Jimi Hendrix music. Instead it has him in front of the Beatles, which is something that really happened. But that's the sort of climactic moment because I don't have access to any actual Jimmy songs. I think movies that are really inspired by musicians or their stories, but can composite a bunch of different acts from that same era and sort of skirt the rules of authorization with the understanding that that means they won't have the songs, you know, and love can be really successful. You know, I'm thinking of Last Days, which is the Gus Van Sant movie that is very obviously about Kurt Cobain and his suicide.
- [37:49]
Gilbert Cruz
What's going on at the house anyway? Who's all over there?
- [37:51]
Joe Coscarelli
What do you guys do all the time? Are you going to play the tour? It's gonna be a shame if you don't make these days. It's this very, very eerie, quiet, dark, sort of arthouse look at one of the biggest rock stars of the 1990s. On the flip side of that, Alex Ross Perry made a movie called Her Smell a handful of years ago.
- [38:12]
Lindsey Zoladz
How can I be expected to grow?
- [38:17]
Joe Coscarelli
That is sort of a cobbled together version of a lot of female 90s rock stars, both from the grunge era and Riot Grrrl. You know, you might see some Courtney Love in there, you might see a little bit of Kathleen Hannah in there, but it is a fictional version that feels truer to that world or that life or even those characters than someone actually trying to impersonate them.
- [38:45]
Gilbert Cruz
Lindsay, do you have a couple suggestions on movies that sort of mess around with what we expect from a biopic?
- [38:53]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah, I mean, my favorite movie about Bob Dylan is not about Bob Dylan at all. It's Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers movie from about a decade ago. I rewatched that after seeing A Complete unknown and it actually made me appreciate Inside Llewyn Davis that much more. It's the story essentially of not the winner of music history, Bob Dylan, but a loser. Someone, you know, this. This made up musician who essentially represents the many, many people in the Greenwich Village folk scene who did not become Bob Dylan, who did not, you know, find the success that he did. So how's the music going?
- [39:44]
Gilbert Cruz
Pretty good, Pretty good. Oh, good.
- [39:46]
Lindsey Zoladz
So you don't need to borrow money.
- [39:50]
Gilbert Cruz
Actually, I. I was wondering.
- [39:53]
Lindsey Zoladz
And in telling the story of, you know, the loser, it's A much more compelling and kind of unfamiliar narrative. It also has a great performance by Oscar Isaac. But you're not the fact that he's playing a fictional musician. You're not again doing that thing where it's like, oh, does he look enough like him? You're just fully in the story. And I think it's a really beautiful film. And there is kind of, you know, not to spoil the ending, but Bob Dylan himself know a fictionalized version of the.
- [40:25]
Joe Coscarelli
He's in the post credits sequence to tease the sequel.
- [40:28]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah, exactly.
- [40:30]
Lindsey Zoladz
Marvel style, outside the window. But you know, I think that's one where sometimes telling the story around the more familiar story is a more satisfying film. And I think another sort of fictionalized one that does that in a more crowd pleasing way is that thing you do which is a movie, you know, not about the Beatles at all.
- [40:52]
Joe Coscarelli
Yeah, about a band with a song better than a Beatles song.
- [40:56]
Lindsey Zoladz
Ooh, I'll leave that there.
- [40:59]
Joe Coscarelli
Half joking.
- [41:00]
Gilbert Cruz
And you don't need to be cruel. If Tom Hanks did it wrong in Elvis, he certainly did it right with that thing you do which he starred in and he wrote and he directed.
- [41:13]
Lindsey Zoladz
He did it.
- [41:16]
Joe Coscarelli
And yeah, that twist, that sort of trick of following the loser is I think a great frame for a biopic that can be about a legend but not get bogged down in the details. I'm thinking also of Amadeus, which tells the Mozart story through Salieri, his peer, who's obsessed with him and hates him because he's a mediocrity, as he calls it, and can't believe what it's like to be in the presence of this idiot genius.
- [41:47]
Gilbert Cruz
The only trouble is no one will hire me. They all want to hear me play, but they won't let me teach their daughters as if I was some kind of a fiend.
- [41:55]
Joe Coscarelli
Like it takes the air out of Mozart in this way where you know, you're expecting this looming sort of all knowing genius and instead you get this pervert with an annoying giggle and you have Salieri being like, I can't believe that this work is coming from this guy. For almost three hours following following the Loser. Also one of my favorite music movies, Eden, a French film by Mia Hansen Love, which sort of tells the story of somebody on the periphery of Daft punk of the 90s French electronic music scene. And you know, you get flashes of them, but you're following a guy who doesn't make it. And that I think can tell you more about the world that these people are coming from and just sort of Frees up the storytelling and the filmmaking. You know, I come back to this question a lot with a movie like the Dylan one, which I enjoyed, and also with the Springsteen one, which is like, does this need to exist? Does it have any artistic value outside of the art that already we already have? Even the Elvis movie, the choice to make Colonel Parker, the sort of vantage of the film and Elvis as this sort of specter in the background. That's cool to me. Yeah.
- [43:19]
Lindsey Zoladz
I think that was the part of Elvis that I actually thought didn't work. But I think it gets at another tension that in trying to narrativize these stories, you have to have a love story. You have to have some interpersonal thing. And I think the problem with the Elvis movie was that it overestimated how much people care about Colonel Tom Parker.
- [43:44]
Joe Coscarelli
Well, especially in the way that Tom Hanks chose to play him.
- [43:49]
Lindsey Zoladz
Tripled down on that. And then I think, you know, that's not necessarily the most interesting emotional arc of his life. But, you know, trying to find that foil. Like you mentioned Amadeus and the kind of unconventional use of, you know, a rather poor Salieri.
- [44:10]
Gilbert Cruz
Just a pathetic guy.
- [44:11]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah, that movie did him dirty. But having to find that foil. Is it a love story? Is it, you know, me against the label or so, you know, but finding that antagonist, that. Not necessarily a villain, but what's the sort of core, you know, love story?
- [44:33]
Joe Coscarelli
Did you like Priscilla? The Sofia Coppola movie about Priscilla Presley?
- [44:37]
Lindsey Zoladz
I was mixed on that, but I was fascinated by, you know, did that come out the same year as Elvis or soon after? The different choices. So Austin Butler is Elvis in Elvis and then pure sex. Yes. And then Jacob Elordi plays him like a total himbo.
- [44:57]
Joe Coscarelli
Even more so than pure blank brood.
- [45:00]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah. Which was like a fascinating choice. And I think I understand again why the Elvis estate was not as happy with that film. Perhaps. But, you know, I like the plurality of that. I like, you know, sort of coming at the story from different vantage points. And obviously, you know, telling Elvis's story through the eyes of his very young, at the time, wife was a refreshing choice that, you know, I think those two movies in conversation are, you know, present some interesting tension.
- [45:33]
Joe Coscarelli
Well, you talk about different vantage points. There's. I'm not there. This is another way to come at Dylan, and it's to come at Dylan from a bunch of different directions as little vignettes. You have Cate Blanchett playing the most literal version of him. But of course, Cate Blanchett is a woman, so that's a little bit of a twist.
- [45:53]
Gilbert Cruz
Is it true you no longer sing protest songs?
- [45:55]
Lindsey Zoladz
Who said that? I didn't say that.
- [45:57]
Gilbert Cruz
I just. I read somewhere that you no longer do the protest thing.
- [46:03]
Lindsey Zoladz
Well, that's all I ever do is protest. Do you?
- [46:12]
Joe Coscarelli
And then you have Bob Dylan as small black child. You have Bob Dylan as outlaw Richard Gere. Like, what do you think of the sort of abstract take on a legend like that?
- [46:25]
Gilbert Cruz
I think this is one of the great music biopics. It's certainly not for everyone. It is also directed by Todd Haynes, an art house director. And it is a fractured portrait of a man and a musician who purposefully has tried to make himself unknowable to his fans and to the world at large. And so the strategy of picking Cate Blanchett, as you say, sort of depicting him during those years that we saw in the black and white documentary that was made about Bob Dylan, you have Christian Bale doing a version of Bob Dylan, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Richard Gere. It's one of the smartest, if not always totally legible or crowd pleasing decisions that I've ever seen in terms of how to make a different sort of story about a musician.
- [47:20]
Joe Coscarelli
It makes you understand the guy, which is a very impressive feat. It's a real tightrope walk that he does where you don't exactly. You're not learning plot points in his life, but you're sort of understanding who he is and where he comes from spiritually.
- [47:39]
Gilbert Cruz
Dare I say we cannot leave this topic without talking about some of the parodies that have been made. We touched briefly on Walk the Dewey Cox Story, which stars John C. Reilly and is just so funny. But there's another movie I know that we are all fans of.
- [47:57]
Joe Coscarelli
Yes, I did rewatch Pop Star Never Stop Stopping.
- [48:01]
Gilbert Cruz
Never Stop. Never Stop. No, it's Pop Star Never Stop. Never Stop.
- [48:06]
Lindsey Zoladz
Never Stop.
- [48:07]
Joe Coscarelli
We're leaving this in Never Stop, Never Stopping. This is Andy Samberg Connor for real. A sort of Justin Bieber, you know, basically a rap influenced white pop star who starts in like a Beastie Boys ish group and goes solo. This is a mockumentary, I think, that, that we've sort of skirted around the other elephant in this room, which is that there are a ton of really amazing music documentaries about basically all of the people we've talked about obviously Don't Look Back. The canonical Bob Dylan film and then no Direction Home, the later one by Martin Scorsese, et cetera, et cetera. So I do think it's interesting that One of the best music biopics ever made is a fake documentary about a fake musician. But just nails. Yes.
- [49:02]
Lindsey Zoladz
Like in the tradition, of course.
- [49:03]
Joe Coscarelli
Yes. And many, many others along the way. But there's something so both specific about Pop Star. It's really nailing the mid 2010s version of pop culture featuring real musicians doing, you know, talking head interviews about a made up musician. The industry parody is just so such a fine point on it. It's really, really lacerating, but also loving and just knowledgeable and accurate. You know, what can we even say? Are we allowed to play a little bit of one of these songs or are we just gonna have to bleep.
- [49:49]
Lindsey Zoladz
The whole Incredible thoughts.
- [49:51]
Joe Coscarelli
We made a new song at the farm. We found Lawrence's journals and they were just amazing, amazing. Just full of incredible thoughts. Just like ideas and poems and stuff.
- [50:00]
Gilbert Cruz
Nothing special, yo.
- [50:02]
Joe Coscarelli
And then Connor had the idea to take a piano line for my solo.
- [50:05]
Sandra E. Garcia
Shit.
- [50:05]
Joe Coscarelli
Connor put it all together and the poppies paired us with the craziest special guest to perform with.
- [50:11]
Gilbert Cruz
Incredible parts. Incredible minds. I'm so overwhelmed. How did my brain conceive them? A snow white dove.
- [50:24]
Lindsey Zoladz
But the songs are so funny. That's the main. It's the Lonely island guys. So it's, you know, you get the satisfaction of the sort of Spinal Tap narrative arc, but then you get some Lonely island digital shorts in the middle with, you know, star studded musical cameos as well. It's great.
- [50:44]
Gilbert Cruz
I think we should talk very quickly about a few biopics that are on the way. Again, this is a tried and true source of story for Hollywood. There's a Michael Jackson movie coming. There's a Britney Spears movie that is in development based on her memoir. Based on the memoir, the Woman in Me. There's a Joni Mitchell biopic directed by Cameron Crowe or that he is working on. And then there is also the most fascinating biopic experiment possibly ever that's coming in several years.
- [51:17]
Joe Coscarelli
The Ur biopic.
- [51:18]
Gilbert Cruz
Yes. Do you want to tell us about this?
- [51:20]
Lindsey Zoladz
The Ur biopics.
- [51:21]
Gilbert Cruz
The biopics, yes.
- [51:23]
Lindsey Zoladz
So we're talking about Sam Mendes, Beatles. What's not a trilogy? What's the four.
- [51:33]
Gilbert Cruz
Quadrilogy.
- [51:34]
Lindsey Zoladz
Quadrilogy. We're gonna learn when these movies come out.
- [51:37]
Joe Coscarelli
It's the bcu, the Beatles Cinematic Universe.
- [51:40]
Gilbert Cruz
There we go. Peter Jackson started it. Sam Mendes is continuing it.
- [51:43]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yes. So this is four different biopics, one for each Beatle. And the casting is pretty brilliant, I would say. Like they got it right. Paul Mescal is playing Paul McCartney. Joseph Quinn is George Harrison. Barry Keoghan playing Ringo Starr. Love that. And Harris Dickinson as John Lennon. So not to, I'm not trying to name drop, no go. But like I did interview Ringo Starr this summer.
- [52:13]
Joe Coscarelli
Yes. Congratulations.
- [52:15]
Lindsey Zoladz
Thank you. And when I was talking to my dear friend, talking to my dear friend Ringo about this actually and he was saying like even having read the script of at least his film and given some notes on it, he was like, I don't know how they're gonna do this. Cause he's like so many things like we're all in the same room, this happened to all of us. So he's like, are we gonna get the same scene? From my perspective, the Rashomon version, it's.
- [52:42]
Joe Coscarelli
Gonna be weapon about the Beatles. I do think there will be at some point some weaved together cut.
- [52:48]
Lindsey Zoladz
Right.
- [52:48]
Joe Coscarelli
There's gonna be a four hour cut of this movie that you're gonna be able to see whether soon after the four are released individually or 20 years later when some film student makes it.
- [52:58]
Lindsey Zoladz
Work the get back of its time, you know. But I think it's a brilliant idea both economically because they get to make four times the profit. If you're gonna, you know, gotta see em all.
- [53:09]
Joe Coscarelli
Oh, but it's gonna be so sad when the Ringo movie makes less than all the rest of them.
- [53:12]
Lindsey Zoladz
No, the Ringo movie's gonna be be the highest grossing of all.
- [53:15]
Gilbert Cruz
You're calling him now. He's gonna go 10 times.
- [53:18]
Joe Coscarelli
I'll see you back here.
- [53:19]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah.
- [53:19]
Lindsey Zoladz
No, for real, I think they're actually all going to be released theatrically the same month. That's a lot of Beatles in one month. But you know, I think there's a huge market obviously for Beatles biopics and this will really be a test of that.
- [53:37]
Gilbert Cruz
We are going to take a break and when we come back, as we always do, we're going to play a game. Game.
- [53:44]
Joe Coscarelli
Let's go.
- [53:45]
Gilbert Cruz
Yay.
- [54:00]
CBS Announcer
Tonight, the road to music stardom starts on cbs. From executive producers Taylor Sheridan, Blake Shelton and Keith Urban comes the road they're taking music competition where it's never gone before on tour. 12 rising musicians, one bus and the chance of a lifetime. Every week these artists perform in front of real people in real venues with one mission. Win the crowd or go home. Join the tour and take the ride the road. Tonight part of CBS premiere week and streaming on Paramount.
- [54:30]
Sandra E. Garcia
Hi, my name is Sandra E. Garcia and I'm a reporter at the New York Times. I write for the styles desk where we try to understand our complicated world. By keeping up with culture. We want to take you to the forefront of cultural shifts and let you know why things are trending. Our subscribers make this kind of coverage possible so the New York Times can continue to highlight the stories that go beyond breaking news. Help us keep a pulse on culture by subscribing@nytimes.com subscribe.
- [55:00]
Gilbert Cruz
We are approaching the end of the show, and that means, as always, it is time for our weekly quiz. We've talked about a lot of biopics today, but Hollywood really, really loves to make these kind of movies. There are many, many more that we didn't even get to talk about today. So I'm going to test your knowledge on the wider world of musician biopics. There are three rounds. Please put your fingers on your buzzers. Round one is called Appetitle for Destruction. I'm gonna give you the name of a biopic and you tell me what musician it's about. Behind the candelabra. Lindsey.
- [55:44]
Lindsey Zoladz
Oh, my God. I'm blanking. No, the pressure got to me. Oh, Liberace.
- [55:50]
Gilbert Cruz
Liberace. That is correct.
- [55:53]
Lindsey Zoladz
I would be so bad on Jeffrey.
- [55:54]
Joe Coscarelli
I did the Mozart giggle.
- [55:55]
Gilbert Cruz
I know I did. Okay, Born to Be Blue. Joe. For real?
- [56:04]
Joe Coscarelli
I don't know, but I'm guessing Miles David.
- [56:06]
Gilbert Cruz
Incorrect. This is Chet Baker. This movie stars Ethan Hawke. Oh, wow. Okay, next. Control, Joe.
- [56:14]
Joe Coscarelli
Joy Division.
- [56:15]
Gilbert Cruz
Who in Joy Division?
- [56:18]
Joe Coscarelli
Ian Curtis.
- [56:18]
Gilbert Cruz
Ian Curtis. Correct. The lead singer of Joy Division. Next. Get on up, Joe.
- [56:24]
Joe Coscarelli
James Brown.
- [56:25]
Gilbert Cruz
James Brown. This stars Chadwick Boseman as the Godfather of Soul. Next. Till the Clouds Roll by.
- [56:33]
Joe Coscarelli
Ooh, deep cut. I don't know it.
- [56:36]
Gilbert Cruz
This is the composer, Jerome Kern. Okay. All right.
- [56:40]
Joe Coscarelli
And he got a biopic.
- [56:42]
Lindsey Zoladz
Good for him.
- [56:43]
Gilbert Cruz
You know what? Good for him. Final question in this category. Bound for Glory.
- [56:49]
Lindsey Zoladz
Oh, I know this.
- [56:52]
Gilbert Cruz
All right. You guys should not study. This is Woody. Got three.
- [56:56]
Lindsey Zoladz
David Carradine. Right?
- [56:57]
Gilbert Cruz
I don't know. All right, ready? Next round. Round two. Sgt. Pepper's clonely hearts Club Band. I'm going to give you the name.
- [57:09]
Joe Coscarelli
What's the pun there?
- [57:10]
Gilbert Cruz
Clonely Hearts Club Band.
- [57:12]
Joe Coscarelli
I still don't have it.
- [57:14]
Gilbert Cruz
I'm going to explain it to you and then you will get the pun. I'm going to give you the names of two actors. Got it. And you tell me what musician they have both portrayed on screen.
- [57:24]
Joe Coscarelli
Good.
- [57:27]
Gilbert Cruz
Jack White and Jacob Elordi. Lindsey. Elvis Elvis Presley. Jack White played him in Walk Hard. Jacob Elordi and Priscilla. Next. David carradine and scoot McNary. Joe.
- [57:41]
Joe Coscarelli
Woody Guthrie.
- [57:42]
Gilbert Cruz
Woody Guthrie. Thanks. For explaining that. Yeah. Carradine in Bound for Glory, which we just mentioned. And scoot McNary in a complete Unknown in which he did not speak once. Next. Jennifer Hudson and Cynthia Eriva.
- [57:56]
Joe Coscarelli
Oh, who is it?
- [57:59]
Gilbert Cruz
Oh, Lindsay.
- [58:00]
Lindsey Zoladz
Aretha Franklin.
- [58:01]
Gilbert Cruz
Aretha Franklin.
- [58:02]
Joe Coscarelli
Oh, my gosh.
- [58:03]
Gilbert Cruz
Hudson in Respect and Erivo in Genius. Colon. Aretha. Diana Ross in Andra Day. Lindsay.
- [58:12]
Lindsey Zoladz
Billie Holiday.
- [58:12]
Gilbert Cruz
Billie Holiday. Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues. And Day in the United States versus Billie Holiday. Final question in this category, John Cusack and Paul Dano. Joe.
- [58:25]
Joe Coscarelli
Oh, God. What?
- [58:29]
Gilbert Cruz
You're ranging without knowing it.
- [58:30]
Joe Coscarelli
I knew it and then I lost it.
- [58:32]
Gilbert Cruz
You lost it?
- [58:32]
Joe Coscarelli
I lost it.
- [58:33]
Lindsey Zoladz
Can I steal?
- [58:34]
Gilbert Cruz
Yeah, steal it.
- [58:35]
Lindsey Zoladz
Brian Wilson.
- [58:36]
Gilbert Cruz
Brian Wilson. They both played Brian Wilson in the film Love and Mercy. Paul Dana was young Wilson. John Cusack was old Wilson.
- [58:42]
Joe Coscarelli
Not a good movie.
- [58:43]
Gilbert Cruz
All right, I'd say half of it.
- [58:46]
Lindsey Zoladz
You're just bitter.
- [58:47]
Gilbert Cruz
I am bitter. Round three. Me and My Shadow. Me and my Shadow. All right, I'm gonna play you a clip of a famous song. You tell me if it's the actual artist singing it.
- [59:03]
Joe Coscarelli
Oh, God.
- [59:03]
Gilbert Cruz
Or an actor playing the artist.
- [59:06]
Lindsey Zoladz
Oh, this is fun.
- [59:06]
Gilbert Cruz
First one, Lindsay.
- [59:15]
Lindsey Zoladz
It's not the artist.
- [59:16]
Gilbert Cruz
It is the artist. This is Elvis singing Suspicious Minds from a live show in Honolulu in 1973.
- [59:25]
Lindsey Zoladz
Could have sworn it. It was Austin Butler.
- [59:27]
Gilbert Cruz
That is the point of the game. Next song. When I was arrested, I was dressed in black. Lindsay. That's Joaquin Phoenix playing Johnny Cash performing at folsom in the 2005 movie Walk the Line. Next song. Joe.
- [59:51]
Joe Coscarelli
That's the real one.
- [59:52]
Gilbert Cruz
Incorrect. That's Kristen Stewart and Dakota fanning from the 2010 movie The Runaways.
- [59:58]
Lindsey Zoladz
Good movie.
- [59:58]
Gilbert Cruz
It is not Chet and Sherry Curry. Next song.
- [60:09]
Joe Coscarelli
Over the Rainbow.
- [60:13]
Gilbert Cruz
Joe.
- [60:15]
Joe Coscarelli
Fake.
- [60:17]
Gilbert Cruz
That is actually Judy Garland, not Renee Zellweger.
- [60:20]
Joe Coscarelli
Man.
- [60:21]
Gilbert Cruz
This is a clip from Judy Garland's last public performance.
- [60:25]
Joe Coscarelli
I was gonna say, is Renee Zellweger a better singer than Judy Garland? But it's just that it's her last.
- [60:29]
Gilbert Cruz
Performance just before she died. Have some respect for judgment.
- [60:33]
Joe Coscarelli
All right, all right, all right. You guys are real.
- [60:34]
Gilbert Cruz
These are true.
- [60:35]
Joe Coscarelli
Tricky.
- [60:35]
Gilbert Cruz
All right, a couple more. That's Timmy. Joe. Yes. That is Timothy Chalamet from the film of Complete.
- [60:44]
Joe Coscarelli
I would know that voice anywhere.
- [60:47]
Gilbert Cruz
It's beautiful. Next song. Lindsay.
- [60:55]
Lindsey Zoladz
That's JLo.
- [60:57]
Joe Coscarelli
That's Selena.
- [60:57]
Gilbert Cruz
That is not JLo. That is Selena. Selena from live concert at the Houston Astrodome in 1995, portrayed at the beginning of the film Selena. All right, next song. Lindsay.
- [61:22]
Lindsey Zoladz
That's the Doors.
- [61:24]
Gilbert Cruz
Correct? Live on the Ed Sullivan Show. Next song.
- [61:28]
Lindsey Zoladz
Well, sometimes I go out.
- [61:30]
Gilbert Cruz
Lindsey.
- [61:31]
Lindsey Zoladz
That's not Amy.
- [61:33]
Gilbert Cruz
Correct. That is Marissa Abella.
- [61:35]
Lindsey Zoladz
That ain't Amy Winehouse.
- [61:36]
Gilbert Cruz
Amy Winehouse.
- [61:37]
Joe Coscarelli
It sounded all right, though.
- [61:39]
Lindsey Zoladz
All right. But Amy Winehouse didn't sound all right.
- [61:43]
Gilbert Cruz
Final question of this round. Final question of the quiz. Lindsey.
- [61:52]
Lindsey Zoladz
I don't know the guy's name, but it's not. That is not Elton John.
- [61:55]
Gilbert Cruz
That is not Elton John. I don't know how we're gonna score this. That is Taron Egerton playing ELTON John in 2019's Rocket Man.
- [62:02]
Joe Coscarelli
All right, Lindsey won.
- [62:05]
Gilbert Cruz
Lindsey Zolads, you won the quiz. Congratulations.
- [62:10]
Lindsey Zoladz
I've never been prouder.
- [62:12]
Gilbert Cruz
I have something for you.
- [62:13]
Joe Coscarelli
That was good.
- [62:14]
Lindsey Zoladz
Yeah.
- [62:14]
Gilbert Cruz
I have a thing for you in this bag here.
- [62:16]
Joe Coscarelli
Wow. Comes in.
- [62:17]
Gilbert Cruz
We've awarded.
- [62:18]
Joe Coscarelli
It's an Oscar nomination.
- [62:19]
Lindsey Zoladz
Oh, my God.
- [62:21]
Gilbert Cruz
It is the eighth one of these that we have awarded. We call it the Gilby. It is a small, golden plastic trophy that we bought in bulk and then pasted my face on.
- [62:33]
Lindsey Zoladz
This will have pride of place in my home.
- [62:35]
Gilbert Cruz
Congratulations, Lindsay.
- [62:36]
Lindsey Zoladz
Beautiful.
- [62:37]
Gilbert Cruz
Congratulations, Lindsay. And thank you for coming on this week's episode of the Sunday special.
- [62:42]
Lindsey Zoladz
Thanks for having me.
- [62:42]
Gilbert Cruz
Joe Coscarelli, wonderful. Wonderful to see you here. Thank you so much.
- [62:46]
Joe Coscarelli
It was fun. I will be back to redeem myself in the game.
- [62:49]
Gilbert Cruz
Game.
- [62:50]
Joe Coscarelli
You will if it's the last thing I do.
- [63:02]
Gilbert Cruz
This episode was produced by Tina Antolini with help from Kate Lepresti, Luke Vanderplug and Alex Baron. We had production assistance from Dalia Haddad. It was edited by Wendy Doerr, an engineer by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Itup and Diane Wong. Special thanks to Paula Schuman. Thanks for listening. See you next week.
- [63:43]
CBS Announcer
Tonight, the road to music stardom starts on cbs. From executive producers Taylor Sheridan, Blake Shelton and Keith Urban comes the road they're taking. Music competition where it's never gone before. On tour, 12 rising musicians, one bus and the chance of a lifetime. Every week, these artists perform in front of real people in real venues with one mission. Win the crowd or go home. Join the tour and take the ride the road. Tonight, part of CBS premiere week and streaming on Paramount.