The Devil Wears Prada (with Jameela Jamil)

Summary

WHAT WENT WRONG
Sad Boom Media
Episode: The Devil Wears Prada (with Jameela Jamil)
Release Date: April 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this rich and lively episode of What Went Wrong, hosts Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer are joined by actor, writer, and podcast host Jameela Jamil to dive behind the scenes of the 2006 smash hit The Devil Wears Prada. The conversation dissects how this adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s roman à clef about her time at Vogue became both a beloved comfort rewatch and a sharply observed time capsule for the fashion industry’s culture in the 2000s. The episode is packed with reflections on casting, the real-life inspiration for Miranda Priestly, behind the scenes hurdles and “have your cake and eat it” debate about the film’s handling of body image, and a full appreciation for the movie’s performances, particularly Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Personal Histories With the Film (02:43–08:01)

• All three hosts originally saw the film in theaters and found it deeply formative, with Jameela Jamil calling it a “horrible feast for my little eyes” and a “comfort rewatch” she's seen at least 25 times.
• Chris reveals a nostalgic connection as a reformed Anne Hathaway fan (“Princess Diaries!”) and notes its impact as a cultural time capsule.
• Lizzie reflects on how the film shaped her teenage sense of body image and her ideas of female ambition.

Problematic Aspects & Cultural Legacy (06:18–09:02)

• The hosts confront the film’s troubling approach to weight and body image; Andy’s “transformation” and how the narrative reflects 2006’s fashion industry.
• Jameela sharply calls out, “He’s the villain. Yeah, he’s the fucking villain,” (07:52) referring to Adrian Grenier’s Nate, and rails against the boyfriend’s unsupportive behavior.
• Strong consensus that the film’s portrayal of Andy’s friends and boyfriend reveals subtle but significant misogyny of the era.

The Real Story: Anna Wintour & Lauren Weisberger (10:23–17:28)

• Lauren Weisberger’s real-life stint as Anna Wintour’s assistant is traced, with Jameela summarizing Wintour’s huge impact:
  “She decided who our supermodels were ... I would hold her partially responsible for the eating disorder culture of like 30 years of women.” (11:32)
• Discussion of Wintour’s iron grip on Vogue and her cultural impermeability:
  “I believe her. So..." (17:28) – referencing Wintour’s icy ‘I cannot remember who that girl is’ reaction.
• The book’s background as a series of “anecdotes” and the challenge of adapting it into a satisfying narrative.

The Book to Film Journey: Writing & Direction (25:40–34:36)

• The film cycled through several male screenwriters, resulting in a satirical tone (“like a Zoolander esque skewering”), before Aline Brosh McKenna was hired and immediately reshaped the material with authenticity and empathy.
• David Frankel’s hiring as director pivoted the film away from broad satire toward something subtler and more celebratory of ambition and female complexity.
• Smart adaptation choices highlighted: making Andy’s journey about personal growth, not just professional survival.

Representation & Diversity: Changes From Book to Screen (32:25–34:43)

• Noted erasure of characters' ethnic identities (Andy and Miranda were explicitly Jewish in the book), and the transformation of Nigel’s character (based on André Leon Talley) into a white mentor.

The Culture of Fear Around Anna Wintour (35:20–36:27; 68:38–69:00)

• Anna Wintour’s influence allegedly made designers and venues unwilling to participate or lend resources, including blocking key film locations.
  “It turns out no one wanted to let them use their spaces because they were all so scared of Anna Wintour.” (68:38)

Insults, Fashion, and Satirical Edge (35:59–38:23)

• The “smart fat girl” line dissected as both a satire of fashion world values and an inescapably authentic reflection of the era.
  “That was the one jive that felt that it was for us to show how insane this is.” — Jameela (37:35)
• Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt’s extreme weight loss for their roles raised as a troubling contradiction.

Casting Journeys: Streep, Hathaway, & Blunt (40:46–54:05)

• Meryl Streep’s requirements (cerulean sweater monologue, the vulnerable hotel scene) are credited as crucial, with her advocating for more nuance and higher pay (“I was 55 and I had just learned at a very late date how to deal on my own behalf.” (48:03)).
• Anne Hathaway was the ninth choice for the role of Andy, with Rachel McAdams, Kate Hudson, and others considered first. Streep’s endorsement tipped the scales and secured Hathaway’s casting.
• Emily Blunt literally stumbled into the audition, forever changing the role with her comedic British take—as Jameela says, “She stole the film... She’s why I rewatch it.” (53:10)

Scandal & Behind the Scenes (54:05–58:49)

• Simon Doonan’s claim that the Nigel role auditions were used to gather “real” gossip about Anna Wintour—a charge Tucci disputes.

Life Imitates Art: On-Set Struggles & Authentic Fashion (71:57–75:43)

• Anne Hathaway was told to gain weight, then quickly forced to lose it to fit couture samples. Patricia Field (Sex and the City’s famed costumer) worked miracles on a tiny budget ($100k for $1 million of designer clothes).
• The movie’s wardrobe and memorable looks (the Chanel boots and blazer) are celebrated as key to its lasting style.

Aftermath: Reception & Legacy (68:43–83:50)

• The film’s huge box office outperformed even Superman Returns, and cemented Anna Wintour as a household name.
• Emily Blunt’s role led to the real-life love story between her sister and Stanley Tucci.
• Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt returned for the sequel (Devil Wears Prada 2), with both expressing concerns about the continued unhealthy thinness of fashion and influencing the film’s direction.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Anna Wintour’s Responsibility:
  “She decided who our supermodels were ... She cherry-picked the faces and ... was committed so heavily to the size zero that I would hold her partially responsible for the eating disorder culture of like 30 years of women.” — Jameela Jamil (11:32)

• On Nate’s Villainy:
  “He’s the villain. Yeah, he’s the fucking villain. And I think that’s the craziest thing.” — Jameela Jamil (07:52)

• On Female Ambition & Soft Power:
  “In life is to be a woman who other people fear because people just leave you the fuck alone.” — Jameela Jamil (20:16)

• On the Popularity of Transformation:
  “That line, I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight. ... That moment normalized thinness at all costs.” — Jameela Jamil (38:23)

• On Meryl Streep’s Negotiation:
  “The offer was, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value. … They doubled the offer. I was 55 and … had just learned how to deal on my own behalf.” — Meryl Streep (read by Lizzie, 48:03)

• On The Film’s Feminist Subtext:
  “It is a film that ultimately, I think, was trying to tell us that he was the real villain and telling us that he was a cunt. And I think we all missed it because we were drunk on patriarchy when we were young and that her friends were dicks.” — Jameela Jamil (81:22)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:43 – Jameela’s first experience with The Devil Wears Prada and its lasting impact
• 06:41 – Debate about the weight and body image issues at the heart of the movie
• 07:52 – “He’s the villain.” Discussion of Nate’s character
• 10:23 – The real story behind Lauren Weisberger and Anna Wintour
• 25:40 – Writing and adaptation journey, introduction of Aline Brosh McKenna
• 32:25 – Book to film changes, representation, and loss of Jewish character background
• 35:59 – Satirical fashion world insults (“smart fat girl”)
• 40:46 – Casting Meryl Streep: her requirements and advocacy
• 48:51 – The casting journey and impact of Adrian Grenier, Simon Baker, Emily Blunt
• 54:05 – Simon Doonan’s claims about the Nigel auditions
• 71:08 – Meryl Streep’s approach to Miranda Priestly and her process
• 71:57 – Gisele Bundchen cameo and fashion industry buy-in
• 73:01 – The struggle to secure designer wardrobe on a shoestring
• 74:05 – Hosts’ favorite outfits
• 79:36 – Devil Wears Prada 2 and real-life influence on fashion show casting
• 80:27 – "What Went Right" closing reflections

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Final Reflections: What Went Right?

• Jameela Jamil:
  The film is a “perfect time capsule” that nails the complexity of ambition, the cost of excellence, and the intoxicating, toxic culture of mid-2000s fashion. She praises its casting, soundtrack, and the way Meryl Streep’s Miranda forced empathy for a complicated female figure.

• Chris Winterbauer:
  Shout out to Anne Hathaway for her commitment and nuanced performance despite being far down the casting list: “She never tries to overpower any of the scenes. … She's very funny ... and she works hard.”

• Lizzie Bassett:
  Aline Brosh McKenna gets the nod for masterfully adapting an anecdotal, inactive book into a vibrant, complex screenplay: “She makes such a tight movie. There’s depth to all these characters. It’s funny… a tour de force piece of screenwriting.”

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Further Listening and Next Episodes

• Patreon and bonus subscribers: Check out their review of Devil Wears Prada 2, out May 1st.
• Next Monday: Celebrate Sequel Month with Empire Strikes Back.

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Tone

The episode brims with irreverent, candid energy, balancing admiration for the film’s surface pleasures with incisive critique—especially on issues of gender, power, and representation. Jameela Jamil’s wit and candor shine, pushing the discussion toward nuance and personal resonance. The hosts maintain a fun, breezy, conversational vibe (emulating the film they’re discussing), while offering meaty analysis and well-researched industry insight.

Transcript

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[Chris Winterbauer]

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[Jameela Jamil]

And action.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Hello dear listeners and welcome back to another episode of what Went Wrong. Your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone the movie that Damien Chazelle saw and said, not my tempo. We're talking about the original Whiplash, the Devil Wears Prada, one of my favorite rewatches. As always, I'm Chris Winterbauer, joined by Lizzie Bassett and Lizzy. Who else do we have here today?

[Lizzie Bassett]

We have an unbelievably special guest for this episode. I am so excited to talk to her about this. We have actor, writer, advocate, music producer, what can't she do? And host of the podcast Wrong Turns, which I really, really love. It's Jameela. Jameel, thank you so much for being here and welcome.

[Jameela Jamil]

Hello. Thank you for having me. I love films, so. So I'm always excited to talk about them.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, I think this one is a particularly good fit for several reasons that I can't wait to dive into. But I also just want to say I really love your podcast so much. You're a very generous host, which I feel like is a rare thing and you're so funny, but you also just like really clearly make the guests so comfortable and it's very lovely. So go listen to Wrong Turns With Jameela Jamil, if you have not yet.

[Jameela Jamil]

Oh, thank you. And if anyone wants to come see me live in la, I'm doing my first ever Netflix as a joke festival which is very inspiring, intimidating as a non comedian to enter a full on comedians festival. But I will have with me Lamorne Morris, the Winston from the New Girl. And I will have Liza Trager and Chris Fleming, the man of the moment, as my guests.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh my God.

[Jameela Jamil]

So I'm very excited. So the tickets are available now, but yeah, anyway, if anyone wants to come see it live. It's so much crazier live even than in the room.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That sounds wonderful. All right, well, so let's just dive right in how we usually start. This is. I will ask both of you and I'll start with you, Jamila, if that's all right. Had you ever seen the Devil Wears Prada before? And what was your experience on watching it more recently?

[Jameela Jamil]

Let's say I have loved that movie since it first came out. I went and saw it in the cinema and loved it so much that I waited till the next showing to watch it all over again because it was such a horrible feast for my little eyes. You know, I think I was much younger. What year did it come out?

[Lizzie Bassett]

2006.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, 2006. Right. So I was, I think barely 20 and I just started working in the fashion industry. So I was really just like soaking it all up. And then it became, even though it is deeply problematic in many ways, it became a sort of comfort rewatch and I will watch it on any flight if it's available. And I watch it when I'm sick. It's a go to. I watched it twice over the course of the pandemic. I love showing it to other people. So I think I've seen it probably upwards of 25 times, which is ridiculous. I think it's probably the movie I've watched the most in the world, apart from maybe the Truman Show.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, wow. Interesting. Good picks. Chris, what about you?

[Chris Winterbauer]

2006. I was also getting started in the fashion industry, but I saw it in 2006 and I was an Anne Hathaway fan because I secretly loved the Princess Diaries. I have two sisters and we saw that in theaters and it was great then and it remains great now. Like you said, it's a time capsule of 2006. Certain lines you go, oh, oh, oh, wow. You know, and I watched the September issue, the documentary about Anna Wintour and the making of the 2007. I think September issue.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Is it about Anna Wintour.

[Chris Winterbauer]

No, it's really about Grace Coddington.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. Who's far more interesting.

[Chris Winterbauer]

She is. But it's such, like you said, it's a warm blanket movie. It's so snappy and breezy. With the exception, I would say, of anytime we go back to her boyfriend and friends, the movie kind of grinds to a halt. But anytime Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Anne Hathaway, Simon Baker is written as such an asshole, but he's so charming that you kind of just want her to leave Adrian Grenier and just take the Jarlsberg and go and let's go with this creepy older dude. But again, it's like weird peak girlboss feminism in some ways. It's like Lindy West's new memoir just came out and there are all these articles about the death of millennial feminism. So I thought it was interesting that we're covering this movie right now, but I stand by the Devil Wears Prada. It is a great rewatch, and it's a very fun movie. And we'll talk about all the problematic parts in a bit.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, I. So same as everybody here. I saw this in theaters. I was, I think, 16 years old when this came out, and watching it again for the podcast, I did not realize how much this shaped my psyche as a teenager. And we're gonna get into this. You know, we keep referencing there are problematic parts of this. The way that the movie deals with Andy's weight is something that psychotic and illegal.

[Jameela Jamil]

It feels almost. I know.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And it's something I wrestle with every time I watch this movie. But then in researching it, I don't know, it's more complicated than I realized.

[Jameela Jamil]

It's very true to the time, like, I was working in the industry. That's what it was like. It would be disingenuous for them to have said or written anything else. And we were still in the throes of size zero.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes. Yes. That line of, like, you know, wake up, six. It's literally burned in my head. I remember thinking like, oh, you know, six isn't good enough. I'm a size eight. Like, it's, you know, it. Well, then not anymore. I've had a baby. But, you know, it's like I didn't understand how much this movie had shaped my perception of what a female body is supposed to look like. For better and for worse. That being said, I love this movie. I think that this is an incredible adaptation as we're going to get into. I'm almost done with the book that it's based on. And they really do a bang up job of making this such a tight, funny movie. I love all of the performances. I'm with you, Chris. I think kind of through no fault of his own. I'm not crazy about Adrian Grenier in this movie. I've always been Team Simon Baker.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's just not the most interesting part.

[Jameela Jamil]

He's the villain. Yeah, he's the fucking villain. And I think that's the craziest thing.

[Lizzie Bassett]

To me.

[Jameela Jamil]

I think one of the reasons I rewatch it now as an adult is because I'm so happy for my lens to have shifted to understand a. That Andy is not fat at the start of the movie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

No, my God.

[Jameela Jamil]

She's not better at the end of the movie. Cause that is what I believed when I was 19 or when I first watched it. And then I have understood that Meryl Streep's character, whilst being a villain of sorts, is not the villain. It's clearly fucking Adrian Grenier. And I remember being such a young pick me asshole that I was like, I can't believe she's not hanging out with her gorgeous boyfriend. And now when I rewatch it, I'm like, he's a fucking cunt who doesn't support her friends. And fuck her friends.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I agree with you.

[Jameela Jamil]

Fuck her friends who have no empathy for her whatsoever. That moment where they're throwing her phone

[Lizzie Bassett]

all around, I would be so mad.

[Jameela Jamil]

I watch them all. I would set fire to that fucking table over that moment.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I agree.

[Jameela Jamil]

But he is so self absorbed. And the idea that she's going to now move, like, quit her job, whether or not her job was toxic, quit her life and her trajectory to move to whatever fucking town he's fucking moving to, where he's gonna still make her

[Lizzie Bassett]

grilled cheese sandwiches, which look burned, by the way.

[Jameela Jamil]

It's propaganda. Like, ultimately all of Hollywood in that era was propaganda about the crumbs that women should tolerate.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I agree. I think that the changes that they made to that character for the movie are interesting because he is very different in the book.

[Jameela Jamil]

Oh, interesting.

[Lizzie Bassett]

He is not a villain in the book at all. He's like kind of a saint. And actually Andy's a bit more of an asshole, which I almost liked a little bit better. But we'll get into all the differences between the book and the movie. Let's go ahead and dive in. So we always start with the details. The Delaware's Prada is directed by David Frankel. It was produced by Wendy Finerman, who came up in our Forrest Gump episode, She's a badass, especially when it comes to adapting literature. Screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna, based on the bestselling novel by Lauren Weisberger. And of course, it stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, Emily Blunt, and Adrian Grenier. It was released June 30, 2006. And as always, the IMDb logline is with an aspiration to become a journalist. Andy, a smart but sensible young graduate, travels to New York. She starts working as an assistant to one of the city's biggest high fashion magazine editors, the cynical Mar Miranda Priestly. Smart but sensible. That's an Interesting logline. IMDb she's not too smart.

[Chris Winterbauer]

They want to make it clear like, she's not too smart for her own good. She's sensible.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She's sensible. Is that their nice way of saying she starts as a size 6? All right, so let's begin with the real Andy Sachs, which is Lauren Weisberger, because spoiler alert, if anyone doesn't know, this is a very, very thinly veiled portrayal of Lauren's own time at Vogue.

[Chris Winterbauer]

So it's a roman a clef. That's what it's called?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Roman a clef. Yes, that's the term. Yeah. Yeah. So she grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a teacher and a mortgage broker. She was also a real smarty pants who graduated with an English lit degree from Cornell University.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Wow.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And as many recent college grads are want to do, she went and backpacked around Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, at which point she found herself in need of a job. So she moved to Manhattan, pulled together what I kept seeing referenced as an impressive cover letter, though I could not find it myself to confirm this. And it caught the eye of HR at Conde Nast. And then bing bang, boom, she was hired as an assistant to the one and only editor in chief of Vogue magazine. Who is anybody?

[Jameela Jamil]

Anna Wintour.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Anna Wintour. Thank you. Yes. Okay, so Jamila, as certainly the most fashionable person here, could you maybe explain the impact of Anna Wintour or just like a tiny little bit about who she is?

[Jameela Jamil]

Anna Wintour is the editor of American Vogue, but also kind of the leader of Vogue at large, globally. Ultimately, I think she has the final say on who gets hired to be editors of other arms of the publication. She decided who our supermodels were. She was instrumental in all of the designers who are big designers, you know, who've entered the lexicon of iconic designers, were handpicked by her. She cherry picked the faces and the tailors and the colors of multiple generations of women. And I think also was committed so heavily to the size zero that I would hold her partially responsible for the eating disorder culture of like 30 years of women.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I agree. She was the editor in chief of Vogue from 1988 to 2025.

[Jameela Jamil]

But you know what I will say just quickly, which is problematic of me, is that one thing I've always felt is that how dare all these editors not physically live up to the terrifying standards they are putting out into the world.

[Chris Winterbauer]

She does.

[Jameela Jamil]

And she.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She does. Yeah.

[Jameela Jamil]

Like she is one person who's somehow smaller than all of her own models. So she does walk the walk, not just talk the talk like everyone else. I don't know if that makes it better, but it's comforting to me.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Fair enough. She did finally step back at the age of 75, but she stepped into a new role as the chief content officer for Conde Nast and global editorial director. So I don't know if we can really call that stepping back. But anyway, it quickly became clear that Lauren, who wanted to be a writer, wasn't going to be doing a whole lot of writing at this job. She was faxing, filing, getting coffee. Now, to be fair, these are all the things that assistants do. We've all done them. I will say in my reading, there's a bit of entitlement in terms of what you think you should be doing at your literal first job out of college, but whatever. But according to another former assistant to Anna Wintour, this is how her assistant's duties actually broke down. So she generally had two or three assistants at any time. And Amy Odell's Anna the biography explained their responsibilities like this. The first assistant managed the other two assistants and they handled Anna Wintour's schedule. They were her primary point of contact. And this is the only one who got weekends off. The other two assistants, the second assistant, they would deal with caretakers, that is nannies, chefs at Wintour's Manhattan and Long island homes. They would coordinate film screenings and of course, look after her dogs. And then the third assistant would run errands. They pick up theater tickets, they helped. During Fashion Week, they ordered Anna's clothes directly from designer assistant to the regional

[Chris Winterbauer]

manager, as it would be known in the office.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, exactly. Now, according to Anna the biography, every new assistant was given a 21 page instruction manual on how to handle most of their tasks. Workday started at 7am and often ran at least 12 hours. And former assistant Meredith, aspland revealed her starting salary was $25,000, while another one of Anna's first ever assistants shared that she lost eight pounds in her first two weeks. Both of those things, by the way, do make it into the book. Now, another former assistant revealed the detail we get in both the book and the movie that Wintour would sometimes address her using the other assistant's name. And another one was of course told, you must not leave your desk. The desk must not be unmanned at any time. That woman did say this did not come directly from Anna Wintour. It was more sort of lore that, like, you cannot leave the desk unmanned. I do want to note this is an unauthorized biography that was made without Anna Wintour's participation, obviously. And Gwyneth Paltrow, who also had an unauthorized biography written by the same author, did say she totally missed the truth of who I am, what my impact is. So I suppose take all of this with a grain of salt, except that it's pretty much confirmed by her former assistants. Now Vogue's managing editor at the time, Laurie Jones, gave a different reason for why Lauren didn't get to do any writing in her time at Vogue. She said Lauren was a lovely girl, but not a great writer. Poor thing. So mean.

[Jameela Jamil]

That is such expert fashion shade. It's pretty good to couch it in kindness is horrific.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, if anybody calls me a poor thing, that's, I'm done. Just take me out.

[Jameela Jamil]

It's an amazing shit sandwich.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, yeah. So in 2000, after only 10 months on the job, Lauren did the unthinkable. And she asked Richard Storey, who was an editor at Vogue, to take her with him as he was leaving for Departures magazine. He agreed and she went with him. Now, she did do quite a bit of writing at Departures, but it seems that story thought she could use some writing lessons. Everybody's like, you're not very good at this.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oh, no. She's like, I already went to Cornell.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And he's like, you should go back, do it again. She went and took a creative writing class at night. And as part of her homework, she began writing about her former job at Vogue and more specifically, her very high profile boss. Now, her teacher read this and apparently just saw dollar signs blinking in their eyes because they shared the writing with Literary Age Deborah Schneider, whose response to the at this point, 15 to 20 page just series of anecdotal stories was, if she wants to sell this book, I can sell it this afternoon. And Debra was correct. She sold the Devil Wears Prada. One week later in May of 2002 for a reported $250,000.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Wow. Did they have the name already? Because one thing I want to mention,

[Lizzie Bassett]

the name is so good.

[Chris Winterbauer]

This is one of the best titles of all time. Yeah, it's an amazing title.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I think they did.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Everybody knows the title. And it's a great poster too. We should mention just that iconic shoe on it. But anyway, it's an amazing title.

[Lizzie Bassett]

The COVID of the book is great, too. All the marketing around this is really excellent.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

By the way, a little fun fact. When Anna Wintour was informed about the book and the fact that the quote unquote villain, Miranda Priestley was not so loosely based on her, she reportedly said, I cannot remember who that girl is.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah, it's the Mad Men. I feel bad for you. I don't think about you at all, Honestly.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I believe her, like, so. Very shortly after the news of this deal broke, producer Wendy Feinerman, who, again, this is the woman who would not give up on Forrest Gump, optioned the film. Now, she had a three year first look deal with Fox 2000 at this point that began in 1999. So Fox 2000 is where the Devil Wears Prada landed. And when Carla hackin, then executive vp at Fox 2000, first read Weisberger's manuscript, she said, quote, I thought Miranda Priestly was one of the greatest villains ever. I remember we went aggressively in and scooped it up. But here's the thing. They did not have a finished novel. They had about a hundred pages of a manuscript that were essentially just a setup. According to Feinerman, quote, it was set obviously in the world of fashion, and we all knew what it was, and we all knew the background of the book. We had to wait five or six months to get the other half of the book. We had no idea what happened with the story, but the setup was so great. So Fox 2000 is like, Bah. We're just gonna start working on the story anyway. Even though they had no idea where the book was gonna go. Cause they were like, doesn't really matter. But In April of 2003, the Devil Wears Prada hit bookshelves and it absolutely blew up. It spent half the year on the New York Times bestsellers list. And I can confirm every teenage girl was reading it, including myself, Even though I honestly didn't understand, like, 90% of what was in it. All the products, the Bang and Olufsen phones, I didn't know what any of this shit was.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Jameelia, was this on your radar when the book came out or not until the movie.

[Jameela Jamil]

Not at all. No, no, no. When I was at school around this time, I was so head in textbooks that I didn't have time to read anything that wasn't on my curriculum.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, good for you.

[Jameela Jamil]

But then I watched the movie and then watched it 25 times and never revisited any of those clever books, so

[Chris Winterbauer]

never read a book again.

[Jameela Jamil]

Left school with very few qualifications and fulfilled zero of my potential. And now, if anyone's seen my substack, the grammar would tell you that I've never been to school a day in my life.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So I refuse to believe that.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, all you'd have to do is take a creative writing night course, like Lauren.

[Jameela Jamil]

Sure, sure. And I write a bestseller.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, well. So despite the book's massive cultural impact, there was one person whose feathers were reportedly not at all ruffled. Any guesses who just didn't care at all about this book.

[Jameela Jamil]

Anna Wintour.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Anna Wintour, that's right, Anna Wintour. Of course. Snow Queen, Ice Dragon herself.

[Jameela Jamil]

Did she fuck? I've always thought that was horseshit. Like, I think that it rattled her terribly. But she's from a. You know, there's a very old school British concept of never complain, never explain is the kind of royal families. You know, it's a very, like British aristocratic position to take so that you never, ever have to clarify or not clarify anything. And it's both a very frustrating way to live, but it's also a much more peaceful way to live. Cause things move on in ambiguity. And there's that expression of, like, it's better to be considered a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Amazing.

[Jameela Jamil]

Which is an extraordinary expression that I love so much.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Not the way I live my life, unfortunately.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah, I was gonna say from three podcasters. No, no, no, no.

[Jameela Jamil]

All I do is remove. I've been removing all doubt for 17 years straight, you know, so that's. So it's my exact brand, I would say, is just removing all doubt at all times. But I think it must have rattled her really badly. But also, Meryl Streep turned her into an icon. And if I may add to that, as I've gotten older, you know, my biggest fear when I was younger is that people would think that I'm difficult and scary because of the color of my skin and because of how outspoken I am. In spite of the fact that I'm actually a softie, I'm considered intimidating and scary to certain people. And as I've gotten older, I've realized that, oh, that is the sweet spot. In life is to be a woman who other people fear because people just leave you the fuck alone.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, good point.

[Jameela Jamil]

And actually, it's more dangerous for them to realize that you're just made of, like, you know, I'm like a lint ball, you know, I'm just like putty.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Don't tell them.

[Jameela Jamil]

No, I know it's too late, but it's fine. This community can know. But everyone else on the Internet, I prefer that they think I'm crazy and scary. And I can see why.

[Lizzie Bassett]

There's a power to it.

[Jameela Jamil]

There was a part of her that's like, oh, I sort of win if everyone thinks I'm absolutely terrifying. And so possibly that's also why she never tried to navigate any of this to seem untrue.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes. And also, look, she's an incredibly successful woman, and that's something we're gonna get into. I think the movie does do a very good job of, is it makes her far more complicated than she is on the page in the book. And I do think that that's a good thing at the end of the day. According to William Norwich, who is a former Vogue editor and also a New York Post gossip columnist, he said that she just didn't really see herself as a cultural phenomenon and told friends, I'm so bored by me. What a good statement.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Guys, summer is here. That means movie season, and that means vacation with my kids, and I need to worry about getting them on a plane and getting them off it, not whether or not I can afford it. Organizing my finances is the first step in making sure that I'm not worrying about them constantly. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything. Accounts, investments, saving goals, and spending. And you can get your first year of Monarch for half off just $50 with promo code Wrong. With Monarch, I used cash flow visualizations to see just how much we were spending on childcare. Turns out it's an insane amount of money, but I was able to find savings elsewhere, like coffee, to make sure my lifestyle expenses didn't creep up. Monarch gives you control over your finances. Just like making a movie. It helps you set goals, map out big purchases, and see if you're actually on track before you get to production. Use code [e-mail] to get your first year off at just $50. That's 50% off your first [e-mail] with code wrong. This podcast is supported by stamps.com. guys, my favorite part about making this podcast is that I get to work from home, specifically the closet where I'm recording This right now and I record every episode. And with stamps.com, i don't have to leave the closet to go to the post office. With stamps.com, i can ship from my computer or phone, always from my closet 24. 7. No lines, no low supplies, open all the time. I can print postage on demand. Yes, I still own a printer. It's perfect for my business. For almost 30 years, millions of customers have relied on stamps.com to make mailing shipping faster and simple. The mantra used to be work smart, not hard. It should be work from your closet, not from the post office, which is what I do right now. You can try stamps.com risk free for 60 days. Go to stamps.com and use code wrong to get 60 days risk free. 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment. That's Stamps.com code wrong. That's Stamps.com Code wrong.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Even though I work from home, I've been trying to put a little more effort into my daily outfits lately. Now, I obviously want to be comfortable, but I also want to feel put together. So I've been slowly restocking my closet with pieces that feel elevated and are super easy to mix and match. And I only have to go one place to find them. Them Quince. Their lightweight linen pants, dresses and tops start at $30 and are effortless, breathable and easy to wear on repeat. In fact, everything at quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. I absolutely love my washable silk skirt. It goes with everything and it's so easy to take care of. Also, don't sleep on Quince's accessories either. I got a black Italian leather wallet that feels extra luxurious and I literally wear my little gold hoops from Quince every single day. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality and craftsmanship, not brand markup. And seriously, I've said this before and I will say it again. If you're on the hunt for a new dress, jacket, skirt, clothes for your kid, purse, earrings, sheets. Seriously, please, please, please check Quint's first before you spend way more money than you need to somewhere else, refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com wentwrong for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com wentwrong for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com wentwrong. Now, since the book was pretty much immediately a runaway hit, Fox is like, all right, we gotta find a screenwriter. Get this thing going. So first up was Peter Hedges, at this point best known for writing what's Eating Gilbert Grape? And About a Boy.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Wow.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. I mean, Gilbert Grape. Not an amazing comp about a boy, though I think actually a pretty good comp for this. And he delivered what everyone seemed was a pretty solid first draft. But he actually quit the project very quickly because he found it way too overwhelming and did not want to be involved in it. Perhaps he was busy raising future film star Lucas Hedges. I didn't realize that that was his dad until I started researching this, but it is, and they look identical. Next up was Howard Michael Gould, who was mostly a sitcom writer. And then Paul Rudnick, who had written Addams Family Values.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Lot of guys, we're getting through here.

[Lizzie Bassett]

We're not done with the men.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Okay.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Rudnick was only available for two weeks. He did a pass just on Miranda Priestly's dialogue and then named Don Roose. And. Yeah, what's the theme amongst these four writers?

[Chris Winterbauer]

They're just like, I don't know what's not working. Let's just try some more dudes.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Let's hire more men. Men.

[Jameela Jamil]

Men.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Men, yeah. That is so bizarre to me. Like, this is a story where almost every major character is a woman. You've exclusively hired men to write the screenplay.

[Chris Winterbauer]

And probably men, you know, who, like me, find. There's a great quote in September issue. Anna Wintour says there's something about fashion that can make people very nervous. I'm guessing all and were made very nervous by fashion, you know, as I am. And. Yeah, doesn't seem like the right fit.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's spot on because apparently they had turned this into basically, like a Zoolander esque skewering of the fashion world. Which, to your point, I think that's what you do if you don't, A, care about it and B, like, understand it.

[Jameela Jamil]

Understand it. Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Right, Right. So in fairness to these folks, there were a few big problems with adapting the book. First, it's basically just a series of anecdotes. Like, there really is not a strong narrative throughline pushing you towards a climax at all in this. I've been rereading it. I'm not totally done with it, but it's a bit strange. The structure is weird. It almost kind of loops back on itself over and over again. It's just sort of These series of vignettes of her life with her boss. And then it'll start in one place and then kind of jump back to explain how she got to this kind of the worst part of her day, just over and over and over again. And it really doesn't have, like, any kind of driving narrative to it. So that is a pretty big challenge for this movie. There also is not a strong third act at all. According to Elizabeth Gabler, then president of Fox 2000, quote, getting that third act narrative was one of the biggest challenges of my job ever. We had all these plot points that were carryovers from the book. So there were external reasons for Andy to make a decision whether she wanted to keep her job. Because Miranda's threat was, if you leave, you don't have your job anymore. Servicing those subplots was crippling, and it was liberating to finally say, let's not make it about that, let's make it about her decision. Which I think is a very smart change they make for the movie. So obviously, they had a lot to fix in order to make it a successful movie, and nobody had really nailed it yet. And meanwhile, the studio was hunting for a director, and they really wanted someone with a ton of very broad, like, sitcom style comedy experience, which I think gives you a clue as to what those early iterations of the screenplay might have been like. This did make David Frankel a pretty weird fit. He'd only directed one feature at that point and was much better known for his work directing episodes of Band of Brothers, Sex and the City and Entourage. Although, to me, someone who's directed Sex and the City and Entourage.

[Jameela Jamil]

Sex and the City is a perfect fit.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Exactly. It is a perfect fit.

[Jameela Jamil]

Also explains how Adrian Grenier got into this film.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, it does indeed.

[Jameela Jamil]

You know, I don't think his career's ever really recovered because of how much we all started to hate him on, like, the second or third one.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I know.

[Jameela Jamil]

And he's just an actor.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I think it's unfair.

[Jameela Jamil]

Like, we forever saw him as this motherfucker from that film, and I don't think he ever got it back.

[Lizzie Bassett]

No. Between this and Entourage, which he's actually. He does a good job in both.

[Jameela Jamil]

Fantastic.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I don't think anyone made it out of Entourage alive, if you look at that cast.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, yeah, true.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, you're right. I guess they didn't. But it turns out Wendy Feinerman had had her eye on David Frankel for a pretty long time. And even though he didn't really have a ton of Experience what? Broad comedy or fashion? He was intrigued and he agreed to a call with Feinerman. And he's like, well, I should probably read the book. And I guess read the script before this call. So he did that and then promptly went into a panic spiral saying, quote, four very talented writers have been working for a couple of years adapting it. Having read the book, there were moments of more honesty and emotion in some of the scenes, which their movie turned into campy satire. So I bailed on the call with Wendy and abandoned the meeting. And then he said this Miranda was a witch and Andy's motivation was to get her revenge. There was a lot of conflict that ended with Miranda being humiliated. I felt that wasn't sa satisfying. My view was that we should be grateful for excellence. Why do the excellent people have to be nice? I love that. I think that is such a smart take.

[Jameela Jamil]

That's very interesting.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. So 10 days later, his agent called him up and was like, hey, did you like the script? And he's like, no, I absolutely did not. And his agent kindly explained to him, okay, this is what directors do. Find a germ, a nugget of something that appeals to you the first time through. And then your job is to shape it into the movie that you love. And he's like, oh, okay. So he goes ahead, meets with Wendy, and then uses the entire meeting to tell her everything he didn't like about the script and how he would fix it. He said he wanted to celebrate Miranda just as much as expose her and turn this into a real coming of age story. For Andy, it's about learning to be great at something. This worked, and with some help from Wendy, Frankel sold Fox on his vision for the film and he was hired. But this was basically an entirely different movie than what they had on paper. So they decided to find another screenwriter to start completely from scratch. And this time they had a novel Thought. Any guesses what was different about this screenwriter?

[Jameela Jamil]

A woman, perhaps.

[Lizzie Bassett]

A woman. It's a lady. We did it, Jo. So In Thanksgiving of 2004, the relatively unknown Aileen Brosh McKenna was hired. And she immediately clicked with Frankel's vision for the film. And it was very personal for her. According to McKenna, who'd grown up in New Jersey, quote Nigel's speech about how it's a beacon of hope that he read under the covers with Flashlight. I wrote that as an homage to all of us for whom those fashion mag were a peek into this world. There was no Internet, so it was really hard to access that sense of what it meant to trot around the globe. Fashion magazines were very important for widening your horizons. I agree. As a little kid in Richmond, Virginia, I love reading fashion magazines. It really was so different before the Internet was around. But producers were very eager to get the show on the road. And so she turned in her first draft in one month. Chris, you're a screenwriter. What's the fastest you've ever turned in a draft?

[Chris Winterbauer]

I technically had to do one a little faster than that. And I would never recommend it.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Okay. Wow. Humble brag.

[Chris Winterbauer]

No, she did more changes, obviously. I did a. It was like a light polish on something in a couple weeks.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Okay.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Considering what she did, that's crazy.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She rewrote the whole thing.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah. Like normally 8 to 10 weeks would be much more normal. That would still be quick.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Wow. Okay. Something interesting that McKenna did was she made a point not to research Anna Wintour and instead chose to treat the Miranda Priestly in the book as just that. Miranda Priestly. This is so smart also because the book is so detailed. Like it is basically just a transcription of everything that happened in that office down to the letter. Couple of interesting things that did get lost in the book to screen adaptation that I do want to call out, though. Andy Sachs is very explicitly Jewish in the book, as is Miranda Priestley. There is a whole big reveal about Miranda's background that she grew up in a very poor Orthodox Jewish family in London. I do think it's interesting that they erase basically any ethnicity from the movie in several roles. This is one of those cases. Nigel is the other.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Is Anna Wintour Jewish? Wasn't her. No. Yeah. Cause wasn't her dad the editor of the London Evening Standard?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Interesting.

[Jameela Jamil]

I think that's probably why in order to.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, that's a good point. To tie it more closely to her.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Although she's not British. Meryl Streep is not British in the movie, which I do think is interesting.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah. But she's got that same accent.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Mid Atlantic. Yes, I agree.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, that's true.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Cause Wintour doesn't sound always fully British to me either. No, listen to her.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah. They sound like WASPy New Yorkers.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, true. Couple other little tiny details. She's from Connecticut in the book. She went to Brown. Not Northwestern. Her boyfriend is Alex, not Nate. He's very different. He is a schoolteacher for underprivileged children. Although I will say the book handles that in a very ham fisted, early aughts way in terms of who the underprivileged children are. And he is Sort of unendingly supportive of her. She is a lot less likable. Like, the quibbles that he has with her in the book are extremely reasonable. And she really does treat him like shit. So it is interesting to me that they flipped, that she also has a much stronger personality in the book, which I kind of didn't mind. Now, while the movie may have softened Andy's edges, it did harden those of the people around her. McKenna said she pulled insult inspiration from Don Rickles to come up with some of Miranda and Emily's lines. And she actually did speak to one insider at Vogue who read the script and said everyone was way too nice. So she did a pass, punching up all of the insults and also changed Nigel, who is a composite kind of of two characters in the book, but ends up being essentially a whitewashing of the real Andre Leon Talley.

[Chris Winterbauer]

That's who I was wondering in the September issue. That's kind of who I thought it might be.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's absolutely him. They turn him from a sort of warm, friendly mentor into a, quote, mean mentor. The mentor who tells Andy what she's really doing wrong. It's an important thing in your 20s to recognize when you're failing.

[Jameela Jamil]

I know, but Stanley Tucci's delivery of it is just still so warm. He just can't be mean in any.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I know.

[Chris Winterbauer]

You know who? I feel like if they were gonna do more of an Andre Leon tally, I just thought of Titus Burgess immediately.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, yeah.

[Jameela Jamil]

Oh, my God, yes.

[Chris Winterbauer]

He would be so good in that role.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah. So good.

[Lizzie Bassett]

He would be great.

[Chris Winterbauer]

If they ever did a more true to life version, maybe if they do

[Lizzie Bassett]

a Broadway version of Devil Wears Prada,

[Chris Winterbauer]

they better hire him and let him sing.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Absolutely. So you may have noticed that I said she spoke to one insider, and that's because it proved very difficult to get anyone from the fashion industry to talk to her about this movie. Yeah. Because Anna Wintour scared the shit out of everyone. There were rumors that she had waged a campaign against Robert Altman's film Pret a Porter back in the 90s, and that she'd been speed dialing designers to tell them not to participate in the Devil Wears Prada. Of course, Vogue denied this. They were like, no, obviously not. No calls were made. There'll be no retribution if anyone wants to participate. Now, all right, I want to go back to the insults, and I want to talk about one particular insult that McKenna added to the film, which is take a chance.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Hire the smart fat girl.

[Jameela Jamil]

Fat girl. Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I will never not laugh at this line. Obviously, it is absurd because Anne Hathaway is gorgeous and not even remotely fat.

[Jameela Jamil]

But I do feel as though that is a nod to how insane it is. I don't think they mean it. I feel the way that they cut immediately to Anne Hathaway's face being like, what in the fuck are you saying? I think that was a really important moment of stepping outside of the industry, being like, this shit is bullshit. That's just what I took from.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's exactly right. And the screenwriter said this herself. She said, one of the things that's very palpable about fashion is that it's very hard to be overweight. It's a world where being thin is prized partly because of the sample sizes floating around. I thought that her describing Andy as a fat person says a lot about the values of that world, where anyplace else, Andy would be considered incredibly skinny.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's also pretty different from. I was thinking of love, actually.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, my God.

[Chris Winterbauer]

The woman who works in the prime minister's office, where everyone just relentlessly describes her.

[Jameela Jamil]

It talks about her huge thighs.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Her huge thighs, her huge butt.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And she's gorgeous.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I know.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, that one is crazy.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Candidly, like, her physique would be quite prized right now, culturally.

[Jameela Jamil]

Well, maybe two years ago, but yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, sure.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Okay. I'm a little behind the times, so cut me some slack.

[Jameela Jamil]

2024. Let's fucking go, Martine McCutcheon. But 2026, we're right back to the Devil Wears Prada. It's actually perfect timing for the second one to be coming out as we have circled right back around culturally to the Ozempic era super size.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oh, yeah, that's true.

[Jameela Jamil]

Zero vibe.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that as it pertains to the Devil Wears Prada, too, at the end of this. But the reason I'm calling out this moment is because I agree with you, Jamila. This one works for me.

[Jameela Jamil]

This one felt like it was for us. That was the one jive that felt that it was for us to show how insane this is.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, I agree. But here's my main problem with the way that the movie handles this is that Anne Hathaway, by her own admission, did have to lose quite a bit of weight for the role. So much so that they had to add a prosthetic butt pad to her during this whole size 6 setup. That, of course, they would later remove when she's championed for getting down to a size four.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, I was gonna say she arcs Toward a four, which is.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's what bothers me.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It undercuts everything it does.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I don't know why they did that. Cause it's not celebrated in the same way in the book at all. I think that was a mistake. I get what they're trying to do, and I believe that they thought that they were saying something different than the way that I think it actually comes across.

[Jameela Jamil]

No, I think it was a combination of both. I think that one moment that we were celebrating showed situational awareness. And I do agree that to an extent they're just telling it how it really was in the fashion industry. But I also think that it was hyper normalized to see weight loss as part of a transformation in a woman that we would glorify. You know, it wasn't weird back then. You know, that line, I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight. That Emily Blunt says. I think when they're going up the stairs. I literally haven't seen this film in a year, but this is how many times I've seen this fucking movie. But as she's saying that that sentence alone entered the lexicon where until Covid. For the 20 years that film had been out almost. Or like 16 years that film had been out. Anytime I got sick, my girlfriends wanted to come over to try and get what I had because they'd be jealous that I was gonna lose weight. And they wanted to lose weight. Cause it felt like f. You know, free fat camp is to get really sick. Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Tell them just put their kid in daycare. You'll be vomiting.

[Jameela Jamil]

Exactly. But that's what 20 year olds were like after that moment. Like that moment normalized like thinness at all costs. And it cemented it into our generation that thinness equals success. Thinness equals acceptance. Thinness means you get to dress better. It's like she could have dressed amazingly in all of those same outfits at the size fucking 6 or 8 or 10 or whatever, and she would have looked amazing. But it was a subliminal message dropped in. And that was the values of the time. That was the values of Hollywood for sure. You know, they would have unbelievably thin women and she would eat a tub of ice cream in the movie and the men would be joking about what a fat pig she was. You know, it was an insane time. So I don't want to say that we just misinterpreted it.

[Lizzie Bassett]

No, no, no, I think you're right. I think that this movie, this is my one, honestly, one quibble with this movie is it does quite a bit of have your cake and eat or don't eat it, I suppose, with this. And, you know, Anne Hathaway said in an interview around the time this came out that she and Emily Blunt would, like, clutch at each other and cry because they were so hungry because they had lost so much weight during this. By the way, that article has been scrubbed, but I found it.

[Jameela Jamil]

Well done. Wayback Machine. Let's go.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Wayback Machine. Yes. I had pulled a lot from the Wayback Machine for this because much of it had been scrubbed. So. Also, Anne Hathaway famously took her butt pad home and had it framed with Andy's ass written underneath it, which is kind of funny, but also makes me a little sad.

[Jameela Jamil]

Devastating. Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So since we're talking about our stars, let's go ahead and dive into casting. And it seems that they did start with Miranda, so we will, too. Meryl Streep is, like, kind of the reason this movie got made. The film was not even officially greenlit until Tom Rothman secured Meryl Streep for the role in 2005. And the early 2000s were a pretty fun and interesting time for Meryl. She had kind of started to take some steps away from her more serious role. It had brought her an Oscar nomination for her part in Spike Jonze's adaptation, which I love so much. She does deliver one of my favorite lines in the entire movie, Chris. Do you remember which one? It's what she screams at the end. You ruined my life, you fat fuck.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oh, yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Incredible.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I just want to be a baby again. I want to be a baby.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She's so good. She'd also appeared in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. She was kind of just looking for more fun roles, and it really was not about making money. She was just. She's like, I've done the serious stuff. I'm out to have some fun now.

[Jameela Jamil]

I also feel like she was an unbelievably beautiful woman who was always disowned by the fashion industry. She was always someone who. No one took any interest in what she wore. No one took any interest in how beautiful she was. But that's crazy theme throughout her youthful interviews of how unattractive she was, you know, made to feel by people because she had that beautiful long neck. And she was told, you know, you need to look more like an all American girl to be successful. You'll never be. She was so discouraged at the start of her career, and then throughout her career, she was a bit like Emma Thompson, another gorgeous woman who was just treated as if you're like, oh, you're not really in with the in crowd. She was one of the least celebrated superstar women. And so I imagine this was also like quite a fun little fuck you to an industry that largely shunned her, even though she added so much value and worth to any of the bullshit they were doing.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I agree. And also I think about her in like Kramer versus Kramer and she is just. My God, stunning.

[Jameela Jamil]

The most beautiful.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Stunning.

[Chris Winterbauer]

We need to cover that. That was a tough. She did not have a good time working with Dustin Hoffman on that movie.

[Jameela Jamil]

No, that slap. Jesus Christ.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, Dustin Hoffman. We'll get there. Now, according to Entertainment Weekly, Michelle Pfeiffer, Glenn Close and Catherine Zeta Jones were all considered for the role. I could see Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer. I don't really see Catherine Zeta Jones the same way.

[Jameela Jamil]

Too young. That's ridiculous.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

[Chris Winterbauer]

She had just done like, intolerable cruelty. She would have been way too young.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think she looks right at all for that. But Carla Hackin and Wendy Finerman were both on the Meryl or Bust train from the beginning. However, not everyone shared their confidence. Feinerman revealed that Streep was almost passed over because of doubts as to whether or not she could be funny. That's crazy to me. She just did Adaptation, which truly she made me laugh out loud so many

[Chris Winterbauer]

times in that it is a different type of. But I wouldn't necessarily look at Close and Pfeiffer any differently, is my point exactly.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Pfeiffer, maybe because of Batman.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah, okay, that's fair.

[Jameela Jamil]

Maybe it still wasn't like comedy comedy. This is sitcom comedy that they were looking for. And I think it's maybe not just that they don't know if she can do it. It's also that they imagine that if people see that it's a Meryl Streep movie, they'll imagine it's a very serious, Oscar worthy, gravitas laden film.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's true. But of course, it does end up getting her an Oscar nomination. But she got along great with David Frankel, who said, quote, when I met Meryl, we talked about, what would you sacrifice to be excellent? She also wanted to make a movie that at least mocked the tyranny of the Thin. Now I wanna say I very much get the impression that Meryl was more on the side of mocking this than kind of anyone else making the movie.

[Jameela Jamil]

She was very angry behind the scenes, she was always trying to encourage Anne Hathaway to eat, to not lose weight.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes. Yeah. She vocally was like, you don't need to be doing this. But of course she did, because they were telling her to. More on that in a few minutes.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, Lizzie, it does remind me of the Grace Coddington moment in the September issue when she was looking at the photo of the cameraman and they said they were gonna basically Photoshop out his belly.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And she's like, I don't want you to do that. I want you.

[Chris Winterbauer]

They're like, don't do that. I want you to look like a person. Like people should look like people. Not everybody needs to look like models. It was a very interesting moment behind the scene.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She's fascinating. I really. I could have watched three more hours of Grace Coddington.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I agree.

[Lizzie Bassett]

If you all haven't watched the September issue, it is streaming on prime right now, and I highly recommend it. It's a nice little companion piece to the Devil Wears Prada, and they do something very smart, which by the end of it, it really is more about Grace Coddington and a little bit Andre Leon Talley, although not as much about him, but than it is about Anna Wintour. And I think that's because they realized that they're both more interesting than Anna Wintour.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Wintour's pretty flat. She's pretty inaccessible.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. She does not let you in. If you're waking up every morning feeling exhausted even though you got eight hours of sleep, or having to roll around like Violet Beauregard in blueberry form just to get out of bed because your back hurts so badly, chances are you are not sleeping on the right mattress. I've been seriously struggling with back pain since my daughter was born a year ago, and swapping out my mattress for the Helix Twilight luxe has made all the difference. I took the Helix Sleep Quiz, which basically did all the work for me, and matched me with the perfect mattress in a matter of minutes. The entire shopping experience with Helix could not have been easier. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the US and they offer a 120 night sleep trial plus a limited lifetime warranty. You get to rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. We are so satisfied with ours that we actually bought another one for our guests. We are a Helix household and have been long before they chose to sponsor this podcast. So if you're struggling with your mattress, please give Helix a try. Go to helixsleep.com wrong for 27% off sitewide this deal is exclusive for listeners of Helixsleep.com wrong for 27 percent off site wide. And make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixsleep.com wrong.

[Optum Narrator]

Healthcare can feel complicated. That's why Optum uses technology to connect the people and processes that make healthcare easier, more affordable and more effective. We're making it clearer for you to know exactly what you're building, benefits cover and to help you better manage your health. We're coordinating care between your doctors and your technology. We believe better, simpler health care is always possible. That's healthy optimism. That's Optum. Visit optum.com to learn more.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Meryl did have a few conditions that had to be met before she would officially sign on. She insisted on a business of fashion scene. This became the cerulean sweater scene. She wanted it to be taken seriously and explain how it impacts daily life. By the way, little fun fact on that cerulean sweater monologue. It's completely made up. Most of the detail was just invented by McKenna because it sounded real. And then the second thing that she required was the scene where Miranda appears completely makeup and fashion free in the hotel room where she tells Andi about her divorce. She said, we have to see Miranda without her, quote, protective glaze. These are such smart additions, like kind of essential additions, I think, to this movie.

[Jameela Jamil]

Two of my favorite parts of the film.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Film, yeah. Two of the most iconic parts of the movie.

[Jameela Jamil]

She's such a producer, isn't she?

[Lizzie Bassett]

She's so smart. She also required a lot more money than they initially offered, to which I say, good for you, Meryl. She said, quote, the offer was, to my mind, if not insulting, not perhaps reflective of my actual value to the project.

[Jameela Jamil]

100%.

[Lizzie Bassett]

There was my goodbye moment and then they doubled the offer. I was 55 and I had just learned at a very late date how to deal on my own bank. She made somewhere between four and five million dollars for the role. Good for you.

[Jameela Jamil]

She is the movie. She makes the movie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She does, yeah. 100%. She is the movie. This may be hard to fathom, but Adrian Grenier was one of the biggest stars in the cast at this time. He was peak Entourage fame. And so when he was cast as Nate, that was another big boon to the movie. Simon Baker, on the other hand, he's a few years away from the Mentalist at this point. And so he actually was not a big name at all. He'd had some small but recognizable roles across American and Australian film and tv by no means was he a star. I love Simon Baker and I'm totally with you. Every time I watch this, I'm like, my God, leave him go with Christian. Good Lord.

[Jameela Jamil]

I hate Christian. I'm so surprised.

[Lizzie Bassett]

You do? You do? Really?

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Why? I hate the way he's written. I just find him very charming.

[Jameela Jamil]

I want to get her, like, a good vibrator and get her away from both of these men. I found him dripping with sleep.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oh, he is.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, he is. But like, I guess, am I totally off base?

[Jameela Jamil]

Maybe that's your thing. Like, for me, that's like. I think I hate smooth people. So I think that's probably. I just don't trust anyone who isn't, like, fallible and awkward.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's fair.

[Jameela Jamil]

So I think that's probably just my personal taste where I was like, neither of these men suit this woman at all. And he just, like, seemed like he has a date rape drug, you know, in his pocket. But that's just my. That's my personal feeling. Sorry. Sorry.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I could see it. I guess maybe it's my love of Simon Baker in general that is bleeding through. I find him very charming. But I will say upon this rewatch, I didn't find anything that Christian did particularly bad. I don't know.

[Jameela Jamil]

He's fine.

[Lizzie Bassett]

What does he do that's so bad? He's.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I mean, I feel like they're really. He's dangling the professional connections, like, you know, to try to get the sex from her.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, he's definitely got a casting count.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yes, totally.

[Jameela Jamil]

Like, he knows she's got a boyfriend. He knows she's like, inappropriately young for him.

[Chris Winterbauer]

He's an incredibly sleazy.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Okay, I'm wrong. I'll cry, crawl back into my hole.

[Chris Winterbauer]

No, no, no. Here's where I agree. He's an incredibly sleazy character. I still find Simon Baker very charming.

[Lizzie Bassett]

He is.

[Chris Winterbauer]

And I think he does a great American accent.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Also, go see Land of the Dead. He's very good as the lead of that movie.

[Jameela Jamil]

Totally. No disrespect to the actor, but it's just like he's inappropriately older than her.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Super inappropriate.

[Jameela Jamil]

She's clearly in awe of him. It's a total abuse of power and experience.

[Lizzie Bassett]

My 16 year old brain was like, that's the good one.

[Jameela Jamil]

I know, but what were our options back then? Do you know what I mean?

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's what I'm saying. I just find Adrienne Grenray so unf. Unattractive.

[Jameela Jamil]

Poor man, you know, it was that or Paul Blart, Mall Cop. You know, we were told it's one of these two. Or Paul Blart, Mall Cop. Like, we weren't given any, like, middle ground of song.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's either Seth Rogen in Knocked up or this is the villain.

[Jameela Jamil]

Exactly. And all the men who were kind and good and emotionally intelligent were put in a sweater vest and marketed as the weak beta soy cuck that the woman always passes over for the bad boy in the leather jacket.

[Chris Winterbauer]

We didn't have those words yet, though. No, but that is true.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Soy boy is my favorite Zack Spear term. It makes me laugh every time I hear.

[Jameela Jamil]

It's so ridiculous. But back then, you know, those were the. You know, we were given stereotype options of men who are mentally and emotionally unavailable and manipulative. And we were told to go after him and save him and fix him. And we were never told to go with someone nice who cared about us and our dreams.

[Lizzie Bassett]

No, no, no.

[Jameela Jamil]

And I feel as though this just was a continuation of that Absolutely fucking horseshit. But anyway, as you were.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So the part of Emily was particularly difficult to cast. And Frankel saw over a hundred actresses for the part. None of them were right. Now, Emily Blunt had mostly acted in TV movies at this point, but she was on the Fox lot at the time because she was deep in callbacks for Eragon.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oh.

[Lizzie Bassett]

But, yeah, it turns out in one of the meetings she took on the lot, a casting associate asked her to read for the Devil Wears Prada, and she was running late. She's trying to make a flight. She had on sweatpants, so she's just like, whatever. And she read the sides very flustered, very fast, in a British accent. Frankl saw this tape and he was like, that's my Emily. I love her. I want her exactly like this. But he actually had to wait for Eragon to pass on her because that's the part she wanted, and that was the higher profile film. They finally did pass on her, and he called her house in England, got her mother, who informed him that she was out getting very plastered with her sister, sad to have lost the Eragon role, and told him to call her cell phone. And he did. And he reached her in the bathroom of a dive bar in London, where he said, listen, I would love to cast you off the tape, but the studio wants to see you one more time, so can you do what you did, but dress the part more? And so she did one more screen test, and she got the part. And it is worth mentioning the character Emily in the Book is potentially the most different from book to screen. And that has everything to do with Emily blunt. She and McKenna literally went in and rewrote that character. They added all of those funny lines, the Britishisms. And Blunt said she took some inspo from people in the real world saying, quote, I saw a mother speaking to her child in a supermarket when we were shooting that film. It's a line that gets quoted back to me now. She yelled at her kid and she kind of opened and closed her hand and she goes, yeah, I'm hearing this and I want to hear this. I went and put it in the movie.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Poor kid.

[Jameela Jamil]

She stole the film.

[Lizzie Bassett]

100%. She steals this movie.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah.

[Jameela Jamil]

Stole the mov. I think she's why I rewatch it.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She's so funny.

[Jameela Jamil]

Obviously, Anne Hathaway's a delight, but I watched the movie for Emily Blunt for just those little, just bite sized moments of her utter unapologetic villain vibes. And just the way she eats that chocolate pot in the hospital because she hasn't eaten the hospital in so long that this disgusting hospital prison food, like, tastes so amazing to her. And she's like, licking the lid or whatever. I just thought she humanized such a nightmarish role so brilliantly. I remember just thinking, who the fuck is that? And she's why I watched it again that day in the cinema. That was it for me. I was just like. Me and John Krasinski both were just like, that's it. I'm in love with her. That's my woman. I'm going to watch her and support her in everything she does forever. But she made that fucking movie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I agree with you. She makes me laugh out loud more than anybody else in this movie. Yeah. All right, now, before we get to our final piece of the puzzle, I want to talk about the casting of Nigel, because there's a little bit of scandal around it. So before Stanley Tucci was attached, the production did a round of auditions, but not with actors. They auditioned several real life fashion industry people, including Simon Doonan, the former creative director of Barneys New York. And here's how Doonan said his audition went. Quote, After I delivered my lines, Mr. Frankel asked me about various people at Vogue, including Ms. Wintour. When I told him that the editor in chief was straightforward, highly professional, an incredible mother, and extremely well liked by her staff. In sharp contrast to Ms. Weisberger's implied portrait, he glazed over. Soon Doonan realized that celebrity stylists Robert Verdi and Philip Block had also been asked to audition. But Mere days after Doonan had read for Frankel, Stanley Tucci was announced as playing Nigel. So here's what Doonan said publicly about this. This whole charade, I theorized, was nothing more than a carefully orchestrated piece of unpaid real.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah. Try to get them on camera talking about Anna Wintour.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. He said we gays had been dragged in to swish it up on film, no less, for the delectation of some pre cast, overpaid straight actor. This thespian would then fashion his characterization from our mincings.

[Jameela Jamil]

You know, that's happened to me before, really, When I was doing an audition for a movie that I think was with Jennifer Garner a few years ago, the casting director asked me all these private questions about Kristen Bell and clearly, like, had it in for Kristen Bell and was like, do you think she would have been more successful had she been prettier? And I was like, what? She's very good looking and she's also really fucking successful. She's a household name around the world. I think she's fine.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I think she's doing fine.

[Jameela Jamil]

She's doing great and she looks great. And she asked me all these private questions about, like, Kristen's marriage to Dax and what? And I was like, oh, shit. You have a problem personally with Kristen Bell. And because I'm in a show where I spend all day with her, you've only brought me in to try and get shit from me about Kristen, which I would. And it was in between two scenes. And so in the next scene, I have to die, which is already humiliating, to pretend to be shot in, like, mime. No, up against a wall. And I'd never done a death scene before because it was like my second ever audition. Like, the Good Place was my first ever audition. This was like my second ever audition. And I was having to do, you know, drama, you know, I didn't. Which I didn't know how to do. And she was so angry with me because I wouldn't give her a single nugget about Kristen Bell that then she, like, was just like, read the sides, like, yeah. And then bang, you've been shot. Yeah, okay, thank you. And didn't even look at me. And just. I left the room and I never heard anything back. And I was like, you. These. This industry.

[Lizzie Bassett]

What are you doing with that information? It's just like your own personal.

[Jameela Jamil]

The camera's on.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Did she have a Kristen Bell voodoo doll?

[Jameela Jamil]

Like, I had no idea. But she was obsessed and I didn't give her anything.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Okay.

[Jameela Jamil]

And I didn't. The job, but, like, fuck working with someone like that.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So tell me, what's Criston really like?

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah, well, if it makes you feel any better, my daughter may or may not be at least partially named after Eleanor Shelstroe from Perfect the Good Place.

[Jameela Jamil]

Great.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, so Stanley Tucci came out, and he was like, no. He said, I don't know why someone would write such a piece. They really did not know what they wanted to do with this part. I think he's imagining a much more Machiavellian scenario than actually exists. All I know is someone called me, and I realized this was a great. Initially, I thought, oh, okay, I believe Stanley Tucci. But the more I started thinking about it, I kind of believed Simon Doonan.

[Jameela Jamil]

Who's to say, look, both options are totally possible, but I think Simon's one is more plausible, given the nature of Hollywood.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I agree.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Well, is there a version where Tucci's unaware of it?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Frankl has used the information. You see what I'm saying. To inform the way he's gonna direct him.

[Jameela Jamil]

Well, Tucci is also the salt of the earth. Like, he. I couldn't watch a movie where he played a pedophile or a rapist or

[Lizzie Bassett]

something because I was like, yeah, the lovely bones.

[Jameela Jamil]

He's gonna. He's gonna make me. Yeah, he's gonna make me sympathize. It's rough because he's just so lovely that it's so impossible to hate him that I was like, I can't watch anything where he's actually a villain, otherwise I'll sympathize with a villain. So I have to avoid whenever he takes a dark turn because it'll do something weird to me. I'm just. I ride at dawn for Stanley Tucci.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Of course. We all do.

[Chris Winterbauer]

My secret pitch for that movie is they should have flipped the casting between Stanley Tucci and Mark Wahlberg.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, God. I don't want to see Mark Wahlberg play a murdering pedophile either. That's scary. For different reasons. But yes. So it is interesting, though, because Tucci was apparently cast a couple of weeks into shooting, and he actually accepted the role a few days before they started filming him. So it does seem like maybe they had a hard time filling this role. Perhaps they were casting a wide net. They went to, you know, real people in the fashion industry.

[Jameela Jamil]

Who knows he's also straight playing gay.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yes, he is. I think that was Simon's point about him being able to watch them on camera, which is a valid point. All right, step aside. Hatha. Haters, it's time to talk about Andy Sachs. So Anne Hathaway was not the first choice to play Andy, nor was she the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth. She was the ninth choice for this role. Any guesses who the studio's top choice was? Huge star at the time, coming in hot off of Mean Girls, the Notebook.

[Jameela Jamil]

Oh, no way.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Rachel McAdams.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Rachel McAdams, who would be in an

[Chris Winterbauer]

Aileen Brosh McKenna script, Morning Glory, a few years later.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah, they were desperate for her, so she was actually filming the Family Stone on the Fox lot at the time, and they offered her.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Love the Family Stone.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's great. It's great.

[Jameela Jamil]

Incredible Christmas movie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

They offered her this role three times and she kept saying, no, she did not want to do more commercial work at this point. And Frankel said, you know, at the time it would be easy to perceive the movie as kind of a simplistic Cinderella tale and she wanted to do more sophisticated work. Also, we don't know where the script was at this point. It's quite possible she was reading earlier iterations.

[Jameela Jamil]

By the way, it's not a great showcase of acting talent, that film, and that's not to discredit Anne Hathaway, who I think is a phenomenon of our generation.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, that's the least interesting part in

[Jameela Jamil]

the whole thing, but it's the least interesting part in the whole movie. There's no real acting chops other than, like a bit of frustration or a bit of tension about, you know, like a bit of stress, really. It's a fluff role where you are playing the exposition lead and everyone else gets to be colorful and the storyline happens everywhere. Apart from. Really, you.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Yeah, you're the audience's point of entry into a very weird world, which is hard.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's also a hard job.

[Jameela Jamil]

Totally on the hard.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Ann Hathaway does it incredibly well, but

[Jameela Jamil]

it's not a fun job. Yeah, it's not a job that, like, I think any actor would be like, oh, this is going to make a real impact. However, the commercial success of that movie made Anne Hathaway a bonafide A list superstar faster than Rachel McAdams.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well.

[Jameela Jamil]

Well, no, I guess the Notebook was the biggest film in the world, so I guess maybe she also didn't need it as much as Anne Hathaway needed it. This graduated Anne Hathaway into, like, I'm an adult making real blockbuster movies.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Totally. So other actresses considered before Anne were Kirsten Dunst, Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, and Kate Hudson. And Kate Hudson has Openly said that she regrets not taking the role. She apparently really only turned it down because of a scheduling conflict.

[Jameela Jamil]

Kate would have been phenom.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She would have been great. Any of those would have been.

[Jameela Jamil]

I mean, a lot of them are just like, no, they're great, but there's just like, they're very serious and very grounded. Like, this role required a levity that Anne Hathaway is a master at, whilst also being able to be like, Les Miserable. Like, deep, traumatized, wrecked.

[Chris Winterbauer]

And McAdams can do that too. Like, Rachel McAdams can be so funny.

[Jameela Jamil]

Was so hilarious.

[Lizzie Bassett]

There's one in that list I think could absolutely do this, and it's Kirsten Dunst because of Drop Dead Gorgeous and Dick. She's so funny. I think she could have done. But I agree with you on the other ones for sure. So finally, the casting director moved all the way down to the bottom of her list to Anne Hathaway. At this point, best known for playing princesses in teen centric movies like Ella Enchanted and the Princess Diaries. And Fox was like, no, thank you. They wanted a dramatic actress. They didn't see her as that. They saw her as a teen.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Hadn't she done Brokeback Mountain?

[Lizzie Bassett]

It had not come out yet. Oh, that's gonna pop up in just a second. But Anne Hathaway was determined. According to Elizabeth Gabler. She said, quote, I remember Anne sitting on my sofa in my office and explaining why she wanted to do this, why she had to play the role, and giving script notes about the third act. When I look back on it, it wasn't exactly what we ended up doing, but her sensibilities were completely aligned with what we did end up doing. Annie never gave up. She never stopped campaigning, calling. She came into Carla Hackin's office and wrote in her Zen garden, hire me. You have to it.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, that's nuts. That's so intense. But also, she was such a key, like now, I could never imagine anyone else playing that role. No, she is correct that it was made for her.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah.

[Jameela Jamil]

And even as much as I like, I'm a Kate Hudson Stan for life, I love her. But Anne Hathaway brought something, a vulnerability that was so fucking magical to that movie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I think also there is something about Anne Hath looks, even though she's absolutely stunning and obviously does not look like a real person in any way, shape or form. But there is something that I think reads to Hollywood as more accessible about Anne Hathaway than someone like Kate Hudson.

[Jameela Jamil]

I think that's also it, is that, like, the transformation of the hairdo and the new makeup and stuff and the nicer clothes was dramatic on her, even though, obviously when you zoom in on that face and the blue cerulean blue sweater, she's still gorgeous. But you're right, it was a more like, holy shit moment.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yeah. So the filmmaking team is like, all right, great. We found our Andy. And they actually started negotiating her deal when the studio said, not so fast, they were not on board. And it was Meryl Streep who got her over the line because Meryl saw her performance in Brokeback Mountain, which she is great in. And Streep personally called then chairman and CEO of Fox, Tom Rothman, and said, she's great. You're dumb. Go ahead and hire her. And I'm paraphrasing, but that was that got her cast. Now, meanwhile, production designer Jess Gonshaw was having a hell of a time. He had only one feature credit to his name at this point, which was Capote, and that had not come out yet. When the Devil Wears Prada was kicking off production, and he had to figure out how to recreate Anna Wintour's office. Now, according to an article around the time of the film's release, he had absolutely no way of seeing it in person. So he just had to go off of one photo he'd found online. Except. Except, many years later, David Frankel told a very different story. He said the only real contact they had with Vogue for this movie was when Gonshour snuck into the offices and managed to stick his head in Anna Wintour's office long enough to get every detail of it. And, folks, I would like to show you a side by side.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Lizzie. It reminds me of how they designed the bomber in Dr. Strangelove, the way you described that, where they, like, got the one photo from the magazine and they recreated it. Perfect.

[Jameela Jamil]

Oh, holy shit. Lol. Yeah. Down to the hexagon mirror.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I know.

[Jameela Jamil]

Is amazing.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Isn't that incredible?

[Chris Winterbauer]

Wow. Yeah, well, it's funny how the movie did it better. The movie's just, like, slightly more aesthetically pleasing. You know what I mean?

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And according to Frankel, Anna redecorated as soon as the film came out. I assume because she saw her exact

[Chris Winterbauer]

office on screen, I also assume her second assistant did.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, yeah, yeah. She didn't do it, surely. Now, Gonchor was also struggling to find any locations for the film which they planned to shoot in New York City. It's a movie set in New York City. Doesn't seem like this should be too hard Any ideas why this might have been a problem?

[Jameela Jamil]

Because they had no budget. Well, not no budget, but they had a low budget.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, that's not exactly it, but let's talk about that for a second.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, I was reading Meryl Streep talking about the first movie, saying, like, we had huge budget constraints. And she said that that was typical.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's true. They had about $35 million, which was

[Jameela Jamil]

quite low for this, which considering how flash beautiful this film was and had to be to sell it, as genuinely evocative of the fashion industry. She said that they had huge budget constraints, as did any movie that was designed for a female audience, which is so ridiculous, given that women are still 80% of the consumer market and we are the ones who go out and

[Lizzie Bassett]

support and buy shit.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, maybe not female superhero movies, but other shit like women go out and they buy and they support. And really it's only after films like Barbie, you know, breaking a Billion, that they've realized the studios that, okay, women and girls are actually were always the target movie audience. And so she said that they had a much healthier budget for the sequel of the Devil Wears Prada.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, good. They earned it. But yeah, you're 100% right. They had about $35 million for this. And again, we know 4 or 5 million of that went to Meryl Streep right away. So that is not a big budget at all. We're going to get into some of the issues the budget did cause, but the location's a little bit of a different problem.

[Optum Narrator]

Healthcare can feel complicated. That's why Optum uses technology to connect the people and processes that make healthcare easier, more affordable and more effective. We're making it clearer for you to know exactly what your benefits cover. And to help you better manage your health. We're coordinating care between your doctors and your technology. We believe better, simpler healthcare is always possible. That's healthy optimism. That's Optum. Visit optum.com to learn more.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

[Xin Yi Pai]

Hi, I'm shiny. Five years ago, I sat down in front of a microphone with a simple goal. To share stories from the Asian American experience and to do that by talking about everyday objects. Now 10,000 Things is headed into its fifth and final season and we've got a new set of stories about coming fully into oneself. Weird and wild and inspired. Tune in to the final season of 10,000 things from a cat Creative Studios, a podcast about modern day artifacts of Asian American life and the stories they reveal listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcast podcast everywhere acast.com.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It turns out no one wanted to let them use their spaces because they were all so scared of Anna Wintour.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Interesting.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So if you think about what they're filming and where they're filming. The Metropolitan Museum. Absolutely no. Because of the Met Ball. They said no way. Bryant Park. Nope. They do Fashion Week. Not doing that. The Museum of Modern Art is like, fuck right off. We're not doing that.

[Jameela Jamil]

But Anna didn't care. She was breezy.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She didn't care. She didn't care. Jamila. Yeah, she's bored. She's bored by it all. She's not, you know, she's calling these people in her crypt at night.

[Chris Winterbauer]

She's not. Her second assistant. Like, I think it's a mob style situation.

[Jameela Jamil]

I know, but she's Tony and she's calling the fucking shots.

[Chris Winterbauer]

That's my point exactly. She knows how to do it.

[Lizzie Bassett]

There is a moment in the book where it's revealed that Andy has to call this chef and like scream at him as Miranda is directing her. Exactly what to say. And I 100% believe that that is probably what's happening here for sure. Iconic Upper east side apartments where they had hoped to shoot Miranda's home had co op boards that refused the film crew's entry into the buildings. Weeks went by without them being able to secure a single location. And it actually got so bad that Frankel and the rest of the team wondered if this might be the thing that kills the movie. They could not get filming locations around New York. Finally, a friend of Wendy Feinerman let them use their Upper east side Tower townhouse. This is why the layout in the movie of that townhouse is so different from what's in the book. It's because it was the only thing that they could get. So they had to literally change that whole sequence about don't go upstairs. Although I think it works better in the movie because of that.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

And last but not least, they finally found a location for the ball event. And it was the one place that, according to Frankel, Anna Wintour had no influence. It was the Museum of Natural History. That's the only one that said, go ahead with the dinosaurs. So when the cast met up for the first time, Meryl Streep pulled Anne Hathaway aside and said, I want you to know I think you're going to be great and I'm so happy to work with you. And that's the last nice thing I'm going to say to you. And this was true. She went method with Miranda Priestly, keeping herself apart from the rest of the cast for pretty much all of the shoot. For the first table read, she arrived 10 minutes late on purpose, so everyone would have to wait for her entrance. But it was worth the wait. Anne Hathaway said, quote, I think we all had an idea of what Miranda would sound like. It was a strident, bossy barking. So when Meryl opened her mouth and basically whispered, everybody in the room drew a collective gasp. It was so unexpected and brilliant. Although I will say, have you heard Anna Wintour talk? Because it is also an imperceptible whisper.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, that's true. Power is making people come to you.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Well, Meryl Streep did say she didn't base Priestley on Wintour. She actually said she pulled a lot from Clint Eastwood. She said, quote, he never, ever raises his voice. Everyone has to lean in to listen, and he is automatically the most powerful person in the room, but he is not funny. That I stole from Mike Nichols. The way the cruelest cutting remark, if it is delivered with a tiny, self amused curlicue of irony, is the most effective instruction, the most memorable correction, because everyone laughs, even the target. The walk, I'm afraid, is mine. Now, as McKenna was flying home from the table read, she realized she was sitting very close to the supermodel Gisele Bundchen, and their plane was delayed two hours. So at Frankel's request, she walked over to her, asked if she'd like to be in, and Bundchen said, sure. But she said, I don't want to play myself and I want to play a bitch. And so McKenna wrote the cameo for her right then and there.

[Jameela Jamil]

Love that one.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I love it, too. And she's fun. She did have to ask Vogue's permission to appear in the film, which she got. All right. So production kicked off with a little bit of luck. New York City's tax incentives for filming had just taken effect. That essentially gave the film a 5% tax credit. And that's about where their luck ended. When Anne Hathaway was first hired, the production team told her to gain tax because of, you know where Andy starts in the movie, and Anne Hathaway's like, great. She ate pizza, ice cream and beer for a month. But then she got to her first costume fitting with legendary costume designer Patricia Field, who was like, why did you gain 10 pounds? You need to fit into couture. This is not going to work. So Hathaway had to immediately take off the weight she had just gained and then some in order to be able to fit into the dresses in the film, which is a nightmare. And just in case you aren't familiar, Patricia Field is the iconic costume designer behind Sex and the City and much, much more. This woman is a geni, but she was also having a terrible time on this film. You pointed this out, Jameela, but there's at least a million dollars worth of clothing used in the movie. But they, of course, did not have the budget to buy that much stuff. They had about $100,000 for the costume budget.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah. No one was gonna lend to them because they were scared of Anna.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's the problem.

[Chris Winterbauer]

$100,000 is a tiny for a movie

[Lizzie Bassett]

this size for a movie about fashion. It's crazy.

[Chris Winterbauer]

That's insane.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's crazy.

[Chris Winterbauer]

That does not not make sense.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I know. That's what they gave them, and I think maybe they did that because the assumption was, oh, designers will lend their clothes to us for this.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Right.

[Lizzie Bassett]

But Anna Winstour strikes again. Yes. Nobody wanted to lend their clothes to the film for fear of retaliation. It actually took one designer going against the grain and agreeing to lend their clothes for the floodgates to open. Any guesses who that designer may have been?

[Jameela Jamil]

Marc Jacobs? No.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Oscar de la Renta.

[Jameela Jamil]

Is it the Chanel?

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's Prada.

[Jameela Jamil]

Oh, lol.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Lol.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Lol.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Lol.

[Jameela Jamil]

Lol. Of course, because the film has done so much for their brand.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Should have.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's in the title.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Yep. Miuccia Prada did say she found the book awful, but ended up enjoying the film. And with Prada officially on board, the other designers came running. So, Jamila, I have to ask, what is your favorite outfit of this movie?

[Jameela Jamil]

It's the first one of the.

[Lizzie Bassett]

The montage.

[Jameela Jamil]

No, not the montage. It's the first one of the.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Oh, the Chanel boots.

[Jameela Jamil]

The first time. It's the Chanel boots with the amazing long blazer jacket. And her hair is, like insanely cut and layered. And those are all kind of like 15 denier tights.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's so good.

[Jameela Jamil]

It's the chicest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. If I ever get to look like that. Just one time that put together with the big bag. Oh. Just. I audibly gasped in the cinema when I. And how triggered Emily Blunt gets and

[Lizzie Bassett]

is like, shut up.

[Jameela Jamil]

To Giselle is absolutely ideal.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's great.

[Jameela Jamil]

So that for me, is like, my favorite outfit of the movie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's beautiful.

[Jameela Jamil]

What about you?

[Lizzie Bassett]

I love the long leather trench that she has, and she has an outfit that is, like, multiple pieces of brown leather when she's in the montage. And I do really love that one. But I also. I love the Chanel boots. Those are probably my two favorites. And I have mixed feelings about the cap sleeves on her gown in Paris. But that's fine. It looks beautiful on her. I'm just angry because I can't wear cap sleeves. Chris, I'm sorry. We can't leave you out of this. What is your favorite outfit in the Devil Wears Prada?

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's her Harry Potter outfit. When she comes in. It's sort of Harry Potter chic outfit. It's the first one. It's the Chanel transformation. It's the Chanel boots. She comes in, she's got that oversized blazer that, again, looks like it's inside out or something because of the way that they've done the stitching. And she has a patch on it that looks like a Hogwarts patch, a gray Gryffindor patch.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Great. So women see Chanel boots. You see Harry Potter. That tells us a lot.

[Chris Winterbauer]

No, I see magic.

[Lizzie Bassett]

You see magic. Fair enough.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Thank you.

[Lizzie Bassett]

All right. So it honestly is kind of amazing that they got Patricia Field in the first place, given how connected she is to the fashion industry. But she was basically just like, whatever, guys. No one knows who Anna Wintour is. Like, inside the fashion industry. Yes, people know who she is, but she said, you know, how many people know the name Anna Wintour? It's not a slur to Anna Wintour. It's that fashion is a small segment. I want to tell a bigger story. Not a story of Anna Wintour.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah, she's also the fucking sex in the city. You know what I mean? Like, she's already made her money. She doesn't have to worry about her career.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Right. So Meryl Streep not having a great time because she's method. She's not talking to anybody. That really sucked for her. Anne Hathaway, however, was having a terrible time because of a bit of life imitating art. I don't know if you guys remember this. She was dating and living with a con man, Raffaello Foglieri, an Italian con man. I'm sorry, I have to take a second to talk about. About this. He was running a con, which she did not know about, obviously, where he was saying that his New York firm was helping the Catholic church unload unwanted real estate properties at a discounted rate to help the church recover financially from the sexual abuse scandals coming to light at the time. Which is such a crazy pitch. But he like leaned into this. He was like, I am personally connected to the Vatican. He had an altar in his office. He had a nun as his reception receptionist. Absolutely wild, wild, wild. But he was terrible to her and apparently he would get angry at her when she had to work late. David Frankel said she was really emotional on set, particularly when the shoots ran long. He always made it a problem for her. She did eventually leave him in 2008, 10 days before he was dragged out of his parents apartment by the FBI and he served four years in prison. And just so you know, Donald Trump had something to say say about it. He said, quote, anne Hathaway hasn't remained very loyal to him, has she? So when he had plenty of money, she liked him. But then after that nut is good, right? I don't think that was the problem for Anne Hathaway, a multi millionaire movie star. Anyway, the whole thing was very humiliating for her. She eventually had to hand over tons of jewelry he'd bought her and her personal diaries. But it sounds like she was living with an emotionally abusive con man boyfriend while also trying to stay desperately thin, working her ass off on a movie she'd fought incredibly hard for, AKA having honestly a much worse time than Andy Sachs does in the movie. And in December of 2005, filming wrapped. Now, the film was scheduled to release the same weekend as Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, which, to your point, Jameela, had a budget of over $200 million. But before it came out, Anna Wintour was invited to a private screening at the Paris Theater in New York. She came with her daughter, and even though she frequently would leave plays that she was very bored by, she stayed until the very end. And apparently her daughter leaned over and said, mom, they really got you. So the Devil Wears Prada released wide on June 30, 2006, and it absolutely tore up the box Office. It made $326 million worldwide. And by the way, Superman Returns made $391 million worldwide, which, yes, is more money. But as we know on this podcast, that means that one probably about broke even because of marketing and the cost of the movie, while the Devil Wears Prada was absolutely minted. Of course, the film was not at all bad for Anna Wintour. She became a household name, ended 2006 as one of Barbara Walters most fascinating people, and the film received two Oscar Nominations, one for Patricia Fields costume design, and one for Meryl Streep. Critics praised the film and Meryl's performance, but it also, it was a real sea change for the fashion industry. The Devil Wears Prada 2 will of course, hit theaters on May 1st, and we will be reviewing it as a bonus episode, so stick around for that. But it's already made some headlines. I don't know if you've seen this, Jamila, but Streep and Hathaway attended Milan Fashion Week while filming, and they were reportedly both pretty horrified by how thin the models on the runways looked. Streep revealed that Anne Hathaway headed straight for the producers and secured, quote, promises that the models in the show that we were putting together for our film would not be so skeletal.

[Jameela Jamil]

That's our go.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Good for you, Anne Hathaway. Not good, that. That's a conversation that needs to be had. But I'm glad she did it. All right, let's end on a happy note. Anne Hathaway might not have found love on the set of the Devil Wears Prada, but Stanley, too. So Stanley Tucci very sadly lost his beloved wife Kate, a social worker who he'd been with since 1995, in 2009, following a battle with breast cancer.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah. But then Emily Blunt.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That's right.

[Jameela Jamil]

Came to the rescue.

[Lizzie Bassett]

So Tucci had met Emily Blunt's sister Felicity, a literary agent, at the premiere of the Devil Wears Prada. But a few years later, they met again at Blunt's wedding to John Krasinski. They fell in love and married in 2012. Yes, there is a massive 21 year age gap, something that made Stanley Tucci. But in the end, love won out and they have been happily married ever since. All right, Jamila, this is how we end every episode. We like to ask what went right.

[Jameela Jamil]

What went right with that film is it's an incredible time capsule of a very strange moment in history and in the industry. Yeah, I think it was cast perfectly. There's nobody I would have changed for any one of those roles. I think the casting director deserves an Oscar for that. Meryl Streep set a new standard for female villains. And also empathizing with female villains. You know, we rarely empathize, even with female heroes in film. And she forced a through line that was incredibly interesting about what it takes to make it to the top of an industry that is ultimately run by men, even if it presents as a female. That is a mask. Because the fashion industry is ultimately owned, as are the studios, as are the music labels. By men. And they use women kind of as, like, to go out and do their, you know, dog's body, whilst men sit in the shadows making all the actual money from this.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Dog's body.

[Jameela Jamil]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Bassett]

A British term I just learned.

[Jameela Jamil]

Indeed. So I think that the soundtrack was great, the fashion was phenomenal. It is a film that ultimately, I think, was trying to tell us that he was the real villain and telling us that he was a cunt. And I think we all missed it because we were all drunk on patriarchy when we were young and that her friends were dicks and there was no charity offered to the boyfriend or to. I don't know if that was subliminal or if I'm just being too charitable.

[Lizzie Bassett]

No, I think you're right. Especially when you think about David Frankel saying that this to him was about, what does it take to be excellent?

[Jameela Jamil]

Excellence. Yeah, totally.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I think you're right.

[Jameela Jamil]

And I think it was an interesting journey of. For me, this is what I took from the movie, and I think why I returned to the movie is that I really resonate with not being interested in the ruthlessness required for greatness. And I think that it makes her seem healthy and happy at the end when she steps away from that world. You know, there's a part of her that misses that adrenaline, you know, when she sees Miranda in the street. But ultimately, it was like, it's not worth selling your soul for. And as someone in this industry who's been offered so much in exchange for me to give a lot of myself and make sacrifices, I'm really glad that I didn't. And I've therefore lived a peaceful and happier life than all of my peers pretty much combined. As to how, like, well, mentally I feel because I didn't take those steps. And so I love that it is a film that champions greatness whilst also championing peace and friendship and love and community. You know, I think it does a really good job at showing that both things have their merits and that ultimately picking herself and her sanity and not being a slave to this lunatic woman who doesn't look happy, it really makes the point that, like, having all the money and all the power in the world does not make a happy person. And we see that when we see Meryl stripped back and crying and her

[Lizzie Bassett]

divorce and beautifully said. All right, Chris, what went right for you?

[Chris Winterbauer]

I think the obvious one is Meryl Streep, and maybe we'll leave that to you. But I think the less obvious one, because she was the ninth choice, and I love Emily Blunt in this movie. And also just a little plug for your sister's sister, the indie film that I think kind of helped break her out a few years later. Lynn Shelton. Anne Hathaway is great in this movie. She is great, and I think it's hard to be the straight man in movies like this. And I think she does a really nice job. She never tries to overpower any of the scenes. She kind of understands her role very well in this type of mo. And she can be very funny. She's very funny in Ocean's 8. I didn't love that movie, but I thought she was great in it.

[Lizzie Bassett]

She's one of the best parts of it.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Absolutely. And I think she was easy to hate on for a while because people felt like she had this drama camp kid energy to it.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I hate that she just works hard.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I do, too. I think she's a great actress. And she's also ageless, apparently, as we'll see. She is doing whatever Tony Goldwyn's doing, as you mentioned, but. But she's really excellent in this movie. And like Rachel McAdams, I think she has a lot of range, and she can do comedy and she can do drama and she can do science fiction and she can do superhero movies. And I was really impressed to hear how much she fought for this role, you know, coming off of something. I mean, she had just done Brokeback Mountain. It could have been easy for her to say, like, I just deserve to have something handed to me, which she did. She, you know, was that Sinoska would film that she had just done. And she's excellent in it, as Meryl recognized. So I'll give mine to Anne Hathaway.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Perfect. I'm with you 100%. I have never subscribed to the Anne Hathaway hate. I think, honestly, it may have started a bit with that con man boyfriend, because there was a bit of the, like, well, how could you have not known? And if you look back at some of the articles from the time, there were people saying, well, you know, he was only doing this so he could have money to spend it on Anne Hathaway. And it's just like, fuck you. And then there's the Oscars with James Franco and then Les Mis. And from there you get this idea that she's sort of a try hard. To which I say, yeah, she tries really hard. Is that a bad thing? No, it's not. She's an incredible actress. She works her ass off. I can't wait to see her in the Devil Wears Prada. Too. I'm not gonna give it to Meryl Streep. She's obviously incredible in this movie, as is Emily Blunt. All the actors are wonderful. I wanna give it to alien Brosh McKenna, because having read the book, I think what she is able to do with this adaptation is so impressive. She makes something that is truly inactive. It's just a transcription, really.

[Chris Winterbauer]

As Charlie Kaufman would say, lizzie in adaptation. It's that sprawling New Yorker shit.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It literally is.

[Chris Winterbauer]

I can't capture this.

[Lizzie Bassett]

It's exactly what the book is. Spot on. And she just does such a good job and she makes such a tight movie. It's a complicated movie. There's depth to all of these characters. It's funny. Hats off to you, alien Brosh McKenna. This. This is a tour de force piece of screenwriting here. So that's who I will give it to. Jamila, thank you so, so much for being here with us and taking the time to explore what is truly one of my favorite movies. Yeah. Is there anything that you'd like to plug before you leave?

[Jameela Jamil]

Oh, well, I have a podcast called Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil. It's very funny. Lots of your favorite comedians in the world come on and tell me terrifying tales that they should have taken to the grave, really, but chose to share with with all of us. I will be doing Netflix is a joke festival in Los Angeles on May 4th at 7pm with Chris Fleming and Liza Trager and Lamorne Morris. And then I also write a substack called A Low Desire to Please, which I named after my dog. When he got his first training card, they said that he's very smart. He just has a low desire to please. And I was like, that is my dog. I birthed him out of my vagina because we must share the same DNA. That's me all the way through. So, yeah, so those are the things. And then projects will come out later this year.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Amazing. Thank you so much.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Thank you for being here.

[Lizzie Bassett]

You were so lovely, so generous with your time and everything that you shared. And I really love your podcast. It makes me happy.

[Jameela Jamil]

Thank you, Chris.

[Lizzie Bassett]

If people would like to support this podcast, how can they do that?

[Chris Winterbauer]

A few very simple ways. Number one, tell a family member or friend, hey, you should check out what went wrong. Pretty good. Number two, leave us a rating and review on whatever podcaster you are listening to this show on. We appreciate it. It helps people see that people listen to this. It's a. A signal. Maybe you should too. Number three, subscribe on whatever podcaster you are Listening to us on. So you get new episodes every Monday and occasionally Fridays. Number four, if you'd like more from us, we now offer bonus episodes through a couple different platforms. For $5 a month, you can get bonus episodes through Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You get at least one bonus episode per month. Typically, these are reviews of newly released movies, but we are experimenting with some new formats, especially this summer. And then number three, if you really want to go the nine yards, you can join our Patreon. Head to www.patreon.com whatwentwrongpodcast and for $5, you can get not only the bonus episodes, but access to our fan community, comments, et cetera, and an ad free RSS feed. And for $50, you can get a Miranda Priestley shout out just like one of these.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Adrian Peng. Correa.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Angeline.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Renee Cook. Beatrix Earhart. Earhart. Is it impossible to find a lovely, slender paratrooper reaching for the stars here?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Not really.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Ben Shindleman. Blaze Ambrose. Brian Donahue, Brittany Morris. Brooke. Cameron Smith. C. Grace B. Chris Leal. Chris, by all means, move at a glacial pace.

[Lizzie Bassett]

You know how that thrills me.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Chris Zaka. David Frisco. Lanti Darren and Dale Conkling. Don Scheibel, M. Zodia. Evan Downey, Felicia G. Film it yourself. The tales of your incompetence do not interest me. Frankenstein, Galen and Miguel. The Broken Glass Kids. The cast and crew of Win A Trip to Browntown. Grace Potter, half greyhound. James McAvoy. James McAvoy.

[Lizzie Bassett]

There you are, James.

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

How many times do I have to scream your Name? Jason Frankel. J.J. rapido. Jory Hill. Piper Jose Emiliano Salto Del Giorgio. Karina Canaba. Kate Elrington. Kathleen olson. Amy Elgeschlager McCoy. Amy Floros. For spring. Groundbreaking. Lazy Freddie. Lena L.J. lydia Howes. Mark Bertha. Mariposa's Humans. No, no, that wasn't a question. Matthew Jacobson. Michael McGrath. Nate the Knife. Nate. Yes, that Nate. Am I supposed to remember who you are?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Nate?

[Patron Shoutout Reader]

Rosemary Southward. Roger. Sadie. Just Sadie. Scott Oshita. So many. Steve Winterbauer. Suzanne Johnson. The Provost family. The O's sound like Os, that's all.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Wow, that was cruel. Lizzie, I don't know why you said such mean things about our most loyal patrons, but it will make them stronger. Excellence is what we demand. Before we announce what's coming next week, may I offer Lizzie my favorite comp for the budgetary point that Jameela was making at the time?

[Lizzie Bassett]

Sure.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Talladega Knights, the Ballad of Ricky Biden.

[Lizzie Bassett]

God, yeah.

[Chris Winterbauer]

Same year. I really like that movie.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I do, too.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's very silly, very funny. $73 million budget, two times the budget of the Devil Wears Prada. I would argue roughly equivalent in star power, although not as acclaimed dramatically. Will Ferrell is an enormous name, and John C. Reilly's an amazing actor, but my point is it takes place within a specialized world. Nascar, in this instance, very male world versus more female world, the fashion world. And again, twice the budget, but made half as much at the box office as Devil Wears Prada. So, anyway, that would be my comp.

[Lizzie Bassett]

That $100,000 for the costume budget is nuts.

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's crazy.

[Lizzie Bassett]

I mean, I get it. I think they thought everybody was just gonna lend clothes, but yeah, I think that was probably.

[Chris Winterbauer]

They did an initial pass at the budget and they're trying to figure out how to squeeze it into the 35 number that they have. And they say, well, if we just slash the costume budget by 90%, because we assume we can get these for free, then we can get the green light.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Right?

[Chris Winterbauer]

It's like a weird math you do to try to get something to work where it needs to be.

[Lizzie Bassett]

By the way, make sure that you come back not this Friday, but next Friday, because we will be covering the devil wears Prada 2 for all of our patrons and bonus subscribers. I'm so excited to watch it. I can't wait to talk about it with you, Chris. So make sure that you come back not this Friday, but next Friday for that bonus episode. But in the meantime, Chris, what do we have coming up one week from today on Monday?

[Chris Winterbauer]

So the devil wears Prada 2 is going to tee us perfectly into sequel months, as Chris describes it. So for May 4, not only could you check out Jameela Jamil's Netflix is a joke performance, you can also tune in for our first sequel of the month, the Empire Strikes Back. We are diving into the dark second entries of a couple of trilogies that we have started on this podcast, and Empire Strikes Back will be the first.

[Lizzie Bassett]

Great. All right, we'll see you then. Thanks for listening. Bye. To support what Went Wrong and gain access to bonus episodes, subscribe on Patreon, Apple, or Spotify for $5 a month. Patreon subscriptions also come with an ad free RSS feed. You can also visit our website whatwentwrongpod.com for more info. What Went Wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Post production and music by David Bowman. This episode was researched by Laura woods and edited by Karen Krupsaw.