Margot Robbie’s Flop Confession & We Need Sarah Michelle Gellar To Leave Australia

Published Nov 28, 2024, 3:54 AM

One of the most popular reality TV shows of all time has announced some devastating news, and now we need to unpack what really happened.

And it looks like Hollywood golden couple Freddie Prinze Jr and Sarah Michelle Gellar have relocated to Australia, at least for a couple of months. But there’s a reason why we desperately want them to leave.

Plus, Margot Robbie has given a candid interview about her biggest career flop, and now we need to unpack what happened behind the scenes.

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Hosts: Laura Brodnik & Em Vernem

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Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. 

So much. You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and borders that this podcast is recorded.

On From Mamma Mia. Welcome to the Spill, your daily pop culture fix.

I'm m Vernon and I'm Laura Brodnick.

And on the show today, two very big American celebrities are making the move or have made the move to Sydney, and one of us is weirdly angry about it. You can probably tell which one of us. We're also going to be talking about Margo Robbie's interview where she was surprisingly candid about a failure of one of her movies.

But first, so we need to talk about some devastating TV news that was announced yesterday. Not devastating for us personally. I'm going to speak on behalf of both of us, but Gandonoval, that's just not even close. So what this is about, just you hang time and I'll explain, okay, but devastating to a large number of people who have been watching this show for well over a decade. So yesterday it was announced that vander Pump Rules, the reality show that started in twenty thirteen as a spinoff of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills franchise and then became its own crazy reality TV juggernaut all on its own. Would be coming back for a new season, but with an entirely different cast.

That is crazy. Are they allowed to do that? That's like saying Kardashians are coming back for a next season, but none of them will be there.

But then they're not recasting in the Kardashians, it's the Hiltons. I feel like a lot of people are feeling that way. So what's happened is that the show was successful since twenty thirteen. So was Lisa vander Pump who was on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and she owns a whole bunch of restaurants and one of them is Sir in La and it is a very famous restaurant, yes, very famous from the show especially, And so it was, you know, the behind the scenes lives of the people who worked there, the service scandal, so many scandals since it started in twenty thirteen. And why it really worked is that it was calling it lightning in a bottle, like something that you just caught in a moment in time and you really can't recreate because you had all these people who weren't famous, so they would just happened to be working at the restaurant and they some of them were brought in for the TV show, but they weren't you know, popular stars or celebrities who were making a TV show, And so it was all the behind the scenes of their life. It was their drama, it is their romances, all those sort of things, and they all became like these huge celebrities in their own right. And of course this year they kind of passed over from reality TV fame. Like the Bravo universe is its own thing, and we're aware of different things happening in that universe. But I think for most people, you're either a Bravo fan or you're not. But this year they kind of crossed over into mainstream media when Scandalval happened, which is what you just mispronounced.

Before Scanner Noble.

So Tom Scandal and Ariana Maddox were a couple on the show. They had been together for over a decade and they were like the golden couple of the show. And while they were on a break from actually filming vander Pump, it was revealed that he was having an affair with Rachel Levice, who was another star on the show and a very good friend of Ariata's. And I remember that just being like breaking news theme because everywhere it was absolutely everywhere, even like the New York Times and stuff are reported on it, and vander Pump Brawles wasn't even filming at the time. They had to like pull different TV crews who were filming different shows and send them over to try and catch the madness of what was happening. And it just became this huge, like international news story. It was splashed across the front page of all these new sides. So then vander Pump attracted a whole big new fan base and everyone was so excited for the new season because you're going to see the aftermath of what was happening. But it kind of was almost the death then of the franchise. I mean, I'm speaking as an outsider. I'm sure, like Diehard vand Pump Rules that people are screaming into their phones right now saying no, you're wrong. But from the outside of it is that I was always aware of this TV show, but we never really covered it, and there were never any screenings events anything like that, But when the new season came back this year, there was a huge fan screening that I went to an event cinemas. They had hired out the fancy cinemas. They had to drink some cocktails. We had these amazing gift bags, and like people who had never watched the show before, like me, were flocking to the screening to see the aftermath. And it just couldn't like because Ariana wouldn't film with Tom and there was a whole situation. But also, like the people have become so famous now they obviously don't work at the restaurant anymore, so it's lost that premise that made it so popular.

So it feels like they weren't able to pass what the Kardashians could pass, where they became really really big main in mainstream news, and like the show had to play catch up, and the Kardashians do it really well, Like they've become really really big in mainstream news, like we see the metal and stuff, and the show doesn't necessarily play catch up because there's always something new to add to it.

Yeah, it'sd of felt like it was trying to keep them and there's like, oh, this is a bubble of friends with like all of these different things.

That's reality. We're no reality.

They were in reality. They're these very famous people. And also interesting that Arianna and Tom were living in the same house for a long time because neither of them would move out of his how they owned, but she wouldn't film with him, so they were actually nearly never on camera together. So that side of it has come to an end, and they're going to have a whole new cast, like let's just start fresh, start with a bunch of fun nouns. It's hard, though, because now people are so well versed in how reality TV works, and people come in with their pre design characters, they come in with their plans of how they're going to sell things on Instagram. I think it's really hard now to just find those organic storylines when everyone kind of already lives their lives through their TikTok accounts and stuff. As an influencer already.

I'm interested to see how this will actually play out for them, where there will be success.

Or not exactly well. Thoughts and prayers with the Vander Pumperrules fans out there, difficult day for you.

Great news, Sarah, Michelle Geller, and Freddy Prince Jr. Have moved to Sydney with their children. We also have an on the ground scoop that they dined at Chin Chin in Surrey Hills last night.

Right here. We got here there all the time.

We're not going to be able to get a booking fifty million years now like we couldn't for Pellergren in two thousand and after Taylor Swift with this, all my favorite restaurants they're going to. So apparently the reason for the move is because they're filming the reboot too. Well, Freddie is filming the reboot too. I know what you did last summer.

So she's definitely not.

She's definitely not because spoilers, I guess it's been a while, but she's been killed off. But she's here with the kids. They're having fun. It's unconfirmed whether this is a permanent move, but I'm quite interested because I feel like it feels like that time in the Pandemic where all the celebrities flocked to Byron Bay. Like we saw zac Efron, we saw Tom Hanks. I mean he was here because he had COVID and he had to stay. But there was so many like international celebrities, and it feels like a bit exciting. You don't feel excited though.

Yes, this was big talking office yesterday and everyone's very excited about it. First all, can I say I doubt they've moved here permanently. I'd say they would just have relocated because he's filming here.

You know what I want them to do? Yeah, Scooby Doo three?

Why do you want that?

Because I love the Scooby Doo movies are the best movies ever, Spookier and morning momentary.

What do you mean I can't have seven carry on bands? That is so economy? No, they have really good movies. Matthew Lillard, who played Shaggy, said that they didn't come back for a third movie because they didn't offer him a lot of money and he was really hurt at the time. I'll do it for the girls, man, I now might he might do it now he's joined the club wind. Yeah. I don't love this news. I've got to say I love Sarah Michelle Geller, but I don't want to know anything about her existence, right because please don't judge me for this, because you've got a judgment to look on your face, and clearly you've never loved a TV show before. So Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Yes, is my favorite TV show in the entire world, but it's also one of my favorite things in the entire world, and it's a very sacred thing. And in order for Buffy and Summers and that universe to like really exist as a story and like a real kind of place in my mind, I can't know that Sarah Masha O Gella exists. And I don't want to know that she's bumping around Sydney, that she's going to restaurants near my home that I go to.

And if I me your sacred sanctuary, well, if I lay.

Eyes on that woman, I will run in the opposite direction because I just don't.

I mean, we're not gonna be going My Chenin.

Is off our list, buddy. So I've been offered many an interview with Sarah Michelle Gella over the years for different projects, and I've always said no, and sometimes it has put my career in jeopardy in terms of like I've had to turn down interviews with a lot of stars of my favorite shows. I definitely got into the wrong I didn't think this through into the wrong industry to be avoiding my favorite Like why.

Does this woman hate me so much?

Well, look, obviously stuff about her life has permeated my life over the years. Like I know she and Freddie Prince Junior are married, I know that she wore Haviana's at her wedding. I know that their kids are Grace and Rocky. But like that's I don't follow her on Instagram, I don't read any interviews with her, I don't watch anything with her in it. And the fact that she's now walking around Sydney, I just would love her to leave. I just don't think that you can have a proper favorite TV show if you're also very intertwined with the characters. And I had to learn this the hard way by interviewing someone else from Buffy the Vampire Slayer before I knew. When I first got into journalism and I was writing a piece about fandoms and I interviewed Eliza deushqu who played Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a very iconic character. Yes, I was so excited about it. And then I interviewed her and first of all, it was I think she has a restraining order against me because she was talking about her life and she kind of got mixed up of the timeline of her career in her life when she got to college, corrected her and she was quite freaked out. And then I think my questioning was just so intense. And it's interesting because we were I was interviewing her for a piece on fandoms. At first, she was acting like we were like on the same page, like, oh, these fans are so intense.

And she's like, oh, you're one.

And then slowly she started to like freak out around me because she's like, oh, no, you're one of them, and you've infiltrated this like safe space that I've put myself in and now and then I try to rewatch Buffy after doing that, and every time I looked at this character that I had loved since I was ten years old, all I could see was this actress in her life and it was just shattered. So I just don't think we should interact with our favorite TV characters. You should know anything about them. You shouldn't know what their kids' names are. You should know that they're in Sydney going to Chinchin and.

She do you have a list of like other actors that you will never talk to? Oh my god. We should publish that.

No, I'm Lauren Graham from Gilmore Girls. I get offered. I've been offered into her all the time. Absolutely not with throw myself in front of a bus first, Yeah, Norman readers, I've been offered many times Daryld Dixon from The Walking Dead. Absolutely not Dolly Alderton. Remember, Yeah, So many of my friends are just like, oh, it's so sad. You know I've been able to interview Dolly Alderton. I'm like, no, No, I've been offered many times. It's different for her because she's not obviously, I know she's a real person. I'm not a moron. I know she's a real person. But again, I just think sometimes things should just live in a separate existence. Like I consume her books, I consume her work, I consume the TV show she makes. I don't want to sit and interview her and have to. I just think things get tainted when you get too close to them.

I think about this a lot. I think about like, if there was an opportunity to ever and to be a Mindy Kaling.

Yeah, would you?

Well It's hard because I think I would. Yeah, but I'd have to go in knowing that she might not want to be my best friend. Yeah, and that will be really hard for me to understand.

Yeah, I think that when you have fandoms and you'd love someone like people say never meet your idols, and that came out of being disappointed by them. But I'm here to tell you that you can be not disappointed by people and it can still ruin it for you because then they leave this safety of this fictional world, even if it's a real person and the thing abu Mindy Kaleen because I have a similar love for her, and I feel like that would ruin the MINDI Project one of my favorite shows. For me. It's hard. I wish someone invent this technology instead of inventing AI to like write poems and stuff, someone invent the technology where you can do an interview and then erase it from your mind afterwardscause I would love to sit down with Sara Michelle Geller and just ask her a million questions, but then I want to erase it from my mind so I don't remember it when I watched Buffy and the same with Mindy Kaylor.

Yeah, it's so wild. I think also when we do watch interviews of these celebrities, we try so hard to like watching, say, for example, an interview with Mindy Kayling, a lot of people would be like, oh, she's just like Kelly Caapaul or she's just like Mindy La Hairy, and I'm like, no, she's not. We're just like wanting it to be like that.

Yeah. I just think we have too much access to actors on our favorite TV shows now. Just think now, when a TV show comes out back in the day, again don't want to sound really well. Back in the day, you would just watch the TV show and that would be it. And sometimes, like in a magazine, there'd be like a picture of someone you'd be.

Like, oh my god, it's like they live in the teah.

Yeah, like, oh my god, sir Michelle Gella is like on a red carpet, Like that's wild. And it would just be this kind of moment, but it wouldn't break you out of a show. Now, when a show comes out, everyone's following on Instagram. They're seeing all of these like in jokes, seeing them make tiktoks on their kids and everything, And I just don't think that's what we're supposed to be seeing. It's interesting. I was interviewing Harriet Dyer and Patrick brammle from Colin from Accounts this year and we were talking about that, and they were saying that they wanted to like pull back on sharing like their private life and pull back on them being like this brand as a couple, even though it sells the show, because they're just like, we think that like this like their dynamic. They were very aware is starting to like overpower their characters, and they were very aware of how people are perceiving them as their characters instead of the other way around. And as they were talking, I was just like, yeah, I don't want to be here. I just want to watch your show and look at you as these characters and not think about you as this married couple who's sitting in front of me. So I just again, it's a niche problem.

Let us live in our delusional word.

Yeah, it's an eche problem because we're interviewing these people. But I would just like to say to everyone, try watching a TV show without following the actors on Instagram or TikTok, Try like not reading about their lives and just like let the characters exist. And Sarah Michelle Geller get out of City our chinchin La Lana So Margo Robbie has given a new interview where she addresses the very public failure of her twenty twenty two film Babylon.

I remember that. I haven't watched it, but I remember it.

Oh you didn't come to the premiere. You were my premiere buddy then because you were on the podcast.

Yeah, this was before my time, but I remember people watching it, it not getting really good reviews, and then people just pretending it didn't happen.

The build up to Babylon was very extreme, from when the movie was announced and all through what it was filming, like information started coming out. It was a thing where like a lot of different like insider podcasts and journalists were talking about different snippets they'd seen of the film, and they were really building it up that it was going to be one of the biggest films of the decade, that it was going to win all these different oscars, And when you saw the cast and also who was involved in it, it made a lot of sense that this was going to be, you know, a huge movie. Events it looked very well, oh absolutely, yea. It was a huge, huge budget movie. It was made by Damien Chazelle, who had only made films that were very critically acclaimed prior to this, so Whiplash and also La La Land. So the fact that the creator of La La Land was teaming up with Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt for this movie was a huge deal and the movie chronicled time in Hollywood. It was kind of this ode to movies and the golden age of Hollywood at the time where they were transitioning from silent films to sound films in the late nineteen twenties, very glamorous, huge, huge budget for the film, and they had a huge premiere for it here in Sydney, obviously because you know, Margot Robbi's Australian and she was on the red carpet. I remember like walking past her on the red carpet and just seeing this like jubulant look on her face before a guy from merrit First Site tied to tackle her and got dragged away from security. That's a whole other story. Damn and Samara Weaving and Phoebe Tonkin to it. We were really good friends who our austraint actresses were also in it for like smaller parts, but they were on the red carpet and they all came out on stage and they were hugging and they were tearing up, and Margot Robbie's brother host of the premiere. It was a huge, huge deal, and we watched the movie and I, I don't know, I had a lot of complicated thoughts about it, but I didn't think it was as terrible as everyone said it would. But then the reviews were very, very bad. It did very poorly at the box office. It failed to make any money back, and there was this big build up that Brad Pitt was gonna win an Oscar, but also that Margot Robbie was definitely going to win an Oscar, like that felt like a lock for her, and then she didn't even get nominated, and that was a huge thing. It was interesting at the time. I wrote a review about how I'd never felt so conflicted about a movie as I did about Babylon, because there were so many parts of it I loved, but there were also many parts of it that shouldn't have been there and that were a bit of a mess. And that was one of the top performing articles on Mama Mia just from search because people were so desperate to kind of know what was going on with the movie. And what had gone wrong?

And I guess it was one of those movies because you were did everyone like so many other people would have been as well, and they were probably like trying to find why it didn't hit the way it should have hit because it had these massive A listers in it. But it was so interesting, like after Babylon, because I feel like with these big movies, when it's built up to be something so grand that everyone should be obsessed with and it just falls flat, that can be so dangerous for lack an actor like obviously Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt. But I felt like in that moment twenty twenty two, Margot Robbie was still like on that like climbing up high.

This is like pre Barbie.

Yeah, and the fact that she.

She'd had Oscar nominations before, but this was meant to be her lot and it didn't taint her at all. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's interesting that she was able to walk away from that because normally, especially a female star. There was some start I read years ago that stayed with me is that women can have two box office flops and it hits like statistically and it starts to hit them whereas men can have up to five before it really starts to hit them, and so obviously didn't really, you know, Brad Pitt, Marger Robbie infamously still both working and still doing well. What's also interapping about what's also interesting about this is that when the hype around Babylon was really building up, that is when a lot of the accusations about Brad Pitt allegedly being very abusive towards his children were also coming out. And that's on a lot of the investigations around what had happened on that flight between him and Angelina Jolly, when the FBI was called in to investigate, that's when a lot of the divorce proceedings between them were being made public. And it's really that time when, for the first time ever, these stories started coming out about Brad Pitt being an abusive guy, and they just really didn't gain any traction. I mean, we covered them a lot here on the Spill, but like they didn't really gain any traction, and it felt like the studio was trying to like really bury it, and that a lot of the industry was closing ranks around Brad Pitt. And I think a lot of it was to do with Babylon because there was so much money writing on it. There was so much happening behind the scenes for everyone who was involved in this movie, and he had other movies come out too that he was the face of. And you can't have your leading man. We've seen what happens with movies when the leading man, like look at West Side Story with Ansel el Gored or even has the Cards. Yeah, yeah, exactly, when your leading man has a scandal. How hard it promote it? Yeah, exactly. Even Armie Hammer when he had that to take him off the poster for his blockbuster that was coming out around Deaths. Yeah movie, and then you can't do promo for it. So I think everyone in Hollywood really closed ranks around Brad Pitt and really shut that story down, and yet the movie still did badly. In defense of Margo Robbie, I think she's excellent in that movie. There's a lot of scenes where she's very over the top. She loves a scene where she yells and screams, and there's a scene where she has like a snake bite into her neck and she fights the snake.

Made the trailer.

But there's one little scene in there where she is having to cry on camera, and in my mind, it's like I've always pictured as like one of the perfect scenes from a movie like the that is stuck in my mind as like almost a standalone like it could be a short film for something like that, Like she's so brilliant in it, and the direction is so brilliant, and I just think if they could give an Oscar for a scene, it would be well, I would give it to that. So that's what I'm say. Anyway, getting back to what Margo Robbie said, Yeah, now that I've given you the history of Babylon, So she went on a podcast called The Talking Picture Podcast and the host asked her about the movie being considered such a public failure, and he said to her, like, why don't people like this movie? And Margot Robbie said, yeah, I don't know why. I love it, and then she wanted to say, I still can't figure out why people really hated it. I wonder if in twenty years people are going to be like, wait, Babylon didn't do well at the time. That's crazy because when you hear something like the short shape Redemption is a failure at the time, whatever you're like, oh, how is that possible? And I think she brings up an interesting point because there are a lot of movies that are considered classics now that were not considered classics at the time. I always think of Jennifer's Body, Yeah, I mean I was going with Oscar in this yeah, And.

I was like, I was just like thinking of like Johnny.

Darker, No, No, Jennifer's Body with Amanda c. Freed and Megan Fox and was written by A. Diablo Cody is a great example.

Thank you so much. That just came to me, like in this moment, because.

That was not critically aclaimed at the time and didn't do well, but now people really use it as an example of we all want a.

Jurassic Park and not everything is a Jurassic Park.

Yeah, exactly. I was looking at some movies that were kind of flops at the time that have now reshaped pop culture. It's a wonderful life that came out in nineteen forty six.

What did you want, Mary?

You want the moon?

Just say the word and I'll throw a lassole around and pullug down.

Hey, that's a pretty good idea.

I'll give you the moon, Mary, I'll take it was that not a good movie at the time.

Well, it didn't win like the Oscars people the best Picture, and it kind of did okay, But that has now become like the Blueprints, so many other books, TV shows, movies, people reference it like it's taken all life away from just being a movie. It's kind of shaped pop culture. And it's also so many people's favorite Christmas movie. Also, Margo Robbie mentioned the Shawshank Redemption from nineteen ninety four. I mean it was been out by Forrest Gump, but I know people don't like Forest Gump as much. Like there's kind of a conversation about it.

Well, Shure Shank Redemption is like what every like male above twenty so yeah, his favorite, every favorite movie.

But it didn't do all the box office at the time, it wasn't It is a brilliant movie. It's a brilliant movie. And but the thing is like people saying it's a brilliant movie now, but they weren't at the time. And even a movie like Psycho, something that I think is one of the greatest movies of the time is that I'm not No, I didn't win. Why not was not brilliant? But I don't think in saying that though, I don't think Babylon's going to be that. Yeah, I don't think in twenty years we're going to be talking about Babylon in the same breath as It's a Wonderful Life Psycho and the Shawshank Redemption. But I think there's also something and like we're in this time now that we've got so many movies coming on streaming and so many movies coming out like at the cinema, that everyone wants every movie to either be the worst thing they've ever seen or the greatest movie of all time, And there's a lot of room to sit with a movie that is just maybe like Babylon, like some bits are great, some bit's not. It challenges you expectations so much higher to kind of sit with that. So I don't know. I felt what Margo Robbie said though about talking about the failure publicly was really interesting.

Thank you so much for listening to The Spill today. We had posted a little Instagram story over on The Spill podcast Instagram asking if you've listened to our broodly honest review of Gladiator, and look, a lot of you are very honest. You said you were going to listen this week, so we're checking in. Have you done it? Have you watched the movie? Have you listened to the review? If you watch the movie, we will link a brioly honest review in the show notes for you to listen to. It is probably my favorite one we've ever done. We will be back here in your podcast feed at three pm tomorrow for another Broodly Honors review of Wicked favorite Wicked one, So stay tuned. It's gonna be a really, really good time. The Spill is produced by Kimberly Bradish with audio production by Scott Stronik. We will see you then, Bye bye.