A Cinderella Story_ Austin Ames is Queer Coded?! | THE FAKING OF Podcast with Nick DiRamio

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This week on The Faking Of, Nick and his friend Joseph Hunt guide the viewer through the behind the scenes of the iconic childhood favorite, A Cinderella Story! Did you know Rupert Grint from Harry Potter almost played Austin Ames or did you spot that the movie was low-key queer coded, yet high-key racist? Tune in to hear all the behind the scenes secrets, and some hilarious rewrites along the way!

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-Hello and welcome to The Faking Of. This is the podcast where we fake our way through the behind the scenes story of the most iconic movies of our lives. I'm the film historian who was maybe sort of there as well as the cruise ship director who makes you say silly stuff, Nick DiRamio, and I'm here to talk to you today about an iconic movie from the early thousands with one of my good friends and an expert in cryptocurrency, working on the public relations side, which I think is a perfect addition to this movie, because it is all about public relations, I think at its essence, Mr. Joseph Hunt. Hi Joe.

- Hello.

- Thank you so much for joining us on The Faking Of.

- I am so excited to be here, Nick. Especially to talk about this movie. It's such a cornerstone of my life, I've realized over the last week.

- Tell me why.

- I think it was at a pivotal moment in my adolescence, as a late bloomer. In 2004, I was just about to turn 13, going into eighth grade, and that was like, I don't know if you remember George Bush running for reelection, but it was like a big deal in the South, and like this whole movie came out that summertime and it was like, you know, 13 Going on 30.

- I would like to say that I can be like, "yes, I do remember that election being a big deal", but I was like, Lady Gaga, actually Lady Gaga hadn't been born yet, but I was still gay. So.

- It was the summer I realized that I was in a cult and I was still saying all the cult stuff, but I was like, as soon as this is over, I'm out. I'm not gonna be in this cult the next time.

- Ooh. Self-aware cult membership. And that all was teased out by A Cinderella Story starring Hilary Duff.

- I do truly think so. It was like right in the middle, like July 4th, middle of July weekend when that movie came out.

- Fascinating. Okay. Well then, I think it would be best if you, in one sentence could sum up what the story of A Cinderella Story is.

- Knowing your worth and not taking shit, and getting what you want and being authentic.

- That's absolutely true. It's also a modern retelling of Cinderella.

- It is. I find the whole Prince Charming/Cinderella thing very forced on the whole overall narrative, because there's so many gaps of how it's not Cinderella, but I'll give it that it's also, of course, a romance movie. But I think it's about female empowerment, I think it's about understanding who your real family is, or your second family and not being tied by these weird, archaic legal definitions of family and what you have to do in your life.

- Totally. I love that. And I think that's one of the reasons why this movie has become an iconic sleeper hit, because it got very negative reviews when it first came out for a lot of the reasons that you first mentioned that a lot of the ways they adapted Cinderella to high school felt nonsensical. I want to go back to the pitch meeting for A Cinderella Story and figure out how some of these decisions were made. So, in this position, you're going to be the screenwriter for A Cinderella Story. I'm the studio executive, and you're telling me you want to make a modern, romantic, teen retelling of Cinderella. So you've just pitched that to me, and I've got some questions. So basically I need you to justify some of the adaptations that have been made in your script okay? So, you know, when I think of Cinderella, the story, one of the integral parts is Cinderella's dad dying at the beginning, and that's something I think we want to be really sensitive about in today's climate. So traditionally in the story of Cinderella, it's kept very mysterious how the dad passes, but he's away, maybe on a journey. So we wanted to know how in your version, can we handle the death of the father? How does your script handle it in a sensitive way?

- I would say that it forces it up front and center. It's very violent. I mean, you know, there's no gore or anything, but it's surprisingly detailed or what is it? The setting becomes the story. And it's easily, quickly places, the user, or the viewer, right in Southern California with an earthquake. And it's like a disaster movie. It's like not a Cinderella story movie. It's actually, you know, shows that modern, we build all of our lives on top of this sand crust that at any moment can destroy your life and you have to move on and live with your ugly step-mother and her ugly stepdaughters who become your stepsisters.

- This is such a powerful part of the story. I think in any time they tell the story of Cinderella, the idea of your only closest family member dying, and then your life becoming a hell on earth because of the person that he married, there's something very scary about that. And this earthquake thing I forgot about until I rewatched this two days ago and I was like, oh! She goes like, she's like, my life was a fairy tale, and then he married some nerdy woman. They made Jennifer Coolidge look like Lois Lane for that first scene.

- Was that her in makeup? I can't even tell.

- They just chose not to put blush on her. And they were like, oh my God, now she's a librarian. But that's more like Jennifer Coolidge, and I think it's probably more of her natural hair texture. And then all of a sudden she's like, "and then one day it was all taken away when the San Fernando earthquake hit." And Fiona, the wife, called the dad. Did you get that?

- Yes.

- I didn't get that until--

- He leaves her to go save her and dies and she couldn't handle it. She should have.

- What do you think specifically?

- She's an adult in Southern California. She should have better earthquake prep, especially if you have children in a two story house in the Valley.

- Right, why isn't she calling for her children, being "like my two kids? Where are you?" She's like, "oh, I need help". Like girl, get it together.

- Yeah.

- Hold on to something.

- I would like, if this movie ever gets made, you know, as part of the pitch, that we include pictures of Jennifer Coolidge being like, "Sam!" Or what's the dad's name? Sam is Hilary Duff, but who's the dad? Frank?

- I don't know!

- Hal. 'Cause it's Hal's. "Hal!"

- Oh my God, yes! I wanna see her in a room, being rocked around, tits jiggling. Oh my God, that would be so good. So yeah, we'll put that on the wishlist for if this movie gets made, so far you're selling me. What would be some other specific LA San Fernando Valley ways for the dad to die in your opinion? Just so we have some backup.

- A car crash. You mean like in the earthquake or like how he dies in the house or?

- No, any way for the dad to die that feels LA.

- Unfortunately as exhibited in this movie at other points, I think we could really drive home vehicular death because the drivers in California, big wide lanes and entitled people behind the wheel.

- Also true, yeah. That's a really great point. He would definitely get smashed by a car, like as a pedestrian, by a drunk driver or something just like in another Hilary Duff movie, Raise Your Voice. The brother gets killed by a drunk driver. She's a tragic character.

- Voice of a generation.

- Yeah, all of her friends and family die in movies, it gives her a great. So wait, I'm happy with how you're killing the dad, but what is the glass slipper in your version of this fairy tale?

- So in this movie. Hmm. It is the cell phone, the flip phone that she leaves.

- That she has clipped to her ankle.

- I mean, I think it should be a lot better, but that's kind of what in the picture.

- Well, I mean, you've wrote this, so tell me your thoughts on why you think the glass slipper makes sense.

- Well, you need the glass slipper if it's gonna be a Cinderella story. That's how they communicate and talk, and it's something that he should have been able to figure out if he opened it, right? There were no passcodes at that time.

- He said it was locked and that he was just getting, he could just see text messages coming in. Like "I need you", and "the fryer needs fixing", and the male friends are like, "oh, that's kinky, dude." Like, why are you saying kinky in this movie about 16 year olds?

- Right. That was. The whole thing is awful.

- Yeah. There's a couple other moments that will probably come up that didn't age well.

- I thought this was gonna be me telling you what I want to do with the movie, and then you're the studio and you're like, sorry, we're gonna make a phone.

- We'll get to that part too, but first you have to defend your script.

- Okay, defend my script. So it's 2004, and I think that was all the rage, but you know, not everyone has cell phones, so they'll look at it as like, "this is great."

- Yeah, and that was a paid phone integration. That was like a new phone at the time. And they even show an establishing shot of the high school where all the kids are on their phones and you hear beep beep beep beep beep. So I remembered they're trying to really show us like, we're the 21st century now. So I buy it, the kids will dig it, we're gonna sell some phones with the glass slipper. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, but that's okay. We don't need-- It's for kids. So, next and final question. In your version of a Cinderella story, who is Prince Charming? What's that character's name?

- Oh, his name is... Well, the actor I would want to play this role is Chad Michael Murray.

- Okay. But what is? I think his name is Frank. Oh it's, um.

- I have the script in front of me, and it says his name's Austin Ames.

- Austin Ames, yes, correct.

- Is the choice of an alliterative name, do you think, intentional?

- Very. I think that you have to pick an easy name that everyone's gonna remember the first time they say it, 'cause then all of my characters are gonna repeat his name any time they're gonna repeat the whole name, like the opposite of Cher, you know?

- Right, that's a very good point. Like when someone's a serial killer, you say their full name, like Chad Michael Murray.

- Austin is, you know, a cultural capital of America and people will recognize it. But yeah, the alliteration is definitely intentional.

- Okay. Well just in case the studio needs some backups, can we go down alphabetically, back and forth? So you'll do a B name, I'll do C name, and then we'll do that until someone hesitates too long.

- Okay, you go first.

- Okay so Austin Ames, Brandon Buchanan.

- Clay Country.

- Dalton Drayton.

- Edward Elegant.

- Frank Funhouse.

- Gerald Jimenez

- Harold. Haa, ho is it H? Is H right? Oh, I lost, I lost it.

- I was ready for I, so I don't think you were gonna make it.

- Is G? Is it G H? A B C D E F G H. Yep, I was on the right track. So I should have said Harold Hector.

- I'll admit that I messed up with Jimenez, 'cause that's spelled with a J, technically.

- Yeah, but we don't know. You don't know this character. You wrote it. All right. So thank you for satisfying my questions at the pitch meeting. We're gonna go ahead and green-light this production. Guess how much the budget was that we gave you.

- I would really like $10 million for this movie.

- Is that what you think that it cost to make this movie? Guess what IMDB listed as the estimated budget for this movie.

- 50 Million.

- Is that your final answer?

- That's my final answer.

- Great. But estimated actual budget was very modest, 19 million. And it makes sense, now that I think about it. I feel like they probably paid Hilary Duff at least 5 million for this. And then the rest of it is like, what is there? It's not an expensive movie to shoot. It's like a high school and literally nothing. The big set pieces were like the car wash scene where the girls ran through the car wash. That was scary.

- That scene was expensive, the car crash scene, the drive through LA I'm sure.

- Oh yeah. Shooting on location in a lot of those places actually would be on its own very expensive. There was that CGI shot where they zoom out and show that Fiona's lawn is the only one that's green during the drought. That was very impressive.

- I thought it was just coloration.

- I think it was like a lot of things. I think they Photoshopped brown lawns and expanded the look of it. I think there's a lot of movie magic that we can get done with our 19 million budget there. I wanna talk to you first about casting as we go into production. Because according to IMDB, I quote_ "Rupert Grint won the role of Austin Ames, but had to drop out due to commitments to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the role of Austin Ames, and it went to Chad Michael Murray." What do you think of this?

- Interesting. Well, I would have to say I don't like either of them, but I think for the movie that, of those two, Chad Michael Murray is surprisingly like, I can't believe he wasn't cast first.

- Seriously, I'm trying to picture Rupert Grint being like--

- Living in LA?

- But they probably wanted to be really princey about it and make it like he seems like a prince and maybe they would have changed the script to have him be like "he's from England. Hah!" 'Cause he was already in three Harry Potter movies. So they would be like, he's his dad's like a, his dad's like a, his dad's like a king of.

- Would he have been an American? That's interesting, because then if he was a British boy with the accent who moves here and he's rich, he's playing football? He's the quarterback? I mean, could happen, but they don't have that sport there, they don't teach people to play it. So I find that hard, as someone who was forced to watch football for like eight years of my life.

- Yeah, but they probably would have made a ton of rewrites if this was happening. They would have been like, oh, it's it's soccer now. And also he's, I don't know his dad's a, what is a British thing? I'm trying to be like, his dad is this, it could also be his mother, his mother is a senator. What is a senator in Harry Potter?

- Well Harry Potter is magical, but in England there's the Parliament and you have Lords and representatives.

- They would be like, he's from the Ministry of-- his dad's in the Ministry of Magic. Actually, I want to have a phone call where you're the producers of this movie and I'm Rupert Grint, and I'm going to quit because it turns out there's some scheduling issues with Harry Potter.

- Hello? This is a Miramax.

- Hello Miramax, it's me Rupert Grint. How's it today?

- Thank you so much for calling, Rupert. We gotta talk, right?

- Listen. I gotta right to the chase. This Harry Potter thing's blowing up, right? I didn't know it was gonna be this big, but turns out they need me for a fourth movie. So I'm going to stick around for that, okay?

- So you are gonna miss out on being in a Hilary Duff movie at the dawn of your career?

- Tell that 'ilary bird, she looks gorg'. I wish I could 'old 'er 'and in this movie, and play some cricket and do the car wash scene. So fun. Love the water effects and all of it, but yeah. Yup, yup. Yup. Gonna have to say no, mate. Oh, he's going very Australian.

- Well you are missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime. Our second choice is Chad Michael Murray who's blowing up right now. And you know, if you want to get your own kind of not be second wheel to Mr. Harry Potter you should rethink and then come make this movie. We won't make it in LA if that's what you need.

- Well those are some tempting offers there but I'm going to have to stay firm here. I think my movie career's gonna be great after this 'arry Potter series. I think I'm gonna get some leading roles all the time.

- You'll definitely get some 'cause you know, you're working alongside Emma Watson and what's-his-face. Daniel Radcliff.

- Yeah, the horse guy.

- He'll probably get some cool roles too, but you know what Rupert? I talked to a psychic once, and they told me that you're gonna work on a really awful M. Night Shyamalan remake or new-make, who knows? So good luck with that.

- Oh, that sounds like a psychic I need to talk to myself. What's my agent's number, again? I gotta go. And then he hung up, because I could not do that accent anymore. I could not take myself seriously. That's why I made myself Rupert. I was like, Joe's gonna to combust if I have to have him do. No! Somebody needs to be the studio executive, and if you listen to our voices, which one of us sounds like the studio executive and which one of us sounds like a fictional crazed person from the United Kingdom? The casting is now settled. We'll go with Chad Michael Murray. But I wanna point out something about the production design here that I wonder if you noticed. I didn't notice this until I read this on IMDB that many characters have distinct color schemes. Almost all of these tie into the color scheme of their corresponding characters in Disney's Cinderella. Did you notice any character colors?

- You know, now that you mention it, I have to admit that I'm not-- the reason why I like this movie is not because I'm a Cinderella fan. It's probably, I don't even. When you said in the real Cinderella, her dad dies, I was like, he did? I was like oh really because she has evil stepmother, but like I've probably only seen that in the lower amount of Disney movies up there with like Sleeping Beauty. I couldn't tell you the real plot of that movie. I don't know.

- Oh yeah, she sleeps. Tired girl.

- When you said that, if that was intent-- So, now that I am thinking clearly, the fairy godmothers, there's three in the cartoon, right? And they're all different colors, pink, blue, and green?

- No, there's only one in the cartoon. You're thinking of Sleeping Beauty.

- So the fairy godmother is Regina King, obviously. And her color scheme is blue and pink, I think, is that right?

- Blue for sure. Or pink? I wait.

- Well her uniform is pink, but I feel like her interior of her house was also kind of pink, and she lived in like a hacienda style house.

- Fiona primarily wears pink. Samantha and Austin primarily wear blue. Brianna primarily wears green, and Gabriela primarily wears red.

- Right, yeah, okay. So the step sisters, definitely. I remember being like, wow. I thought it was more them just trying to make them quirky teens because the loser sisters that only-- those girls or guys that only wear a single color.

- Honestly them adapting the colors of the stepsisters from gowns to matching velour tracksuits was the most seamless adaptation of the Cinderella.

- Also, you know what threw me off watching this recently was, they're twin sisters, right?

- Yes. One is like 26 seconds older.

- And, two, I thought that if it was like twin sisters or twin brothers or whatever that they were either, they were only non-identical if they were not the same biological chromosome, is that accurate or no?

- I, no they.

- Maybe it's they tend to be identical 'cause I've only ever seen identical sisters or brothers or.

- No, they could still be paternal and be sisters.

- Interesting, okay. Tripped me up.

- 'Cause that's just. I'm pretty sure because that's just a matter of chance that two eggs get fertilized separately rather than one egg splitting into two babies. So it could just be a male and a female chromosome separately. Listen to talking like I know. Like a Punnett square. Don't listen to any of that, but, I'm pretty sure they had it figured out. Also you wrote the script, you tell me why they're.

- I feel like this is something your studio changed.

- That's a good point. We had some changes. For example, you probably had like an actual glass slipper and we were like, we need it to be a Motorola flip phone with the new color.

- I'm trying to get the Olsen twins to play those twins, and you were like, this girl has to be in the movie.

- We could not afford the Olsen twins, and they would not play second fiddle to Hilary Duff who's barely been in the game compared to them.

- Okay, so other similarities. Well, the phone slipper thing was like. That wasn't.

- Yeah, that was the most nonsensical, because like, if you have her phone, you can just figure out who she is. And she acts like her phone's not missing this whole time. She's like, And trying on the slipper is the part of Cinderella that everyone lines up for, and you're like is this your phone?

- Okay to be fair, this scene was inspired as the screenwriter, this scene was inspired when I was 16, I was living in Greece and rode a public bus home, and I had my flip phone out orange Motorola and fell asleep on the bus because that's me. It was like, eight o'clock.

- Wait, pause. Because for those who don't know, Joe falls asleep everywhere, everywhere. We used to go to the movies and like seconds in, he is like in REM sleep. So I can only imagine public transportation. Did you ever just wake up at the end of the subway line? Like in Coney Island? Anyway, go on.

- That has only happened once when I was a drunk college kid in New York, but the bus was actually, I wasn't a party kid yet. And I was just, it was like eight o'clock and I had been up since 5_00 AM, and I was coming home from track practice. I was exhausted, but I was like, if I stay on my phone, I won't miss my stop. And they were coming up on my stop, and the bus was slamming, and my phone fell off my lap, and I had no idea. I didn't remember. So I got up, got off the bus, got all the way home, and I was like, oh my God, I lost my flip phone. I was like, it's just like, I was just like Cinderella.

- It literally was.

- I hope someone finds my phone and texts me, and that never happened. And I had to tell my mother that I lost my phone. That was super expensive, like a hundred euros. And I wasn't allowed to have a phone for like three months. So that was awful.

- This was very, that's like, I have traumatic phone damage things from my early childhood or from my teen years as well. So it makes sense to me that this resonates so much with you because this happened at a similar time. I didn't have a phone tragedy that. My phone tragedy came later when I had a T-Mobile Sidekick that I begged for. And then I got drunk and I dropped it in the toilet. I had to figure it out without telling my mom and dad, and some guy from Craigslist who I met on the personals section happened to buy one for me, so it worked out nice, but it was scary. I had some stressful nights trying to organize that. But back to the movie! Here at The Faking Of, we know that rewrites need to happen fast in Hollywood, right? We're now shooting the movie, but there are new, like I'm the studio now, and we have changes that need to come through. So for example, we have Hilary Duff's final monologue at the end that she delivers to Austin Ames, where she's basically like, what would you call it? How would you describe this fight, this speech she gives?

- It's a speech about knowing your worth and calling people out on their bullshit and not going through life and dealing with other people controlling your narrative. And Mr. Austin Ames is so full of them, you know, worried about his image and clearly has a couple months. What is it when students find out they get their early acceptance? That's around homecoming season and the fall, which is not when most kids find out their college acceptance, which is in March or April, because you apply to a bunch of schools. So for him to be like, "I'm gonna have this whole rest of my time in high school, without this girl that I'm in love with", she needs to take back the narrative and be like, "you are a phony, and if you got any guts, you'll come to me in the next hour."

- That's a very good point. I like that she-- It's very empowering how she basically is like buh-buh-bye and tells him what's up. While I definitely agree that all of those aspects of the movie are very essential to the character of Samantha, I do think that sometimes the studio might wanna shoot some alternate takes, just in case they want to fudge the messaging a little bit. And as you know, we're shooting already, things are happening fast, so we need to work on some rewrites. If you'll just open that document, we're going to go through some of the lines in the iconic monologue, and I'm gonna just ask you to workshop some changes with me. Just gotta be really fast with it. So if you can read me that first line that you see there from your monologue.

- Look, I didn't come here to yell at you, okay. I came to tell you that I know what it feels like to be afraid to show who you are.

- That's really powerful. That's really powerful. But I would like to hear a version of it where she's saying the opposite of all of that, and doesn't use the word "I". So, go ahead.

- The opposite of this. So you wanna hear that she did come there to yell at him.

- Just the opposite of all of it, but don't use the word "I". That's the only note I have from the studio here.

- You know what, Austin? I think that you're a little bitch. You are a phony. You act like you are so poetic, and you're going to be this Mr. Princeton Boy, but here you are getting ready for the homecoming game. Well, you know what? F you.

- That was really good, actually. That's not how I would've done it at all. I would have been way more like "Austin. It's time to yell at you, okay? Time to tell you that you feel afraid to show who you are." See, that's why you're the writer. You're coming up with much more creative ways.

- So what's next?

- Okay, so just read me the next line.

- Okay. I really don't care what people think about me, because I believe in myself. Even though I have no family and no job and no money for college, it's you that I feel sorry for.

- Wow. We love it. I love how cliche it is to say in a movie that "I believed in myself", that's literally, we need that to sell tickets. So gold stars for that. But we're getting notes from the studio that the word "no" is a little too negative. So just give me a version of that line without saying the word "no".

- When I'm talking about I have no family, no college? That stuff?

- Yeah, she needs to say the same exact thing, but we want it to sound more positive.

- You know what? I really don't care what people think about me because I believe in myself, even though life's hard, my father's gone, I have to work for my awful stepmother, and she doesn't let me keep any of my money, it's you that I feel sorry for. I'm not even able to plan for my future without having to overcome so many different obstacles, but it's you little rich daddy's boy who has a whole carwash, this empire of Los Angeles, which, everyone in Los Angeles washes their F-ing cars, so you are loaded and here you are, trying to get sympathy and act like oh poor Hilary Duff me ugly. You have to deal with the ugly Diner Girl. Like, eat shit.

- Oh my gosh, that was so cool how you just didn't say the word "no", the whole time. I was like waiting for you to say the word "no", but it never happened. How do you do that? I would be using the word "no" every sentence if someone told me not to use the word "no".

- Well, I take direction, and I'm the writer here.

- Yes, clearly, you're the right person for the job. And we're lucky to have you, because that sounded really positive and also more accusatory somehow.

- Austin Ames is a garbage can, honestly, I don't know. I wish. My original screenplay had this ending where she becomes, she girlbosses is so high that she becomes queen of the sky.

- What does she do? What is problematic about Austin?

- He is a liar a lot, but he is at the top of the food chain. He doesn't use his skills or his niceness and being a little poet. He doesn't ever help anyone else out. He doesn't ever show his kindness in any other way, except online. So it's like, usually when people are redeemable, they are able to break through and be like, when the boy gets teased or something by his friends, he would like tell them to cut it out or something, you know? Or like when they're calling her Diner Girl, he wouldn't be like, all right, that's enough. Like, apologize.

- That is such a good point. They never ever, and that's actually, I think just on a subconscious level picked up on that this last time I watched it as I was like, oh, he's so passive that it's like passive aggressive. Like people are doing these awful things, and he'll just like, they show that he's not part of it by him rolling his eyes or being like whatever, or like paying for the coffee after the friends were all ridiculously mean to their server, like, cartoonishly mean. Like to the point where, sorry?

- I said I don't think I've ever actually seen that happen in real life. I feel like I would, if I was at the table next to them, I would have been like, "excuse me, little girl? What did you say?"

- Seriously, I would be like, "I don't know if you guys know each other from school, but this person is working, and for you to be talking to them like this while they're working is absolutely inhumane, and you need to get the fuck out".

- Yeah, all those people would be these fucking people who show up to restaurants and start coughing in people's faces being like, "I'm not gon' wear a mask."

- Yes, oh my God. The popular girl, what's the popular girl's name? Quinn?

- And just so all your listeners know, I'm from the South, so I can do that.

- Yes, duly noted. And I'm British, which is why I was able to do that Rupert Grint impression so beautifully.

- Although there's anti-masker everywhere, so I guess I shouldn't give it one voice.

- Well, I mean, the thing is about anti-maskers, they can look and sound like anything, but they're all idiots. Anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, just get over yourself. So I'm glad that that's part of this rewrite as well. I don't wanna mess with perfection here, 'cause this is an iconic line, but we do need an alternative. So just read me that last one.

- Waiting for you is like waiting for rain in this drought_ useless and disappointing.

- I love that. It's really powerful, so we're gonna keep it simple with the changes. Replace drought with a different natural disaster and instead of useless and disappointing, make them sound like good things.

- But then wouldn't the whole sentence change?

- I don't know. I'm a movie studio, what do I know? This is not art.

- Hold on, I got it. Hold on.

- Movies don't hold on.

- Waiting for you is like waiting for help in the middle of a wildfire that's heading towards you_ stupid and fucking terrifying.

- Very good. You definitely did not make it sound positive, but.

- How do I make a natural disaster sound positive, Nick?

- I think that was supposed to be the challenging part. But I actually don't want to hear a very positive version of that, because wildfires are a serious issue. And what do you think? How do we stop wildfires in California, Joe? You know so much about environment. Joe also is like super knowledgeable about green energy. Also, Joe and I met, this is fun to talk about, I think. I think Joe and I met in college freshman year. We had classes together and then from freshman year on did not talk or interact. I don't even think we were Facebook friends. And then we... you tell the story of how we interacted.

- Oh great. We had two freshmen year-- no, one freshman year class together, but we sat diagonal or next to each other, but they were all these like, you know, college where you sit in your independent seats, not like at a giant table or anything. So, Nick and I never interacted, but we both had this kinda boss, amazing-- not boss, professor-- who was angelic and essentially what Nicole Kidman is trying to be on Nine Perfect Strangers. And all of her kids were super obsessed with her, and she'd blow an 18-year-old mind about books written from like 6,000 years ago. So Nick and I never chatted, but five, no, seven/six years later, so we must've been like 24 or something, both ended up moving to LA within like a month of each other, and then a couple months after we each had moved here, became friends with this guy named Paul who's now one of our besties, and Paul had an Oscar party, and I forget, I feel like I was there and walked in and saw you, or were you already at the party?

- I know for a fact I was already there, 'cause I was frosting a cake.

- Okay, so I showed up and it was this Oscar party when we were 24, and I think the next youngest person there must've been like 45 or something.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, we walked in and it was like, all of these people were like, hello, who are you? And I immediately saw you, and I was like, this kid looks so familiar. Where are you from? And then we instantly realized that that was, I think instantly it was within five seconds, right? I think we were like

- Yeah, absolutely.

- NYU in some dusty classroom, right?

- It was like my whole brain-- It was one of those moments where it's like, you instantly recognize someone and your brain is like running through the Rolodex of what season of my life, what era of my mental illness, what portion of my addiction was all of that from?

- What pills was I on?

- Yeah, exactly. Like how hungry was I at that time? 'Cause I remember so little about freshman year of college, unfortunately. 'Cause I was pretty active in my alcoholism from the minute I got back to New York, but I had already been in treatment for it at one time before that. So somewhere deep in my recesses of my brain, I was like and then we were instantly, you said Heidi's name, and I was like, yes, we sat across from each other in Heidi's class. And Heidi was amazing. She was one of those professors. She even lived in the dorm, like the professors in fellow?

- Did you ever go to her apartment? I did. No, 'cause I had too much social anxiety.

- You went really?

- It was one of the coolest apartments I've ever seen in Manhattan, for sure.

- Really?

- She was, like I said, she is a goddess walking on earth. I was like, wow, whatever you've done to get here. Worth it.

- Yeah, I was curious to see how those professors who lived in the dorm buildings would renovate or decorate a dorm.

- So I've been to like, I think... What other dorms have you been to where they had the professors like that?

- Never, ever one.

- Oh, okay. So I've only been to hers. I don't think I've seen-- I've seen like RA's rooms and stuff, and they're always nice. But hers was at the top of Rubin, which is an old, for the people don't know New York City, it's a building built in like 1900, 1905, before World War One, tall for the age, but it's only like 18 stories, and all the top floors are always like penthouses. So she had the very top room of this entire dorm, or the whole floor was hers. And it was like 15 foot ceilings, from that time period, but everything was styled pre 1950s, and she had this wraparound balcony in the middle of that was 12th street? So that's like the end of the West Village before it turns into skyscrapers, so you could see everything.

- Impossible, impossible location, impossible apartment to achieve without NYU giving it to you.

- You could see both rivers from her apartment. And it's like, that's weird.

- What?

- That's hard to do on that part of town. But it's like, because 14th street is right after and that's where the tall buildings start, she could see across. It was crazy.

- That's crazy. Wow. And they probably gave her a stipend to live there.

- It was also terrifying, Nick, because you got up there or at least, I mean, I grew up in the South, where things were maybe two stories tall and one story, maybe a basement, and nothing ever three or four stories up. Except when I lived in Greece, when most buildings were like six stories tall, but you got to the top of her floor, and it was like the 20th story or whatever. And I remember being terrified. I was like, do I need to hold the walls? Like, am I going to blow off?

- Oh my God.

- I remember being 18 and being like, am I gonna jump off? I was like, this is unsafe for us college students, especially at that fucking school. It was actually a thing I remember consciously thinking about it. I was like, I can't believe that there's like no guard rail or there's no anything. Like, it was just a ledge, kinda like patio, you know. It was really scary. And there was all these 18-year-olds, and everyone would like try and vampire her energy, like, "oh my God, Heidi", and meanwhile, she's like a cult leader, essentially. She was like "hello children, my ethereal dust".

- So cool and collected.

- "Let me blow your mind today."

- She was so smart, but I think the most interesting part of the story is that you experienced your first tall building.

- I'd definitely been in skyscrapers, but it'd been a long time. Like I'd been in New York a couple times, I've been on top of the World Trade Center, and that was also the same feeling where I was like, "oh my God, I'm gonna die!"

- Yeah. The call of the void. That's always what I feel when I'm in front of a precipice like that.

- That's exactly what it was, and I remember being like, "does anyone else feel this? I don't wanna be up here anymore." Like she was gonna throw us off.

- Well, I always took note of how at NYU, the buildings were very secure, in terms of windows opening or getting access to the roof. Like you could access the roofs for emergency, but they were heavily alarmed, and there were suicide resource numbers there because throughout the history, I think that has been a big issue for the school. And we know that to be true for the library in particular, as they had to do a lot of renovations while we were there to prevent people from taking their lives from in those buildings. So it makes sense that only--

- When we arrived in 2009, I remember being like, I know they're trying to, these all seem like cosmetic things, I was like, you shouldn't be able to go on a roof for any emergency. What emergency do you need to be on a roof besides The Day After Tomorrow kind of flood surge? Like there's no, if a building's collapsing or it's in danger, if there's a fire inside, you don't go to the top. You leave. So I remember being like two months into school there and I had my first call of the void where I was like, it was weird. I woke up in a daze, super stressed and anxious and being like, I'm gonna fail my whole life, I'm not gonna make it here. And I started climbing the staircase inside Founders, trying to get some air. That was what I thought, but I was going up. And then I remember I got all the way at the top, and it had this message on the door that was like, "you can call this number. You don't need to do this." But I remember that scared me more than even calling them. I was like, why is this door, why would you be able to open it? By the time a guard gets from the bottom floor to the top, if someone was super serious, it's game over. Like, why is? Anyway.

- That's a really good point.

- Sorry, we don't need to like go down a rabbit hole on suicide.

- I always thought it was such an interesting aspect of New York University that, you know, there was a musical. Do you remember the musical that they did? Like the theater kids did a musical for us orientation week about basically the dangers of living and going to college in New York City? It was like STDs, taking your own life, turning gay.

- That was at Madison Square Garden? Was it that one?

- Yes, yeah. Where Jesse... He played from Rent? Jesse L. Martin, I wanna say his name is? From Law and Order. He high-fived me.

- I thought of a good circle back to A Cinderella Story, and what all of this, this movie can show and could show more. It's just about how people go through shit at such a volatile age, like 16 to 19 to 20 but don't make the right decisions, and I think this movie, this character, or maybe, you know, I'm not gonna speak for everyone, but since boys make such drastic decisions immediately, and they ruin people's lives and shit. I kept thinking about that and how male-centered the narrative is in the teenage years, especially during those Bush years where it's like, he can be a dick, but he's still gonna be the catch. And I was like, Hilary Duff, girl, amazing lead, and her character, the movie should have ended with her just going to Princeton and being like I got my whole fucking life. If I can get Chad Michael Murray to fall in love with me over the internet and also in real life with wearing a mask, and boys are this stupid that they don't know who was behind a masquerade mask.

- Yeah, she's like I haven't even unlocked a 10th of my power, and I've already had my moment at this school, the cheerleaders put on a play about me because they were so jealous. She's seriously the girl at this school. She's also, like the idea that she would be unpopular looking like this totally, de-legitimizes the story where it's like, I'm the ugly duckling. It's like how and where? Because you have, you know, I can see your hip bones through your midriff top. But that's not to say she's not the right casting choice. I just think they didn't have to force in this like... Well, I guess that was what's so aggravating about Chad Michael Murray's character is everyone's so invisible to him.

- But, in reality. You're right. I agree with the casting choices is wrong, but I think part of what the original script must've been going for is a commentary on how male, all of these people, like everyone, so many people are raised with their privilege, especially their skin color and their gender, to be main characters or to think they're main characters, so everything is just a fucking story and we're not real people. And I feel like that that could have been made clearer by the writing choice to make Hilary Duff's character more-- she learns all these great lessons, she gets the fucking fortune at the end of the movie, but then it's all about this boy that she literally had to drag, and I would almost think, having been a closeted teenage boy who had to fall in line with the patriarchy and like girls, and lead girls astray, technically, like lying and going out with girls, although I only ever made out and over-the-shirt touched some girls and over the bra,

- Ooh!

- Gold Star here. 'Cause I always felt like it was, anyways, Chad Michael Murray's character makes me think that it was almost a queer-coded character up until the very end where he's all of a sudden a nice guy, because I'm just like, why are you lying so much about like who you are and stuff? If like you wanna be a fucking poet and you can get accepted at Princeton, girl, you got a good life.

- Seriously. And you can pay to go wherever you want as soon as you just like convince your dad that it's a good decision. I'm not that concerned for you. And I'm really glad you brought up, I think that's another reason the story feels so relatable, even though it doesn't work as an adaptation of Cinderella. The idea of having a secret romance with someone online who pretends to be completely different in public, or maybe doesn't see you like that in public or can't or has to pretend like they can't see you. That is very relatable to queer people of our age, who grew up talking online and kind of stepping out of the closet with our internet personas a little bit before we were able to do it with the people IRL. So I love that. I didn't consider the idea that Chad Michael Murray's character was queer-coded, because I was too distracted by the best friend, whose name I think is Carter, being queer-coded.

- So actually I think, when I was rewatching this recently, I was trying to remember watching this at 13 and like, what exactly was I going? Like, why was I so drawn to it? And I don't have a good answer, but what it made me think about was how I see myself in like four different characters. And I'm like, to me now, as an out gay cis man, how did I get... Did I think I was Hilary Duff at that time? I don't think so, but I see parts of me in herself, in Carter's character. Also, Carter's character ends up with a girl at the end, but at no point, I guess he wanted to make out with the hot pretty girl, and I remember wanting to make out the hot pretty girl. Her, and then there was another character. Did you catch it?

- A coded-queer character? Let me think. Would it be one of the step-sisters? I just guessed.

- No, I actually thought Regina King's character was very queer-coded. Like the fact that when she talks about her wedding dress, like there's no mention of like any gender or anything like that, and I thought that that all seemed very purposeful, and she was like always very, I mean, she could just be a independent, cis straight woman, but it felt like a lot of her energy comes from or that I felt was like, having no queer women in my life, it felt very, or queer people, non-binary, anyone, it was just a very empowered energy of "I'm not gonna be a sex object actor choice", you know, like that's not gonna be part of this character.

- Yeah. That's a really great point. I think that there is definitely a queer energy radiating from that character, especially in that allyship of helping somebody pulling things together in a time of need, calling on the community. Like she brought Hilary to the costume store where she's like, "please, clearly gay costume shop owner." And he's like "free breakfast for a month". And then they have a montage of putting on clothes.

- Which was awful. That whole thing.

- Oh my God.

- I can't believe that. There were so many points in this movie where I was like, "God, is this how all movies were made at this time?" Where they have to include some zany montage, either outfit change, or it happens at other points in the movie too, whether it's like

- It's still happens. Every episode of Clip Breakdown I'm like "oh and here's the second act trying on clothes montage." It's literally so annoying. And then it was for nothing because she just found a mask and he's like, "well, I don't have a dress for that" and she was like, "I do."

- Did that happen in the real Cinderella? Was there a whole outfit change, or didn't the Fairy Godmother just be like, "here's your dress"?

- She turned her into, yeah, her rags turned into magic, and at midnight it all turned back into a pumpkin and the mice and rags. But in this case, her midnight shift, she had to be back by the end of her midnight shift when Fiona would catch her.

- The whole costume scene didn't need to happen, it wasn't funny or cute. The only other thing I had a problem with the setting, otherwise I loved that it was set in LA and that it was true to LA themes was how skewed the time of day things would happen at. And I was like, is this a product of like bad production and taking too long on set or something? But it's dark out on homecoming night, and she doesn't have a dress, and she goes to play at a costume store and has to put on a knight suit? I was like, this will take two hours, then you have to travel in LA, and it would probably be 15 minutes to wherever Regina King lived, minimum, if not 30 or 45 minutes away. And then she gets the dress and then she goes, and it's like, wouldn't it be midnight? How long was she at this fucking dance? Another point in the movie where the time really made me or actually lied to me as a kid, and I was like, "I want to get to LA." I was like, these kids don't go to school until 10 or 11 AM in the morning, because she's up and working at the diner, which would be anywhere from six to nine, but it looks like it's 2_00 PM, which is a thing of LA. It looks like 2_00 PM outside at 9_00 AM. So I was like, what universe is this where there's like 30 hours in the day?

- Endless time. And that's the true for a lot of teen movies. They have an inordinate amount of pre-school activity time, and traveling around the city seems to be done by helicopter. So I think they didn't bring in LA as a character in that sense, in the traffic-y sense. But I think overall I appreciate the San Fernando Valley spin on it. I wasn't able to fully appreciate that when I first saw it because I didn't live there yet. So the movie is shot, and it's been premiered, and, despite a negative critical reception, worldwide gross of, do you want to guess, on a budget of 19 million, how much the worldwide gross was?

- Is that within the first two months? And like what's the bar?

- I think probably the first two months.

- Okay. 50 Mil.

- So close! 70 million. Which is a smash success.

- That's a smash success? I guess at the time ticket prices were cheaper, right?

- Well, just considering the budget. So they made a huge profit off of a $19 million budget. And the amount of stuff that it did for the star power of Hilary Duff is super valuable.

- I had just moved back from growing up in Germany for five years, and I had to go to this awful Southern middle school experience where it's like 800 kids in a grade and everyone hangs out, everyone gathers in the gym in the morning and lunches, like all these 800 kids. so there's so many different kinds of bullies. So sixth and seventh grade were awful, but I saw this fucking movie going into eighth grade, and I remember I came back thinking everyone had seen this movie. I was like, this is the movie of the year. I did have AIM at the time, but I only like had like three friends from school. Everyone else, I had no idea who they were. And I came back and the couple girls that I had slowly been becoming friends with over my like year, but still wasn't good friends with them, they were more just like "this kid's weird", I remember they immediately knew this movie, and I realized that no other boys had seen or were admitting to having seen this movie. So I became friends with these girls who I'm still friends with today. And they were all like "yeah we knew in eighth grade that you were a gay because one, that movie, I asked them this recently, because we were prepping for this They were like that, and you were obsessed with Kelly Clarkson.

- Oh my god!

- I was like, I remember being kind of obsessed with her, but I thought.

- They said, no, you were very obsessed.

- They were like, no, it was that specifically. Once I reached out to three of the girls, and one of them was like, I know that we had to protect you. We were like, "he has to have a girlfriend. We'll find one for him. Like, you know. He can't make it."

- That's hilarious. I want to know, I want to ask people from my childhood when they first knew, and they would probably be like "your voice".

- They're the only three-- So I went to this Southern town for like five years during middle school and then first half of high school, and these are the only three girls that I still talk to, and I have to say the movie caused some kind of matrix disruption where I was able to find my girls.

- That's amazing.

- The first ones that I could be normal around them, and not have to worry about being uncovered even though they were very polite and they were like, "yeah, we knew you couldn't handle it at the time".

- Too much self-awareness.

- One girl was like, "I remember having a talk with one of the other two girls about how it might cause you incredible mental stress" And they were like, "but the way you would talk about girls or that you didn't care about getting a girlfriend, but you knew that you needed one, that was a clear giveaway".

- That's a sign. Well, thank goodness for those women in our lives who were allies to us before we even knew we needed allies. And that's why they're our lifelong friends.

- God bless them. Goddess bless them.

- Goddess bless all of those women in our lives and people. So since the movie was such a commercial success, it went on to spawn several straight to video see crawls. See crawls. Can you guess how many see crawls it spawned?

- There were sequels to this movie?

- Several. I want you to guess.

- I had no, I didn't even know there was one. How did I miss that? I'm not surprised actually.

- Well, we have to have a watch party for all of them.

- Oh fun. Okay. You said there was a lot, so I'm gonna guess Freddy Krueger style sequel and say eight?

- Okay, less Freddy Krueger and more Sleepaway Camp? I don't know. There's five.

- Sleepaway Camp? I don't know what that is.

- Oh my God. That's a good, that's an interesting movie too to talk about because they bring up trans issues at the end, that didn't age well. But, there's five straight to video sequels, Another Cinderella Story, starring Selena Gomez, which I have seen; A Cinderella Story_ Once Upon a Song, starring Lucy Hale. Guessing that's a song writing one. The Selena Gomez one was a dancing one. That was her secret thing. A Cinderella Story_ If the Shoe Fits, starring Sofia Carson. Don't know what that must be. A Cinderella Story_ Christmas Wish, Laura Marano. Something seasonal for you.

- Are all of these sequels canon? Like same production studio or writer, director? Or are they just Cinderella?

- Yes, very similar. The same director did-- Two directors did all five TV movies, but I don't think they are the same director as the theatrical one, but they're not canon, because they all center around different characters and it's another adaptation of Cinderella with a different coat of paint. The last one is A Cinderella Story_ Starstruck starring Bailee Madison, who is an amazing actress.

- What else is Bailee in? That doesn't sound familiar.

- She was in this episode of Law & Order SVU that was so good. She was in The Strangers_ Prey at Night. Did you watch Wizards of Waverly Place? She was in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark by Guillermo del Toro.

- I think I know who you're talking about. I have a question about the Selena Gomez one just 'cause you've seen it?

- Yeah?

- So is she not? What is Hilary Duff's name in the movie? I just call her Hilary.

- Samantha. Sam.

- Yeah, Sam. Is that Selena's name? Do they all take place in the Valley?

- No, I don't remember if Another Cinderella Story took place in the Valley, but it was definitely a different character altogether.

- So they're not sequels in the sense of like, none of them were at Princeton.

- No, never, never, never continuing the story.

- I wanna see that.

- To go to Princeton?

- Yeah, I wanna see Sam dump Chad Michael Murray for the real poet of Princeton.

- Yeah, but Hilary Duff was so out. They were like, "we're not gonna just cast some other blonde person to pretend to be her." Like when Legally Blonde 3 or whatever.

- We should cover Jennifer Coolidge and Regina King, because they're both like, as much as Hilary Duff carries this movie obviously, or got the reception, Regina King is an Academy Award Winner now for If Beale Street Could Talk. Phenomenal character in that. And it's just like rewatching the movie, I was like, wow, there's a lot of bad acting in this movie, but her and Jennifer Coolidge, it's like, I can't even imagine. I'm sure you could obviously, there's thousands of great women actresses. But I was like I can't imagine the directing was why these characters are so good. I think that these actresses came in and were like, we're gonna make this whole thing about me. Like the whole pink diner. That's Jennifer Coolidge, and the salmon menu.

- And so much of that seemed like it had to be improvised, the stuff that was funny with Jennifer Coolidge, like when she's eating the salmon and it falls off the fork onto her chest.

- When they're driving and they get in that car accident when the daughter's foot gets stuck, she's adjusting her boobs. That's so amazing.

- She's such an icon. You're right. And same with Regina king. Both of them, the characters are inherently generic because they're trying to be just these two-dimensional recastings of these fairytale people, but they became so three-dimensional in the hands of these actors, and you really feel like, I felt the warmth of Regina King being like Sam's godmother, and I just believed everything Jennifer Coolidge or Fiona did, and her daughters. They really sold that whole family system. I mean the two daughters were like basically Abbott and Costello the whole time. Like they were directed to go big. That you could see what was not subtle direction.

- With Regina King, And this is kind of another segue into, let me know if there's any making of a relevancy here or Faking Of, but I feel like with some of the script with Regina King, there were moments where I was watching it now in 2021 and also remembering being like, why is there racism in this movie? Why is there? Like, when Carter's character, he does the-- he starts using like a Black voice

- AAVE?

- Yeah, he's trying to speak it's inappropriate, and she kind of just like shuts them down in the most. Like, I wish she would be able to actually shut him down, but you know, Black women in situations like that can't fly off the fucking handle, but still. Then there was another point, oh.

- Which in itself is harmful. And they showed that part in the trailer of the movie. Like they sold that as like where she goes, "call me girlfriend one more time." And that was like, meant to be like, yeah, I remember it from the trailer, and now looking back, it's like, seriously? She also said, Fiona called her "Betty Crocker from the hood".

- That was the second one where I was just like, what writing is this? And like, thank God both of these women are able to deliver the actual acting of you as a viewer are supposed to realize that this is awful. But I've definitely seen movies 10 years prior to that where the same line was delivered and it was supposed to be like a .

- Right. Like it wasn't self-aware. It was, clearly when Fiona said it, she was like, I thought that Jennifer Coolidge was playing it like she was very aware that Fiona was racist. And not just like, this is actually a joke on its face.

- But good early Karen commentary, you know?

- Oh yeah, definitely.

- Jennifer Coolidge knew that she's not supposed to be the hero. You're supposed to abhor people like that because they're awful creatures.

- They're the wicked stepmother. I want to point out a few other things that didn't age well. Like a friend saying to the girl who said, "I ate earlier," "Madison laxatives don't qualify as a food group." I was like, okay, well that's horrible.

- That whole character felt very Candace Owens to me. I was like, what is this? Why is this Black girl hanging out with these awful White people in the Valley? And for her to be that character, that was another like moment where I was like, this has an aged well, like, this is so like awful directing of like using Black people as prop comedy in a narrative structure. Like it was so awful. But you're right, also with the eating disorder jokes, it's such a.

- The nuances and the literal joke itself are problematic.

- Wait, that same scene is like the perfect class commentary of like hitting home to me during these Bush years of like "laborers are bad," and anyone who's like, "you should deserve to get tipped," And you know, should all be about service and all of this stuff. Them calling her Diner Girl brought back all these Marge Simpson Chanel moments for me, like as a kid, I was too poor to afford at the time I think the low end of cool fashion for suburban kids was like Abercrombie and American Eagle. And I could only afford maybe sometimes once a year, get one shirt at Aeropostle, and then the rest was like Walmart or Kohl's or secondhand for my brother and shit like that or cousins. And like them calling her Diner Girl, I was just like, I would slap the shit out of.

- Yeah so bad.

- Now I would, but not at that age.

- I'm also, I have a hard time believing in the Valley this is the only teenager at the school who has a job, but that's Movieland for you. But yeah, the classism definitely came through loud and clear there. I hated when Chad Michael Murray said, "you're not a guy, are you? Because if you are I'll kick your butt". I was like, okay, gay bashing.

- I loved that Sam carries it. I think she says "Okay, next question".

- Totally. She played it off good, she was like, I'm not a guy. She said "I'm not a guy and fuck you". Even if I was you'd still wanna eat this pussy.

- I have another casting thing that I wanna discuss which is like, as a closeted queer boy, watching this as a kid, knowing that I was in the closet. I remember being like "do people think Chad Michael Murray's hot?" Like, I didn't understand. Like that was the first time I think I'd seen, I don't know if his One Tree Hill was before or after that. It was after?

- Before.

- Before, okay. I didn't watch that show, I think I was living overseas at the time when that was popular. But who I did-- wait, who did you have a crush on of the male casting choices?

- The dad!

- The dad!

- Oh my God. The dad.

- I completely forgot how much I was like, wow, he's super hot. I would love, like, his nose? Everything.

- Yeah. His face. He was like a Greek God. I was like, he looks like he would take me to like an Ancient Greek place, you know? Like he was Augustus Caesar or something. And then when he died in that earthquake, I died. I cried real tears. When he, when he died.

- Oh, you mean her dad? I thought you meant Austin's dad.

- Oh God. The two of them both! But that guy I've seen, he plays, he's like in a lot of movies, but yes, he also has a Greco-Roman look to him. A little more villainous. He's definitely more of the Dom.

- He looks like, I remember being like, 'cause I was a nerd and would read Greek mythology and shit, I was like, Zeus, you can take me. You can come down as a Swan and take me behind the olive tree. With that nose.

- Oh my God yeah, he's gorgeous. His facial features are so pretty.

- Anyone else that you think was hunky or?

- I can't think of any of them. Who are you thinking of?

- Chad Michael Murray's friend who's not the three musketeer that also has queer-coding because why fight over? Like anytime there's ever like boys fighting over a girl, I'm like one of you's gay.

- He was super cute, I did think that too. I was like, oh yeah. I would be into him if I was a child or whatever. And it was fun to see them. To me, him and Carter chasing each other is gay sex, because Carter got on his hands and knees and crawled across that bar, which I have done recently.

- And the slamming the bar, while delivering a note about Pirates of Penzance.

- Pirates of Penzance. Yeah. You guys both are on PrEP from this conversation alone.

- Definitely. One of them is on PrEP and one of them is DL. Like, being bad.

- Love that for them.

- But not him, the other one. The one who was kissing, like adult, remember? Oh my God, that's another problematic thing that hasn't aged well. The old lady who, you know, Tammy Lee Baker, is that her name? Who's the teacher?

- Oh yeah. Lin Shaye?

- Yeah, that... Who's Lin Shaye?

- Wait, who are you talking about?

- I'm talking about the famous teacher from the 90's that had a relationship with her fifth grade student.

- Oh yeah. Not Tammy Faye Baker, but something. I can't remember her name either. But like the first-- There's actually an unfortunate amount of those.

- But there was a really famous one where she to jail, and then as soon as she got out, the boy was like 21 and they got married and they have three kids or something. There was that the, is she the principal of the school? Has a sexual relationship with one of the Three Musketeers boys.

- Where did you get that? I missed that.

- There's multiple times in the movie where like, she's like, hi Ryan. And like, oh yeah.

- Right where she's playing favorites.

- I think there's a scene where they're kissing in the movie. Isn't there?

- I did not get this teacher kissing the child.

- They're hiding behind something and they're kissing, I'm pretty sure.

- That would be, that's an intense allegation because that would be so weird.

- Or she spanked his butt or something while he's walking away, like it's very.

- There was something weird, and I do remember there being teachers in high school who I was like, why are you weird to that student? But I guess that's a real thing.

- I'm pretty sure there's a kissing scene at the dance. Like, there's something weird where they're both, I wouldn't say consenting cause he's a 17-year-old I think in the movie? 17 or 18 at that time.

- There's some mischief?

- Yeah, it's definitely like, they're both look like they're having fun, which is another weird directing thing of the movie, which is like, would this Three Musketeer boy be caught doing that at the school? Like, I don't know, maybe. Maybe, boys are dumb.

- Yeah. I guess you're right. That's a good question. I just remembered that-- I just realized that that was Lin Shaye from the Insidious movies, all of the Insidious movies.

- Was Lin Shaye the lady?

- The older teacher, yeah. She was like "into the further" in Insidious, if you remember, she was in all of those sequels as well. But just another actor who carried this movie, which is why it's one of our favorites and one that I'm so glad we got to break down with you in detail today here on The Faking Of. Joseph, can you tell people where they can find you or anything you want them to know before we wrap up?

- Yeah. My parting message is, everyone should be inspired by the undercover themes in this movie that aren't necessarily executed on by the end. And that is, you know, be yourself, know your worth, don't let people fuck you around and drag you around to their own narrative, live your own life, and drive your own electric car. Everyone should have their own electric car. If you ever do wanna follow me, if you like, anyone wants to know about crypto or blockchain stuff, my Twitter handle's crypto C R Y P T O J E A U X. So Joe, but like how French people would say it.

- Love that. I didn't know you could speak so many languages. Actually, I did know that. Joe's learned.

- I only call myself fluent in English, but I'm familiar with about six languages.

- Which is why we get the clever Twitter handles.

- Which is yeah. Catch me on those aliases.

- Joe, thank you so much for being a guest here on The Faking Of. It has been so wonderful getting into the behind the scenes story of A Cinderella Story with you. To all of you listening at home, thank you so much for joining. Don't forget to comment, rate, and subscribe to this podcast so that you can see us next time on The Faking Of.

- Bye!