SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Maybe you've seen the "Wicked" movies, maybe not. Or maybe you have just seen actress Michelle Yeoh on "The Graham Norton Show" and seemingly countless other places talking about her character.
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MICHELLE YEOH: Madame Morrible. M.M. Flip it around. Wicked Witch (laughter).
DETROW: These viral moments seem to come from so many different outlets where celebrities promote projects now. Maybe they're eating spicy wings on "Hot Ones" with Sean Evans.
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SEAN EVANS: It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings.
DETROW: Or maybe they do a different poultry-based interview on "Chicken Shop Date."
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DETROW: Or maybe they do "SubwayTakes," where a dude in a suit in the New York City Subway will ask them...
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KAREEM RAHMA: So what's your take?
DETROW: Or they'll appear on popular podcasts like "Call Her Daddy" or "SmartLess" or "This Past Weekend W/ Theo Von," or if you're Timothee Chalamet, you climb on top of the Sphere in Las Vegas.
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TIMOTHEE CHALAMET: "Marty Supreme" is an American film that comes out on Christmas Day, 2025.
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DETROW: Fair to say, doing a press tour in 2025 is just way less straightforward than it used to be. Nicholas Quah is a critic for Vulture from New York Magazine, where he has written about all of this. Thanks for coming on.
NICHOLAS QUAH: Oh, my pleasure.
DETROW: What's the best way to think about this? Like, what makes the old model of press tours different from what your piece calls the new media circuit?
QUAH: I feel like the old model, it was defined by a lot greater sense of control. If you were a publicist, you had, you know, a very clear set of shots to pursue. You could book your talent on a magazine cover. You can try to get him or her onto a late-night show or a daytime talk show. You do an NPR spot maybe. You do a couple...
DETROW: Maybe.
QUAH: ...Local, regional media press hits, and then you have yourself a game. But these days, you know, as a direct result of the internet and the monoculture dissolving and there being, like, thousands, if not millions, of social media influencers all having their own little piece of the overall audience, there's just a lot more to do, and there's a lot less certainty on how a publicist and a talent's able to sort of generate a sense of awareness, let alone, like, outcomes...
DETROW: Yeah.
QUAH: ...When you're trying to sell your actor or you're trying to sell a movie.
DETROW: It's interesting 'cause this feels different, but at the same time, movie stars have been trying to get us to go see their movies for a very long time or to buy their books or whatever they're pitching at the moment. What's different about this? Is it just the volume of it that if somebody's promoting "Wicked" or something else, you're going to see them 6 trillion times across your various feeds?
QUAH: The difference is the volume. The difference is also this uncertainty as to whether, even if you did create a series of viral moments, whether any of that will actually generate book sales or movie ticket sales.
DETROW: Yeah.
QUAH: The other piece that feels really different is the fact that, like, the press tour itself is now kind of the performance, and there's a kind of an untangling between the actual sort of, like, product of the press tour and the thing that the press tour is supposed to promote. So, like, if you take Timothee Chalamet as a more recent example, his press tours are pure entertainment. They are really mimetic. They create really sort of indelible moments. But it's a real sort of question as to whether that directly contributes to a better box office.
DETROW: Catch us up to speed on all the different things - maybe not all of them because I don't think we have time - but just some of the highlights of things that Timothee Chalamet was doing to promote this latest movie and why you think it works so well when he does it.
QUAH: You know, so there's a - all the sort of press tour, the sort of usual hits. He goes on a lot of British talk shows. You know, he does late-night. He has that sort of viral spot where he goes on top of the Sphere in Las Vegas. And he created sort of a viral sweater that is now kind of a really hot fashion item. And it just is endless and it works because the way that the social media ecosystem and internet works kind of matches well with his energy. You know, it's not everybody can do what he does. And so the question is, if you're not Timothee Chalamet, if you're an Austin Butler type, for example, like, what is your move...
DETROW: Yeah.
QUAH: ...If you're more interior and you're a little more quiet?
DETROW: Is it just - I mean, it seems like it's just much harder to be a publicist in 2025 than it used to be. Is that fair?
QUAH: Yeah. I don't envy the job (laughter). I don't personally want to do it. So when I was reporting on the story I did for Vulture, like, there were a couple of, like, motifs in the way that my sources talked to me, the publicists and talent agents and such. They, you know, use terms like it's a slot machine, it's a miracle, it's a gamble. Like, who knows? It's a lottery. Like, who knows if any of this is actually going to work? But there's this prevailing sense that you do have to do it. These days, it's just harder to get in front of people, and that's a real tension here.
DETROW: I mean, is there a silver lining to all of this? If there are fewer key gatekeepers, does that mean that there's more of a chance for a movie or a TV show just to rise to the top because it's good and people want to watch it?
QUAH: In theory. But there are so - for every one example in which it feels like it's a fresh, new voice or fresh, new talent, like, for every one example that's a success, there's, you know, a hundred, if not a thousand, of, you know, good TV shows, good movies, good actors that, you know, don't execute and, like, are not able to sort of reach the audiences that they deserve. And that, you know, partly has to do with how difficult and chaotic a press tour is, but it also just has to do with how difficult this business has always been, right? Like, trying to get attention for quality at scale is kind of a classic problem that's true now as it was in the past.
DETROW: That's Nicholas Quah, a critic for Vulture. After he talks to us, he's going to talk to "SubwayTakes." Thank you so much.
QUAH: Oh, absolutely. I have a take (laughter). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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