Celebrities are the “hot”, but they give the cold shoulder to the traditional media, at least in the form of a podcast.
In the changing landscape of Hollywood advertising, a curious paradox emerged: the celebrities most opposite to the press suddenly adopt the very intimate medium. The traditional press junket, with its rowdy hotel suites and its rotary carousel of journalists armed with the same five questions, gives way to podcasters.
Stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, who spent decades to perfect the art of avoidance of strategic media, recently settled in the “New Heights” podcast by Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce to discuss “One Battle after the other”, his last weekend of $ 130 million. For a full hour, the notoriously private actor shared anecdotes which would have been unthinkable in a traditional press frame, including the revelation that his childhood agent suggested him to rename himself as “Lenny Williams” because “Leonardo DiCaprio” was considered “too ethnic”.
Similarly, and earlier this year, Joaquin Phoenix, who made his disdain for clearly clearly clear conventional press obligations, made his debut at the Podcast in Theo Von’s program to promote “Eddington” by Ari Aster – another heavy game that failed to ignite the opening audience of the weekend. The appearance of Phoenix looked less like a promotional obligation and more as a real conversation, a contrast striking with its hatred expressed of “tv stuff”.
This migration to podcasts represents an important media evolution and a strategic pivot towards demography which the studios desperately need to resume. Young male audiences that populate the bases of the auditor of these programs hosted by celebrities are the same moviegoers who regularly abandon theaters. It is a scheme that extends far beyond Hollywood – politicians and commercial figures have also adopted long -term podcast appearances, with personalities like Joe Rogan playing increasingly influential roles in the formation of public discourse and, undoubtedly, electoral results.
However, this new landscape is delivered with its own complications. While the podcasts offer the promise of a more authentic conversation, they rarely deliver the journalistic rigor that traditional media aspire to maintain.
These are not contradictory interviews designed to challenge or probe; These are largely collaborative exercises where the guests of celebrities are invited to be charming versions of themselves without significant decline.
The appeal for notoriously private stars becomes clearer when considered in the context of the traditional obligations of the celebrity media. Beyoncé has not granted a conventional interview for more than a decade, not since her release from her eponymous album in 2013. Since then, her rare media appearances have been entirely on her conditions – personal tests subject to magazines or carefully organized profiles where her silence speaks more than words.
The star of “F1” Brad Pitt once articulated the fundamental tension: “There is all this other entity in which you are sucked in. You must go sell your goods. This is something with which I have never made my peace.”
This reluctance strongly contrasts with artists who consider advertising as an integral part of their profession. Jamie Lee Curtis has become legendary for his promotional enthusiasm, many attacking his tireless advocacy as an instrumental in “Everything Everywhere All at Upday” winning seven Oscar victories, including her own victory by the support actress. This helped Pamela Anderson in her campaign last year for “The Last Showgirl” and had an excellent opening weekend for the suite “Freaker Friday”.
“I would like to have 10 Jamie Lee Curtis on each of my films and titles,” explains a price strategist Variety. “It would make my work, and yours, infinitely easier and even more pleasant. There is nothing like someone who gets it and is positive about it. ”
But Curtis represents an increasingly rare breed in an industry where privacy has become both more precious and more impossible to maintain. While social media continues to erode the boundaries between public and private characters, the podcast format offers something unprecedented: the illusion of intimacy without the adversary nuances of traditional journalism.
This does not mean that these big podcasters are not good in what they do. Sean Evans has built a recognizable brand with the spicy series “Hot Ones” and is constantly rented for its insightful and stimulating questions.
The success of Podcast Celebrity’s appearances as DiCaprio says that the public is hungry for authentic links with the stars, even if these same stars are becoming more suspicious of the traditional media exhibition. It is a delicate balance that talks about more important questions about celebrities, privacy and the evolution of the relationship between artists and their audience.
I think we would like to see a world with both, right?
