Category: Viral

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

When the topic of artists with a cult following comes up, it’s impossible to allow Kid Cudi to slip through the cracks without being mentioned. The Cleveland native has collected ragers one by one during his near-15-year run in the music industry. It began with his 2008 breakout mixtape, A Kid Named Cudi, and continued through his first two albums, Man On The Moon I: The End Of Day and Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr. Rager, all of which spawned classic tunes that his fans have held close to their hearts. However, Cudi’s next few albums presented a descent from the astronomical throne as he appeared a bit more human thanks to the sub-par projects. Ten years removed from the second installment, Mr. Rager returns to the moon to conclude the trilogy by hitting his fans with a healthy dose of nostalgia and clarity.

The qualities Man On The Moon III: The Chosen hold are both similar and different to the predecessors in the series. The third installment is constructed like the previous two; four chapters that capture the life and story of Mr. Cudi himself. Just like Man On The Moon I and II, Cudi allows listeners to reside in his world and watch him take on his demons, whether they were self-produced or brought onto him by an outsider. The difference is that Cudi is no longer drowning in the relentless quicksand that is his tumultuous life. The music on Man On The Moon III is great, but the promising story that appears on the album is even better because of all we’ve seen Cudi endure.

The highlights of Man On The Moon III arrive quickly beginning with “Tequila Shots.” The song is wrapped in a head-knocking bass and a melodic hook that finds Cudi reminding himself to press onward in his neverending internal battle. “Can’t stop this war in me,” he chants on the song. A decade sits in between Man On The Moon II and III and while the problems that riddled his life still exist to varying extents, the paralysis they induced on him isn’t as strong. Sure, he has momentary relapses as he does on “Another Day,” but that comes with the journey. The saying goes, “It’s not about how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up,” and Cudi makes it clear that getting up, staying up, and raging in a less harmful way is his goal.

Depression, isolation, drug addiction, struggles with fame and family, and more are themes that have appeared in Cudi’s music over the years. Nowadays, a paradise of peace and prosperity is something that the rapper craves more than ever. “Heaven On Earth” captures his itch to find euphoria amid chaos. “Ain’t no thing in this world that can keep me from peace but me,” he raps in the second verse. Cudi rips through potential momentum-halting obstacles with the force of a nighttime rider in the open streets, and the approach serves as the precursor to the explosion that is the album’s following track, “Show Out.” The collaboration with Pop Smoke and Skepta is easily the climax of Man On The Moon III as its peaking energy sees Cudi flow through it with a menacing approach, one that is sharper than anything else on the album.

Soon, things settle down on Man On The Moon III. The rapper’s hard-hitting entrance on the album is replaced by a string of lethargic tracks. “Sept. 16” promotes a search for endearment whether it be from an outside source or in the form of self-love, while “The Void” sees Cudi promising to stay grounded and not relapse into a former state. The high from the first half of the album comes to a close and Cudi settles into a pocket of meticulous thought rooted in his current journey. Both of the aforementioned songs are examples of how Cudi actively seeks to maintain his current lifestyle if improvement is not on the table.

Man On The Moon III is an earnest conclusion to Cudi’s trademark series. A happy ending is not waiting at the end. Mr. Rager doesn’t step off his spaceship to dust the particles of past struggles off his shirt. What Man On The Moon III accomplishes, however, is closing a chapter in the rapper’s life in a very real and authentic way. Cudi knows the depths of his struggles, but he’s also aware of how long his adoring fans followed him through it all. To give them a perfect, clean conclusion would be misleading for his fans and naive towards himself. Man On The Moon III is Cudi’s best album in a decade and the stories he has to tell will continue as it says at the end of the album’s closer, “I Know.” Whether he returns to the moon or comes back to Earth to do this, we can rest assured knowing that Cudi has at least returned to form for the foreseeable future.

Man On The Moon III: The Chosen is out now on Republic Records. Get it here.

One of the big promises from the NBA during the social uprisings around the country over the summer was a $300 million pledge from team governors to be given to activist organizations over the next 10 years. On Thursday, the league, led by its new social justice council, announced the recipients of the first $2 million in grant money.

Seven organizations in NBA cities around the nation, from New York City to Milwaukee to New Orleans, were named as the inaugural grant recipients: exalt, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, Marcus Graham Project, Operation DREAM, TEAM Inc., The Knowledge House, and the Youth Empowerment Project.

These groups were picked because they fall into one of the following categories: skills training, mentorship, coaching and pipeline development for high school, college-aged, job-ready and mid-career Black men and women in communities across the United States and Canada.

“These inaugural grants aim to increase education and employment access in Black communities, as well as enhance and grow the work of these national and local organizations,” according to a statement from the NBA.

In conjunction with the grant money announcement, the NBA Foundation also named current NBA Senior Vice President of Player Development Greg Taylor to a new role as executive director of the foundation. An experienced philanthropist, Taylor will begin his new role on Jan. 4, where he will oversee the administration of grants and the implementation of the NBA Foundation’s programs.

“The Board sees this as an opportunity to continue to build momentum in creating meaningful opportunities and sustained change in the Black community, and we look forward to Greg’s leadership as the Foundation grows,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner and COO Mark Tatum, who is also the president of the board of the NBA Foundation.

Over the next 10 years, Taylor and the board will be tasked with seeking out organizations that align with the NBA’s mission to advance the professional and social wellbeing of Black communities in America, using this $300 million pledge from team governors to financially support such organizations.

The holidays are upon us and since many people this season aren’t able to get together with family and friends, classic Christmas carols don’t strike the same chord this year. Because of this, Charly Bliss and Pup decided it was time for a holiday tune that actually reflects the anxiety, sadness, and exhaustion many are feeling. Joining together virtually, the two power pop bands teamed up to offer the aptly titled “It’s Christmas And I F*cking Miss You.”

The song offers a reflection on past holidays in the context of our current lockdown while the video laments a time when the bands were able to tour together. Edited by Dan Shure, their “It’s Christmas And I F*cking Miss You” visual stitches together some of the bands members’ personal moments, both past and present, to craft a nostalgic-yet-heartwarming collection of clips.

About the holiday tune, Charly Bliss’ Eva Hendricks said:

“Our managers have been trying to get us to write a Christmas song for years and we’ve never followed through, but we decided that enlisting our friends in PUP would at least make it fun. We never imagined we’d be so proud and absolutely thrilled as we are by the results. We tried to write a song that reflects the absolute insanity of this year and the fact that everyone in the world is stuck missing someone this holiday season and probably feeling a similar combination of emo, angsty and vulnerable!!!!”

Echoing Hendricks’ statement, Pup’s Stefan Babcock added: “I was so excited when Charly Bliss asked me to write a Christmas song with them. I don’t know if I’d be able to write a Christmas song under normal circumstances, but since Christmas is shit this year, seemed like it was right in my wheelhouse! Plus Charly Bliss are an amazing band and amazing people, so it was a no-brainer. If we’re judging it alongside other Christmas songs, I think we smashed it.”

Listen to “It’s Christmas And I F*cking Miss You” above.

A lot of fuss has been made over Travis Scott’s mind-reeling corporate sponsorships. Over the past year, his influence has grown, allowing him to link up with brands for lucrative promotions — which has, in turn, led to even more brands clamoring to work with the 28-year-old rapper. While some debate whether that’s a good thing or not, Travis just keeps announcing more and more money moves. His latest is a leap into the spiked seltzer game to compete with White Claw and Bud Light. His brand — brought to you by Anheuser-Busch — is called Cacti.

It’s made with agave — the same plant used to make tequila — and coming out in Spring of 2021 in three flavors: Lime, Pineapple, and Strawberry. Naturally, it’ll be relatively low in alcohol content — only 7% ABV — and sold in 9oz, 16oz, and 25oz sizes. Travis’s statement in the press release reads, “Cacti is something I’m really proud of and have put a ton of work into. Me and the team really went in, not only on getting the flavor right but on thousands of creative [prototypes] on everything from the actual beverage, to the can concept, to the packaging and how it is presented to the world… I’m a big fan of tequila so I came at it from that angle, too. I’m really excited to put this out in 2021 and see other people be able to enjoy it.”

The partnership with Anheuser-Busch — the makers of Budweiser and its related spin-offs — is just the latest for the Houston rapper, who also teamed up with the makers of the Fortnite video game, McDonald’s, and Nike, earning a spot on Forbes‘ 30 Under 30 and the nickname “brand whisperer.”

Marco Rubio’s seriously upset about Republicans being called “a bunch of f*ckers” by an incoming Biden White House staffer. People are really letting him have it in response, and there’s nothing quite like a Rubio roasting on Twitter. These things happen periodically, including the aftermath of the Florida senator “honoring” the late John Lewis by posting a photo of Elijah Cummings and when Rubio botched a meme about a Republican “wave.” Another Rubio roasting has been kind-of overdue, and people were likely itching for it, which is why they pounced when Rubio got very upset over profanity by Biden’s incoming deputy chief of staff.

Jen O’Malley Dillon (who also worked as Biden’s campaign manager) made the offending remark while speaking to Glamour about how Biden clicked with voters over his desire for unity:

The president-elect was able to connect with people over this sense of unity. In the primary, people would mock him, like, “You think you can work with Republicans?” I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of f*ckers. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He rejected that. From start to finish, he set out with this idea that unity was possible, that together we are stronger, that we, as a country, need healing, and our politics needs that too.

Yeah, there was backlash. Incoming White House Comms Director Kate Bedingfield responded by calling Dillon’s words “spicy language” but ultimately praised the message of unity. However, Rubio doesn’t feel that unity and an F-bomb can possibly coexist. “Biden talks about unity and healing, but you want to know what they really think?” Rubio tweeted. “Read how the person he wants as the next WH deputy chief of staff called Republicans in Congress a bunch of f***ers.”

The backlash to the backlash was swift. People were very quick to remind Rubio that he supported the president who said of women, “Grab ’em by the p***y.” And they’re reminding Rubio that he previously condemned Trump as an “embarrassment” before wholeheartedly throwing himself onto the MAGA train for four years.

Is “f*ckers” any worse than “locker room talk,” Marco? It’s a valid question.

Being a woman director means working overtime to navigate a system where the goalposts are constantly moving. This is an industry of immense gender unbalance that may never fully recover from the revelations of systemic harassment and abuse that came to light following the fall of Harvey Weinstein. Of the 100 top-grossing films of 2019 and the total of 1,518 individuals working above the line as directors, writers, and producers, only 22.3% of them were women, and that number falls even more drastically for women of color. If a major film directed by a woman underperforms at the box office, we face an endless barrage of think-pieces wondering if this will put an end to the “trend” of women behind the camera. To hire a woman director is to take a “risk.”

They don’t get recognized as Best Director quality filmmakers either, and they’re often overlooked in favor of white men with a sliver of the acclaim. We see this time and time again with incredible creatives like Lynne Ramsay, Barbra Streisand, Penny Marshall, Debra Granik, Dee Rees, Marielle Heller, Lorene Scafaria, Lulu Wang, and Ava DuVernay, to name but a handful. Over the course of 90+ years and hundreds of Best Director nominees, only five of them have been women and, to this day, only one of them took home the gold. They do everything right – make Oscar-friendly movies with box office appeal, promote them extensively, campaign rigorously – but it’s never enough, and it’s hard to overlook the implication that gender impacted the way that the Academy (whose membership is still mostly made up of old white men) viewed their talents.

That’s what makes 2020 something of a minor miracle for female directors. They were forced to traverse through a business that devalues women’s work at the best of times, only now there was a literal pandemic unfolding that was irrevocably changing the film industry in record time. It’s kind of astounding that so many women behind the camera succeeded like they did this year. Even as Hollywood as we know it stands on the precipice of an unknown future, there’s a glimmer of light to be found in how women’s stories still manage to fight their way to the top.

2020 wasn’t short of film firsts for women. The Sundance Film Festival awarded four of its six directing prizes to women, including Radha Blank for The 40-Year-Old Version and Maïmouna Doucouré for Cuties. Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the third feature film of Eliza Hittman won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Chloé Zhao made history by becoming the first director to win both the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival for Nomadland. Cathy Yan brought a slew of critical acclaim to the DCEU with Birds of Prey. Indie legend Kelly Reichardt received a new boost to the mainstream thanks to the success of First Cow. Oscar-winning actress Regina King made a startling directorial debut with One Night in Miami and became the first African American woman director to premiere a movie at the Venice Film Festival.

Truthfully, we could be here all day listing the women directors of 2020 and their achievements, from Autumn de Wilde’s stylish reimagining of Jane Austen’s Emma to Emerald Fennell’s endlessly surprising revenge drama Promising Young Woman to Gina Prince-Bythewood’s shot of life to the increasingly oversaturated superhero genre, The Old Guard. It’s genuinely exciting to be able to name so many women and know that there are plenty more to discover.

While some journalists ponder over whether the 2021 Oscars will actually take place, women directors are dominating the awards conversation like never before. The five films nominated for Best Feature at the Gotham Awards are all directed by women, and the current frontrunners for the top prizes are Chloé Zhao and Regina King. Either one of them gaining a nomination would be history in the making. It’s a much-needed change of pace from years prior, where even the most lavishly celebrated films by women were seen as outsiders for such recognition.

2020 was a year where theaters shut their doors for months on end and the distribution model seemingly changed overnight, as shown by the recent decision by Warner Bros. to give all their major 2021 releases simultaneous premieres in cinemas and on the streaming service HBO Max. The rise of the streaming market has greatly benefited women directors, who often found themselves shunted to the margins by distributors. Directors like Alice Wu (The Half of It), Liz Garbus (Lost Girls), and Julia Hart (Stargirl and I’m Your Woman) found increased audience attention thanks to platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+. This phenomenon spread internationally, with women like Indian director Terrie Samundra (Kaali Khuhi), Indonesia’s Lasja Fauzia (Love Like the Falling Rain), and Marla Ancheta of the Phillippines (Finding Agnes) reaching worldwide audiences via Netflix in a way that would have seemed impossible even five years ago. It has never been easier to see films directed by women, and in a year where we were all stuck at home and couldn’t go to the cinema, that mattered.

As always, however, while these changes are crucial and much welcomed, they remain maddeningly incremental. In the US, women comprised just 8% of directors working on the top 250 US domestic grossing films in 2018. That’s 1% below what that number was a decade prior, and 3% down from the previous year. Opportunities are increasing, both in indie titles and blockbuster tentpoles, but women directors are still seen as a riskier investment than the last bearded white dude with a baseball cap who had a minor hit at Sundance with his debut before immediately being hired to direct a nine-figure franchise title. Even in this blessed new age of streaming, women’s stories are at risk of being marginalized thanks to a crowded market and lack of marketing. It’s depressingly common to see a woman director launch a hot new franchise, only for the follow-up installments to be given to male directors (see Twilight, Mamma Mia, Fifty Shades of Grey, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before).

You’re still more likely to see women directors attached to smaller, independent films rather than the big-budget spectacles that form the foundations of Hollywood, although that is changing slowly with women like Patty Jenkins and Niki Caro leading the way. In below-the-line jobs like editing and cinematography, women remain wildly outnumbered by men (only one woman has ever been nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar, a statistic that continues to boggle the mind).

And it remains to be seen if the Academy will prick up its ears and pay attention to this seismic change. They didn’t do it last year when Greta Gerwig, Lulu Wang, and Lorene Scafaria called, nor did they seem to care when Lynne Ramsay, Marielle Heller, and Tamara Jenkins did so the year before that. As far back as the ‘80s, critics were wondering if the Oscar voters thought that films like Yentl and Awakenings directed themselves when Barbra Streisand and Penny Marshall were snubbed for Best Director.

It seems that we’re doomed to have these conversations every year, but we don’t have to. The opportunities have shown themselves time and time again, from critical darlings to record-breaking commercial successes, with women behind the cameras. They’ve withstood casual misogyny, industry-wide abuses, complete shutouts from the biz, and a literal plague that’s wholly changed the way that films are made, distributed, and consumed. All that and they even won a few awards along the way. 2020 will stand tall as the year that Hollywood faced irrevocable change and the ways it chooses to react to that will pave the way for the future. It matters that women directors get to be at the forefront of that new path, and thanks to their trailblazing work during this torrid year, we may finally get that. The big question remains as to whether or not the industry will choose to take the right path. Perhaps one day, we won’t have to keep repeating this conversation.

Cardi B has offered updates about her next album here and there over the past year or so. It sounded like the album was almost finished in February, when she said it’s “just missing a couple more club hits.” It seems she has made solid progress since then, as today on Twitter, she expressed a desire to show off the album to some fans in just a couple months. In fact, if everything works out, she’d like to fly a small group of fans out to see her and get a first listen of the record.

A fan on Twitter asked Cardi when she plans to release a new album, and she responded, “I’m workin on it …I promise I won’t hold ya up for long. [Maybe in] February imma fly ten fans to hear it ….If Covid still ain’t hating.” She also responded to another tweet in which somebody speculated she has a new single coming this week, “No not yet ….Music coming sooner then you think…I mean it this time.”

Even if Cardi’s fan experience doesn’t pan out, her tweet at least seems to indicate that her album will be in a listenable and somewhat complete state in the next couple months, so that seems to be a positive sign of things to come.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Rowdy Rebel may have been gone from the rap game for the last six years, but apparently, he wasn’t forgotten by his peers. Young Thug was one of those who gave the Brooklyn rapper a warm welcome home after his half-decade stint behind bars, giving him the gift of a pair of diamond-encrusted chains. Rowdy showed them off on his Instagram along with a grateful message: “Appreciate you,” he wrote. “Slat love forever, bro.”

Along with “Hot N****” star Bobby Shmurda, Rowdy was one of the members of GS9, a rap group that was accused of being a gang by authorities. Arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault, and drug dealing, Bobby and Rowdy both pled guilty to lesser charges and were sentenced to five-to-seven years in prison.

While Bobby was denied parole recently as a result of a few violations during his incarceration, Rowdy was granted parole and conditional release. Naturally, he’ll have to keep his nose clean but he already seems to be on the right track; after calling Bobby from outside, Rowdy reportedly went straight to the studio to pick up where he left off in 2014.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

As Caroline Polachek toured behind her first post-Chairlift solo album Pang last year, one fan-favorite moment of live shows was when she delivered a rendition of The Corrs’ 2000 hit “Breathless.” Seeing as all of Polachek’s touring plans are on hold for a while, the singer decided to offer a studio version of the cover to make available on streaming services.

The original version of the song featuring sparkling keys and hollow snares familiar to the music of the early aughts. But Polachek gives the song a 2020 facelift, peppering the instrumentals with shuffling beats, electric synths, and blown-out bass.

Polachek’s “Breathless” cover isn’t a stand-alone single. Rather, the song will appear as part of Standing At The Gate: Remix Collection, which is slated for an April release. So far, Polachek has previewed the upcoming LP with a George Clanton remix of “Hey Big Eyes,” an A.G. Cook rework of “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” a version of “Hit Me Where It Hurts” by Toro Y Moi, and a 10-minute-long version of her track “The Gate,” as well as a handful of others.

Listen to Polachek’s cover of “Breathless” above.

Standing At The Gate: Remix Collection is out 4/16 via Perpetual Novice. Pre-order it here.

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: Right now Pedro Pascal is in, quite possibly, the most popular series, The Mandalorian. He’s about to be in the movie event of the month, Wonder Woman 1984, which will begin streaming on HBO Max on December 25. The only thing missing is a hit song, which when you consider what year his new movie takes place in, when movie soundtracks were king, it doesn’t seem too entirely far fetched. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, but, as Maxwell Lord, Pascal does sport a pretty nifty Simon Le Bon looking hairdo. (As we went down a rabbit hole of ’80s references that you’ll read ahead, it turns out Pascal was a pretty big Duran Duran fan. At least, big enough that he owned a Duran Duran clock.)

Pascal doesn’t really hide the fact that in Wonder Woman 1984 he’s going for it. He literally uses the phrase “hamming it up.” And it really is a sight to behold in a, well, this is how you do it kind of way. In the comics, Maxwell Lord has a pretty eventful and complicated history, but in Wonder Woman 1984 he’s playing a businessman who might just be in a little more financial trouble than he’s letting on. But fate might be on his side when he sees an opportunity, and it’s up to Wonder Woman to stop him. Also, the marketing for the film kind of downplays Pascal’s role in the film, but he’s in it a lot and is the the main antagonist of the film.

Ahead, a pretty hilariously salty Pedro Pascal takes us through his remarkable Wonder Woman 1984 performance. Also, as we saw in this season of The Mandalorian, our hero’s starship, the Razor Crest, was destroyed. For those of you who paid a lot of money for Razor Crest memorabilia, I asked if we could send him the bill for our refunds.

So… holy shit!

What? Oh I’m sorry. You’re disappointed.

That’s a very enthusiastic “holy shit!” for your performance.

Oh my God.

You were going for it.

That’s Patty, man. That’s the Patty Jenkins experience! You can’t get away with anything else. You know? I think if anyone likes it, sees it, and appreciates it, then I owe it all to her. And if anyone finds it absolutely intolerable, I also owe it to her.

So right now you’re on the most popular series. You’re in the biggest movie event of the month. You need a hit song for the trifecta.

What should that song be?

Well, the movie is set in 1984…

Something from 1984? The best album of all time is from 1984.

Which one?

Purple Rain.

Oh, yes. See, Wonder Woman 1984 should go full retro and have a soundtrack like movies of that era did. Like Footloose, Purple Rain, Eddie and the Cruisers.

Eddie and the Cruisers. Wow. I saw it in the movie theater.

Is that the first Eddie and the Cruisers reference that’s come up for you today?

The first Eddie and the Cruisers reference that’s come up this year.

So you saw Eddie and the Cruisers in theaters?

I saw it in the movie theater.

Did you see the sequel, Eddie Lives!, in the movie theater?

No.

That one wasn’t as big a hit.

No, it wasn’t.

Speaking of music from that era, your hair in this movie, you know who it reminded me of?

Who?

Simon Le Bon.

Oh, wow! Oh, well, that’s a compliment.

He had great hair.

I had a Duran Duran vinyl record clock in my bedroom as a child.

Was this in support of a specific album?

It was Rio, but it wasn’t an album cover. It was just an actual record with the band and it said Duran Duran and it told the time.

What else could you want? You get to see the band and you know what time it is?

I had Duran Duran, and my sister had Cyndi Lauper. That’s all I can remember.

Well, I think you had a really good Simon Le Bon haircut going.

Wow. That’s very, very, very, very not what I expected.

Between that and Eddie and the Cruisers I’m really keeping you on your toes here.

You really are, you’re there with me. How old are you?

We are around the same age…

Oh, okay. No wonder you’re hitting such bull’s eyes.

We have the same reference points.

Keep going, man. I’m telling you, I was a sponge.

You are hamming it up in this movie.

Yeah, we were doing a big swing.

You’ve been saying Nicolas Cage was an inspiration at certain times. Is there a specific movie?

Yeah, I don’t relate any of the hamming it up to Nicolas Cage. I at one point in the conversation I was talking about what an incredible influence he was on me as an actor, which is true. And, now, so much so that I would use him as a sort of point of reference to anchor myself, to achieve something in a scene specifically with Wonder Woman, And maybe about a half-hour later in that conversation, I was self-deprecating and accusing myself of “shmacting” and hamming it up, and the two do not go together.

Oh, I see.

So, just to clarify.

I was hoping you were going to say Peggy Sue Got Married.

Dude! In the movie theater, man.

I did, too. My parents took me.

I also own it. It’s also accessible on my iPad. It’s one of my favorite movies.

Francis Ford Coppola. Yeah. It’s an amazing movie. I just watched it again.

Cage came early for me. Rumble Fish. Racing With The Moon, Valley Girl. And then Peggy Sue Got Married, Moonstruck, Vampire’s Kiss, Raising Arizona.

Again, watching you play Maxwell Lord, I just kept thinking, well, this is how you play a villain like this.

Oh my God. Who are you? You’re my new best friend.

It’s like you decided, “Oh, I don’t have to wear a helmet through this entire movie. Well, watch out world. Here I come.”

Well, I did it before I put the helmet on.

Well, you knew that you had to do it before you went into the helmet then. You had to leave an impression.

Right, right, exactly. I was like, “Whoa, what have I done here? I better put a helmet on. People are going to be really tired of this face.”

So you were a section over from me at The Rise of Skywalker premiere a year ago…

Oh, really?

The reason I know this is because you were holding court. You were standing up, you had everyone around you, having the time of your life. I bring this up because I feel if Wonder Woman 1984 had a proper premiere you would have done some sort of stunt.

Yeah. But I think that the context to everything is it’s overwhelming for all, and I guess the hope behind it all is that people are going to be able to see it.

Yes.

I think it’s a really good time to see it. And my heart’s been broken at the thought of not being able to kind of share this because of the kind of experience that it was for me. I had the time of my life, and it wasn’t just because I had a delicious part to play and one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. But the best cast, and it really was one of the best experiences of my life. And if there was a chance that that could be shared, translated in any way, and that people could actually experience what felt so special to me, I wanted that to happen on as big of a scale as possible and be there for all of it and see it on the big screen. But, this is the world that we’re living in now. And we’ve got to find so many different ways to survive, and one way is to give people some fucking relief. Even if it’s just for a couple of hours.

So I’m in New York and it’s getting cold and my winter project was this expensive Razor Crest LEGO Set. So, I watched the episode of The Mandalorian where it gets blown up. Do I send my bill to you to get a refund? Who do I send this to?

I saw the best meme. Is that what they’re called? Meme?

They are.

This one doesn’t move, it’s just a picture. It was a spear and a module. And it was Razor Crest parts, the new LEGO Set for the range of customers. I thought that was hilarious.

Well, I’m going to send you my bill, if that’s okay.

You can send it. Yeah, definitely, talk to Warner Bros.

I will, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to pass that along.

They have my name. They have my address.

‘Wonder Woman 1984’ will be in theaters and on HBO Max on December 25th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.