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Right now is a great time to be Michelle Zauner.

She’s fresh off the release of her latest Japanese Breakfast album, Jubilee, which Uproxx’s Steven Hyden reckons might be the best indie album of 2021. She also just dropped her memoir Crying In H Mart, which debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list. A few days ago, it was revealed that the book is set to get a movie adaptation, for which Japanese Breakfast will provide the soundtrack.

Then, there was this week, when she was one of the musical performers at Summer Game Fest, a new but already-premiere virtual event that showed off the best of what’s on the horizon in the video game world. This is far from Zauner’s first foray into video games, of course. She supported her 2017 album Soft Sounds From Another Planet with Japanese BreakQuest, a game that she co-developed. She’s also behind the soundtrack of the anticipated new game Sable, the release date of which was just revealed at Summer Game Fest: September 23, 2021. Zauner’s soundtrack for the game, by the way, will also be made available as a standalone double-LP release.

So basically, Zauner has more hyphens than just about anybody.

Ahead of her Summer Game Fest appearance, I got on the phone with Zauner to talk about what she’s playing now, what upcoming games she’s looking forward to, and her rich history with video games, both as a consumer and creator.

Last year was obviously pretty quiet for live music, but I would imagine that gave you some more time to focus on gaming. Did you get into any of those big viral games like Animal Crossing, Fall Guys, and Among Us?

I got into Animal Crossing. I played that for a while and really enjoyed it. The funny thing is, when you got to visit each other’s islands, it was kind of the first precious kind of social interaction that you could have [laughs] and I definitely was into that. I also played A Short Hike, and Spiritfarer. Those were my favorite games during quarantine.

Nice, and which games are you playing now?

I’m playing this game called Dawn Of Man, which is a caveman civilization game where you basically grow a caveman colony from the Paleolithic era to the Mesolithic era, all the way into the Iron Age, and they learn how to make composite weapons and they develop new skills like masonry and become agricultural societies, and it’s pretty fun.

That sounds sweet, I haven’t heard of that one.

Yeah, I don’t know if it’s a popular game, but I’ve been really into it.

What’s your earliest gaming memory or the game from your childhood?

The game from my childhood is definitely Secret Of Mana. That was what got me into RPGs and video games to begin with. It’s also one of the only RPGs I know that it has a two-player option. I started playing video games when I was like five years old. I had a Super Nintendo and I remember playing that with my dad. That was the beginning of realizing that video games could be art.

How was making your own game soundtrack for Sable different than making, say, a Japanese Breakfast album?

It was so different, honestly. I mean, it’s the first project that I’ve been a cog. That sounds really reductive, but I really appreciate being a cog in the creative machine. [Gregorios Kythreotis and Daniel Fineberg, the two-person team behind Sable developer Shedworks] are very much the directors of that project, and I just was so excited to contribute to someone else’s vision that I trusted. And to their credit, they were very supportive and pretty hands-off and just let me be creative and truly liked everything that I submitted for the most part.

It’s definitely a different vibe because first of all, lyrically, there are only like three songs with lyrics on the soundtrack, but you have to approach it from a place that’s not necessarily personal to you. It has to be this kind of universal feeling and it has to feel like it lives within the game. Also, a lot of the time for me, when I was writing, the narrative wasn’t all the way put together, so you have to kind of guess what’s going to cover the general idea of what’s happening.

It’s a coming-of-age story, so also my influences were super different for it. I was thinking a lot about Alan Menken and how he crafts this universal feeling and a song that everyone can relate to. That was actually a really lovely experience for me and took me to a very different place in my songwriting because I feel like so much of what I do for Japanese Breakfast is rooted in specific detail. I was doing these broad strokes of human feeling, like, what’s it like to feel uncertain about the future? Or coming of age, or discovering what path do you want to pursue? Instead of filling it with all these kind of little details, you have to sort of do these broad strokes but also make it compelling. So that was really fun for me.

Also, because it’s an open-world game, you have to make sure that the songs are really sprawling and don’t get grating. It’s very different from writing pop music where you’re always trying to find a hook that gets stuck in your head. It’s almost the opposite of that, because if you had something like that constantly for ten minutes while you’re exploring a place, it would get really f*cking annoying, so having to do more ambient sprawling work was interesting.

Do you have a favorite game soundtrack?

I really liked the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack and… what else? I was really inspired by the Chrono Cross soundtrack because I really liked that there’s alternate versions of the same song, because you go into a different time/world. So I kind of liked looking at the variations of those songs because I made a lot of day and night versions for this soundtrack. It was really fun to see how you can manipulate a song and keep it at the same key, but slow it down and create sparser instrumentation to make it feel like it’s a nighttime vibe. And of course, [The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild] soundtrack is incredible and does that as well.

Was there anything that surprised you about the process of making your own game, Japanese BreakQuest? By the way, that title is just [chef’s kiss sound].

Thank you [laughs]. I’m pretty sure that the label came up with that title. They approached me about it because my husband made these MIDI versions of the songs [from Soft Sounds From Another Planet] just for fun, and we were going to just release them on a cassette tape as a B-side kind of thing. When I sent it to the label, they were like, “You should make a game.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, I should make a game.”

They introduced me to this woman named Elaine Fath. She did all of the design and all of the development and a lot of the writing, and I kind of just helped her come up with the concept based on some of the lyrics and concepts on the record. I helped with the character design and some of the writing and then helped place all of the songs and stuff like that. But yeah, it was really, really fun and really cute. I’d love to do that again. It was a great experience.

Having been involved with games, both making one and making music for one, how has that changed how you look at games now?

I guess I just have a newfound appreciation of what goes into them. So much of making a game is things breaking and fixing them. I think I just realized it’s a really wild craft and just how much of their lives are invested in, getting to know Daniel and Greg from Shedworks and just seeing they spent over five years of their lives on this project. After writing a book and knowing what it’s like to work on a long-term project, it’s really awe-inspiring that they’re creating a world. They’re actually creating a universe. It’s really inspiring, the kind of work ethic you need. I also learned more about sound design from Martin Kvale, who has been a really wonderful collaborator to work with. It just made me appreciate it so much more.

Is there anything different about planning a performance for an event like Summer Game Fest, where music isn’t necessarily the main focus?

Yeah. They had me perform in front of this giant wall that has the gameplay behind me. And then also there’s a section where I kind of disappear and stop singing and then it gets to go into the gameplay. I was definitely very hesitant at first to just… I don’t really identify as a singer, and I was nervous that if I didn’t have a band with me that people wouldn’t be able to know that I had produced and composed the whole soundtrack, and think that I was just the singer. So I was definitely nervous about just being alone and singing, but I think that it went well and I’m really happy with the way that it turned out.

What upcoming games are you most eager to hear more about, whether it’s at Summer Game Fest, E3, or just in general?

Lena Raine just did this game called [Chicory: A Colorful Tale] that looks really cute. I’m excited to see that. We just dropped the Sims cottagecore expansion pack, [The Sims 4 Cottage Living] just dropped the trailer that they featured “Be Sweet” in. I just watched that today and it does look very good. And yeah, what else? What are you looking forward to? I don’t know what else is coming.

Well, there’s possibly more news about Breath Of The Wild 2 that some people think might be coming.

I’m definitely very excited. I mean, Breath Of The Wild is my favorite, like everyone else. Just the pinnacle of excellence. I definitely am very excited for that as well.

Jubilee is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.

Resident Evil is a series that we just can’t get enough of. From video games to movies, and now a TV show, Resident Evil is a franchise that has been covered from every possible angle. However, while the Resident Evil movies are certainly fun, they fail in one aspect: They never properly captured the personality of the characters they were supposed to be portraying.

With Netflix’s Resident Evil series, that may be changing soon. Lance Reddick, known for excelling in every role he’s ever been in, is going to be playing the role of Albert Wesker. To avoid potential spoilers for anyone that has somehow not interact with Resident Evil before, let’s just say that’s an incredibly important casting choice and Reddick is perfect for it.

There is a lot that’s really great about this choice. For starters, Reddick is perfect at delivering his lines in a way that is necessary for someone like Wesker. Depending on how they choose to portray Wesker, he’ll need to be someone that’s confident, cool under pressure, and at times a little unhinged. There’s no reason to believe that Reddick can’t pull that off.

Resident Evil first came out back in the ’90s as a horror/action game. It was Capcom’s attempt to make a Hollywood blockbuster-style video game. Let’s just say they managed to perfectly nail their assignment because Resident Evil is still seeing new releases to this day.

What would a Scooby-Doo spinoff look like without Scooby-Doo? Just ask Mindy Kaling, whose upcoming adult animated series Velma will give Velma Dinkley, Mystery Incorporated’s most underrated crime-solver, the attention she has long deserved. But Kaling’s Velma won’t be your mom’s Velma.

According to The Mary Sue, Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics president Tom Ascheim shared some details about the upcoming HBO Max series at The TV Kids Summer Festival:

“We have a not for children, Mindy Kaling project called Velma because she was excited to reimagine what Scooby-Doo would be like if Velma were of East Asian descent and lived in a different world. And in that version, which is going on HBO Max first, there’s no dog and no van but we have our 4 key characters through a different lens and I think it’s great. Allowing our creators to play with our IP is super powerful.”

A Scooby-Doo spinoff with no Scoob? And no Mystery Machine? While that may have come as a surprise to some fans of the original series, it was the part about Velma being East Asian that really got people talking—not all of it good (which is both sad and unsurprising).

Some people had to be reminded that Velma was a cartoon, not a real person.

And that Scooby once drove a car…

Also: That Velma has been Asian before.

And, once again, that she’s not real.

The best news: The “no dog” thing means we won’t be subjected to Scrappy Doo.

A date has not yet been set for Velma’s release.

(Via The Mary Sue)

Click to download here.

(This is a teaser. For the full episode, become a Patron at Patreon.com/Frotcast).

Have you ever wanted to watch Mark Wahlberg play a reincarnated Japanese blacksmith who stabs a cargo plane in the wing with a samurai sword? Well then you should definitely watch Infinite on Paramount+. Have you ever wanted to listen to two guys discuss Mark Wahlberg’s Infinite on a podcast? Well then you should definitely subscribe to the Frotcast to listen to the latest episode.

That’s right, this week in bonus content, Matt and I are discussing Infinite, a movie Matt describes as “dumb guy Matrix,” which I tend to think is more Highlander meets Total Recall and Bourne remixed with Cloud Atlas. What’s undeniable, however, is that reincarnated Japanese blacksmith Mark Wahlberg forges himself a sword that he uses to stab a plane.

Our wide-ranging discussion on said topic includes, but is not limited to:

-Why Mark Wahlberg seems to be doing an impression of himself in the “say hi to your mother for me” sketch in this movie
-Why reincarnated warriors always seem to ride motorcycles
-Whether you can forge samurai swords inside a New York apartment
-What it says about our healthcare system that people are reduced to trading samurai swords that they forged inside their apartments for their psych medication.

Anyway, fun movie, fun show. This is the kind of #content you can expect from becoming a Frotcast Patron. If you like free stuff, well hey there’s lots of that, notably on our entirely-free Sopranos podcast, Pod Yourself A Gun.

Despite spending this week flying from the set of Star Trek in Toronto to the Tribeca Film Festival, Tig Notaro simply had to hop back on a plane and get to Los Angeles to say goodbye to Conan on Thursday night before the show ends its run. While joking that she chose host Conan O’Brien over her own children, Notaro couldn’t thank the late night host and his team for making her big break happen.

As Notaro tells it, she was struggling for years after getting either a “one shot” or “no shot” on late night shows. “I’d get feedback that my delivery was too slow– not enough jokes per minute, I heard. Too low-key, not mainstream enough.” But all of that changed after she made her first appearance on Conan in 2011 and was asked to return, which she said never happened. Via The Wrap:

“I remember leaving the studio and I got a call from my manager saying that your show had called to have me booked again immediately and that you wanted me to be a regular on the show,” she continued. “I couldn’t even comprehend that because of all the rejection I had gotten.”

“I feel like your show gave me this incredible opportunity to be myself, to try out weird things, and also, I’m certain, went hand-in-hand with me being welcome on to so many other talk shows,” the grateful comic concluded.

Of course, now, the shoe is on the other foot. Conan is lucky to have Notaro as a guest. The comedian/actor recently became a huge viral sensation thanks to her “badass” role in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead. But much like her success with Conan, Notaro couldn’t comprehend what was happening with her new viral fame either.

“My friends were texting me images of Twitter, like ‘You’re trending for being badass and sexy AF.’” Notaro told Jimmy Fallon back in April. “And I was like, ‘What is that?’”

(Via Team Coco)

Russ takes a hard right turn on his latest loose single, “Lucky,” moving away from the moody sounds of his prior efforts this year like “Bankrupt,” “Private,” and “Status,” and even departing from more braggadocious fare like “Ugly” and “Small Talk.” Instead, he picks an uptempo, dancey instrumental with a four-on-the-floor beat to sing the praises of his latest paramour. He opens the track crooning about just how lucky he is, before switching to a quick-step rap cadence suggesting all the thrills he has planned for his romantic partner.

Commenting on the track’s YouTube stream, Russ thanked fans for supporting him, even on left-field departures like “Lucky.” “Thank you to all of you forreal!” he wrote. “I just like making whatever I’m feeling at the moment..it’s therapeutic for me so for y’all to get somethin from the music too means a lot.”

The New Jersey rapper-singer’s near-constant stream of new music is one of the reasons he called his career “pandemic-proof” last year as he continued to advocate for artist ownership. Of course, it probably helps that in addition to his music, he’s got multiple other streams of revenue, including his recently launched strain of cannabis, which he called the “best studio weed.”

Listen to “Lucky” above.

With all due respect to Matchbox cars, Hot Wheels were the defining toy vehicles for generations of kids. The small toy cars have been an iconic part of every person’s childhood for decades. Hot Wheels commercials always looked so cool with the toy cars on tracks that took them through mountains, jumped over dinosaurs, and flew through fire on the way to the finish line.

These commercials are why many of us have been excited to finally get our hands on Hot Wheels Unleashed. The Hot Wheels racing video game’s early trailers have perfectly hit that commercial-like feel, both in the environments and how the cars look like they’re tearing up the track. It comes off like the perfect nostalgia trip and it’s finally coming out in September.

It’s odd to be excited about a Hot Wheels game in 2021, but there’s something about Unleashed that just hits all the right notes. Every trailer perfectly captures what a Hot Wheels game should look like: flashy cars, crazy environments, and wacky tracks.

Obviously, the game itself will need to play just as good as it looks to be considered a good racing game, but early signs indicate a game that’s going to be full of the nostalgia we all want out of a Hot Wheels game.

Robert Iler played AJ Soprano on The Sopranos, from 1999 to 2007, from the age of about 14 until he was 22, in one of the great “teen dickhead” performances of all time.

Of course, being on television during your awkward, formative years can be traumatic, and even when it isn’t, it can make your life pretty surreal. Iler, who’s 36 now, was on Alison Rosen’s podcast recently, where he attempted to describe what it’s like to be a former television star trying to meet prospective partners on dating apps. For the most part, Iler explained, it’s not that weird, and things aren’t that bad:

“I think now it’s like, everyone’s on these things, and then with Corona on top of that, it’s like, where else am I going to be? I’m very lucky, to me, in a way, because I don’t enjoy fame. Like that stuff doesn’t feel good to me — red carpets, I hate all that shit. But if I’m dating a girl who’s 30 years old, that means she would’ve had to be watching Sopranos when she was… 6? Or like 7 or 8 or whatever? So there’s actually not a lot of women under like 35 who know what Sopranos is, especially if they’re not from the East Coast.”

Ah, well, problem solved, I guess! Except that sometimes people accuse him of posing as the person he actually is:

“I’ve also had people write on there ‘You’re such a loser! You’re using AJ from the Sopranos‘ pictures,’ blah blah blah. Like people who think it’s not me. Girls have gotten really angry. Like, first messages. Like ‘this isn’t you, you f*ckin’ loser!’ So it’s like, the only girls who recognize me talk shit.”

Rosen asked Iler if any of his relationships had begun with this kind of non-traditional meet-cute. Iler, who grew up in Manhattan and since the Sopranos ended has gotten sober and taken up professional poker, explained:

“The way that that message felt, it wasn’t how I wanted to start what I was looking for. I’m looking for a long-term kind of thing, I wouldn’t have wanted it to start with ‘Hey, you fuckin’ loser!’”

Well sure, that makes sense.

Later in the show, Iler talked about his arrest when he was 16 (that he says the media totally got wrong), how the acting life had gotten stale after the Sopranos (mostly because his roles, co-stars, and bosses were never as cool as they were on The Sopranos), and getting sober eight years ago after taking 35 mollies on his birthday. These days he mostly works out a lot, is in a long-term relationship, and runs his own podcast. Which is to say, sounds like a pretty normal 30-something dude. Then again, as a guy who hosts a podcast about the Sopranos, I could be biased.

Incidentally, if you ever want to see some random assortments of celebrities, just image search Robert Iler in the aughts or early 2010s. I think this one was my favorite:

Dammit, Fez, what did we tell you about taking the ladies’ shirts.

In Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights (written by Quiara Alegría Hudes, based on the Broadway show by her and Lin-Manuel Miranda), we’re supposed to be on the side of Nina (Leslie Grace), who wants to leave Stanford to follow her dreams. But her dad, Kevin, is played by Jimmy Smits and Smits has long had a screen presence where it’s very difficult to discount what his character, any character, says. From Victor Sifuentes to Bobby Simone to Matt Santos to Bail Organa and now Kevin Rosario: As a viewer, it’s hard not to look at Smits and think, look, he knows what he’s talking about and he makes some good points.

Smits has obviously been thinking about In the Heights a lot – and what it means, now, to people trying to get back out in the world and what even is that world now. Not just the pandemic, but everything else that’s happened over the last year. Can a movie like this help? Bring a little bit of joy to communities that need it?

Ahead, Smits explains why In the Heights resonated so much with him, reminding him of his family, well-meaning as they may have been, not quite convinced about this whole acting thing. (Namely, hearing things like, if he’s so good of an actor, why isn’t he in a Pepsodent commercial?) Also, he talks about his time on The West Wing, namely the live debate opposite Alan Alda, which to this day is one of the things he’s still most proud of. But, also, politically, we are very far today from what that episode was trying to say. And Smits every so gently hints at what the Star Wars universe still might have in store for Bail Organa.

One of the movies we re-watched recently was Running Scared. It was great to see you in that.

It was fun! It was fun to do at the time.

So in In the Heights, your character is adamant his daughter, Nina, needs to go to college. I know I’m getting older because I found myself siding with that for a while.

But what about when the adult realized that she had a point?

You took me with you on that.

Okay.

But my first reaction was, “You know what? This guy knows what he’s talking about.”

That was a nice little flourish that I think was added when Quiara and Lin realized time had passed, and how could they make the script more current? And touch on some other issues and kind of universal themes? And Jon, he talked about that a lot. The hope that your offspring or the next generation, after working hard, the next generation will benefit from what the society and the country has to offer. And with hard work they’ll persevere and all that stuff. It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to take the job, because I felt like they could bring something to the party with regards to those kinds of emotional tenants that were there on the scene.

His heart’s definitely in the right place. I guess that’s what I mean.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Totally understanding having gone through it myself: Nina’s perspective about having the pressure that we came to this country to do good and all that, and where do you fit in, and those expectations of your family and the larger family, and even the community. That song, “Breathe,” which is one of the earlier songs in the film that really makes you realize this is not just going to be a song and dance. It destroys me in a lot of ways.

Well, that’s interesting, what you just said going through it yourself. Did you get the same kind of pushback from your family when you wanted to be an actor?

No, it wasn’t pushback in the sense of, “No, you’re not going to do it.” Because they weren’t authoritative in that kind of way. But it was that I could see disappointment and a hope that I would find my way. So in other words they would say, “Oh, so you could be a teacher in high school that means, right?” Or when I decided to go to graduate school, “Oh, so perhaps you could maybe be a professor? Is that what this is? What do you have to fall back on with this other thing? These plays that you make us go, where everybody kind of talks funny, that this is called Shakespeare?” You know?

I see.

Because, yeah, their perspective was I didn’t come from a theatrical background, and even going to the movies was something that was a special occasion type deal. It was more coalescing around the television set.

To that point, when was the first time they stopped talking to you about the backup plan? Was it when you got L.A. Law? When were they like, “Okay, we think now you’re doing okay with this?”

Yeah, it was probably L.A. Law. Because even during my work Off-Broadway – and I was doing regional theater around the country at different places, and supporting myself in New York. They have these things called under-fives where you do kind of work on soap operas to sustain yourself if you’re doing a play or something like that. I mean, they would kind of giggle and be happy, but it’s like, “When are you going to do a Pepsodent commercial?” I’m not really that Pepsodent commercial kind of guy!

Wait, wait. Why Pepsodent? Of all the products, why Pepsodent?

Because Latinos… Hey, Mike, if you know anything, Latinos are brand loyal, man.

With Pepsodent?

Like Tide. If you go with Tide, it’s Tide forever.

I didn’t know specifically Pepsodent was one. Okay. That’s good to know.

[Laughs] I’m actually joking because we were a Colgate family.

Okay. Well, now we’ve gotten to the truth.

I just like the way Pepsodent sounds. All cool like.

So you’re reading this script for In the Heights, are you thinking, oh, this is me. I had to do very similar things to what we see in this movie?

Well, yeah. I mean, I could relate to it, certainly. Kevin talks about shining shoes in Arecibo. And when I had a reverse migratory experience – because my family decided to go and live in Puerto Rico for a couple of years, and just pluck us out of New York City school system. And it was like culture stopped for me. All of a sudden I wasn’t listening to Motown, and R&B, and the Beatles, and Ed Sullivan. It was I could name four or five different Latinos that you know: Trio Los Panchos, and Machuchal, different comedians. And it was a traumatic kind of experience, but I remember shining shoes in the town square with my cousins, just like Kevin Rosario did, so there were things that I definitely, definitely related to.

So you’ve seen the movie, right?

Yes.

I know in the current age we live in sometimes it’s hard to see, sometimes it’s not.

But I haven’t seen it with like a group of people.

I only saw it with ten people. It was one of those things where I was like I wish I was in here with 200 people.

Same.

Watching this movie, people dancing in the streets of New York City… As you know, a year ago it was so rough here. It was so scary.

Yeah….

Watching this was just like this feeling of like, okay, I think we made it. I think we’re going to make it through. And I don’t know if it makes sense what I’m saying.

No, absolutely. A hundred percent. First of all, even with ten people, it’s the whole thing about the communal experience where people that you really don’t know, that are all of you in a dark theater, sharing something and feeling the sniffles when they come on, or the laugh.

Right.

Hey, listen, just like what you said, Mike, and especially in New York, I mean, talk about going through the wringer in 14 months. And then the time that the other things that happened besides the health-oriented issues in our society, with all of these social things that have gone on: keywords being used as political footballs, and LGBTQ. I’ll rattle off all the letters: BLM, the whole immigration issue.

It’s forced us to kind of rethink, or think about things in a different kind of way. And as we’re coming out of this, the delivery system is the musical, which is about joy and uplifting and all of that stuff. Hopefully, it’s our little contribution of joy to the society, and things happen for a reason. We were all depressed last year not only because of the lockdown, but the film wasn’t going to come out, and then it was going to come out just on streaming, and what does that mean? That kind of thing like, “What’s wrong with it?” Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s like bottom line: it’s good. And, yeah, I think that stuff happens for a reason.

What you just said made me think about something I actually think about a lot, and I’m wondering if you think about it. When you were on The West Wing, that live episode debating Alan Alda. And Alan Alda’s whole thing is he’s a Republican but, look, he just disagrees with Matt Santos on some issues and that’s it. “We’re not all that different.” We are so far from that now, even in a West Wing heightened TV show version of it, it’s like you couldn’t even do that show anymore the way you guys did it then.

I think about that all the time. And then you mentioned that episode. It’s probably on the one hand counting of the five most significant things artistically that you feel… that live debate episode was just awesome. We rehearsed that as if it were a play. And Bradley, and the work that Alan. And Lawrence O’Donnell actually wrote that particular script.

Oh yeah. It’s incredible.

So, yeah, that was slick. We’re not having that right now, not in our present political dynamic that’s going on.

No.

We’ve got some work to do, man.

Before we run out of time I do want to mention that when you show up in Rogue One, it’s one of my favorite Star Wars moments. You appear from out the shadows as the score swells. I remember the crowd went nuts.

Okay!

You had to know that would be a crowd-pleaser.

No, absolutely not. No, no. It wasn’t like that at all.

Well, people were very excited to see you back.

Oh, thank you. Thanks. Thanks very much. You know, Disney is monetizing the franchise as much they can, so … we’ll see what happens down the line.

Anyway, I’m so glad In the Heights is coming out finally. And like I said, especially as someone who was here during the worst of it last year, this movie is a godsend. It really does hit you.

I really appreciate you saying that, Mike. I know it was tough. Listen, I’m going to get to see my family for the first time in 14 months.

Oh, that’s great. I still haven’t. I’m from Missouri originally. I haven’t been back. I need to get back.

You’re from Kansas City, right?

Yeah. Wait, how do you know that?

Because I do my research too, bro.

Yeah, I have to get back to Kansas City to see my mom. That blew my mind you knew that, anyway.

That’s good. That’s going to be a very emotional thing for you. Just in my Zoom calls with my kids, it’s like I have to walk away when I know we’re ending the conversation. And I’m not even thinking about six months ago when it was like, ooh, really scary. But even now, I just have to… I can’t even say goodbye sometimes. So it’s going to be very emotional that we’re going to get to be in New York together again, and see the film, and think about all that as well. I appreciate your words, man. Thanks so much, man.

‘In The Heights’ is now open in theaters and streaming via HBO Max. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Here’s something I learned today that seems impossible to believe: “The Last of the Starks,” the fourth episode in the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones, aired two years ago last month. If you told me it happened five years ago, I would have believed you. It seems so long ago. But nope, “The Last of the Starks” premiered on May 5, 2019, back when all we had to talk about was a single coffee cup. Simpler times, y’know?

As a refresher: during the “we beat the Army of the Dead and killed the Night King, now everyone gets drunk and horny” scene, a coffee cup can be seen on the table where Daenerys Targaryen is seated. The (not-Starbucks) cup was eventually removed from the episode and one of the show’s producer released a statement about what happened, but not before it was turned into a meme and blame was thrown around. Sophie Turner (Sansa) first condemned Emilia Clarke (Daenerys) for not removing the cup before pointing the finger at Kit Harington (it’s usually Jon Snow’s fault), while Thrones fans believed Turner was the culprit. Clarke later jokingly claimed it was Conleth Hill (Varys) who deserved the scorn, but he denied the allegations. So: who left the freaking cup?

We may finally know the answer.

In a video interview with theSkimm (you can watch it below), Clarke was asked about her drink of choice in the morning. “It’s not Starbucks — spoiler,” she replied. “I’m going to say it again for the record: was not mine. Looking at you Dan Weiss.”

Clarke is referring to D.B. Weiss, who appears in the scene, along with co-showrunner David Benioff, as one of the “two-hundred-odd extras” who “look slightly like a Metallica tribute band,” as she described them. So her theory is plausible. They’re used to getting blamed for things that happened in season eight – what’s one more add to the pile?

(Via EW)