More from Joel Stein
50 Reasons We (Still) Love Hollywood
Let’s not sugarcoat it — 2023 was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for Hollywood. For starters, obviously, there were the strikes, which for nearly five months turned backlots into ghost towns, costing the industry an estimated $6 billion in lost wages and other collateral economic damage. Then there were the layoffs, beginning […]
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Hollywood Ghostwriters Tell All (Including Their Names)
One of the ghostwriter’s most valuable skills is getting their subjects to talk. So, when I gathered L.A.’s most successful ghostwriters at the Formosa Cafe to gossip, they knew all my tricks. In desperation, I went with the most transparent of all reporting techniques — buying them all fruity cocktails. A reputation for discretion is not […]
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If Other Executives Trolled Critics Like Casey Bloys…
How intense is the pressure of being CEO of HBO? You’re constantly calling Kim Cattrall, enduring the other execs at Craig’s passive aggressively asking how “Max” is going, and ever since his show ended, dealing with John Wilson filming outside your house. But the worst part of the job is that TV critics can just […]
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School of Hard Laughs
On May 5, 1979, the writers of Fantasy Island made a strange decision. After 35 successful episodes in which guests paid to live out dreams such as being a king, marrying a millionaire, finding the fountain of youth and having a harem, they offered viewers “The Comic,” in which a guy gets to be a […]
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Exercising While Stoned: I Tried a Cannabis Workout Class
Being stoned can improve certain activities, such as auditioning for a Takis commercial. Other situations are best avoided, such as legal depositions or, one would think, working out. So I was suspicious when a friend told me that he prefers lifting weights when high. As does Joe Rogan. They claim that being baked helps improve […]
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If Hollywood 2023 Was a Movie…
So it’s a two-hander, a buddy comedy, kind of King of Comedy meets The Odd Couple — but it’s in 3D, like all the movies are now since Avatar: The Way of Water made you forget that it doesn’t work for anything but Avatars. We open with a crane shot on a crowded theme park. […]
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Joel Stein: How Not to Sell Your Hilarious Comedy Pitch
I have started to worry that I suck at pitching. My suspicions emerged from the fact that I’m not selling any shows lately. Also, because the times I have sold shows, I was accompanied by another writer, producer or actor who I split the job with: They explained the premise, and I added, “Yes, exactly.” […]
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“The Mafia of the Acting World”: Hollywood’s Secret Loop Groups
After having worked in television as a writer and also having reported on the industry for more than 20 years, I thought I knew all the steps in production. But I had never met a looper. Or, more accurately, someone who told me they were a looper. On countless sets, watching background actors mouth words at […]
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Joel Stein: How I Made Up With My Agent (Guest Column)
Twenty-two months after leaving his WME rep amid a union standoff, TV comedy writer Joel Stein calls WGA president David A. Goodman for tips on mending the relationship: "You can blame me."
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What Hilariagate Says About You
The prevailing narrative of the Hilaria Baldwin scandal — misshaped by our own parochial identity politics — would have it that the ridiculous influencer was appropriating cultural hardship, when "like so many aspirational people, she was trying to seem fancy"
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Joel Stein Mourns Quibi: “I’m the Only One Who Didn’t Sell Them Stuff”
Joel Stein laments the death of the Quibi streaming service before he could cash in, and not for lack of trying.
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Remember Trump’s Hair Deduction? Joel Stein Wonders: “Can I Do That?”(Guest Column)
When the writer learned about the president’s bizarre tax break, he asked Hollywood stylists how he could have possibly spent $70,000 on hairstyling and asked his accountant if he could expense his own hair.
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