Why did Dakota Johnson Li(m)e to us?

This week Daysia is fixated on Dakota Johnson’s lime allergy and Bling Empire while Hannah discusses her love for Variety’sActors on Actors series. We also share our ideas for who should play the next Wonka.

<3

Daysia and Hannah

This Week’s Fixations

What’s taking up our brain space this week?

Hannah: I am the biggest nerd when it comes to learning about how stuff gets made in Hollywood. I am obsessed with craft and examine the credits of everything I watch (you can learn so much, like how Tom Hanks was a producer on both the Mamma Mia movies). I feel a real kinship with Jeremy Strong (famous lover of The Craft aka acting), which is why he is at the top of my list of celebs I want to profile. However, right now I would settle for Jeremy being featured on Actors on Actors—I don’t understand why this hasn’t been a thing yet! Actors on Actors is a little underrated in my opinion but it produces some of the best behind-the-scenes stories told by some of the most famous actors on the planet (way better than a condensed anecdote you’d get on a talk show). From my perspective, the pairings fall into three categories: 1) makes absolute sense and is delightful (i.e. Penn Badgley and Chace Crawford), 2) kind of chaotic but works (i.e. Jennifer Lopez and Robert Pattinson), or 3) better luck next time (i.e. Taron Egerton and Awkwafina). 

The latest season of Actors on Actors has been announced and I’m buzzing because most of these pairings fall into categories one (i.e. Riz Ahmed and Steven Yeun) or two (i.e. Pete Davidson (!) and Glenn Close (!!)). While waiting for the newest season to drop, here are some of my favorite episodes that I highly recommend: either of the episodes with Timothée Chalamet (where he is a fanboy with the best questions for Emma Stone and Daniel Kaluuya, respectively), Rami Malek and Kirsten Dunst (they went to high school together!), or Taraji P. Henson and Ryan Reynolds (nothing better than watching hilarious and self-aware people have a conversation).

Daysia: The only thought I have had all week is this: you’re telling me Dakota Johnson doesn’t actually love limes? It is a well-known fact that Miss Johnson loves two things: her green kitchen and limes. But now, she has revealed to Jimmy Fallon that she, in fact, is allergic to the latter. The limes were a part of the set dressing for the Architectural Digest video tour of her home. She didn’t want to ignore the fruits because they were so plentiful —so she lied. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Dakota Johnson is a bad actor. She joins Robert Pattinson in the camp of chaotic actors who are fantastic at lying.

In other news, I binged Bling Empire last weekend. It’s a lot of the same outrageous exploits of the super wealthy that you see in other shows, just with Asian and Asian American people (groundbreaking!). It’s mostly frivolous, save for some short storylines about reconnecting to estranged loved ones and to one’s heritage, but it’s still fun! It’s very clearly capitalizing off the Crazy Rich Asians fanfare, which Alison Herman smartly notes at The Ringer is in line with other recent reality shows that ride the coattails of popular film and scripted TV trends. There’s a lot of silly drama, but my favorite feud is the one between Anna Shay and Christine Chiu, which I wrote about for Bustle.

Dream Casting

New segment alert! We’re giving you our ideal shortlists for upcoming movies.

There’s a new Wonka prequel in the pipeline and rumor has it Tom Holland and Timothée Chalamet are in the running for the titular role. When we first heard the news, we weren’t particularly enthused. While we are big fans of Timmy and Tommy here, they don’t feel… chaotic enough for the role. It feels better suited for Timothée’s Call Me By Your Name co-star (you know the one) who is probably one of the most unsettling and disturbing people in the biz right now. Perfect for a chocolatier who terrorizes children! However, the movie calls for a twenty-something to play young Willy Wonka (plus, we don’t want to give anymore spotlight to the abusive Winklevoss triplet). So here is a list of actors that we think would be a better fit:

Noah Centineo: Baseline, he meets the criteria of being chaotic and young. He also balances in that precarious place of utterly charming (Peter Kavinsky) and ridiculous (tweeting vague metaphors). 

Lucas Hedges: If we’re going to go with a member of the latest crop of WBOTM, we should at least go with one who could realistically pull this off by giving us something unexpected. Like we know what both Tom and Timmy’s interpretation of Wonka (extremely enthusiastic and wide-eyed but broody, respectively) would be but Lucas could give us something out of the box. 

Jordan Fisher: The man has range. He can dance, he can sing and he is very expressive! He has the right energy to play Wonka and we could definitely see him doing that somersault thing that Gene Wilder entered with in the original movie.

Darren Criss: Similar to Fisher, Criss has the right energy. The characters he typically plays (minus Andrew Cunanan) have the right can-do spirit and optimism required for a Wonka-type candy entrepreneur who’s endearing to kids.

James Charles: We will not be taking questions at this time! Can you imagine him saying “hi sisters!” as visitors enter the chocolate factory? Say what you want about Charles, but he’s high energy! And he can… sing? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Has Lorde dropped a new album? 

Not a peep about anything from Ella! However, Daysia sent me this relatable TikTok about the excellent point Lorde made about living in cities. 

In the meantime, we have been listening to “Good Days” by SZA on repeat and are a lot in love with the collaboration between Billie Eilish and Rosalía on the featured-in-Euphoria track “Lo Vas a Olvidar.”

Too Many Tabs

Our fave reads of the week 

Tavi Gevinson talked to NYLON’s Laura McCarthy about reviving Rookie’s “Life Skills” column as a limited podcast series and the challenges that made her fold two years ago 💔.

The Cut’s Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz talked to infamous stan account @ArmasUpdates about BenAna’s alleged split.

How many executive producers does it take to produce something? The limit doesn’t exist apparently. Peter Funt explores “the plague of executive producers” in The Wall Street Journal. 

GP may have yet another lawsuit on her hands after The Sun reported that one of her vagina candles blew up in a woman’s home. The goopery of it all!

Plus… porn sites are co-opting Bridgerton’s steamy scenes, Olivia Jade returns to vlogging, and J. Lo gets loud at the inauguration.