Bill Simmons is a sportswriter, television personality, and podcaster. After many successful years at ESPN as a writer, tv host, and creator (of Grantland & 30 for 30), he signed a lucrative deal to partner with HBO. He currently hosts "The Bill Simmons Podcast", and founded TheRinger.com and Ringer Podcast Network in 2016
Okay, I’m biased as “Magnolia” is one of my all time favorite movies, but Bill went in hard against Melora Walters on the latest Rewatchables, and I just don’t get it. “Not a good actress!” he says. How can you watch her face during the final scene of the film and think this is not a good actress?
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He means he doesn’t think she’s hot enough
ding ding ding! He always does this. This is why he doesn't like Amy Adams. It's also why he said Jodie Foster wasn't good in Silence of the Lambs on that Rewatchables episode, which is insane because she's incredible in that movie.
It was funny when he did this with Marla Singer, because it just proved how he was absolutely the kind of guy who would have fumbled a hot goth chic because he’s a dork
I will always think him wanting to recast Helena Bonham Carter with Reese Witherspoon of all people is the most batshit egregious version of him just wanting to cast an actress he finds hotter. HBC is picture perfect casting.
Or when he wanted to cast pre-fame Sandy Bullock in the Lori Petty part of the less talented, less attractive underdog sister in A League Of Their Own… completely missing the point of the character.
I’m cracking up thinking about Bill hitting on Marla Singer. “So what were the Mount Rushmore of times you’ve been fucked since grade school?”
Not finding Amy Adams hot enough is a take that I truly never will understand.
She’s a piece of ass, but fuckin RUDE.
Amy Adams is beautiful though.
“What if we recast this with Sharon Stone, or…how about this, Sydney Sweeney? Who says no?”
the coomer piece
What’s to get? Neither famous nor hot enough for Bill.
Bill's ability to gauge whether someone is good at what they're doing onscreen is wholly rooted in whether he read someone else's writing on that very same thing. (His boy Rog most frequently)
I remember him criticizing Laura Linney's performance in Primal Fear because "she was clearly not a real smoker," LOL
He literally does not know what to look for, or how to look for it. So when he says something like "Melora Walters is not a good actress" what he means is "I'm not attracted to her, so I'd rather stop looking at her, but they're keeping her on screen, and that's annoying me."
Raj.
I believe he said she wasn't a 'good actress' in the Boogie Nights pod too.
Which is crazy because she has such a perfect broken, trauma survivor vibe about her.
EXACTLY. And Bill is all “why did PTA keep casting this woman to play these damaged characters. Ah well just one of those artistic decisions I guess
It's a wonder PTA has a career at all with these kind of casting choices. Better to have Bill cast them.