It was my sister’s turn to pick the movie at Blockbuster and she’d chosen A Walk to Remember. “Sorry. This is a girl movie,” my mom warned. When we got home and watched it as a family, I didn’t show my tears. Or my desire. I didn’t admit that I loved the movie and, more importantly, loved the lead. The year was 2002 and between Mandy Moore in this movie and Avril Lavigne releasing her debut album, I’d discovered the two types of celebrity crushes that would haunt the rest of my childhood.

Celebrity crushes mean more to queer people than they do to straight people. They can be our first expressions of queer desire or our first expressions of gender envy. They can be a safe place to try out urges that aren’t ready for the real world.

That’s why this week we’re talking with writer and podcaster Jordan Crucchiola all about celebrity crushes. We talk about how celebrity thirsting feels inclusive to Jordan as a panromantic gray asexual person. We talk about how I think most of my celebrity crushes are kind of attainable. And, of course, we talk about the famous older women on Christina’s water bottle.

But first! Christina quizzes me on a topic I know little about — lesbian romance novels

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SHOW NOTES

+ The real romance novels referenced in our game were: The X Ingredient, Breaking Character, Hotel Queens, Payback’s a Witch, and The Brutal Truth.

+ My reference for two lovers sharing a wall:

+ Christina’s reference for two lovers sharing a wall:

+ Here are all of Jordan Crucchiola’s podcasts:

A Simple Podcast
The Whole Movie Podcast
Aughtsterion
Disaster Girls
Feeling Seen

+ My famous Euphoria recaps.

+ If like me, you have no idea who Lindsay Shookus is, here’s a timeline of her relationship with Mr. Jennifer Lopez.

+ This is very brave of me, because I don’t remember everything I wrote on my Tumblr, but here’s a link to my Nicole Kidman project.

+ The Angelina Jolie Rolling Stone cover.

+ A reminder to watch P-Valley and to read Natalie’s coverage.

---

EPISODE

Jordan: Literally every time Jennifer Connelly’s face popped up on screen, every single time I just went, “Oh, God.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, audibly. I, like, gasped and “Oh, God,” like every fucking time.

[theme song plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: And I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to Wait, Is This A Date?.

Christina: You know, Wait, Is This A Date? is an Autostraddle podcast wherein I constantly forget who says what, no matter how long we’ve recorded. Uh, I think that’s actually really beautiful. And my headphones just fell right off my head. So.

Drew: So a strong s—, strong start.

Christina: A strong start. But mostly, it’s a podcast about dating and, like, figuring out what dating is and if we know how to do it, much like I figure out if I know how to keep my own headphones on my damn head.

Drew: That’s great. Um, my name is Drew Gregory. I’m (laughs) I’m, uh… Or do you… But did you want me to dwell on that longer? I’m getting looks.

Christina: No, I’m just dwelling…

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: …on myself.

Drew: Great.

Christina: It’s best if you talk, I think. (laughs)

Drew: Right. Um, uh, my name is Drew Gregory. I am a filmmaker and a writer for Autostraddle. I’m a queer trans woman as well. Those are identity labels that I have. Christina?

Christina: Yes, absolutely. I’m Christina Tucker. I am also a writer at Autostraddle and a podcaster. And honestly, this month I’ve really just been like a girl about town. I’ve really just been like—

Drew: Mm.

Christina: —woman at large, mostly in various—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —beaches, uh, in the Jersey Shore.

Drew: You really have.

Christina: But still feeling very at large and whimsical in a way that now I obviously feel exhausted by.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: I’m Black and gay, and that rocks for me.

Drew: I love that. (laughs)

Christina: Cool. I don’t know why I’m so weird today. I, like, don’t know who I am. What’s going on?

Drew: It’s okay. We’re gonna keep goin’.

Christina: What I do have, though, Drew, is a game.

Drew: Mm-hmm. Thank God.

Christina: And this game I am testing your knowledge of something I know that you don’t have a lot of knowledge about, which is—

Drew: Oh God.

Christina: –fun. Um, it’s a… it’s called… I don’t actually have a name for it. I maybe should’ve thought of a name. But basically, I’m going to give you three lesbian romance titles, and you are going—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —to have to tell me what are the real ones of the three.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Two I have created, one is real. And you’re gonna have to pick the real one and tell me what you think it’s about.

Drew: Great. Okay.

Christina: Are you ready?

Drew: I am. What a great game.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Here we go. The first three. The X Ingredient, The It Factor, and The Truth of Us.

Drew: Huh. It’s funny, ’cause you would think that The X Ingredient would actually be The X Factor along with The It Factor, but—

Christina: Sure.

Drew: I wanna say… I just… Oh, I hope I’m not accidentally insulting you, but I feel like The X Ingredient is the clunkiest, and so you wouldn’t have come up with that. It must be real.

Christina: You are correct. (laughs)

Drew: Yes.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Wow, I’m so glad.

Christina: What do you think The X Ingredient is about?

Drew: Um, I think it is about two lesbians who are exes and end up on the same reality cooking show that’s sort of like Chopped, but, like, somewhere between Chopped and Great British Baking Show. Like, it goes on for a while but it has sort of the elements of Chopped. Um, and they’re exes and it… It’s sort of like a… I don’t know if it would count as an enemies to lovers because they were lovers at one point, but it’s like an exes to back together.

Christina: I love that. I also love that by asking you to tell me what you think these books are about, I’ve just made you create romance plots.

Drew: I love it.

Christina: That’s really fun. Uh, unfortunately The X Ingredient is actually, uh, about an assistant who sleeps with her boss. And when I started reading it last week on the beach, I said, “This is absolutely a Devil Wears Prada fanfic that has turned into a real book.” And when I tell you I read the Devil Wears Prada fanfic, I sure have. So that’s a journey.

Drew: Wait, but why is it called The X Ingredient?

Christina: Well, in the original fanfic, the X ingredient was… There was some sort of reason that Miranda had all of her assistants, uh, eat her out to orgasm. Um.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: Can’t really remember what the, the story, the backstory ,was on that, um, but in the new one, in this actual published version I should say, uh, the X ingredient I guess is, I don’t know, just, like, that her assistant’s hot and she’s like, “Oh, I am gay now and I wanna have sex with her.” Like, I don’t know. The X ingredient is being hot.

Drew: Good enough for me. Okay.

Christina: There you go.

Drew: Round two.

Christina: Round two. Broken Hearts Club…

Drew: Uh-huh.

Christina: …Breaking Character, Going for Broke.

Drew: Ooh, all those sound like they could be real. I really want it to be Breaking Character, but I think Broken Hearts Club is real.

Christina: Unfortunately, Broken Hearts Club is not real. And lucky for you, Breaking Character is real.

Drew: Oh my God, I should’ve just gone with my instinct.

Christina: Go with your gut, babe.

Drew: Breaking Character. Okay, it is about a sort of like the female Daniel Day-Lewis, like a female actor who takes her method acting very seriously, and she develops a relationship with her co-star. But her co-star, it’s unclear for both her co-star and for the actor if the co-star is in love with her or in love with her character. And hijinks ensue.

Christina: Honestly, that is not far off from the actual plot of Breaking Character, which is in fact about two actresses, one who is, uh, been called a bitch but is not really, but is just being, uh, badmouthed by her showrunner because she’s on like a Grey’s Anatomy type medical show—

Drew: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Christina: —that has really gone off the rails. Her character’s the bitch.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: And, uh, her new co-star Summer — that’s right, her name is Summer — is very charming and delightful. And due to very bonkers plot reasons, they have to have a fake relationship. But they’re both gay so…

Drew: So nothing happens. They don’t develop any feelings.

Christina: Yeah, so they don’t… Yeah, nothing.

Drew: They never hook up. No.

Christina: Nothing happens. They never talk about it and they never have sex.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Yep, that’s exactly what happens.

Drew: Sometimes that’s how it goes.

Christina: All right, your next three. Hotel Queens, Media Moguls, or Restaurant Monarchs.

Drew: Okay, I’m gonna follow my instinct and go with the one that I want to be real—

Christina: Okay.

Drew: —and hope that that’s real. Hotel Queens.

Christina: Hotel Queens is real.

Drew: Wow, I’m killing it. (laughs)

Christina: You’re killing this. For a person who does not read a ton of lesbian romance, uh, it’s in your blood, babe.

Drew: Okay, I’m going to now say the plot that I hope it is, though I’m pretty sure based on my understanding of publishing industry this isn’t the case. But I want it to be about two contestants on a show similar to, like, Drag Race ’cause you’re not really supposed to, like, be in each other’s rooms but, you know, they stay in a hotel throughout the entire filming of the show. So they develop, like, a sort of dramatic affair that for a long time can’t be consummated, but their rooms are next to each other so they, like, knock on the wall in between them and then when they are filming, there’s just like all the tension and it’s… And yeah, that’s, that’s what I want Hotel Queens to be about.

Christina: That sounds quite hot. Um, that is not what Hotel Queens is about. It’s just about a woman who runs hotels and, uh, another woman who runs a competing hotel.

Drew: Sure, sure.

Christina: Who works for a competing hotel chain and they, uh—

Drew: Sure, sure, sure.

Christina: —quite literally are hotel queens.

Drew: Sure, sure.

Christina: But I love that energy. I love the knocking on the… Very, uh, knock three times on the ceiling if you want me energy, which I like.

Drew: I was referencing Bright Star, and I love our, I love our different cultural points, you know.

Christina: I love our brains.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: I think brains are so beautiful.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: All right, Paid in Paradise.

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: The Repayment Plan.

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: Payback’s a Witch.

Drew: Oh, Payback’s a Witch sounds fun. I’m going with Payback’s a Witch.

Christina: Payback’s a Witch. And it is fun ’cause it is a real book.

Drew: Cool.

Christina: Tell me what you think Payback’s a Witch is about.

Drew: Okay, I got it.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: So a young gay witch is struggling to make rent in the early months of the pandemic.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: And the landlord is like, “No, you have to still give money.” And she’s like, “But look, like, all these… You know, like, you can’t evict me,” and all these different things and like, “You should give me a break,” and “It’s a pandemic.” And the landlord’s like, “No, I’m a landlord. I hate you.”

And so then she’s like… She goes, “No, I’m a witch,” and so then she starts tormenting the landlord. Love story is not with the landlord, not an enemies-to-lovers situation because—

Christina: ‘Cause landlords are bad. Sure. (laughs)

Drew: But actually she finds out that her neighbor is also a witch and also a lesbian, so they torment the landlord together and fall in love along the way. It sort of has like a Roald Dahl energy, like The Twits. Or Fantastic Mr. Fox. Like, there’s not really, like… There’s not a lot of conflict once the initial conflict happens. Like, the two of them just are like, “We’re both witches. We’re gonna torment this person who deserves to be tormented.” And then they have sex.

Christina: That’s actually really gorgeous. Uh, Payback’s a Witch is about, instead, a woman who is, you guessed it, a witch who returns to her hometown where it’s the only place that she can do magic—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —because there’s like a magic lake. She has been without powers.

Drew: Fun. Ooh.

Christina: Um, and she meets a, a girl she had a crush on in high school. Uh, there’s like a whole very long, like, mystery world-building thing with the town and the families that run the town. They get together. It’s very sweet. Fun book, Payback’s a Witch.

Drew: Honestly, of the ones so far, that’s the one I would most wanna read.

Christina: Payback’s a Witch is very fun. Uh, there is a sequel to that book, but it is unfortunately about straight people. So.

Drew: Weird.

Christina: You win some, you lose some. All right, here’s our final one. Honesty and Second Chances, When Truth Meets Fiction—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —or The Brutal Truth.

Drew: Ooh. I’m gonna go with When Truth Meets Fiction.

Christina: Mm, that is unfortunately from my brain alone. Uh, The Brutal Truth, however…

Drew: The good news is that The Brutal Truth and When Truth Meets Fiction, I think they are both about the same thing and that is—

Christina: Yeah, they would be.

Drew: —novel-length fanfiction of The Morning Show and of Bradley Jackson and her truth telling. But I imagine when it was published, for copyright reasons they did have to change some specifics. So her name is not Bradley Jackson anymore, but it is similarly plotted.

Christina: Which is a shame because Bradley Jackson is top among the greatest character names ever put to paper, um, despite how—

Drew: Absolutely.

Christina: —ridiculous everything about it is. But congratulations on that Emmy nom, Reese.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs) The Brutal Truth is about a media mogul who takes over a struggling paper and falls in love with the crime writer, who writes—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —at the nighttime. Uh, they have a very sweet coming together. The media mogul is obviously very mean and like 20 years older than she is. It’s really incredible stuff.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: And I will, because I care so much for our listeners, obviously include links to all of these actual books in the show notes.

Drew: Incredible.

Christina: And the rest of them, they will go back into my brain where they belong. Also, coming up with titles of books… Like I can come up with plots for a romance novels all day long. Titles is, like, actually shockingly challenging.

Drew: Yeah, you did really good.

Christina: Thank you. I just needed that compliment.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Our very special guest is one of my favorite people to thirst about celebrities with. So special guest, why don’t you introduce yourself so we can get into celebrity crush talk?

Jordan: Uh, hello. Hi, Christina. It is a— And Drew. Hello. I, I am Jordan Crucchiola. And if you listen to any of my podcasts, you may have started with the Simple Podcast which I did with Christina. And as I said when I logged on to this chat, the last time we were on a pod together was when we were interviewing Blake Lively.

Christina: And, as I recall, texting feverishly, uh, off-mic—

Jordan: Yeah.

Christina: —about wow, Blake Lively’s just in a little Zoom corner.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: There she is. She’s got so much hair. What’s happening? She’s talkin’ to us for so long.

Jordan: Go with God, Blake. Thank you.

Christina: It was wild times. Wild times.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Do you want to say a little bit more about who you are?

Jordan: Sure, sure. Um, I, I would like to say that I am a person who loves Drew Gregory’s what I consider to be definitive Euphoria recaps.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Wow. Thank you.

Jordan: There was particular one where, um… Because the show makes me so extremely… Hunter Schafer is, uh, an angel from God.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: And the show makes me extremely uncomfortable in how the single brain trust creator, executor, producer, director, writer, gazes upon Hunter.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: And I found that your assessments of… your putting words to what that show does… I was like, “Thank fucking God someone has sized this up so accurately, because I’m just sitting here angry (laughs) and not able to enumerate all the ways in which I am.” But you did that.

Drew: Thank you so much.

Jordan: And I really appreciate that.

Drew: That is how I started. I started off just angry and then ultimately I’m like, “Well, I have to turn something in, so I better get some thoughts collected.”

Jordan: (laughs) Very much appreciate, your additions to the fraught discourse around Euphoria.

Drew: Thank you.

Jordan: But yeah, I’m a writer. I’m a producer, I make a lot of podcasts.

Christina: You do.

Jordan: Most of them independently just for fun. Uh, started with the Simple Favor podcast, which became kinda The Whole Movie Podcast to anthologize each season. We’ve covered The Neon Demon. The most recent one is all about robot cinema and how oftentimes gay that is.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: With my wonderful co-host, Margot Carlson. There’s always the Aughtsterion, which is a podcast about the intersection of politics and pop culture and horror cinema around the millennium era, and then there’s the Disaster Girls podcast, where I talk about disaster movies, and that one comes out every week. And then there is Feeling Seen, which is on an actual network, Maximum Fun. So I am doing a lot of talking.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: That’s so many podcasts, Jordan.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah. It’s a lot of fun. There are some, some weeks where it happens to be that everything is coming out all at once. It’s like wow. Hey, everybody. This week, you could have six hours of me talking.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Honestly.

Jordan: And this is just one week.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, I get it. I have to say I get it. Like, I understand the urge to be like, “Yeah, I can hop on a mic and talk again. Why the hell not? What else am I up to?”

Jordan: I mean, the best thing that I did in lockdowns was the Simple Favor podcast.

Christina: Mm. We had such a good time.

Jordan: That was the best thing.

Christina: And let’s be honest. We brought back A Simple Favor. We’re getting a sequel now.

Jordan: I will say on this podcast we literally did.

Christina: Yeah. It was pretty cool of us.

Jordan: Because it has been enumerated by both Paul Feig and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer that because of the podcast, they got back to work and started writing A Simple Favor 2 which they then started pitching, which was then bought. So we literally did make a green light for Simple Favor 2 possible.

Drew: That’s powerful.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Christina: We have power. There’s power in podcasting, and I’m always saying that.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: So, Jordan, are you someone who, uh, has a lot of celebrity crushes? Enjoys the celebrity crush?

Jordan: I do. I, uh, love having obsessions and infatuations.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: It’s a key tenet of my personality. I was just actually having this conversation this morning with— I was relaying to a friend the good news of, like, I had heard a story about her where somebody had bestowed a compliment. They were like, “Oh, yeah. My friend met this person.” And they were like, “Your friend is so hot that I felt too nervous to talk to them.” So I was like, “Oh, I of course have to tell hot friend about this development.”

Drew: Sure.

Jordan: It’s very exciting. And so we have this fun back and forth and I was like, “Having really great friends who happen to be hot is like having the best dinner ever. You loved it. It was a perfect evening. No notes. You are happy as can be. And then somebody comes out at the end and tells you it’s fucking free.” And you’re like, “I, I didn’t come here for this. I didn’t expect it. This isn’t necessary. I thought it’s already as good as it gets. And now you’re telling me it’s free? Oh, I accept.” Like, it’s like oh, there’s already a cherry on your sundae? Put a second cherry on that sundae. Like, it’s just nice.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: So I feel like the celebrity crush, the celebrity object of thirst, it’s like I love your work. I like the things you do. You provide that joy into my life. And you’re so hot? (laughs) Amazing. What an additional… What a bonus you’ve given me. And I will say, too, as a panromantic gray asexual person, I find that there is something especially joyful about the nature of, like, online celebrity thirsting.

Christina: Hmm.

Jordan: Like as The Cut said, catastrophic levels of thirst.

Christina: Right.

Drew: Uh-huh.

Christina: Your run me over with a trucks.

Jordan: Yes.

Christina: Or hit me with a lawn mower in the face, et cetera.

Jordan: Exactly.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: That like brand of very internet, desperate, overwhelming sort of expression of attraction is something that I really feel, uh, seen by because sexual attraction for me is an abstract concept. Like, it’s not a thing I’m acting upon. It’s not a thing I particularly have any interest in and never really had. Thirsting in abstract for, like, a person who I will never realize a sexual encounter with, it is like no, this is a level of the sex conversation that I actually feel like I can be a full participant in, in a way that people, you know, sharing stories about actual individuals they’ve had sex with or want to that they could is like, “Oh, I simply have nothing to offer.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Mm.

Jordan: But joining the internet in being like, “Drive me into debt, Rachel Weisz,” like that’s something I can say that is as real to me as it is the people in my mentions.

Drew: Totally.

Jordan: So I find it to be very inclusive.

Christina: I love that.

Jordan: I find the act of celebration in celebrity thirsting to be like a very inclusive space for a panromantic gray asexual person like myself.

Christina: Drew, I want you to talk about celebrity crushes because I think the internet, anyone who follows me on it, uh, pretty aware that I’m quite fluent, and I will happily talk about it later. But I do wanna get Drew’s take on a celebrity crush.

Drew: Mm.

Christina: Because I do feel you go what I call Drew level on a celebrity crush. There’s like another… I feel like there’s another extra, like, brain take that you get to in your little mind, and I want you to talk about it.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: Drew starts ascending. Drew starts going cosmic with it.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Well, I feel like I’m different from both of you in the sense that to me, celebrity crushes… I don’t wanna say feel tangible because that’s thinking a little bit too highly of myself. I mean, look—

Jordan: You’re like, “I honestly feel like anybody I thirst after is accessible.”

Drew: I think by the nature of being someone who’s gender non-conforming in these ways that some people find so alluring and some people could not look at me twice.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Like, I sort of am like, “I don’t know what people are into.” And I also want… I mean, I work in this industry. I want to be more established in this industry. And when you’re famous, then you can just date other famous people. I mean, when you’re not famous, you can date other… you can date people who are famous… I mean, you can, you know. There’s no rule but, like, generally speaking—

Jordan: You can Lindsay Shookus your way into a Ben Affleck situation.

Drew: Who is that?

Christina: Wow. Yeah.

Drew: Wait, who’s Lindsay Shookus?

Christina: She was Ben Affleck’s nanny?

Jordan: Something… Or she was… Or I think she was like a comedian or like a comedy writer or something.

Drew:Uh-huh. sure

Jordan:And ended up… It was like a… Was that a pre-lockdown situation?

Christina:Oh, yeah. That was like—

Jordan: ‘Cause lockdown was Ana de Armas.

Christina: Yeah, that was like 2018.

Drew: Right.

Christina: ’17. Like, that was that was many Ben Afflecks ago.

Drew: Wow.

Jordan: Yeah. That was, that might’ve been the first, like, “Is Ben Affleck with somebody?” when the Jennifer Garner split became official.

Drew: Right.

Christina: Yeah. She was a normal.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, it’s funny ’cause I really enjoy celebrity gossip and I don’t, like, insert myself into it. It’s just there’s, there’s a little part of my brain that’s like, “I don’t know what Angelina Jolie’s into.” Like—

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Right.

Drew: I don’t know what my future holds. I don’t know what her future holds. Like… And I say her because she feels so unattainable… Like, she’s in that tier—

Jordan: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: —where I’m like, “I’m not running into Angelina Jolie.” Like yes, she’s bisexual, but I’m not running into her at, like, queer Hollywood parties.

Jordan: Right.

Drew: It’s different.

Jordan: Yeah, like are famous people even running into Angelina Jolie?

Drew: No, no. Exactly, exactly.

Jordan: Like, kind of seems no.

Drew: Right. But even that level, I’m like, “Look, I don’t know.” Like, I think I’m always… It’s funny ’cause I both am like, “Yeah, maybe Angelina Jolie will someday wanna have sex with me,” and I’m also like, “I don’t believe that anyone is into me until proven otherwise.”

Jordan: Okay.

Drew: In the sense that it’s sorta to me just as likely that, like, some gay famous, or even maybe a step above, person would be into me as it is that some random person who, you know, who I meet at a party or whatever. You know what I mean? And so I think because of that, I’m like… I’m always a little bit thinking about it in a daydreamy sort of way and in a way that is like a little bit tangible?

Jordan: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Drew: Like a little bit like, “Hmm,” especially when you go, like, tiers that are… And because of that, I think I thirst less online… Like, I used to thirst a lot more.

Jordan: Mm.

Drew: And now, I do sorta reserve it for—

Christina: You’ve silenced yourself?

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I reserve it for… I mean, I feel like the last time I really thirsted over someone who wasn’t, like, super, super famous was the star of Veneno, and that’s because, like, we don’t speak the same language so I was like, “We’re not—”

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: “—probably gonna meet. Like, like, we’re not… I think it’s probably safe that I’m not gonna meet that person att a party.” But if I’m publicly thirsting about someone who I might run into, I’m doing it with intention. Like, I’m doing it with a little bit of like, “Maybe I’ll… Like, I’m fine with them seeing this.”

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Christina: You’re doing, you’re doing The Secret. You’re doing like a little bit of the secret.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Just like a little bit. Interesting. I do… I mean, I do know that about you, that you’re always like, “But let’s never say never about anything.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Uh, especially when it comes to, like, “Maybe I will run into a famo and we will fall in love.” Um, and I do… I love that energy for you. I think it’s very—

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: —fun and bonkers to me because I think part of the fun for me is I’m just like, “Well, I don’t know, that’s, like, not an actual person to me.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Like—

Drew: Right.

Christina: That is certainly a person in the world whose, yes as Jordan said, whose work I can absolutely admire and respect, but I’m like, “As for their day-to-day life, oh that simply doesn’t concern me.” Like, that’s not the point.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Whatever.

Jordan: That is why I like the, the sort of internet hyperbole—

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: —form of, like, crushing and thirsting because it creates such a distance between the tangible expression of, like, what you would do to someone or what you want to be done to you.

Drew: Uh-huh.

Jordan: That it, to me, creates a sort of safety mechanism in there where, like, if somebody… If I was talking about how somebody is completely overwhelming me and I feel like I’m just gonna, like, run into traffic or something on that order and they responded, they were like, “Yeah, and she has hot boobs,” I’d be like, “Blocked.”

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: “Get the fuck out of here, you pervert.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, we’re being respectfully out of our minds here. Don’t give me specifics of things that could actually happen. Like, you’re gross. Like, you need to think about this person’s feeling and treat them with respect. So there is… The outsized nature that it can take on is, to me, what allows for it to be a fun thing that we participate in.

I loved this example recently of watching, um, Twitter thirst take hold. ‘Cause I follow a lot of dudes in the action cinema zone.

Christina: Brave.

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Many nice guys, like lovely people. We talk about, you know, fight movies that we love all the time. And I was noticing when the show Reacher came out, the, the Amazon show Reacher with big, huge Alan Ritchson who is a extremely hot, large, chiseled, like, very Midwest American dreamboat.

Christina: Sure.

Jordan: And as the show was coming out week to week, watching these ostensibly heterosexual men just sort of, like, lose the ability to veil their lust for him was an incredible experience. Just like oh my God, all of you are, are so taken by this man who is just A) So beautiful but, like, he’s very masculine, and this show is very masculine. But he’s also a sensitive figure and there’s vulnerability there, but it’s masked.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: And I remember posting something about, like, you know, “I’m so proud of every man on here who is just so obsessed with Alan Ritchson in Reacher that they cannot help but just thirst after him with this homoerotically-charged praise of the work that he’s doing in a show.” And a friend responded to me, this guy who’s a director, and he was like, “No, no, no. Jordan, like, it’s not that we wanna have sex with him. We want to be him to have sex with other women.” It’s like so you’re fantasizing about being inside another man’s body and watching yourself carry out sex acts.

Christina: Still sounds pretty gay. (laughs)

Jordan: Yes, that sounds extremely heterosexual. You’re right.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: Nevermind.

Christina: Yeah, I take it back.

Jordan: And to watch in the safety of this Twitter bubble these dudes all on the same page as each other, this, like, manifesting its way out, it was very, like, “This is beautiful.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: This is what art lets us do.

Drew: I mean, Christina, I feel like you talk about that sometimes, like when I’ll, you know, ask you about your celebrity crushes where you’re like, “I do think it’s more that I wanna be them,” like these sort of, like ice queen, domineering women, that it’s more I wanna be or relate to, even.

Christina: Yeah, I think it is a lot more… I think I have at least the inner knowledge, or maybe a little bit of the self-awareness, like being that person is probably not gonna be super fun.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: But I also have the self-awareness to be like, “But I do see a bit of myself in, I don’t know, the ex-mean character doing some… you know, refusing to be emotionally vulnerable for X, Y, Z reasons.” I’m like, “Yeah, that, that does seem like a real CT moment.”

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: Beyond, like, the building of your brand do you lust after famous people who are more in line with the people who you have, like, romantic and sexual feelings for? And also for Jordan, like, for romantic feelings, is there crossover between the people in real life who you’re drawn to and the celebrities? Or is it like… Are they totally different types of people?

Christina: Mm, mm. Hmm. I think for me, they are pretty different, and I think that’s also just because I, unlike Drew, do not believe that there is even a corner of a world wherein I will run into any of… Say any of the women on my water bottle, I do not think will ever be in my, in my space in real life. So I’m just like, “I do not want to meet my heroes.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: I do not think that’s a good thing to do. There’s only so many famous white women that I wanna meet, and they’re not, uh… They’re a tough brand generally. Um, yeah, I think it is… For me, it is very separate.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Like it’s not to say that I am not attracted or more attracted. It just… it does tend to separate pretty evenly out.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: And I think for me, it’s, it’s all quite equal opportunity. I think they might as well be concentric circles. It’s just, it’s coming with sort of the territory. Famous people tend to be… There’s like an average attractiveness that’s, like, just much higher by virtue of the vicious rules of participating in the machine.

Drew: Sure.

Jordan: So it’s like wow, all of you. But, like, in life? Could be anybody.

But I did fasten on to what you were saying about, like… when you were like, “There is a quadrant of people out there who are either inherently interested in, in me,” you as, as Drew, “because like I am a category that they are enamored of or conversely, a separate category who, like, wants nothing to do with me on principle.”

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: And mentioning Hunter Schafer, like I find myself, like… If an object of thirst is somebody who is demographically different from myself, if it’s a Black woman, if it’s a trans woman… It’s usually women. Sometimes it’s men. It’s usually women. But, like, I feel self-conscious about that kind of public thirsting because I am extremely hesitant to come off as fetishizing somebody.

Christina: Hmm.

Drew: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jordan: Or like, “What, are you just, like, performing this thing because like, ‘Yeah, all inclusive. Come one, come all,’ or like, ‘Okay, we get it. You think they’re pretty’?”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: And so that is, as far as like a self-consciousness goes in like the tangibleness of it, it starts to feel very tangible to me in a sort of like boundaries up kinda way when I feel like I might be coming off as turning somebody into… like, exoticizing them because they fall outside of my accessible range while at the same time being like, “Am I just gonna be posting about fucking Elizabeth Debicki and white women all the time? Because that’s also weird.”

Christina: Well first of all, let’s not step on my brand. Like, come on.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs) I mean, that also, though… It brings up something interesting because there’s the idea of people who have… like, famous people who have, like, different identities than us, but also there’s this something related to that in the way that queer people online will thirst very openly over straight people.

Jordan: Yeah, that’s a great point.

Drew: And will feel this sort of extreme freedom to speak about, you know, the sort of bicurious-seeming, straight-identified famous actors more so than actually queer actors.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: I mean, I think some of that goes back to, like, the lack of… Yeah, like, tangibility or being—

Jordan: Yeah. I feel like the sort of proximity between you and that person.

Drew: It’s a fantasy.

Christina: Right.

Jordan: It gets bigger or it shrinks depending on that.

Drew: Right.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: Well, I think, I think obviously her public image is something… It’s kinda odd to track, um, but I think Brie Larson is a fascinating sort of example of how, like, this fixing on to from, like, queer women onto her and imbuing her with sort of like this implicit queerness that almost becomes a presumed queerness.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Mm.

Jordan: Where it’s like you’re fucking hiding something from us.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Yeah, it’s weird.

Jordan: Yeah. There is like… there is a sort of resentment around what she isn’t that only exists because so much headcanoning has been done about what a lot of people wish she was.

Drew: Right.

Jordan: And again, she’s into the metaverse and, like, she’s… I mean, she’s an interesting public figure to track via social media, but I have no comment on that. An a recent Gawker piece that was about her was absolutely fuckin’ horrible and gross and an example of the bad old days of Gawker and aughts-era blog celebrity journalism that need not ever return again.

Drew: Oh, no.

Jordan: But, like, I feel like she’s a good example of that kind of arc that can happen where it all starts as fun and games and then you keep saying it so many times that it starts to become its own form of reality. And then suddenly, a person or persona is accountable to a fanfictionalized reality that’s like whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. They really have never even… They’ve never participated in this.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: Like, you know, I’m a Kaylor truther ’cause that’s fun, but like, Taylor… And Taylor has her, you know. There’s, I think a worthwhile conversation to be had around, like, Taylor and some queerbaiting. But where does the queerbaiting stop and the presumption of queerness become so fucking intense that queerbaiting appears to be happening at this egregious scale where you’re like, “But guys, she just never said she was bi.”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: And the only visible, actual, tangible evidence we have of this person outside the Zapruder film of her and Karlie Kloss in that club, like beyond that, uh… All evidence in front of us is like, “This is a heterosexual woman.”

Drew: Also, I’m sorry but, like, have you met… Like, straight girls can, like, get drunk and make out with each other.

Jordan: Yeah.

Drew: Like, I mean… Obviously, what is straight? What is queer?

Jordan: Barsexual is real.

Drew: And it’s this thing where you don’t want to just, like, assume people are straight based on… Like, that feels heteronormative.

Jordan: (laughs) I never wanna assume people I think highly of are straight, okay?

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: That’s true. That’s true.

Drew: But there is, there is this thing where it’s like… I don’t know. I think I started making a concerted effort to be thirstier towards queer celebrities over straight celebrities because I was sensing that the safety of them being straight was causing me to lift up—

Christina: Mm.

Drew: Because as we’ve talked about, you’re not just thirsting… It’s not… You’re thirsting over their careers, their art, and their personas as well.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: And so it was like oh, we’re not supporting our own queer people or, like—

Jordan: Yeah.

Drew: And look, there’s room for all of it and I’ll certainly participate in all of it, but I was like oh. And also, a lot the queer celebrities actually have aesthetics that I respond to more both from a wanna be them and a wanna be with them.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: And so, like, why am I obsessing over the one time this straight person put on a suit?

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Instead be like, “What about all these queer people who are doing, like… who are always wearing suits or doing more interesting things with fashion in general or are just like, hot,” you know?

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Wow. Somewhere Cate Blanchett just sat up and was like, “I feel like I’m being talked about.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I have been really anti-Cate Blanchett in the last few episodes of this podcast and I don’t mean to be. I really… I do love Cate Blanchett.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I will say that the way that I express the sort of fantasy celebrity crushes that we’re talking about is in older actors, as in like in Katharine Hepburn.

Christina: Sure.

Drew: Or like I just watched Queen Christina with Greta Garbo and, like there might be a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percent chance that someday I will meet Angelina Jolie and fall in love.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: But there is no chance in hell that I will ever meet Greta Garbo and fall in love.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: Unless time travel gets invented. So I think that’s sort of the space where I do most of my sort of exploratory identity crushes in that sort of way, like with people who… Or even people who are still alive but, you know. Like, I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t still hook up with Jane Fonda, but it’s more of a like, “You’re an icon from another era.”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: We’re not in the same age bracket. I don’t think it’s likely for us.

Christina: Oh, you and Jane Fonda aren’t in the same age bracket?

Drew: I—

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: I learn so much every day.

Drew: Yeah, we really aren’t. And it’s like we’re close, but… Uh, you know. I have a limit.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: But yeah.

Christina: I do think part of it for me is also just, like, my general fascination with celebrity, like, machinations.

Jordan: Mm.

Christina: And, like, the press machine and the way that celebrities present themselves. I have always found fascinating. And especially as they have become, I personally think for worse, more accessible to us watching how they decide to do that and in what ways they decide to do that, and frankly, like, a lot of the times it’s me just being like, “Well, why are we doing that in this way?”

Jordan: Yeah.

Christina: I find that very fascinating to watch, like the behind the scenes machinations of whatever their little brains are doing when they say like, “It’s time to be on Instagram Live today.” I’m like—

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Ooh, boy. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe we should take celebrities off of Instagram Live forever.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Perhaps that’s the solution here.

Jordan: Unless it’s Jojo and she’s singing.

Christina: I mean, but then again, like… How many times over the pandemic does Sarah Paulson get lightly toasted and hop on Instagram Live and, like, steal Holland Taylor’s glasses and just, like, talk about how she didn’t have any eyebrows ’cause she was being Linda Tripp? Sometimes it’s really delightful. And, like, I’m so sorry to Sarah’s PR people because I’m sure they were exhausted those couple of months.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: But I just find the presentation of famous person who is trying to be famous person, but knowable to regular people very fun to dissect and think about just from a PR standpoint because my straight persona comes out and I think about, you know, my career in PR.

Jordan: (laughs) And it’s interesting looking at how the youth handle this.

Christina: Mm.

Jordan: And actors who I really enjoy. Ella Hunt, who was, Sue on Dickinson and who maybe you found in Anna and the Apocalypse before that and thoroughly enjoyed her.

Drew: That movie’s good.

Jordan: That movie is fantastic.

Drew: I love that movie.

Jordan: And Ella Hunt is a firecracker of a person. And over the course of making Dickinson, it became clear that, like, she realized that she was queer. Like as the show was like, “Oh, I think your kind of, like, dabbling in this,” until finally in the last season I remember she was asked about her own possible queerness. And she was like, “I think I am, but, like, I think it’s more of a mentality thing.” She did this thing that kind of separated being sexually queer from being, like, abstractly, intellectually queer.

And a fan responded to her on Twitter and was like, “I love you. You’re amazing. I love the show. But it really, actually hurt me when you said that, like queer is a mindset, ’cause, like, a lot of of us are queer in, like, a full-body, total way, and it’s not easy for us out here and it’s not just a thought process we can dip in and out of sometimes. And so, like, I just… Like, I love you. I think you’re the best. But I just wanted to express to you why that made me uncomfortable.”

And she responded back to that fan and was like, “You know, you’re right. Like, I can say that and there is so little consequence of me being able to just, like, say like, ‘I’m queer in spirit. When the reality is I’m getting used to talking about this and I don’t know how yet and I am queer. I do experience a range of sexual attraction to men and women,” and she clarified it. And I was like… That level of accountability. It like… And it made… Because she posts for the gays.

Christina: She really do.

Jordan: She loves to post for the lesbians. And to state it explicitly like, “This is for the lesbians.” And I think the delineation between doing that, like thirst posting for the gays and saying, “This is for the gays,” when you have said, “I am queer. I am among you. I am one of you,” that suddenly feels like a joyful thing to see and witness and participate in whereas before, it’s like it’s a cute thing you do, but also, like, at the end of the day, this is drag for you.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: So is that okay that you’re doing that?

Christina: Mm.

Jordan: Like you’re not queer. But then when she’s like, “Actually, I’m learning how to talk about it…” Now I think it’s just the cutest thing and I’m like, “Look at this early twentysomething coming out of basically her college age years and being like, “This one’s for the sapphics out there,” and she’s, like, posting pictures of herself in Miu Miu designer lingerie. It’s like okay, great. Yeah, because you’re part of the gang.

Christina: Now you’re part of the club.

Jordan: So it’s something that you are sharing in with people and you could be thirst scrolling on your own time looking at whoever, men, women, all inclusive. But, like, you’re not just dipping in, throwing out a treat for the queers then being like, “Then I’m gonna retreat to my beautiful cishet, normative, wealthy life, and, like, you guys can deal with the consequences of how your feelings are trapping you in perhaps a place you don’t wanna be.”

Christina: It’s like Pride Month for celebrities.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I think that’s why when there are celebrities where I’m like, “I think that person’s queer,” and I will get a little obsessed with them, I just get… It’s not on principle like, “I no longer am obsessed with you because you’re still either straight or closeted.” I just find I get tired of it. Like, they just don’t stay in the rotation of longterm crushes.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: But I don’t know. It’s interesting ’cause when I was younger, my version of run me over with a truck was, “I want to marry that person.” It was very much like, “Oh, I wanna be them.” I look back on who those people were and they were just all these people who I was associating with a certain type of femininity that I wanted to be. And it’s interesting to track that to me being like, “Someday, I could be with Angelina Jolie,” because—

Jordan: As somebody whose first love was Angelina Jolie, I’m loving her as the static example.

Christina: Yeah, I love that she’s like the one.

Jordan: Yeah. She’s the one.

Drew: It makes me think that as I have, you know, come into my queerness and my transness and feel very sort of settled into my identity as anyone can be settled, whatever, but those things are becoming more the same. Not like who I wanna be with and who I wanna be, but the life that feels tangible and the life that feels fantasy for me in the sense where I’m like… When I say that, what I’m saying is I wanna be successful enough in my career that I could be in the same circle as Angelina Jolie.

Christina: Sure.

Jordan: Yeah.

Drew: It’s also a declaration of fantasies that go beyond sort of the vagueness that I couldn’t name back in, you know, my high school years.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: I was gonna ask if, if you found that… Like, if as you realized yourself fully into something not, like, necessarily like, “I am Angelina Jolie.”

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: But, like, into—

Christina: Drew’s final form. (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Yeah. Like maybe. Like, as you realize yourself fully or are realized fully, do you find that the objects of your desire have evolved away from what they used to be because these were people that were, um, they were previously perhaps figures that you were modeling yourself on and towards?

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: And now that you have modeled that and you are that, is the objects of desire, then, are they something different than what they formally would’ve been? Because it’s like oh no, these were people I was, like, aspiring towards. And now that I am that, a form of that, I now desire something that is quite different, or is it pretty consistent?

Drew: Um, I think it’s definitely changed, but it’s interesting ’cause it’s not that I actually attained what I was desiring.

Jordan: Jolie’s Jolieness.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: But see, like, Angelina Jolie wouldn’t have been on my list as a teenager. Like who I would’ve thought of as a teenager was like Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan—

Jordan: Classics.

Drew: —Michelle Williams, the actor. Like it was people—

Christina: Please, use her proper name: White Michelle Williams.

Drew: (laughs) Yes.

Jordan: (laughs) White Michelle Williams.

Drew: It was a sorta pixie cut, teeny-tiny, petite femininity. Like, this sort of idea that I had, this very narrow, societally-created idea of, you know, what womanhood I could aspire to.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: I didn’t realize it was happening, but, um… And I didn’t become that. At a certain point, I didn’t have interest in becoming that.

Jordan: Right.

Drew: I mean, I still think, you know, they’re good actors. Especially Michelle Williams. She is still among my favorite contemporary actors, but they don’t consume my thoughts the same way.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: But I do think a lot of the people now who I have crushes on— Which I actually really wanna do for all of us. I know we have our final segment, which will be crush specific, but I wanna get into who are the people who have lasted over time. For me, a lot of the people who have lasted over time are the ones who maybe are more in the fantasy space of old Hollywood.

Jordan: Mm.

Christina: Interesting.

Drew: And I think in the present day, it really fluctuates. I don’t have celebrity crushes the same way I used to. I think now, beyond the old Hollywood people, I mostly will, like… I’ll watch an indie queer movie that will star an actress who is in my age range, has been in like a handful of projects, and— This is not me confessing that my current relationship is because I had— I had not seen any of Elise’s work before. (laughs)

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Um, I just wanna clarify that.

Christina: I was just, I was just gonna sit here silently and be like…

Drew: But I do think that now, being really like, “Oh wow, that person’s really compelling. I wanna, like… I wanna be their friend, even.” Like, I just… I get drawn towards people who are more like at my level or like a step or two above. I respond to the, like, icons like Angelina Jolie in a very different way where I’m just like, “I really like your work.” I’ll get, like, sort of obsessed with their movies. And I don’t necessarily call it a crush, but I guess it is a crush. Like, I watched every — not every but most — Kirsten Dunst movies earlier this year in the span of like a month. And that was something like a crush.

Jordan: That’s a robust filmography, so yes.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: You also had your Nicole Kidman phase to.

Drew: I did have my Nicole Kidman phase where I did watch every one that was available, and she works a lot. I watched… I think the project ended up being a 56-film project. I was going through depression. This was 2018.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: It was a long time ago. But I guess those would be crushes. I guess what I’m realizing is that as the years go on, what I would’ve maybe before just been like, “I have such a crush on this person.” It now becomes more stratified into all these different ways of expression. And I guess they do count as crushes.

Christina: Wow. We really learned something about you.

Drew: Yeah. What about the two of you? Who are people who have really stuck with you over the years, or who you’re sort of circling around now?

Christina: Well, I mean, Catherine Zeta-Jones has been kind of— I mean, that was, uh, many would say, my gateway drug into being a lesbian. Which is actually interesting ’cause now when I think back on it, I famously, or not that famously, depending on, uh, how often you listen to me talk on podcasts, had a very large wall of exclusively Catherine Zeta-Jones’ photos in my bedroom as a child. And I would be furious when my parents suggested that perhaps I was some kind of gay.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: I was like, “I don’t know why you would say that,” and then I’d, like, turn back to the printer and, like, waste 18,000 more dollars of printer ink printing out stills from Chicago.

Jordan: Looking over your shoulder as you’re tacking another photo up on the wall.

Christina: On the wall opposite, I had, like, a very halfhearted just like… There was like three… It was like, uh, Viggo Mortensen from Lord of the Rings.

Drew: Not a lesbian at all. No.

Christina: .Just like three men kind of stabbed at random into the wall. And I was like, “Yeah, and also these guys.” Like, okay. Didn’t try very hard at that. But I definitely, as I was going through my early adulthood and was like, “Yep, I guess I’m just straight but a great ally,” I did a lot less of my, like, what my brand is now, my public thirsting, and I don’t really think it was until I came out and was like, oh, now this is fun again to just be publicly like, “That lady’s hot as hell.” Like, that’s really fun now in a way that I just felt kinda locked off from when I was pretending to be a straight person.

But yeah, Catherine has been… God bless her. She is… Talk about a lunatic Instagram presence. My lord. She’s really been up there for many years for me. But I really do like… it kind of just rotates. It’s like what am I watching at the moment? My lock screen will be dependent on whatever television show I just binged. And that actress will probably stay that lock screen for a period of time, and then I will watch something else and that will be my new hyperfixation for a couple of months and then will just… It’s like this unending circle for me.

What about you, Jordan?

Jordan: Um, it really happens to be… Like, the impetus is Angelina Jolie.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: That really…

Christina: A classic. A classic of the genre.

Drew: Love it. My future wife.

Jordan: Yeah. Your future wife, friend, collaborator.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: All of the above. I was doing a Q&A for, um, a horror movie, The Lodge. And it had Lia McHugh? That little girl who was also in The Eternals. And this happened really shortly before lockdown, and she was just coming home from being off of six months of filming The Eternals. And I’m standing there talking to her mom, a lovely woman. And her mom was talking about how just, like, Angie—

Drew: Sure.

Christina: For those in the know.

Jordan: They were just set moms together. And just telling me the most ordinary, adorable, dorky stories about knowing this person and, like, coming to know her and their kids hanging out and they all love horror movies. They watched horror movies together and how on Halloween, Lia and her mom were in their little apartment they were staying in and all the little Jolie-Pitt children come, like, running up and scare them in the sliding glass window wearing spooky masks. And then Angelina Jolie walks up in a spooky mask and scares them too. And I was like, “It is still my dream that Angelina Jolie would come scare me in a spooky mask at a fuckin’ sliding glass door.” Like, I was listening so intently while trying to come off as just, like, unmoved and being like, “No, I wanna hear every fucking-thing you can tell me about this person.”

Christina: I need every detail here.

Jordan: I need every normal detail you can share ’cause, like, I remember when I was, uh, 15, it was like on my 15th birthday, I went to see Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with my best friend at the time, Christine.

Christina: Talk about a gateway drug.

Jordan: Talk about a gateway drug.

Christina: Hoo.

Jordan: My life had already been positively fucking shattered by Gia.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: A movie and… Elizabeth Mitchell.

Christina: Elizabeth Mitchell.

Jordan: Fucking formative. Elizabeth Mitchell and Angelina Jolie both. Probably started with Gia. Unyielding still.

I watched Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Get back. We walk to my grandpa’s house afterwards. We were gonna go swimming in the pool. He was not a subscriber to Rolling Stone magazine, but a Rolling Stone magazine was sitting on his table, and it was the cover of her photographed by David LaChapelle wearing, like, the white linen and the cover line says, “Blood Sugar Sex Magic.” And she’s laying there, like finger pulling down the lip, like exposed, like, hip bones tattoo. And I picked it up and I was like, “Grandpa, can this be my birthday present?”

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: And he was like, “Yeah, it’s here on accident. You can take it with you.” And it was, like, reading that profile, I decided to become a journalist because I needed to put myself in a position where I could be writing a profile about Angelina Jolie.

Drew: Wow.

Jordan: Where I could be in proximity of this person. It was just like that… through that figure, through the figure of her, I learned what obsession was. I learned what obsession was.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: Probably the youngest, most fixated-upon, uh, figures for me were Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Connelly. Opportunity Knocks, both that and Labyrinth, of course, made big impressions. And that was when… And, even, like, watching Maverick recently, literally every time Jennifer Connelly’s face popped up on screen, every single time I just went, “Oh, God.”

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, audibly. I, like, gasped and “Oh, God,” like every fucking time. And it’s just like wow. You just get more resplendent as the years go on. So I wanna say those are two that have always been very, very enduring for me.

Christina: I will say I worked at a farm stand when I was in high school in Upstate New York, and Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany entered the farm stand I worked in. I looked at Jennifer Connelly and said, “That woman looks like a shorter Demi Moore.” And then I said, “Well, that’s because it’s Jennifer
Connelly.” And they were… She and Paul and their two or three children — cannot remember how many they have — all dressed in white.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: They purchased some baked goods and I believe some pumpkins and then they simply floated away. And I was like, “Okay.”

Jordan: (laughs) There they are.

Christina: Famous people. There they go.

Jordan: Wow.

Christina: There they go being famous.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: It’s happening. Okay, they’re real.

Jordan: (laughs) They’re real.

Drew: The last thing I wanna touch on is I know for me, I really like talking about celebrity crushes with people who I’m dating, with partners, with people who I’m flirting with. It feels like the sort of fantasy space that we’re talking about. It feels like a really sort of low stakes way of flirting, of talking about attraction. Of talking about what we’re into. Like, how does that manifest for both of you?

Christina: I will say it has manifested in a lot of friendships for me because I do absolutely find and make a lot of friends on Twitter via the thirst.

Jordan: I think that’s how the Simple Favor podcast happened.

Christina: I quite literally do.

Jordan: It was a thread about Blake Lively in suit GIFs.

Christina: Yeah. And, um, I do meet a lot of people in that space, though I tend to meet a lot of, like, bottoms, just like a lot of fellow bottoms who’ve all come together in my DMs in a way that I think is beautiful, but in a way that we’re all like, “Hmm, probably nothing’s gonna happen betwixt us. But like, God bless. Go off and, you know, get stomped on by somebody that’s probably not gonna be either of us.”

Jordan: We’re not gonna make that move.

Christina: Just to be as CT as possible, you know?

Jordan: (laughs) Yeah. For me, I think that is… Despite the fact that I’m not having sex with anybody nor have I, to me that is… it’s one of my favorite conversations to have. Like, what Christina, what you were saying, being so interested in the machinations of celebrity and the performance of persona and as I get older, the performance… the awareness of, like, the performance of gender. Like, if I meet people who will get maybe not as, ’cause I’m a very animated individual, but will get, like, as close to animated as I do about these kinds of conversations and I realize that we are both compelled by, like, the sociology of celebrity and aesthetics, then I’m like, “Oh, we’ve got something here.”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: We are bonding on a specific level where like we could take this conversation one table down and they’d be like, “This means literally nothing.”

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: “And is the most superficial, insubstantial thing you can be saying.”

Christina: This is gobbledygook to me.

Jordan: And I’m like, “But the thing is, it’s what’s makes the world go round.”

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: That overriding sensorial power of a beautiful person in front of you is such an incredible fucking magic trick that, like not many people have and when they have it, it’s not because they asked for it or they practiced it, it’s just because it’s there? Remarkable. And I wanna be around that and I wanna talk about that, and so if somebody can get on this conversation path with me about this thing, I’m like, “Oh yeah, we have the sustainable, good foundation for a friendship here. Yes.”

Christina: It’s true. As a person who is friends with Jordan, now every time I watch something that I know— Like when I started watching The Expanse, I was like, “The fact that I know I can text Jordan about this, this is gonna be so fun.”

Jordan: Yes. (laughs)

Christina: This is gonna be so fun and so unhinged, and we… the two of us—

Jordan: So unhinged.

Christina: —are about to lose our minds in the text.

Jordan: Yeah, we’ll just text back and forth, like, Elizabeth Mitchell stills to each other, and it’ll be a meaningful conversation.

Christina: Yeah. Meaning, meaning.

Drew: Okay, this feels extremely redundant, but should we move to crush corner?

Christina: I know. Now I’m like, “Whomst among?”

Drew: Start us off.

Christina: Yeah, start us off.

Jordan: It’s, uh, Kelly Reilly, star of Yellowstone.

Christina: Wow. Okay. Bringing Yellowstone into the pod.

Jordan: Star of Yellowstone. The first time I experienced Yellowstone, it was when I was home for Christmas. And my sister and her husband, they watch it, love it. My mom, it’s become her whole personality.

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, it is. But, like, I remember when I got there and, like, Yellowstone was on ’cause it’s always playing on Paramount Network ’cause they’re like, “This is the thing we have,” and that—

Christina: True.

Jordan: Like, it was on. And mom was like… And Spencer was like, my brother-in-law, he’s like, “We have to turn this off. And don’t bring up Yellowstone around your mom. She will not stop talking about it.” And she won’t. And if you don’t like a character she likes, she will defend them like they are her family and you are not. So, like, I watch enough of it to see Beth Dutton be a catastrophe.

Christina: Good.

Jordan: And I was like… My mom and Riley and Spencer were there. I was like, “Who is that character?” And they’re like, “Oh, that’s Beth. She’s Kevin Costner’s daughter in the show. She’s a nightmare.”

Christina: I forgot Kevin Costner… Wow, what a show.

Jordan: And I was… They talk about, like, just what a horrible bitch she was. And I was like, “Okay, she’s my favorite character and she’s why I’m gonna watch Yellowstone.” And my mom was like, “Oh, no. She’s awful.”

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: I was like, “Which is why she’s my favorite character and why I’m gonna watch Yellowstone.”

Christina: Like, what’s not clicking?

Jordan: I was like, “Mom, you don’t understand how Twitter watches television.”

Christina: Yeah, no.

Jordan: She’s gold.

Christina: You have to find the villain. You have to find the villain.

Jordan: The villain. And like the first time I ever saw her in anything was the absolutely godawful season two of True Detective where she was wasted and inexplicable and, like, what is any of this? So to see her getting to just slur her way through lines and ruin people’s lives being gorgeous, I’m just like, “Oh, this is… You are a zenith.”

Christina: Oof. Good one. Drew, who do you have this week?

Drew: I’m doing the entire cast of P-Valley.

Jordan: Oh, yes.

Christina: Gorgeous.

Jordan: Great choice.

Drew: It is such an incredible show. I’m just— every, every week watching an episode and I’m just like, “It’s just better and better.” It’s so good. The first season was incredible. The second season? Somehow better. And the cast is so attractive. Especially gonna shout out Brandee Evans as Mercedes. Best character. Great show.

Christina: Hmm.

Drew: But even the, like, straight people who I don’t like… The characters are servicing the show so it’s fine, but, like, I don’t like them. They’re not the storyline I care that much about. Whatever. When they have sex, it is so hot. And I am so invested in it. And, and I’m like, “I don’t really care about, like, your inner dealings and workings and you’re running for mayor and all the stuff. I don’t care. But you are so hot when you’re having sex.” And this is straight people. And so when the queer people are hooking up, it’s… I… I love… Oh, it’s so good.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: What a great show. What a great show. Katori Hall, incredible playwright and incredible TV writer.

Christina: I love it.

Jordan: Outstanding.

Christina: Uh, my crush this week, the one, the only Sheryl Lee Ralph.

Drew: Yes.

Jordan: Outstanding.

Christina: You know…

Jordan: Emmy nominee?

Christina: Emmy nominee.

Jordan: Emmy nominee.

Christina: And I would like to say I’m thrilled that she is nominated for Abbott Elementary. I am just appalled that this is her first Emmy nomination.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Her first Emmy nomination.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Just to repeat that. This is the Sheryl Lee Ralph, a woman who was so powerful in Sister Act 2 that I thought singing in a choir in your Catholic school was adjacent to doing drugs.

Drew: (laughs)
Christina: Because that was the energy that she brought to that performance. And I love everything that she does. I feel comforted when I see her face. She has a very chaotic Instagram Reel, TikTok presence, which is very often just her walking around in her pool. I think it’s great. I want nothing but the best for her, and I think she’s the perfect woman.

Drew: Incredible.

Christina: And that’s the story of her. (laughs)

Jordan: Amazing.

Drew: Incredible. Jordan, tell people where they can find you and all of your podcasts.

Christina: And all 18,000 of your podcasts.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Which we will valiantly link to.

Jordan: Thank you.

Christina: We will find every single one of them.

Jordan: You can find me on Twitter, @JorCru, J-O-R-C-R-U, and then, uh, yeah, Disaster Girls, we’ve been on a bit of a summer break lately but otherwise, like, there are more than a hundred episodes of that. There’s a big back catalog and it’s a weekly pod. Aughtsterion will be coming back very soon, and we have a very special guest for episode number one that I am very excited to debut.

The Botcast just wrapped up, so you can listen to that eight-episode series that we just did. And then there’s the Maximum Fun podcast which comes out every week. And we’ve had awesome people on like Chris Landon talking about seeing himself in Mommie Dearest. And Bridget Everett was on talking about seeing herself in the movie Rudy. We’re having very nice talks with people, and so I would like for you to come and listen to us and check us out.

Christina: Bridget Everett, who was robbed of an Emmy nomination I would say.

Jordan: Absolutely. Absolutely agree.

Christina: Wow. Thank you so much for joining us and talking about being run over and doing all of the things that we love to do here on this pod and on the internet.

Jordan: Thank you so much for having me. I very much appreciate being asked, and I’m so happy to have been podcasting with you once again.

Christina: Yay.

Jordan: And to meet the Drew Gregory. Wha-what… I mean, what honors abound?

Christina: Yes. She’s famous. She’s a star.

Drew: Thanks.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This A Date?. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at @WaitIsThisADate, and you can email us at [email protected].

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein, our logo is by Maanya Dhar and this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok at @draw_gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter at @C_GraceT and on Instagram at christina_gracet. And you can find Autostraddle, of course, at @autostraddle.

Drew: And you can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com, the reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Uh, Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually that’s really interesting that you ask that, because scientists are, at this very moment, hurriedly trying to figure this out. And we have some of our best scholars on this, um, on the case here. We don’t have an answer, uh, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them and us the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): Does a celebrity crush stop being a celebrity crush once you get to know someone? And two, does interviewing someone from professional context count as getting to know them? This is total hypothetical.