More from Joel Stein
Your Hollywood Career: How to Tell When the End Is Nigh
A scribe who survived the newsweekly apocalypse and then the scripted comedy crash offers some handy tips on when to bail on a failing industry.
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Is OnlyFans Catfishing Its Users?
What happens when the ‘Carmen Electra’ you thought you were sexting turns out to be a middle aged dude in the Philippines? A billion-dollar class-action suit argues the platform’s use of “chatters” is deceptive fraud.
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One Writer Dares to Review ‘Am I Racist?’
Though the anti-DEI film from conservative media site The Daily Wire has become one of the highest-grossing docs of the past decade, top entertainment outlets have declined to review it — until now. Guest columnist Joel Stein ventures to a (not-so-packed) theater in Burbank and tries to keep an open mind.
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The ‘3 Body Problem’ Scene That’s Become a Political Lightning Rod
For conservatives, the opening minutes of the show are a broadside against woke cancel culture. Progressives see it as warning about what happens when science and truth come under attack. Who is right?
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50 Reasons We (Still) Love Hollywood
After a terrible, no good, very bad year, an early Valentine from THR and industry insiders including Aaron Sorkin, Oprah Winfrey and Bob Iger, to a town we just can’t quit (though we know you’ve thought about it).
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Hollywood Ghostwriters Tell All (Including Their Names)
You don’t know their names and you certainly wouldn’t recognize their faces — even if their eyes weren’t shaded out — but chances are you’ve read stacks and stacks of their books. THR sits down with six of the top ghostwriters in the celebrity memoir business.
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If Other Executives Trolled Critics Like Casey Bloys…
After the HBO chief conceded using fake Twitter accounts to vent frustrations, an intrepid columnist imagines how Bob Iger or Jeff Bezos would do the same.
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School of Hard Laughs
A rabbi, Jay Leno and a Proud Boys lawyer walk into a bar … for Adam Carolla’s inaugural Comedy Fantasy Camp. THR tags along as comedians sell the dream to “a rogue’s gallery of people with a slight dusting of misfit.”
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Exercising While Stoned: I Tried a Cannabis Workout Class
Writer Joel Stein samples Stoned & Toned, an online exercise class that promotes the benefits of training while high: “I found myself able to focus on using the exact right muscles.”
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If Hollywood 2023 Was a Movie…
Given how bonkers Hollywood was in 2022, there was only one person who could predict 2023: a comedy writer. We tasked Joel Stein with envisioning the year ahead — then pitch it as a movie. Plus Damon Lindeloff, Jason Bateman and others offer their own loglines.
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Joel Stein: How Not to Sell Your Hilarious Comedy Pitch
After a lean development season, one writer went back to execs to ask what he’s doing wrong in the room.
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“The Mafia of the Acting World”: Hollywood’s Secret Loop Groups
Welcome to the insular world of background voice actors, where major players can rake in up to $1 million a year and "no one gives up their spots, you have to kill someone to get in."
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