The Ben Shapiro Show - September 03, 2026


Ryan Reynolds Has a Bizarre Take on '80s Nostalgia


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

190.31

Word count

1,846

Sentence count

140


Transcript

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00:00:00.000 So, the Venice Film Festival is currently happening, and that's usually where a lot of the Oscar bait films go to premiere, and all the actors show up and they do QAs and all the rest of this thing.
00:00:08.000 Well, it's always where actors also say kind of dumb stuff.
00:00:12.000 And we have some good examples.
00:00:13.000 George Clooney was there talking about how we're experiencing difficult times in the United States.
00:00:19.000 Wise leader, George Clooney.
00:00:24.000 We've had some other difficult times, but this is one of them.
00:00:29.000 There's a great word, cacistocracy.
00:00:32.000 Which is a country run by the least qualified people.
00:00:36.000 I think maybe we have a cacistocracy right now, but we'll get through it.
00:00:40.000 And we will have an election in November that should be a check and balance.
00:00:44.000 And then in 2028, with any luck, we'll have some restoration.
00:00:50.000 Again, he says that American politics is a joke.
00:00:52.000 Don't worry, we'll get through it.
00:00:53.000 Thank you, George Clooney.
00:00:54.000 I was so worried.
00:00:55.000 I need your guidance.
00:00:57.000 In fact, I need George Clooney, who is very, very wealthy, to tell me that it's actually the rich people who are somehow betraying us.
00:01:03.000 It's the rich people.
00:01:05.000 I'm always bewildered by this particular argument.
00:01:07.000 You know, because most of the people I know who are rich were at some point in their life not rich.
00:01:12.000 And they're kind of the same people.
00:01:14.000 This is the entire sort of class based distinction that people want to make in America that really applies more to kind of old Europe.
00:01:21.000 It's always bizarre to me.
00:01:23.000 Like, thank God I now make a very good living.
00:01:26.000 There was a time when I made a lot less money.
00:01:27.000 I'm the same human.
00:01:29.000 I just have more money now.
00:01:29.000 Nothing changed.
00:01:31.000 But to George Clooney, who also at some point, I assume, was not particularly rich and then became very rich.
00:01:37.000 People with the most money are the ones who are telling us to fear one another.
00:01:41.000 It's so tiresome.
00:01:42.000 You are a man with much money telling us we need to fear one another, George Clooney.
00:01:45.000 It is you.
00:01:46.000 Do you own a mirror?
00:01:47.000 You're very rich.
00:01:48.000 You can afford a mirror.
00:01:49.000 Or is George Clooney being George Clooney?
00:01:52.000 We're living through a moment in time where people in charge, the people with the most money, are telling us to fear one another.
00:01:58.000 Fear one another.
00:02:01.000 But we know better than that, don't we?
00:02:05.000 Because history does teach us a lesson.
00:02:07.000 Teaches us something.
00:02:09.000 The first people that authoritarians try to shut down are not politicians.
00:02:13.000 They're journalists who ask questions.
00:02:15.000 They're the artists who refuse simple answers.
00:02:17.000 They're the filmmakers, writers, actors, and musicians.
00:02:23.000 Oh, it's the artists who bring us together.
00:02:25.000 That's who brings us together with films that label half the American population horrible and film festivals that refuse to acknowledge the existence of other worldviews.
00:02:34.000 Ryan Reynolds shut up.
00:02:35.000 Does Ryan Reynolds militantly want to destroy his brand?
00:02:38.000 Is that what's happening right now?
00:02:39.000 Is that what's happening right now?
00:02:41.000 Between the Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Taylor Swift, Justin Baldoni drama.
00:02:46.000 But Ryan Reynolds did not come off well at all.
00:02:49.000 And now Ryan Reynolds just kind of getting overtly political because he happens to be in Venice.
00:02:56.000 I don't know, man.
00:02:56.000 What are you doing?
00:02:57.000 What are you doing?
00:03:00.000 What's interesting about when you get far enough away from a time period that's quite distinct, I think there's always a lovely feeling associated with it.
00:03:07.000 It's almost like you pave over all the trauma with puppy dogs and ice cream.
00:03:11.000 And the 80s was a brutal, brutal time for people.
00:03:14.000 It was a.
00:03:15.000 Miss.
00:03:16.000 Like, you know, people forget that it was like that was a tremendous strife, sociopolitical tensions everywhere.
00:03:22.000 You know, we're still like pretty fresh off like a Cuban missile crisis, which is only like what 15, 20 years before.
00:03:28.000 So, you know, it's a tumultuous period, but you look back at it now and you're like, oh yeah, Top Gun, cocaine.
00:03:35.000 Like, no, it was like really scary.
00:03:37.000 So I think, you know, I think when you look back at 2026 and this era, I think you're going to like pick on the big ticket items that don't really, didn't really leave the Footprint culturally that you would think it would.
00:03:49.000 Like, I don't know.
00:03:50.000 So much of the aughts were like a mix of all the decades previous, whereas the decades previous were their own thing.
00:03:56.000 So I don't know.
00:03:58.000 It's going to be like, oh, the COVID era.
00:03:58.000 I wonder what it's going to be.
00:04:03.000 Hey, don't worry.
00:04:04.000 The 1980s, you don't remember it properly.
00:04:05.000 Sure, the 1980s were kind of great, but you remember it poorly.
00:04:08.000 Ryan Reynolds remembers it really well.
00:04:10.000 Ryan Reynolds must have been suffering deeply in the 1980s in some unspecified way.
00:04:16.000 We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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00:05:19.000 Now, Maggie Gillenhall, who is on the board of the Venice Film Festival, she says one of the great tragedies of filmmaking right now is that it's very hard for women to get their films financed.
00:05:28.000 I mean, first of all, let's be very clear.
00:05:29.000 It is very difficult for anyone to get their film financed because film is expensive.
00:05:33.000 That is a reality.
00:05:35.000 Maggie Gillenhall, I mean, Like, can we point out at this point that Maggie Gyllenhaal has had films financed that are some of the worst films in human history?
00:05:47.000 What was Maggie Gyllenhaal's latest film?
00:05:48.000 I just have to look this up because, as I recall, it was a piece of.
00:05:52.000 I mean, her last film, The Bride, is one of the worst movies ever made, ever.
00:05:52.000 Oh my God, yes.
00:06:00.000 And it had a huge cast.
00:06:01.000 It was Christian Bale and Jesse Buckley.
00:06:05.000 It had a budget of 80 to 90.
00:06:08.000 Million dollars, 80 to 90 million dollars.
00:06:10.000 It did 24 million dollars at the box office.
00:06:12.000 Lady, I'm pretty sure if it's hard for you to get financed, it's because you financed a project to the tune of 80 to 90 million dollars that made 24 million dollars at the box office.
00:06:21.000 Unless people not understand how budgets for film work, that budget is just for the film.
00:06:26.000 That does not include what's called the P and A, meaning the print and advertising campaign, which usually is as much as the budget.
00:06:34.000 So that movie cost probably at least 150 million dollars to make 24 million dollars.
00:06:39.000 At the box office.
00:06:40.000 And then she's like, why won't anyone fund me?
00:06:42.000 I don't know, because somebody could probably find a better way to flush $120 million down the toilet.
00:06:46.000 Probably it's that.
00:06:47.000 Here's Maggie Gyllenhaal complaining about how difficult it is to get films funded after, again, suckering someone into paying for one of the worst movies ever made.
00:06:57.000 I do think it's much harder for women to get their films financed.
00:07:00.000 Also, could it be possible that the things that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about? Are not always deemed high art.
00:07:17.000 Who decides what's good?
00:07:19.000 Who decides what's valuable?
00:07:21.000 I will also say, sitting next to one of the people who makes that decision, that I am on a panel here with many, many women and have also on my jury incredible female filmmakers.
00:07:35.000 But I will also say that that's also a question I have and it's a legitimate one.
00:07:44.000 I'm glad that you've declared your own.
00:07:44.000 Is it legitimate?
00:07:46.000 Question legitimate.
00:07:49.000 Speaking of women who complain about not getting role offers, Elliot Page is now complaining, which again, I feel like this is contradictory.
00:07:56.000 Elliot Page, a woman cosplaying as a man, says that he has not received any role offers since the Odyssey.
00:08:05.000 Well, I mean, there's a reason for that, which is that you're not very good in the Odyssey.
00:08:09.000 And also, that was a kind piece of casting because Christopher Nolan is friendly with Elliot Page.
00:08:14.000 But it's a real problem for the movie, as I've discussed, because Elliot Page is supposed to be playing a.
00:08:22.000 Young man who dies in a war and it doesn't work because Elliot Page looks like a 110 pound woman.
00:08:31.000 Well, here's Elliot Page.
00:08:34.000 Well, at this moment, right now, I don't know if you can talk about it, but do you know what you're doing next?
00:08:38.000 Have you already started looking?
00:08:39.000 Because I imagine you're getting a zillion calls after this movie.
00:08:42.000 No, Kevin, I'm not.
00:08:43.000 So let's.
00:08:44.000 Everybody.
00:08:45.000 If someone wants to call me, Elliot Page in every movie ever going forward.
00:08:50.000 I know I get some pushback for being.
00:08:52.000 Canadian, I don't know what it's about, but um, being amazing.
00:08:55.000 Um, wait, are you so really you don't know have a project lined up at the moment?
00:09:01.000 Not really.
00:09:02.000 Do you want to take a break?
00:09:03.000 I'd really love to do ideally good work.
00:09:03.000 Is that kind of no?
00:09:10.000 Um, well, I was just informed that it's very hard for women to get jobs, but now Elliot Page, I've been told by Hollywood, Elliot Page is a man, so I don't get it.
00:09:22.000 Where's the sexism working in favor of Elliot Page?
00:09:25.000 Where is it?
00:09:26.000 I'm confused.
00:09:28.000 Again, Hollywood, a place where brain cells go to die all too often.
00:09:32.000 What an amazing video you just watched!
00:09:34.000 Wasn't that amazing?
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