Casting Tilda

By all accounts so far, the upcoming Bill Condon, Cynthia Mort/HBO show based on Nikki Finke is funny, sublime, etc. ¬†Diane Keaton is apparently the actress chosen to play Finke. But I don’t think that’s been confirmed for certain. ¬†There is a new twist in the saga, however. ¬†Supposedly there is an LA Times curmudgeon who is also known for breaking scandalous stories and keeping moguls nervous — Patrick Goldstein, self-appointed hater of all Oscar bloggers, among other things. ¬†(See, I injected us into the story).

The HR describes the first episode:

Here’s the setup: Tilda Watski is the most feared woman in Hollywood because her website, The Daily Circus (header: “Founder and Editor Tilda Watski”), takes aim at the town’s most powerful moguls. When a lecherous studio exec is caught drunk on video bashing movie stars (“No actor in Hollywood is worth more than a million dollars, unless he speaks Na’vi and has blue skin,” he says), an assistant tips off Tilda, who then jumps into action, badgering sources until she lands her story — and the exec is kicked to the curb.

So, my question for you is whom do you see playing Finke and Goldstein? I think Keaton could work it out — but I’m not so sure I see Diane Keaton as a blogger. ¬†A blogger is a whole different animal than someone who is an outside-world-doer, as Keaton is. ¬†For one thing, the online persona is often more ferocious than the actual person. ¬†Sitting across from someone like Patrick Goldstein wouldn’t feel intimidating in the least – because we’ve all got highly evolved ways of handling one another in the flesh. ¬†Online, where there is no physical accountability, one can feel free to hurl daggers. ¬†Will they cast them as their online personas or as they really are in real life?

Anyway, we hold a piece of our dwindling attention span for this. ¬†Oh, and the HR also wonders whether Finke will sue HBO for stealing her identity. ¬†There is the idea floating around that they could simply buy her life rights, as they did with Ari Emanuel-Ari Gold for Entourage. ¬†There are two reasons, I believe, Finke would do this. The first is for money, plain and simple. ¬†Get that ice or else no dice. But I don’t think that would be her primary reason. ¬†I think she knows that this would only infuse her site and her voice with more power than it already has and that, in turn, leads to big bucks on down the line, especially if Finke ever decides to write her memoirs. ¬†The second reason she would/might do it is if the show becomes too nasty to her and attempts to dismantle her power through ridicule. ¬†I don’t think, with Diane Keaton in the part especially, that’s how it will go, but Finke is a fighter and I don’t think she would take kindly to their trashing her beyond the usual way people trash her.

No one is better at writing great catty dialogue than Bill Condon.  And that is yet another reason to watch.  It sounds like HBO will have another exceptional show on their hands.

Finally, I have, on occasion, taken some heat for defending Nikki Finke and/or not criticizing her. ¬†That’s because I respect what she does and, to quote Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love, “but I know something of a woman in a man’s profession, yes, by God, I do know about that.” No one ever said blogging was a man’s profession, but the kind of thing Finke does is mostly dominated by men. I respect her ferociousness and refusal to be what women are always expected to be: nice. Because if you ain’t nice, you’re called a bitch. Most men never have to deal with the kind of impossible criticism women do – whether it’s being judged on how we look (no one cares how male bloggers look – no one would ever pay for a photo of a male blogger) or being judged on how “nice” we are.