It's the Memoir Era
A rebrand, some memoirs, and Barry Keoghan
Who is She?
Surprise! This newsletter is having a glow-up! We’re leaving “Daphne Does” in 2023, and moving forward with “Who’s to Say?” If you know me, you know this phrase rolls off my tongue like a slip ‘n slide, because my favorite hobby of all time is dropping an opinion and then slowly backing away from it.
“Who’s To Say?” will be the same content as “Daphne Does,” hopefully with a little more organization, a little more sparkle, and some branding. We’re removing the guilt behind pop culture, ignoring screen time, embracing our couch hobbies, and finding our voice in high-brow commentary on “trashy” TV. The Queue will live on, most likely in a separate post on opposite weeks, and the Bravo beat will continue, as will the other rambling pieces about the big screen.
Thank you so much for reading thus far, and get excited for more content in 2024.
Muchos Memoirs!
I have been listening to the podcast, “Celebrity Memoir Book Club,” for a year and a half. The title gives it away: Claire Parker and Ashley Hamilton, two giggling besties, recap and rate celebrity memoirs, giving their listeners the experience of reading these books without actually reading them. I began my listening with the Betty White episode, which launched after her death and discussed her life via her 2011 memoir, and since then, I’ve listened to countless episodes, charting varying degrees of celebrities: Padma Lakshmi, Kerry Washington, Molly-Mae Hague, Matthew Perry, Caroline Calloway, and so many others.
Before 2022, I always believed celebrity memoirs were for the old stars, the has-beens, or the B-listers seeking cash flow. But, the memoir market says otherwise, and celebrities of all degrees are sharing their stories. Suddenly, it seems like nearly every celebrity has a memoir. Why is that? Marianne Garvey from CNN says that two likely and relatable reasons for this are that the global pandemic gave celebrities time to do such endeavors, and also that memoirs rake in money.
2023 has been quite the year for celebrity memoirs. First up, was Prince Harry who wrote Spare, the tell-all book that ruffled royal feathers, and nearly a year later, there are still headlines about this memoir. In June, Elliot Page published Pageboy, (which I am currently reading) an eye-opening and deeply heartfelt story of Page’s gender transition and the impactful years preceding it. This fall, we’ve wrapped up the year with two heavy hitters: Britney Spears’s The Woman in Me, and Barbra Streisand’s My Name is Barbra. Other celebrities who published memoirs this year include Pamela Anderson, Lucinda Williams, Paris Hilton, Kerry Washington, Laura Dern, Jada Pinkett Smith, and more.
There is good reason that this is now a popular, money-making genre. These celebrities are selling something uniquely fascinating, pulling back the curtain of their fame to reveal the most human parts of their life with their own voice (and the convenient help of a ghost writer). They cover familiar struggles: love, death, abuse, addiction, parenting, caretaking, trauma, and more. They can point to specific moments in their life—Britney Spears and the paparazzi, or Prince Harry leaving the royal family—and give their side of the story. This is a recipe for what American viewers crave. For the actors who’ve given so much to our favorite roles; for the politicians who shaped our history; and for the celebs who’ve lost their voices (cheesy!); our culture is obviously invested in these people, and by having these memoirs out, we’re both broadening the discourse and learning how to read.
Barry Keoghan Keeping Us on Our Toes
I mean, this guy! Who is he? He first braced my mind in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, that movie my boyfriend suggested we watch for ~cinéma~ (after I most likely suggested watching Love, Actually for the 15th time). Keoghan’s IMDB proves he’s been around for some time, but after his success starring in The Banshees of Inisherin, his BAFTA win, his Academy Award nomination, and now his co-leading role in Saltburn, the tabloids are having a ball with this new “it” guy.
He’s faced tremendous hardship in his personal life, and his story is one of great triumph. Yet in most of his interviews, this is not the common theme. The most interesting thing about his media journey is that consistently, the journalists and interviewers across from him have no idea how to take this one-of-a-kind man.
Wonderland magazine had Keoghan cover their Winter 2023 issue, and the opener describes Keoghan, saying:
“Donning a crisp white T-shirt and denim jeans, he’s accessorizing the only way he knows how – with an unsquashable cheeky-chappy grin and a pair of arresting, aquamarine eyes (rapturously applauded on the internet) that seem to throw you into another world.”
Swept off their feet! If one day someone describes me as having anything “rapturously applauded,” I will have peaked. The piece gets better because the interviewer is Robert Pattinson. Of all people! You can imaging how this goes, and your assumptions are probably right. One of their most outlandish conversations is about age.
RP How old were you when you did Dunkirk [with Christopher Nolan]?
BK I think I was like 16 or 17. I was young, man. I remember…
RP [Laughs] No you weren’t. How old are you now? What are you talking about?
BK [Laughs] That’s me playing up for the magazine. I was 28. No, I was 21.
RP We went from 16 to 21 like a jump. I was actually quite surprised. You’re 31, yeah? I always thought you were like 25.
BK Yeah. Let’s just say for this, I am 25.
Esquire also didn’t know how to take this dark horse:
“Sweaty and finished, he leaps from the ring, untapes his boxing gloves, and then holds the opening to his nose and inhales. The gloves smell of new leather and sweat.
—That smell is addictive, though, innit! Like the smell of your own shoes.”
He’s charming, he’s wacky, and he admits to sniffing his own shoes. In a video, Esquire asks Keoghan what’s “in” or “out,” but chooses an oddball collection of wacky topics, including clowns, Messi, temporary tattoos, clogs, and dogs in clothes. A particular highlight of this video is his mention of his child, whom he almost named Wolf, but said it didn’t make sense as his last name means '“wolf cub,” so his son would be “wolf wolf cub.”
I am eagerly awaiting red carpet season, and I am desperate for a Barry Keoghan chicken shop date.
As always, thanks for reading.