Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers.

I'm David Canfield.

I'm Richard Lawson.

And I'm Rebecca Ford.

We are here on a Tuesday, January 14th. This podcast will be up on January 16th. I say that to start because things are very much in flux here in Los Angeles where Rebecca and I are recording as wildfires continue to spread around the city. It remains a pretty scary and uncertain situation. We are all safe. Welcome back, Rebecca.

Yeah, thanks for holding down the fort, guys. Our pleasure. We're glad we're all safe. And we have been thinking about and talking to a lot of our colleagues who have been more directly affected by the fires. And that includes a lot of people who work in this industry, and it has pretty dramatically impacted the landscape of Hollywood, the landscape of award season, and just the landscape

of the work that we do. The wildfires affected tens of thousands of people in California,

and we are noticing a lot of different groups just kind of scrambling to respond,

figure out both the safest and most respectful way to move forward.

A lot of jobs are dependent on this part of the industry moving forward,

a certain level of normalcy that some people, I think,

are hoping for, even as others, are just trying to assess what has been lost. Yeah, how are you guys

making sense of everything? Richard, you're across the country, of course. Yeah, I'm just kind of

trying to read as much as I can. You know, I think that one thing

that I've seen stressed a lot in any reporting about how the entertainment industry in specific,

which is obviously a big one in L.A. is affected, is just, you know, the kind of maybe important

annual reminder that award season from a distance can seem pretty silly. It's just rich people

congratulating each other.

But there is so much economy surrounding it, you know, from caterers to drivers, union workers,

and in various sectors, like, affected by this.

So canceling an award show is not just, you know, celebrities saying, well, oh, it's okay.

I won't accept my award on stage, on television.

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