Dear Gossips,
It’s the last weekend of the summer. I mean, not according to science but generally accepted in society – next week most people will have gone back to school and work after a lighter schedule the last couple of months; and the schedule goes balls out in entertainment too as the Venice Film Festival is already underway, Telluride kicks off today, and TIFF and NY Fashion Week begin next Thursday. Then it’s the Emmys on Sunday, September 22.
Emmy voting ended yesterday after what seemed like months of campaigning. Beyoncé’s Homecoming has been nominated for six awards, including production and costume design. Of those six, Beyoncé has four nominations herself but if you compare her Emmy presence with what we’ve seen all summer from so many other nominees, from magazine covers to roundtables to screening events etc, if there was a Homecoming Emmys campaign, it was pretty quiet, behind the scenes if at all. Because the film itself, Homecoming on Netflix, is the campaign. She is showing you, for two hours, what went into making Homecoming, what she gave of herself. Homecoming is Show Your Work.
Earlier this week, the AP published an interview with Derek Dixie, co-music director on Homecoming alongside Beyoncé who talked about what it takes to work and keep up with the Queen.
“I don’t think you can survive in her circle without being the hardest working person in the room,” Dixie said of working for Beyoncé. “I say, ‘Always be the hardest working person in the room and always hire the hardest working person in the room.’ Because you have to have that because that’s who she is. That’s what she’s going to do.”
“I think it’s a blessing and just like any situation you have your stresses and you have your chaos that exists,” he continued, “but because of who she is as an entertainer and as a person, you kind of find that fuel to keep going one more day.”
And for those who hope to work for Beyoncé one day, he has some advice: “Be ready to work. Yes. That’s it. The glamour part comes later but the work part is definitely real.”
The same day, Vanity Fair posted an article about Beyoncé’s Homecoming wardrobe, featuring Beyoncé’s stylist, Marni Senofonte, wardrobe supervisor Timothy White, and Olivier Rousteing, creative director of Balmain, who collaborated with Beyoncé on not only her looks for the show but also on the looks of all the dancer and musicians – a hundred performers! – who were on stage with her. They wouldn’t be talking to Vanity Fair without B’s approval. The photo that they use at the top of the piece, of Marni dressing Beyoncé before the opening number, was provided “courtesy Parkwood Entertainment”. That’s Beyoncé. She doesn’t personally get a trophy if Homecoming wins in the costume category but, of course, she’d share in the achievement and this is about the extent of her overt campaigning, in service of others.
Beyoncé’s been pretty quiet this month. I don’t know if it’s intentional to do with the Emmys – who can ever know, really, what Beyoncé’s up to? – but I do love that she always calibrates our level of missing her before and after she’s scheduled to appear somewhere. I always miss Beyoncé, obviously, but by the time the Emmys come around, if she stays undercover like this, my withdrawal will be pretty f-cking desperate, and seeing her again is going to be breathtaking.
The point is: must rest up. Rest up for all of it.
We are dark on Monday for Labour Day and back on Tuesday on our regular schedule.
Have a great weekend!
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
