Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic. We're here with the Slate's Spoiler Special podcast on Nine, the new musical starring Daniel Day Lewis. And joining me in the studio at Slate is June Thomas. Hi, June. Hello, Dana. You are Slate's foreign editor. That's correct. And you are also one of my favorite spoiler companions, especially for anything involving a musical and or a theater. So you were the perfect one for nine.

Except that I didn't see the show nine, nor did I see eight and a half.

So I feel that my buildup was none deserved today.

Well, we should set up what those are.

Eight and a half, right?

The Fellini movie, which the title of the show is sort of a joke on.

The next step after eight and a half is nine. And nine was also a

Broadway musical, but I believe swept the Tonys or did very well at the Tonys in the 80s, early 80s.

Yeah, and then it was revived earlier this decade, 2003, I think, you know, Chita Rivera, it was,

Antonio Banderas was Guido. Why did you not see that revival? That sounds so up your alley. It was before I lived in New York.

Or I probably would have.

And yeah, and you can tell that there's a sort of, what do we call it?

It's happened before that an Italian movie became a musical and then was a successful musical movie.

Knights of Calabria became sweet charity that then was a successful...

Oh, see, this is why I have Jim Thomas in these podcasts. I would never have known that.

So that was a successful movie, of course, that was before we...

Wait, Knights of Cabiria.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Excuse me, yes, yes.

I was thinking Calabria. Do we saying that wrong. And so I think that was the inspiration, I'm guessing,

but I think we've changed our movie-going habits since then,

...