Tramell Tillman Is (Still) A Freaking Star

The last time we checked in with Tramell Tillman, back at the end of May, he was wrapping up the second season of Severance and appearing briefly in the new Mission: Impossible movie as a submarine captain who insisted on calling Tom Cruise’s character “Mister.” Not like “Mr. Hunt,” though, like other characters do. More like “I don’t know what you’re doing, Mister,” like Ethan Hunt was a naughty toddler. It was awesome. It’s not easy to steal a scene from Tom Cruise in a Tom Cruise movie but he sure went ahead and did it. I said most of this in that thing I linked to up there, which was, among other reasons, why the headline of that blog was “Tramell Tillman Is A Freaking Star.”

While I would love to take credit for nailing that observation back then, the truth of it was so obvious that tooting my horn about it now would be kind of like a weatherman being all smug because he predicted July would be pretty hot. Like, yeah dude, of course he’s a star. Everyone sees it.

Everyone does see it, actually. The publicity cycle is catching up to the thing audiences have noticed from the first time he delivered that menacing smirk as Mr. Milchick on Severance. Variety wrangled him for a cool interview that covered everything from his youth to landing these big buzzy roles. My favorite part of it was this, though, where the interviewer asked him what he originally wanted to be when he grew up and he responded by saying...

I wanted to be a storm chaser. “Twister,” “Dante’s Peak,” earthquake movies, apocalyptic films. I was fascinated by natural disasters. I did not want to be in one and never wished anyone to endure a natural disaster. But there was something about the science behind it that was so mysterious, how these storms can have a dynamic effect and just move on. 

Perfect answer. I, too, have no interest in being in or around a nasty storm, but I think I would be willing to chase one with Tramell Tillman. I would also watch a movie where he chases storms. I know we just rebooted the Twister franchise with Glen Powell, but there are other kinds of storms. Put Tramell Tillman in a hurricane movie. Let him deploy that devastating smirk as the storm approaches the shore. If the storm knew what was good for it, it would just turn right around and head back out to the sea. Although I guess that would make for a pretty boring movie. We can hammer out the details later.

He’s also doing a bunch of cool stuff, like this.

Some amount of context will help. Ben Stiller was doing a big fun outdoor screening of Zoolander. It’s kind of wild that he’s both “the Zoolander guy” and also “executive producer of the smash television hit Severance.” What a career. Anyway, during the screening, Tramell Tillman showed up with the USC Song Girls and led a marching band in a kind of nod to the time he did basically the same thing on Severance. The Song Girls weren’t on Severance, though. That would've been weird. Or, like, weirder.

It seemed like everyone had a good time.

“Thanks for coming. That’s cool, you got the USC Marching Band with you? Really cool,” Stiller said to audience cheers. “That’s great, but this is kind of more like a Zoolander thing than a Severance thing. Maybe you guys could play more of a Zoolander-y type of song?”

The team then launched into a jaunty rendition of “Relax” by Powerman 5000, a track featured in the movie. Afterward, Tillman and Stiller were seen embracing as the lights went down and the screening began.

So, yes, let’s go ahead and update our previous coverage now that we have a full summer to reflect:

• Tramell Tillman is still a freaking star
• I think a hurricane would be scared of him
• I’m glad he is having fun

We’ll check in on this again sometime next year.

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STUFF I CLICKED ON

— good blog about Penn & Teller

— Harry Lyles Jr wrote about the time Madonna was in a feud with a whole-ass town

— Bill Hanstock wrote about the new King of the Hill

— the thing about South Park is that it’s always going to turn on you when you think it’s on “your side,” but that doesn’t mean you can't have fun when it is being mean to your enemies

— lol go Phillies

— speaking of the Phillies, loved this thing about how the Phanatic uses vodka to stay fresh in the heat

— ESPN’s Sports Misery Index is a fun tool to play around with 

— Denzel does not give a hoot about Oscars 

— Looney Tunes on Tubi

— oh my god, it’s Jason Bourne (again)

— Sepinwall blogged about Peacemaker’s second season, which starts soon and looks good

— “Man faces jail for smuggling turtles worth $1.4 million in socks to Hong Kong”

— “Library book returned after 82 years. Note says, ‘Grandma won’t be able to pay for it anymore’” 

— seabird poop investigation 

— Tarantino is a maniac but I respect it

— RIP Frisbee

— I love pole vault king Mondo Duplantis

— Josh Gondelman posted this incredible Gary Gulman bit from years ago and I was surprised how much of it I remembered (shoutout Dottie)

Okay, that's it for this week. Please share and subscribe and put Tramell Tillman in a movie or two.