Vertical video from Season 17 of Variety’s “Actors on Actors” racked up over 35 million views on the entertainment trade’s TikTok account. During the series’ run, the account gained over 150,000 additional followers, surpassing the 1 million follower mark.
This season’s pairings featured stars of the year’s biggest films, including Austin Butler with Janelle Monae, Cate Blanchett with Michelle Yeoh and Kate Hudson with Glen Powell.
Top performing videos from the series include Adam Sandler’s humorous retelling of how Brendan Fraser was cast in “Airheads,” Margot Robbie’s giddy excitement at being name-dropped by Jack Harlow in a rap song and Jennifer Lawrence’s bonding moment with Viola Davis over the anxieties they feel as mothers.
The clips also racked up 13.7 million views on Twitter and 6.4 million views on Instagram, amounting to over 55 million views across all of Variety’s social channels. On YouTube, the full conversations received over 4.6 million views.
“These record-breaking viewership numbers for ‘Actors on Actors’ are staggering and speak to the power of the work Variety is doing in video and longform journalism,” Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh said. “Our interviews are definitive and have become the most watched and talked-about franchise of awards season. On top of our beautiful magazine issue, we are proud to have permeated culture in such a major way.”
The four full “Actors on Actors” episodes will debut on PBS SoCal on Thursday, Jan. 12, starting at 8:00 pm. They will encore on KCET and public television stations across the country and the WORLD Channel (check local listings). All episodes will stream on pbssocal.org and the free PBS App following their premieres.