\n Is discussing celebrity crushes with your partner \u2014 and granting them a \u201chall pass\u201d to sleep with said superstar should they ever meet \u2014 a bit of harmless fun or a recipe for potential disaster? That\u2019s the question behind a rollicking new comedy that makes light of our cultural obsession with celebrity and sex \u2014 oh, and \u201cMad Men\u201d star Jon Hamm.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe thought this was something that couples joke about, but never really do anything about,\u201d said David Wain, the director and co-writer of \u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone actually takes it seriously \u2014 but that\u2019s our very whimsical concept: what if they did.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n While Wain\u2019s new movie, which first debuted to good<\/a> critical<\/a> buzz<\/a> at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is defiantly silly and full of gags, relationship experts warned that the reality of these fantasy arrangements might prove to be no laughing matter for some couples \u2014 something with which even Wain agreed. \u201cI think when you even jokingly talk too much about who else you\u2019d want to have sex with, you\u2019ve got something to examine maybe in your relationship,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n \n Released in cinemas on Friday, \u201cGail Daughtry\u201d plays out like a deranged, horny rewrite of \u201cThe Wizard of Oz.\u201d This film\u2019s eponymous heroine (played by Zoey Deutch) is a Kansas hairdresser who once played Dorothy in a childhood production and now has a penchant for sporting ruby red shoes of her own. Gail suffers a gutting setback ahead of her planned wedding to longtime sweetheart Tom (Michael Cassidy) when she catches him in flagrante <\/em>with Jennifer Aniston (playing herself) after a book signing. (In one particularly pointed barb about the vapidness of some celebrity cookbooks, Aniston is in town to promote a tome of \u201cStraight Forward Suppers\u201d that include \u201cinstant oatmeal\u201d and \u201ca bagel with cream cheese.\u201d) Despite the pair having discussed Tom\u2019s hall pass with Aniston just moments earlier, the reality of the discovery sends Gail into a tailspin: \u201cI thought it was a silly little exercise! Not an excuse to have sex with Rachel from \u2018Friends!\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n When the heartbroken Gail travels to Los Angeles with her bestie Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley, sporting a bone-shaped earing in a nod to Dorothy\u2019s beloved dog Toto), she\u2019s told by a psychic that in order to \u201ceven the score\u201d and \u201clevel the playing field\u201d in her relationship, she must track down and bed her own celebrity crush (Hamm, in a deliciously self-deprecating cameo in the film\u2019s final chapter). Along the way in her journey to do the deed with Don Draper himself, she enlists the aid of a brainless talent agency worker (Ben Wang), a heartless paparazzo for whom a picture of Hamm has long been his \u201cwhite man whale\u201d (Ken Marino, who co-wrote the movie with Wain) and Hamm\u2019s former \u201cMad Men\u201d <\/em>costar John Slattery, playing a cowardly, washed-up version of himself.\n <\/p>\n \n According to Wain, the roles for his film\u2019s two celebrity hall passes were written specifically in the hope each actor would be game to make fun of themselves. A veteran comedy director who previously helmed 2001\u2019s \u201cWet Hot American Summer\u201d and 2008\u2019s \u201cRole Models,\u201d Wain said having previously worked with Hamm, Aniston, and other big Hollywood stars has taught him that actors generally understand that they need to promote their sex appeal to audiences. \u201cIt\u2019s just when it gets personal that maybe they might get a little creeped out, or when someone comes up on the street and propositions them. Then they\u2019re like, Wait, that\u2019s not what I wanted<\/em>,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it obviously goes with the territory if you\u2019re putting yourself out there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Aniston\u2019s cameo in the movie is a fitting one given it was her hit show \u201cFriends\u201d <\/em>that helped popularize the concept of a celebrity hall pass to begin with. In one 1996 episode<\/a> of the NBC sitcom, Rachel (Aniston) and then-boyfriend Ross (David Schwimmer) discuss with their buddies which celebrities they would each put on a list of people with whom they could sleep with their partners\u2019 blessing. At one point, Ross swaps out Isabella Rossellini for Winona Ryder from his list \u2014 only to meet the Italian American model and actor in the Central Perk caf\u00e9 at the end of the episode. This carte blanche concept was given further pop culture exposure in the 2011 Farrelly brothers movie, \u201cHall Pass,\u201d which starred Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis as bumbling husbands whose wives grant them a week-long break from their marriage vows.\n <\/p>\n \n Discussing celebrity crushes or hall passes with one\u2019s partner has since become increasingly common in many relationships\u2014even if merely done in jest. One poll of 2,000 Britons last year published by the UK\u2019s Daily Star tabloid found that a quarter of couples surveyed had a \u201cno-strings-attached\u201d arrangement with their partner to enjoy a frisson with a famous person, with over half saying that talking about celebrity crushes was the sign of a healthy relationship. (For what it\u2019s worth, Hamm was not at the top of the list of Hollywood heartthrobs among those surveyed, having been beaten out by Brad Pitt and George Clooney, while the most desired celebrity women were Margot Robbie and Blake Lively.)\n <\/p>\n \n But despite the prevalence of these hall-pass discussions, relationship experts warn that some couples may be potentially playing with fire. \u201cI think it\u2019s a bad idea,\u201d said Carrie Cole, the director of research at the Gottman Institute<\/a>, an organization that trains relationship therapists. \u201cPeople may discuss it. However, the idea of that and the reality <\/em>of that are two very different things.\n <\/p>\n \n Cole recalled working with one couple who agreed to make an exception in their otherwise monogamous relationship for one (non-famous) person that one partner had been fantasizing about. \u201cWhen it actually did happen, there were all kinds of hurt emotions,\u201d Cole recalled. \u201cIt felt like a violation of the vows they had made to each other. It\u2019s like, I know I agreed to this, but I never actually thought it would happen.\u201d<\/em>\n <\/p>\n \n Psychologist Alexandra Solomon, a Northwestern University<\/a> professor who studies marriages and has authored a series of books<\/a> on relationships, was slightly warmer to the idea of couples discussing celebrity hall passes. According to Solomon, such conversations have the potential to be harmless, silly, or even titillating \u2014 as long \u201cthere is an adequate cushion of emotional security in the relationship.\u201d (Solomon herself recalled once meeting Marisa Tomei at a party and confessing to the Oscar winner that she was her husband\u2019s hall-pass. Tomei, Solomon said, was such a good sport about it that she even insisted they send him a selfie.)\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhen couples are happy and they feel emotionally safe in the relationship, then playing with those edges of fantasy can be sort of erotic,\u201d Solomon said. \u201cIt can be arousing to imagine that our partner doesn\u2019t fully belong to us,that they are a full human being with their own desires and fantasies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Framing these desires around celebrities, as opposed to the next-door neighbor, also typically creates something of a \u201csafety in distance,\u201d Solomon added, wherein the reality of such an encounter is not ever likely to come to pass\u2014unless, of course, you\u2019re Gail Daughtry.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cDon\u2019t actually <\/em>give your partner a real pass,\u201d advised Wain, the director, \u201cunless you\u2019re willing to deal with the consequences.\u201d\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source edition.celebrity.land.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Is discussing celebrity crushes with your partner \u2014 and granting them a \u201chall pass\u201d to sleep with said superstar should they ever meet \u2014 a bit of harmless fun or a recipe for potential disaster? That\u2019s the question behind a rollicking new comedy that makes light of our cultural obsession with celebrity and sex \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2499011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2499010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Is-a-celebrity-\u2018sex-pass-ever-a-good-idea.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2499010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2499012,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499010\/revisions\/2499012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2499011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2499010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2499010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2499010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"John](\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/20260710-hamm-aniston-slattery.jpg?c=original&q=w_860,c_fill\")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Zoey](\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/8-20260709190209993.JPG?c=original&q=w_860,c_fill\")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n