“I do tweet a lot,” Ellen Barkin told Vulture last night, in what has to be the understatement of the year. The actress-producer has become famous over the last month for her prolific, enjoyable, foulmouthed Twitter feed, and at the Boom Boom Room party for her new film Another Happy Day she told us how it all began. (You can read more about her and the film here.) “I go on there and read the news when I wake up, which is the first thing that drew me to Twitter,” Barkin said. “It’s a concise way to read the news, from the sources, I felt, were honorable and telling me the truth. So I could weed out all the garbage and lying, editorializing. And then I talk to a couple of people.” Any favorites that we’d recognize? “I like Talib Kweli. I like Roseanne Barr. I love Alec Baldwin. I love Sandy Bernhard, Andy Cohen. Lately I’ve been following Olivia Wilde. She’s fantastic. She’s very smart. And fabulous.”
As it happens, Wilde had just arrived at the party, and when we told her that Barkin was a fan of her Twitter feed, Wilde just about lost it. “I love Ellen Barkin! I follow her! Ahhhhhhh! Are you kidding? Holy shit!” Wilde said. “Ellen Barkin has reinvented Twitter. That woman is so fabulously smart and shocking. I worship her. The day she joined Twitter, Twitter became cool … ugh, I just love reading her tweets. She cracks me up, she doesn’t pull shit. I feel like that’s what people need to do on Twitter! No management company would let her say those things. I love it.” Now that this mutual admiration society had been established, did Wilde plan to tweet at Barkin? “Fuck yes!” Wilde said, channeling the woman herself. “I can’t believe she knows I’m on Twitter! She knows who I am? What the fuck! I’m so excited. I’m gonna tweet. I can’t wait.” Wilde made good on her word, writing last night, “Ellen mothafuckin Barkin, people. Met her tonight and we, dare I say, shimmied. I think we put the twitter in twitterpated.” Replied Barkin this morning, “@oliviawilde how great to meet u in ur gorgeous fierce flesh. Dinner? Anytime.”
