Madonna Expresses Herself at 'Confessions II' Premiere
She returned to the Tribeca Film Fest to screen her short film/long music video and spilled refreshingly freely about her life in a lively Q&A moderated by Anderson Cooper
June 7, 2026
Some notes from the Friday, June 5, screening of Confessions II with Madonna in attendance. SPOILERS:
The “visual film” (aren’t … they … all?) is directed by TORSO (David Toro & Solomon Chase), who have worked with Mugler. Their fashion background oozes from the 10-plus-minute project, which has a slick, expensive look that was apparently assisted by some form of AI. (There is an AI credit, but I didn’t focus on the company.)
It should look expensive — Madonna revealed during the Q&A they’d shot it here and there across six months whenever participants were available. She did say that some of her creative goals are hampered by budgetary concerns.
She also revealed that “cheap” Guy Oseary had been the person who suggested she conceptualize the project using the first six tracks on her new album. While it turned out to be a clever and innovative (I am perplexed by her pronunciation of this word since we both hail from Michigan!) approach, methinks Guy suggested it so that it would illustrate her songs for one overall price.
Hey, doing his job, saving her money.
One thing that struck me was Madonna admitting she doesn’t typically leave a project behind forever, but rather second-guesses things. Regarding Confessions II, she said maybe an outfit or something would strike her as the wrong choice upon watching it back.
Also, it’s worth noting I heard her whispering some concern about whether the print of the film were not too fuzzy. (It looked spectacular to me.) Just another example of her perfectionism.
Diving into the film itself, and this is just what I recall, it opens with a fairly traditional and glamorous sequence with “I Feel So Free” throbbing all around, but quickly zips into outer space, to a world with sexily clad models shooting laser beams out of their assholes and pussies (calm down — we’re going to get precious about vulgarities suddenly?). This sequence rocks!
I believe this is set to “Good for the Soul.”
Madonna in the Q&A said she’d wanted to try the laser beams, but could not because, “Apparently they get quite hot.” (And your problem is?)
But no matter; we do see her standing with an alien sun glowing from between her legs.
I found this whole whacky sequence to be like a vastly improved take on her NFT concept.
For “One Step Away” (which was incorrectly assumed to be called “Freedom” when she played it at the Abbey), the song really took me out. I think it’s an anthemic, world-music kind of jam. I think (and again, I only saw it twice) this was where we saw her rendered as a giantess.
If Madonna decides against proper, single videos for each song this era, the biggest loss is for “Bring Your Love,” because (1) it would have benefited from a video when it dropped, and still wound up hitting the U.S. Billboard Hot 100; and (2) the sequence featuring this song is electrifying! We see Madonna dashing into a rave in a warehouse with Sabrina Carpenter, both looking stunning and also looking like intergenerational versions of each other.
This is the part where Madonna flips through the air (“I did my own stunts!” she promised, but she also said she hopes AI catches up so she can be cloned). “Once I got the flips down, I couldn’t stop doing them,” she enthused. By the way, people love to talk about and theorize about her butt, and it looks great in this sequence in a sort of jockstrap device she has employed before that bares some skin.
One of the biggest serves in the whole video comes when Madonna, dancing, whips her hair around and then is transformed in a blink into a ravishing-looking Julia Garner.
The message here is: She’s never going to get over not being able to make that biopic. Just think of how often Garner has appeared with Madonna since she was cast! This includes the upcoming The Studio episode, which I have confirmed is about what if the biopic had been made and was a massive critical success. (But that’s all I’ll say. I have no idea if it works, but the scenes I heard were scripted sound award-worthy. I smell Emmy. Literally, considering that was an early nickname.)
The highlight of Confessions II is indisputably a chaotic men’s room scene meant to conjure up what it was like in the early ‘80s at Danceteria. So, of course, “Danceteria” is introduced here. It’s — this is overused, but it’s true here — A BANGER. This one is a propulsive dance track without the breathy insouciance of the sterling “I Feel So Free” and without the sing-song pop of “Bring Your Love.” I just can’t imagine any Madonna fan bitching about this one. It’s god-tier Madonna and quite simply should be one of the songs or the song she performs at the World Cup because it’s so good I can imagine that exposure minting an overnight hit.
The “Danceteria” sequence has the most playful choreo, and this is where most of the film’s cameos happen. Madonna’s getting it on with a hot guy in a stall as Gwendoline Christie peeks over at her, Madonna grabs Benedict Cumberbatch’s face and forces it to the camera so he can lip-synch to her words (“He’s a good dancer and was quite game,” Madonna judged) and we spot Kate Moss glamming it up in the mirror, Richard E. Grant in a stall, and Honey Dijon and Odessa A’Zion projecting cool.
Madonna — in a totally weird and different glam look we haven’t seen her sporting before — bumps Saltburn’s Archie Madekwe over while they examine themselves in the mirror, and he is later quite on-point with a little group dance.
The video’s biggest shocker — because all my intel had said there were no rap features on her album — was when phenomenally successful rapper Feid appeared on “Read My Lips.” I would characterize it as verging on reggaeton, but don’t pre-judge this song if you’re sick of her collabs with rappers du jour — it’s actually great.
The overall effect of Confessions II might be that the sum of the album is going to be > its parts. By that I mean while Confessions on a Dance Floor had “Hung Up” and “Sorry” and “Get Together” and “Jump” as distinguishable hits, and the whole thing was pleasingly part of a continuous mix, Part II feels more like the continuous mix was not an afterthought, but the whole point. It’s feeling like it will be one, big, hour-long rave.
The film has another noteworthy element, and that is the presence of multiple Easter eggs. Madonna used that very term (has she before?), though I think the main one she called out was Debi Mazar’s banana eating from “Deeper and Deeper,” and of course Debi’s presence in the “Danceteria” sequence is meta since that’s the name of the legendary club where she and Madonna first met.
Other references I caught: In “Danceteria,” Madonna is standing at a hand dryer and for the life of me I swore she was about to raise her arm, Desperately Seeking Susan-style; Sabrina crawls across the floor of the rave they’re attending in the same feline, Vincent Paterson-choreographed way Madonna did in “Express Yourself”; and the whole thing ends with shots in a series of hotel rooms that called to mind “Justify My Love.”
While we’re on the topic of throwbacks, Madonna’s Mamie Van Doren look for the premiere — sleek blond hair, a fluffy coat and a skin-tight glittery white dress with gloves — did call to mind her Who’s That Girl movie premiere in Times Square, the dress anyway, as Anthony pointed out.
She later addressed her presence in Times Square by saying performing on the TSX stage Thursday evening had left her very emotional because she’d been dropped off in Times Square when she moved to NYC in the ‘70s after asking a cabbie to drop her off “in the middle of everything.” That he chose Times Square was “kind of a mean trick.”
Still, she said performing there had left her feeling like, “Wow, I’ve made it.” Anderson Cooper nearly fell over when she said that, asking if it really took until now to feel that way.
She said she “wanted to cry” after successfully completing that six-song set!
During the Q&A, moderated by an agog Anderson (who gets points for bringing out the best Madonna — and whose last-sec replacement of dullard Jimmy Fallon drew cheers), some other tidbits:
Madonna talked about making her new album after initially being keen on making that movie about her life, saying, “When that didn’t happen, I signed up for a Netflix series.” The way she spoke of the film, I would say it sounds like dead meat (at the moment). She then asked of the series, “Should I go on tour or make my series or my movie?”
Tour talk! I have a very different memory of what she said that what some have reported. Fans (some were a bit rude, shouting things out, but I can’t be mad because she replied occasionally and hey, all’s fair) kept saying “Tour! Tour!” and when she spoke directly about touring, it seemed immediately obvious to me there is no major tour in place already.
That did not, however, imply to me that it was not happening at all. In fact, she seemed to me to be thinking it over. Anderson asked if she has to consider the toll of touring on her body. She said yes, but didn’t dwell on this. Rather, when someone bravely said, “Sphere!,” Madonna said something like, “The idea of the Sphere is cool but I don’t want to wake up every morning looking as Las Vegas. I just don’t.”
This suggestion came after she said she fancied the idea of being in a box (like she had on the TSX stage) that drops into a performance space, like a warehouse. (I had previously heard whispers of her wanting to tour with her album in clubs, either just in a series of promo events or maybe even as a full tour; but again, these plans are not in place.)
While discussing “Danceteria,” Madonna went awf with new factoids, describing meeting a 16-year-old Debi in the elevator there, saying Debi — who was running the elevator — would stop to dance with her on each floor. “I don’t know how anyone was getting anywhere,” Madonna joked.
She said she used to make out with Debi in clubs to get the attention of the guys, which reminded me of her revealing the same thing about Moira in Truth or Dare. I wanted Debi to stand and say, “Little shit!”
She told on herself, too, saying that when she hit New York, she was a “very chopped up” (-looking) dancer.
Continuing to say she never really drank or smoked is the reason she is nearly the last of the biggest ‘80s stars still standing, she talked about how the bathroom at Danceteria had a lot of coke and tattled that Debi gave her some before backpedalling and unconvincingly saying maybe it wasn’t Debi. Again, “Little shit!” would have landed a big laugh here.
Talking about her long history with the gays, she praised her dance teacher Christopher Flynn and said she met Martin Burgoyne when he came up to her in a club and mocked her capri pants, saying, “You shouldn’t wear those again.”
“I liked how frank he was with me,” she said, remembering going shopping with him.
Madonna described taking books to Danceteria to read them ostentatiously out in the open, another attention-seeking gambit. “I was reading an F. Scott Fitzgerald book — not The Great Gatsby. You’ll figure it out, Anderson, you’re an intellectual.” (He didn’t guess.)
One thing Madonna could not figure out was what the hell the Eagle is! When Anderson joked that she might appear at the notoriously sex-drenched gay bar in the West 20s, she clearly had zero idea what it was. So don’t look for Sex 2! Plato has retreated.
Madonna sometimes spars with her male interviewers, but seemed super at ease with Anderson, even coaching him on parenting by saying he was in the honeymoon phase of parenting with two children 6 and under. “Wait till the hormones kick in.”
She said she had not known whether she’d be a good mom, she just wanted to be one always, and that she has very high expectations of her children, which matches what she expects of herself.
There were some choice comments from Mercy, David and Lourdes behind us throughout — nothing bad! playful stuff — but I won’t repeat them. Just showed how sardonic they can be.
Madonna said she’s so grateful her kids didn’t want to become accountants, adding, “No offense to accountants; we all need them.”
Of Lourdes, who watched the film then left, she said the 29-year-old “has a lot more talent than I do. I am a fierce bitch, but she has more talent.” Lourdes is in the film toward the end and is a part of the sequence showing women carrying cameras that we saw in that widely leaked photo taken in London a while back.
I think she said one of her fave parts of the film is when Lourdes says, “Cut, bitch.”
By the way, Lourdes was pretty catty to some fans, but when I told her she looked beautiful in the film, she did say, “Thank you so much,” before shutting it down.
One big takeaway from Madonna’s chat is something I talked about in my earlier video, and that is her disdain for people always filming things. I want to stress that while I certainly understood she was being sincere, she didn’t sound thoughtless or bratty in any way talking about it. You know how sometimes people will be like, “Fucking live life! Put the cameras down!” It wasn’t like that. It was a very nuanced assertion. She said she wanted to perform while looking into people’s eyes (removing her shades for dramatic effect), not their phones, and urged people to put their phones away and live in the moment.
We had no choice — ours were bundled up by Yondr!
But she made good points, though her saying that she preferred to be a doer rather than a documenter should leave some wiggle room for self-elected documenters like myself to push back slightly.
She used Coachella as an example, saying she absolutely loved the experience but that the young crowd was all phones.
Where is Madonna right now? In the Hamptons, celebrating her ailing dad’s (“He’s hangin’ in there — we know where I got my DNA.”) 95th birthday. As for her mom, she said the life she’s living now is about living the life her mom never got to live, which was a touching thing to hear.
That’s all I remember, and please don’t take any of it as gospel as it was so dazzling being in her presence when she was in such a good mood, and very distracting that she was seated next to me and interacted with me. Heady stuff.⚡️
Thank you for sharing this! Fierce bitch indeed! For her to say Lourdes has more talent than her, that just blew my mind and is precisely why she's the queen. She has always had a drive to prove herself and that is often creates any great art.
(Matthew, you have been such an inspiration to me. As a writer and always getting the scoops. I've followed you for decades and I've never gotten a chance to say this until now!).
Great write up, thank you! Regarding that biopic - you know I love her, but knowing how she is - it would end up being a bit too serious and message-y, I think. Too artsy for mainstream. If mainstream is what she's going for. I want to see the fun, the messy, the stuff you know she doesn't want to share. More Truth or Dare, less I Am Because We Are.