Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday, June 3, 2020 i The Hollywood Reporter

When Donald Trump has discussed the newest branch of the U.S. armed services, he struck a bellicose tone. “Space is a war-fighting domain just like the land, air and sea,” the president told an audience of Marines in March 2018. But his administration has proven dovish when it comes to protecting the “Space Force” name itself. On May 29, Netflix premiered its comedy series Space Force, from The Office showrunner Greg Daniels and star Steve Carell. And, around the globe, the streaming giant has outmaneuvered the U.S. government to secure trademark rights to “Space Force” in Europe, Australia, Mexico and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Air Force merely owns a pending application for registration inside the United States based on an intent to use. Meaning that the feds have gotten a place…

Big Deal When Disney revealed May 27 that it will reopen its Florida theme park resort on July 11 after months of it being shuttered amid a pandemic, the plan brought more questions than answers. “We reached out to the company in hopes of getting more information,” says Chris Duarte, president of Anaheim’s Workers United Local 50, which reps food service members at Disneyland. The company, which promoted Josh D’Amaro as chairman of Disney parks, experiences and products in May, has been mum on a timeline to reopen its SoCal park, the only indicator being the resort’s website allowing for July hotel bookings. In Florida, Walt Disney World is following the model of Shanghai Disneyland, which reopened May 11, by adding temperature checks, mask requirements and new sanitation efforts. The…

Patrisse Cullors, cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement, is not merely an activist — she’s a modern-day abolitionist. And as protests over racism, inequality and police brutality have exploded worldwide, Cullors says the answer does not lie in holding police accountable with better training and body cameras. Instead, she demands defunding law enforcement so that black and brown people can be free from what she calls a “well-funded army” that “occupies” them. “For hundreds of years, black communities have lived under state terror — be it police or vigilante violence,” says Cullors, who also is an artist, a television writer (Freeform’s Good Trouble) and author of the 2018 New York Times best-seller When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. “An abolitionist believes in a world where…

GLAAD The media-monitoring group counts Outlier Society’s Alana Mayo as a board member. “Media is a lifeline when COVID-19 has closed or canceled safe spaces,” says Mayo. GLSEN The nonprofit supports K-12 students. Says producer and board member Todd Spiewak, “In this climate, [there’s] a greater potential for social isolation and cyberbullying.” IT GETS BETTER PROJECT “The It Gets Better Project’s mission is to uplift youth through positive, inclusive storytelling,” says board member/doc producer Avrielle Gallagher. LOS ANGELES LGBT CENTER Its work during the COVID-19 crisis includes “providing health services and preparing more than 600 meals every day for our youth and seniors,” says chef/board co-chair Susan Feniger. POINT FOUNDATION Judith Light, honorary board member of this college scholarship fund for LGBTQ students, says, “We cannot let COVID-19 or any…

With summer approaching and quarantine fatigue setting in, many entertainment industry people are looking for an in-person alternative to that now-not-so-novel Zoom cocktail hour. And even with Los Angeles County health officials advising no in-person group gatherings, event pros say clients are clamoring for new ways to celebrate safely. “The good news is that here in L.A., a lot of people have gardens, which can make gathering much safer than inside,” notes interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard. “But the key is, of course, social distance. So why not set up chairs with each one having an accompanying side table? Find out what drink each guest wants in advance, and then it’s waiting for them on their personal table, so you’re reducing a lot of contact by not passing drinks,” adds…

STUDIOS Percentage of Films That Were LGBTQ-Inclusive BROADCAST NETWORKS Percentage of Series Regulars Who Are LGBTQ Source: GLAAD Where We Are on TV Report, 2019-2020; GLAAD Studio Responsibility Index 2019 (covering films released during 2018) STREAMERS Number of Characters That Are LGBTQ CABLE NETWORKS Number of Characters That Are LGBTQ…

FILM TV For years verboten on TV — save for on a few boundary-pushing shows (Nip/Tuck, Queer as Folk) — gay male love scenes portraying anal sex are much less rare, depicted in Looking, Now Apocalypse, American Gods, Watchmen, Penny Dreadful, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay and Sex Education. Still, when Special creator and star Ryan O’Connell was prepping to adapt his memoir I’m Special for Netflix (filming on season two is paused), it was crucial to show the sex act in honest fashion. He spoke with THR about other onscreen portrayals and the scene in which he loses his virginity to a male prostitute. Not to brag, but I had a boyfriend when I was 17. We said we’d wait to have sex until we were really in love, which…

1969 The Stonewall Riots erupt in New York City The birth of the modern gay rights movement begins after police raid a Greenwich Village watering hole. 1970 The Boys in the Band Director William Friedkin’s adaptation of Mart Crowley’s hit off-Broadway play puts gay men on the silver screen for the first time. 1973 American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental disorders Members vote 5,854 to 3,810 for the change. 1977 Billy Crystal plays Jodie Dallas, a gay man, on Soap It is unprecedented for a recurring character on network television. 1985 Rock Hudson issues statement confirming he has AIDS He is the first star to acknowledge contracting the disease but never came out as gay. 1993 Philadelphia dramatizes a gay health crisis The film goes on…

For a 1960s sitcom that on the surface was about as straight as you can get — attractive woman who happens to be a witch wants to be normal housewife, so she marries a high-strung ad exec — a lot of gay magic lurks just beneath the surface of ABC’s Bewitched. There’s Samantha, the witch played by Elizabeth Montgomery (who was 31 when she started), who sublimates her true identity to fit into postwar suburban America, trading in her broom for a Chevy convertible (despite the best efforts of nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz to out her). And then there’s her husband, Darren, who was played for the series’ final three seasons by Dick Sargent. (He replaced the ailing Dick York — who starred in 1960’s Inherit the Wind — with…

On June 13 — hosted at BBTHRPrideSummit.com — THR and Billboard’s joint Pride Summit, now in its second year, will feature conversations between LGBTQ artists including Lena Waithe and Jonica T. Gibbs; Work in Progress’ Lilly Wachowski and Abby McEnany; and Boy George. Performances will feature Tituss Burgess, Rex Rebel and Madame Gandhi. After glam lessons from Chris Appleton (hairstylist for Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian) and YouTube’s Patrick Starrr, THR and Billboard will host their first virtual Pride Prom, packed with an interactive DJ set, drag performance contest, crowning of the Pride Queen and appearances from, among others, Cyndi Lauper, Indigo Girls, Jameela Jamil and Billy Porter — who will emcee. The entire free event will start at noon PT and run into the evening. “Last year, I was…

As the 8 p.m. curfew approached on May 30, the protesters, who had been entirely peaceful, sat down. Shortly thereafter, everybody stood up and started walking away from the police station in a march. So we walked with them. But in the intersection in front of where we were, all of a sudden police cars, lights and sirens come into the intersection and blocked it. The crowd did stop, and some started to turn back. Then the police started firing tear gas in our direction. My team and I started to move back because we had masks and we were able to largely maintain our position to cover the story. But the police continued to shoot, and they added projectiles, which appeared to be rubber bullets, into the mix. One…

Pizza Girl (JUNE 9, DOUBLEDAY) BY Jean Kyoung Frazier AGENCY WME The debut novel about a pregnant pizza delivery girl who develops a relationship with a stay-at-home mom to whom she delivers would fit in well within the growing female-fronted coming-of-age canon, like Booksmart and Never Rarely Sometimes Always. That’s Not a Thing (APRIL 14, SPARKPRESS) BY Jacqueline Friedland AGENCY The Unter Agency The love story centers on a woman who reunites with her ex-fiance years after their breakup, and after he is diagnosed with ALS. The book deals with themes similar to those in Warner Bros.’ successful JoJo Moyes adaptation Me Before You.…

THE LIST Hollywood’s 50 Most Powerful LGBTQ Players LGBTQ representation in Hollywood is at an all-time high. Thanks to the showrunners driving authentic stories, filmmakers bucking decades-old heteronormative paradigms, actors emboldened to live more honestly and platforms bankrolling so much of it, being gay, queer, transgender or any other other has never been more widely embraced in the entertainment industry. For its inaugural Pride issue, The Hollywood Reporter homed in on the talent and makers helping boost visibility and creating opportunities for members of the extended LGBTQ community. These 50-plus power players, from Laverne Cox to the cast of Queer Eye, each make a unique contribution — and share here where they first felt seen by Hollywood and what work still needs to be done to achieve equitable representation. ROBERTO…

Nina Jacobson was still early in her tenure at Universal when she turned to her colleague Josh Donen and awkwardly blurted out some version of “I just want you to know that I’m not the straightest person in the world.” The Crazy Rich Asians producer was far too embarrassed to even utter the word “lesbian,” she acknowledges now, nearly three decades later. “And then I asked, ‘Do you think the bosses know?’ And Josh was like, ‘Oh, Nina, I think at this point it’s safe to assume everybody knows.’ And I go, ‘Oh, really? OK, fantastic.’ ” And that was it. Jacobson was “out.” Both the vocabulary and comfort level would arrive in the half-decade that followed, culminating in 1995, when she and Milk producer Bruce Cohen founded Out There,…

Out in the real world, there’s little consistency to be found. But when it comes to television, one thing that’s certain is that there will be surprises when the Emmy nominations are announced July 28. Chalk that up to two shows that have won a multitude of the drama and comedy races for the past five years — HBO’s Game of Thrones and Veep. These awards grabbers have finally retired from the race, opening up the playing field considerably and raising aspirations for newcomers. “I think there are some givens, in terms of nominations, but it’s pretty wide open right now,” TV Academy president and COO Maury McIntyre tells THR. “Even in 2019, Fleabag came out of nowhere.” With that beloved Phoebe Waller-Bridge series also wrapped up, there are plenty…

Dirk Bogarde smacked my ass in 1986. I was in my 20s, and this is not a #MeToo story: I’m pretty sure it was an inadvertent hand-to-bum while I was showing him to the bathroom as his minder during a London bookstore appearance for a volume of his memoirs. Whatever the case, that contact catapulted me back through my queer screen education. Former matinee idol Bogarde — who lived almost 40 years with his “manager” — never came out, destroying his personal papers before his death in 1999. But for LGBTQ folks exploring their identities at a time before queer theory, the outing of Rock Hudson, Ellen, Will & Grace or Pose, Bogarde was a touchstone. In Basil Dearden’s Victim (1961), he played a closeted barrister who takes on a…

On May 30, Kendrick Sampson’s nonprofit organization, BLD PWR, co-led a rally with the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter at Pan Pacific Park to protest the death of George Floyd on May 25 as well as 600 black Angelenos at the hands of police since 2012. Hours later, the Insecure actor broadcast from his Instagram account as police clashed with demonstrators — firing rubber bullets into the crowd that struck him repeatedly — during their march through the Fairfax District. “Most of the organizers that I know have had to sacrifice their art because they have had to liberate their own people and fight for a better world for their children,” Sampson tells THR. The actor was one of many industry pros — including Debbie Allen, Cole Sprouse,…

When Oprah Winfrey abruptly dropped out of a documentary she was executive producing about Russell Simmons rape accusers Jan. 10, women’s groups found themselves torn between two potent forces: entertainment’s most powerful and inspirational female mogul and defending survivors of sexual assault. Time’s Up, the influential antisexual harassment organization in which Winfrey is a founding donor, seemed to side with the mogul. With the May 27 premiere of the film, On the Record, on HBO Max, activists, sexual assault survivors and Hollywood stakeholders are raising questions about Time’s Up’s lack of support for the film and about the organization’s structure, mission and opacity. “Time’s Up has positioned itself as the primary nonprofit voice on the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace,” says Stanford Law professor and sexual harassment expert…

Notes From Santa Monica, of Peaceful Protest and Ruinous Riots On May 31, two very different scenes unfolded in Santa Monica, home to Michael B. Jordan’s and Tom Hanks’ production companies. On Ocean Avenue, thousands of peaceful protesters, including Timothée Chalamet, Brian Grazer and Machine Gun Kelly, marched to support Black Lives Matter. Said Riverdale’s Cole Sprouse, who was arrested: “As a straight white man, the institutional consequences of my detainment are nothing in comparison to others within the movement.” Just blocks away, riots erupted on Fourth Street, leading to 438 arrests for looting, assault with a weapon and curfew violations, per Chief of Police Cynthia Renaud. By June 1, Fire Chief Judah Mitchell said officials received 3,400 calls, as residents cleaned up debris with brooms and shop owners boarded…

For Greg Berlanti, directing 2018’s Love, Simon fulfilled a career goal 18 years in the making. Since writing and directing his feature debut, 2000’s romantic comedy The Broken Hearts Club, the prolific producer had wanted to see a movie with a gay lead in wide release. While the earlier star-studded pic featuring John Mahoney, Billy Porter, Timothy Olyphant, Zach Braff and Dean Cain grossed $2 million (on a $1 million budget), it never made it into more than 100 theaters. Now Berlanti reflects on how the Nick Robinson-led coming-out movie, which grossed $66.3 million (on a budget of $17 million) was able to open wide and achieve what was seemingly impossible just two decades ago. I always loved Diner and wanted to write about the friendships that had been so…

When Billy Porter made his Met Gala debut last year on a throne carried by six shirtless men, Vogue proclaimed, “Billy Porter Just Made the Most Fashionable Entrance in Met Gala History.” A year later, Vogue editor-in chief and Condé Nast artistic director and global content adviser Anna Wintour chats with Porter about what being an LGBTQ ally means to her. BILLY PORTER How do you see yourself as an ally, and how does that manifest through fashion? ANNA WINTOUR Fashion is a deeply inclusive community. If we look back to the ’80s and the AIDS crisis, the fashion community came together when, even in New York, people were not really talking about the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. We created Seventh on Sale to raise money. I feel privileged…

For any LGBTQ person, there is no bigger gamechanger than coming out. It’s a rite of passage equal parts terrifying and liberating — and all the more so when you do it in the public eye. For its first Pride issue, THR turns to some of the most famous faces to have ever emerged from the Hollywood closet to learn what they were thinking before, during and after the biggest decision of their lives. Some came charging; others did it more tentatively. They span generations — the youngest, Josie Totah, is 18; the oldest, Richard Chamberlain, is 86. Their stories are vastly different, shaped as much by their own lives as the eras in which they came out. (What once required a People cover declaration can now be slipped into…

LIMITED SERIES Some of the anthology series that usually nab nominations (Genius, American Crime Story) aren’t eligible for 2020, so there’s a slew of star-studded miniseries vying for attention, including HBO’s I Know This Much Is True (Mark Ruffalo plays twins) and Watchmen (with Regina King), Apple TV+’s Defending Jacob (starring Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery), FX on Hulu’s Mrs. America (led by Cate Blanchett) and Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere (with Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington). Plus, Netflix has powerful offerings like Unorthodox, Unbelievable and Hollywood. VARIETY SKETCH SERIES Saturday Night Live has won this category for the past five years and is a frontrunner once again (especially after shifting to a shoot-at-home model during the novel coronavirus pandemic), but don’t count out new fare like HBO’s well-received A Black…

COVID-19 was the worst possible game-changer for college acting programs. When the pandemic hit, schools scrambled to adjust, canceling long-planned productions at the last minute while transferring whatever classes they could — movement, voice, dramaturgy — to remote teaching. For the 2020-21 school year, things are very much still in flux. Most schools are in session, but the highly physical lab work required remains unlikely. Nevertheless, life and education — just like the show — must go on, and so The Hollywood Reporter consulted once again with insiders, alumni and theater professionals for its annual ranking of the best institutions for a drama degree. (All programs are graduate level unless otherwise indicated.) 1 JUILLIARD NEW YORK A seminar for on-camera acting taught by Bob Krakower (who’s coached everyone from Keanu Reeves…