Innholdsfortegnelse for Award Special 17B, June 6, 2022 i The Hollywood Reporter

When I was first writing the pilot for Severance, I was working at a company that makes doors. It was a very mindless job: cataloging all the different parts of doors. There’s nothing terribly unique or interesting in saying that I didn’t like my job — even people who are doing something they love might find themselves on a day-to-day basis feeling like whatever they’re doing is just a grind. But my job became so mind-numbing that I had the fantasy that would become the premise of the show. What if I could skip the eight hours of the workday, to disassociate and just get it over with? I joke that the Great Resignation — the phenomenon in which 47 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021 alone — was…

The Great Gatsby (1974) Waterston starred as Nick Carraway in Jack Clayton’s adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel alongside Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern and Karen Black. Francis Ford Coppola wrote the screenplay Heaven’s Gate (1980) In the film written and directed by Michael Cimino, Waterston appeared as Frank Canton. Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken and John Hurt also star in the epic Western loosely based on the Johnson County War. Oppenheimer (1980) Waterston toplined the Emmy-winning TV miniseries, a biography of American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who led the U.S.’ effort to develop the atomic bomb during World War II. The Killing Fields (1984) Waterston was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his role as New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg in Roland Joffé’s feature directorial debut. The…

It’s apparent within Pachinko’s opening moments that the Apple TV+ adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s best-selling 2017 novel of the same name features some major departures from the source material. The opening sequence cuts between Japaneseoccupied Korea in 1915 and New York City in 1989, unlike the book, which unfurls its multigenerational family saga linearly. What’s less apparent is that production on Pachinko’s first season also took place out of order and sometimes simultaneously in multiple locations that included Canada, Japan and seven Korean cities. With two separate timelines occurring half a century apart and directors Kogonada and Justin Chon splitting the eight episodes, the Pachinko team, comprised of a multinational, multilingual crew of 300, was able to operate two units that worked in tandem to pull off the ambitious…

The best thing about FX’s Reservation Dogs is that depending on the episode, any of the show’s four stars — Devery Jacobs, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Lane Factor, Paulina Alexis — could be front and center, as each of the young, previously unknown actors has already proven their ability to anchor installments with creators Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi’s distinctive blend of quirky humor and earnest heart. The worst thing about FX’s Reservation Dogs, at least when approaching the show through an awards-obsessed prism, is that it’s a pure ensemble, one uninterested in inviting easy “lead”/“supporting” classifications and one without a single breakout performance; there are four. One week, the spotlight is on Woon-A-Tai as Bear, whose search for a positive male role model leads him to comic interactions with an amiably…

AMERICAN AUTO NBC’s workplace comedy skewers the C-suite of a Detroit-based automotive company, particularly the new CEO (Ana Gasteyer), who was poached from a Big Pharma company and knows nothing about cars. HACKS When it’s not following Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance on tour, the HBO Max comedy depicts the ongoing conflict between talent agent Jimmy (co-creator Paul W. Downs) and his insubordinate assistant, Kayla (Megan Stalter). SUPER PUMPED Showtime’s anthology drama is another series set within the stylishly sleek Silicon Valley tech scene, with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) going head-to-head with board members for control of the company. THE DROPOUT The Hulu limited series charts the rise and fall of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried). The tech entrepreneur’s leadership insecurities are often on display in the company’s…

BEST ACTOR, DRAMA SERIES Jamie Dornan The Tourist For his portrayal of an amnesiac, the actor — coming off a career-changing turn in Kenneth Branagh’s best picture Oscar nominee Belfast — could earn his first Emmy nomination. It looked like he’d have to compete in the wildly competitive limited series category, but as the BBC has renewed the ratings hit, he now winds up in this slightly more open race. Adam Scott Severance Despite years of strong TV work, most notably on NBC’s Parks and Recreation, Scott has never received an Emmy nom. However, it increasingly looks like that may change as voters catch up with his understated work on Apple TV+’s futuristic critics’ darling (it’s at 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), in which he stars alongside Patricia Arquette, John…

John Cameron Mitchell is a multihyphenate who has worked onstage and on screen, as an actor, writer and director. Best known for co-writing and starring in the genderqueer rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch — first off-Broadway, then in the 2001 film adaptation and later a Tony-winning Broadway revival — Mitchell is one of the most prolific and beloved queer artists of their generation. This year, Mitchell donned a mullet and copious amounts of eyeliner to play the infamous Joe Exotic in Peacock’s limited series Joe vs. Carole, opposite Kate McKinnon as Joe’s nemesis, Carole Baskin. Mitchell sat down with THR to discuss their approach to the over-the-top character and finding the human underneath the bravado. I’ve read that you said you hadn’t seen Netflix’s Tiger King. Were you aware…

Since its debut in September, Netflix’s South Korean survival drama Squid Game took the world by storm. It’s the streamer’s most watched show ever, and its castmembers have been showered with awards and critical acclaim, with Emmys in sight. It’s hard to fathom, then, that writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk first had the idea for the series 14 years ago, based on his own economic struggles and the class disparity in South Korea, and was told it was “too unrealistic and too violent.” But despite the initial pushback and doubts, the show debuted at a time that mirrored a reality we face: The economic gap has been worsening and people were looking for thought-provoking yet entertaining content while stuck in their homes. Hwang and star Lee Jung-jae, who plays Gi-hun in the…

In summer 2021, as a surge in COVID-19 cases linked to the delta variant quickly scuttled vacation plans, the satirical HBO series The White Lotus transported viewers to an idyllic Hawaiian setting. The Emmy contender is the latest in a line of series — from Gilligan’s Island to Baywatch to Lost — taking fans from the couch to the beach, but the show’s exploration of privilege and mystery particularly hearken back to 1970s escapist gem Fantasy Island. Created by Gene Levitt and produced by Aaron Spelling, it premiered 45 years ago, first as a pair of TV movies and then as an episodic series that focused on a mysterious island that made visitors’ wishes come true for a hefty price. Ricardo Montalban played the suave and enigmatic Mr. Roarke, who…

Sam Waterston is one of the most respected and beloved actors of our time. Described by The New York Times as the “thinking man’s surrogate” and by the Los Angeles Times as “a pure actor — versatile, dedicated, intelligent and very good indeed, at home in any medium and any period,” he has done outstanding work over seven decades onstage and onscreen, accumulating a Tony nomination, an Oscar nomination and eight Emmy nominations, one of which resulted in a win. But he is best known for one role in particular: Jack McCoy, the New York assistant district attorney turned district attorney on NBC’s drama series Law & Order, a role he played from 1994 through 2010, and one that he returned to playing this year — in addition to playing…

It was not by design that every participant on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Comedy Showrunner Emmy Roundtable was a woman. But, about one hour into an 80-minute Zoom over Memorial Day weekend, gender prompted a shared gripe: Female TV writers — even those as prolific as I Love That for You’s Jessi Klein, Russian Doll’s Natasha Lyonne, The Chair’s Amanda Peet, What We Do in the Shadows’ Stefani Robinson (who also writes and produces for Atlanta), Hacks’ Jen Statsky and A Black Lady Sketch Show’s Robin Thede — keep getting asked to step away from their own passion projects to assist on shows from male peers fearing cancellation. “Repulsive,” “insulting” and “insane” as that might be, it also proved to be a point of solidarity for the six comic veterans bonding…

In the first season of Sam Levinson’s ensemble teen drama Euphoria, Eric Dane’s Cal Jacobs is introduced in an aggressive hookup scene with Jules (Hunter Schafer), an encounter that his character secretly filmed. “We created an environment that was safe for us to explore such a violent and aggressive act and feel at ease with it,” Dane recalls. This season sees Cal on a quest to retrieve the stolen footage of his secret sexual encounters — which leads him into an alcohol-fueled mania. The prospect of his unearthed sexuality prompts reverie: One episode opens with flashbacks to Cal’s high school years and the budding romance he had with his best friend, Derek, cut short by the news that Cal’s girlfriend (and, later, wife) is pregnant. “It was helpful to see…

THE FIRST LADY (SHOWTIME) You could argue that it represents some modest form of progress that The First Lady digs beyond the “official” position that’s so far only been held by men and focuses on the work their wives have always done behind the scenes — as confidants and advisers to their husbands, as symbols for the public, as activists in their own right. But insipid hagiography does not automatically become deeper or smarter because women are at the center, and for all its glossy sheen and good intentions, The First Lady has little to offer that feels truly, meaningfully “real.” Created by Aaron Cooley, the series weaves together the personal lives, professional accomplishments and lingering legacies of three first ladies. In the first half of the 20th century, Eleanor…