Innholdsfortegnelse for Award Special 23B, August 1, 2022 i The Hollywood Reporter

I first met Michael (that’s what he went by in college, so that’s what I still call him) White in an acting class during our freshman year at Wesleyan. There were two acting classes, and we were in the bad one — the B group, so to speak. Michael was already a little bit famous on campus, having done a scene that made a big splash in No Doze Theater, an all-night theater production that ran during finals. But what stuck out to me was that he wasn’t wearing socks — it was January in Connecticut. He still doesn’t really know how to dress for the winter. We remained close friends for years before ever working together. When I was just starting out and would travel to Los Angeles for…

MADTV (1997-2002) Borstein joined the cast of the third season of the sketch comedy series MadTV in 1997. She appeared on the show for five seasons and was best known for her character Ms. Swan, owner of the Gorgeous Pretty Beauty Nail Salon. FAMILY GUY (1999-PRESENT) Borstein has voiced matriarch Lois Griffin and several other characters on Family Guy since 1999, and is also one of the show’s supervising producers as well as a former writer on the animated series created by Seth MacFarlane. CATWOMAN (2004) On the set of the infamous flop, which starred Oscar winner Halle Berry (and earned seven Razzie noms), Borstein learned — at the last minute — that she could have a stand-in take her place while she took a bathroom break. GOOD NIGHT, AND…

“My manager Bernie Brillstein once told me, ‘Don’t take it too seriously — it’s just showbiz.’ There’s a tendency with the arts to think, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t get that part because I was bad.’ And then you’re on the other side of the table and you realize, no, you’re just too short [for the role]. It can be the most thrilling profession and also the most demoralizing. I learned that I could never determine my happiness based on the admiration of strangers.” MARTIN SHORT, BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY, ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING “A director I consider to be my mentor to this day once told me: ‘When you speak, you have to think about the overall dialogue. You have to think first. Language onstage that lacks…

The White Lotus was a reunion for Connie Britton and creator Mike White, who wrote the 2017 feature Beatriz at Dinner, starring Britton alongside Salma Hayek. As the wealthy Nicole Mossbacher in Lotus, Britton says she had the opportunity to play a character with real nuance who reflects our reality back to us as viewers — and the role has earned her a fifth Emmy nomination (she garnered nods for American Horror Story, Nashville and Friday Night Lights). Britton spoke with THR about the process of approaching this character and crafting her arc with White and what it was like working during the height of COVID on such a singular project. Did you think of the show as an Emmy-caliber project when you signed on? It [was] really just about…

OUTSTANDING VARIETY SPECIAL (LIVE) The 64th Annual Grammy Awards (CBS) The Trevor Noah-hosted celebration of music aired April 3 (more recently than any rival), featured performances from winners Silk Sonic and Olivia Rodrigo, and landed five Emmy nominations (tied for category best). But only the 2021 Grammys telecast attracted fewer viewers, and no Grammys telecast has ever won this award. The Tony Awards Present: Broadway’s Back! (CBS) This commemoration of Broadway’s rebound from COVID aired in September (another Tonys has aired since), was hosted by Tony winners Audra McDonald and Leslie Odom Jr. and featured musical performances and award presentations. But with just two noms, it’s tied for a category low, and a Tonys telecast hasn’t won this prize since 2017. The Oscars (ABC) March’s telecast will forever be remembered…

In the final moments of Hacks’ second season, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) has revitalized her career with a smash comedy special, on which she collaborated with her Gen Z joke writer, Ava (Hannah Einbinder). But rather than going out on a celebratory note, Deborah delivers a harsh truth to Ava: She’s firing her so that Ava can focus on her own career. Hacks co-creator and co-showrunner Jen Statsky breaks down this emotional scene that closes out the finale — and suggests that the pair will go on separate journeys during the next season.…

In 2019, when Himesh Patel auditioned for the role of Jeevan Chaudhary in HBO Max’s Station Eleven, he dug into Emily St. John Mandel’s dystopian novel about a world forced to rebuild after being ravaged by a deadly virus and was left somewhat perplexed. “I flew to L.A.,” recalls the 31-year-old London-based actor, “where I had a chat with Patrick [Somerville] and Hiro [Murai] at the audition. And I was like, ‘I’ve read the book, and I guess Jeevan’s there at the beginning, and then there’s a mention of him at the end. I don’t really know what your plan is.’” Showrunner Somerville and director Murai told the British actor that, in a departure from the book it was based on, a relationship that forms between 8-year-old Kirsten (Matilda Lawler)…

Barry creator and star Bill Hader gets lots of press these days, but in 2005, his name first made it into The Hollywood Reporter when he and Andy Samberg were “tapped as ‘featured players’” for Saturday Night Live. It would prove to be Hader’s big break — and provide fodder for the HBO series about a hitman who longs to become an actor. On THR’s 2019 Comedy Showrunner Roundtable, Hader explained, “There’s a scene in the pilot [of Barry] where he’s sitting there with all these actors and Barry’s looking at them, and that’s me my first season on Saturday Night Live. That’s me being with Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph and Fred [Armisen] and everybody, going, ‘I so badly want to be accepted by these people, but I don’t…

To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, that’s how Martha Kelly really talks. The comedian turned actor — who rose to prominence as a stand-up before making her screen debut playing a deadpan insurance agent opposite Zach Galifianakis on FX’s Baskets — is known for her distinctively muted voice and unsettlingly dry delivery. But it’s not shtick: “This is just how I sound,” she explains. She’d never felt like her acting skills were particularly strong — in fact, she only agreed to Baskets because Galifianakis is a close friend and had written the part for her. “He made it seem as un-scary as possible. I still thought that I was going to get fired on the first day.” While Kelly may have had doubts about her abilities, the response…

Alex Borstein is an actress and writer — primarily of the comedy variety — who has excelled in an unusually wide variety of formats, from sketch comedy (she made her name on Fox’s MadTV from 1997 through 2002) to voice acting (most notably as the voice of Lois Griffin, among others, on Fox’s Family Guy from 1999 through the present) to films (ranging from 2004’s Catwoman to 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck) to series TV (most recently Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, on which she plays Susie Myerson, a bartender turned talent manager). The 51-year-old Golden Globe nominee, two-time SAG Award nominee, two-time Critics Choice Award winner and three-time Emmy Award winner (twice for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and once for Family Guy), who is Emmy-nominated this year for best…

“‘My job is to get the job — then I can worry about doing it.’ That’s my great teacher Bobby Lewis, who was a member of the Group Theatre in the ’30s and was a magnificent, funny, great raconteur. He said that to us over and over again. I say it all the time to young actors. When you’re up for an audition, do not look further than that audition. When you are selling a piece of material, when you’re pitching it, your audience is the people in the room. [The job] doesn’t exist until it’s real. Don’t talk about it — keep it to yourself, to your partners. When you get it, then you can celebrate.” HENRY WINKLER, BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY, BARRY “The best advice I…

With 20 nominations, HBO’s The White Lotus is the most honored limited or anthology series at this year’s Emmys, with eight of those noms for various members of its ensemble cast. Two standouts of that impressive bunch are Murray Bartlett, who plays the chipper hotel manager Armond as he combusts on a shocking drug-fueled spiral, and Jake Lacy, who plays Shane, a trust-fund baby with a bad attitude who complains after he and his new wife (fellow nominee Alexandra Daddario) are placed in the wrong luxury suite. The series takes place almost entirely within the confines of the titular five-star resort, where questions of class, race, family and sexuality are all explored in humorous, deeply nuanced and provocative ways. Creating the show was a unique experience — the cast and…