Innholdsfortegnelse for June 14, 2023 i The Hollywood Reporter

Guest Column Joan Didion wrote in The White Album, “We tell ourselves stories to live.” Part of what she meant, I think, is that we come to rely on our stories as a kind of infrastructure; we build lives, friendships and marriages on top of them. They become foundational, tectonic in ways that are deeper than we understand. And like anything tectonic, it was alarming for me when the stories I’d always told myself about being a gay man started to move. When I first heard the word “nonbinary,” I didn’t know what it meant aside from the fact that I was no longer in my 20s. At first I watched the beautiful rethinking of gender that Gen Z queer culture hath wrought as if it were happening on the…

How One Entrepreneurial PA Is Navigating the Strike The WGA strike has forced some to consider alternative employment, including temporary jobs and side hustles. Andrea Alba Von-Buren, a writers PA on The CW’s Gotham Knights, launched a business by keeping scribes caffeinated. In late May, she introduced Dean’s Coffee, a mobile pop-up that offers $4 coffee, tea, lattes and more for striking writers on the picket lines. “Everything is out of my trunk and a little table with a bunch of coolers in the car,” she explained to THR’s Lesley Goldberg, adding that some showrunners and other anonymous individuals have generously chipped in to “sponsor” her so she can dole out free cups some days. “It’s just been incredible and keeps getting bigger and bigger — maybe a little bit…

TOM HOLLAND IS HAVING A ROUGH MORNING. NOT BECAUSE HE PARTIED TOO HARD THE NIGHT BEFORE — THOUGH THE MARVEL STUDIOS SUPERSTAR HAD enough reasons to, what with it being his birthday and the world premiere at New York’s MoMA of The Crowded Room, the Apple TV+ series that he both stars in and executive produced. But Holland quit drinking alcohol a year and a half ago. No, this particular migraine comes from waking up to learn that Crowded Room — what Holland deems the “hardest thing I’ve ever done” (this according to a guy who has played Spider-Man in six feature films) — has been met by rough early reviews. “It was a kick in the teeth,” Holland admits, unprompted, over eggs Benedict on the quiet terrace of a hotel…

When ND Stevenson, executive producer of Nimona, discusses the fiery titular character of Netflix’s upcoming animated film, he uses descriptors rare for a lead: angry, punky, chubby, weird. “She’s this teen girl who wants to murder people,” he says of the charmingly chaotic shapeshifter. “She’s a character with a lot of pain and anger at her heart, and that’s why she exists.” For Stevenson, Nimona is a “power fantasy” — an avatar and alter ego — but one who is equally wounded, scared and desperate to be seen and loved. “When I made her,” he says, “I was doing it for my own catharsis.” Based on his webcomic turned graphic novel, Nimona is set in a medieval future society, where advancements in science and tech are controlled by a highly…

Daisy Jones & The Six star Sam Claflin arrived at his final audition to play fictional 1970s rock star Billy Dunne without, by his own admission, the strongest grasp on the type of musician he was expected to embody. His future showrunners had already taken a shine to the dimpled British actor, as had music supervisor Frankie Pine and producer Hello Sunshine’s president Lauren Neustadter, but one last hurdle remained before he could land the male lead in Amazon’s hot adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel of the same name. He had to sing live for the project’s music producers, Blake Mills and Tony Berg. Pine gave Claflin a shot of moonshine to soothe his nerves. The actor entered the storied halls of Sound City Studios, the Van Nuys building…

What does it take for a woman to survive in a hostile world? According to some of the drama contenders this season: rebellion, murder and cannibalism — and maybe a little bit of each thrown together in a perversely entertaining stew. Bad Sisters, The Handmaid’s Tale and Yellowjackets boast powerful female-led ensembles in which women are driven to extremes and do bad to make good of their lives. Their acts are gruesome but also thrilling and implicate the viewer, forcing audiences to ask: What is necessity and what is just bloodlust? The Handmaid’s Tale and Yellowjackets adhered to a playbook established in their lauded previous seasons. In its fifth and penultimate bout, Handmaid’s caught up with Elisabeth Moss’ June in the aftermath of killing her former captor Commander Waterford (Joseph…

Was there anyone who left the 1997 film The Full Monty wondering what those lads would be up to in three decades? Hulu’s new sequel series doesn’t offer a clear justification for its own existence; there’s no inciting incident that brings us back to Sheffield, and no motivating goal once we’re there. Yet the series works more than not. Created by Simon Beaufoy (who also wrote the film), the show makes the bet that although the stripper plot might be what people remember, what they liked about the movie was its spirit — the camaraderie between characters, the affectionate view of small-town life. For all its shortcomings, the series retains much of that unassuming charm. Twenty-five years on, Lomper (Steve Huison) is unhappy to learn that today’s youth are offended…

Drama schools worldwide were able to achieve a degree of stability in the past academic year as productions and classes largely went on as scheduled (though, in some cases, programs still felt lingering effects from COVID-19). Coming out of the pandemic, schools are pushing forward with a greater emphasis on diversity within the classes, faculty and coursework. Students are learning how to create the best self-taped auditions and coming out of school with jobs booked. The Hollywood Reporter consulted with educators and industry execs to determine its annual ranking of the best schools for an acting degree. Tuition, when applicable, is listed on an annualized basis and pertains to the upcoming academic year, unless otherwise indicated. Most schools offer some form of financial assistance. 1 The Juilliard School New York…

Black moviegoers represented 35 percent of ticket-buyers flocking to see Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther on the film’s opening weekend in February 2018, more than triple the norm. The Marvel Studios movie was widely credited as a groundbreaker: a blockbuster superhero film featuring a virtually all-Black cast. The bold move paid off, as the Oscar-nominated film ultimately topped out at just north of $700 million at the domestic box office to rank as the top-grossing pic of the year. Yet when it comes to diversity in front of the camera, progress has been sluggish for big-budget event pics despite such hits as Black Panther or the long-running Fast & Furious franchise. The 2023 summer box office could represent a notable step forward. For three weekends in a row, pricey studio tentpoles…

Ayear ago, it looked like TV was on the verge of a fantasy boom. HBO/Max’s House of the Dragon and Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power were set to premiere within weeks of each other in August and September — two big, expensive productions featuring mythical creatures that sought ratings, prestige and, one would assume, Emmys. But, now, heading into nominations, both are fighting for spots that do not appear to be guaranteed. Is the hope for fantasy glory at the Emmys, well, a fantasy? House of the Dragon and Rings of Power were clearly trying to capitalize on the success of Game of Thrones, which netted 161 nominations over its eight seasons. Of course, in Dragon, the legacy is explicit: It’s a direct prequel…

1.43B minutes viewed NETFLIX Jennifer Lopez’s thriller had a lot of people tuning in from their couches for its May 12-14 opening weekend. The Mother gathered 1.43 billion minutes of viewing in the U.S. for its first three days, according to Nielsen — the equivalent of about 12.5 million full runs of the movie. The U.S. streaming figure represents more than a quarter of Netflix’s global tally of 83.71 million hours for the weekend (though Nielsen and the streamer use different methods to arrive at their totals). The Mother has since cracked Netflix’s all-time top 10 for English-language films.…

In West Hollywood’s Boystown neighborhood, there are a wealth of nightlife options catering to cisgender gay men; spots that have opened just in the past 18 months include Heart WeHo (co-owned by Lance Bass), Schmitty’s, Stache and Or Bar (co-owned by style expert and former Fashion Police host George Kotsiopoulos). But there’s been a dearth of nightlife havens for lesbians in L.A. ever since The Palms closed in WeHo in 2013 and The Oxwood Inn shut down in the San Fernando Valley in 2017. That all changed in 2023. The Ruby Fruit — described as a “neighborhood wine bar for the sapphically inclined” and whose name is an homage to Rita Mae Brown’s landmark lesbian novel The Rubyfruit Jungle — opened earlier this year in the former Eszett restaurant space…

Pixar’s latest film, Elemental, directed by Peter Sohn with a voice cast starring Mamoudou Athie, Leah Lewis and Wendi McLendon-Covey, premiered June 8 in Los Angeles. Exploring a city where fire, water, land and air residents live together, the movie will be Pixar’s first original, non-franchise theatrical title to be released in theaters since the pandemic, during which such films were sent straight to Disney+. “We make them to be seen [in theaters], all of them, even the ones that went to streaming,” Pixar’s chief creative officer, Pete Docter, told THR regarding the value of seeing their animated films on the big screen. “We sit and review them 40 feet tall, so it’s disappointing when people watch them on iPhones or whatever, because there’s so much more in there. This…

Amid relentless attacks on LGBTQ personhood nationwide, THR spotlights bold voices among Hollywood’s of-the-moment actors and directors pushing new boundaries for representation onscreen: ‘All stories are universal’ On April 25, native Floridian Berry Ayers, aka Beneva Fruitville, joined with hundreds of her fellow drag performers for a Drag Queen’s March in Tallahassee, Florida. They were there to protest a plethora of hateful legislation targeting drag shows, trans-affirming medical care and bathroom usage. “It was just a show of resistance versus more trying to get anything changed, because we knew it was going to be signed,” she says. Ayers was right. The laws were passed and enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis — who signed 2022’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill (see sidebar on opposite page) — and Ayers saw the life…

When Oscar-nominated director Lee Daniels thinks of those who inspired him, Patrik-Ian Polk easily comes to mind. Known for telling groundbreaking stories centered on Black gay life — including the independent film Punks, which premiered at Sundance in 2000, and Noah’s Arc, which ran on Logo TV for two seasons from 2005-06 — Polk is a creative force who has chronicled (and continues to chronicle) the lives of underrepresented people while championing diversity way before “DEI” became a buzz term. “[Polk] was way ahead of the curve, and he took the bullets for all of us when it just wasn’t accepted to do what he was doing,” Daniels, 63, says of Polk, 49. “His bravery is what I ran with in my career. I learned from Patrik that I wasn’t…

Arguably one of the most indelible images from the much-discussed Succession finale was that of two hands not quite interlocked. Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) holds out his palm for his wife, Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook), to take in the back of a car. She doesn’t quite grasp it, her hand limply resting in his. It’s a final image of a marriage that audiences witnessed oscillate between flirtation and vitriol during the course of the season. Of the many threads running through Succession’s final season, maybe the most captivating was the fractured relationship between Shiv and Tom, who went from playing a bizarre sexualized game called “bitey” to screaming at each other on a terrace during an election night party. By the finale, when Tom was named CEO of the company…

Following years of rumors, Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the tech giant’s anticipated mixed reality headset June 5 — and Hollywood was abuzz. Slated for an early 2024 release, the Apple Vision Pro was presented as a portable spacial computer “starting at” $3,499. The device is operated with an interface controlled by face, hands and voice. And with such features as 4K, HDR, spacial audio and stereoscopic 3D, Apple made it clear that entertainment was a central part of its mission. Apple TV+ shows Ted Lasso and Foundation were included in the presentation, while the company described the device’s utility to consumers as a “personal movie theater.” And Disney CEO Bob Iger even appeared during the unveiling to announce that Disney+ would be available on the device at launch, deeming…

Harvey Guillén always loved to get dressed up. He cannot say the same of shopping. “Going to the mall was so hard,” says the What We Do in the Shadows star. “Somebody made a meme of what it is to be a person of size going shopping with your friends. Everyone else is like, ‘I got this cute outfit, I got this cute top, I got these cute jeans.’ Meanwhile I’m like, ‘I got this cute bracelet.’” Some brands and retailers have gotten better at catering to plussize customers, but the evolution remains slow-going. Fortunately for the 33-year-old queer actor, a real sartorial standout with a string of buzzy 2023 red carpet looks, he’s now courting the attention of major labels, though not all of them are able to deliver.…

ELDORADO: EVERYTHING THE NAZIS HATE The Netflix doc looks at a 1920s nightclub in Weimar, Germany, that flourished before Nazism stamped it and its freedoms out. June 28 EVERY BODY Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julie Cohen (RBG), this Focus Features film explores the lives of people born intersex. June 30 KOKOMO CITY D. Smith’s doc, released by Magnolia Pictures, chronicles the lives of four Black trans sex workers in New York and Atlanta, one of whom — Koko Da Doll — was shot and killed in April after filming was completed. July 28 THE STROLL This HBO film tells the history of New York’s Meatpacking District from the point of view of transgender sex workers. June 21 THE REAL GEORGE MICHAEL: PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST The late pop star, who…

Mo Brings Plenty has openly said that he was ready to quit acting before Yellowstone came along. An enrolled member of the Lakota Nations, he was frustrated with the cultural misappropriation he saw onscreen, until he was cast in the first season of the Paramount Network flagship series that launched in 2018. As the righthand man to Broken Rock Tribe chief Thomas Rainwater (played by Gil Birmingham), Mo (also the name of his character) began as a smaller role that expanded with each season of the Kevin Costner-led series created by Taylor Sheridan. But it’s from behind the scenes that Brings Plenty helps to provide grassroots-level of authenticity to the franchise’s Native storylines — a rarity, he acknowledges, when it comes to representation onscreen. “If you want accuracy, then you…

Eccentric billionaires are not heroes. That’s a key takeaway from Boots Riley’s dark comedy I’m a Virgo, a seven-episode, red-hot poker in the eye of the corporate establishment, produced for Jeff Bezos’ Amazon platform. Few contemporary storytellers rival Riley when it comes to playful dogmatism, and I’m a Virgo wraps its anti-capitalist message in a thin casing that’s part superhero drama and part allegorical satire. Even if the show gives the impression of having a surplus of big ideas and a deficit of narrative through which to present them, the half-hour episodes amount to a singular vision of contemporary economic inequality and race that’s sure to provoke a variety of responses — including irritation from those more interested in the comic book wrapping than the substantive gift inside. Jharrel Jerome…

Not long after Bravo canceled Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in 2007, the show’s creators thought their showbiz careers were over. Despite masterminding one of the 21st century’s seminal reality TV hits, David Collins, Rob Eric and Michael Williams — the team behind Scout Productions, founded in 1994 as a scrappy indie film outfit based out of Boston — were struggling to find another hit now that they’d been rebranded as unscripted lifestyle guys. “In 2004, we won an Oscar for The Fog of War and an Emmy for Queer Eye,” Collins says. “Two years after that, we could not get arrested. There was a moment where I was like, ‘All right, am I going to become a barista?’ ” Today, Scout is one of the most prolific nonfiction…