Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2025 i Vanity Fair

When I read David Canfield’s insightful cover story, I remembered both how long it’s been since she first landed on my radar (Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer, 1998) and how vital a voice she remains in Hollywood, not least because of her economic power as one of the highest-paid global stars of all time. She’s done it all—from indies to major franchises (she’s a firm believer in the cultural significance of both) to speaking out on behalf of artists seeking protection from AI overreach. Still, this year she’s exploring two new frontiers: Scarlett makes her feature directorial debut with a film called Eleanor the Great, set all around her hometown of New York City, and selected to premiere at Cannes; and she joins the Jurassic World world, a pipe dream…

GOD BLESS JEAN SMART, but I don’t know if I can watch her win another Emmy. She’s already collected three for her delicious work on Hacks—she’s never been nominated for the series without winning—and this September she will likely be called to the stage for her fourth. John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, meanwhile, has won 30 awards in 11 years, and I can recite from memory his perennial speech thanking staff members in Brooklyn. Some 140 years ago, when Nietzsche advanced the concept of eternal return, he was talking about how boring the Emmys are. All this is not entirely the voters’ fault—television is built on multiseason series—but they’ll clearly vote for the same people over and over until they get carpal tunnel. The result is that the industry’s most…

ON THE MORNING of January 16, Kyle MacLachlan was working out in his home gym high in the hills above Los Angeles when his wife came to the door and said, “I have some terrible news.” David Lynch, the director who discovered MacLachlan and made him a star, was dead. “I didn’t collapse,” MacLachlan says, “but everything went right out of me.” Everyone knew Lynch was battling emphysema, but MacLachlan didn’t think he was dying. Just a few weeks earlier, he and Laura Dern had visited Lynch at his house down the road. “We always kept a distance because he didn’t want to catch anything—his lungs were so fragile. But he was chipper, and we were talking about the next thing we might want to do and trying to figure…

David CANFIELD “A STUDY IN SCARLETT,” P. 34 “You can learn a lot about a person by following them around their neighborhood,” says Canfield, a VF Hollywood correspondent, who walked more than 30 blocks with Scarlett Johansson on New York’s Upper East Side. “I got to know someone who knows exactly where she is going.” Chris BUZELLI “SHADOWS IN THE VALLEY,” P. 46 For Buzelli, illustrating Joe Hagan’s profile of California congressman Ro Khanna on his Rust Belt road trip was personal. “I grew up in that part of the country, and my late father worked his whole life as a machinist in the last of those steel mills,” he says. Joy PRESS “FULL SCREEN,” P. 30; “BEST IN SHOWS,” P. 74 VF’s TV correspondent, Press covered much ground for…

“WHATEVER KIND OF diner food you’re into is going to be delicious—and also enormous.” Scarlett Johansson is priming me on what to order at the Ritz Diner, a 60-year-old institution in her Upper East Side neighborhood. She’s just walked in wearing bulky circumaural headphones, a plush turquoise turtleneck, and an old Yankees cap, and we’re sitting in a small booth by a window with the blinds closed. Today may technically still be in the midst of a dreary New York winter, but this buoyant mid-March afternoon—the temperature inching toward 60 degrees, the sun brightly shining—is signaling the beginning of spring. Before ordering a turkey sandwich on rye, Johansson suggests a change in the season will do us all some good: “It’s such a weird time.” She smiles the kind of…

“THERE’S BRUCE!” HUDDLED inside on a rainy February afternoon, Kathy Bates points with delight at the shark from Jaws, which dangles from the ceiling, mouth agape and menacingly frozen in time. It’s the only existing full-scale model from the 1975 classic—and the largest object in Los Angeles’s Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Next to it, there’s a gallery with the word Zoetrope on the door, which reminds Bates of the production lot Francis Ford Coppola used to own. “That’s where we shot Misery,” she says offandedly. She keeps walking. We’ve just begun an hour-long guided tour through 130 years of filmmaking, and whether or not Bates is the kind of person to shout about it, she’s been a meaningful part of that history. She won the best-actress Oscar for Misery…

“I’ve never been in something that people watch,” says Molly Gordon, “which is a very different experience.” She’s talking about her breakout turn in the bittersweet Emmy favorite The Bear and underselling her résumé a little: She’s been on Ramy and Animal Kingdom, as well as indie movies like Booksmart. But it’s true that playing the woman trying to get into the locked freezer of Carmy’s heart has put a more intense spotlight on Gordon. “Carmy is a character that people feel so protective over, and it’s been kind of controversial to bring a romantic element into the show,” she says. “That’s been at times annoying, fascinating, and interesting—just to be a part of something that people have opinions on.” Gordon will have to get used to it. The Bear’s…

DRIVE FIVE MILES north of the Hollywood sign and you’ll find yourself in Burbank, where they actually make the dreams for the dream factory. Casablanca, Reservoir Dogs, and Euphoria were all shot here. Today, tucked inside an unmarked warehouse in a particularly drab patch of the city, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal are filming their own contribution to entertainment history: a segment called “Will It Dip?” for their delightfully goofy and imaginative YouTube series Good Mythical Morning. After taste-testing a soupy dip made out of mashed Girl Scout cookies, the duo are presented with a bowl of black goo served under glass. McLaughlin removes the lid and thick smoke fills the set, which is designed to look like a ramshackle fishing lodge. When the cameras stop rolling, Neal tells the…

THE DAY AFTER DONALD TRUMP BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SECOND TIME, I’M IN A CRAMPED BOOTH IN THE BACK OF PETE’S DINER, A GREASY SPOON IN WASHINGTON, DC, EXPERIENCING THE SLOW ONSET SHOCK OF A WORLD TURNED TO ABSOLUTE SHIT. The future is a gaping void; the past a mushroom cloud. I’ve spent the previous morning in the bitter cold, fording rivers of guffawing frat boys, MAGA-hatted blonds in teetering heels, gaggles of acid-washed biker retirees, and street merchants hawking bootleg Trump T-shirts by the hundreds. In the distance, a man carols incessantly: They’re eating the dogs! They’re eating the cats! In despair, I look across the table for a shred of hope and find the 48-year-old Democrat of the 17th Congressional District of California, Ro…

THE LONG AND brutal reign of the Assad regime finally ended in December with a stunning two-week revolt. A coalition of insurgent factions, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), swept across Syria, taking city after city, largely unopposed. As the capital, Damascus, was about to fall, the dictator Bashar al-Assad fled the nation he had held captive to terror for so long. He was granted refuge by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, his longtime protector. Overnight, the Syrian people emerged from decades of darkness with a profound collective trauma. For more than half a century, they had been forbidden to speak, protest, or engage in any meaningful activity against the state—ever since 1971, when Bashar’s father, Hafez, came to power. Suddenly, everyone found themselves in a new world led…