Aurelia Butler

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    Andrew Scott’s Best Roles and Moments

    The star of “Ripley” and “All of Us Strangers” has become one of our most reliably excellent actors.There are some actors who always, no matter the size of their role or the context of their performance, draw the eye. Andrew Scott, who has most recently appeared as the slippery, scheming protagonist in the Netflix series “Ripley,” is one of them. He is enthralling to watch, his emotional notes meticulously constructed, with playful touches of chaos that always leave space for moments of discovery and surprise. Here are a few of Scott’s favorite modes of performance, and how his popular roles reflect an actor excelling at his craft.The MadmanBBC/Hartswood Films for MasterpieceIn Scott’s breakout role, in “Sherlock,” he plays Moriarty, the criminal mastermind opposite Benedict Cumberbatch’s contemporary Sherlock Holmes. From Scott’s first appearance, in the Season 1 finale, he electrifies an already energetic show. Cumberbatch set the tone for “Sherlock” with his brutal, fast-paced wit; deductions tumble out of his mouth with strict precision, and in an impersonal monotone. Scott’s arrival, and his erratic singsong speaking, break this rhythm. There’s a menacing playfulness to not only his rhetorical delivery but also to his facial expressions. It adds a new dimension to the show.In their initial confrontation scene, Sherlock aims a gun at Moriarty, asking, “What if I was to shoot you now?” Moriarty responds with a cartoonish look of shock that starts at the top of his head and ripples down: his eyebrows popping up, his eyes widening, jaw dropping and neck drawing back. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Young Thug’s Gang Trial Is Paused Because of Judge’s Secret Meeting

    The much-delayed case was halted indefinitely to determine whether the judge should recuse himself after meeting with an uncooperative witness.After more than 10 months of jury selection and 100 days of trial across another half a year, the sprawling and much-delayed gang conspiracy case against the Atlanta rapper Young Thug and five associates has been halted indefinitely.Judge Ural Glanville announced on Monday in a Fulton County, Ga., courtroom that the case would not proceed until another judge decides whether Judge Glanville should recuse himself from overseeing the trial. The surprise ruling followed weeks of disputes between the court and defense attorneys, who have argued that a meeting between the judge, prosecutors and an uncooperative witness was improper and potentially unconstitutional.Judge Glanville had previously denied multiple motions from the defense that called for him to step aside, calling his actions regarding last month’s meeting and its aftermath proper. But on Monday, during a hearing about releasing a transcript of the secret meeting, he agreed that an outside judge should decide how the trial would proceed.Jurors have not heard testimony in the case for two weeks amid the upheaval and were not expected to return until next Monday, following the July 4 holiday weekend. Asked by a prosecutor how long it would take for the trial to get back underway, Judge Glanville said the decision was no longer within his purview. “Hopefully it will get done fairly quickly,” he said.Already plagued by disruptions and complications, both outside and inside the courtroom, the case hit its most recent snag beginning on June 7, when a key prosecution witness, Kenneth Copeland, refused to testify after being sworn in, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to protect against self-incrimination despite having already been granted immunity.Mr. Copeland spent a weekend in jail on contempt charges and then agreed to testify, although he remained hard to pin down on basic factual matters. When Brian Steel, a lawyer for Young Thug, raised concerns about whether Mr. Copeland had been compelled to testify during a coercive meeting with Judge Glanville and prosecutors, the judge demanded to know how Mr. Steel learned of the closed-door meeting and then held him in contempt.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Omar Apollo’s ‘God Said No’ Is an Exquisite Recap of Heartache

    His second album, “God Said No,” delves into a breakup with all its complications, transformed into pensive alt-R&B.A failing romance can spark enduring breakup songs. Consider Taylor Swift, Shakira, Bob Dylan, Beck, Joni Mitchell, Björk, Fleetwood Mac and, now, Omar Apollo, with his second full-length album, “God Said No.”Apollo, 27, was born and grew up in Indiana, the son of immigrant parents — his given last name is Velasco — who shared their Mexican traditions with him. He emerged on SoundCloud in the late 2010s as an alt-R&B songwriter with echoes of Prince, hip-hop and indie-rock, singing largely in English and occasionally in Spanish. Apollo’s full-length debut album in 2022, “Ivory,” gave him a TikTok-powered, platinum-certified hit: “Evergreen (You Didn’t Deserve Me at All),” a self-questioning ballad with echoes of the 1950s and electronic overtones.“God Said No” plunges more deeply into the raw, unsettled, often contradictory emotions of a crumbling relationship. Apollo sings about sorrow, regret, doubt and disbelief, along with bitterness, anger and lingering desire. It’s not a clean break with one side to blame; it’s far more complicated.Teo Halm, one of Apollo’s co-producers on “Evergreen,” is an executive producer (with Apollo) on “God Said No,” which retains and expands that song’s pensive mood. Most of the new album sounds deliberately modest, verging on low-fi. Its tone suggests troubled thoughts and uncomfortable conversations, small-scale and introspective — seemingly private, not overtly theatrical.One model for “God Said No” is probably Frank Ocean’s 2016 “Blonde,” another heartbreak album awash in vulnerability; Apollo’s reedy tenor often resembles Ocean’s voice. On “God Said No,” the guitars and keyboards are tamped down and reticent; drumbeats are present but not pushy. Even when the production deploys strings, horns or Apollo’s own backup vocal harmonies, they’re subdued and distant, more like apparitions than reinforcements.The partial exception is “Less of You,” a metronomic synth-pop track that harks back to Giorgio Moroder (along with some Daft Punk-style filtered and harmonized vocals), with Apollo wondering, “Was last night the end of me and you?” Even with a blippy hook and a chorus that shifts into a major key, Apollo sounds increasingly alone and forlorn.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Shania Twain Is a Glastonbury ‘Legend’

    The Glastonbury Festival’s coveted “Legend’s Slot,” at 3:45 p.m. Sunday, was hers and she said she was ready for the “most extraordinary party of my career.”On a recent Friday, Shania Twain rode a horse through rural terrain in Alberta, Canada, helping a neighbor relocate a herd of Angus cattle. As cows mooed loudly around her, the country-pop star multitasked, chatting on the phone about prepping for an appearance on a famous field an ocean away.Twain recalled how she started to perform at age 8 in smoky bars where drunk men would sometimes heckle her. As a result, she developed stage fright and hated being in the spotlight until she was about 50, she said, so the idea of performing for more than 200,000 revelers at Britain’s biggest music festival would have been anxiety inducing.Shania Twain answers questions for an interview with The Times on horseback while herding cattle.Courtesy of Shania TwainBut on Sunday afternoon, Twain, now 58, walked onstage at the Glastonbury Festival and did just that. Accompanied by a herd of equines (giant hobby horses, this time), Twain kicked off with “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” her 1998 megahit about dismissing romantic suitors. Within seconds, the vast crowd was singing along, dozens of women climbing up onto friends’ shoulders, their hands outstretched in front of them.She was occupying the most coveted slot at Britain’s largest and longest-running music event, the so-called Legend’s Slot, at 3:45 p.m. on the festival’s final day, an appearance she said she expected to be the “most extraordinary party of my career.”The musician who earns this prized booking — past performers have included Dolly Parton, Diana Ross and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys — not only gets to hear tens of thousands of fans singing their music back to them, but also secures a large live TV audience, which typically results in a boost in record sales and streams.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    At 94, June Squibb Is Scaling the Box Office in ‘Thelma’ and ‘Inside Out 2’

    Still ambitious, she’s also starring in Scarlett Johansson’s directing debut. “I have always had this sense that I am going to get what I wanted.”At 94, June Squibb became an unlikely box office champ last month. She had roles in two of the country’s Top 10 movies: “Thelma,” the charming action comedy in which she plays the lead, and the No. 1 blockbuster “Inside Out 2.”Her career has spanned seven decades, Broadway, TV and an Oscar nomination, in 2014, for Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska.” But it’s “Thelma” that has ignited audiences: In it, Squibb is a live-wire nonagenarian grandmother who sets out to retrieve her money after being scammed. “We thought ‘Nebraska’ was hot,” she said during a recent video interview. “This is hotter.”“Thelma” is based on (and named for) the writer-director Josh Margolin’s real-life grandmother, who will turn 104 in July. Though the offscreen Thelma did not engage in a stunt-filled chase or even fall for the con, she and her alter ego share a sense of tenacity and a joie de vivre, if not a daredevil style on a mobility scooter.Squibb’s co-star is Richard Roundtree, the original “Shaft.” It was his final feature role before his death last year, at 81, from pancreatic cancer. He got to see the movie about a week before he died, Squibb said, explaining, “We had no idea that he was ill. It was a joy of my life to have had that time with him.”In “Inside Out 2,” Squibb plays Nostalgia, depicted as a bespectacled granny. “The rose-colored glasses got me right away,” she said, laughing. “I thought that was so funny.”She tap-danced her way though childhood in a small town in Illinois, and said she always wanted to be an actress. “It never occurred to me when I was growing up that I was anything else — that was it,” said Squibb, who is also the lead in Scarlett Johansson’s forthcoming directorial debut, “Eleanor the Great.” She is not considering retirement; she still thinks of herself as ambitious.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in July

    “Sausage Party: Foodtopia,” “Lady in the Lake,” “Love Lies Bleeding” and “Those About to Die” arrive, and “Snowpiercer” returns.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of July’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’ Season 1Starts streaming: July 11This sequel series to the raunchy 2016 animated comedy “Sausage Party” begins in the aftermath of that movie’s climactic battle between sentient supermarket foods and the humans who consume them. Seth Rogen (who also cocreated the franchise) returns as the voice of Frank, a hot dog who alongside his girlfriend/bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig) has to figure out how to build and lead a new society, for the benefit of all foodstuffs. The original film’s sex-obsessed Pixar parody gives way here to more of a political satire, as the well-meaning sausages try to prevent their friends from succumbing to anarchy or authoritarianism.‘Betty la Fea, The Story Continues’Starts streaming: July 19One of the most popular TV series ever produced, the Colombian telenovela “Yo soy Betty, la fea” has been adapted dozens of times, all over the world — including in the United States as “Ugly Betty.” Now much of the original’s cast members and characters return for a sequel, set over 20 years after their story began. In “The Story Continues,” Betty (Ana María Orozco) comes home to the fashion house where she started her rags-to-riches rise and met her now-estranged husband, Armando (Jorge Enrique Abello). While dealing with bittersweet memories and some familiar old rivalries, Betty once again has to fight to be respected for her sharp mind and kind heart, in an industry that tends to value superficiality and swagger.Also arriving:July 4“Space Cadet”July 9“Sam Morril: You’ve Changed”July 11“Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black”July 18“My Spy: The Eternal City”“Uninterrupted’s Top Class Tennis”July 25“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net”“Troppo” Season 2Daveed Diggs in Season 4 of “Snowpiercer” on AMC+.AMC+New to AMC+‘Snowpiercer’ Season 4Starts streaming: July 21After three seasons on TNT, the fourth and final season of this postapocalyptic thriller moves to AMC, completing the saga of a heavily stratified society ripe for a revolution. Adapted from Bong Joon Ho’s 2013 film (itself adapted from a comic book series originated in 1982 by the writer Jacques Lob and the illustrator Jean-Marc Rochette), “Snowpiercer” stars Daveed Diggs as Andre Layton, one of the masses of underclass citizens who once were living in squalor on a massive passenger train, speeding across a ruined, ice-covered Earth. At the end of Season 3, Layton’s band of rebels went literally off the rails to found a new democratic community; but as the new season begins, they realize that their old nemeses from the train aren’t going to leave them alone.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    5 Places to Visit in Baltimore, Maryland, With John Waters

    The writer and director, famous for making theatergoers squirm in their seats, says he feels most at home wherever the outsiders gather in his native city.The 1998 John Waters film “Pecker” ends with an unlikely crowd carousing in a seedy basement bar/impromptu photo gallery in Baltimore. Strippers and one busty, enthusiastic art collector dance on tables as a talking Virgin Mary icon watches. It’s a jubilant, chaotic and naughty party open to anyone with a sense of humor, just the way the director likes it.Mr. Waters, 78, gained a cult following in the 1970s with delightfully shocking films like “Multiple Maniacs,” “Female Trouble” and, of course, the raunchy “Pink Flamingos” before breaking big with “Hairspray,” in 1988.Since then, Mr. Waters has built an empire of camp, now comprising more than a dozen films, spoken-word shows and numerous books, including his 2022 debut novel, “Liarmouth,” which has been optioned for a movie that Mr. Waters hopes will star Aubrey Plaza.Mr. Waters, a Baltimore native, grew up in Lutherville, Md., a suburb he described in a recent phone interview as “upper-middle-class everything.” Yearning for escape, he had his mom drop him off at a Baltimore beatnik hangout called Martick’s, even though he was underage. “She said, ‘Maybe you’ll meet your people here,’” he recalled.“I did find my people — bohemia!” he said.Since those days, Mr. Waters has become an unofficial spokesman for all things Baltimore, which was one of The New York Times’s 52 Places to Go in 2024. The city has embraced him, too. It honored him with an official day, Feb. 7, 1985 (it was a one-off), and the all-gender restrooms at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the institution to which he has bequeathed his sizable art collection, are named for him.Though Mr. Waters has apartments in San Francisco and New York and spends summers in Provincetown, Mass., he lives primarily in North Baltimore and has no plans to change that. “If I had to give up everywhere,” Mr. Waters said, “this is where I’d live.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Review: ‘Robeson’ Illuminates a Titanic Artist and Activist

    Davóne Tines plays Paul Robeson in a solo show on Little Island that weaves together the words and music of this American hero to tell his story.“God gave me the voice that people want to hear,” Paul Robeson, the great African American singer, actor and activist, told the Black newspaper “The New York Age” in a 1949 interview.Aware of his powers and obliged by his influence, Robeson inserted himself into an incredibly fraught moment in American history. His powerful advocacy for the rights of Black and working-class Americans made him a hero, but his political leanings put him at odds with the prevailing anti-Communist forces in Congress, which eventually impeded his career. Robeson’s fame was global, however, and he had plenty of opportunities abroad — until his U.S. passport was revoked because he would not disavow membership in the Communist Party in writing. He landed before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1956, and although he was unafraid of being a lightning rod, he was wearied by it, too.Paul Robeson in a 1925 portrait. During the red-baiting years, his politics drew criticism that he was a Communist, and his income plummeted.Edward Gooch Collection/Getty ImagesRobeson joined a protest in favor of fair employment legislation outside the White House in 1950.Associated PressToday, the legacy of Robeson’s divine bass-baritone voice and its oratorial capaciousness has outlasted the political tarring and feathering. There is no contemporary analogue for Robeson, an artist in a classical medium who became a household name and leveraged his fame to drive a public conversation around peace and justice. (Yo-Yo Ma, the beloved cellist who created the multicultural Silk Road Project, arguably comes closest, but without the controversy.)Davóne Tines, a bass-baritone himself, pays tribute to that legacy in “Robeson,” a new one-man show at the Amph on Little Island that weaves together snippets of Robeson’s words with songs associated with him. On Friday night, the straightforward appeal of a popular-song recital collided with oblique, fractured references to Robeson’s life, cracking open a fictionalized glimpse into the emotional turmoil of a man who was seen as an impenetrable “titan,” as Tines put it. It was a vigorously played, at times frustrating show, carried aloft by Tines’s fiery assurance.Initially, the show’s structure seemed transparent enough. Tines’s renditions of songs like the labor anthem “Joe Hill,” which he delivered with confident smoothness, were interspersed with Robeson’s words from newspaper editorials, television interviews and onstage remarks. Dressed in a Carnegie Hall-ready tuxedo, Tines began with an admirable, if a bit woolly, vocal impersonation of the era-defining singer, emphasizing a deep well of sound.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More