Aurelia Butler

A smoldering Idris Elba is no match for the preposterousness of this feature-length Netflix continuation of the popular BBC crime thriller.Movies have never quite figured out what to do with Idris Elba. Imposing, charismatic and dauntingly intelligent, Elba has so far been most memorable on television — his intense, thoughtful style feeding on the intimacy and character-building patience of episodic storytelling.Over five seasons on the BBC show “Luther” (2010-19), he played the titular London copper as a troubled, morally conflicted genius with an aversion to rules and an ongoing infatuation with a slinky psychopath (brilliantly played by Ruth Wilson). All wounded eyes and wool overcoat, Luther lumbered wearily from one grisly crime scene to another, losing loved ones and nabbing a series of increasingly implausible adversaries. Throughout, the character was a magnetic constant; the show’s problem was always finding villains worthy of him.And that’s exactly where “Luther: The Fallen Sun” (directed by Jamie Payne and written by the show’s creator and sole writer, Neil Cross) trips, falls and never recovers. The inexplicable choice of a smirking Andy Serkis as the murderous David Robey, a cyber-sicko with limitless resources and incalculable mental issues, elicits more chuckles than chills. Decked out at one point in a velvet blazer and turtleneck, hair teased into the likeness of a dead stoat, Robey is less demented sadist than disco king. The scene where the diminutive devil — hopping and hooded like the killer in “Don’t Look Now” (1973) — fights the towering Luther on a subway platform is nothing less than ludicrous.Body-mass differential aside, Luther and Robey are further hindered by a plot so dashed-off and indistinct that very little makes sense. Picking up generally where season five ended, with Luther heading to prison for his persistent vigilantism, this feature-length revival (streaming on Netflix) locks him up and gets him out with mystifying, head-spinning ease. Robey, seemingly assisted by a shadowy pod of followers, is busily hacking webcams and smart devices, recording shameful secrets and blackmailing their owners. For those who prefer to die rather than be exposed, Robey stages elaborate kill scenes, live-action tableaus that unfold with a pulpy majesty. In a movie that starts at fever pitch and rarely relents, these grisly interludes, captured by Larry Smith’s glowering camera, offer strangely haunting respites from the plot’s general chaos.Lacking dialogue to deepen the characters or reinforce their motivations, “Luther: The Fallen Sun” whooshes past in a rush of serial-killer clichés: an underground lair, a torture room, a masked maniac. Anonymous losers sit glued to computer screens, but the movie is so headlong and fragmented it’s unclear exactly what they’re watching or how Robey’s sleazy schemes are realized. It’s as if Netflix has tried to shoehorn an entire season of television into a little over two hours.The result might be more richly cinematic, but it’s infinitely cruder, with characters so underwritten that their possible demise excites no more than a shrug. Brief sightings of the wonderful Dermot Crowley, who returns as Luther’s melancholic superintendent, have a steadying effect, as does Cynthia Erivo as Luther’s fed-up superior. But it’s Elba himself, huddled miserably inside that overcoat in a rain-soaked Piccadilly Circus, that elicits a nostalgic thrill. Call me a pushover for tormented heroes and soulful tailoring.Luther: The Fallen SunRated R for flaming bodies, forced suicides and frightful hair. Running time: 2 hours 9 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

This film directed by Bobby Farrelly has elements that recall “Kingpin” and “There’s Something About Mary.” But the ratio of tastelessness to sentimentality has been reversed.As “Dumb and Dumber” (1994) nears its 30th anniversary, its directors, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, have settled into what might regrettably be called a “mature phase.”The sibling filmmakers, once the go-to guys for raunchy-sweet comedy in Hollywood, have been making movies separately of late. Peter Farrelly directed “Green Book” (2018), whose best picture Oscar ensured that it will live forever as an exemplar of the academy’s retrogressive taste. Now Bobby Farrelly has turned out his first solo feature, “Champions,” in which an ill-tempered basketball coach is court-ordered to supervise a team of intellectually disabled athletes.It sounds, in outline, like material the Farrellys would have once treated with blithe irreverence. In “There’s Something About Mary” (1998), Matt Dillon’s character tried to impress Cameron Diaz’s by lying about exactly that kind of community service. And it stars Woody Harrelson, of the brothers’ “Kingpin” (1996). But this time, the ratio of tastelessness to sentimentality has been reversed.The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.The Tom Cruise Factor: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.An Andrea Riseborough FAQ: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why her nod was controversial.Sundance and the Oscars: Which films from the festival could follow “CODA” to the 2024 Academy Awards.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.Harrelson plays Marcus, an assistant basketball coach in Des Moines. Marcus’s problem, as the head coach he’s worked for (Ernie Hudson) explains, is that he never gets to know his players as people. (“Are we living in ‘Hoosiers’ now?” Marcus asks him, in a lame acknowledgment of the kinds of clichés the movie knows it’s repeating.)The protagonist’s drunken collision with a parked police car lands him in hot water with a judge (Alex Castillo) nicknamed Hanging Mary, who will let him avoid prison if he coaches the Friends, a Special Olympics team at a recreation center. Marcus initially thumbs his nose at the players, who all have trademark habits. Never showering. Always shooting backward from half-court. Knowing exactly what time a flight from Portland to Chicago should be flying overhead.But while the Farrellys of three decades ago gleefully cut against the grain of political correctness, Bobby this time seems to have embraced it, making a celebration of sensitivity and empowerment that is kindhearted without ever risking touching a comic third rail. The dispiriting experience of watching “Champions” is slowly realizing that, notwithstanding an off-color line here or there (a player with Down syndrome introduces himself as “your homie with an extra chromie”), it’s exactly the sort of formulaic crowd-pleaser that just about anybody might have directed.In fact, someone has: This is a remake of “Campeones,” a generally dire 2018 movie from Spain that won the top prize at the country’s Goya Awards but went unreleased theatrically here. The new screenplay, by Mark Rizzo, sticks closely to the original, though most of the changes (amping up the Marcus character’s mercenary careerism, revising a subplot about his love life) are improvements. The new version is certainly better-made and doesn’t gawk as cruelly at the Friends.The best case for “Champions” is made by the actors who play them, especially Madison Tevlin as the brassy Cosentino, the team’s sole female player, and Kevin Iannucci as Johnny, the shower resister. Conveniently, Johnny turns out to be the brother of an actress (Kaitlin Olson) whom Harrelson, before getting his assignment, had previously hooked up with on Tinder.If the romance thread gets the job done, Farrelly can’t do much with the sports movie tropes. Endless montages and near-random, what-decade-is-this? song choices (“Hey Ya!,” “Unbelievable”) chart the team’s progress. Marcus delivers a big-game locker room speech in which he tells the players that, win or lose, they are already champions, because of what they put up with every day. Depressingly, it’s not a joke.ChampionsRated PG-13. Drunken driving, sexual innuendo. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters. More

The India-born director Joshua Ashish Dawson builds digital worlds that ruminate on the future shock of environmental destruction in the real world.This article is part of our Design special section on how the recent push for diversity is changing the way the world looks.A young woman is distressed. She seems unwell. Her body was “never designed to cope with the extremes of a shifting climate,” a soothing voice informs us. As a dreamy soundtrack plays in the background, she arrives at “Spa Sybarite,” where futuristic stone treatment pods hover on stilts above a desert landscape.“Spa Sybarite” is a three-minute film by Joshua Ashish Dawson, a 32-year-old Angeleno who describes himself as a “world builder” and much of his work as “speculative climate futures.” Trained as an architect, he uses digital design tools and the language of cinema to create environments and scenarios that, he said, “ask viewers to question their assumptions about the world they live in.”At “Spa Sybarite,” the voice-over goes on, guests are offered “an assortment of scientifically tested customized treatments to help your body condition itself to the environmental despair that faces our planet.” Soaking in an outdoor tub rinses skin “of the deposits of wildfire ash,” and healthy meals are “customized to your prior nutritional accessibility.” There is also “solastalgia therapy,” where digital visualization artists create an immersive 3-D simulation of your wildfire-destroyed home for you to visit.A character in “Spa Sybarite” rinses in a tub that’s meant to cleanse her of wildfire ash. Both hyper-realistic and satirical, this film probes how people might shift their wellness rituals to cope with extreme climate change.Joshua DawsonThe conceit for “Spa Sybarite” is both slightly absurd and eminently believable. Elements almost feel like satire, something Mr. Dawson plays with, but his ultimate aim is for a kind of “hyper-realism,” he said of the film, noting that the idea of a climate spa is not very far from reality. “Wellness is a multi-trillion-dollar industry,” he said, “and it’s only a matter of time before someone takes the obvious opportunity to market wellness as the solution to climate-based illness, the biggest global health threat of our time.”Having grown up in Bangalore, India, he is sensitive to how climate change disproportionally affects low-income communities and communities of color. His invention of a white, presumably wealthy protagonist in “Spa Sybarite” raises the question of who has access to wellness, not to mention basic heath care. He sees the luxury spa as a product of disaster capitalism, “where these infrastructures of care are used to make a profit off of a crisis.”Mr. Dawson has made three other films, ranging from four to seven minutes, with related themes: In “Cáustico,” it is the politics of water privatization; in “Loa’s Promise,” the ecological and human impacts of unregulated resource extraction; and in “Denervation,” the threats posed by counterfeiting in an unscrupulous pharmaceutical industry. Concern with the environment and health underlie everything.He traces his career path to his childhood in India in the 1990s, when two of his loves were Lego and movies. His father is an English-speaking Protestant Christian who works as an interior designer, and his mother is a Hindu civil engineer whose first language is Marathi. The family spoke English at home, and both Mr. Dawson and his sister attended convent schools that had been established by the British.“The influx of Hollywood at that point in time in Bangalore really was something that we grabbed onto and were excited about,” he recounted. Even today, he said, movies are a big part of how his family connects.“I never had a road map set by someone who looked like me,” said Mr. Dawson. Here, he sits inside the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles where he plans to shoot his next project: a feature film.Tanveer Badal for The New York TimesHe went on to study at the RV College of Architecture in Bangalore, where he received a bachelor’s degree in architecture. While in school, he interned for several months in the Ahmedabad office of Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi, India’s first Pritzker Prize-winning architect.Doshi, who died in January, worked with Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, two influential figures in modern architecture, and he was known for adapting the International Style to a community-minded modernist approach and regional focus that reflected India’s culture and climate.The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.The Tom Cruise Factor: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.An Andrea Riseborough FAQ: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why her nod was controversial.Sundance and the Oscars: Which films from the festival could follow “CODA” to the 2024 Academy Awards.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.“I learned a lot from him in terms of how he used mythmaking and storytelling very much in his design process,” Mr. Dawson said. “And it was the start of something that was sort of going off in my head.”After graduating from architecture school, he received his license to practice in India. But he lacked experience with digital tools used for design and fabrication. That led him to enroll in the master’s program in advanced architectural studies at the University of Southern California, where he met another key mentor, Alex McDowell.Mr. McDowell is a Hollywood film production designer with credits on “Fight Club,” “Minority Report” and “Man of Steel,” among others. His studio, Experimental Design, creates future-gazing story worlds for corporate clients, educational institutions and cultural organizations. He is also on the faculty of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and is the director of the school’s World Building Media Lab, where students collaborate on immersive storytelling.“What’s exciting is when students come in from completely different disciplines with this very open-minded approach to storytelling,” Mr. McDowell said. “And Joshua was one of relatively few who really pushed against the edges of his discipline. He came into class as an architect, very open and excited, I think, by the idea of entertainment media. He came in ready to break down the walls.”Mr. Dawson’s graduation project was his first short, “Cáustico.” Set in the year 2036, in a computer-generated city of anonymous steel-and-glass structures, the film envisions a future where dwindling fresh water supplies are controlled by a fictional company called Turquoise, whose depletion of underground aquifers causes massive sinkholes, while some of the most privileged citizens start moving into a subterranean lower city to be closer to the water. For the audio, Mr. Dawson used snippets of actual news reports on climate and water issues from 2014 and 2015, reminding us that such a future might not be so far away.In “Cáustico,” Mr. Dawson conceptualizes the politics of water privatization. Eventually, he’d like to create real-world spaces but for now is focused on continuing to explore experimental, design-based projects.Joshua DawsonSince then, he has turned out films at a measured pace while working day jobs. He spent four and a half years as a designer at Price Architects and HKS (the two firms merged in 2019), and for the past two years, he has been a narrative visualization specialist at IBI Group, producing dynamic 3-D models that help planners study the impact potential infrastructure and development projects will have on future urban environments.Mr. Dawson said he eventually wants to create real-world spaces. For now, he remains focused on the films he thinks of as a critical design practice, taking inspiration from ’60s and ’70s radical architecture collectives like Superstudio and Archigram, which rejected building in favor of exploring experimental concepts in films, artworks and manifestoes that challenged the status quo.Funded with grants and his own savings, each short film has involved a handful of partners. Some he has known since his days at USC, like Ashton Rae, a cinematographer, who described Mr. Dawson as “an incredibly collaborative director” with “a clear and punctuated vision.” She noted that in addition to making films “about real-world issues that affect marginalized individuals,” Mr. Dawson prioritizes having a diverse crew on set and for postproduction work.Mr. Dawson said his own identity as an immigrant of color is an asset in his work, giving him “a different perspective on issues that locals can’t see or see in biased ways.” As a Christian and the product of an interfaith marriage in India, he described himself as a micro-minority who “always felt like an outsider.”Familiar with the religious, gender and caste-based discrimination that is widespread in India, he is still learning about racism in the U.S., where he said immigrants are often expected to feel grateful just for being here. Based on his name, people often assume he is white before they meet him, which can cut both ways.“Since the killing of George Floyd, there definitely has been an increase in the kind of space making for people of color to be given a place at the table,” he said. “But it can be a little bit like a quota, like tokenism, with one spot or two spots that all the marginalized groups of people within their discipline have to compete for.”His hope is to see more people like him doing the kind of work he loves. “I never had a road map set by someone who looked like me, who paved this sort of interdisciplinary path like the one I’m trying to forge,” he said.A conceptual image of Mr. Dawson’s upcoming project where he reimagines the Bradbury Building as an ancient Indian stepwell. He plans for it to serve as a backdrop for a full-length murder-mystery movie.Joshua DawsonHis next project is a feature film that will incorporate cultural references tied to his identity as an India-born designer. It started as a visual thought experiment, a reimagining of the historic Bradbury Building in Los Angeles — specifically its soaring interior court with a glass ceiling and ornate Victorian ironwork — as an ancient Indian stepwell. The fictional hybrid structure will serve as a setting for a story about an Indian American detective who threads through its spaces as she investigates a murder.While Mr. Dawson was working on the screenplay this winter, drought-stricken Los Angeles was being battered by heavy storms, with most of the rainfall washing into the ocean because of insufficient drainage and catchment infrastructure. His project is a provocation to city planners to look to India’s stepwells — subterranean structures that are admired as aesthetic as well as engineering marvels, which for centuries provided reserves of clean water for drinking and bathing — for creative inspiration, if not literal solutions.“The past can teach us a lot, not just in terms of how water histories are written but also how water is controlled by the state,” Mr. Dawson said.He attributed his decision to weave his cultural background into his work to finding his voice as a designer and storyteller, but he added that it probably also has something to do with an increased openness to diverse cultural narratives.“Personally,” he said, “I like to roll with this idea that it’s a beautiful synchronization between the two.” More

The awards telecast has been losing viewers for years. New leadership wants to reverse that starting Sunday, and ensure the financial well-being of the organization.The stage design for the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday is more Doctor Strange modern and less Dowager Countess musty. That means plentiful video screens, including ones that cover the sides of the theater, with nary a Swarovski crystal curtain — the old standby — to be seen.Unlike last year, when eight categories were awarded during a nontelevised portion, all of the Oscars will be handed out live on air. To make the telecast interactive and help viewers better understand crafts categories, such as sound mixing and art direction, QR codes will appear before commercial breaks to direct viewers to internet vignettes about the nominees and behind-the-scenes footage and photos.To reinvigorate the red carpet preshow, Oscars organizers hired members of the Met Gala creative team. Expect much more star power, specialized lighting (to make a process that happens in daylight seem more like evening) and better integration with the theater’s entrance.But some of the most important changes — part of an urgent effort to help make the Academy Awards more relevant to young people and draw a broader international audience — involve things that most viewers won’t notice. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will post video of acceptance speeches in the six biggest categories in near real-time on TikTok and Facebook, and all speeches will quickly be posted on Twitter. In a first, Disney+ will stream the Oscars show live in parts of Europe. The academy has also sought out new marketing partners like Letterboxd, a social media site for movie fans (8.4 million members, most of them are ages 18 to 34), in a sad-but-true admission that it must convince people that they should care about the Oscars.“We didn’t have to before,” Janet Yang, the academy’s president, said in an interview at the organization’s Beverly Hills offices. “We could rest on our laurels and just let it carry itself.”Last year’s telecast drew 16.6 million viewers, with a spike in ratings coming after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesOne might respond with exasperation: You’re only now figuring that out? Perhaps the time to pull out all the stops to keep the Oscars vibrant was five years ago, when the telecast, for the first time, attracted less than 30 million people, a 20 percent decline from the previous year. Since then, the number of viewers for the Academy Awards has dropped another 37 percent, according to Nielsen’s data. About 16.6 million people watched “CODA” win the Oscar for best picture at the most recent ceremony, with viewership swelling after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage late in the show.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Asian Actors: A record number of actors of Asian ancestry were recognized with Oscar nominations this year. But historically, Asian stars have rarely been part of the awards.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.But Ms. Yang can’t be held responsible. She was elected president only in August. The academy also has a new chief executive for the first time in 11 years; Bill Kramer, the former director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, was appointed to that role in June. Together, Ms. Yang and Mr. Kramer have brought a blast of fresh air to the stuffy organization, working to improve transparency, calm a membership revolt over last year’s removal of several categories from the live Oscars telecast and shore up the academy’s wobbly finances.In the past, Ms. Yang said, “a lot of cultural institutions felt like they should be sitting on a hill, a little bit more protected, almost untouchable.” She added that the academy itself felt “ivory tower-ish,” but that it was now “a different time” and “a different culture.”ABC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Oscars ceremony until 2028 and provides the academy with about 80 percent of its annual revenue. Last year, Oscar-related revenue was $137.1 million, according to financial disclosures. Awards-related expenses totaled $56.8 million.The TV network generated an estimated $139 million across 70 commercials during last year’s show, according to Vivvix, which tracks ad spending. (To compare, ABC pulled in about $129 million across 56 ads in 2020.) A red-carpet preshow brought in an additional $16 million in advertising revenue.From left, Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Steven Spielberg, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Cruise are among this year’s nominees.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesTo secure a distribution contract of similar value when its deal with ABC expires, the academy must reverse viewership declines. A less lucrative deal could imperil some of the organization’s year-round activities, including film restoration. “This is so important to the livelihood and future of the organization that we better confront it,” Ms. Yang said.In many ways, however, the academy is hamstrung when it comes to reinventing the Oscars telecast.ABC and other traditional television networks are shadows of their former selves, with younger audiences in particular decamping en masse to streaming services. Some other awards shows are following them, notably the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which will stream live on Netflix starting next year. After an ethics, finance and diversity scandal, the Golden Globe Awards, long broadcast on NBC, are also looking for a new distribution partner.Many viewers have long complained that the Oscars ceremony is overlong, with groan-inducing banter between presenters adding to a feeling of bloat. Last year’s Academy Awards was three and a half hours, despite moving eight of the 23 awards off the live broadcast. (The offscreen acceptance speeches were recorded, edited and incorporated into the live show.) In the past, the Oscars telecast has run as long as four hours and 23 minutes. Jimmy Kimmel will return as the host on Sunday, having previously served as M.C. in 2017 and 2018, and he has been planning a traditional monologue.“We are working very hard to deliver the show on time with all disciplines honored,” Mr. Kramer said.Ariana DeBose won best supporting actress during last year’s Academy Awards, which was three and a half hours.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesLinda Ong, the chief executive of Cultique, a consulting firm in Los Angeles that advises companies on changing cultural norms, said that people were still interested in the award show’s winners and the things they had to say. The problem for the academy, she said, is that “people don’t feel the need to watch the show to be part of the conversation.”“They just watch some clips on social,” she added.Ms. Ong noted that, in a once-unthinkable move that speaks to the Oscars’ fading relevancy, the season finale of HBO’s hugely popular post-apocalyptic drama, “The Last of Us,” will broadcast head-to-head against the ceremony. “That’s a big cultural tell,” she said.The academy is hopeful that Nielsen’s ratings meters for the Oscars will tick upward on Sunday. Big musical stars, including Rihanna, are scheduled to perform their nominated songs; Lenny Kravitz will perform during the “In Memoriam” segment. Lady Gaga will be absent, though, with Oscars producers saying on Wednesday that she was too busy filming a movie to perform her nominated song from “Top Gun: Maverick.”The nominee pool for best picture has never before included more than one billion-dollar ticket seller, according to box office databases, and this year there are two. “Top Gun: Maverick” collected $1.5 billion, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” took in $2.3 billion. The front-runner for best picture, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” generated $104 million in ticket sales. (Viewership tends to increase when popular films are nominated.)But the academy says it’s not just about TV anymore — that relying on Nielsen’s numbers alone to assess relevancy is outdated, and that online chatter and streaming-service viewing should also be taken into account. “We have to rethink our success metrics,” Mr. Kramer said, noting that the Oscars will be available for viewing on Hulu the next day.Conversations on social media during and after award shows can be significant. Last month’s Grammy Awards, for instance, attracted about 12.6 million viewers. On the day of the ceremony and the next day, the Grammys generated about seven million mentions on Twitter, according to ListenFirst, an analytics company.If nothing else, the academy is hoping for a smooth show on Sunday. In the past, the academy started to plan for the Oscars as late as November. This time, planning started in June.“It should be about unity and celebrating this industry,” Mr. Kramer said. “People are still consuming movies. People love movies. Perhaps they’re doing it on streaming more than they did a few years ago. But our art form is as relevant as ever.” More

Three years after his apartment was shamed by a director during a video tryout, the “You” actor is taking on his first lead role — in a film he co-wrote.Lukas Gage blew into the Tower Bar in West Hollywood like a ragged ocean breeze. He had come straight from Punta Mita, Mexico, where he was vacationing with the celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton. But Gage forgot his passport at the resort, causing him to miss his return flight to Los Angeles, and had to book alternate passage to Orange County, whence he took an Uber the 50 miles north to make it to this interview on time.And hence why he was still wearing his travel clothes: a cutoff “Pulp Fiction” T-shirt, baggy gray sweatpants and beat-up checkered Vans, paired with an enormous Old Navy zip-up hoodie and several items of beaded jewelry that he had bought in Mexico.Still, he managed to arrive at 12 on the dot, not a single minute late.That the 27-year-old finds himself here, talking about his burgeoning TV and film career at one of the industry’s favorite haunts — the kind of place with a no-photos policy and $24 cocktails — is the product of a similar dogged resolve.The youngest of four boys raised by a single mother in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, Gage moved to Los Angeles at 18 to pursue acting after a brief stint at the University of Oregon, where he got in a gruesome fight trying to protect a friend. “I have all these scars from where I had to get my face put back together,” he said. “Maybe, selfishly, I needed a reason to get out.”Following arcs on “Euphoria” and “Love, Victor,” he gained wider recognition for a role he didn’t get. In November 2020, he shared a video of a pandemic-era Zoom audition in which a director, not realizing his mic was on, bemoaned “these poor people” who “live in these tiny apartments.” (Gage did not name the off-camera offender at the time, but the British director Tristram Shapeero later apologized.)In the clip, Gage responds with quick-witted aplomb. “I know it’s a [expletive] apartment,” he says with a smile. “Give me this job, so I can get a better one.” But the critique stung.“I understand the politics,” Gage said, “but I also want a chance to have a seat at the table.”Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times“I had never judged my apartment until that day. I was like, it’s not a mansion or a house, but it has crown molding, good natural light and it was in Beachwood Canyon,” Gage told me, referring to a desirable neighborhood of Los Angeles. “I remember having this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach afterward, like, why am I judging where I’m at in my 20s, at the beginning of my career?”He posted that video while filming Season 1 of “The White Lotus” on Maui — Gage played the hotel employee caught in a compromising act with Murray Bartlett’s character — and since the HBO show aired, he’s consistently booked a string of supporting roles. Most recently, he played a duplicitous expat in Season 4 of “You,” and cameoed as himself in the series finale of the “Gossip Girl” reboot. He also moved out of that infamous apartment and bought his own place.Now, in the independent film “Down Low,” a dark comedy of errors that premieres at South by Southwest on Saturday, Gage is stepping into a lead role for the first time. He gives a full-bodied, screwball performance as a sex worker helping a repressed divorcé (Zachary Quinto) explore his sexuality. Along the way, there’s an inadvertent death and high jinks with Judith Light, Audra McDonald and Simon Rex.Inside the World of ‘The White Lotus’The second season of “The White Lotus,” Mike White’s incisive satire of privilege set in a luxury resort, is available to stream on HBO.End of a Journey: The actress Jennifer Coolidge discussed the ending of the second season and where the series, already renewed for a third season, might go from here.Dressing Gen Z: The costume designer for “The White Lotus” sees your mean tweets about how the younger characters dress. She told us how she created the chaotic and divisive looks.Michael Imperioli: The “Sopranos” star is enjoying a professional renaissance after years of procedurals and indies. In the new season of “The White Lotus,” he tries his hand at comedy.F. Murray Abraham: The buzzy series is one of several featuring the actor, who at 83 is finding some of the most satisfying work of his career.Gage also wrote the script with his friend and writing partner, Phoebe Fisher.Opposite Zachary Quinto in “Down Low,” which Gage wrote with Phoebe Fisher.Matt Infante/FilmNation Entertainment“I pitched it as a queer ‘His Girl Friday,’” Gage said. “I love a silence in a movie. I love a long shot. But I was like, let’s just make something snappy and fun that doesn’t go over an hour and 30 minutes.”Next he’ll co-star in the eco-thriller “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” Season 5 of “Fargo,” the “Dead Boy Detectives” series (based on the DC comics) and Doug Liman’s “Road House” remake, playing a bartender whom Jake Gyllenhaal trains to fight. He also plans to continue writing.Sitting in a velvety corner booth and sipping chamomile tea with honey, Gage discussed that viral video, the importance of sex scenes and protecting his private life. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Did you know your “You” character would have an affinity for kink when you signed on?I knew sexuality or nudity might be required, but I didn’t know anything past the first episode. I think I had auditioned for every single season of “You” and didn’t get it until then. I auditioned for [star Penn Badgley’s serial killer character] Joe originally. I played him like a mustache-twirling, villainous murderer, and the casting director was like, “Yeah, that’s totally tonally off, but thank you.”Penn Badgley recently said he no longer wanted to do sex scenes. You’ve said it would be a “disservice” to exclude them. Where does their value lie for you?If we’re showing this character [on “You”] who has a hidden kink and he’s struggling with being honest, or a guy [on “The White Lotus”] who is having his first queer experience with his boss, I feel like it’s a disservice to not see that. But I totally respect Penn and his views. Maybe because I’m not married with kids, I’m like, I’ve got to give it away while I can. [Laughs]There’s also a wider discourse advocating for ditching sex scenes altogether.It is a little weird. I get a lot of backlash in my DMs about it, saying, “That’s so disgusting.” And that pisses me off because I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum. But a lot of people can have a hard time separating the actor from the character, and then, suddenly, people are coming up to me at Starbucks asking [if the scene was real]. People forget it’s make-believe.Opposite Penn Badgley in “You.” Badgley, the series’s star, has opted against doing intimate scenes, but Gage argued that when such moments are key to a character or a plot, “it’s a disservice to not see that.”NetflixMurray Bartlett, left, Jolene Purdy, Natasha Rothwell, Christie Volkmer and Gage in the first episode of “The White Lotus.”Mario Perez/HBOIs it true that you watched Aaron Sorkin’s MasterClass to learn about screenwriting?Phoebe and I watched all of the MasterClasses on writing during lockdown. That one was our favorite. We also watched “Pretty Woman,” one of my favorite romcoms, and a documentary about “Pretty Woman” is what kind of inspired us with “Down Low” — what “Pretty Woman” was originally going to be before the studio got involved. It was super dark, and everyone was like, “This is too insane to make.”Were you always planning to star in “Down Low”?No. I honestly thought they weren’t going to allow me to do it. They sent comps of who they thought the character should be, people who are much more famous and important than me. But I was like, “Give me a chance to show you what I can do.”I tend to do that a lot. I understand the politics, but I also want a chance to have a seat at the table.Your video of an audition gone wrong went viral. Why did you decide to share that?I’d had a martini or two in Hawaii, and it happened out of a conversation I was having with [“White Lotus” co-star] Molly Shannon about our worst auditions. She was like, “You have to show people that.” Actors have the best job ever, but I was frustrated. And I want to be clear: That was definitely not the worst thing that’s happened to me in an audition. It just happened to be on camera.What was worse?In the [print and TV] commercial world, I remember, at 17 years old, people saying out loud what was wrong with my face and that I wasn’t in shape enough. As a teenager, that really makes you crazy. I had to stop commercial auditioning when I was younger because it was making me dysmorphic.Gage posted the audition footage that went viral out of frustration. “I want to be clear: That was definitely not the worst thing that’s happened to me in an audition,” he added. Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesLast year, you replied “You don’t know my alphabet” to a commenter who accused you of taking roles away from queer actors. In your career, have you felt pressure to label yourself?All the time. An agent that dropped me was like, “Stop dyeing your hair, stop wearing weird clothes and pick a lane: gay, bi or straight. It’s too confusing.” I understand representation and voices that need to be heard, but I don’t want to do anything on anyone’s accord but my own. Let me do it when I’m ready. And it’s acting. I feel like everyone should get the opportunity to play whatever they want.You and Chris posted a series of Instagram photos together in Mexico. A lot of people took that as a relationship announcement.If they want to think that, they can. I’m a pretty open book about most things in my life, but I have a problem with the culture of everyone needing to know everybody’s business and nothing can be sacred. It’s a weird line that I’m still trying to figure out.Have you been offered any roles yet? Or are you still auditioning for everything?I’m ready for some offers! I’m still auditioning my ass off. Now, I have a plain white screen that I pull down for a background. But I’m still at that point where I have to prove myself. I’m OK with it. I just want to keep surprising people that I’m not a one-trick pony. More