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    Stephen Colbert Rues the Fox Settlement

    “I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames!” Colbert said of Fox News settling the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Trial and ErrorDominion Voting Systems settled its defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Tuesday, with the conservative news network agreeing to pay $787.5 million to avoid a trial.“I want my trial!” Stephen Colbert bemoaned on Tuesday.“I want it! You were supposed to provide me six weeks of delicious content! I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I guess it’s satisfying for Dominion that Rupey had to fork over a pile of cash, but that does nothing for our democracy. What we need is Fox News personalities to look straight into the camera, admit that they lied over and over again about the 2020 election, and then hurl themselves into Mount Doom.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I am glad that there is some accountability here. But still, I am pretty disappointed we are not going to get a trial, because all the Fox anchors would have been forced to testify. It would have been like the ‘Seinfeld’ finale, but instead of — instead of soup Nazis, it’s just Nazis.” — JORDAN KLEPPER, guest host of “The Daily Show”“Since Fox is going to have to pay nearly a billion dollars, they’ll need to implement cost-cutting measures. Sadly, they have to fire Brian Kilmeade’s reading tutor, Jeanine Pirro has to switch to the cheap box of wine, development on a third Doocy has been halted. They’re going to have to switch from Jesse Watters to tap waters. And of course, they’re going to have to put down Sean Hannity.” — JORDAN KLEPPERThe Punchiest Punchlines (Settling Up Edition)“You could tell Fox was stressed about the trial ‘cause they spent the day chugging Bud Light.” — JIMMY FALLON“It’s going to take a lot of reverse mortgage ads to pay that one off.” — JIMMY KIMMEL on the settlement“Immediately after the settlement, Fox issued a statement that said, ‘This settlement reflects Fox’s commitment to the highest journalistic standards.’ They’re already lying in their statement about lying.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s a fitting lesson for the world from the American justice system. Yes, it is — there’s a price to pay for lying to the American people, and if you can afford that price, go for it!” — JAMES CORDEN“Fox News has to pay Dominion nearly $800 million. It’s so much money, they’ve already started selling ad space on Tucker Carlson’s forehead.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingJordan Klepper took “Daily Show” cameras inside the world’s largest gun show.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightMichelle Obama will appear on “The Tonight Show” on Wednesday.Also, Check This Out“I wanted to be considered for a range of roles,” Chita Rivera writes in her new memoir, “and for the most part I succeeded.” Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesThe 90-year-old singer-dancer Chita Rivera reflects on her life and career in “Chita: A Memoir.” More

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    Review: In ‘Amours (2),’ Love Hurts

    The French director Joël Pommerat has created an intimate chamber work examining love from many angles, all of them laced with pain and misunderstanding.A new stage production by Joël Pommerat is always an event in France. At 60, he is widely recognized as one of the greatest directors and playwrights working in the country today, a theater maker with rare box-office appeal. Yet unlike many of his peers, Pommerat hasn’t parlayed this success into an ever busier schedule of new productions.Since 2015, he has brought just three new plays to domestic and international stages, starting with his French Revolution-inspired juggernaut “It Will Be Fine (1) End of Louis.” This month, he is back in Paris with a much more modest endeavor: “Amours (2)” (“Loves (2)”), a 70-minute medley of fragments from Pommerat’s previous works, reinvented for an audience of around 40.This shrunken scale doesn’t make “Amours (2),” which is nominated for best public-sector production at this year’s Molière theater awards, any less effective. If anything, it showcases Pommerat’s art — his taut writing, delivered in piercing vignettes — more intimately than ever.The show isn’t performed on a traditional stage: The production requires merely a backdrop and chairs on three sides of a square space. (In Paris, it was staged at Pavillon Villette, a venue often rented out for receptions and conferences.) There were practical reasons for this format: “Amours (2)” is a reworking of “Amours (1),” a production that Pommerat created at a French prison in 2019.Pommerat has been working with prisoners in Arles, southern France, for nearly a decade. His first two collaborations featured full casts drawn from the jail there, and were performed inside the prison for small audiences. But the security and logistics for these events were demanding, and prison officials asked for a simpler setup for “Amours (1).”Four years later, two of the prisoners he worked with in Arles — Jean Ruimi and Redwane Rajel — have been released, and are working as professional actors with Pommerat’s theater troupe, the Louis Brouillard Company. “Amours (2)” starts with those actors seated in the audience.As a spokeswoman finishes a preshow announcement, Rajel’s irritated voice rises: “Just stop!” He and Ruimi, playing Rajel’s father, launched into an argument — apologizing along the way for the disruption, as if it were a spontaneous exchange. (Some onlookers believed it was, and tried to shush them.)Three actresses join Ruimi and Rajel and the show plays out in a dozen scenes between two or three characters, drawn from earlier Pommerat pieces: “This Child” (2006), “Circles/Fictions” (2010) and “The Reunification of the Two Koreas” (2013). Love, the overarching theme, takes many forms throughout, from intense friendship to filial affection and long-term companionship.Yet it is consistently laced with pain and misunderstanding. In one scene, a deep rift opens up between two best friends because their recollections of their first meeting differ. In another vignette, two neighbors wait for their spouses to return, until it dawns on them that the missing partners are having an affair.While Pommerat has honed a distinctive stage aesthetic over the years, with dusky lighting and an eerie, quietly cutting delivery style for actors, “Amours (2)” does away with technical wizardry and goes back to basics. The plain, bright lighting and compact space lessens the distance between the audience and highlights the spare yet mysterious quality of Pommerat’s writing.The three women onstage — Marie Piemontese, Elise Douyère and Roxane Isnard — are all faultless, with Isnard an especially versatile presence from scene to scene, projecting teenage anger as easily as quiet, mature tension. Yet Ruimi and Rajel, the two former convicts, bring a different dimension to “Amours (2).”Ruimi, a former high-profile member of a Marseille crime ring who served a lengthy sentence in connection with several killings and drug trafficking, draws attention with a nervy intensity. When he plays vulnerable characters — like a man paying daily visits to his amnesiac wife, who keeps forgetting who he is — his toughness almost seems to crack in real time.Rajel, who has also performed roles with the French director Olivier Py, is a softer presence, with a gift for delivering quiet blows in dialogue. “Amours (2)” is a testament to Ruimi and Rajel’s talent and hard work, yet their life experiences shape their stage presence, too.That is one of the benefits of social diversity in the arts. It’s an uphill struggle for actors from tough backgrounds to make it as professionals, with drama schools increasingly out of financial reach in Europe and the United States. Yet their presence makes for richer, fuller worlds onstage. “Amours (2)” is certainly proof, and is bound to become another Pommerat classic.Amours (2)Through April 22 at W.I.P. Villette in Paris, then touring France through June 9. More

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    ‘Emilie’ Review: Defending, and Defining, a Life

    In her new play, Lauren Gunderson explores the legacy of the 18th-century French mathematician and philosophe Emilie du Châtelet.“Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight” starts with a death adjourned. Emilie (Amy Michelle), a mathematician and philosophe, has slipped through a loophole in the space-time continuum and now lingers in an uncanny valley between life and death. She has been allotted limited time to determine whether her legacy amounts to one of “loving” or “knowing.”The words “love” and “philosophy” are inscribed on an upstage wall and throughout this play, by Lauren Gunderson, Emilie returns to that makeshift chalkboard to tally up her life’s deeds. As a dramaturgical device, it’s more prosaic than piquant, yet not entirely off brand for a woman whose mind was a perpetual motion machine.The play’s protagonist is based on the real-life du Châtelet, famed in 18th-century France for her translation of and commentary on Newton’s “Principia” and for a treatise she wrote on the nature and propagation of fire. Such an accomplished woman hardly needs defending, but defining a life is another matter. That is the real brief for “Emilie.”In her state of limbo, the marquise discovers that she can’t intervene in past events. Any kind of physical contact will immediately set off a blackout, as if someone has shaken a cosmic Etch A Sketch. As a workaround, Erika Vetter plays a younger version of the marquise, enacting a telescoped version of her life. Where Michelle’s marquise is ruled by an Apollonian temperament, Vetter puts a heavy thumb on the “love” scale. “Are you jealous that I’m sharing orbits with another man?” she teases Voltaire, du Châtelet’s lover in real life.Under Kathy Gail MacGowan’s direction, many of the actors play multiple roles, underscoring the similarities between certain characters. Bonnie Black delivers compelling performances as both the marquise’s mother, a woman of mean understanding, and the meddlesome Madam Graffigny, a not entirely welcome guest at the marquise’s family estate.Unlike those two women, bound by corsets, Emilie wears a simple nightgown, which allows her to move freely from her chaise longue to her desk on Sarah White’s handsome set. Her mind moves just as nimbly from an appraisal of Gottfried Leibniz to a discussion of “living force,” a scientific concept for kinetic energy first developed by Leibniz and later elaborated upon by Emilie.For all the talk of life forces, however, there’s a lack of kinetic energy between the elder marquise and Voltaire, who is reduced to a concupiscent kibitzer with a string of chronic ailments. The first act is also dragged down by exposition. “Did I mention I was married? We’re skipping ahead.” “Did I mention I had children? Three. Fascinating creatures,” the marquise maunders on. Such palavering is wasted time for a woman facing a literal deadline.Gunderson, whose other work includes plays about pioneering women like Marie Curie, does more than pay hagiographic tribute to her subjects. There are angles of regret in her portrait of the marquise, who ultimately feels that she failed to provide enough opportunities for her daughter. Even as the lights dim, she is preoccupied with “love and so many questions,” and it becomes impossible to tell where loving leaves off and knowing begins.Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life TonightThrough April 30 at the Flea Theater, Manhattan; theflea.org. Running time: 2 hours.This review is supported by Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in the work of cultural critics from historically underrepresented backgrounds. More

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    Cabaret Mainstay 54 Below Enters a New Era: As a Nonprofit

    The midtown venue’s owners hope to raise close to 20 percent of an annual budget approaching $10 million from supporters.After nearly 11 years in operation, one of New York City’s most high-profile cabaret venues has decided to transition from a commercial entity to a nonprofit. The owners of 54 Below, a popular forum for both Broadway stars and rising performers and composers, say they intend to raise close to 20 percent of an annual budget approaching $10 million from supporters, with sponsorships, multiyear donations and naming opportunities figuring into the new model.Richard Frankel, one of the owners, described the move as motivated by both economic challenges and artistic ambitions. “There’s no doubt it’s been a struggle, financially, combining the restaurant and theater businesses,” he said, adding that the club, which occupies the space below the 1970s nightlife fixture-turned-Broadway theater Studio 54, “puts on about 600 shows a year, which is insane. So we have a structure that’s not cheap.”Those shows have included performances by marquee names such as Patti LuPone, Kelli O’Hara and Brian Stokes Mitchell, as well as series and concerts spotlighting lesser-known artists and works. “Diversity has become very important to us, presenting new musicals and young performers, many of color,” Frankel said. “And we want to be able to pay them more and expand the audience, with artist subsidies and ticket subsidies. That can be very difficult, if not impossible, to do on a self-sustaining commercial basis.”Frankel noted that two of 54 Below’s competitors, Joe’s Pub and Dizzy’s Club, both enjoy the backing of nonprofit organizations: the Public Theater and Jazz at Lincoln Center. “We’ve been incredibly envious of them,” Frankel said.As a nonprofit, 54 Below will focus on raising money to offer discounted tickets and subsidize artists’ production costs, as well as continue livestreaming its performances.A newly formed board for 54 Below includes, in addition to Frankel and his fellow owners, names from the entertainment, business and nonprofit sectors, among them the actress and entrepreneur Brenda Braxton; Robert L. Dilenschneider, president and chief executive of the Dilenschneider Group, Inc; Stanley Richards, deputy chief executive of the Fortune Society; and Lucille Werlinich, chair of the Purchase College Foundation.54 Below opened in June 2012 and entered a partnership with the veteran performer and American songbook champion Michael Feinstein in 2015; that collaboration ended in July 2022, when Feinstein teamed up with Cafe Carlyle. Last June, 54 Below received an honor at the Tony Awards for excellence in the theater.“I’m expecting the funding sources to be generous, though I don’t know how many Santa Clauses there can be,” Frankel said. “But we’re committed to this, as a way for us to survive and thrive in the future.” More

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    Ex-Member of Menudo Says He Was Raped by Father of the Menendez Brothers

    The allegation, made in a forthcoming docuseries, resembles the claims of abuse by the brothers, who were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents.It was a gripping case that was one of the first to draw a daily national audience to a televised criminal trial. Two affluent young men were charged three decades ago with murdering their parents by marching into the den of their Beverly Hills mansion with shotguns and unloading more than a dozen rounds on their mother and father while they sat on the couch.Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of murdering their mother, Mary Louise, a former beauty queen who went by Kitty, and their father, Jose, a music executive, despite defense arguments that the brothers had been sexually molested for years by their father, and had killed out of fear.Now, Roy Rosselló, a former member of Menudo, the boy band of the 1980s that became a global sensation, is coming forward with an allegation that he was sexually assaulted as a teenager by Jose Menendez.The assertion was aired on Tuesday in a segment on the “Today” show that outlined some of the findings of a three-part docuseries scheduled to air on Peacock, the streaming service from NBCUniversal, beginning on May 2. The series, “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” based on reporting by the journalists Robert Rand and Nery Ynclan, is largely focused on Mr. Rosselló. He describes an encounter with Mr. Menendez but also recounts separate incidents of sexual abuse that he says were inflicted on him by one of Menudo’s former managers when he sang as part of the group.“I know what he did to me in his house,” Mr. Rosselló says of Mr. Menendez in the clip of the docuseries that aired on “Today.”It is unclear what impact, if any, Mr. Rosselló’s account will have on efforts by defense lawyers to secure a new trial for the brothers, whose prior appeals have been denied.The credibility of the brothers’ account, and the admissibility of defense arguments that pointed to sex abuse as a mitigating factor in the case, was central to the criminal trials that unfolded after the discovery of the murders in 1989. The first prosecution, which began in 1993, ended with two hung juries and mistrials. When the brothers were retried together two years later, they were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, where they remain.The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the cases in the 1990s, did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday morning.The “Today” report previewed interviews with Mr. Rosselló in which he is said to describe a visit to the Menendez home in New Jersey when he was 14 — a visit during which he says Jose Menendez drugged and raped him.“That’s the man here that raped me,” he says in a clip of the docuseries, pointing to Mr. Menendez in a photo. “That’s the pedophile.”He is also heard saying, “It’s time for the world to know the truth.”Roy Rosselló, a former member of the singing group Menudo, has accused Jose Menendez, the father of Erik and Lyle Menendez, of sexually assaulting him when he was 14.via PeacockMr. Menendez was affiliated with Menudo because he had signed the group as an executive of RCA Records.Mr. Rosselló has previously described being sexually abused as part of Menudo. Others have also said they were verbally, physically, emotionally and sexually abused as part of the band in the four-part HBO Max docuseries “Menudo: Forever Young.” No one has ever been criminally charged in connection to the allegations.One of Kitty Menendez’s brothers, Milton Andersen, 88, used an expletive to describe Mr. Rosselló’s allegation as flatly false and said the Menendez brothers should not be set free.Mr. Andersen said his brother-in-law was not a sexual predator and objected to the idea that the new accusation could in any way lead to Lyle and Erik having their case re-examined.“They do not deserve to walk on the face of this earth after killing my sister and my brother-in-law,” he said.The Menendez murders drew wide public attention, in part because the brothers had been children of affluence. Lyle was attending Princeton at the time of the killings. Erik was pursuing a career in professional tennis. Prosecutors presented them as coldblooded killers, interested in getting unfettered access to their parents’ $14 million estate.Jose Menendez was shot five times, including once in the back of the head. By the brothers’ own testimony, after they had discharged several rounds, Lyle went to his car, reloaded his 12-gauge shotgun, and pushed the muzzle of his gun to his mother’s cheek and shot her again.The police initially believed that the slayings were tied to the Mafia. But investigators turned their attention to Lyle, who was 22 at the time of his arrest, and Erik, 19, after the brothers bought Rolex watches, condominiums, sports cars and other items in the months after the murders.Though they initially denied any role in the killings, they became primary suspects after the discovery of taped recordings of conversations the brothers had with their psychologist in which the brothers explained what had led them to kill their parents.As the first trial neared, the brothers’ defense lawyers came forward with their own explanation for the crimes: that Lyle had confronted his father about the family’s sex abuse secrets, that his father had become enraged and threatening, and that the brothers had killed out of concern for their lives.The defense argued that the murder charges should be reduced to manslaughter because the defendants had honestly, if incorrectly, believed that their lives were imminently threatened.The trials, which played out on Court TV, ushered in a new era of televised courtroom drama. At least some jurors in the first set of trials believed the brothers, who had movingly testified of the abuse they suffered. The testimony left the jurors split between manslaughter and murder verdicts and contributed to the impasse that led to the mistrials.When another jury convened to decide the brothers’ fate, the circumstances had changed. The judge banned cameras in court and severely restricted witness testimony and evidence related to Jose Menendez’s parenting. Prosecutors, who had let the brothers’ molestation accusations go unchallenged at the first trials, went right at Erik Menendez when he took the stand, seeding doubt about whether the abuse had happened at all.“Can you give us the name of one eyewitness to any of the sexual assaults that took place in that home,” the lead prosecutor, David Conn, repeatedly asked Erik Menendez, as he ticked through the places the brothers had lived.According to transcripts of the testimony, Mr. Menendez kept repeating the same answer: “No.”The defense also did not present at trial anyone beyond the brothers who described Mr. Menendez as a sexual predator.As the trial wound to a close, the judge, Stanley M. Weisberg, ruled that the “abuse excuse” argument could not be used at all. The ruling essentially forced jurors to decide between letting the brothers off entirely, or convicting them of murder.They did the latter.“We did think there was psychological abuse to some extent. I think most of us believed that,” one juror, Lesley Hillings, told The Los Angeles Times afterward. “Sexual abuse? I don’t think we’ll ever know if that’s true or not.”Legal experts said that even with the new allegation brought by Mr. Rosselló, the lawyers defending the Menendez brothers would face an uphill battle if they sought to have the case re-examined.Laurie L. Levenson, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who provided legal analysis of the Menendez case in the 1990s, said Mr. Rosselló’s information might come “too little, too late.”“In the end, in the second trial, the jury just didn’t believe them,” Professor Levenson said of the brothers and their sex abuse allegations.Mr. Rosselló’s account “could be something you could file with the court and claim that it’s newly discovered evidence and that it would have made a difference in the case,” she added. “But they will have the burden to show that.”In the segment aired by “Today,” Alan Jackson, a criminal defense lawyer, agreed that the brothers had “a big mountain to climb.” Still, he said the assertion brought forward by Mr. Rosselló provided the brothers a “glimmer of hope.”Kirsten Noyes More

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    In ‘The Diplomat,’ Keri Russell Shows Her Good Side

    The actor’s first substantial TV role since the Soviet spy drama “The Americans” finds her switching sides, starring as a savvy civil servant tasked with upholding America’s reputation abroad.On a recent Thursday afternoon, the actress Keri Russell paused in a corner of Brooklyn Bridge Park to admire a starling.It was technically spring, though the weather had other ideas, and Russell, in subdued plumage, braved the wind in chunky boots and a black puffer jacket. Her hair was tousled. Liner ringed each eye, possibly a souvenir from the previous night’s too many margaritas with friends. She didn’t look much like a woman who devoted years of her life to undermining the American democratic project. Or like a woman now charged with safeguarding it.But Russell has been both of those women (and a lot of other women besides). At this point in her career, she is probably best known for her six seasons on the FX drama “The Americans” as Elizabeth Jennings, a Soviet sleeper agent with an ambitious collection of ruses and wigs who earned Russell three Emmy nominations. Now Russell has taken on an opposing role: In the “The Diplomat,” a Netflix series debuting on Thursday, she stars as Kate Wyler, a savvy U.S. civil servant tasked with upholding America’s reputation abroad.A veteran ambassador, Kate is about to take a post in Kabul when an international incident shunts her and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), to London. An English manor house is not a war zone, but Kate behaves otherwise. Armored in punishing heels and sleek sheath dresses, she treats even polite conversation as battlefield maneuvers. But in a departure from “The Americans,” Kate’s work is almost entirely aboveboard. She wears no wigs.As some Canada geese waddled nearby, Russell considered the disparities between these two roles. “It was fun being a baddie, doing sneaky stuff,” she said. But “The Diplomat” also has its pleasures, she insisted. “It’s awesome to be smart and capable and dress people down and be so steady about it,” she said.If Elizabeth is a baddie, does that make Kate a goody? Russell gave a cagey smile. “We’ll see,” she said.In “The Diplomat,” Russell plays a veteran ambassador who is about to take a post in Kabul when an international incident shunts her and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), to London. Alex Bailey/NetflixRussell began her career as a teenage dancer in “The Mickey Mouse Club” and then starred in “Felicity” as a capricious college student and the patron saint of dithery girls everywhere. She did not necessarily expect to spend her midcareer playing hypercompetent women while also showing the uncertainty that undergirds that competence. In addition to playing Elizabeth and Kate, she has also recently appeared as an indomitable mother in the horror comedy “Cocaine Bear” and as a cool, if not especially effective, assassin in “Extrapolations.”Felicity would not have excelled at either espionage or high-stakes diplomacy. “Felicity would write a poem about it,” Russell said. But that was 20 years ago. Russell, who in person is outspoken, unfussy, charmingly profane and so candid that she encourages similar candor in others and now absolutely has kompromat on me, has grown up. She has since become a mother. She has two children with her former husband, Shane Deary, and a young son with her partner Matthew Rhys, her co-star on “The Americans.”“Moms are like that!” she said of these recent capable characters. “You’re going to make it happen. A mom can do 37 things in one day!”Russell comes to this park, near the home that she shares with Rhys and her children, on the rare occasions when she has an early morning to herself. Sometimes, before anyone else is awake, she’ll ride her bike through the park’s loops. “It’s a beautiful, happening place,” she said, pointing out the roller rink, the basketball courts, a meadow, the indelible view of Manhattan across the East River.Over the last year or so, those mornings have been rarer. It was during the Christmas holiday of 2021, when Russell had volunteered to cook dinner for the children’s three sets of grandparents, that she received the scripts for “The Diplomat.” With Rhys already away for part of the year filming the gloomy HBO revival of “Perry Mason”—“I was already punishing him with guilt for not being home,” she said — she wasn’t looking for another starring role.Russell has played several indomitable mothers, including in the horror comedy “Cocaine Bear.”Universal PicturesStill, something in Kate’s ambition and savvy, as well as the humor of her marital tussles with Hal, called to her. She agreed to a video call with the show’s creator, Debora Cahn, a veteran of “Homeland” and “The West Wing.”Cahn had wanted Russell for the role, trusting that Kate would benefit from Russell’s beauty, grace and ability to convey emotions even in characters who control and repress their feelings. But Kate was a more neurotic proposition than past Russell characters — gorgeous enough to be the subject of a Vogue spread in the show but also sweaty, squirrelly, with a lot of angst behind the poise.“There’s a part of Kate that is itchy and twitchy and always uncomfortable in her own skin,” Cahn said in a recent phone interview.Russell was a woman of far more poise, Cahn assumed, but she knew that Russell was also a skilled actor. She could perform that discomfort. And yet, as she watched Russell squirm through the video call, she discovered that discomfort was part of the Russell package, too.“I get really nervous,” Russell confirmed in the park. “I do really sweat a lot.” (She didn’t seem to be sweating here, though it was quite cold.)This contradiction — glamour in the front, social anxiety in the back — helped Cahn explore the thesis of “The Diplomat,” which is that everybody sweats, even (or especially) the bodies in power.“In Buckingham Palace, in the Great Hall of the People, everybody in there is still a leaky human,” Cahn said.Kate, on the show, puts it more tartly. “You show people the nice parts because, believe me, that’s all that anyone wants to see,” she says.The effort that Kate makes to maintain a flawless veneer resonated with Russell, though largely because she has never had much patience with or talent for the public-facing aspects of her profession — the interviews, the award shows, the times when she has to perform a more idealized version of herself. She used to beat herself up for this unease, but she has since accepted it.“I’m like, that’s who I am,” she said.“I like to never be busy,” Russell said, despite recent evidence to the contrary. “I like to like drift away and roam the park.”Celeste Sloman for The New York TimesAnd yet, sets are places where she has always felt at home. “The Diplomat” filmed last summer, mostly in London and mostly on location. Sewell had never met Russell, his work wife, until they were both in the hair and makeup trailer, but he was struck by her openness and ease.“She immediately was very friendly and personable and easy,” he said. “I automatically thought it was going to be relatively straightforward working with her, because she was a lot of fun.”Fun is not necessarily a word that anyone would apply to Kate or that Kate would apply to herself. However sweaty Russell feels herself to be, she moves through the world, or at least through the park, with less strain and tension. (And she is fun. At one point, she pulled out her phone and showed a picture of herself looking unhinged in an ash-blond wig, an outtake from “The Americans.” She sends the picture to her friends when it’s time to party. “We don’t let her have chardonnay anymore,” she said of the image.)While Kate is a creature of ambition, Russell has always held her work more lightly, even as she pushes herself to give vivid, committed performances.“When I’m there, I work hard,” she said. “I want to be good.” But she drew a distinction between herself and Rhys, even though they take on many of the same projects. (He is in “Extrapolations” and “Cocaine Bear,” too.)“He likes to be busy,” she said. “I like to never be busy. I like to like drift away and roam the park.”She was near the river now. The sun turned the gray water gold. Ducks dabbled. Unlike Kate, no one needed her to save the world today or to sweat through her clothes while neutralizing some new crisis. Hypercompetence could wait. She needed only to find her way back through the park and text Rhys to see if he could meet her at an Italian restaurant close by. Among the 37 things, there was just time for a beer before school pickup. More

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    Why TV Can’t Quite Take a Stand on Stan Culture

    “Dave” and “Swarm” try to demystify extreme fandom but end up pledging fealty to celebrity.The “stan,” a word that comes from Eminem’s seminal 2000 song about obsessive, sometimes violent superfans, has become a locus for celebrity anxiety in recent years. Popular fan bases can be malicious in defense of their idols — see Taylor’s Swifties, Nicki’s Barbz and Beyoncé’s BeyHive. (Selena Gomez recently had to chide her fans for sending death threats to Hailey Bieber because of a convoluted rivalry instigated in part by eyebrow lamination.) It can create an awkward dynamic for the famouses: Denounce your fan base’s zealotry, and you risk seeming ungrateful. And while obsessive fans have existed for as long as celebrity has, the internet, which is conducive to acts of anonymous virulence, has made stan fury particularly potent. It was only a matter of time before scripted TV tackled this subject. In the FX comedy “Dave,” Lil Dicky (Dave Burd), the annoying or — depending on your tolerance for anxiety-ridden white rappers — endearing M.C. at the center of the series, has several uneasy encounters with fans in the Season 3 premiere. While trying to destroy a concrete bust of his head that a fan gives him after a show, he meets a young woman named Campbell (Jocelyn Hudon), and they strike up a conversation. “Sorry, I don’t know you,” she says. Relieved, Lil Dicky confesses that he prefers that anonymity. She invites him to a house party, during which one of her friends inadvertently reveals that Campbell is actually a huge Lil Dicky fan and that her mission was to have sex with him.Later, party guests ask to see Lil Dicky’s penis; he refuses. They surround him, yelling and screaming. They rip his clothes off. Eventually he flees. The escape is played mostly for laughs, but a current of unease and even violence lurks in the scene. FX“Dave” has always possessed a meta, synergistic relationship to fame. Burd, who’s also a creator of the show, essentially plays an exaggerated version of himself; he became popular thanks to his catchy, puerile raps under the same moniker he shares with his alter ego. His hypeman, GaTa, is also his hypeman in real life. Travis (Taco) Bennett, who plays Elz, Lil Dicky’s producer, was part of the rap collective Odd Future. Celebrities like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Justin Bieber, Kourtney Kardashian and Doja Cat have played themselves. During the first season, Lil Dicky desperately desires the spotlight, and the show — as if expressing its bona fides — brings out a constant parade of famous people to heighten its verisimilitude. But what’s notable about the second and third seasons (at least based on the first three episodes) is their focus on fame’s darker side, how it distorts the ego and emboldens zealous, even aggressive fans. Stan worship is taken to its most extreme conclusion in “Swarm,” a new Amazon Prime Video limited series created by Janine Nabers and Donald Glover. The show’s protagonist, Dre (Dominique Fishback), kills anybody who speaks ill of her pop idol, Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), a clear stand-in for Beyoncé, whose fan base is notoriously overprotective, to put it diplomatically. After Dre loses her foster sister, Marissa (played by the R.&B. singer Chloe Bailey), to suicide, she fixates on the people who tweeted something mean about Marissa or Ni’Jah. But Dre’s uncontrollable urges extend to Ni’Jah herself. After some ingenious maneuvering, Dre shows up at an after-party she knows Ni’Jah is attending and — in a winking nod to a Tiffany Haddish story about an actress who bit Beyoncé in 2017 — bites her idol on the chin. In the final episode, Dre, after killing a ticket scalper to get in, commandeers her way to the front row at a Ni’Jah show. The series ends on a deliberately surrealist note, which calls the logic of the entire series into question. But the takeaway remains unclear. The ambiguity seeps into the framework of the show, which, as compelling and mordantly funny as it is, can’t seem to figure out what exactly it’s trying to say about stan culture. Is Dre really a stan? Or a deeply disturbed young woman who fixates on a pop star as a way to cope with grief? Or both? The “Dave” premiere ends in a similarly ambiguous place, though that show’s embrace of sophomoric sexual humor undermines its more salient points about the frightening consequences of standom. Both “Dave” and “Swarm” opt for dark humor, the better to highlight the absurdity of toxic stan behavior — an affection so passionate that it turns vicious. And both shows seem ultimately ambivalent and unsure about this state of affairs, gesturing toward the dangers of such fandom before retreating into fantasy. There’s an odd uncertainty at their cores, a sense that even the writers don’t quite know where to land on the fierce relationships people have with celebrity. The phrase “parasocial relationship” has been bandied about as of late, defining the warped one-sided dynamic that some fans have with their favorite celebrities. But perhaps some of the confusion “Dave” and “Swarm” seem to convey lies in the fact that the critique is coming from inside the house. Their creators — Burd and Glover — are both famous. Both shows question the excessive adoration some fans feel for pop stars but rely in part on securing public figures to appear in them. (In addition to Bailey, who’s signed to Beyoncé’s label, Billie Eilish and Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael, make guest appearances on “Swarm.” And Malia Obama wrote for the series.) As bizarre as Dre and Campbell’s actions are, fame’s corrosive force goes both ways. Nicki Minaj, for example, is notorious for siccing her most rabid fans on people who dare to tweet criticism. Other celebrities (including, notably, Beyoncé) don’t always engage with their fan bases enough to tell them to cool it when their devotion turns threatening. Critiquing such passion while benefiting and sometimes even exploiting celebrity clout is an inherently untenable position.“Dave” seems to understand this tension to some degree; there are plenty of episodes that mock Lil Dicky’s growing egocentrism. “Swarm” doesn’t really engage with Ni’Jah’s celebrity from her point of view. She remains a cipher — another nod to Beyoncé’s real-life inscrutability — but the decision to characterize her that way further blunts the show’s critique of stan culture. Even the “Swarm” brain trust seems to acknowledge their awkward proximity to the show’s main theme. In a recent interview with Vulture, Nabers said she wrote Beyoncé a letter about the show to explain their intention. At another point in the conversation, she mentioned that Glover and Beyoncé are friends. In a different interview, Fishback politely demurs from naming the BeyHive as the inspiration behind Ni’Jah acolytes at all. “It’s an amalgamation of different celebrities and our current climate’s being kind of intense about our love for celebrity.” Their deference to Beyoncé is telling. Even they seem to fear her fans’ venom.Source photographs: Byron Cohen/FX. More

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    Late Night Skewers Clarence Thomas for Not Disclosing Gifts

    “The Daily Show” guest host Jordan Klepper joked that Thomas has “taken more free vacations than all the Bravo housewives combined.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.The Best of FriendsJustice Clarence Thomas is under fire for unreported gifts, trips and other financial transactions with the conservative donor Harlan Crow.On Monday, the “Daily Show” guest host Jordan Klepper joked that Thomas is “the Supreme Court justice who’s taken more free vacations than all the Bravo housewives combined.”“Last week, we learned that Thomas had secretly accepted luxury trips from right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow. And that’s his actual name, not his ‘Game of Thrones’ cosplay character.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“Crow is an arch-conservative who’s known for his assorted Nazi memorabilia and garden full of statues of the 20th century’s worst despots. It’s so impressive that they put him on the cover of ‘Hitler Homes and Goebbels.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“On top of that, Clarence Thomas’s mom is still living in that house rent-free, and Harlan Crow is paying for thousands of dollars of renovations. All of which Clarence Thomas should have disclosed by law — although, in his defense, the law is complicated, and he is only a Supreme Court justice.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“Justice Thomas claims that he did not have to report all these gifts because he and Crow are such close buds. But this must be one hell of a friendship because on Thursday we learned that, back in 2014, Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas, including the house where Thomas’s elderly mother was living. That might give him a little influence.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, Crow claims there’s nothing corrupt about this, saying, ‘My intention is to one day create a public museum at the Thomas home.’ Just a reminder, Harlan Crow has Hitler’s napkins and a statue of Stalin in his garden. So building you a museum? Not a huge compliment.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Love is Blind Edition)“Netflix is apologizing after last night’s ‘Love is Blind’ live reunion was delayed due to technical issues. Yeah, even though they couldn’t see the reunion, ‘Love is Blind’ fans still managed to fall in love with it anyway.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingFreddie Highmore, a guest on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” shared horror stories from previous talk show experiences (though he would not name names).What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightFresh from her Coachella performance, the rapper Glorilla will perform Tuesday on Jimmy Kimmel.Also, Check This OutJessica Hecht, left, said she and her “Summer, 1976” castmate, Laura Linney, right, share a “clarity of purpose.” She added: “I’m interested in plays that talk about intimacy.”Thea Traff for The New York TimesLaura Linney and Jessica Hecht play intensely intimate friends in David Auburn’s new play, “Summer, 1976.” More