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    ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6, Episode 5 Recap: Psych 101

    Kim loses sleep. Howard and Jimmy mix it up. Lalo resurfaces abroad.Season 6, Episode 5: ‘Black and Blue’Lalo Salamanca is playing the long game. In previous seasons of “Better Call Saul,” he seemed impetuous (i.e. murdering that TravelWire clerk) and a big fan of improvisation (i.e. the impulsive volte-face near the Mexican border to look for Jimmy’s car). That Lalo is gone, or maybe he has learned to fight smarter after appreciating the guile of his enemy.The new Lalo isn’t looking for “proof” in Mexico, as Your Faithful Recapper incorrectly surmised, nor is the proof he seeks related to the attempt on his life. He wants to know about what Gus Fring is surreptitiously building — a topic that riveted him starting in Season 3 — and his search has taken him to Germany.Specifically, to a bar where Margarethe Ziegler (Andrea Sooch), the widow of superlab engineer Werner Ziegler, is acing trivia questions and drinking alone. Repackaged as a debonair international business traveler named Ben, Lalo drops the name of the town where Werner had beckoned his wife to join him during his prohibited, and ultimately fatal, attempt at a brief conjugal reunion in Season 4. Soon, Lalo is frisking Margarethe for the few facts she knew about her husband’s work in New Mexico.Which isn’t much. Nor, it seems, is there a hefty archive in the Ziegler home; Gus Fring’s minions hauled away anything relevant to the superlab, and maybe a lot more. Lalo’s brief haus invasion apparently produces little of immediate value, other than a good look at the carefully encased slide rule given to Werner, a gift “with love” from “his boys.”What Lalo knows is that none of those boys showed up at the funeral and their identities are unknown to Margarethe. Surely there was a no-go order given to the crew when it came to Werner’s final send off, a safety precaution imposed by Gus, who halted superlab construction because of Lalo’s snooping.The Return of ‘Better Call Saul’The “Breaking Bad” prequel returned April 18 for its final season.A Refresher: After the show’s two-year, Covid-induced hiatus, here’s where things left off.Serious Success: Bob Odenkirk was a comedian’s comedian — until “Better Call Saul” revealed him as a peerless portrayer of broken souls.Writing the Perfect Con: We asked the show’s writers to break down a pivotal scene in the ​​transformation of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman.Cast Interviews: Rhea Seehorn and Tony Dalton told us how they created the complex Kim Wexler and the murderous Lalo Salamanca.Perhaps Lalo’s next move is to find the occasionally rowdy and very industrious young crew that Werner brought with him from Germany to blast the superlab into existence. How exactly he is going to determine their names is not clear. The handwritten cards he finds in Werner’s house are condolences from friends. And even if he finds those men, what will they know? Presumably, they were never told what they were creating, nor did they know where, geographically, they were working.Lalo already had a hunch that Gus was building something more ambitious than “the chiller” he told Lalo was under construction in Season 4. Beyond that, Lalo is in the dark but apparently heading toward illumination. At least, that is the hunch of Gus, who appears in this episode to be suffering from symptoms of pre-traumatic stress disorder, if there is such a thing. He is panicked enough about an imminent Lalo assault that he is scrubbing bathtub grout with a toothbrush. He takes Mike and his men to the superlab, reflecting a premonition that Lalo is going to show up there, rather than his house.“I can put more guys on the place,” Mike tells him, shining a flashlight around the empty space, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”Privately, Gus secrets a handgun in a superlab nook. The “Better Call Saul” writers are either throwing a feint or signaling that a showdown between Gus and Lalo will happen in the structure that will eventually become the largest and most profitable meth lab in the world. Leaving a weapon there seems to provide Gus with some modest measure of peace.Howard Hamlin, the other human quarry in this two-pronged tale, has called out his pursuer and summoned him to a boxing ring, in the apparent hope that a few rounds with gloves on will put an end to their feud. As Jimmy later nurses his wounds with Kim, he is baffled as to why he took the bait. Your Faithful Recapper is confounded by the fisticuffs themselves. A boxing match? It seems a goofy contrivance even in the context of Jimmy and Kim’s credulity-strangling plot to frame Howard as a drug addict.Thankfully, Howard has more in mind than resolving his differences with Jimmy using the Marquess of Queensberry rules. He’s hired a private detective to follow Jimmy. This is good news for anyone who wanted this strand of the show to acquire more intrigue.That said, Jimmy and Kim seem so utterly nonplused that Howard has discovered their plot that we have to assume it was part of their plan. (Howard suggests as much when he says Jimmy failed to hide his tracks and wanted to get caught.) Perhaps tipping off Howard, compelling him to hire a pro to tail Jimmy, was in the blueprint. Certainly, Kim and Jimmy never speak about tweaking their scheme. On the contrary, Kim implies that everything is on track.“Because you know,” she says, when Jimmy wonders aloud about why he indulged Howard and strapped on those gloves. “You know what’s coming next.”Very mysterious.Odds and EndsThere is a parallel worth noting between Gus and Kim. Neither can sleep and for the same reason. They think Lalo is about to appear. So Gus has hired bodyguards and a surveillance team. Kim has wedged a chair against her apartment door.The Most Entertaining Appearance of the Week award goes to Francesca Liddy (Tina Parker), who turns up at Saul Goodman’s grim, unfurnished office and can hardly process what she’s seeing. Jimmy is using a new name and has pivoted away from elder law to serve unseemly clients who have lined up outside the door like it’s Wal-Mart on Black Friday. She agrees to join this new enterprise — a decision she will rue by the end of “Breaking Bad” — under two conditions. A raise, plus “I get a say in the decorating.”Francesca, if you’re responsible for the U.S. Constitution theme of Saul’s office and those Roman columns, we need to talk.Mrs. Ryman is a Toto fan!It’s not just existential dread that is driving Gus a little nuts. Even before Lalo showed up, construction of the superlab was behind schedule. The delays are expensive, of course, and risky as well, given that Gus’s secret German partner and equipment supplier, Peter Schuler, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when we last saw him. The delays also add plausibility to a key plot point of “Breaking Bad.” Walter White exploited Gus’s fear of falling behind on the lab’s meth production schedule to save his own life. We have a better sense than ever of why that ploy worked.And our question of the week for the comments section: What do Jimmy and Kim have in store for the man who is going to mediate the Sandpiper Crossing lawsuit? Kim has wheedled the name of the gent from an unsuspecting, somewhat fawning former associate at Schweikart & Cokely. Jimmy and Kim then get a look at the man in a copy of a bar journal and take note of his handlebar mustache.“That’s a lot less face to worry about,” Jimmy says.Looming plot twist alert! This is arguably the most baffling line of the season so far and clearly an important one.What does it mean? More

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    ‘A Strange Loop’ Star L Morgan Lee on Her Trailblazing Tony Nomination

    L Morgan Lee made theater history on Monday, becoming what production officials described as the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for a Tony Award for her performance as a featured actress in “A Strange Loop.”Lee’s Tony nod was one of 11 for the musical, which opened April 26 and is a meta-work about a Black gay writer trying to make art while being distracted by his intrusive thoughts. Lee plays one of those thoughts — “Thought 1.”In a telephone interview on Monday hours after learning of her nomination, Lee, who made her Broadway debut in the musical, said she found her nomination “overwhelming.”“I know of many trans and nonbinary and gender-expansive people who are out here trying to be seen and trying to put stories out into the world,” she said. “Having this happen today helps more people know that it’s possible.”Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.This was your Broadway debut. Tell me about what it was like to see your name on the screen this morning with a Tony nomination.I’m still trying to wrap my head around the importance of a Black trans woman in a principal role on a Broadway stage, period. And the importance of that, especially in a time when so many of us are simply fighting for our basic well being. So to be able to be part of a story that is challenging the form in so many ways — challenging what people have known Broadway to be — it’s a gift.It is all bigger than me. I’m really excited about what will happen after these steps. I’m very excited about who is in the audience that will see this show or my performance or now this nomination and know that it is possible for them to pursue theater.What does it say to you that a show that describes itself as a “big, Black, and queer-ass Great American Musical” can be the big winner of this morning’s nominations?I would like to say that it means that there is hope. I’m careful with the word change, because in order for us to be in the type of world and space we want to be in, it’s not as much about change as much as it is about growth. You’re not going to suddenly get rid of all the people who don’t agree with you. But we do need to figure out how to make space so that all of our stories can actually be told.To that point, for anyone out there who says “Hey, this got 11 nominations — I’m interested — but I’m not sure this musical is for me,” what would you tell them?Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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    ‘A Strange Loop’ Nominated for 11 Tonys as Broadway Lauds Comeback

    “The Lehman Trilogy,” as well as revivals of “Company” and “For Colored Girls,” led in their respective categories as the industry tries to recover from the long pandemic shutdown.A musical about making art and a play about making money dominated the Tony Awards nominations Monday, as Broadway sought to celebrate its best work and revive its fortunes after the lengthy and damaging coronavirus shutdown.The race for best musical — traditionally the most financially beneficial prize — turned into an unexpectedly broad six-way contest because the nominators were so closely divided they had to expand the number of nominees.Out of the gate, the front-runner is “A Strange Loop,” a meta-musical in which a composer who is Black and gay battles demons and doubts while trying to write a show. Even before arriving on Broadway, the show, written by Michael R. Jackson, had won the Pulitzer Prize in drama after an Off Broadway production at Playwrights Horizons; it opened on Broadway late last month to some of the strongest reviews for any new musical this season, and on Monday it picked up 11 Tony nominations, the most for any show.“I feel really grateful, and I feel validated for putting in all the years and all the hours,” Jackson said after learning the news. “It feels amazing to know better things are possible.”“MJ,” a jukebox musical about Michael Jackson, was nominated for 10 Tonys. Myles Frost, center, was nominated for best actor in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesScoring the most nominations is not always predictive of winning the prize, and “A Strange Loop,” which is adventurous in form and content, will face tough competition from “MJ,” a biographical jukebox musical about Michael Jackson; “Six,” a fan favorite about the wives of Henry VIII; “Girl From the North Country,” which combines the songs of Bob Dylan with a fictional story about a boardinghouse in the Minnesota city where Dylan was born; “Mr. Saturday Night,” about a washed-up comedian hungering for a comeback; and “Paradise Square,” about a turning point in race relations in 19th-century New York.Both “Paradise Square,” which picked up 10 nominations, and “Girl From the North Country,” with seven, have struggled at the box office, and will now hope that their multiple Tony nominations will help reverse their financial fortunes. For “MJ,” its 10 nods are a form of vindication after several influential reviewers criticized the show for sidestepping sexual abuse allegations against the pop star.“The Lehman Trilogy,” which arrived on Broadway with an enormous — albeit pandemic-delayed — head of steam following rapturously reviewed productions in London and Off Broadway, picked up eight nominations to dominate the best play category. The play, which follows the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers, was written by Stefano Massini and Ben Power, and featured a dazzling production centered on a rotating glass box designed by Es Devlin. All three of its leads — Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor.“The Lehman Trilogy” was nominated for 8 Tonys, including best play. All three of its leads — from left, Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor in a play.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The Lehman Trilogy” vies with four other dramas for best play. Among them are two dark comedies — “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer winner who was also nominated for writing the book for “MJ,” and “Hangmen,” by Martin McDonagh, an acclaimed British-Irish playwright who has now been nominated five times but has yet to win. The other contenders are “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about factory workers at an automotive plant facing shutdown, and “The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’s look at the unsettling secrets of a small-town governing body.The Tony Awards, which honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are an annual celebration for American theater, but they are particularly important now as a potential marketing tool for an industry that is still grossing less, and selling fewer tickets, than it was before the pandemic forced theaters to close for a year and a half. The awards are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing.“This Tony Awards will mean so much more than honoring the performances and the artistic work that’s been done this season — it’s also celebrating the resilience of the community, and that this much work is being done and being seen,” said Rob McClure, an actor who scored a Tony nomination (his second) for his comedic and chameleonic performance in the title role of “Mrs. Doubtfire.”Billy Crystal was nominated for best actor in a musical for his performance in “Mr. Saturday Night,” based on his 1992 film. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWell known performers scoring nominations included Uzo Aduba, Billy Crystal, Rachel Dratch, Hugh Jackman, Ruth Negga, Mary-Louise Parker, Patti LuPone, Phylicia Rashad and Sam Rockwell. But several other big stars now working on Broadway were overlooked by nominators, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Laurence Fishburne and Daniel Craig, as well as Beanie Feldstein, starring in “Funny Girl” but unable to escape the long shadow of Barbra Streisand.This season saw an unusually large number of works by Black writers, and that created more opportunity for Black performers, directors, and designers, some of whom were nominated for Tonys. Among them are two performers new to Broadway, Jaquel Spivey, the star of “A Strange Loop,” and Myles Frost, the star of “MJ,” now facing off against Crystal, Jackman and McClure in the leading actor in a musical category.“Black playwrights have had an amazing presence this season, and I hope that continues,” said Camille A. Brown, who scored two nominations Monday, for directing and choreographing the revival of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf.” Reflecting on her own show, she said, “Having seven Black women on a Broadway stage has a lot of meaning, and speaks to the importance of sisterhood and love and Black women holding space for one another.”“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf” was nominated for seven Tonys, including for best revival of a play. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe seven Tony nominations for “For Colored Girls” are a bittersweet triumph for a production that has been languishing at the box office and had already announced an early closing date. The revival picked up more nominations than any other show in the race for best play revival, a strong category in which many eligible shows won positive reviews.It will now face off against four others: “American Buffalo,” David Mamet’s drama about a trio of scheming junk-shop denizens and “Take Me Out,” Richard Greenberg’s look at homophobia in baseball, as well as two plays that had never previously made it to Broadway despite being considered important parts of the playwriting canon, “Trouble in Mind,” Alice Childress’s look at racism in theater; and “How I Learned to Drive,” Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer-winning drama about child sexual abuse.The competition for best musical revival is small, but strong. There were four eligible shows, and only three scored nods: “Company,” “Caroline, or Change,” and “The Music Man.” Excluded was the revival of “Funny Girl” which fared poorly with critics, but has been doing fine at the box office.“Company,” the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical, was nominated for 9 Tony awards, including best revival of a musical. Patti LuPone, a nominee at left, performed with Katrina Lenk. Matthew Murphy/O & M Co./DKC, via Associated PressThe nine nods for “Company” pack an especially emotional punch because its composer and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, died soon after attending the first post-shutdown preview. “The longer he’s not with us, the more I miss him,” said LuPone, who picked up her eighth Tony nomination — she’s won twice — for her work in the production.The nominations were chosen by a group of 29 people, most of whom work in the theater industry but are not financially connected to any of the eligible productions, who saw all eligible shows and voted last Friday. There were 34 eligible shows, 29 of which scored nominations; the five left out were all new plays.Up next: a group of 650 voters, including producers and performers and many others with an interest in the nominated productions, have until June 10 to vote for their favorites, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony on June 12. The ceremony, at Radio City Music Hall, is to be hosted by Ariana DeBose; the first hour will be streamed on Paramount+, followed by three hours broadcast by CBS.Broadway’s grosses are down in part because tourism remains down in New York City, and in part because of ongoing concerns about the coronavirus. Many of the nominees interviewed Monday said they hoped the spotlight of the Tony Awards would lure more patrons back to Broadway.“Anyone that’s doing theater right now has been hit really hard by the pandemic,” said Marianne Elliott, a two-time Tony-winning director who scored another nomination for “Company.” “It’s gratifying to see that Broadway is coming back. To have the Tony nominations for all of these shows is just a celebration of what we do, and it’s lovely to be here.” More

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    How Elizabeth Olsen Came Into Her Powers

    The actress started as an indie darling and never expected to become a Marvel linchpin as Wanda Maximoff. But she’s now so invested in the role, she’s open to a solo film.Elizabeth Olsen is used to waiting in the wings. When she was an acting student at New York University, she landed an understudy role in the Broadway play “Impressionism,” starring Jeremy Irons. The show ran for 56 performances. Olsen didn’t take the stage a single time.That sort of lost opportunity could mess with an actress’s mind, but Olsen was never in any hurry to seize the spotlight. Years later, when she was cast as the reality-bending witch Wanda Maximoff in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” her character was more of an ancillary Avenger than the main event, and in three subsequent Marvel films — each with a more overstuffed ensemble of superheroes than the last — Olsen never rose higher than 10th billing.But a funny thing happened after biding all of that time: “WandaVision,” a sitcom spoof about Wanda and her android husband, became an unexpected phenomenon when it made its debut early last year on Disney+. This month, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which counts Olsen as its co-lead and pits her troubled witch against Benedict Cumberbatch’s goateed sorcerer, has proved even more major. The movie collected $185 million in its first three days of release, ranking 11th among the biggest domestic opening weekends of all time.For Olsen, who initially made her mark in independent films, this is the equivalent of turning a comic-book page to find yourself the subject of a massive splash panel. During a video call last week, I asked how it felt to come to the fore as a blockbuster leading lady.“I’m totally mortified!” she said. “I won’t watch it.”Hours after we spoke, Olsen would walk the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” but she planned to flee the theater as soon as the movie began. “This is pressure I’m feeling for the first time,” she explained. “I have a lot of anxiety with ‘Doctor Strange’ coming out because I’ve never really had to lead a commercial film by myself.”Olsen wanted to act since she was a child, but she was willing to wait after watching the experience of her sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley.Rosie Marks for The New York TimesShe coughed, unwrapping a foil package: “Sorry, I have a lozenge.”Olsen, 33, is casual and friendly, exuding a California glow so powerful that you would hardly know she had been sick for days. “It’s just annoying,” she said, swigging water from a Mason jar. “I think my body really wants to chill out.” She embarked on this global press tour the day after wrapping a seven-and-a-half-month shoot for the HBO limited series “Love and Death,” the sort of packed schedule that also required her to film “WandaVision” and “Doctor Strange” back to back.Because her “Doctor Strange” director, Sam Raimi, had not yet watched all of “WandaVision” when shooting began, it fell to Olsen to thread the tricky line through the two projects. In the Disney+ series, Wanda is so bereft after the death of her true love, Vision (Paul Bettany), that she invents an elaborate sitcom reality where he’s still alive, then adds two kids to complete the illusion. But in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” she takes a much harder turn: Corrupted by a demonic book of spells, Wanda breaks bad and throttles a cast of good guys while on a multiverse-spanning trip to find her children.Olsen “is scary not because of her destructive powers or her diabolical ambitions, but because she is so sad,” our critic A.O. Scott wrote. And if you still feel sympathetic to Wanda as she makes mincemeat of our heroes, it’s because of Olsen’s efforts to ground the character in something that feels specific and intimate. When Wanda issues a deadly threat, Olsen lets her voice go soft, and her eyes fill with tears and regret: There’s a real person in there. (Though other actresses in the supervillain realm tilt toward camp, Olsen understands that when you’re hovering in midair and wearing a red tiara, things are already arch enough.)But six Marvel projects in, is this the kind of big-screen career she expected? Not exactly.“It took me away from the physical ability to do certain jobs that I thought were more aligned with the things I enjoyed as an audience member,” Olsen said. “And this is me being the most honest.”Olsen in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” She had fullfilled her contractual obligations to Marvel in 2018 with “Avengers: Infinity War,” and “the power to choose to continue was important to me.”Marvel StudiosOLSEN HAD KNOWN she wanted to act since she was a child, but she also knew she didn’t want to act as a child. Any curiosity she might have had about fame was quieted by growing up alongside her sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley, who were cast in “Full House” before they were even a year old. The life-warping scrutiny of stardom could wait.Anyway, she felt far more comfortable in a group. Olsen played high school volleyball and sparked to the team’s camaraderie: Everyone could have their solo moment, but they had to work together to succeed. Even in college, when she started to audition for movies, she was in no rush to leave the theatrical ensemble she had come through school with.But film acting isn’t always as egalitarian. In 2011, Olsen stormed the Sundance Film Festival with a pair of star vehicles: “Silent House,” a single-take thriller that keeps its lens trained on her for 87 minutes, and “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” which cast her as an ex-cult member struggling to move on. That one-two punch led people to dub her the “it girl” of Park City, but as movers and shakers queued up in the snow to meet her, Olsen didn’t trust a thing they said.“It really felt like everyone was speaking through both sides of their mouth,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is a bubble.’ It felt like I was literally in a snow globe.”She came out of that experience knowing just two things: She didn’t want to be typecast as the crying indie girl, but she didn’t want to be thrust right into big-budget movies, either. “That looked scary to me, that kind of pressure,” she said.Still, sometimes it’s nice to be invited to the party. A few years into her acting career, after a streak of low-key indies, she asked her agent why she was never in the running for higher-profile movies. The reply: “People don’t think that you want to do them.”Did she? That’s a question Olsen had to ask herself then — and still does, from time to time. She decided she needed to put herself out there more, and signed on to a 2014 remake of “Godzilla,” reasoning that at least it was directed by Gareth Edwards, who until then had been an independent filmmaker.And then came the role of Wanda, and with her, entrée into Hollywood’s biggest franchise. As Olsen mulled Marvel’s offer to star in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” she listed the pros: It would defy her indie typecasting. She’d once again be part of an ensemble, albeit a superpowered one. And her “Godzilla” co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson was willing to come aboard as Wanda’s brother, Pietro, ensuring she wouldn’t go it alone. They signed on to “Ultron” as a pair.But Pietro was killed off at the end of that film, and as a shaken Wanda continued on through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, wondering if she really fit in, Olsen pondered the same question. Because of her Marvel commitments, she had to turn down a starring role in the Yorgos Lanthimos dark comedy “The Lobster,” and it didn’t take a multiverse for Olsen to imagine how that film would have propelled her down an entirely different path as an actress.“I started to feel frustrated,” she said. “I had this job security but I was losing these pieces that I felt were more part of my being. And the further I got away from that, the less I became considered for it.” “WandaVision” wasn’t expected to be a major Disney+ series. Consequently, Olsen said, “there was no pressure, no fear. It was a really healthy experience.”Rosie Marks for The New York TimesHer initial contract with Marvel covered two starring roles and a cameo, though Marvel movies are so mammoth that the studio could have deemed the five weeks Olsen spent filming “Captain America: Civil War” a brief appearance. And while her rising profile helped get indie films like “Wind River” and “Ingrid Goes West” financed, she still wondered whether Wanda’s spell-casting was worth it in the end. Had she become typecast in a totally different way? And was it all building to something that mattered?Wanda was killed off at the end of “Avengers: Infinity War,” satisfying Olsen’s three-film contract. “The power to choose to continue was important to me,” she said. And around the time the Marvel Studios head, Kevin Feige, brought Olsen in to discuss a resurrection for “Avengers: Endgame,” he pitched “WandaVision” to her. At first, she wondered if it was a demotion: TV, really? But the more she wrapped her head around it, the more she realized it was her wildest screen opportunity yet.“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was supposed to be Marvel’s first Disney+ series, an old-fashioned, down-the-middle action show in which the superheroes punch evildoers in every hourlong episode. “WandaVision,” by contrast, was a half-hour sitcom parody; the most significant fights of the show were marital squabbles, leavened by an eerie laugh track.“We thought what we were doing was so weird and didn’t know if we had an audience for it, so there was a freedom to it,” Olsen said. “There was no pressure, no fear. It was a really healthy experience.”But after the pandemic pushed Marvel to rejigger the order of its Disney+ series, “WandaVision” went first and became the unlikely standard-bearer. The show spawned countless memes, crashed the streaming service multiple times, and earned 23 Emmy nominations, including a best actress nod for Olsen.More important, “WandaVision” helped her fall in love with Wanda — a character she had played for years — for the very first time. The show offered a dizzying array of variations on the role — some sitcom-sparkly, others modern and morose — and the first episode, shot in front of a live audience, required all of Olsen’s theatrical training to succeed. She wasn’t sure it would resonate with a wider audience until friends sent her video clips of a Minneapolis brunch where drag queens had dressed as all of Wanda’s alter egos. “If you make it to that stage,” Olsen said with a laugh, “then you actually are part of culture.”Olsen admitted to feeling anxiety about “Doctor Strange”: “I’ve never really had to lead a commercial film by myself.”Rosie Marks for The New York TimesWith Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow out of the picture, Olsen is now the Marvel actress with the most hours clocked. Does she feel reinvigorated enough, after “WandaVision” and “Doctor Strange,” that she’d be willing to star in a solo film about her character?“I think I would,” she said. “But it really needs to be a good story. I think these films are best when it’s not about creating content, but about having a very strong point of view — not because you need to have a three-picture plan.”Now that she feels more comfortable in her signature role and in her own skin, Olsen wants to be more deliberate in her choice of roles and what she does with them. But she also told me a story from her understudy days about Jeremy Irons, who didn’t fully learn his lines until opening night of “Impressionism”; even through previews, he would muck around in front of the audience, exit the stage to peruse his pages, then come back on to muck some more. Maybe acting wasn’t something you trapped, pinned down and obsessively studied, Olsen realized then. Maybe you could embrace it as a fluid thing with an unknown destination.Olsen knows now that a Hollywood career can take turns that you never could have predicted, so you might as well enjoy where it goes. Over the weekend, she popped up on “Saturday Night Live” to support her co-star Benedict Cumberbatch; she played herself in the sketch, while the show’s Chloe Fineman played Olsen’s understudy. Sometimes, things happen to come full circle like that. Sometimes, it even feels like magic. More

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    Paula Vogel on ‘How I Learned to Drive’ Tony Nominations: ‘I’m Just Thrilled’

    The playwright Paula Vogel was first nominated for a Tony in 2017, for “Indecent.” Now she has a second Tony nomination for “How I Learned to Drive,” which she wrote in two weeks, 25 years ago. A play about abuse, love and survival, it interrogates the relationship between Uncle Peck and his underage niece, Li’l Bit.The actors who created the roles Off Broadway, Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse, have returned for the play’s Broadway debut, as has its director, Mark Brokaw. Both actors have been nominated, too. Speaking from her home in Wellfleet, Mass., Vogel said she planned to spend the day “doing all of my chores, so I can get on a train and come down to New York tomorrow, which will be exciting.” Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.So how does it feel?It’s more fun and lovely the second time around. This one feels like just a joint celebration with Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse and Mark Brokaw. I mean, we all came back 25 years later. So this is a real phenomenon to me. And I’m thrilled. I’m just thrilled.Why do you think it took this long for the show to come to Broadway?I mean, it’s interesting. Mary-Louise Parker was talking about The Village Voice. The cover was a photograph of that original production. And the headline said, “Too Tough for Uptown.” I remember seeing that and thinking, “That can’t be true.” We do tough things all the time on Broadway. I have to say that this season has made me so happy, with “Pass Over,” with “For Colored Girls.” It’s odd. I actually feel as if I’m home this season in a way that I never have before. I’m starting to accept that it took that much time for the play.And then of course the pandemic meant a further delay.I’m obstinate and stubborn. I held on. These actors have held on, Mark held on, we’ve all held on. We didn’t stop working even during the two years of Covid. We thought about it every day. We communicated our desire to each other every week. So it’s a miracle: that the entire community got through the two years and we’re back, that after 25 years this has transferred to Broadway.You wrote this play as a younger woman and at a time in which our culture was having fewer conversations about abuse. Would you write it the same way now?The difference between now and then is that I’ve grown comfortable with being a survivor. The play has been a gift to me in that it gets lighter every year. It gets farther away, that shore of adolescence and pain. It retreats in a certain way. Would I write it differently? I don’t think I would. There are certain plays in my life that have come out in two weeks. This is one of them. I sat down and didn’t stop. It was just straight from my heart. I don’t think those plays you rewrite.What is it like to watch the same extraordinary actors do the same roles 25 years later?The layers are incredible. You feel these actors processing every moment of their experience. And it makes it deeper and richer. I don’t have words to express how grateful I am to Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse. More

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    Tony Nomination Snubs and Surprises: Daniel Craig, ‘Funny Girl’ and ‘Paradise Square’

    Tony nominations morning is always filled with joy for lots of performers, theater artists and producers who find themselves in contention for Broadway’s biggest recognition. But there are also always some who are overlooked, and others who are just gobsmacked.Here are some of the snubs, surprises and observations about Monday’s list:The nominators spread out their admiration quite widely: Of the 34 eligible shows, 29 got at least one nod, including the critically scorned “Diana.” But five new plays were completely overlooked. Most surprising: “Pass Over,” the well-reviewed and bracing drama by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, and also the first play to open after the pandemic lockdown. Also scoring no nominations: “Birthday Candles,” by Noah Haidle; “Chicken & Biscuits,” by Douglas Lyons; “Is This a Room,” by Tina Satter; and “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” by Keenan Scott II.The Civil War-era musical “Paradise Square” has had an especially tortuous road to Broadway, and so far ticket sales have been quite weak. But the show’s fortunes on Monday had to offer comfort and hope: It snagged an impressive 10 nominations, tying for the second most of any show. Joaquina Kalukango was always a sure thing in the lead actress in a musical category, but nominators also singled out two of her supporting co-stars, Sidney DuPont and A.J. Shively. The show drew attention in most of the major technical categories as well, including for Bill T. Jones’s choreography, but one key member of the creative team was left out: the director, Moisés Kaufman.Several major stars who are drawing big crowds to their shows failed to impress. Among them: the married couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, who are starring in a smash revival of “Plaza Suite” that scored just one nomination, for costume design, and Daniel Craig, who is playing the title role in a revival of “Macbeth.” (His co-star, Ruth Negga, did get nominated, and the production was also nominated for lighting and sound design.)Tony nominators followed the critics, raining on the parade for the highly anticipated revival of “Funny Girl.” While it was the beloved musical’s first time back on Broadway in nearly 60 years, it scored only one nomination, for the tap-dancing supporting actor Jared Grimes. And Beanie Feldstein, who drew tepid notices filling Barbra Streisand’s shoes as Fanny Brice, did not receive a best actress nomination.How to handle the many ensemble-driven shows was always going to be a challenge for the nominators. In the case of “The Lehman Trilogy,” they bestowed riches on everyone, nominating all three lead actors — Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester — and expanding the category to make room for them all. For the musical “Six,” on the other hand, a cast twice the size proved hard to rank, and none of the actresses playing the six wives of Henry VIII were crowned.That Jesse Tyler Ferguson would be nominated for his role in “Take Me Out” seemed a sure bet. And the suave star power of Jesse Williams, as the baseball demigod Darren Lemming, vaulted him to a nomination as well. But the big surprise was a third nod in the supporting actor category for the far less well-known Michael Oberholtzer, whose wounded ferocity as a racist teammate put him in (friendly?) competition with his co-stars.Another show also struggling at the box office — a revival of the choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf” — also did quite well on Monday. The production had announced an early closing date of May 22, and must now decide whether its seven nominations, plus a social-media-fueled pay-it-forward campaign to get tickets into the hands of those who might not otherwise be able to afford them, are enough to extend the run. More

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    The coronavirus posed a special challenge to the Tony nominators.

    The pandemic has made this comeback theater season an unusually rocky one. After a joyous reopening following the long, painful shutdown, the Omicron surge led to a ton of holiday closings, and another spike in positive cases this spring led to a rolling wave of performer absences and occasional show cancellations.That disruption was upsetting for artists and fans, and damaging for producers and investors.It also posed an unprecedented complication for Tony nominators, who are not only required to see every eligible production, but also to see the performances of all Tony-eligible actors.That’s always hard — most of the nominators have day jobs, and some of them live outside New York, and many shows have limited runs. But this season, two factors made it even harder: a higher-than-normal number of shows opened in April, just before the deadline to be eligible for a Tony, and the spike in spring cases meant that key actors often missed performances. (Among the possible nominees who tested positive for the coronavirus near the season’s end: Daniel Craig, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Laurence Fishburne and Ramin Karimloo. Plus: Billy Crystal canceled two performances of “Mr. Saturday Night,” citing the flu.)For nominators, that made the ordinary complexity of end-of-season scheduling far trickier — so difficult, in fact, that the Tony administrators wound up delaying the nominations by six days to give the nominators more time to see shows.Even so, the number of nominators who managed to get to the finish line is low. There are usually about 50 nominators per season, some of whom wind up recusing themselves when a conflict of interest develops; this season there were just 29 who were able to participate in the voting. More

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    The Tony nominations are being announced right now.

    As the theater industry continues its attempt to rebound after its lengthy pandemic shutdown, the industry this morning began its effort to celebrate the best work on Broadway by announcing a new set of Tony nominees.The first nods, to designers, are being followed by nominations for performers and shows.The nominations are being announced, on YouTube, by the actors Adrienne Warren and Joshua Henry.We have an updating list of all the nominees here.There are 34 eligible shows, all but one of which opened after theaters reopened. (The exception: “Girl From the North Country,” a musical that opened just before the shutdown.)The shows were all hoping to win nods in some of this year’s 26 competitive categories. Producers hope that nominations will lead not only to awards, but also to a bump in the box office, which has not recovered to prepandemic levels. And for artists, a nomination or a win can lead to more job opportunities and higher salaries.The nominees were chosen by a group of 29 nominators who saw all eligible shows and voted last Friday. Next, the 650 Tony voters have until June 10 to cast their ballots, and the Tony Awards will be announced on June 12. More