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    Meet the ‘Better Call Saul’ Staffers Who Kept Its Story Straight

    Ariel Levine and Kathleen Williams-Foshee, members of the show’s “brain trust,” tracked every minor character trait and historical reference.If there’s one takeaway from the moral and ideological universe of “Better Call Saul” — and its similarly meditative parent series “Breaking Bad” — it might be that details matter. Small decisions and non-decisions tend to accumulate until, to paraphrase the character Mike, who appeared in both series, we find ourselves at the end of a road, not necessarily conscious of where it began.The force of accumulated history was baked into the premise of “Better Call Saul,” which ended after six seasons on Monday. But the creators of the show, which began its story — following the exploits of the morally-challenged lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), the taciturn and principled fixer Mike (Jonathan Banks) and his fastidious drug lord boss Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) — six years before the famous events of “Breaking Bad,” went out of their way to reinforce notions of predestination within the narrative. To an unusual degree, it spun a kind of clockwork ecosystem, teeming with portentous allusions, callbacks and foreshadowing that encouraged the most passionate viewers to scrutinize its every frame.Behind the scenes, members of the show’s writing staff were no less obsessive. Ariel Levine, a staff writer on “Saul,” and Kathleen Williams-Foshee, the script coordinator, were part of what was known internally as “the brain trust” — a group of staffers who functioned as the show’s institutional memory. Working closely with a team of writers, assistants and producers — led by the showrunner and co-creator Peter Gould — Levine and Williams-Foshee maintained detailed notes on virtually every person, place, thing or event ever mentioned or implied on either the show or its predecessor.Speaking with The Times on Tuesday, the day after the “Better Call Saul” finale, they discussed solving hard story problems (whatever happened to Saul’s ex-wives?), making the choice to contradict “Breaking Bad” and staying ahead of Reddit sleuths. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How long did you each work on the show and in what roles?KATHLEEN WILLIAMS-FOSHEE I’ve been the script coordinator since Season 3 and also worked briefly as a writer’s assistant in Seasons 5 and 6.The End of ‘Better Call Saul’The “Breaking Bad” spinoff has concluded its run after six seasons.Series Finale: If the ending of “Better Call Saul” surprised you, take comfort in this fact: It surprised Saul Goodman, too. Here’s our recap.More Than ‘Breaking Bad 2’: Both prequel and sequel, the show was a time machine that asked how we become who we are, our critic writes.Bob Odenkirk: After receiving a fifth Emmy nomination in July, the star discussed bringing some measure of self-awareness to the character of Saul for his final bow.Stealing the Show: Kim Wexler’s long slide toward perdition has become arguably the narrative keystone of the series, thanks to Rhea Seehorn’s performance.ARIEL LEVINE And I started in Season 1 as a postproduction assistant, worked as writer’s production assistant in Season 2, a writer’s assistant in Seasons 3 through 5 and then staff writer for 6.In the writers’ room, how did you keep track of all the history in play as you were trying to generate new stories?LEVINE In the room, figuring out what we could and couldn’t do, or what we should and shouldn’t do, was primarily the writers’ assistants’ job. When I was a writers’ assistant, Kathleen and I would use this living document I made with every established fact or character on both “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” So if Saul said in “Breaking Bad,” “I’ve been divorced three times,” that would be in there. Or if Gale [a meth cook in “Breaking Bad” played by David Costabile] had a résumé that appeared in one shot in one episode that said he went to a certain college, that would be in there, as well. Whenever the writers were discussing a particular character or event, we would speak up in the moment and tell everyone what is known about it.How long is this document?LEVINE [Checking her computer.] The final version was 52 pages.WILLIAMS-FOSHEE It was beautiful.LEVINE We expanded it into a spreadsheet that we called the Gillaverse Mega Timeline [after Vince Gilligan, the creator of “Breaking Bad” and co-creator of “Better Call Saul”] and then had smaller individual documents for all of the recurring characters.In “Breaking Bad,” Saul was the attorney for that show’s hero/villain, Walter White (Bryan Cranston).Ursula Coyote/AMCHow many times have you both watched “Breaking Bad”?LEVINE All the way through? Seven. But there are individual episodes, like the one that introduces Saul, or the one that gets into the relationship between Gus and the Salamancas [collaborators in a cross-border drug cartel] that I’ve easily seen 20, 25 times or more.WILLIAMS-FOSHEE I’ve watched it at least five times, all the way through, but probably more. When [“Saul”] was in production, we were looking at scenes from “Breaking Bad” every day.How did you deal with story decisions that might contradict something that was established on “Breaking Bad”?LEVINE We always wanted to be as consistent as possible, but we reserved the right to decide that something you saw on “Breaking Bad” might have been wrong. Ultimately, we chose to do what we felt would serve this story. Saul’s diploma on “Breaking Bad” said that he graduated from the University of American Samoa in 1986. But that didn’t work for the timeline of our show, so we changed it to 1998. Similarly, on “Breaking Bad,” Saul mentions a second ex-wife, and there’s a deleted scene from the show where he says he has three ex-wives, total. We actually talked about including a flashback scene to one of his previous marriages, but it seemed like too much to introduce an entirely new character. So we just had him present two previous dissolution of marriage certificates in the scene where he and Kim [Saul’s true love, played by Rhea Seehorn] get married at the courthouse.WILLIAMS-FOSHEE It helps that Saul talks out of his ass a lot, because in a way it makes sense that not everything is going to add up. He’s just riffing constantly; that’s part of who he is.What was the hardest needle to thread between the two shows?WILLIAMS-FOSHEE I think the thing that took the most time and reasoning was Gus and the super lab [a giant underground meth operation that figured heavily into the plot of “Breaking Bad”]. We wanted to show how Gus and Mike came together to pull that off, but it’s clear that the lab has only recently been completed in the timeline of “Breaking Bad.” We decided that not only did we have to explain just how much time and effort went into building the lab, but that something would have to interrupt them at a certain point and essentially force them to start over.Fans on Reddit never let any detail or perceived misstep go unnoticed. Were there any oversights that came back to haunt you?LEVINE I think the thing that usually haunted us was stuff that was shot that we didn’t know about, or weren’t around for. Dates were a big issue. We were always shouting at production, “Please, don’t show any calendars!” More

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    ‘Patience’ Review: At the Top of His Game, and Lonely

    Johnny G. Lloyd’s new play about a solitaire champion examines talent, ambition and the rising stakes of success when you’re Black.The most powerful line in “Patience,” Johnny G. Lloyd’s new play about Black excellence, comes not from the world-champion solitaire player at its center but rather from a teenage opponent quietly eyeing the champ’s crown, skilled and ferocious and determined to dethrone him.“I’m not going to apologize for wanting to dominate,” she says. “I’m not going to apologize for making myself lethal.” And then comes the vital bit, landing like a punch: “I’m not going to apologize for losing, because one day I will be winning and winning and winning.”That’s the thing about the path to success, isn’t it — that talented people need to be allowed to stumble sometimes, then continue their quest. “Patience” itself is a case in point. Part of the Second Stage Theater Uptown series dedicated to emerging playwrights and early-career artists, the show isn’t a win for Lloyd and his director, Zhailon Levingston, but it’s hardly a wipeout either.Daniel Bryant (Justiin Davis), the play’s 25-year-old Black superstar, hasn’t stumbled in a very long time. Two decades ago, he exhibited a talent for solitaire, and his mother (Mary E. Hodges), who is also his manager, has been nurturing it ever since. Undefeated for four years running, he is focused, famous and alone at the top.Solitaire is an obscure choice of game to graft onto those glittery circumstances, but Lloyd is thinking figuratively — about a competition in which one’s true opponent is oneself, and about the pressure and isolation of being an only.Daniel is so adept at flying solo in his cosseted life that his adorable fiancé, Jordan (the immensely likable and funny Jonathan Burke), has a very specific, not-unreasonable-sounding fear: that one day the phone will ring and on the other end will be someone who works for Daniel, calling to dump him on Daniel’s behalf. Though he and Jordan have just bought a fancy new house, their relationship feels less than solid, and anyway, Daniel is a living-in-the-moment kind of guy.“The future is terrifying,” he says.On the fence about what should come next, he is tempted to retire — until the 18-year-old up-and-comer Ella (Zainab Barry) appears on the scene, threatening his dominance with her own Black excellence. Daniel’s mother, understandably frightened that her career will collapse if he stops playing, encourages a match between them without mentioning a crucial fact: She has taken on Ella as a client, too.Does that seem like an implausible conflict of interest and egregious betrayal of trust? Yes. Are we meant to give Daniel’s mother (the character’s name is simply Mother) a pass? Apparently. It’s a distracting complication that seems manufactured, and not for any clear reason — not even after the play’s Venus-and-Serena theme becomes overt.You will be primed for that motif early on, when Daniel tells a class of high schoolers that he has “been called the Venus Williams of solitaire,” and you think: Venus, really? Not Serena? Then Daniel’s friend, Nikita (Nemuna Ceesay), mentions that same fact about him, unnecessarily.When Ella happens to have the same surname as Daniel, though they’re not related, it seems tailored to the Williams sisters metaphor, in which of course she is Serena. On the plus side, the coincidence of their both being Bryants does allow Ella to make a pointed observation.“Very popular name,” she says. “Could go into why, if we really wanted to. Probably something depressing. Or — colonial.”Competition approaches: Zainab Barry as Ella in the background, and Davis with Mary E. Hodges, who plays his mother-manager. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAt the McGinn/Cazale Theater on the Upper West Side, “Patience” has an across-the-board appealing cast, and the show is beautifully designed, except for an unpersuasive late scene involving the illusion of two Daniels. (Set by Lawrence E. Moten III, costumes by Avery Reed, lights by Adam Honoré, sound by Christopher Darbassie.)Ultimately, though, the play’s balance is off, as if it can’t decide whether Daniel anchors it, or if Daniel and Ella do, or if maybe the show wants to be an ensemble piece.Its heart, though, is invested in a future in which Black megatalents like Daniel and Ella — or Venus and Serena — don’t have to occupy the pinnacle of their field one at a time.“I will not be intimidated by the competition,” Ella vows. “I will welcome it, I will not try to crush it, I will encourage it, I will make room. I will make room and I will still win. Because I know there can be more than one.”PatienceThrough Aug. 28 at the McGinn/Cazale Theater, Manhattan; 2st.com. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. More

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    ‘Take Me Out’ to Return to Broadway This Fall

    Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson will reprise their roles in the play, which won a Tony for best revival in June.Second Stage Theater’s much-acclaimed, Tony Award-winning revival of Richard Greenberg’s 2002 play, “Take Me Out,” is returning to Broadway this fall with both Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson reprising their roles, producers announced on Thursday.“Take Me Out,” about how members of a baseball team react when a player comes out as gay, opened in April at the Helen Hayes Theater in a production directed by Scott Ellis. It went on to receive the Tony for best play revival in June — edging out “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” “How I Learned to Drive,” “Trouble in Mind” and “American Buffalo.”The play will begin performances at the Schoenfeld Theater on Oct. 27, and is scheduled to run for 14 weeks.While Ferguson, who won the Tony for best featured actor for playing a business manager who becomes a fan of the sport, and Williams, who was nominated for his role as a baseball player who comes out as gay in the mid-1990s, are returning to the production, the rest of the cast has yet to be announced.“At its best, ‘Take Me Out,’” Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, wrote in his review last April, “is a five-tool play. It’s (1) funny, with an unusually high density of laughs for a yarn that is (2) quite serious, and (3) cerebral without undermining its (4) emotion. I’m not sure whether (5) counts as one tool or many, but ‘Take Me Out’ gives meaty roles to a team of actors.”The production, which required audience members to put their phones in locked pouches before the show, also made headlines when a video of Williams’s nude scene was filmed by an audience member and shared online in May. The leak drew widespread condemnation, including from the show’s producers and some of its cast members, but Williams seemed to mostly take it in stride.“I come here to do work,” he said in an interview. “I’m going to tell the truth onstage, I’m going to be vulnerable.”The production, the first revival of the show in nearly 20 years, had intended to open in 2020, but Broadway went dark in March 2020 before previews began. More

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    Lily James Experiences Beaches a Little Differently Now

    Voting is underway for the 74th Primetime Emmys, and this week we’re talking to several acting nominees. The awards will be presented on Sept. 12 on NBC.Actors usually talk about the thrill of digging into a role, how excited they are when they crack the code. Lily James does evoke those emotions when asked about channeling Pamela Anderson in the Hulu mini-series “Pam & Tommy,” but there is always a slight shadow.She was scared, she said — and she got a little obsessive. She spent her hours in the makeup chair listening to collections of Anderson interviews and excerpts from shows like “Stacked,” “V.I.P.” and, of course, “Baywatch.”“I was so fricking terrified that I wasn’t going to pull it off,” James, who is British, said in a recent video conversation. (Her accent was one of many transformations she had to undertake for the role.) “I haven’t ever worked harder, just because it needed that.”She did pull it off: Her performance earned both wide praise — The New York Times’s James Poniewozik described it as “sneakily complex” when the show premiered, in February — and James’s first Emmy nomination. (“Pam & Tommy” got 10 nods overall, including one for best limited series.)During a recent video chat, the co-showrunners D.V. DeVincentis and Robert Siegel confirmed James was all in, all the time.“There was no hanging out or gossiping by the food, nothing like that,” DeVincentis, also a writer and executive producer on the show, describing her ethic on set. “If she wasn’t shooting she was always sitting listening to interviews with Pamela Anderson to keep the voice in her head.”“Also just being lovely and cheerful and approachable,” Siegel, who is also the creator, added quickly — lest anybody think James had gone to antisocial, diva-like extremes. “She had so many opportunities where she could have snapped or lost her temper, and it would have been completely forgivable and justified. She never really did.”James, 33, could not have been more cordial when we talked, even though she had to carve out time from her last moments of rest in Tuscany — where she was staying before moving on to Rome to start work on a film by Saverio Costanzo, the Italian director behind the Elena Ferrante adaptation “My Brilliant Friend” on HBO.She had the talking-with-her hands thing nailed already, and she looked relaxed and easygoing, with an excellent of sense of how to still look great on Zoom. She projected an endearing mix of low-key confidence and lighthearted self-deprecation, which included an overly severe assessment of her own interview skills.“I feel I’m really bad talking about work,” she said. “I always remind myself, ‘I’m an actor, so it’s fine, I don’t have to be good at this bit.’”Anderson is yet another step up for James, whose three-season stint as Lady Rose MacClare on “Downton Abbey” lifted her into increasingly high-profile roles — including the younger version of Meryl Streep’s Donna Sheridan in “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” and Ansel Elgort’s girlfriend in Edgar Wright’s stylish, bubble gum action movie “Baby Driver.”It wasn’t the first time she had played a historical person, though Churchill’s wartime secretary, Elizabeth Layton, who died in 2007, was in no position to nitpick the way James portrayed her in the period drama “Darkest Hour,” from 2017. Both title characters in “Pam & Tommy,” on the other hand, are very much alive.Lily James, left and Sebastian Stan as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, whose stolen and leaked sex tape become a tabloid phenomenon in the 1990s. Erin Simkin/HuluOne of the few moments of hesitation during our conversation came when I asked whether she had ever met Anderson — who was not involved in the series and let it be known afterward that she had not checked it out.“Still nothing,” James said, “and I totally respect that. That’s her choice. It’s a bizarre thing because I’ve played her, and I feel so attached but …” She drifted off. “I hope that if she was ever to watch it, she would feel that the show was just so behind her.”To break away from it all, James enjoys being in nature, away from people and cities. “When you see the perspective of the ocean and the horizon in front of you, you’re like, ‘Oh, this is all OK,’” she said.But asked whether she was still able to chill on beaches — or whether they now triggered visions involving rescue cans and slow-motion running — she flashed back to shooting a big “Baywatch” scene in “Pam & Tommy.”“That one is going to go down in my life as one of the craziest days,” she said, shaking her head. “There were paparazzi wading into the sea, taking pictures of me — and I’m someone that never likes to be photographed in my bikini, let alone in Pamela Anderson’s red bathing suit.”That suit is now an integral part of the 1990s cultural landscape. And if “Pam & Tommy” has achieved one thing, it’s to make us reconsider Anderson’s role in it, particularly the early part of her marriage to the Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan, who was also nominated for an Emmy), when the couple’s sex tape was stolen and found its way on the marketplace.Lee came out of the scandal fairly unscathed — rockers gonna rock — but Anderson was relentlessly mocked and vilified. “The show is about looking at our culpability as a human being, our lack of empathy,” James said. “The responsibility of how the show would be received weighed heavily on me, so I really couldn’t let it go, and I didn’t film for a long time afterwards.”“I didn’t feel able to,” she added. “I found myself still speaking in an American accent.”You can’t let yourself disappear in someone else’s life and psyche — and physical appearance — the way James did without being affected. “Pam & Tommy” may have felt like a bit of a lark on paper, but it led to some soul-searching.“It’s made me want to keep going and shoot for really challenging roles,” James said, adding, “I felt like I needed some sort of change in my career and this was it, a sort of crossroads.” More

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    In Paris, Comedy Clubs Draw Energy From Young, Diverse Crowds

    American-style stand-up, a relatively young art form in France, is attracting a young, racially diverse crowd to a blossoming club scene.PARIS — It was supposed to be an international breakthrough for France’s young comedy scene. When “Standing Up,” an original series developed by Fanny Herrero, creator of the hit show “Call My Agent,” landed on Netflix in March, many critics fell for this love letter to Parisian stand-up.Yet less than two months later, Netflix canceled the partly written second season, citing low viewership. For Herrero and the talented, unknown cast she assembled, it must have felt like a hasty blow. On the ground, it also feels out of step with the exceptional rise of American-style comedy clubs in Paris — a type of venue that barely even existed in France before the 21st century.I visited a few of them in July, as the city’s traditional theater scene slowed down for the quiet summer months. While established French playhouses have complained in recent months that audiences haven’t returned in the same numbers as pandemic restrictions have eased, comedy seems impervious to this slump. At venues such as Madame Sarfati, Barbès Comedy Club and Le Fridge, all opened within the past three years, there wasn’t a free table in sight.And in most cases, the crowd was exactly the kind of “new audience” so many theaters desperately seek to attract. As a theater critic in France, I’m used to sitting in auditoriums full of all-white, older spectators. In the comedy world, the customers mirrored the young, racially diverse lineups onstage — to the point where, when an older comic at Barbès Comedy Club asked if anyone there was his age, and joked about realizing in his 40s that “women are people too,” he was met with deathly silence.The crowd at Barbès Comedy Club.Christine CoquilleauIf French stand-up skews fresh-faced, it’s in part because it’s a relatively new art form. While American comedy clubs have decades of history behind them, sketch and character-based comedy has long dominated in France, and comics typically performed solo shows in regular playhouses. That started to change in 2006, when the well-known comic Jamel Debbouze created a TV show called “Jamel Comedy Club.” Its success led Debbouze to open a venue in Paris that at first was advertised simply as Le Comedy Club, since there was no competition.The club became the crucible of French stand-up. Kader Aoun, a Debbouze collaborator, soon launched rival shows at Paname Art Café, a bustling venue where Herrero, the creator of “Standing Up,” first discovered the art form. Younger comics, many of whom cut their teeth as part of Jamel’s permanent troupe, also saw an opening. Of the newest clubs, Madame Sarfati is the brainchild of Fary, who has two Netflix specials behind him, while Barbès and Le Fridge were launched by Shirley Souagnon and Kev Adams, respectively.Yet even when the founders are household names, French comedy clubs almost uniformly bank on surprise lineups. Even for the more prestigious evening shows, there are no headliners; if you see someone famous, it’s a bonus. In addition to explaining how comedy clubs work (for the average French person, it’s still not a given), M.C.s take special care to note that performers are there to try out acts, and that some jokes will “die” right there in the room.Nordine Ganso performing at Paname Art Café.Jack Tribeca/BestimageThe results are bound to vary from night to night. But in my visits, the clubs offered a refreshing snapshot of French youth and culture, and one that was often at odds with the rest of the arts world here. Sneakers and athletic wear, a socioeconomic litmus test in Paris, were practically de rigueur. In all of the lineups I saw, over half the performers were Black or of Arab descent — a level of diversity that is the legacy of pioneering French comics like Debbouze and Gad Elmaleh.Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyday racism was a recurring topic. At Paname Art Café, the stand-up Ilyes Mela dexterously steered a complex story about a gender reveal party for a Black child to a thoughtful conclusion: “It’s not for the person who hits to say if it hurts.” Nordine Ganso, seen at both Paname and Madame Sarfati with slightly different sets, has honed a naïve persona that enhances both his tales of growing up in a part-Congolese, part-Algerian family, and his subtly homoerotic comparison between holding hands with women and with his “friend Karim.”While most performers, like Ganso, are regulars at multiple comedy clubs, there are now enough venues in Paris to offer a range of atmospheres. Le Fridge has a trendy cocktail bar, with drinks named after American comics like Amy Schumer and Dave Chappelle. Madame Sarfati, nestled in an upscale district by the Louvre, is clearly aiming for an exclusive feel, with a performance space designed by the street artist JR that patrons are not allowed to photograph. On the other end of the spectrum, the friendly, no-frills Barbès Comedy Club, where the cast of “Standing Up” honed their scripted sets incognito ahead of filming, brings stand-up to a far less privileged neighborhood, home to many Parisians of African descent. (Barbès also hosts a weekly English-language show, New York Comedy Night.)The bar at Madame Sarfati.Mathilde & GeoffreyThe clubs differ in their attitudes toward gender, too. While there are hugely successful female comics in France, from Florence Foresti to Blanche Gardin, women were outnumbered at most clubs. Some venues take a proactive approach to the issue: A Barbès spokeswoman said the club insists on parity, and its lineups were refreshing in that regard. At Madame Sarfati, on the other hand, not a single woman performed when I attended. When asked about it, a manager said the women who usually perform at the club were “on tour.” (The waitressing staff, on the other hand, was entirely female.)The effect of gender balance on the overall shows was real. Some experienced Madame Sarfati performers delivered outright sexist, as well as transphobic, material. As a woman, it was far more joyful to sit in audiences where I wasn’t merely the butt of the jokes, and to hear performers riff on having large breasts while exercising (Sofia Belabbes) or the appeal and cost of nose surgery (the effervescent Nash, an effective M.C. at Le Fridge).Compared to the larger Paris theater world, the stand-up scene seems a strongly heteronormative place, with opposite-sex dating by far the most popular topic. That has perhaps helped turn Paris’s clubs into date-night hot spots, judging by the comics’ interactions with the audience.Yet the Paris scene is so new that there is a heady sense on any given night that its artists are grappling with what stand-up can be, and achieve, within French culture. Netflix’s “Standing Up” may have been called off, but the comedy clubs that inspired it are only getting started. More

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    Trevor Noah on Liz Cheney’s ‘Bigly’ Loss

    Noah said her defeat in a primary was “the chance for Wyoming Republicans to declare whether they stood with Liz Cheney or with Donald Trump, and they answered bigly.”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.Ch-ch-ch-changesRepresentative Liz Cheney lost her re-election bid in the Wyoming Republican primary on Tuesday.On Wednesday’s “Daily Show,” Trevor Noah said her loss was “the chance for Wyoming Republicans to declare whether they stood with Liz Cheney or with Donald Trump, and they answered bigly.”“The reason everyone was watching this race is because Liz Cheney was running for re-election and of course, Liz Cheney has been the most prominent anti-Trump Republican in Congress. She voted to impeach him; she’s led the committee investigating him. Basically she just will not stop talking about that one time he tried to overthrow the American democracy. That was like, like a million years ago, lady, move on!” — TREVOR NOAH“Trump was so excited he threw a ticker-tape parade made out of classified documents.” — JIMMY FALLON“But the Liz Cheney story isn’t over yet because she’s vowed that she will still do anything to stop Trump from becoming president again, even possibly running against him in the Republican primary. Yeah. And look, I mean we must admit it is probably is a long shot, but don’t forget she is a Cheney, and if there is one thing they’re committed to, it’s regime change.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Quiet Quitting Edition)“You know how everyone’s been talking about ‘the great resignation’ where people are just like leaving their jobs after the pandemic? Well, if you hate your job and fear confrontation, there’s a new thing called ‘quiet quitting.’ That’s when people emotionally and mentally check out at work and do as little as possible without getting fired. We already have a term for that — it’s called your 30s.” — NICOLE BYER, guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live”“Yeah, that’s right, people are quiet quitting. They’re just going to their jobs and doing the job from 9 to 5 and then, and then hold up, that’s just working. That’s work.” — TREVOR NOAH“People in this country are so obsessed with work. Guys, your job is just a place you go to avoid seeing your family, all right? It doesn’t need to be the most important part of your existence. If your job is from 9 to 5, that means the work messages should stop at 5, too. Yeah, that’s right — any message after 5 is basically a booty call. If your boss texts you at 7:45 to see if you filed an expense report, it should start with ‘Hey, you up?’” — TREVOR NOAH“Bottom line, you need to establish a work-life balance, so remember, if you hate your job, make sure you also hate your life.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingDemi Lovato joined Jimmy Fallon for his monologue when she co-hosted Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightMartin Short, an Emmy nominee, will pop by Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutIn Neal Baer’s living room, from left: “Las Reinas de la Noche, 5” (1995) and “Las Reinas de la Noche, 8” (1993-95), both by Reynaldo Rivera; and a triptych by Joey Terrill, “In the Middle of It All” (1992-93).Photograph by Blaine Davis. Terrill: Courtesy of the artist and Ortuzar Projects, New YorkCollectors like Neal Baer are resurrecting the forgotten art of the AIDS era. More

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    ‘Better Call Saul’: Jonathan Banks Says Goodbye to Mike

    Killed off in “Breaking Bad,” Mike Ehrmantraut had a long second act in “Better Call Saul.” Banks said playing Mike made him “a little more silent, a little less rambunctious.”This article contains spoilers for the series finale of “Better Call Saul.”“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,” Shakespeare once wrote. The sentiment has rarely applied to Mike Ehrmantraut, the cantankerous fixer and hit man in the Albuquerque underworld of “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad.”Morally conflicted, with plenty of wrinkles but little mirth, Ehrmantraut was mostly a blunt, coldblooded crank — with a soft spot for his granddaughter — in “Breaking Bad,” arriving in the second season and getting killed off three seasons later. But over the six-season run of “Better Call Saul,” which ended on Monday night, the creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould fleshed out a nuanced back story for the character, expanding him into a figure caught between the weight of his own guilt and the desire to protect what is left of his family.Jonathan Banks, who played Ehrmantraut, is no stranger to the pressure of survival, having grown up in a tough neighborhood just north of Washington, D.C. After refining his theater chops in high school and college, Banks began a long film and television career, with roles in movies like “Airplane!,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and the 2017 Netflix film “Mudbound.” But the role of Ehrmantraut has been a defining feather in his cap after decades of solid journeyman parts, earning him five Emmy nominations to go along with one he got for the CBS drama “Wiseguy” in the late 1980s.Banks can be as blunt and direct as the character, albeit with a bit more mirth. Over the course of two conversations this month, he discussed the changes the role has brought in his own life and whether he really did all those crossword puzzles. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.Have you seen the finale?I haven’t seen it. But I know what it is. The last scene that Bob Odenkirk and I had together in the desert, and where I say to him, “You regret nothing?” — Mike was still looking for the humanity in this guy. He had just spent all those days in the desert. He’d also been impressed that this guy had been able to pull it together and survive.So that is a long-winded way of saying that, were Mike living when Jimmy went to jail and fessed up to everything — I wonder, would Mike have been surprised? It might not have taken him by total surprise that the guy finally had a conscience.You started playing Mike in 2009. Is there anything from your own life that informed these different layers we have seen in him over the years?I used, partially, people that I grew up with, people that I feared or respected. You know, it always sounds a little too dramatic to me when somebody says, “My neighborhood, I grew up this way; it was tough.” Suffice to say, I grew up not in the garden district. There was a fair amount of rough life. Certainly nothing in the order of “Breaking Bad” or the cartel life, but it was enough that it got your attention. There were a lot of days you walked around afraid — or at least I did.I got banged around quite a bit, got punched in the mouth a lot. It gives you a certain amount of, I don’t know that it gives you toughness, but it leaves no surprises when all of a sudden you’re in a fight or you get beaten or whatever. As far as Vietnam, the sniper part of Mike’s life: I have several close friends that went. And one of my friends they just put into Arlington Cemetery about a month and a half ago. There are a lot of guys that came back that I know that were hurt badly by their experience in combat. That’s something I never experienced — I borrowed from people that I saw.Banks and Bryan Cranston in “Breaking Bad.” Mike arrived in Season 2 and was killed three seasons later.Ursula Coyote/AMCI watched the conversations that you and Mark Margolis [who played Hector Salamanca] had as part of a series of actors’ talks for “Better Call Saul”; I got the impression in some of your comments about being a working actor that Mike’s inability to suffer fools is something that you share.I like to be straightforward. I like to be honest. I don’t like pretense. And I try not to be condescending or pretentious. I like just simple honesty. And honesty is not so simple.What about all the crossword puzzles? How good were you at them before you started playing Mike?Terrible, really terrible. In the Sunday comics, there is “find the six differences in between two photos or two drawings.” I have difficulty with that. I’ll tell you who is great at the crossword puzzles, who sits down and just “boom,” is Michael McKean.You had to do a lot of pretty grueling physical work for this role. Was there anything that was just beyond the pale?No. I mean, I’ll never let Vince Gilligan up for air when he puts me in the desert at 110 degrees every day. But I get to break his chops forever! It’s wonderful. [Laughs.] And I’ve got to tell you, that desert — the early morning sunrises or the sunsets, or when the thunderstorms would come across that New Mexico desert, or the wild horses would run by? Oh my god. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.At any point did your relationship with the role turn into a feeling of ownership?Yes. Mike is mine. Mike is mine. I caught myself almost for a moment choking up when you asked that. And I think the honest thing to say is if I really think about it, maybe Mike has changed Johnny, too.I think Jonathan Banks, by playing Mike, became a little more silent, a little less rambunctious. And by silent, I mean, I think I listen a little more than I did 12, 13 years ago. I don’t like to use the word witness, but that’s what’s coming to mind. I think he possibly affected me in that I’m a little more patient. Maybe that comes with age anyway.Was there ever a time where you got a script and thought, “Mike wouldn’t do this”?There have been moments that I went, “Oh, I think Mike wouldn’t do that.” But I found, quite honestly, a lot of the times that what the writers were telling me, if I deferred to them, it made sense.The first thing that comes to my mind is in “Breaking Bad” when Mike left his granddaughter in the park and had to escape. And I was going, “No, Mikey would never leave his granddaughter.” And of course, the reasoning is, the police department — they’re there in the park. They will take care of her, they will return her to her mother. I still have a tough time with Mike leaving his granddaughter in the park.There’s a scene in “Better Call Saul” last season where Mike is reading “The Little Prince” to his granddaughter, Kaylee. It’s a passage where the little prince says, “My flower is ephemeral, and she has only four thorns to defend herself against the world.” What do you think this scene means for Mike?I love that scene so much. I love “The Little Prince” so much. It’s a life lesson for that child, obviously, what he’s reading. But as I remember, it touches a lot of chords in Mike as well.Which chords?[Long pause.] Innocence. Innocence protection. And the solace of relaxing, just for a moment. I mean, there’s two things going on — not only the book but her. In spite of all his fears and trepidations, the world is good for a moment with that innocent child and that innocent book.There are two different worlds. And part of his misery is that he can read “The Little Prince” with Kaylee, and then he’s going to go do something that he knows is not good. It’s one of the reasons he despises himself, because he knows better. There are a lot of these characters that don’t know better, or if they do know better they’re not aware of it. Mike is very aware of what he’s doing and knows it is not good.Banks and Juliet Donenfeld in “Better Call Saul.” Mike reserved a soft spot for his granddaughter, Kaylee.Warrick Page/AMCMike is one of the few people in this story who sees himself and others clearly, and that comes through in his relationships with the various other characters, good and bad.He lost his soul when he was responsible for his son’s death. What he tries to get back — and what I’ve also said is his Achilles’ heel — is that he doesn’t want to see people get involved and get hurt. He’ll see the good in somebody, and it usually costs him. Those lines that you well know: “If you’re in the game, you’re in the game.” Mike has no compassion for that once you’re in it.You know, to talk about bad guys, to admire miserable characters — since man could open his mouth and tell a story, it’s gone on. I have a quote in my kitchen — I’m going to take you over here with me so I can read this to you. [Carries laptop across the kitchen] Here we go: It says, “Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.” Mark Twain. [Laughs.]In the final episode, though, the last scene made me think that the overarching theme within the whole “Breaking Bad” universe — even with Walter White — is that no matter how bad someone goes, love can bring them back to some kind of better place. Do you think that aspect can apply in real life, that somebody can be redeemed by love?Yes, because then they are no longer lying to themselves. They’re trying to turn around, even if it’s only momentarily — even if it’s five seconds before you die. When you’re a little kid, you need a Popsicle, and you’re trying to figure out how to lie, how to get it any way you can. As an adult, hopefully, at some point it hits you that you mustn’t lie. You got to put your head on the pillow at night and go to sleep. Don’t lie to your wife, don’t lie to your friends, don’t lie to yourself. That sounds pretty trite, but I believe it. I truly believe it. More