The actress spent the day indulging in a quick ice bath, looking at cows and receiving an Emmy nomination for her performance on the HBO series.It had been a decade since Kate Winslet last starred in a live-action television role — the 2011 adaptation of “Mildred Pierce” — when she made “Mare of Easttown,” the HBO crime drama that ran this past spring. More
Olsen talked about her first Emmy nomination and about why the series exceeded her expectations compared with more typical Marvel fare.In a year with so much strangeness and uncertainty, “WandaVision” at first seemed to offer a nostalgic antidote with its tidy suburban setting and its vintage black-and-white aesthetic. That lasted all of two episodes before the writers blasted a colorful hole through the protective wall of static surrounding the fictional town of Westview, N.J. — and through its viewers’ (and its critics’) early expectations. More
The star was nominated again for his role as Pray Tell, M.C. of New York’s legendary drag balls, one of nine nominations the show received on Tuesday.In 2019, Billy Porter cemented his place in history as the first openly gay Black man to be nominated for — and then the first to win — a lead acting award at the Primetime Emmys. More
The actor, writer and creator, who earned four Emmy nods for his work on Season 1, talked about the unexpected success of the most nominated freshman comedy in history.“Ted Lasso,” the Apple TV+ series about a clueless Kansas football coach (Jason Sudeikis) hired to be the manager of a struggling London Premier League soccer team — despite (or, rather, because of) his utter lack of soccer knowledge — is in itself an underdog story. The critical reception when the first episodes premiered last summer was tepid, to put it kindly. More
On Tuesday the “Pose” star became the first trans performer to earn an Emmy nomination in a lead acting category.Somewhere in the south of France, the wine was waiting. Four hours after the 73rd Emmy nominations were announced — and Mj Rodriguez became the first trans performer to earn a nomination in a lead acting category — she still hadn’t even sipped it. More
Big stars and strange tidbits lurk in the more obscure precincts of the Emmy nominations, which were announced on Tuesday.Nominations for the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards were announced Tuesday morning, and were quickly followed by the traditional anointing of favorites and lamenting of snubs in the high-profile categories.But there are scores of other, more obscure categories, and plenty of big stars and strange tidbits buried therein. A few highlights from this year:John Travolta was nominated for his second Emmy for his work on “Die Hart,” a Quibi show. Kevin Hart and Nathalie Emmanuel also picked up nominations for their performances on the series for the now-defunct short-form content platform.Where else are you going to see Julie Andrews and Stacey Abrams fight it out than in the character voice-over performance category? The other nominees in the category are Jessica Walter, Maya Rudolph, Tituss Burgess, Stanley Tucci and Seth MacFarlane.Anthony Hopkins was nominated for his sixth Emmy, for narrating the “Everlight” episode of “Mythic Quest,” the Apple TV+ gaming comedy.Unstructured and then some: Nominees in the unstructured reality program category include “Below Deck,” a Bravo show set on a luxury yacht; “Indian Matchmaking,” a Netflix show about arranged marriages; and “Selling Sunset,” a Netflix real estate series and tabloid staple.“Lucifer,” the once-Fox, now-Netflix series about the devil moving to Los Angeles and becoming sort of an assistant cop, was nominated for outstanding choreography for scripted programming.Zach Braff received his first Emmy nomination back in 2005, when he was one of the stars of the NBC hospital sitcom “Scrubs.” His second came Tuesday, for directing the second episode of “Ted Lasso,” “Biscuits.”More from “Ted Lasso”: Marcus Mumford, sans sons, was nominated, with Tom Howe, for composing the Apple TV+ soccer comedy’s theme song.Bo Burnham, comedy’s king of D.I.Y., received six nominations for his Netflix special, “Bo Burnham: Inside.” The program got a nod for outstanding variety special, and Burnham himself was nominated for directing and writing for a variety special. And for picture editing for variety programming. And music direction, and music and lyrics.Laurene Powell Jobs, the businesswoman and widow of Steve Jobs, was nominated for her first Emmy, for producing “Boys State.” Yes, it was on Apple TV+. More
ESSEX, Mass. — When he was 22 and flush from success as a member of the boy band New Kids on the Block, Jonathan Knight bought a Georgian house, built circa 1900, on the North Shore here, with a slate roof, Palladian windows, terraces and 12,000 square feet to pad around in.It was 1990, two years after the New Kids released their second studio album, “Hangin’ Tough,” which topped the Billboard charts, spawned several hit singles and went on to sell more than 14 million copies worldwide. Suddenly, the five members — Jonathan, his younger brother Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood — went from scruffy kids from Boston to fantasy boyfriends for suburban teen girls everywhere.Mr. Knight invited his large family to move out of the city and come up to live with him in the new place. “And then we went on tour, so it was up to my brothers and sisters and mother to do the shopping,” Mr. Knight said, meaning for furniture. His mother’s taste ran to frilly curtains, floral sofas, busy patterned rugs, all appropriate to the house but not to a young pop star.Mr. Knight’s circa-1760 farmhouse.Tony Luong for The New York TimesThe flower garden.Tony Luong for The New York Times“I came home and was, like, ‘What is going on?’” Mr. Knight said. “Looking back, I’m like, what a dummy for buying a house like that at such a young age. It was ridiculous. Waste of money. Just stupid. Best day was when I sold that house.”Mr. Knight, who is now 52 and back before our eyeballs again, this time with a home-renovation show on HGTV, “Farmhouse Fixer,” is nevertheless living a version of his life at 22. In some ways, it is humbler. In others, grander. Because now, instead of his family all piled into that house, each person gets their own on the 10-acre rural Shangri-La he created just down the road.There are gardens, a fenced-in horse pasture, antique barns, wildflowers climbing up stone walls and several historic houses, all of which Mr. Knight owns. His mother, Marlene, lives in the circa-1890 dwelling as you enter the property; his nephew stays in the farmhouse with Italianate details across the field. Mr. Knight and his partner, Harley Rodriguez, are building a new Colonial-style home on a gentle rise in the center of it all, while living temporarily in a pretty circa-1760 farmhouse with a white-painted clapboard exterior, a pond for their six ducks and a little barn for their three goats.A grand piano is one of the few hints of his musical career.Tony Luong for The New York TimesPlenty of greenery inside, too.Tony Luong for The New York TimesThe couple bought the farmhouse when it came up for sale last year, selling the circa-1800s house in the nearby town of Ipswich where they’d lived for just one year. “I was like, ‘I have to buy it, I have to,’” said Mr. Knight, stretched out on a sofa in the farmhouse’s high-ceilinged living room on a recent morning. “I didn’t want somebody moving across the street. It just adds to the whole family compound.”Plus, it’s 260 years old, and as viewers of “Farmhouse Fixer” have discovered, Mr. Knight has a passion for historic houses. He grew up in a Victorian in the Dorchester section of Boston, which his hippie parents bought for something like $25,000 in the ’70s. He referred to it affectionately as “a big, old, cold, drafty holes-in-the-wall house.”For him, refurbishing houses that have seen better years isn’t a pop star’s hobby. It’s how he made his living, especially in the lean years after the New Kids fell from the pop-culture firmament in the grunge-y ’90s.On the six-episode series, which debuted in March and was just renewed for a second season, Mr. Knight and his interior designer partner, Kristina Crestin, roam New England, the land of old farmhouses in slow decline. They add open-plan kitchens and central air while keeping the old charm in the house so their current owners won’t call the bulldozers. When they achieve the right balance of historic preservation and modern amenities, Ms. Crestin said, Mr. Knight has been known to cry off camera.“When he walks in, I’m, like, ‘Wait, wait, watch.’ I want him to lose it with happiness,” Ms. Crestin said. “To me, he’s reacting to what was done well then. He’s looking at the original stonework. He seems to be reflecting back to the people who did it and the pride they took in their work.”Back in the day. From left, Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, front, Danny Wood, Mr. Knight, front, and his brother, Jordan Knight.Michel Linssen/Redferns, via Getty ImagesFrom Hits to FlipsDressed in flannels and jeans and driving a pickup truck, on the show the still-boyishly handsome Mr. Knight comes across like a Yankee Chip Gaines — an image that isn’t made for TV. He actually does come home from a tour or recording session and hop on his tractor. He’s the sort who stops to admire an original newel post or a carpenter’s miter work from 200 years ago. His heart hurts a little when confronted with vinyl siding and plastic decking.Mr. Knight sighed thinking about those and other modern horrors. “I hate when people put trendy things in a house and it goes out of style so fast,” he said. “Like everybody’s using this pattern tile now. You’re going to look back and go, ‘That’s so 2020.’”Walking out to the property’s 18th-century post-and-beam barn, Mr. Knight explained that he hired a company to disassemble it, refurbish the wood beams one by one and rebuild it with a new roof and siding in a different spot, at probably 10 times the cost to build a new barn.“Everybody said, ‘Why?’” said Mr. Knight, looking up at the old ceiling beams. “It just has meaning. You know, it’s just my love of old things. It was standing since the 1700s. I wouldn’t tear it down. Now this thing will be around for another two or three hundred years.”From love songs to lavender.Tony Luong for The New York TimesHe never promised you a rose garden, and yet somehow….Tony Luong for The New York TimesMr. Knight was 16 when he joined the New Kids and 26 when their brand of sweet pop went out of fashion, they stopped selling out concerts and the carnival ride ground to a halt. With the rest of his life ahead of him, he had no idea what to do. While other young adults were in college or working their first jobs developing life skills, he’d lived inside the pop-star bubble. He didn’t know how to order for himself at a restaurant.“It was probably the scariest time in my life,” he said. “I just remember being home for a few days, opening the door to my bedroom in the morning and looking around and nobody’s there. The New Kids weren’t there. There were no tour buses. Everything was just done.”Mr. Knight spent a year staying up all night, sleeping until 4 in the afternoon and sinking into a deep depression. Then one day he got a call from a Boston cop who’d worked security detail for the group. He was flipping houses on the side and invited Mr. Knight to partner with him. “When he said ‘flip houses,’ I thought, Is this some mafia thing? We’re going to go in there and rob these people?” Mr. Knight said. “It was a term I’d never heard.”But Mr. Knight’s father was a carpenter and he’d grown up going to job sites with him on weekends. “And my mother is an old house nerd,” he said. “Me and my mother would drive around neighborhoods and look at old houses. To this day, I love driving slow down roads like, ‘Look at that place.’”Three horses owned by his mother are pastured on the property.Tony Luong for The New York TimesIn the vegetable garden.Tony Luong for The New York TimesSoon, Mr. Knight found himself pulling junk out of a trashy yard in West Roxbury and painting a banister at 3 a.m. ahead of the next day’s open house. Through the ’90s and into the 2000s, he estimates he bought, renovated and flipped a hundred or more houses, at first doing the construction work with his policeman partner and, as the business grew, with hired subcontractors.When the pair started doing new construction — “cookie-cutter boxes,” Mr. Knight called them — it was less appealing to him. And then the 2008 housing crash hit. “We’d just finished a nine-unit condo complex in Boston,” Mr. Knight recalled. “It was a lot of money lost in 2008. That’s actually when New Kids started up again. The timing was just perfect.”‘A Stress-Free Life’The band reunited in 2008 on the “Today” show, released a new album and went on a 150-date world tour. In the way of boy bands, Mr. Knight was the “shy one” in the group and his personal life largely remained a mystery to fans. He wasn’t closeted, but he also never declared on the cover of People, “I’m gay!” Rather, he was accidentally outed by fellow ’80s pop star Tiffany when she appeared on a 2011 episode of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” and told the host they’d dated, and that “he became gay later. I didn’t do it! But he’s fabulous.” She publicly apologized to Mr. Knight. He thought the whole episode was funny.Until the HGTV series, few knew about his history with a hammer, either. “I was doing New Kids, I’d come home, renovate houses,” he said. “On tour, so many fans would ask, What do you do? Even the New Kids, they never really knew what I did.”Swing went the strings of his heart: over the decades, Mr. Knight has relaxed into rural life.Tony Luong for The New York TimesIn recent years, Mr. Knight’s life has fallen into a happy rhythm of touring for three months every other year with the reformed New Kids, taking on three or four renovations a year for clients and spending the rest of the time as caretaker of his mini Old Sturbridge Village.Mr. Knight is forever embarking on improvement projects that demand his scattered attention (“I was never diagnosed with A.D.H.D.,” he said, “but everybody’s like, ‘You’ve got A.D.H.D.’”) and that remain in various states of completion. Currently, he’s having the barn prepared to stable his mother’s three horses. He’s learning to care for the goats he was given by a rent-a-goat company he featured on the show. He’s tending vegetable and flower gardens.And then there’s the 1760 farmhouse, renovated by its previous owners in 2004 “and it already feels dated,” he said with a sigh, adding, “It needs paint and furniture and a new kitchen and new bathrooms. It’s a lot.” He’s not sure who will live in the house when he’s done. He and Mr. Rodriguez will be moving across the street, as soon as their new-old home is finished.Surveying his expanse while puffing on a cigarette under the hot sun, Mr. Knight said, quite earnestly, “It’s such a stress-free life, the country life.” More
A state law threatens to drive up labor costs for the city’s hand-to-mouth small theater scene as it tries to emerge from the pandemic.LOS ANGELES — “And here she is, in all her glory.”With a clank of a switch, Gary Grossman, the artistic director of the Skylight Theater Company in Los Angeles, turned up the lights over the 99 seats of his shoe box of a theater in Los Feliz the other morning. The Skylight looked pretty much the way it did when it abruptly shut down in March of 2020. Planks of scenery from its last production, “West Adams,” were gathering dust, leaned up against the rear of the stage.Concert halls, arenas, movie houses, baseball stadiums and big theaters are reopening here and across the country as the pandemic begins to recede. But for many of the 325 small nonprofit theater companies scattered across Los Angeles, like the Skylight, that day is still months away, and their future is as uncertain as ever.“How long will it be until we get back to where we were?” Grossman asked, his voice echoing across the empty theater that was founded in 1983. “I think three to five years.”This network of intimate theaters, none bigger than 99 seats, is a vibrant subculture of experimentation and tradition in Los Angeles, often overlooked in the glitter of the film and television industry. But it is confronting two challenges as it tries to climb back after the lengthy shutdown: uncertainty as to when theatergoers will be ready to cram into small black boxes with poor ventilation, and a 2020 state law, initially intended to help gig workers such as Uber drivers, that stands to substantially drive up labor costs for many of these organizations.The new gig worker law mandates that all theaters, regardless of size, pay minimum wage — which is ramping up to $15 an hour in California — plus payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance. While some unionized theaters paid a minimum wage before, many had exemptions from Actors’ Equity which allowed them to pay stipends that typically ranged from $9 to $25 for each rehearsal or performance.Producers say the new state law means expenses for many small theaters will climb steeply at an exceptionally fragile moment for the industry.“Small performing arts organizations are on the verge of disappearing in California,” said Martha Demson, the board president of the Theatrical Producers League of Los Angeles. “It’s an existential crisis. We had the 15 months of Covid. But also now the California employment laws; to remain good employers we have to hire all of our employees as full-time employees.”Many organizations have survived these past months with government grants, support from donors and breaks from landlords. But Demson said some theaters that were forced to turn off the lights may never be able to return in this difficult environment.The Fountain Theater held outdoor performances of “An Octoroon.”Philip Cheung for The New York TimesIt has all added to an atmosphere of anxiety for a part of Los Angeles that has often felt a bit like a cultural stepchild. For all its growth and accolades, and its importance to actors looking for a place to work or stay sharp between roles in movies or on television, the theater scene has been too often overlooked. There is no central district of small theaters, as there is in many cities: They are scattered across North Hollywood, Atwater Village, Westwood, a stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, Culver City and downtown Los Angeles.“Reminding the public that intimate theater not only exists but is essential to a well-balanced life in L.A. has been a challenge for decades,” said Stephen Sachs, the co-artistic director of the Fountain Theater. “We are always up against the goliath of the film and television industry.”Danny Glover, an actor who began his career on small stages in Los Angeles and San Francisco and was a co-founder of the Robey Theater Company in Los Angeles, described the theater scene as central to his own success.“Something happened in those small places with 50 people in there that opened me up in different ways, that made me realize there was something I could say in front of a camera or in front of a stage,” Glover said in an interview. “I’ve seen actors in a small theater, whether it’s in San Francisco or L.A., the next thing they are on their way to a career. That doesn’t often happen with the kind of pressures that are there when you are in a theater for profit.”Intimate theaters operate hand-to-mouth. Only 19 of the 325 small theaters have budgets over $1 million, and those account for 83 percent of the combined revenue of the entire sector, according to the Theatrical Producers League.“We are always underfunded,” said Taylor Gilbert, the founder of the Road Theater Company. “Live theater is not the best of models for making money.”Many theaters operated on the margins even before the pandemic; now producers worry about when audiences will feel safe returning. With the highly contagious Delta variant spreading, Los Angeles County health authorities recently recommended that people resume wearing masks at indoor venues.Demson, the producing artistic director of the Open Fist Theater Company, estimated the new law, which took effect just before California shut down, would add $193,500 in labor costs to her company’s annual budget, which now varies between $200,000 and $250,000.Many industries have responded to the bill, known as AB5, by lobbying Sacramento for exemptions. But there is little support for that in this theater community, which tends to be politically progressive.“It puts another financial burden on already strapped small companies,” Gilbert said. “At the same time we all support the idea that an artist should get a living wage. That’s the conundrum.”Actors’ Equity has come out strongly against exempting its members from the law, instead pushing for financial assistance from state and federal government to help theaters get back on their feet.“We think it’s a bad idea to have an exemption,” said Gail Gabler, the western regional director of Actors’ Equity. “We all want the same thing, We want the theater to open. It’s important for our economy and it’s important for our souls and it’s important for the actors who work in theater. But we want our actors to be fairly paid and work in safe conditions.”As a result, theater leaders are pressing lawmakers in Sacramento for legislation that would provide aid to help theaters cover the explosion of costs. There are two main initiatives: A one-time $50 million subsidy included in the state budget for struggling small theaters, and another that would set up a state agency to handle the cost of processing the new payroll requirements.But some small theater operators say that those bills would not do enough.“The financial subsidies would be great if they were written as a long-term sustaining line item in the California state budget,” said Tim Robbins, the Academy Award-winning actor and artistic director of the Actors’ Gang, a small theater in Culver City. “The real question is what happens next year when there are no financial subsidies left and the new precedents for nonprofits has been established?”The Fountain transformed its parking lot into an outdoor theater.Philip Cheung for The New York Times“For me the essential question is how AB5 went from a bill meant to address the nonprotection of gig workers (Lyft and Uber, etc.) to a bill that is bullying nonprofit theater companies?” he asked in an email.Susan Rubio, the Democratic California senator who is sponsoring the bill to set up a state agency and pushing for the $50 million subsidy, argued her approach would help the industry survive these challenging times.“Many have concerns and will continue to have concerns,” she said in an interview. “But California prides itself in taking care of its workers.”Grossman said he is hopeful that the Skylight will begin live performances by the fall. But other theaters are not as optimistic.Jon Lawrence Rivera, the founding artistic director of Playwrights’ Arena, which only produces the work of Los Angeles writers, said he was resigned to a difficult few years. Before the crisis, the Arena would fill 90 percent of its 50 seats. “Now, I’m thinking 30 to 40 percent capacity at the most,” he said.Most ominously, he worries that emergency grants will dry up as things return to normal.“The resources that we have been able to accumulate will disappear within two or three shows,” he said.The pressure to open is intense. The Hollywood Bowl staged its first public shows at the beginning of July, and in August, “Hamilton” is coming back to the Pantages Theater, with 2,700 seats, in Hollywood.Some theaters took advantage of the California climate and headed outside. The Wallis Center for Performing Arts in Beverly Hills recently reopened with a show on a pop-up outdoor theater it built on a terrace — “Tevye in New York!”The Fountain Theater, which has 80 seats, transformed its parking lot into an outdoor theater, and opened last month with “An Octoroon.” Bright red bushes of blooming bougainvillea offered a lush wall on one side of the seating area as cars buzzed by on Fountain Avenue and the occasional helicopter rumbled overhead. “Mufflers!” grimaced Rob Nagle, one of the actors, without breaking out of character, as a particularly deafening motorcycle roared by.There seems to be a resignation that many small theaters will face a hard time. “We know once the smoke clears some of them won’t be reopening,” said Mitch O’Farrell, a member of the Los Angeles City Council whose district includes many of the theaters.But Grossman said for all the concern — and the likelihood that some theaters would not reopen — he was confident that in the end, this scrappy culture would survive. “We are like cockroaches,” he said. “You’re never going to get us. We are going to sustain. But it’s going to be tough.” More
