Eliana Willis

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    Laura Benanti Says Goodbye to Melania and Watches ‘Ted Lasso’

    Laura Benanti is about to lose the job for which she’s best known. And she’s not sad about it.For four years, the 41-year-old actress with a killer soprano and a nimble wit has been channeling Melania Trump for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” But Benanti knows her run will likely end at the same time as the Trump Administration.“I feel thrilled,” she said. “I am more than willing to sacrifice this job in order to keep our democracy intact.”The act has also paid dividends for Benanti, introducing her to those who may have missed her 12 Broadway shows, including a Tony-winning performance in “Gypsy.”Thanks to the Colbert appearances, she said wryly, “People are finally taking me seriously as a comedian.”The pandemic has been tough for Benanti: she and her husband each lost a grandmother to Covid-19. She is also remarkably busy, especially given that the coronavirus pandemic has stilled the careers of many performing artists.Last month, Sony Music Masterworks released “Laura Benanti,” an album of contemporary and classic cover songs that she recorded late last year. It’s a mix of some of Benanti’s favorites, like “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life,” and “The Party’s Over,” and pop songs her producer suggested from the Jonas Brothers and Selena Gomez.“At first I was really skeptical, because I didn’t want to sound like an old lady trying to be a teenager, but when I heard the arrangements, I was really blown away,” she added. “We were able to have 100 years worth of music on one album, and it all feels cohesive — it’s telling part of the same story.”She is also the executive producer of “Homeschool Musical: Class of 2020,” a self-shot, documentary-style special that HBO Max is releasing Dec. 17. The show features performances by and interviews with high school seniors; it was inspired by Benanti’s invitation in March for students whose school shows were canceled by the pandemic to post clips to Twitter under the hashtag #SunshineSongs.“It’s the artistic expression that they missed out their senior year of high school,” she said.She is also back at work as an actor, shooting episodes of a “Gossip Girl” reboot for HBO Max and “Younger” for TV Land, and says being on set now “feels like being in a bad sci-fi movie.”“It’s bizarre — it looks like you’re walking into a hospital, and everybody’s covered in P.P.E.,” she said. “I get a Covid test every single day — because they’re using different companies and will not rely on each other’s testing, the poor inside of my nose is raw — but I’m really impressed with the responsibility that they’re taking to keep everyone safe.”In an interview from the new home in New Jersey she shares with her husband and their 3-year-old daughter (yes, Benanti is among those for whom the pandemic has catalyzed a move out of New York City), Benanti talked about her cultural essentials, crediting her sometime collaborator Ashley Van Buren with keeping her current. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “The Queen’s Gambit”Give me a period piece where a lady is doing something that women of that time didn’t do, and then is also addicted to alcohol and pills, and I’m in. Like, that’s just my genre. And Anya Taylor-Joy is just unbelievable.2. “Stars in the House”Seth Rudetsky and his husband James Wesley were doing two (web-streamed) shows a day, for a very long time, all to benefit the Actors Fund. Our Broadway family is decimated right now, and our health insurance is about to run out, and it’s really scary — it’s dire. They kept people’s spirits up, they kept their hopes alive, all while raising money for the Actors Fund, which does not just go to actors — it goes to everyone involved in the theatrical community. So for me that’s been a really wonderful thing to witness and to be a part of.3. “What Kind of Woman”Kate Baer just put out a book of poetry called “What Kind of Woman,” and I am obsessed with it. I can’t stop reading it. I devoured it one sitting and now I keep just going back and back and back. I found her through Instagram — I saw one of her poems — and I was like, “Who is this?” And we became friendly through social media, which is a new thing you can do, and every week she would post the poems, and I just became so enamored with her.4. “Caste”Another book I’m really loving is “Caste,” by Isabel Wilkerson. It’s never great to read about how Nazis were inspired by our systemic racism, but I think it’s a really important read, especially for white people and especially right now. It’s pretty shocking to me that if it were up to white people we would still have Donald Trump for a second presidency. We have Black people, and especially Black women, to thank, yet again, for saving a democracy that does the least for them. So I feel like, frankly, it’s my privilege and my duty to read books like that.5. “Ted Lasso”It’s the most feel-good television show you’re ever going to watch in your whole life. Look, it’s about soccer in England, which I could care less about. But I love a workplace comedy that does not require you to love the thing they’re talking about. It has that vibe for me, but it’s also laugh-out-loud funny. And I love that it’s unabashedly about a good person — a joyful, good person, going throughout life giving people the benefit of the doubt and seeing how that ripples.6. Jordan Firstman and Caitlin ReillyThey are these two comedians, and they’re on Instagram and TikTok and they are doing impressions that are so next-level funny, so much funnier than any show on TV. Any time I’m needing a little pick-me-up I just go onto their pages and I’ll watch it over and over again. I’m also really excited by seeing how people are using social media and the internet to create their own content. It’s really hard in the corporate world of TV and film to make something really good that you’re proud of, and to be able to do it directly from your own house and onto your phone is kind of magical.7. Virtual Museum TalksI just think it’s so remarkable that you’re able now to basically sit in on a lecture at the Fashion Museum in Bath, England, and watch a lecture on fashion in the Jazz Age. Museums can feel really distant and stuffy, and the fact that people can now Zoom in, in their pajamas from the comfort of their own homes, is kind of miraculous. I am actually very bad at fashion, and I don’t really understand it. But I just like to learn about anything. I just like to get out of my own thoughts.8. GenZHERThere’s a 15-year-old girl whose name is Zikora Akanegbu and she created an Instagram account, and now a zine called GenZHER, that connects young women and mentors, and gives advice on how to get your first job and a ton of really amazing things. And I just think it’s such an incredible example of what these young people are able to do.9. #SunshineSongsAm I allowed to say #SunshineSongs even though it’s my own thing that I started? For me, going and revisiting that hashtag, that people are still posting things to, and seeing all of these young people pouring their hearts out, and the incredible innovation. At a time where I feel like the language that we speak is mostly sarcasm, it’s so refreshing to see kids care about something. So that and also videos of people in Italy singing out their windows to each other. Seeing people pour their art out into a world that feels really dark — that to me is really beautiful.10. “I Can’t Breathe”I’m really inspired by H.E.R. in general — she’s so prolific — and this song in particular feels like something we all really need to hear. Music is so powerful in that it opens your heart to a place where you can then receive whatever message it is, and I think that that’s something that song does really beautifully. More

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    Dancing Six Feet Apart? They’d Rather Not

    BEN It’s kind of crazy that every twist and turn has somehow worked out for both of us, barring the pandemic. Our first date was at the end of high school. We went to what quickly became our favorite restaurant, California Pizza Kitchen, saw a movie and went to this beautiful viewpoint in Orange County. It was a starry night and a kind of quiet, isolated area — it was really romantic. I decided that if we were ever to get married or engaged, it would be cute to propose there. So five years after we started dating, we went back to that viewpoint and I surprised him there — and it was really cute.

    MATTHEW It was an easy yes. That was April 2019, and we started planning for the wedding almost within a month. We planned for September 2020. After we found the venue, we started making a guest list and tried to find food and everything else. Our ceremony was going to be on a grassy hill right above the ocean. Since we’re both from Southern California, it would have really captured us. We wanted to keep it casual.

    BEN Around March of this year, we heard from my medical school that our quarter would finish remotely, and Matt heard that he would work from home. But at that time it didn’t really seem fathomable that the pandemic could last for months on end, certainly not until the wedding. So in March and into a little bit of April we were still planning, to the point where we had drafts of our invitations. We even had our wedding tasting set up, and we had to cancel that. Around April or May it became pretty clear that it just wasn’t going to be safe.

    For us, the wedding was really about celebrating with friends and family of all ages, and we wanted it to be really special. Dancing six feet apart just didn’t seem like what we were going for.

    MATTHEW We were able to postpone it one year, but given how this disease has progressed, the only thing that’s certain is the uncertainty. We’ll have to make a decision by maybe May of next year, so hopefully by then we will have made a lot of progress in combating this disease.

    One of these days, it will happen. We will have a vaccine, we will be able to resume our lives, I am certain of that. If I’ve learned anything from this pandemic, it’s to take stock of what you have and be grateful, because so many people had it so much worse.

    BEN I remember the beginning of September, with the date coming by and realizing that that was the day we were supposed to get married. That week was really tough on me and tough on us, but it also came with a new excitement because it’s a whole other year to think about how lucky we are to have each other, a whole other year to celebrate our love. I hope some other couples can find solace in that.

    It’s totally OK to have feelings of disappointment and sadness and loss. You lose a big moment. Your friends and family were supposed to come together and shower you with love — literally. But in the grand scheme of things, you have to take a step back and realize that a wedding is just a wedding. It’s the union that binds two people that really matters, and you don’t need a wedding to have that. More

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    ‘Fargo’ Season 4, Episode 10 Recap: What Goes Around …

    Season 4, Episode 10: ‘Happy’“You’re always losing until you win,” says Loy Cannon. “That’s why they call it ‘underdog’.”For the entire season, Loy has been playing a weak hand masterfully, and the Faddas have been playing a strong hand incompetently. Loy hasn’t had the manpower or firepower to move against the Faddas directly, and his race will always deny him institutional support. He doesn’t have the luxury to act impulsively like Josto and Gaetano. In fact, his most violent act on the show so far was to thrash Leon Bittle (Jeremie Harris) for suggesting that he should act more violently.He’s been doing everything possible to avoid an all-out war with the Faddas, choosing instead to foment tension between the brothers, manipulate others into fighting for him and seize whatever territory becomes available to him.Now the inevitable blood bath is finally playing out, and Loy is in a position of uncharacteristic vulnerability. He’s the underdog, having lost 27 men and counting in the war, and in his desperation, seeking a lifeline from Happy Halloway (Edwin Lee Gibson), whom he rightfully does not trust. Loy needs “muscle from the country” to keep him afloat for two weeks, which we later learn is also the timeline the Faddas envision for ending the war.Sensing weakness, Happy immediately turns around and offers a deal to Josto to install Leon, take over Loy’s territory and get a piece of trucking in exchange for betraying Loy. While Loy seems to anticipate this twist of the knife, there may not be much he can do about it.After pausing for a much-needed stand-alone episode far outside Kansas City last week, “Fargo” hustles frantically to make up for lost time. While the show misses the thematic and conceptual cohesion of its “Wizard of Oz” homage, there was hardly a wasted moment this week. Yes, there are a few monologues — Loy reflecting on Satchel’s birth, Gaetano talking about the girlfriend he had at 11, Ethelrida’s mother telling her about the family curse — but none of them stall momentum for the sake of navel-gazing, and most have immediate payoffs. For all its pretensions, the show still works most reliably as a relentless narrative machine.The season also starts to come full circle by returning to Ethelrida, who introduced us to the gangland of early ’50s Kansas City in the first episode and has popped up only periodically since. The Smutny family side of this story has been a little undernourished; they’re the one example of what it’s like to be a normal (or relatively normal) family caught up in all this lethal intrigue. All the Smutnys want is to make their home-based mortuary viable, but because of a bad loan and ill fortune, they’re at the mercy of the wicked. The one silver lining to all the violence exploding around them is that business is booming.Now finally, at long last, the conflict between Ethelrida and Oraetta gets pulled into the gang wars raging around them. Oraetta seemed to have the drop on Ethelrida after the anonymous letter to her boss at the hospital didn’t have the intended effect. But Ethelrida has the son of a mob kingpin on her side and a poise she inherited from her mother. Ethelrida is up front about all the discoveries she has made about Oraetta — the tokens, the “bottles of death,” the poison pies — but it’s not enough to shake the nurse, who has the confidence of a white woman who knows her story will be believed over a young Black woman’s. (“What’s it like to be so sure you’re right and know that nobody cares?”)The story about the Smutny family curse is too much even before an actual supernatural presence foils Oraetta’s attempt to kill Ethelrida in her sleep. “Fargo” already has enough quirks without cracking open the spectral dimension to tie up loose ends. It’s better off just allowing Ethelrida to use her powers of research to get the information she needs to save her family from peril. A few nimble twists of the microfilm reader leads to her to discover that a pinkie ring Oraetta lifted off a patient happened to belong to Donatello Fadda — a revelation that Loy can use to end the war. The “how” part is unclear.Two major characters won’t be around to find out. After wriggling out from under Deafy Wickware and the machinations of both mob outfits, Odis decides to act like an honest cop and arrest the Fadda brothers. (His captain is hilariously incredulous .) It immediately seals his fate. And after a season of watching Gaetano antagonize friends and enemies alike, his accidental death is a testament to his essential oafishness. He may have been able to snuff out Loy’s attempt to turn him against his brother, but he was always dumb lug, destined to die how he lived.The table is set for a finale stripped down to two major rivals, Loy and Josto, and a few others who might intervene. Will Happy’s alignment with the Faddas backfire now that Loy knows about it and Gaetano is dead? What will happen when Zelmare inevitably returns to the scene? And after a tornado last week and the ghost of a slave ship captain this week, what crazy deus ex machina will wrap things up?3 Cent Stamps:Not many Coen references to be found this episode, but the manner of Gaetano’s death does resemble a joke in Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight,” in which another oaf with a gun trips trying to run up a flight of stairs and shoots himself in the head.“Antecedently on ‘Fargo’ … ” There are so many simple ways “Fargo” would be improved by dialing back on the quirk a little. Using “Previously on” is fine.The scene in which Satchel defies the two white men harassing him on the road gives more credence to the popular fan theory that Loy’s youngest son will grow up to be Mike Milligan, the stylish hit man played by Bokeem Woodbine in the second season.OK, one very minor Coen detail: The way the camera whooshes toward the Smutnys’ front door as Oraetta breaks in at night is reminiscent of a signature move by Barry Sonnenfeld, who shot the first three Coen films. It also recalls the camerawork in “Evil Dead II,” which was directed by the Coen buddy Sam Raimi. More

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    Justice Department Sues Jeffrey Lowe of ‘Tiger King’ Over Treatment of Animals

    Jeffrey Lowe, the man who took over the animal park at the center of the popular Netflix documentary “Tiger King,” was accused on Thursday of violating the Endangered Species Act and Animal Welfare Act, prosecutors said.On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that it had filed a 110-page civil complaint against Mr. Lowe and his wife, Lauren Lowe and the park, the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Okla.The complaint accuses the couple of violating the Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act by exhibiting animals without a license and jeopardizing the health of their animals. The complaint asked the court to require the couple to relinquish some of their animals to the government.Mr. Lowe’s lawyer, James M. Wirth, said in a statement that the couple were “consistently caring and kind stewards of animals in their care,” and that the government had constructed a “fictional interpretation” of the Animal Welfare Act.“The government claims that because Mr. and Mrs. Lowe allowed a documentary crew onto their property, they were unlawfully exhibiting wildlife,” he said. “By the government’s contrived standard, anyone who takes a selfie of an endangered species in a zoo is an unlawful exhibitor in violation of federal law.”Mr. Lowe is the latest figure from the documentary, about feuding exotic-animal owners and animal-rights activists, to face accusations of wrongdoing by the government. The previous owner of the park, Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was convicted last year of trying to hire a hit man to kill an animal-rights activist who criticized him.Another park owner featured in the documentary, Bhagavan Antle, who is known as Doc, was charged in October with two felony counts related to wildlife trafficking and 13 additional misdemeanors.Until August, Mr. Lowe and his wife operated the Oklahoma animal park that used to be owned by Mr. Maldonado-Passage, who is better known as Joe Exotic.The 16.4-acre facility had several animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, including tigers, lions, a grizzly bear and ring-tailed lemurs, the complaint said.In June, after a seven-year legal battle, a judge gave the park to Carole Baskin, the animal-rights activist who sparred with exotic tiger keepers in the documentary. Ms. Baskin’s husband, Howard Baskin, said in a statement Friday that they hope that the Justice Department is successful in removing the animals.“The numerous very serious citations by U.S.D.A., in our opinion, clearly demonstrate that the Lowes should not be allowed to have animals,” he said, referring to the assertions by Department of Agriculture investigators.The complaint filed by the Justice Department against Jeffrey Lowe and his business for violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act contains photographs documenting “inadequate and inhumane treatment of animals.”In June and July, inspectors from the U.S.D.A.’s Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service said they found some of the animals “in poor health and living in substandard conditions at the Wynnewood facility,” a violation of the Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act.In the complaint the Lowes were also accused of not providing “timely and adequate veterinary care,” causing some of the animals to “suffer from easily treatable conditions.” Some of these cases resulted in “untimely” death, the complaint said.The inspectors found that the animals had not been provided with a sufficient amount of food, and that they were underweight and suffering from nutritional deficiencies. Inspectors also said they found big cat carcasses that were partially burned and decomposing, and a broken refrigerator truck with rotting meat, the complaint said.“The Lowes’ failure to provide basic veterinary care, appropriate food and safe living conditions for the animals does not meet standards required by both the Animal Welfare Act and the Endangered Species Act,” said Jonathan D. Brightbill, the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division.The complaint also accused the Lowes of routinely separating big cat cubs from their mothers for “playtime” events with park guests, potentially bringing “long-lasting harm” to the cubs.In one example, inspectors said they saw a lethargic and thin lion cub that had discharge coming out of her nose and eyes, and sores on her ears. They said the cub, named Nala, was later found to be suffering from an upper respiratory infection, dehydration, malnutrition and a urinary tract infection. Nala was transferred to a wildlife sanctuary in Colorado in September, the complaint said.In August, the U.S.D.A. suspended Mr. Lowe’s Animal Welfare Act exhibitor license and attempted to permanently revoke his license.Days later, Mr. Lowe voluntarily terminated his own license, court documents said. The Lowes later moved their animals to a 33-acre property in Thackerville, Okla. They have said that their new facility there will be named the “Tiger King Park” and will operate as a film set for television shows. The Lowes do not have a license to exhibit animals, according to the complaint. More