Eliana Willis

This interview includes spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “The Sinner.”Nick infected Jamie, and then Jamie infected Harry Ambrose — or wait, was Harry infected all along?It’s not a virus that these three characters are passing around on the USA series “The Sinner,” although they liken it to one. What has really taken them over are seductive, self-destructive Nietzschean concepts of embracing pain and flirting with death as pathways to higher truths. These notions have led Nick (Chris Messina) to stab himself with a steak knife, Jamie (Matt Bomer) to embark on a murder spree, and all three of them to consent to being buried alive (for a limited time).These dangerous games finally came to an end in Thursday night’s Season 3 finale, in which Ambrose, played by Bill Pullman, shot Jamie because he was a metaphysical threat — quoting Jung, talking about the unconscious, questioning fate. “It’s an impulsive moment that’s surprising for Ambrose,” Pullman said in a phone interview on Wednesday, “almost as if he’s rejecting this other side of himself.”From his home in Los Angeles, Pullman talked about his character’s conflicts, about being buried alive and about having his dreams invaded by Keanu Reeves. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Why do you think Ambrose cries at the end? The detective and his suspect weren’t exactly friends, but they did share a connection. Is he grieving?Maybe they shared the sense of what it’s like to be lonely. I think Ambrose has been aware of his own sense of dislocation from other people. He’s compelled to be more exposed about himself, yet he can’t. So I think he finds something simpatico in Jamie, who has this ability to name things in the other person: “I sense that there’s something angry inside you.” Jamie represents his shadow self, and Ambrose’s resistance to acknowledging that keeps him from real change. He’s comfortable with the agony that he knows. My brother, who is an infectious disease doctor, said that some people would rather choose their dysfunction that is causing them ill health versus the unknown, healthier behavior, because there is an entrenched fear of the unknown.Harry’s also responding to how much fear Jamie has at the end. Jamie didn’t think that would be what he discovered on the edge. He didn’t go into some kind of state of serenity, the way Nick did when he was dying. So Harry is grieving for that bizarre condition of how we think we can make death something calming, but in the moment, we’re terrified.Part of Nick’s philosophy — as practiced by Jamie — is that you need to shake people out of their comfort zones, disrupt their routines. He would have a field day right now.Nietzsche said that the earth is like an organism with a skin, stretched thinly around the world, and this skin can get diseases from time to time. And one of the diseases that it has is humanity! So his writing is full of darkness about who we are, as a collective organism.With previous seasons of “The Sinner,” the people who have committed crimes are victims of trauma. But this season, Jamie is very much like Ambrose, and there’s something dark inside them that seems to be a priori — a given, not something that can be explained, or apologized for, or looked at to see if it can be corrected. There’s some kind of self-loathing in the two of them, and it’s dangerous.The two of them become burial buddies. What was it like shooting that when Ambrose agrees to be buried alive?I didn’t trust it at first. I didn’t believe I could get Ambrose to the point where he’d make that choice. [The showrunner] Derek Simonds, to his credit, kept shaping it, so there wasn’t a lot of other recourse to help Ambrose build the case. Then add his sense of eminent danger, his conflicted empathy, his frustration. Once that got solved, it was the physical challenge. It’s like an astronaut going into space. Just before launch, their heart rates are not much higher than we would experience making a left-hand turn into L.A. traffic. You prep to be in control and not panic.How did you use creative dream work this season? This was an option offered to you back in Season 1, but this was the first season you participated in that process with the rest of the cast, right?There’s a very Jungian approach to what Derek does. Derek had a three-day workshop before we started the pilot, and I didn’t feel it was important to Ambrose at that point. Now I trust Derek in such a different way than I did three years ago, so this season, I did it. It was amazingly useful. Part of my fear going into it was that I don’t remember my dreams. But [the coach, Kim Gillingham,] suggested I think about the possibility that if I have a dream, I’d like to remember it. And bang! I had a Technicolor dream.What happened in the dream?I hadn’t been to the shooting location yet, but it looked like Harry’s house in the woods. I followed a 5-year-old girl wearing a tiara out to a pond next to the house, and she started to walk right into the pond. I went into the pond, too. Both of us were fully clothed. And there were two ducks at the far side of the pond watching us. I never dream about other actors or anything like that, but Keanu Reeves was also there, and I couldn’t figure that out. Why was he in my dream?And then I remembered that Keanu had a very interesting response to a question in the past year, when Stephen Colbert asked him, “What do you think happens when we die?” Keanu took a breath, and then he said, pretty slowly, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.” It was something about his demeanor, the profundity and the simplicity of his response. So I think that was why, because those issues about facing death are part of this season. Parsing all of that the next day was particularly valuable. It was like a crack of lightning over a dark valley — I could see the valley for what it was.How so? And how did it affect your performance?Everything you see is also something seeing you back. What are the ducks to you when they look back at you? So you start seeing this invitation to spontaneity, to be more playful, to be more willing to take this sense of connection to Harry’s journey. The girl is a reflection of some aspect of Harry. It brought a kind of heightened awareness. That was powerful in the framework, the fear of being seen that has always been part of Harry’s natural state.“The Sinner” invited you into the writers room to help incorporate aspects of your personal life into the story in Seasons 1 and 2. Anything in Season 3?In Season 2, we incorporated aspects of how my mother had a psychiatric illness and the consequences of unintentional abandonment. By this season, there was also Ambrose’s biophilia, I call it — the love of living things. The writers all know I have an exotic fruit orchard, so Derek said: “We slugged in this stuff. What would he say?” I used my own experience for the nursery scene where he’s like: “Don’t choose these. These are root-bound.” Planting the tree with Jamie is intimate. It allows them to get to the place where they can talk candidly.Greil Marcus once wrote an essay called “Bill Pullman’s Face,” describing your face as its own landscape, a window opening into America as a “nihilist kingdom.” He said you look pushed down by the weight of a world that looks just as it did yesterday but no longer makes any sense.[Laughs] Interesting. A recurring series does give incredible permission to recognize that there is so much more that can be seen, even when you’re not talking, you know? I was just talking to Derek about that. I said to him, “There seem to be a lot of people who enjoy not being told things verbally but sensing them in the stretches of silence.” Choosing takes is a matter of deciding when the subtext is enough. But the subtext is not just one color. Sometimes it’s the opposite, in the same moment. More

Season 1, Episode 10: ‘Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2’It turns out that a show called “Star Trek: Picard” ends up actually being about Data.Throughout the first season of the show, it is Data who has hung over much of the story. It is Data who fundamentally pushes Picard to realize his emptiness on the vineyard with an incomplete painting. It is Data who pushes Picard to find justice for his twin daughters, Dahj and Soji. And speaking of justice, it is Data’s impenetrable and idealistic sense of right, wrong and — paradoxically — humanity, that brings the season to a close.There is no point in discussing the season finale, “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2,” without first discussing the conclusion of a complicated story line featuring Romulans, the Borg, androids, the Federation and a rogue crew: Data dies. For good, this time. And whatever convoluted plot got us to this point, the scene featuring a post-death Picard — and we’ll get to Picard’s death shortly — and a pre-death Data is a truly wonderful scene. Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart bring the best parts of their characters. They show mutual admiration and love for each other. Spiner plays Data’s calm, naïve curiosity as he always has, with great expertise. Picard’s fatherly kindness comes through in spades.These are two actors — and characters — who understand the other’s beats just right. And the cinematography when Picard (now alive? We’ll get that to that shortly too.) literally pulls the plug on Data, showing Data truly aging for the first time, was a master stroke. A lovely touch that “Blue Skies” is playing in the background and that Picard sits by Data in his old captain’s uniform. And of course, Picard reciting Shakespeare is catnip for Stewart, who initially was reluctant to join “The Next Generation” because he was worried about what it would do to his traditional theater credentials.But.I am not entirely sure Data needed yet another death. A true one, so to speak. Let’s take a look at Data’s previous death in “Star Trek: Nemesis.” In an otherwise weak film, Data’s death is actually quite profound. He jumps from the Enterprise to an enemy ship — but before doing that, he gives a nod to his best friend, Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), who nods slowly in return. They both know he is not coming back. On the Scimitar, Data rescues Picard and sacrifices himself to save the Enterprise. After Picard is beamed back to the ship, Data whispers, “Goodbye.” He did not need to say much in either instance to express his affection.Afterward, the entire Enterprise crew toasts to Data. What more could you ask for to say goodbye to a character?Yes, the scene in “Picard” was well acted and well directed. But for the entire season to lead to terrain we had already explored seemed unnecessary to me. I will not complain too much to see some of my favorite characters banter onscreen. But I couldn’t help but feel this was derivative.Onto Picard’s death. So Picard is an android now, apparently. Fundamentally, this was a creative choice that detracted from the story for me. There is only so much you can attempt to subvert an audience’s expectations before you lose its trust. There was quite a bit about Picard’s “death” scene that seemed contrived. For several episodes, the show’s writers were telegraphing that Picard had limited time left. But the show has been very public about there being a second season, so what was the point of an extended death scene? And if you truly are going to kill off a beloved character of a franchise, one might think you would spend the mourning scenes with his oldest friends, not with a bunch of crew members he only just met.(Rios shedding tears after Picard’s death seemed out of character to say the least. On top of this, Picard knows he is dying, and for some reason he doesn’t ask Riker to stick around after Riker risked his life to come save him.)This kind of fake-out is a feature of “Star Trek: Discovery,” in which several characters “die” and then somehow reappear. (One of the most famous Trek instances of this, of course, is Spock, who died at the end of “Wrath of Khan” and was brought back in the very next film.) In each case, the writers ended up weakening the story and the emotional weight that the previous scenes carried. There is a reason “The Search for Spock” wasn’t nearly as well received as “Wrath of Khan.”And the workaround that the writers came up with to bring Picard back was having Alton and Jurati somehow download his consciousness into an android’s body; now Picard is the exact same, he just happens to be a synthetic. The level of plot convenience is off the charts — and you create problems for the show down the line. Will anyone ever be able to die? Ever? Can’t anyone just become an android?We already have a show with these problems. It’s called “Westworld.” And its audience isn’t growing.Ultimately, the season was, on balance, full of promise and I enjoyed much of it. It was an ambitious attempt to revitalize Picard. It had its bright spots, and Stewart made every scene he was in watchable.But I could not help but feel that there were too many characters and not enough screen time to serve them all. Every time an arc began — say, Narek and Rizzo’s weird relationship — we quickly moved on to something else and never come back. If anything, the character who was developed the most was Data: an android who had already died.Odds and Ends:This was purely an unrealistic expectation and the fan in me coming out. But I was really hoping that the person leading the Starfleet rescue armada was a “Next Generation” crew member we hadn’t seen yet on the series, like Worf or Geordi. Alas.I hope this isn’t the last we see of Seven of Nine and Elnor. Their roles in the story ended up being minor and tangential at best, even though their screen time suggested something more.So what happened to Narek exactly? (I think this was something I asked after several episodes this season.)Note Raffi and Seven getting together at the end of the episode. I hope we find out what happened to the romance between Seven and Chakotay at some point!Nice callback to the “Picard Maneuver” by Jurati.The gift from the synthetics to Raffi essentially ended up being a “Whatever You Need for the Plot” device. There’s a long history in “Trek” of MacGyvering. Anytime you need to escape a tough situation, eject the warp core or hide in the nearest nebula.Seven is on La Sirena at the end of the episode. So what is going on with the Borg cube?Is Jurati no longer turning herself in for the murder of Bruce Maddox? Doesn’t seem to concern Rios, as they passionately kiss at the end of the episode.A bit glossed over: Commodore Oh has a ton of Federation secrets to take back to the Romulans now.I don’t believe Picard tugged his shirt once all season.Starfleet owes Picard a huge debt once again. Picard roots out a spy who rose to the heights of Starfleet, finds a planet of synths to join the Federation and caps it off by essentially becoming immortal. It isn’t explored here, but the Federation banned synthetics unfairly for several years, as Picard discovered. Surely, there has to be some repentance for that. Will Admiral Clancy, the Federation official who repeatedly cursed at Picard, be allowed to remain at her post?Knowing that Starfleet royally screwed up and that Picard doesn’t want to retire quite yet, what does Season 2 have in store? Does Picard get recommissioned again? We know that Stewart publicly asked Whoopi Goldberg to return as Guinan. Thanks for following along this season. I hope the next one comes at warp speed. More

What’s Streaming1917 (2019) Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. “1917” may not be the most obvious candidate for at-home viewing, given the emphasis it puts on technical wizardry, but those who missed this ambitious World War I drama from Sam Mendes when it was on the big screen can now rent it from many online platforms. Set in April of the year it’s named for, “1917” stars Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay as a pair of British soldiers sent on a dangerous mission to deliver a message to troops on the front line. Their journey, shot by Roger Deakins (who won an Oscar for his cinematography), is made to look as if it were filmed in a single long take. “The round-faced Chapman brings loose, affable charm to his role, while MacKay, a talented actor who’s all sharp angles, primarily delivers reactive intensity,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The New York Times. “This lack of nuance can be blamed on Mendes, who throughout seems far more interested in the movie’s machinery than in the human costs of war or the attendant subjects — sacrifice, patriotism and so on — that puff into view like little wisps of engine steam.”UNORTHODOX Stream on Netflix. A young woman leaves her Hasidic Jewish family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to pursue a non-Orthodox life in Berlin in this four-part series, which is based on the best-selling memoir of the same name by Deborah Feldman. Directed by Maria Schrader, the series casts Shira Haas (a star of the Israeli TV drama “Shtisel”) as Esty, whose journey, modeled after Feldman’s, offers both self-discovery and thrills, as she tries to outrun her past — sometimes in the literal sense.What’s on TVKILL CHAIN: THE CYBER WAR ON AMERICA’S ELECTIONS (2020) 9 p.m. on HBO. In the Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary “Hacking Democracy,” the filmmakers Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels presented evidence for the unreliability of electronic voting machines. This new doc, directed by Ardizzone, Michaels and Sarah Teale (an executive producer of “Hacking Democracy”), follows the Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti, who makes the case that America’s election systems are still critically vulnerable. “The problem is,” Hursti says early on, “once you understand how everything works, you understand how fragile everything is, and how easy it is to lose this all.”MALCOLM X (1992) 8 p.m. on TCM. A couple years after collaborating on “Mo’ Better Blues,” Denzel Washington and Spike Lee joined forces again for this three-hour biographical drama about Malcolm X, played here by Washington. Based in part on “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” the film chronicles Malcolm X’s life before and during his time as a civil-rights leader. “Spike Lee has attempted the impossible and almost brought it off,” Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The Times in 1992. “His new ‘Malcolm X’ is not exactly the equal, or even the equivalent, of the book, but it’s an ambitious, tough, seriously considered biographical film that, with honor, eludes easy characterization.” More

Broadway’s biggest night will have to wait.Amid a total shutdown of Broadway theaters in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the 74th annual Tony Awards, scheduled for June 7, have been postponed until an undecided date.Earlier this month, the theater industry announced that Broadway venues would go dark through April 12, and as the pandemic shows no sign of slowing down, that date is expected to be pushed back to May or June.Tony Award Productions, the company that puts on the awards show, said on Wednesday that the new date for the Tonys would be announced when Broadway reopened its doors. The production company is a joint operation of the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing; the awards ceremony is regularly aired on CBS, and while not a ratings bonanza, it has proved a reliable draw in a fractured media landscape.The suspension of plays and musicals came at a time when Broadway is usually packed with openings to meet the eligibility deadline for awards. Between March 12, the night that Broadway shut down, and April 23, Broadway had 16 openings scheduled, including “Six,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Take Me Out.”It has already been a devastating few weeks for those working in the theater industry. Coronavirus has cost thousands of people their jobs and has already led producers to close two plays, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Hangmen,” before they even opened.Broadway producers have agreed to pay hundreds of actors, musicians, stagehands and other employees for the first few weeks of the industry shutdown.It is unclear how eligibility rules for the Tony Awards will change in response to the postponement.“We are looking forward to celebrating Broadway and our industry when it is safe to do so,” the company said in a statement. More

The Library of Congress designates 25 recordings for preservation, in what it is billing as “the ultimate ‘stay at home’ playlist.” More