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      Pee-wee Herman Was Exuberant. Paul Reubens Kept Things Quiet.

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      Speaking with the actor was an entirely different experience than watching him play his career-defining character.Pee-wee Herman was noisy. He was boisterous. He had a voice that would shoot up several decibels without warning, whether he was inviting his TV viewers to play a game of connect the dots or interrogating his friends about the whereabouts of his missing bicycle. The mysterious nature of his character — was he supposed to be a man, a child or a man pretending to be a child? — seemed to excuse his exuberant energy and excessive volumes, and he, in turn, gave that same permission to his audience. Like he told us on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” his kids’ show that wasn’t really just for kids, “You all know what to do when anyone says the secret word, right?” That’s right: “Scream real loud!”Paul Reubens, who created and played Pee-wee Herman for more than 40 years, and who died on Sunday at the age of 70, was quiet. It wasn’t simply that he had a gentle manner or a decidedly un-Pee-wee-like reluctance to call attention to himself — he also had a natural speaking voice that was soft enough to be drowned out by a passing breeze. As Reubens told me when I first interviewed him in 2004, he was aware of this duality, between what his spirited alter ego promised and what he delivered in person, out of character. Fans might have expected Pee-wee levels of intensity, but face-to-face, he said, “Now I’m kind of like this. Putting people to sleep.”There was not much mystery about Reubens, which seemed to be how he wanted it. Without the gray suit and red bow tie, he was just a guy who appreciated kitschy toys, vintage children’s television shows and making people laugh. His liveliness and creativity were expressed through Pee-wee, whom he portrayed in his own media projects and in late-night interviews. Even in the minor movie roles and TV gigs he did before Pee-wee went big-time, he was still pretty much playing the Herman character.These days we intuitively understand the distinction between the public and private lives of celebrities, between what they wish us to see and what we might later learn about them. Reubens didn’t just draw a bright line between Pee-wee and Paul; he completely compartmentalized them and, for a time, had us happily believing they were distinct individuals. His beloved persona was so much his own independent entity that, in the closing credits of works like “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” Pee-wee Herman is simply billed as “HIMSELF.”Perhaps that’s what made Reubens’s 1991 arrest for indecent exposure so jarring: Beyond its reminder that he and Herman were not the same person, there was the disconcerting possibility that the wholesome Pee-wee would be punished for his creator’s offense. In the aftermath, Reubens wondered if the character would just be obliterated, sending him back “to my total anonymous civilian life,” as he told me in an interview in 2010.At that time, Reubens was preparing to bring “The Pee-wee Herman Show” to Broadway, and he seemed less concerned with how his past scandals had affected him than how they might have tarnished the title character.“I wrecked it to some degree, you know?” he said. “It got made into something different. The shine got taken off it.”None of this appeared to matter to his fans, who shouted out their proclamations of love and loyalty — to Pee-wee Herman — while I watched him walk the streets of Manhattan in his traditional costume. A few days later, having reverted to Paul Reubens, he seemed genuinely surprised by all the affection. In a voice as soft as can be, he said the experience was “so weird and so great at the same time.”“It was odd, and it was fantastic,” he said. “Both, rolled into one.” More

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      Angus Cloud, Actor on ‘Euphoria,’ Dies at 25

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      The cause of death was not released, but his family said that he had “intensely struggled” after the recent death of his father.Angus Cloud, the actor best known for portraying Fezco, a lovable drug dealer on the HBO television show “Euphoria,” died on Monday at his family home in Oakland, Calif. He was 25.The death was confirmed by Cait Bailey, Mr. Cloud’s representative, who shared a statement from his family. The statement did not specify a cause, but said that Mr. Cloud had “intensely struggled” after the recent death of his father, Conor Hickey, whom the family buried last week.“The only comfort we have is knowing Angus is now reunited with his dad, who was his best friend,” the family said. “Angus was open about his battle with mental health and we hope that his passing can be a reminder to others that they are not alone and should not fight this on their own in silence.”We are incredibly saddened to learn of the passing of Angus Cloud. He was immensely talented and a beloved part of the HBO and Euphoria family. We extend our deepest condolences to his friends and family during this difficult time. pic.twitter.com/G92zRWkbfH— HBO (@HBO) July 31, 2023
      Mr. Cloud was born on July 10, 1998, in Oakland and attended the Oakland School for the Arts, according to a 2019 profile in The Wall Street Journal. He built sets and worked on lighting and sound for his high school’s theater department, according to the profile. But before his role on “Euphoria,” he had never performed.Mr. Cloud was discovered in 2018 by a casting agent who saw him walking along Mercer Street in Greenwich Village. Mr. Cloud was working as a waiter in Brooklyn at the time and thought that the approach was a scam, but a friend convinced him to follow through.“Before this, I didn’t have any desire to act,” he said in an interview with The New York Times last year. “I guess I was just at the right place at the right time.”On “Euphoria,” Mr. Cloud quickly became a fan favorite, convincing the show’s creator to keep his character alive beyond his planned death in Season 1, according to a casting agent. Mr. Cloud continued playing Fezco through Season 2.Survivors include his mother, Lisa Cloud Hickey and his two sisters, Molly Hickey and Fiona Hickey. More

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      Paul Reubens, Creator of Pee-wee Herman, Is Dead at 70

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      With his bow tie, short drainpipe pants and flattop hairdo, Pee-wee became enshrined in the popular imagination as a symbol of childlike whimsy.Paul Reubens, the comic actor whose bow-tied, childlike alter-ego Pee-wee Herman became an unlikely if almost uncategorizable movie and television sensation in the 1980s, died on Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 70.His death, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was confirmed on Monday by his longtime representative, Kelly Bush Novak, who said he had “privately fought cancer for years with his trademark tenacity and wit.”“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Mr. Reubens said in a statement released with the announcement of his death. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”Mr. Reubens had scores of acting credits in a career that began in the 1960s, including roles on “Murphy Brown,” “The Blacklist” and many other television series and in movies like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1992), “Batman Returns” (1992) and “Blow” (2001).But Pee-wee, a character he created in the late 1970s as a 10-minute bit when he was a member of the Los Angeles comedy troupe the Groundlings, overshadowed all else, morphing into a bizarre and savvy cultural phenomenon, a character aimed (at least in its TV incarnation) at children but tapping into adult sensibilities and ambiguities.After being disappointed after auditioning unsuccessfully for the “Saturday Night Live” cast in 1980, Mr. Reubens set about creating “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” which was billed as a “live onstage TV pilot.” It had its premiere in early 1981 at the Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles. A national tour followed, and HBO broadcast a version of it as a comedy special in 1981.Pee-wee started turning up on late-night talk shows, especially “Late Night With David Letterman,” where the juxtaposition of the idiosyncratic Pee-wee and the laid-back, somewhat befuddled Mr. Letterman was comedy gold. “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” a feature film directed by Tim Burton, was a hit in 1985.Then, in 1986, came “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” a children-friendly version of the world according to Pee-wee that would air on CBS for five years and carve out an enduring place in the memories of 1980s children and, often, their parents.“Pee-wee’s Playhouse” stands as one of the oddest, most audacious, most unclassifiable shows in television history. The man-boy Pee-wee and a vast collection of human and nonhuman characters — there was, for instance, Chairry, a talking armchair that gave hugs — held forth in each episode about, well, it’s hard to summarize. There was a word of the day. There were bizarre toys. In one episode, Pee-wee married a fruit salad.The show arrived in the midst of Ronald Reagan’s presidential administration and harked back to another button-down era, the one Mr. Reubens lived as a child: the 1950s.‘‘I saw it as very Norman Rockwell,” he told The New York Times in 2016, ‘‘but it was my Norman Rockwell version of the ’50s, which was more all-inclusive.”Laurence Fishburne, S. Epatha Merkerson and other actors of color were in the cast. Gilbert Lewis, who was Black, was the King of Cartoons.“Not just anybody — the king!” Mr. Reubens said. “That came out of growing up in Florida under segregation. I felt really good about that.”Paul Reubens and S. Epatha Merkerson on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” in 1986. Several actors of color were cast on the show. John Kisch Archive/Getty ImagesThe show was a world away from standard educational TV for children — its lessons, if any, were delivered through wackiness rather than didactically, and its presentation was decidedly nonlinear.“I never set out to do a big educational show,” Mr. Reubens told Newsday in 1989. “We’re trying to expose children to as much creativity as we can muster in a half-hour, to be entertaining and to transmit some subliminal messages, like nonconformity isn’t bad.”The show had not been on long before academics and cultural critics were analyzing its appeal with weighty papers and other commentaries, but Mr. Reubens was having none of that.“I’ve been almost paranoid about dissecting it too much,” he said, “because the character always has been a kind of instinctual gut thing. I’m able to turn it on, and it just kind of flows. I do what I want and hope it connects.”The wheels of his career came off in July 1991, when he was arrested on a charge of indecent exposure in an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Fla., where he had grown up. The arrest led to a small fine, but the headlines damaged his reputation.“Pee-wee’s Playhouse” was in reruns at the time, and CBS pulled them off the air. There were no more new episodes. Mr. Reubens said later that he had been planning a hiatus from show business anyway.In any case, he took a long break from his alter-ego, but neither Mr. Reubens nor Pee-wee was done.Mr. Reubens continued to act, receiving an Emmy Award nomination for a guest appearance on “Murphy Brown” in 1995. (His character arc on that show continued for five more episodes.) He also weathered a second scandal: In 2002, he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of possessing child pornography as a result of images found by the authorities in his collection of vintage erotica. He was sentenced to probation on a reduced charge of possessing obscene material.“The moment that I realized my name was going to be said in the same sentence as children and sex, that’s really intense,” Mr. Reubens told NBC in 2004. “That’s something I knew from that very moment, whatever happens past that point, something’s out there in the air that is really bad.”Fans in Los Angeles were remembering Mr. Reubens on Monday where his star appears on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersThen, about 2008, some producers began suggesting that he revive the Pee-wee character and some version of the 1980s stage show. He was somewhat reluctant.“There were age-related issues to it,” Mr. Reubens told The Times in 2010, since he was by then in his 50s. “There were career-standing issues.”He waffled.“Every two months, I would change my mind,” he told The Chicago Sun Times in 2010. “And then, finally, one day I woke up and decided, ‘This is it, I’m coming back.’”The new version of “The Pee-wee Herman Show” opened at Club Nokia in Los Angeles in January 2010, featuring elements of the original stage show and characters from the TV series. It opened on Broadway that November for a limited run.“Mr. Reubens’s Silly Putty face is a little puttier, but it remains as stretchable as ever,” Charles Isherwood wrote in his review in The Times. “His Popsicle-stick posture retains its comical rigidity; the flapping arms express exasperation and excitement with no loss of tone; the bopping Pee-wee dance is still beach-ball-buoyant. And of course Pee-wee’s restless imagination and childish mood swings are as extravagant as ever.”A new movie, “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday,” followed in 2016 on Netflix, produced by Mr. Reubens and Judd Apatow. Mr. Reubens told The Times in 2010, when the film was in the early talking stages, that it was no surprise that Pee-wee had endured.“There’s never been anything from the fans other than, please do more,” he said.Paul Rubenfeld was born on Aug. 27, 1952, in Peekskill, N.Y., to Milton and Judy (Rosen) Rubenfeld. His mother was a teacher, and his father had been a pilot who, according to The Forward, helped smuggle fighter planes into Israel in 1948 during its war of independence.The family moved to Sarasota when Paul was 9. His parents ran a lamp store there. Paul had been in school and camp theatrical productions when he graduated to a bigger stage: At 11, he had a key role as the young nephew in a custody dispute in Herb Gardner’s play “A Thousand Clowns,” staged by the Sarasota Players.“The 12-year-old is played with remarkable assurance and stage-wise technique by Paul Rubenfeld, himself only 11 years old, a genuine talent discovery,” Ray Perkins wrote in a review in The Tampa Bay Times.“Young Actor Big Crowd Pleaser” read a headline in the same newspaper a few days later over a feature article about him.He appeared in several other shows with the Sarasota Players and also acted with the Asolo Theater Company (now Asolo Repertory). He spent a year at Boston University after graduating from Sarasota High School in 1970, but then went to the West Coast, studying at the California Institute of the Arts and eventually falling in with the Groundlings, working at a pizza parlor and selling brushes while he developed his comedic skills.Mr. Reubens’s first film role, uncredited, was as a wedding guest in the 1968 drama “The Brotherhood,” and he had a smattering of other roles before Pee-wee took over. The first name of his enduring character, he said, was borrowed from the tiny Pee Wee harmonica brand. The last name, Herman, was inspired by an irritating childhood acquaintance.He is survived by a sister, Abby Rubenfeld, and a brother, Luke Rubenfeld.Just months ago Mr. Reubens said he was working on a memoir and a documentary. And in an interview with The Times around that time, one of his last, he reflected on the longevity of Pee-wee, on the adjustments that were made to keep the character fresh, and on how the creative landscape had changed since Pee-wee first appeared some 40 years ago.“Today, it seems to me, it’s a lot more difficult to stand out,” he said. “You know, if you want to be weird, good luck.”Jesus Jiménez and Melena Ryzik contributed reporting. More

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      To Keep TV Shows Afloat, Some Networks Are Cutting Actors’ Pay

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      In a shrinking business, actors on some shows are being guaranteed less money, an issue that’s helping to fuel the Hollywood strike.Starring on the CBS sitcom “Bob Hearts Abishola” has been good for Bayo Akinfemi. Being a regular cast member for four years has given him financial security and made him a star in his native Nigeria, where the show is wildly popular. It even helped him branch out from acting, when producers gave him the opportunity to direct an episode.But Mr. Akinfemi and 10 of his castmates were told this year that the only way the half-hour show was going to get a fifth season was if budgets were cut. How the actors were paid was going to change.No longer would they be guaranteed pay for all 22 episodes of a season. Instead, Mr. Akinfemi and his castmates would be reclassified as recurring cast members. They would be paid the same amount per episode, but unlike regular cast members, they would be paid only for the episodes in which they appeared and would be guaranteed only five of those in a truncated 13-episode season, once the actors’ strike was over and performers returned to work. (Only Billy Gardell, who plays the white middle-aged businessman Bob, and Folake Olowofoyeku, who plays Abishola, the Nigerian nurse he loves, will remain series regulars.)“It was a bit surprising, for all of 10 seconds,” Mr. Akinfemi said in an interview before SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, went on strike. “We are disappointed, but we also understand at the end of the day it’s a business.”For decades, actors playing supporting characters on successful network television shows have been able to renegotiate their contracts in later seasons and reap financial windfalls. But this is a new era for network TV.It’s a business that has been struggling with depressed ratings, decreased advertising revenue and fierce competition from streaming services, resulting in millions of viewers cutting their cable subscriptions. And one way networks and production companies are trying to deal with the changing economics is to ask the casts of some long-running shows to take pay cuts.“Bob Hearts Abishola” was not the only show facing budget cuts, Channing Dungey, the chairwoman and chief executive of Warner Bros. Television Studios, said. David Livingston/Getty Images“The glory days of linear television are sadly behind us,” said Channing Dungey, the chairwoman and chief executive of Warner Bros. Television Studios, the studio behind “Bob Hearts Abishola.”This new reality in network television is one of the reasons behind the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes. Those on strike say the economics of the streaming era have effectively reduced their pay and cut into money they get from residuals, a type of royalty. The studios say they aren’t making the kind of money they used to, meaning that they’re having to shave costs wherever they can.The sides are at a standstill. The writers haven’t spoken to the studios since going out on strike on May 2, and the actors haven’t since walking out on July 14. No negotiations are scheduled.“Blue Bloods,” a CBS drama starring Tom Selleck, is returning for its 14th season only because the entire cast agreed to a 25 percent pay cut when the strike is over. On the CW network, “Superman & Lois,” which is entering its fourth season, and “All American: Homecoming,” which is hanging on for a third season, saw their budgets cut and cast members reduced to day players or eliminated.Not even the juggernaut represented by Dick Wolf’s lineup of shows on NBC is immune. A number of the actors on shows like “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Fire” are being guaranteed appearances in fewer episodes for the coming season, according to two people familiar with the productions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.“This is something that’s happening across the board,” Ms. Dungey said, adding that CBS wanted to renew “Bob Hearts Abishola” only if Warner Bros. was able to produce it for the network at a reduced cost. “There are a number of different shows, both on CBS and elsewhere, where the same kinds of considerations are coming into play.”CBS and NBC declined to comment.Word of the salary adjustments for “Bob Hearts Abishola” came out in late April, just days before SAG-AFTRA authorized its strike with a 97.9 percent vote in favor.“This is the beginning of the end for working-class actors,” the actress Ever Carradine, who has been in shows like “Commander in Chief” on ABC and Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wrote on Twitter at the time. “I have never worked harder in my career to make less money, and I am not alone.”Today, first-time series regulars often earn anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 an episode, depending on the budget of the show, the size of the role, and the studio or network that’s footing the bill. Commissions for agents and management are subtracted from those sums.To some, the recent reductions are an inevitable correction from the era of peak television, when studios were eager to lure talent with lucrative contracts. Some executives argue that paring back salaries will ultimately allow more shows to be made, at a more reasonable price.Network shows do not draw anywhere close to the viewer numbers they did when 20 million people were watching “Seinfeld” and “Friends” every week in the 1990s.At the end of its fourth season, “Bob Hearts Abishola” was averaging 6.9 million viewers per episode, according to Nielsen’s Live +35 metric, which measures the first 35 days of viewing on both linear and digital platforms. Hits had bigger audiences, like CBS’s “Ghosts,” which averaged 11 million viewers over 35 days, and ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” which averaged 9.1 million.But the rise of streaming has cannibalized network television on a scale the networks weren’t prepared for, and not even scaling back on scripted offerings has been enough to stem the bleeding. “Bob Hearts Abishola” is one of four prime-time scripted comedies left on CBS.“It is hard now to get shows to Seasons 5 and beyond, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t happen,” Ms. Dungey said. “It just is less likely to happen as often as it did in the past.”Yet the new reality means actors must decide whether to remain on a show at a reduced rate but with some job security or leave to see if they can find other jobs.The management team for Kelly Jenrette, an actress on the CW’s “All American: Homecoming,” told the trade publication Deadline that she had chosen to become a recurring character rather than “opt for a return as a series regular on reduced episodic guarantees.”Ms. Jenrette declined to be interviewed because, she said, she was told that doing so would violate the actors’ union’s ban on promoting projects associated with struck companies. The CW declined to comment.For some, the pride they take in their shows is also an enticement to stay. On “Bob Hearts Abishola,” Mr. Akinfemi plays Goodwin, an employee of Bob’s compression sock company who was on his way to becoming an economics professor in Nigeria before he left the country.Fans have stopped him in the Nigerian airport, in the streets of Toronto, even at the CVS near his home in Los Angeles to marvel that whole scenes of the show are spoken in Mr. Akinfemi’s native Yoruba tongue. (He also serves as the language consultant for the sitcom.)“The idea that there could be a show like this that really showcases Nigerian culture, it’s just unfathomable,” Mr. Akinfemi said. “That we are really representing Nigerian culture as accurately as possible and in a positive light, on American television, is mind-blowing to a lot of Nigerians and Africans.”He and the 10 other cast members affected by the pay changes on “Bob Hearts Abishola” all chose to stay.“These actors are attached to good, important, groundbreaking work,” said Tash Moseley, Mr. Akinfemi’s manager. “I think they knew that the actors would come back and do it no matter what.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Run the Burbs’ and ‘The Trial’

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      A Canadian sitcom debuts on the CW. And a hard-to-find Orson Welles movie airs on TCM.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, July 31 — Aug. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayRUN THE BURBS 8:30 p.m. on the CW. Is it redundant to have a set of those cute family-member bumper stickers on the back of a blue Toyota minivan, that icon of suburban soccer-practice shuttling? Is that not a bit like sticking a “baby on board” sign to the handlebars of an infant’s carriage? Don’t tell that to the Phams, the family at the center of “Run the Burbs,” who have a set on their shiny van. A Canadian sitcom cocreated by Andrew Phung (a star of “Kim’s Convenience”) and Scott Townend, the program follows the Phams — a mother, Camille (Rakhee Morzaria), and father, Andrew (Phung), and their two children (played by Zoriah Wong and Roman Pesino) — as they navigate contemporary suburban life. The debut episode, which airs Monday, is built around preparations for a neighborhood block party.BREEDERS 10 p.m. on FX. The yin to the “Run the Burbs” yang, this dark and bold British comedy was encapsulated by a line that Paul, a father played by Martin Freeman, said to Ally (Daisy Haggard), his wife, in the very first episode: “I would die for those kids, but often I also want to kill them.” Since its debut in 2020, the show has mined humor from the least glamorous sides of family life. Major themes of its fourth and final season, which picks up five years after the previous season and is set to debut Monday night, include divorce, aging and teen pregnancy. In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Freeman (who is also a creator of the series) explained that the show was interested in giving a frank look at less-discussed parts of parenting. “In nice sort of lefty, liberal circles,” he said, “you don’t really talk about how you want to throw your kids out of the [expletive] window.”TuesdayICONIC AMERICA: OUR SYMBOLS AND STORIES WITH DAVID RUBENSTEIN 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This documentary series, hosted by the philanthropist David Rubenstein, has been loose with what constitutes an “iconic” part of America’s identity: Previous episodes have been dedicated to the history of both physical sites (including the Statue of Liberty and the Hollywood sign) and shared imagery (cowboys, bald eagles). Tuesday’s episode looks at the Golden Gate Bridge.WednesdayAnthony Perkins in “The Trial.”Rialto Pictures/StudioCanalTHE TRIAL (1963) 5:45 p.m. on TCM. Orson Welles once declared that “The Trial” was the best movie he’d ever made, but it has been out of print in the United States for years. A new restoration, which played in theaters around the end of 2022, is set to be released for at-home viewing by the Criterion Collection in September, but for now this TCM broadcast remains a relatively rare opportunity for U.S. audiences to see the movie easily. Adapted from a Franz Kafka novel, the film stars Anthony Perkins as Josef K., a man living in an anonymous city who is charged with a crime that is kept unclear to both him and the audience. His journey to find out more brings him across an array of oddball characters, including a legal advocate (Welles) and an artist (William Chappell), but little light is shed. TCM will show the movie alongside several other films with Perkins, including PSYCHO (1960), at 8 p.m., and FEAR STRIKES OUT (1957), at 10 p.m.ThursdayJAWS (1975) 8 p.m. on AMC. In the same way as fast cars, secret agents and creepy dolls, there’s something about sharks that makes Hollywood salivate — like a beast of prey drawn to the scent of past box-office successes. (“Meg 2: The Trench,” in theaters everywhere Aug. 4.) Few attempts at big-screen shark tales have come close to matching Steven Spielberg’s original “Jaws” movie, though — or the one-two bite of John Williams’s score.FridayOlivia Colman in “Empire of Light.”Searchlight Pictures/20th Century StudiosEMPIRE OF LIGHT (2022) 6:05 p.m. on HBO 2 and 1917 (2019) at 9 p.m. on Showtime 2. Here’s an interesting do-it-yourself double feature: A pair of collaborations between the filmmaker Sam Mendes and the cinematographer Roger Deakins. First up is “Empire of Light,” a period drama that stars Olivia Colman as the duty manager of a cinema in a British seaside town in the 1980s. As she struggles with her mental health, she develops a relationship with Stephen (Micheal Ward), a new employee. Their story is a far cry from the one told in “1917,” a WWI drama about two British soldiers (played by George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman) sent on an exceedingly treacherous mission behind enemy lines.SaturdayTHE WILD SIDES 8 p.m. on BBC America. The first entry in this new, three-part documentary series picks up during a drought in the Botswana wilderness. It introduces a slate of animals — elephants, cheetahs, leopards, jackals and baboons — whose lives are connected in some surprising ways.SundayQuincy Isaiah in “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.”Warrick Page/HBOWINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKERS DYNASTY 9 p.m. on HBO. The 1979-1980 season of the Los Angeles Lakers — and that era’s stars, including Magic Johnson (played by Quincy Isaiah) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes) — got a ritzy coat of HBO paint in the first season of this drama, which debuted last year. The plot of the new, second season, which begins Sunday, runs through the 1984 finals, when the Lakers and the Celtics landed in a rematch. In a trailer, the Lakers owner Jerry Buss (as played by John C. Reilly), sets up the rivalry as a classic underdog story: “They’re the dynasty,” he says. “We’re the flash in the pan.” More

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      ‘We Are a Romantic Country’: On the Set of a Steamy Hit in Italy

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      Italy falls for “Mare Fuori,” a television melodrama about the inmates of a juvenile detention center who pass the time making out — when not scowling at or occasionally stabbing one another.Before dawn, the teenage girls convened outside the Naples Navy base where the wildly popular Italian television show “Mare Fuori” is filmed.“We want to show them all of our love,” said Federica Montuori, 16, who with her fellow fans unfurled white sheets with spray-painted messages expressing how the lead actors, who play star-crossed — and mobbed-up — lovers in a juvenile prison, “belong in our hearts.”On the wall beside her, the scrawls on the bricks are love letters to “the most beautiful series in the world” and its main characters. “Ti Amo Carmine,” read one rectangle. “Ti Amo Rosa,” read another.Other fans have dived from nearby piers and swum to the back of the set, vexing gate guards charged with keeping them at bay. During the day, their screams have ruined takes.“We had to stop shooting,” said Ivan Silvestrini, the show’s director. “They won’t listen. It’s pretty unbearable, but what can you do?”Maria Esposito, who plays Rosa Ricci in the series, and Mr. Caiazzo, who plays Carmine, filming a scene for the fourth season.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesItaly has fallen for “Mare Fuori,” or “The Sea Beyond,” an often gritty but always soapy melodrama about the inmates of a coed juvenile detention center who pass the time stealing kisses — when not scowling at or occasionally stabbing one another.Entering its fourth season, the show, set and steeped in Naples street life, is “Saved by the Bell” meets “Scared Straight” meets “Gomorrah” meets Skinemax. It has been a smash hit on Italian television and is a fixture on Netflix Italy’s most-watched list. During Carnevale, children dressed up as the precocious gangsters, with leather hot pants and jackets, tank tops, lots of chains and toy guns.Its hypnotic theme song, recorded by an actor who plays an inmate on the show and who is also an increasingly popular singer in Italy, has been streamed 35 million times and gone platinum. Some fans have kept vigil singing the chorus outside the set.The series tells the intertwining stories of a hodgepodge of attractive delinquents, in a fictitious juvenile hall inspired by a real one — where the sexes are separated — on an island off Naples. Most of the characters are hardened thugs from competing Naples mob families, but there is also a rich Milanese piano prodigy jailed after a night out in Naples goes terribly awry, and a manipulative goth goddess who licks faces, cuts herself and kills for fun.The cast of mostly unknowns keeps the budget low, but the ensemble approach is also creating stars to supply Italy’s insatiable and often schlocky television-cinema complex.The show has turned Ms. Esposito and Mr. Caiazzo into celebrities. Fans can often be found surrounding the Navy base where the show is filmed, and even diving off nearby piers to swim to the back of the set.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe producers market the show as a dialect-heavy portrayal of Naples reality with a redemption message. But following on other Italian hits, like “Baby,” about underage prostitutes, the show has also underscored Italy’s infatuation with steamy young adult programming.“We have realized that these stories of young lovers, people like a lot,” said Roberto Sessa, one of the show’s producers. “In the end, we are a romantic country.”The plot revolves around Carmine Di Salvo, the reluctant and seemingly meek scion of a crime family who really just wants to be a barber, but who lands behind bars after stabbing a would-be rapist of his girlfriend in the neck with scissors. Incarcerated, he finds a nemesis in Ciro, the prince of the competing crime family, who eventually tries to kill Carmine and his piano-playing cellmate but who ends up getting stabbed with a screwdriver.Things really took off in the third season, this year, when Rosa Ricci, the late Ciro’s sister, shoots a guy to get into jail so she can settle scores with Carmine. In classic Montague and Capulet style, she falls for Carmine instead.A scene from the third season of “Mare Fuori,” whose costume director said “skin, skin, skin” is an important part of the show’s look.Fosforo PressOn a street in Naples, a fan of the show, Domenico Marino, 18, and his girlfriend considered taking home a souvenir pillow — displayed next to similar shirts, mugs and key chains — of the scantily clad Rosa featuring her catchphrase (“I am Rosa Ricci, and who the [expletive] are you to tell me what I need to do”). He decided on a cushion of her late brother Ciro instead.On Naples’s Via San Gregorio Armeno, famous for its Christmas nativity scenes, a crowd gathered to admire terra cotta figurines of the cast standing in front of the juvenile prison, displayed next to a manger.“We keep making them as long as there is demand, even for the ones who get killed,” said Elio Cassano, 60. “They don’t look at the soccer players or the Holy Family in the crèche, they form crowds around ‘Mare Fuori.’”One of the admirers, Chiara D’Amico, 18, a Sicilian with a crush on Carmine, said the juvenile prison reminded her of high school. Her mother, Santina Santonocito, 40, said she liked the show because it taught children “not to make errors — life inside is not so easy.”Pillows with photographs of the show’s characters on sale in Naples.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesElio Cassano arranging figurines of the show’s characters outside a shop in Naples.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThey were visiting Naples, with plans to see its castles and eat pizza. “But the first thing on the list,” Ms. D’Amico said, was a pilgrimage to the set.Shortly before noon, a black van carrying Maria Esposito, 19, who plays Rosa, rolled up to the gate. She blew kisses from the passenger seat, sending the fans into a tizzy.On the set — which looked like a seaside high school with a soccer court, a foosball table and a black piano that had hearts traced in its dust — she stopped in hair and makeup with Massimiliano Caiazzo, who plays Carmine.“The theme of a forbidden love touches adults just as it touches adolescents,” said Mr. Caiazzo, 26, as Ms. Esposito, puffing on an e-cigarette, had her lashes doused in mascara.She had worked as an aesthetician before she joined at the end of the second season, which had made her “weep perennially, every day, with joy.”But for a young woman who loves going out (“I love living”), it was not easy being the face of Naples, she said. “I’m walking around the streets with my face on the pillows,” she said. “It’s a little creepy.”Rossella Aprea, the show’s costume designer, holding one of Rosa’s outfits.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe costume designer, Rossella Aprea, said that since there was no uniform in a real Italian juvenile prison, she could use her imagination. At a rack dedicated to Rosa, she held up a skimpy leotard decorated with dragons.“A lot of black, super tight, crop tops,” she said. “Skin, skin, skin.”Outside, the director struggled with a scene about the arrival of a new inmate, who held a leather satchel and looked as if he had either returned from safari or robbed a Banana Republic.“Tell him to come out of the car and look towards the girls,” Mr. Silvestrini instructed with frustration. He said he understood sex appeal was vital to the show’s success and required the suspension of disbelief about love in the detention center through the creation of imaginary circumstances for hooking up, what he called “room for romance.”“We created a pizza lab, a place where the boys and girls can be together,” he said. “And they can be promiscuous.”Ms. Esposito on the way to her dressing room. In the show’s third season, her character shoots someone to get into jail so she could settle scores with another character.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesAfter lunch, the director ordered the activation of a smoke machine for atmosphere, then walked a 40-something actor who played a crooked guard and a 20-something actress who played an inmate through their scene.“Then, at a certain point,” he instructed. “The kiss moment.”Their moment extended to a full-on make out session, lasting so long that the crew gave each other awkward looks.Soon after, Ms. Esposito walked on set for the day’s final scene.“She’s my star,” Mr. Silvestrini said.Ivan Silvestrini, the show’s director, seated in front of a screen, along with other members of the cast and crew, reviewing a scene.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesMs. Esposito, rail thin and with long straight black hair, wore bell-bottomed tight leather pants and a leather halter top. “These pants have gotten loose on me,” she said, laughing. “I’ve lost weight from the stress!”She said everywhere she went, she was mobbed by teenagers, “but also the adults.”“It’s in the hearts of all, this series,” Ms. Esposito said.She and Mr. Caiazzo acted an intense face-to-face scene on a staircase, the director called it a wrap and the crew blasted the “Mare Fuori” song. Soon after, the stars departed in separate vans, and the fans screamed and ran after them.Ms. Esposito made a heart sign with her hands.“Rosa Ricci,” they bellowed. “Bellissima.”Mr. Caiazzo greeting fans as he left the Naples set.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times More

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      They Put the Heart in ‘Heartstopper’

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      Kit Connor and Joe Locke discuss the pressure of expectations and how the global success of their Netflix hit, returning Aug. 3, has changed their lives.Kit Connor and Joe Locke sat on a plump bordello-red couch at the Manhattan headquarters of Netflix. It was June, and they were in town to talk about their roles as the leading sweeties on “Heartstopper,” Alice Oseman’s romantic dramedy series about queer British high schoolers that begins its sophomore season on Netflix on Aug. 3.When “Heartstopper” debuted in April 2022, its fate was anybody’s guess. “Euphoria,” “Elite” and other shows with teen queer characters lured eyeballs with sex and bad behavior. “Heartstopper” offered its audience mellow dramatics and an understanding that puppy love is universal. “Just queer people being,” as Connor put it.It paid off. “Heartstopper” made the Netflix Top 10 — a list of the service’s most-watched shows in a given week — in 54 countries, and its first-season numbers were good enough to get the show renewed for two more. To date on TikTok, #heartstopper has 10.7 billion views and counting. Readers also gobbled up the source material: Oseman’s best-selling graphic novels and original webcomic, which now has over 124 million views. In April, Oseman announced that a fifth graphic novel was set to publish in November, with a sixth in the works.So my first question was: How has the “Heartstopper” phenomenon changed the lives of the two actors at its center?“The easier question is how hasn’t this changed our life?” Locke said.He wore a cream-colored cardigan with elegant vertical caviar beading plus skinny jeans and black sneakers, looking a lot like how his character, the misfit naïf Charlie, might dress if he were on a class trip to New York. Connor wore a blousy turquoise top and wide-legged black pants over what looked like flamenco heels — an elegant ensemble that his character, Nick, who is Charlie’s anxious jock boyfriend, would be aghast to find in his closet.Now 19, as is Connor, Locke said he’s had to grow up fast but in exchange got a platform to “normalize queerness.” Example: Days after our interview, Locke posted on Instagram a photo of himself wearing a “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” T-shirt on a float in D.C.’s Pride parade, an image that his 3.5 million followers have showered with over a million likes.In the new season, Charlie and Nick go to Paris together on a class trip.Teddy Cavendish/Netflix“There’s a big push in our world at the moment to take away young queer people’s autonomy,” Locke said. “It’s beautiful to be part of a show that really pushes and loves that young queer people can be in charge of their own fates.”And Connor?“I’m a bit more confident in myself in a very open sense, about who I am, what I can do, the way that I hold myself and the people I spend my time with,” he said. “I have a lot more pride.”But then we started talking about coming out, and the mood in the room shifted, fast. Last year, Connor came out on Twitter as bisexual, saying he felt forced to do so after some fans accused him of queer-baiting.“Telling someone you’re gay or bi or part of the queer community, there’s a thing where you feel like they might see you differently or think that it would change who you are,” he said. “For me, it’s just who I am. Coming out didn’t change me.”He’s cool with being called queer, he said, explaining that it is “more freeing in a way, less about labels.”Locke, who also identifies as queer, jumped in: “I think coming out is stupid, that it’s still a thing that people have to do.” He said he briefly came out at 12 on Instagram before reconsidering.“I had just told my mum, and I was on top of the world,” he said. “I quickly realized I was ready to tell my mum but I was not ready to tell the world. So I quickly deleted it and said my Instagram had been hacked. I went back in the closet for three years. I retold all my friends and they’re like, ‘Yeah, you told us two years ago.’”And now that he’s out-out and playing gay on “Heartstopper”? Locke glanced down and fingered his rings.“Twelve-year-old me would be very proud, and terrified,” he said.He paused to let tears collect in his eyes. “I’m getting emotional,” he whispered. Connor watched him. The room was still. “I’ve never thought about it in that sense before,” Locke continued, “which is weird because I’ve thought about the show a lot.”After a few seconds, he said softly: “It’s great.” He wore a teeny grin.“They’re meant for each other,” Connor said of his and Locke’s characters.Victoria Will for The New York TimesQueer pride, quick-fire emotions, happy tears, supportive mums: It’s like these guys are on “Heartstopper” or something. Thea Glassman, the author of “Freaks, Gleeks and Dawson’s Creek: How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Television,” said the series is rich in a rare commodity for contemporary teen television: “unapologetic sweetness.”“It’s about kindness and positivity and acceptance, and as teens, that’s all you’re looking for,” she told me. “As adults, that’s all you’re looking for.”The new season focuses on Nick and Charlie’s couple stuff: sharing a bed during a class trip to Paris, navigating hickey shame, coming out about their relationship. There is still no sex or even under the shirt stuff, though — there is no second base in “Heartstopper.”There is also a character who is asexual (as is Oseman) and new transgender characters that Locke said he hopes will help transgender kids understand “that there are still people in the world who have their backs.”Locke and Connor were very aware that expectations from fans, Netflix and industry watchers are considerable now that the show is a global hit. The pressure, Locke said, is “terrifying.”But if they were antsy about it, it didn’t show in their relaxed rapport and modest demeanors. Connor, who grew up in Croydon in South London, comes across as grounded and affable, and he speaks with considered thoughtfulness, like he actually took notes during media training.Locke has Charlie’s gentle deportment but with the soft edge of a cool-kid wise guy. As our conversation turned to their own education, Connor mentioned that he “wasn’t one of those people who thrived at school,” and sheepishly said he got a B in drama. When he finished, Locke leaned over, cracked himself up and said into my recorder: “You don’t need school, kids. He got a B in drama.”Locke said a sharp tongue is one way he protected himself while growing up on the Isle of Man. “People knew not to give me [expletive],” he said.”I think coming out is stupid, that it’s still a thing that people have to do,” Locke said.Victoria Will for The New York TimesAs for what’s next, Connor is set to star in a new horror-thriller, “One of Us,” and Locke recently shot “Agatha: Coven of Chaos,” Marvel’s “WandaVision” spinoff. The stage beckons: Locke wants to be in a Broadway musical, Connor would do Shakespeare in London. If they had free time, Connor would hang with friends in a park. Locke wants someone to make him brunch.As our conversation ended, I asked both men where they’d like their characters to be in 20 years.“The hope would certainly be that they’re still together,” Connor said softly, looking at Locke as if to get approval.“I think they would be,” Locke replied, glancing back.“They’re meant for each other,” Connor said.“They’d have some children, a family,” Locke said.“Happy would be nice,” Connor said.“Yeah,” Locke said, again with that grin. “Just happy.” More

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      2023 Emmy Awards Will Be Postponed Because of Actors’ and Writers’ Strikes

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      The ceremony, originally planned for Sept. 18, may be pushed into January in hopes that the labor disputes will be settled.The fallout from the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes continues.The 75th Emmy Awards will be postponed because of the strikes, according to a person briefed on the plans. The ceremony, originally planned for Sept. 18, does not yet have a new date but will most likely be moved to January, the person said.Emmy organizers are hopeful that would give the Hollywood studios enough time to settle the labor disputes. A new date will be finalized in the next few weeks.Fox, which is broadcasting this year’s event, and the Television Academy, which administers the Emmys, had concluded last month that it would have to postpone the event if the writers’ strike continued to linger until the end of July, The New York Times reported last month. The writers have now been on strike for 88 days and have not returned to the bargaining table with the major Hollywood studios since negotiations broke down in early May.By the time tens of thousands of actors joined the writers on picket lines and went on strike on July 14, it all but put a nail in the coffin for an Emmys ceremony in September.The postponement marks one of the biggest events that will get rescheduled because of the labor conflicts. The Emmys, which traditionally take place in August or September, were last postponed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. That year, the event ultimately took place in November.Organizing the Emmys is a significant undertaking, one of the reasons that the Television Academy and Fox set a late July deadline to make a decision on a postponement. Variety reported earlier that the Emmys would be rescheduled.Nominations for the Emmy Awards were announced this month. HBO, which led all networks in total nominations, became the first network in 31 years to earn four nominations in the best drama category — “Succession,” “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us” and “House of the Dragon.” In the comedy categories, two-time winner “Ted Lasso” will compete against shows including “Abbott Elementary” and “The Bear.” More