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      Tim Baltz on B.J.’s Test in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’

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      Sunday’s episode was a test for Baltz’s character, but B.J. seized the moment. Still, his victory came at a price.This interview contains spoilers for Sunday night’s episode of “The Righteous Gemstones.”The first thing to know is that the testicles were fake — in one of the shots, at least. Anyone who has seen Sunday night’s episode of the HBO televangelist family satire, “The Righteous Gemstones,” knows which shot.Near the end of the episode, the sixth of Season 3, Tim Baltz’s character, B.J., gets in a brutal brass-knuckle fight with a naked man that spills onto a suburban front lawn. Just when it seems that B.J. is out cold, his eyes fly open and he reaches, grabs, twists. The neighborhood children watch in horror.In an instant, the typically mild-mannered B.J. has victory well in hand. His nemesis, the philandering Christian rock guitarist Stephen (Stephen Schneider), drops to his knees and pays a brutal price for his affair with B.J’s. wife (Edi Patterson).It was a difficult scene to film, Baltz said last month by video from his home in Los Angeles, and not only because of the endless takes. He also did most of his own stunts — and accidentally got punched in the face several times.“There were a lot of little very quick decisions that either injured us, or barely avoided injury,” Baltz said of shooting the scene, which took all day. He added: “That’s the most intense day of work I’ve ever had.”Baltz grew up in Joliet, Ill., near Chicago, and he has the kind of boyish blond looks, deadpan delivery and cheery Midwestern affect that can make it difficult to tell whether he’s putting you on. (Given the circumstances, I believed him about the shoot.) That affect is one reason he is so convincing as B.J., a sensitive soul who lets his wife dress him in shiny pink rompers and who Rollerblades in full protective gear: It’s hard to believe that anyone could ever really be that earnest; B.J. keeps surprising you because he really is.“Despite being an atheist or a nonbeliever, he’s the most pious and religious character in the show,” Baltz said. “Which is odd,” he added, for a character who married into a family of preachers.Baltz’s character, B.J., has been a pushover for most of the series but Sunday’s brutal battle was a turning point.Jake Giles Netter/HBOB.J. also may be the most meme-worthy character in “Gemstones,” which is saying something in a show created by and starring Danny McBride. Baltz talked about the character, his outfits and the true cost of B.J.’s fight. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.First things first: How did you guys choreograph that, uh, decisive shot?That fight scene took an entire day to film. Once we got outside, we were worried about losing light, and with the camera looking up, the camera moving, I have to grab these fake testicles. I’m looking up at Stephen, who’s barely covering his own junk, and I’m like: “All right man, here we go, and we’ve got to get it right for the camera, too.”There was a stuntman involved for at least some of your parts, right?Yeah. My stunt double for the show has been a guy named T. Ryan Mooney, who looks shockingly like me. Same body type, too. To be honest, I don’t think that I’m like B.J. in real life, but I never feel more like my character than when I watch a guy who looks like me and has my body type do insane stunts, and he does it for a living. It’s kind of emasculating. But aside from B.J. getting thrown through the lattice work or when he gets dragged off the brick steps into the front yard, every shot you see, I did.Stephen seems like a champ for having done his whole part naked. What were your conversations about the scene like?He was really awesome. He was wrestling with whether he should go au naturel or use a prosthetic. It ended up being the last shoot day of the season for both of us, so there was a lot of buildup and anticipation. Stephen would come into town every few months to film stuff, and I would be like, “Let me take you out to dinner, man, because we’re going to have an intense day.” And then halfway through the season, he’s like: “I’m going to do it. I’m going to be naked. I just think there are only so many challenges in life, and I see this as a challenge.”Baltz tried to get to know his co-star Stephen Schneider ahead of time. “By the end, I considered him a dear friend, this naked guy I had to fight,” he said.HBOPresumably he had to get your consent.I mean, the intimacy coordinator definitely called several times to prep me. But for me, it was more like: “All right, this guy’s being really vulnerable with this. So every time he comes into town, we’re going to get to know each other so that we’re buddies going into this.” And honestly, it really worked. By the end, I considered him a dear friend, this naked guy I had to fight.You’ve played around with this image of the wholesome naïf a lot over the years. How much of that feels like you?I grew up playing sports — I was hypercompetitive. I really am not like [B.J.] at all. If I relate to the character in any way, it’s just the kindness and the generosity that he has, and I think a lot of people see that as being a mark in our society.When you book something, you lean into it as hard as you can whether it’s a nice character or someone creepy. But this one in particular you have to understand, Where does the unconditional love come from? And how do I keep in touch with that? This season that really gets tested for the first time, and it gets tested so much that he thinks that he has to change who he is. And the fight scene is the culmination of that.After the fight, B.J. tells Judy, “I hope you like me now.” Does he feel worse about beating up Stephen than he feels about having gotten beat up himself?I think he’s probably more hurt that he betrayed his own values. Danny always said: “When you play B.J., he’s the eyes of the audience within the show. He’s looking at the family the way we all look at the family.” I’ve carried that with me the entire time. So that moment is, “Not only did you cheat on me, but you made me betray myself.”Do you think there’s any part of standing up for himself that he takes in a positive way?I think so. It’s a fascinating evolution of the character. When I first read it, I was excited because I think it puts that card on the table for him. I think parts of our culture see something like that as a rite of passage, or something that you have to rise to the occasion to do. So in that sense, he does do it. But when he comes back, you can also look at that final line as saying, “I’m not the same anymore, so I hope you like what this has changed me into.” You can’t go back after something like that.Baltz said he his not anything like B.J. “If I relate to the character in any way, it’s just the kindness and the generosity that he has,” he said.Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesIt’s like a more complex George McFly moment.Right. The sliding-door part of that [“Back to the Future”] trilogy is you see what happens if he doesn’t throw the punch, and his life is miserable. And then if he does throw the punch, everything is saved and the family’s OK. With this, I think B.J. probably looks at it and is like, “No, that’s a doorway that I can step back and forth from as I see fit now.” The truth is, his values are, “You shouldn’t do that.” He was forced to do it, and he rose to the occasion. But if given a choice, then he probably wouldn’t.Can we talk about the outfits? There’s a flamboyant dimension to them, and I’ve always wondered what that signifies.There’s a blend of a few things. First, I think he starts as Judy’s kept man; this is her wardrobe for him, and he feels a bit out of place. And then I think he gets more comfortable with it and starts to take bigger swings. Also, if you walk down King Street in Charleston [S.C., where the series is filmed], you will see guys kind of dressed like that. Maybe not as opulent, but the color palettes — there’s a lot of pastels.A lot of salmon.Before I’d really explored Charleston and saw some of these outfits, I thought, “Whoa, this is really out there.” And then in the real world you see it, and these people aren’t making a joke of it. They’re going about their regular lives. I always say that if B.J. was a Christian holiday, he’d be Easter because of the pastels. And it’s incumbent on me to feel comfortable and live in those outfits without making them the point of the joke. More

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      Coping With Crohn’s Disease, With the Help of Rachael Ray

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      The stars of the Food Network help a teenage patient make it through the long days in the hospital with no solid food.When I was 15, I fell in love with the voice of Rachael Ray. That velvety contralto was the soundtrack of my days in the children’s hospital I hated — with its plaid curtains and kind nurses — but called home.For weeks I spent my days hopped up on morphine, in and out of consciousness, nestled in a snake hive of drip tubes and wires. I was intent on fighting off this invader without a name, but even more devoted to the tiny television set that was giving me an education on how to beat a meringue into submission or throw a “simple yet stunning” dinner party (even when one of the guests is a vegetarian).What I remember most was the hunger. I was starving, literally. But I had the Food Network.Under doctors’ orders, I ate hardly anything — not a drop of ginger ale, a bite of a cracker or even an ice chip. This was my first foray into a kind of forced asceticism, something that my body, ravaged by this yet-to-be-diagnosed disease, would frequently require. Ravenousness was embedded in my bones, a constant pang.My gut was too inflamed, spastic and maniacal to handle nutrition by mouth, and the team of doctors proclaimed, with the nonchalance of those who could pop down to the cafeteria for a sandwich, that my digestive tract needed “a break” and should “cool down.” Forgoing food by mouth was the way to get this done.My fate was N.P.O. — nil per os, Latin for “nothing by mouth.” When I had run out of celebrity tabloids to inhale and dutifully completed my homework, I became fluent in medicalese, injecting abbreviations and obscure medical terms into my vocabulary. I learned that this diet — or nondiet, really — was the first step in getting my irate system back to a seemingly elusive homeostasis.I soon received the decidedly unsexy, unglamorous diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. It’s one of those things — chronic, incurable, but can be managed — that can physically and financially debilitate you for long periods of time, in events called flares.Without food, I became half girl, half robot, with angst coursing through me and machines pumping nutrition into my body intravenously in a process called T.P.N., or total parenteral nutrition. T.P.N. is a common treatment for a severe Crohn’s flare. It bypasses the digestive system, giving your colon the ultimate vacation. How luxurious.I lost the contours of a fully sane and satiated human, morphing and flattening into pure desire — skin and bones, ribs visible, thighs that no longer touched — and I became obsessed with the idea of preparing food and thoughts of my favorite meals. Roast beef. Buttery potatoes. Burgers so big and dripping with juices that you’d need six napkins. Most bewildering to those around me, I became obsessed with the Food Network.Instead of food, I devoured clips of Paula Deen inserting pounds of butter into a cake recipe and Sandra Lee concocting something deliciously semi-homemade. Emeril Lagasse’s shrieks of “Bam!” sounded even more authoritative through the fog of opioids. And watching Rachael Ray whip up something “delish” became a lustful experience through those hours of rotting in a hospital bed.I grew accustomed to the emptiness of days unbroken by the familiar markers of mealtimes and instead became dependent on the intervals of carefully dispensed pain medications, always wanting more. I felt swathed and safe in that chemical cocoon and didn’t realize, until years later, that what I had thought was feeling happy really meant being high.All the while I was flipping through channels to see the beloved friends who were always there for me: Rachael, Emeril, Sandra, Paula.The rays of the setting sun would blaze through the hospital windows. Then came the darkness that would allow me to see the TV screen with more clarity as I curled into the warm abyss of a sleeping aid — “the good stuff” that sent me drifting off to a zone of semiconsciousness, free of pain, with dreams of lunches and Coca-Cola and a warm, full belly. The Food Network shows, with their bright colors and erotic displays of shiny spatchcocked chickens, were my proxy for a primal unmet need.I endured the daily drone of doctors and medical residents who poked and prodded, promising “just a few more days of no food.” This went on for weeks, with starts and stops along the way. The few days when I was allowed the most delectable of gastronomic wonders — chicken broth and lemon water ice — were followed by pains so searing and gruesome, and complications so life-threatening, that I would be forced back to square one.I became an animal closing in on its prey, except the prey was a vanilla pudding cup and the messenger was some poor nurse named Liz. If I smelled food, I would devolve into a rageful miscreant, screaming at the visitors who had food with them and ordering them out of my room. I resented those who could tend to their most basic needs with such ease.Psychologists and therapists tried to teach me breathing techniques and other coping mechanisms, which I scoffed at with laughs and eye rolls that only teenage girls know how to give. Even as some of my muscles atrophied, it seemed my middle finger functioned just fine. More than ever, I came to rely on the trusted TV hosts who grilled and baked with such ease. Imagine Ina Garten denying me a meal!I try to think of when Food Became Good Again, when eating became a vehicle of pleasure and not pure pain. There’s no perfect data point. That’s the thing with having an illness that goes on and on: “Before” and “after” are irrelevant. Living in a body on fire requires you to tend to it like a garden — carefully and meticulously and, most importantly, every day.I say I have two jobs, my day job at a newspaper and a second as a secretary of myself and of my body. Skills include a deftness at wading through the health care system, an ability to scream on phones at middle-managing insurance agents and a knack for properly budgeting for “emergencies.” One wrong move could mean a Crohn’s flare or a hefty medical bill.There came a time, after that initial stay in the hospital, when food became not the enemy, but a sort of benign suitor. After months of feeding tubes and stomach pumping, along with one helicopter “life flight” and surgery, I began to get over being sick. The drugs seemed to be working. The doctor’s visits, though tiresome and often marred by procedural nonsense, were helping.I was once again able to eat in a “regular” way — small bites of pizza and greasy chicken tenders, crisp apples cloaked in drippy peanut butter, my favorite. The saccharine taste of Diet Coke and the zing of cheap black coffee are daily pleasures. Rachael, Ina and Emeril are still in the picture, but now when I watch them, at home, I can run to the fridge.Annie Tressler is a corporate communications manager at The New York Times. More

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      Different Sides of Bill Walton and Wilt Chamberlain in New Series

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      New documentaries explore the star-crossed careers and delicate spirits of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Walton, two of basketball’s greatest.Pity the poor 7-footer.That’s the message of two new documentary series about storied basketball players: “The Luckiest Guy in the World,” about Bill Walton (available in the “30 for 30” hub at ESPN Plus), and “Goliath,” about Wilt Chamberlain (premiering Friday at Paramount+ and Sunday on Showtime).Serious and thorough, “Luckiest Guy” and “Goliath” are positioned to draft on the success of an earlier basketball biography, ESPN’s popular Michael Jordan series, “The Last Dance.” But while they are also portraits of men with supreme physical gifts, they are less focused on their subjects’ on-court exploits and more determined to get inside the players’ heads. The sportswriter Jackie MacMullan delivers what could be a thesis statement for both in “Goliath”: “I’ve found that big men are much more sensitive than we realize.”Chamberlain, who died of heart failure in 1999, and Walton both have well-defined personas, which they participated in creating. Each series spends a lot of its time picking apart the received wisdom about its subject while also indulging, for the sake of dramatic impact and storytelling shorthand, the very stereotypes it wants to deconstruct: Chamberlain the unstoppable, insatiable giant; Walton the goofy, fragile flower child.The four-episode “Luckiest Guy” was directed by the accomplished documentarian Steve James, always to be remembered for “Hoop Dreams,” and was made with the full cooperation of Walton, 70, who revisits old haunts and sits down for an entertaining round table with Portland Trail Blazers teammates like Lionel Hollins and Dave Twardzik. It’s engagingly introspective and personal, in part because James pushes back against Walton’s incessant recitation of the title phrase. How can Walton call himself the luckiest guy in the world, James asks from behind the camera, when his career was utterly ravaged by injuries that eventually crippled him and drove him to consider suicide?That, broadly speaking, is the idea that haunts both documentaries. The conundrum of Walton’s and Chamberlain’s careers is that they were marked by success — college and professional championships, statistical domination (in Chamberlain’s case), reputations for unmatched athletic skills — and defined by disappointment. Neither won as often or as easily as he should have, in Walton’s case because of injury and in Chamberlain’s because of the dominance during the 1960s of the rival Boston Celtics and their center, Bill Russell, enshrined in sports mythology as the hard-working Everyman to Chamberlain’s sex-and-statistics-obsessed egotist.“Goliath,” directed by Rob Ford and Christopher Dillon, is a more workmanlike and conventional project than “Luckiest Guy.” But across three episodes it makes a persuasive case for Chamberlain as a generous, sensitive soul who was both blessed and constrained by his stature and his extraordinary all-around athletic ability.It does its sports-documentary duty, laying out Chamberlain’s triumphs and more frequent setbacks on the court. But it is more interested in the trails he blazed as a Black cultural figure and self-determining professional athlete, and it favors writers, pundits and scholars over basketball players in its interviews. (The scarcity of images from Chamberlain’s younger days in the 1940s and ’50s is compensated for with shadow-puppet scenes reminiscent of the work of Kara Walker.)Watching the series side by side, the differences between the two men are less interesting than the sense of commonality that emerges. Both were self-conscious stutterers who learned to endure, and perform under, the most intense scrutiny. Chamberlain may have been more flamboyant, but Walton, in “Luckiest Guy,” is just as conscious of his affect — there’s an ostentatiousness, and no small amount of ego, in the way he performs modesty. (James also challenges Walton’s lifelong, generally debunked claim to be only 6 feet 11 inches tall.)The veteran sports fan might see another commonality: As good as they are, neither “The Luckiest Guy in the World” nor “Goliath” is as exciting to watch as “The Last Dance.” This is a bit of a conundrum, because both Chamberlain and Walton are, quite arguably, more complex, interesting and moving figures than Michael Jordan. But Michael Jordan is a nearly unparalleled winner. And while winning isn’t the only thing, it is, for better or worse, the most compelling thing about the subject of a sports documentary. More

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      Video Games at MoMA: Do They Belong There?

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      “Never Alone,” which closes Sunday, was an important first step in breaking the firewall between art lovers and game designers. When the Museum of Modern Art began collecting video games a decade ago, curators boldly asserted that games were an artistic medium. Now contemporary culture is dominated by them.The MoMA exhibition “Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design,” which runs through Sunday, represents the museum’s cautious advance into the gaming world at a time when digital culture has overtaken its galleries. Refik Anadol’s algorithmic homage to art history still twinkles in the museum lobby; an exhibition about the importance of video swallowed the sixth floor until July 8; and galleries for its permanent collection include contemporary artifacts like the Google Maps pin and a massive schematic devoted to the interlaced chain of resources needed to create an Amazon Echo as an artificial intelligence system.However, the museum could do more to break the firewall between art lovers and game designers. After all, this is the same institution that began a film library in 1935, exhibited utilitarian toasters and cash registers as “Machine Art” in 1934 and presented modular houses in the 1950s. Curators need to unleash that same passion for games, which struggle in the current exhibition to convey the profundity, and complexity, of their designers’ thinking.On the first floor, old computer monitors cantilevered above visitors are drawn from the museum’s collection of video games. Eleven are playable; 35 games in all are viewable. Jamming buttons on their keyboards, users were hard-pressed to crane their necks to see the flickering displays above them — a series of digital experiments from the 1990s by John Maeda, a graphic designer who now serves as Microsoft’s vice president of design and artificial intelligence.MoMA’s standards for assessing the cultural importance of video games require an upgrade worthy of the medium, whose revenue is projected to reach $385 billion in 2023 and technologies contribute to the ongoing A.I. revolution.For the curators Paola Antonelli and Paul Galloway, gaming is a psychological act that has defined an era when many of our relationships are mediated through screens.SimCity 2000, from 1993, an open-ended city-building video game designed by Will Wright.Electronic Arts; via Museum of Modern ArtAnd the vision of designers like Will Wright is letting players choose what lessons they want to learn — or nothing at all. One player might experience Wright’s most popular game, The Sims (included in the MoMA exhibition), as a gateway into the worlds of architecture and interior decorating; another might focus on its family-planning aspect or its staging of murder mysteries and ghost encounters.The decision to allow games into the museum has been debated since the 2010s, when critics like Roger Ebert and Jonathan Jones declared that the medium would never rise to the status of art.“Chess is a great game, but even the finest chess player in the world isn’t an artist,” Jones opined in The Guardian, “She is a chess player.”At the center of these critiques was a belief that playtime belonged to children. A similar logic harmed performance art until museums started making the genre a staple in their programming, coincidentally, around the same time that MoMA started collecting games.“People want to be taken to a new place,” Donna De Salvo, a Whitney Museum curator said of performance art in 2012 during an interview with The New York Times. “In the age of the digital and the virtual and the mediated experience, there is something very visceral about watching live performance.”The same could be said for gaming, which embraces immersion by allowing players into their virtual worlds with the touch of a controller. The simplicity of that relationship is evident in the exhibition “Never Alone,” where Zen games like Flower ask players to weave petals through the wind on a journey across an imaginary landscape. But the concept flows through the veins of modern gaming, ever since Super Mario 64 tasked players with jumping into paintings stored within a museum-like castle to progress through its story.The video game Flower, from 2012, designed by Jenova Chen.Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC; via Museum of Modern ArtSo what prevents museums from developing more ambitious programming around games? And why has a serious institution like MoMA not staged the first major retrospective of a video game designer when it has enough material for obvious picks like Will Wright or Shigeru Miyamoto?There are a few practical reasons. Designers rarely own rights to their creations, which are held by the publishers financing their games. In an interview, Antonelli singled out other hurdles: legal negotiations, lost source codes and obsolete technology that challenge the acquisition process. And then there are the headaches involved with hard wiring all those electronic systems in the galleries.Yet there seems no better time for MoMA’s curators to show why gaming belongs in their museum and to help visitors to understand the difference between what is scholarship and what is for sale at the Nintendo store a few blocks down the street.Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive DesignThrough Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, moma.org. More

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      Why Are Hollywood Actors Striking? Here’s What to Know

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      Here’s why Hollywood is facing its first industrywide shutdown in more than 60 years, and what it could mean for your favorite shows.The union representing more than 150,000 television and movie actors announced Thursday that it would go on strike at midnight, joining screenwriters who walked out in May and creating Hollywood’s first industrywide shutdown in 63 years.Here is what you need to know.Why are the actors and writers striking?Pay is often at the center of work stoppages, and that is the case here. But the rise of streaming and the challenges created by the pandemic have stressed the studios, many of which are facing financial challenges, as well as actors and writers, who are seeking better pay and new protections in a rapidly changing workplace.Both actors and screenwriters have demanded increased residual payments (a type of royalty) from streaming services. Streaming series typically have far fewer episodes than television series typically did. And it used to be that if a television series was a hit, actors and writers could count on a long stream of regular residual checks; streaming has changed the system in a way that they say has hurt them. Both groups also want aggressive guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence to preserve jobs.A-list actors last month signed a letter to guild leadership saying they were ready to strike and calling this moment “an unprecedented inflection point in our industry.”What is the position of the Hollywood studios?The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major studios and streamers, has said it offered “historic pay and residual increases” as well as higher caps on pension and health contributions. They also say their offer includes audition protections, a “groundbreaking” proposal on artificial intelligence and other benefits that address the union’s concerns.The Hollywood studios have also stressed that all the industry upheaval has not been easy for them, either. As moviegoers have been slow to return to cinemas and home viewers have moved from cable and network television to streaming entertainment, many studios have watched their share prices plummet and their profit margins shrink. Some companies have resorted to layoffs or pulled the plug on projects — or both.What will happen to my TV shows and movies?It will take a while for filmgoers to notice a change, since most of the movies scheduled for release this year have already been shot. But TV viewers are already seeing the strike’s effects, and if it drags on, popular shows could see their next seasons delayed.Late-night shows are already airing reruns because of the writers’ strike, and the vast majority of TV and film productions have already shut down or paused production. Big name shows like “Yellowjackets,” “Severance” and “Stranger Things” halted work after the writers’ strike began; it is not yet clear if their upcoming seasons will be delayed.Disney announced several changes to its theatrical release calendar in June, amid the writers’ strike.Now, the actors’ strike will add even greater upheaval.During the first two weeks of July, no scripted TV permits were issued in Los Angeles County, according to FilmLA, which tracks production activity. Film and TV shows that have completed shooting and are already in postproduction can likely stay on schedule, because the work remaining does not typically involve writers or actors.Participating in either film or television production with any of the studios is now off the table, with few exceptions. And that means that within a few months — beginning with the fall lineup — viewers will begin to notice broader changes to their TV diet.The ABC fall schedule, for instance, will debut with nightly lineups that include “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,” “Dancing With the Stars” and “Judge Steve Harvey” as well as repeats of “Abbott Elementary. The Fox broadcast network’s fall lineup includes unscripted series like “Celebrity Name That Tune,” “The Masked Singer” and “Kitchen Nightmares.”How long could this all drag on?If only we knew.Writers have been walking the picket lines now for more than 70 days, and their union, the Writers Guild of America, has yet to return to bargaining with the studios.The last time the writers and actors went on strike at the same time was in 1960, when Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild.Screenwriters have walked out several times, sometimes for long periods: Their 2007 strike lasted 100 days. The actors last staged a major walkout in 1980; it lasted more than three months.What about the promotion of current shows and films?In the near term, officials have said there will be no promotion of current projects, either online or in person. Do not expect to hear Ryan Gosling touting “Barbie” again anytime soon. A ban on promotion could be very bad news for San Diego’s Comic-Con, upcoming film festivals in places like Venice and Toronto, and scheduled movie premieres like the “Oppenheimer” premiere planned for Monday in New York.The 75th Emmy Awards, which announced its nominations yesterday, may now be in peril. Organizers have already had discussions about postponing the Sept. 18 ceremony, likely by months.Nicole Sperling More

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      ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’: Lola Tung on Growing Up Alongside Belly

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      Tung has experienced a lot of changes since joining Amazon’s hit coming-of-age series at 18. It’s just one way her life mirrors that of her character.Lola Tung was taking classes as a first-year acting student at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, when she heard the news. She had just been selected to play the lead in a new Amazon series called “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” based on the best-selling young adult novel by Jenny Han.“I was just in shock because I didn’t expect this,” Tung, 20, a New York City native, said in a video interview last month. “I called my mom after and we were just crying together over the phone, which was lovely. But it was the best surprise ever.”Tung, who was 18 years old and had acted only in school plays, took a leave of absence from college in 2021 to go to Wilmington, N.C., to join the production of the show, which tells a story of romantic awakening set at a beach house.As summer commences and the show’s two central families head to the coast, Tung plays Isabel Conklin, known as Belly, an adolescent girl who becomes caught in a love triangle with two of her childhood best friends — who also happen to be brothers: Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). The romantic tension captivated teen and young-adult viewers when the series debuted in 2022 and helped turn the show into a social media sensation. The hashtag #TheSummerITurnedPretty has accumulated millions of views on TikTok as users post fawning videos in support of “Team Conrad” or “Team Jere.”“I knew it would be special, but I think nothing can ever prepare you,” Tung said. “There’s no way to know how it’s going to be received and how your life will change after.”Belly became entangled in a love triangle with two boys who also happen to be brothers. One of them is Conrad, played by Christopher Briney.Erika Doss/Amazon Prime VideoThe other brother is Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). Asked whether she was Team Jeremiah or Team Conrad, Tung said she was “Team Belly, forever and always.”Erika Doss/Amazon Prime VideoTung continued her college leave to star in the show’s second season, which premieres on Prime Video on Friday. If watching the first season felt like basking in a perfect summer day — full of pool parties, passionate kisses and Kim Petras lyrics — the second season feels darker, cloudier, shrouded by loss.Both Tung and her character have weathered a series of changes between the two seasons: Tung now has red-carpet interviews, a partnership with American Eagle and millions of Instagram followers; Belly has lost a close family friend and must fight to save the beach house. Both are learning what it means to grow up.Ahead of the Season 2 debut, Tung spoke about her role, her favorite Taylor Swift music and whether she’s on Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How do you get in the mind-set of preparing to play the role of Belly?Music plays such a big part in prepping for different scenes. We were jumping around a lot emotionally in Season 2, so I think music was a way to very quickly get into the head space of the character, whatever scene it was. I would journal a lot and write a lot, especially from Belly’s perspective. The first season, I wrote letters to each of the characters in Belly’s voice, which was really cool. I think when you journal and you write just sort of like stream of consciousness you learn a lot about the character.What were some of the songs you listened to for this season?I listened to a lot of Mitski. “Two Slow Dancers” is a great song to listen to; it’s a very reflective sort of song. A lot of Taylor Swift. Phoebe Bridgers was on the playlist, Dodi was on the playlist, Lizzie McAlpine; I think I have some SZA on here as well. It was a lot of slightly more emotional songs — songs that felt nostalgic because Belly was really in this season dealing with a lot of changes in her life and dealing with the fact that change is inevitable. It’s a hard thing to realize growing up. You know, how do you move forward and still stay in touch with that magic of childhood and the familiarity and things that you know?“It’s a hard thing to realize growing up,” Tung said about accepting the inevitability of change. “How do you move forward and still stay in touch with that magic of childhood?Amir Hamja/The New York TimesWhat do you think this season says about the themes of change and loss and growth as a young person?The characters have experienced a lot of growth and a lot of change since we last saw them. That’s a really hard thing for all of them to deal with, and they’re sort of on their own at the beginning. Season 1 was so much about these characters growing together and having each other to lean on. Season 2 is a lot about individual growth and how to take initiative, especially for Belly.She’s really isolated from the boys and from her family, and feeling completely lost without Susannah (Rachel Blanchard) there. It was really cool to get to figure out what the next step was for her and how she moves forward from the weight of grief. It’s about learning that change is OK and normal. Even though things are different, everything will be OK.Are there aspects of Belly’s character you relate to? And are there aspects you feel are very dissimilar?I definitely think we’re pretty similar, and I absolutely bring some of myself to her. It’s only natural if you’re playing a character, especially one so close in age. She’s a very emotional person and leads with her heart and cares a lot about the people in her life, especially her family, even if it’s hard to express that sometimes. I think she’s bolder than I am, and she’s more of a risk taker, and that was something I thought would be a challenge. But I really enjoyed getting to tap into that part of her, and I learned from her in that way. I stole some of her boldness.Tung used music as a way to help enter her character’s various states of mind. “I listened to a lot of Mitski,” she said.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesI saw that Taylor Swift teased her “Back to December (Taylor’s Version)” song during the latest trailer for the show. Do you have a favorite song of hers you really resonate with?I am a big fan of hers. I used to listen to her earlier albums like “Fearless” and “Speak Now” and “Red.” I had a little CD player and I would listen to them while I was falling asleep. I have a lot of favorite songs. I think an all-time favorite is “You Belong With Me” and then I also love “Everything Has Changed.” Right now I’m listening to “Mirrorball” a lot.What are the dynamics for you with the other actors both on set and off set?I feel so lucky that we all get along so well and that I’ve made some really great friends. Especially in the first season, we played whiffle ball a bunch and we would just go grab dinner whenever we could. We would car-pool together. When we had downtime on set, we would hang out and talk and play cards or chess. The guys loved playing chess on set, which I started to get into as well. It’s fun when you’re just sitting around waiting for the next setup in a scene to just play a quick game. I wasn’t that great, but I had fun.I have to ask — are you on Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah?I always say I am the biggest supporter of Team Belly, forever and always, and I will always stick with that answer because I really do believe that she’s the only one who can make that choice. And if we’re doing our jobs right, I think you can see why she loves both of these boys. Ultimately it’s just about her following her heart. More

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      ‘And Just Like That …’ Season 2, Episode 5 Recap: Meet-Ugly

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      Carrie used to be looking for true love. It’s safe to say that whatever she found in this week’s episode, it was something else.Season 2, Episode 5:In the final scenes of the original “Sex and the City” series, Carrie describes herself as someone who is looking for love. “Real love,” to be specific. “Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.”Flash forward to this week, and it’s safe to say this wasn’t that.In this week’s episode of “And Just Like That …,” Carrie has what I wish I could call a meet-cute with George (Peter Hermann), an urban cyclist and tech entrepreneur, except that it isn’t cute at all. It’s pretty uncomfortable.On the phone with Seema, who is describing the logistics of her new boyfriend’s penis pump, Carrie pauses in shock right in the middle of a bike lane. George, riding at full speed and making no attempt to brake, crashes nearly into her and directly into the sidewalk.“You can’t stop in the middle of a bike lane!” George screams at Carrie, his yell rising to a jerky sounding roar.Understandable? Yes. He is lying broken on the ground because of her. But cute? Charming? Inducing of the romantic warm fuzzies? Not really.Carrie insists on taking George to at least one Olsen twin’s favorite urgent-care center, where she dutifully helps him fill out forms and waits while he is treated for a broken wrist. I would like to say it gets cute from there, but it never really hits that vibe.Apparently still guilt-ridden, and armed with his home address from the medical forms, Carrie pops by George’s place the next day with a stack of soups and her laptop, offering to help him with the “app deck” he so desperately needs to finish before his business partner, Paul (Armando Riesco), yells at him again. (A few clues — his partner’s desperation, his declined credit card at the clinic — misled her into believing he was hard-up for money. Boy, did that turn out to be wrong: Was that a Calder sculpture hanging from his ceiling?)There’s a brush of a wrist. Smiles are exchanged. They kiss — kind of for the heck of it? They seem to lean in not because they’re attracted to each other or feeling some sort of enchantment but because they are both in their mid-50s, single, in a similar tax bracket and might as well.Twice a dalliance like this occurs, and in both cases, Paul busts it up like a jealous frat bro. He can’t have Carrie messing with George’s head when they have decks to messenger! (When was the last time anyone in the tech world required a pitch to be printed instead of emailed? But OK!)When an impromptu FaceTime therapy session with Paul interrupts Tryst No. 2, it’s enough to send Carrie packing. She makes a lame, antiquated crack about George’s being “married” to Paul and leaves, never to return.So what is the point of this short-lived fauxmance? There is no point, which is the point of this episode. The classic Carrie we know was, in fact, always looking for real love. But in her quest for it — as in so many people’s — there are a lot of George-like nothingburgers along the way.Remember “Power Lad,” who lived with his parents? The “good on paper” Dr. Bradley Meego? The list goes on. This episode serves as a reminder that there are far more Georges out there than Bigs and Aidans.Conversely, Miranda and Che remain in a very committed place, though it is becoming more apparent that they are two different people from entirely different worlds. Miranda spent decades as a big shot attorney and mom while Che is riding a new wave of fame and fast money. Now that their honeymoon stage in Los Angeles is over, it’s no surprise that their lifestyles are clashing. Between Che’s after-hours parties and Miranda’s pre-dawn alarm bell, neither seems to be getting more than a couple of hours’ sleep each night, which leads Miranda to take up Nya on her offer of a place to stay.This spare room proves useful when a focus group rips Che’s show — and the authenticity of Che’s character, specifically — to shreds; it seems likely now that Che’s pilot won’t get picked up. Miranda attempts to comfort Che with over-the-top encouragement, but it has the opposite effect. Che wants only a hug and a few days of space. Miranda is out, indefinitely.Elsewhere, Seema decides that a penis pump isn’t a deal breaker and agrees to keep seeing her new beau, Edward (Daniel Cosgrove). When she breaks out a sex device of her own, though, he balks, taking offense that she would recruit anything battery operated for her own pleasure.His objections are overtly misogynistic, of course, and Seema calls that out immediately. Edward huffs and puffs and walks out, and as he shouts at her that it’s “not cool,” she simply turns up the speed, drowning him out.It’s something this franchise has always done well, which is to make insecure men the butt of the joke. If that makes these zeros “disposable,” as a fictional Michiko Kakutani review of Carrie’s book once described her boyfriends, so be it.Things still taking up space in my brain:I really, really don’t ever want to see Harry in that wig again.After the dust that has been kicked up over Jonah Hill’s alleged texts to his ex-girlfriend, which many have characterized as manipulative and controlling, the way in which Herbert criticizes Lisa’s dancing with Anthony hits different. More

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      How Netflix Plans Total Global Domination, One Korean Drama at a Time

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      As “Squid Game” showed, success with audiences around the world can come from a laser focus on local taste.They met in a 20th-floor conference room in Seoul named for one successful project with Korean talent — “Okja,” a 2017 film of one girl’s devotion to a genetically modified super pig — to discuss what they hoped would become another hit.Quickly, the gathering of Netflix’s South Korea team became an unhappy focus group, with a barrage of nitpicks and critiques about the script for a coming-of-age fantasy show.One person said the story line pulled in too many fantastical — and foreign — elements instead of focusing on character and plot. The creative components struck another person as too hard to grasp, and out of touch.Finally, the executive who was championing the project offered a diagnosis: The writer had watched too much Netflix.Inspired by the streaming service’s success in turning Korean-language shows into international hits, the writer wanted this show to go global, too, and thought more far-fetched flourishes would appeal overseas.The fix, the executive said, was the opposite. The script needed to “Koreanize” the show, ground it in local realism and turn some foreign characters into Korean roles.Netflix wants to dominate the entertainment world, but it is pursuing that ambition one country at a time. Instead of creating shows and movies that appeal to all 190 countries where the service is available, Netflix is focusing on content that resonates with a single market’s audience.“When we’re making shows in Korea, we’re going to make sure it’s for Koreans,” said Minyoung Kim, Netflix’s vice president of content in Asia. “When we’re making shows in Japan, it is going to be for the Japanese. In Thailand, it’s going to be for Thai people. We are not trying to make everything global.”Front, a robot doll from the show “Squid Game.” Back, Minyoung Kim, Netflix’s vice president of content in Asia, who brought the show to the world.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesNetflix’s 2023 Emmy nominations — a respectable if not record-breaking haul for the streaming service — tell one story of its ambitions: It received nods Wednesday for its prestige drama “The Crown,” its comedy-drama “Beef” and its reality shows “Love Is Blind” and “Queer Eye.”In addition to that wide spectrum of English-language programming, Netflix’s ambition is to grow in relatively untapped regions like Asia and Latin America, beyond its saturated core markets in the United States and Europe, where subscriber growth is slowing. It is allocating more of its $17 billion annual content budget to expanding its foreign language programming and attracting customers abroad.But the company is also betting that a compelling story somewhere is compelling everywhere, no matter the language. This year, Netflix developed “The Glory,” a binge-worthy revenge saga about a woman striking back against childhood bullies, which cracked the top five most-watched non-English-language TV shows ever on the service. Before that, at one point “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” a feel-good show about a lawyer with autism, was in the weekly Top 10 chart in 54 countries. Last year, 60 percent of Netflix subscribers watched a Korean-language show or movie.The overseas content has also taken on greater significance with the Hollywood writers’ strike, in which Netflix has become a focal point of frustration for the ways streaming services have upended the traditional television model. In April, before the writers went on strike, Ted Sarandos, one of Netflix’s co-chief executives, said that he hoped there wouldn’t be a strike and that he would work toward a fair deal. But he also promised, “We have a large base of upcoming shows and films from around the world,” adding that Netflix had to “make plans” for a worst-case scenario.In building an audience abroad, Netflix has a head start on other major streaming platforms, although Disney and Amazon have announced plans to build their catalogs of international content. In many Asian markets, Netflix is also competing with a local streaming option — often created by broadcasters wary of ceding control to foreign media giants.Asia, Netflix’s fastest-growing region, is a key battleground because customers watch a higher percentage of programming in their native tongues. Netflix already has shows in more than 30 Asian languages.That’s where Ms. Kim, 42, comes in.Ms. Kim joined Netflix in 2016. Her job is, essentially, to help Netflix do something that has never been done before: build a truly global entertainment service with shows in every market, while selling Americans on the appeal of foreign-language content. If she is daunted by the demand, she doesn’t show it.She is chatty and direct, with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Korean television dramas. But perhaps most importantly for her task, she is the woman who gave the Netflix-watching world “Squid Game.”‘Don’t expect miracles’In 2016, Netflix rented Dongdaemun Design Plaza, a Seoul landmark and futuristic exhibition space, for a red-carpet affair featuring the stars of one of its biggest shows at the time: “Orange Is the New Black.”The hors d’oeuvres were served, on theme with the show, on food trays meant to mimic prison. Netflix was arriving in Korea’s entertainment industry with a big splash. But the tongue-in-cheek humor felt inhospitable and culturally out of touch, according to industry people who attended. It left the impression of an American company that did not understand Korea.It was a clumsy start. A few months later, when Ms. Kim began in her role as Netflix’s first content executive in Asia with a focus on South Korea, she warned the company’s executives: “Don’t expect miracles.”Ms. Kim said she needed to make Netflix feel less foreign and sell creators on why they should work with the company.She traveled to visit producers at their offices instead of summoning them to see her. She arranged regular boozy dinners with producers — the custom in South Korea — knowing that it was difficult to gain their trust until they got drunk with her.Over lunch, where she had a steaming bowl of beef offal soup, she described her strategy.“Here, you first have to build a relationship,” Ms. Kim said. “At the time, I think the way we approached things felt very transactional and aggressive. When it comes to Asian partners, oftentimes it’s more than just the money we put on the table.”The 2021 show “Squid Game” became the most-watched show ever on Netflix and spurred interest in more Korean shows and movies.Noh Juhan/NetflixEarly in her tenure, she came across a movie script called “Squid Game” by Hwang Dong-hyuk, a respected local filmmaker. He had written it a decade earlier and could never find a studio to finance it. She said she immediately loved the irony of a gory “death game” thriller based around traditional Korean children’s games. She thought the concept might work better as a TV show, allowing for more character development than a two-hour film.But it seemed like a strange choice for one of her first big bets. Similar titles were in the young-adult genre, such as “The Hunger Games” or “Battle Royale,” a Japanese cult film in which a group of students fight to the death.“Who wants to see a death game with poor old people?” she recalled being asked by a member of her team.But after she saw the set designs, she was convinced that it would be a big hit in Korea. Netflix decided to change the English title to “Round Six” to appeal to an international audience. Near the release date, Mr. Hwang asked to change the title back because he felt that “Squid Game” was closer to the show’s essence.Much to everyone’s surprise, “Squid Game” garnered an enormous number of views in South Korea and across the world. It was a sensation that broke into the cultural zeitgeist, complete with a “Saturday Night Live” skit and Halloween costumes. And Netflix finally threw the right kind of party for the show’s Korean cast: an after-party, after dominating last year’s Emmy Awards.“Squid Game” changed everything. It became the most-watched show ever on Netflix, and it spurred interest in other Korean content. In April, to coincide with a visit to the United States by South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, Netflix said it was planning to invest $2.5 billion in Korean shows and movies in the next four years, which is double its investment since 2016.After decades of Hollywood’s delivering blockbusters to the world, Netflix is trying to flip the model. Mr. Sarandos said that “Squid Game” proved that a hit show could emerge from anywhere and in any language and that the odds of success for a Hollywood show versus an international show were not that different.“That’s really never been done before,” he said at an investor conference in December. “Locally produced content can play big all over the world, so it’s not just America supplying the rest of world content.”‘Green-light rigor’Global expansion requires a guiding principle. For Ms. Kim, that’s “green-light rigor,” a mind-set she brought to Netflix’s office in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, where she moved last year to oversee the content teams in Asia-Pacific except for India. In some Asian countries, she explained, Netflix has a more limited budget, so the company has to select only the “must-haves” and pass on “nice-to-haves.” Green-light rigor also means not pandering to what Netflix imagines viewers across the world want.How that discipline played out in practice was on display when the Japanese content team met to discuss whether to option a book for a show in late January.The book in question was a love story set in a dystopian world with elements of science fiction. A data analyst said that based on the show’s projected “value,” he wondered whether Netflix would recoup its investment because of the sizable budgets usually required for science fiction.Kaata Sakamoto, who heads the Netflix Japanese content team, said the company had helped creators working in their own countries in their own languages reach a global audience.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesKaata Sakamoto, who heads the Japanese content team, said he worried about the mismatched expectations of viewers who might come expecting a romance drama and then find themselves in hard-core science fiction.“It’s like someone who goes into a restaurant and they are served food that is different from what they want to eat,” he said. “If this is a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ tale, do we need a big sci-fi world setting? It feels like mixed soup.”The executive pitching the project said the writer watched “a lot of Netflix” and was aware of what was popular. So instead of a pure love story, he wanted to infuse elements of dystopian science fiction — a popular genre on Netflix.But Mr. Sakamoto, who played an active role in producing some of Netflix’s hits from Japan, seemed unconvinced.“My question is what is it about this project that is uniquely Japanese?” he asked.Netflix’s Tokyo office exudes an American vibe, but very little English is spoken in the creative meetings. This was the case when Mr. Sakamoto met with Shinsuke Sato, creator of “Alice in Borderland,” a science-fiction survival thriller that was Netflix’s biggest hit in Japan, to discuss a coming project.It was a free-flowing discussion that touched on minute details of the project, from character development to plot twists to which scary animals would work best in computer graphics — reptiles could be easier than furry creatures, suggested Akira Mori, a producer who works with Mr. Sato. (“Maybe an alligator?”)Later, Mr. Sakamoto said that in the past, a lot of talented Japanese who were successful in Japan had struggled to break through in Hollywood because they didn’t speak English well.“But what Netflix has allowed is that creators can make work in their own countries in their own language, and if the storytelling is good and the quality is there, they can reach a global audience,” he said. “This is a major game changer.”“Physical: 100,” a gladiator-style game show in which contestants fight for survival and a cash prize, was in the Top 10 of non-English shows for six weeks. NetflixVision come to lifeThe increased expectations are apparent throughout Netflix’s high-rise office in Seoul. The meeting rooms are named after its prominent Korean movies and shows. In the canteen, a human-size replica of the doll from “Squid Game” looms over a selection of Korean snacks and instant noodles.Ms. Kim’s vision of creating a diverse slate of Korean shows has come to life. “Physical: 100,” a gladiator-style game show in which contestants fight for survival and a cash prize, was in the Top 10 of non-English shows for six weeks. This year, at least three Korean shows have been among the top-10 foreign language shows every week.“It’s exciting, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the pressure,” said Don Kang, Netflix’s vice president of content in South Korea, who has succeeded Ms. Kim in overseeing South Korea.Mr. Kang, who is soft-spoken with a baby face, joined in 2018 after heading international sales at CJ ENM, a Korean entertainment conglomerate. When he started, Netflix was still operating out of a WeWork office.He said that before Netflix, he thought there wouldn’t be much international interest in Korean reality shows or shows that weren’t romantic comedies.“I was very happy to be proven wrong,” Mr. Kang said.Netflix’s slate of Korean programs runs the gamut from romantic comedies to dark shows like “Hellbound,” an adaptation of a digital comic book about supernatural beings condemning people to hell. Yeon Sang-ho, the director of “Hellbound,” said such niche content wouldn’t be made by Korean broadcasters because the audience wasn’t big enough to justify the budget.Yeon Sang-ho, director of the Netflix show “Hellbound,” said such niche content wouldn’t be made by Korean broadcasters because the audience wasn’t big enough to justify the budget.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times“Netflix has a worldwide audience, which means that we can try more genres and we can try more nonmainstream things, too,” Mr. Yeon said. “Creators who work with Netflix can now try the risky things that they wanted to do but they weren’t able to.”Netflix’s success has reshaped South Korea’s entertainment industry. TV production budgets have increased as much as tenfold per episode in the last few years, said Lee Young-lyoul, a professor at the Seoul Institute of the Arts, and there is growing concern that domestic broadcasters will struggle to compete.Production companies need Netflix’s investments to hire top writers, directors and actors, creating a “vicious cycle of dependency,” according to “Netflix and Platform Imperialism,” an academic paper published in The International Journal of Communication this year.The extraordinary success of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” highlights the tensions.AStory, the show’s production company, rejected Netflix’s offer to finance the entire second season, because of its previous experience with the service. AStory made “Kingdom,” a hit Korean zombie period show, as a Netflix original, meaning Netflix owned all the show’s intellectual property rights in exchange for paying the full production costs.“While it’s true that Netflix helped the series get popular, our company couldn’t do anything with that,” said Lee Sang-baek, AStory’s chief executive. “There are lots of regrets there.”Mr. Kang said that Netflix had a good relationship with AStory and that the situation was complex. He said Netflix had been “very, very generous” in compensating creators and actors but emphasized the need to grow in a “sustainable” way.“You do sometimes hear those types of concerns: Is Netflix taking too much from our industry? But you can’t be in this business and operate that way,” Mr. Kang said.The production company AStory made “Kingdom,” a hit Korean zombie period show, as a Netflix original.Juhan Noh/Netflix‘Too Hot to Handle’ around the worldOne by one, Ms. Kim rattled off the unique traits of audiences around the region. Korean audiences prefer happy endings in romance. Japanese dramas tend to portray emotion in an understated way. Chinese-language viewers are more accepting of a sad love story. (“The Taiwanese staff always says a romance has to be sad. Somebody has to die.”)Ms. Kim understands that local stories share universal themes, but the key to Netflix’s work is to understand these cultural differences.When Netflix’s “Too Hot to Handle,” a tawdry reality dating show with contestants from the United States and Britain, did well in South Korea and Japan, the company decided to make its own shows in the respective countries. But instead of programs replete with sex and hooking up, Netflix’s versions in South Korea (“Singles Inferno”) and Japan (“Terrace House”) were more suited to local sensibilities: only hints of romance with minimal touching or flirting.Storytelling can also differ. Impressions of the first episode of “Physical: 100” were divided by geography. Ms. Kim said she found that in general, American audiences thought the extensive back stories about the contestants slowed the show. Korean audiences liked the back stories because they wanted to know more about the contestants.Ms. Kim recalled how Netflix’s U.S. executives asked her why the first Squid Game contest did not come until the last 20 minutes of the first episode. She was puzzled, because this was fast for Korean audiences — but not fast enough for American sensibilities. In South Korea, the action often does not start until the fourth episode because shows often follow the cadence of a story arc suited to a 16-episode broadcast TV schedule.Ms. Kim said she thought that audiences would tolerate work that defied their expectations or values when it was foreign, but that it must be authentic when it was local.So far, that philosophy has been successful. “Squid Game” proves that. But it also shows the new challenge that awaits Netflix — once something is a global hit, there are global expectations.Leonardo DiCaprio is a fan, and Mr. Hwang, the writer-director, even teased that the Hollywood A-lister could join the “games,” a boost that most people chasing global domination might find hard to resist. But Netflix did manage it — for now.Last month, when the cast was announced, it featured all Korean actors. More