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      ‘Say Nothing’ Asks: What Would You Do?

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      The FX series strives to capture the complexity of its subject: the long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.The actor Anthony Boyle (“Manhunt,” “Masters of the Air”) grew up in West Belfast. On the way to school he would walk past murals of hunger strikers, of murdered children. He was a child, he said, during “the hangover” of the Troubles, the sectarian conflict between Protestant unionists, who were British loyalists, and Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland that lasted into the late 1990s.“The history is so recent,” he said. “You feel the pressure of it always.”So when the director Mike Lennox (“Derry Girls”) reached out to him about starring in the FX limited series “Say Nothing,” Boyle was hesitant. The nine-episode series is adapted from Patrick Radden Keefe’s nonfiction book “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland,” which is set primarily in Belfast during and after the Troubles. Radden Keefe is American, as is Joshua Zetumer, the showrunner. FX, which produced the series, is a division of Disney Entertainment.All of this gave Boyle pause. In a recent interview, he described his thinking at the time: “When brothers have killed each other over which splinter group of the paramilitary they belong to, a show on Disney isn’t going to get this right.”But reading the scripts convinced Boyle to play Brendan Hughes, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. In “Say Nothing,” which premieres Thursday on Hulu, he stars alongside Lola Petticrew, as Dolours Price; Hazel Doupe, as Marian Price; and Josh Finan, as Gerry Adams.The actors play young versions of these real-life figures, who engage in or sanction acts of violence in pursuit of a political goal. (Adams has consistently denied his involvement with the I.R.A., though Hughes, who died in 2008, and Dolours Price, who died in 2013, both disputed this.) The series captures both the youthful excitement that fighting for a cause can kindle and the devastating reverberations that come after.“It felt like a lot of the questions that were raised were questions that I, as a young adult, have about how we heal and move on from a traumatic recent past,” said Petticrew, who is also from West Belfast.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Late Night Weighs in on Trump’s Cabinet Picks

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      Jimmy Kimmel called President-elect Trump’s choices thus far “a real cast of no character.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Trump Stocks His CabinetLess than a week after winning the election, President-elect Donald J. Trump has begun announcing members of his next cabinet.Jimmy Kimmel called them “a real cast of no character” on Monday, saying they would “soon be hired and then fired by Trump.”“President-elect Trump has named Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, making her the first woman in history to ever have that role. Yeah. She’ll also make history as the first female chief of staff to quit after three weeks and write a tell-all book.” — JIMMY FALLON“Wiles has Trump’s trust because she was his 2024 campaign manager. So she was the mastermind who put Trump in a garbage man costume and had him dance to ‘Ave Maria’ — and it worked. And I don’t know what anything means anymore.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The thing is, Wiles may not be the worst choice for this job, and not just because the worst choice was elected president. Reportedly, reportedly, during the campaign, Wiles worked to keep particularly divisive fringe conservatives out of Trump’s orbit. For instance, she lured Rudy Giuliani away from Trump using a bottle of Cabernet dressed up as a sexy lady.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Former Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York is Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. According to the League of Conservation Voters, of 26 House representatives from New York, Lee Zeldin had the worst record on environmental issues by far — so he’ll be in charge of protecting the environment, of course.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“In a new post to Truth Social, President-elect Trump said that he will not invite former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to join his administration. Well, he did offer her the position of secretary. That’s it — just secretary.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (POTUS Confab Edition)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Allison Tolman of ‘St. Denis Medical’ Knows Her Worth

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      “Hello, baby,” the actress Allison Tolman said to a handsome male. “Look at your mustache.” He crawled into her lap.This was an afternoon in late September and Tolman, a star of the NBC mockumentary “St. Denis Medical,” which premieres on Nov. 12, was at Meow Parlour, a cat cafe on the Lower East Side. Tolman grew up with cats — alongside dogs, lizards and guinea pigs — and has lived with them for the whole of her adult life. “When you have a home, obviously you put a cat in it,” she said.Her Instagram bio reads “Childless Cat Lady” (also “proud member of the Perfect Breast Community” and “Rich Man”) and on her left ring finger she wears two thin gold bands, one engraved with the name of her first cat, Annie, the other with her current cat, Bud.“I just think I’ll always have cats,” she said. “Cats have their own lives, their own things going on.”Tolman, 42, also keeps busy, selectively. She broke out at 32, with the lead role in the first season of the FX drama “Fargo,” and has spent a decade convincing producers that she is a leading lady, not the co-worker, the best friend, the mom. Choosy, she passes on any role that doesn’t seem substantial enough for her or mentions a character’s weight. (That she is considered a plus-size actress even as she is a straight-size woman “doesn’t make me feel insane at all,” she said dryly.)On “St. Denis Medical,” Tolman, with Kahyun Kim, plays the supervising nurse at an under-resourced hospital.Ron Batzdorff/NBCWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Dune: Prophecy,’ Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV this Week

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      Tune into the premiere of the HBO series, see whom Joan Vassos picks for her final rose on “The Bachelorette” and catch up on news.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are available to watch live or stream this week, Nov. 11-17. Details and times are subject to change.Delve into the messy lives of friends and sisters.“My Brilliant Friend,” based on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels about the lifelong friends Elena Greco and Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo, is wrapping up its fourth and final season this week. The story began with the two as young girls in postwar Italy and followed as they grew into adults with very different educations, marriages and professional trajectories. “This is, simply put, one of the most incisive portraits of a lifelong relationship ever made for TV,” James Poniewozik wrote in his review of this season for The New York Times. Monday at 9 p.m. on HBO.You know the Chicks’ comically gleeful yet somehow empowering murder ballad “Goodbye Earl”? Sharon Horgan’s “Bad Sisters” is kind of like that but a TV show. The first season covered the death of John Paul, the abusive husband of one of the sisters, as the story flipped between two timelines — before, when the sisters were plotting his death, and after, when they were dealing with a life insurance investigation. The second season begins with the guilt of what they each did creeping up in surprising ways. Available to stream on Wednesday on Apple TV+.From left: Eva Birthistle, Sharon Horgan, Eve Hewson and Sarah Greene in “Bad Sisters.”Apple TV+Will you join me for a dance? And then accept my rose?Though “Dancing with the Stars” took a break last week — for some major political event or something? — it is back for its 500th episode. Joey Graziadei, Ilona Maher, Stephen Nedoroscik, Chandler Kinney, Dwight Howard and Danny Amendola are among the stars still in the competition. To celebrate the long-running show, they will each perform a dance inspired by memorable past “D.W.T.S.” performances. Tuesday on ABC and streaming on Disney+ at 8 p.m.From left: Danny Amendola, Witney Carson, Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson on “Dancing with the Stars.”Disney/Christopher WillardWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘S.N.L.’ Cast Makes Its Case to Stay off Trump’s Enemies List

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      The show parodied its own history of mawkish self-seriousness in an episode that often avoided the topic of the presidential election.A serious development in current events can sometimes leave “Saturday Night Live” unable to make any satirical comment on it, and that was briefly how it appeared the show might react to the re-election this week of former President Donald J. Trump.This weekend’s broadcast began with seeming solemnity, as a group of “S.N.L.” cast members, including Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson and Heidi Gardner, took note of Trump’s presidential election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, who had made a surprise cameo on “S.N.L.” just last week.“To many people,” Nwodim said, “including many people watching this show right now, the results were shocking and even horrifying.”Gardner continued, “Donald Trump, who tried to forcibly overturn the results of the last election, was returned to office by an overwhelming majority.”Thompson said, “This is the same Donald Trump who openly called for vengeance against his political enemies.”Now, said Yang, “thanks to the Supreme Court, there are no guard rails.” Nwodim added that there would be “nothing to protect the people who are brave enough to speak out against him. “We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kaley Cuoco Drifts Off to Episodes of ‘Dateline’

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      The actress returns for Season 2 of the dark comedy “Based on a True Story” as the true-crime aficionado Ava.When Kaley Cuoco learned she was pregnant before shooting began on the first season of the dark comedy “Based on a True Story,” her character, Ava — a true-crime aficionado on the trail of a serial killer — was given a quick rewrite and became an expectant mother, too.Not surprisingly, when Cuoco chafed at the rituals of new motherhood, that wound up in the story line for Season 2 (out Nov. 21 on Peacock), which finds Ava on the scent of a copycat murderer.“A lot of this came from my own actual experiences of the first six months of being with my kid and despising some of the Mommy and Me classes,” said Cuoco, who had never worked with a baby on camera. “It was new for Ava, it was new for Kaley.”She lives in Thousand Oaks, Calif., with her partner, the actor Tom Pelphrey, and their daughter Matilda. Motherhood has required Cuoco to re-evaluate and compartmentalize.“This is the first time in my whole life that I’ve thought about anyone else but myself when it comes to work,” said Cuoco, who for 12 seasons played Penny on “The Big Bang Theory,” and appeared as Cassie for two on “The Flight Attendant,” earning three Emmy nominations. “You think of it as these kind of mini-moments,” she said of the three months of shooting “Based on a True Story,” during which she saw Matilda mostly on weekends.“But that’s part of it. You commit to that moment in time,” Cuoco added before elaborating on her devotion to rescue animals, Sharky’s rice and bean burritos, and “Dateline.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Faced a Pitiless Terrain: Adapting Anything ‘Dune’

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      The novels were famously tough to adapt until Denis Villeneuve came along. Can an HBO prequel about the origins of the Bene Gesserit follow suit?For over 50 years, Frank Herbert’s best-selling science-fiction novel “Dune” was a puzzle no one in show business seemed able to solve. Published in 1965, the book had inspired a shelf full of sequels and prequels — along with scores of imitators — yet it defied every attempt to turn it into a blockbuster film or TV series.In the 1970s, the beloved avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky spent two years and millions of dollars developing a movie and never shot a single frame. David Lynch tried next, but the resulting film, released in 1984, was a personal and box-office catastrophe. The story’s vastness and exoticism proved as perilous to storytellers as the fictional planet Arrakis, whose hostile deserts inspired the franchise’s name.When the HBO series “Dune: Prophecy” was announced, in 2019, its prospects seemed just as murky. Indeed the production struggled to find its footing. By the premiere, it will have seen four showrunners, three lead directors and high-level cast changes — not to mention a pandemic and two crippling industry strikes.But then in 2021, the French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, who was set to direct the pilot, released Part 1 of his two-part adaptation of “Dune.” Critics were ecstatic, and the film grossed over $400 million worldwide. Suddenly a “Dune” franchise looked viable. Villeneuve’s team had offered a blueprint for other creators to work from, tonally, aesthetically and narratively. (The studios behind the film, Legendary and Warner, which owns HBO, are also behind the series.)Perhaps more important, there was now a huge audience that had never read Herbert’s famously dense novels but had become invested in the story and characters. The resounding critical and financial success of “Dune: Part Two,” released in February, indicates viewers are still invested in the franchise.“I think Denis really unlocked this universe for people in a way that was relatable,” said Alison Schapker, a “Westworld” veteran who took over as the sole showrunner of “Dune: Prophecy” in 2022. “He grounded it. We wanted to tell a story that takes place in that universe.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jimmy Fallon Relays Biden’s Promise of a Peaceful Transfer of Power

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      “Democrats were like, ‘Well, I guess at this point we can let him speak again,’” the “Tonight Show” host said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Getting Back UpPresident Biden spoke from the White House on Thursday, promising a peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Donald J. Trump in January.“Democrats were like, ‘Well, I guess at this point we can let him speak again,’” Jimmy Fallon said.“During his speech, Biden said, ‘You can’t love your country only when you win.’ Yeah. Then he said, ‘But since I didn’t win or lose, I can do whatever the hell I want.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Biden also tried to comfort Democrats by saying, ‘The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up.’ Then Biden said, ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take a nap.’” — JIMMY FALLON“But he said ‘The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up’ is based on a quote from his favorite British poet, Chumbawamba.” — JIMMY FALLON“He only spoke for a few minutes — didn’t want to miss the Showcase Showdown on ‘Price is Right.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The president gave a gracious speech. He told the nation, ‘You can’t love your country only when you win,’ which got a huge laugh in the lunchroom at Mar-a-Lago.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“We’re going to be talking about Trump again every day for another four years, I guess. And I, for one, did not think that when I came out of the jungles of Malaysia to do comedy that I would be making jokes about Donald Trump every day for 13 years straight. Thirteen years! I don’t talk about anybody as much — I don’t talk about my mom as much as I talk about this guy. I don’t talk about my wife as much as I talk about this guy. My wife thinks I’m having an emotional affair with him. I’m going to be talking about this guy on my [expletive] deathbed, OK? Which I assume will be in three years, when he somehow brings back the bubonic plague.” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Expat Edition)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More