Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Television

      ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6, Episode 13 Recap: Life

      by

      In the series finale, Jimmy and Saul go to war. Kim flies across the country, twice.And so we leave the flawed and conflicted hero of our story, in ADX Montrose, a.k.a. “The Alcatraz of the Rockies,” the maximum security prison where he will serve an 86-year sentence for a wide assortment of felonies. There he will bake bread and, one imagines, dispense endless amounts of free legal advice for the rest of his days.If this ending surprised you, take comfort in this fact: It surprised Saul Goodman, too. Or rather, it was the result of a decision that managed somehow to seem both determined and out of the blue. For a few minutes of this series finale, after negotiations with prosecutors that included a master class in legal posturing, Saul Goodman appeared headed toward a mere seven-and-a-half-year stint at a (relatively) comfortable federal penitentiary with, we are told, a golf program.It was a sweetheart deal based on a version of his working relationship with Walter White that was utterly fanciful, one in which he was a victim of the deceased meth king, not his most important enabler. Though patently far-fetched, Saul needs to sell it to just one juror, as he tells the lead federal prosecutor, George Castellano (Bob Jesser). And after giving government lawyers a look at how effectively he can feign victimhood, the government signs on. It appears as though what we have is the tale of a man who, in the end, is untroubled by his conscience, or at least able to quiet that conscience long enough to wangle the bare minimum of punishment for his many sins.But that is not the end of the story. When Saul hears that his ex-wife, Kim Wexler, has confessed to the authorities about her role in the death of Howard Hamlin and faces a potentially ruinous lawsuit from Howard’s widow, he changes his mind. In the ultimate reverse Perry Mason moment, Saul confesses to everything in open court, defying both an incredulous judge and his stupefied co-counsel, dooming himself to life behind bars.The volte-face leaves our protagonist with a very different legacy. “Better Call Saul” has long been a character study, and the character was forever toggling between shades of good and bad. As Jimmy McGill, he had a peerless gift for con artistry and a conscience. His morals were forever at war with his principal talent — swindling people, for money or fun and sometimes both.Then he became Saul Goodman, and the conscientious side of Jimmy disappeared. He became a very entertaining scoundrel.The finale and the last few episodes were designed to keep viewers wondering which of these two — Jimmy or Saul — would have the upper hand. Saul seemed likely to win, in part because the rapacious side of Jimmy and Saul kept getting highlighted. Especially in this episode.In different scenes, three characters from earlier parts of this show and “Breaking Bad” turn up to take a final bow and to help Jimmy riff on the theme of regret and second chances. To Mike, in dialogue set during their near-death march through the desert in Season 5, Jimmy says that given a time machine, he would teleport back to 1965 so he could invest early in Warren Buffett’s epochal moneymaking run at Berkshire Hathaway.“That’s it? Money?” Mike says incredulously.Jimmy looks ready to admit to something more meaningful but lets the moment pass.When he has a time-machine talk with Walter White, as the two share an underground apartment and await new identities, he says he would like the chance to avoid a knee injury he sustained during a “slip-n-fall” scam when he was young.“So you were always like this,” Walter says with disgust.And when Chuck, his older brother, says, “If you don’t like where you’re headed, there’s no shame in going back and changing your path,” Jimmy seems unmoved.“When have you ever changed your path?” he retorts.None of this makes him sound like a guy ready for a moral reckoning. And, of course, the dark version of Jimmy-Saul seemed ascendant in recent episodes. In Omaha, we watched his on-the-lam persona, Gene Takavic, devolve into what might have been the most contemptible version of his character we have ever seen. In the penultimate episode Gene/Saul seemed ready to strangle Carol Burnett (OK, she’s Marion in the show, but she’s still Carol Burnett) with a phone cord.So why does Jimmy trump Saul in the end? Why does he opt for a lifetime of punishment? Part of the answer is love. Love for Kim, specifically. His fake offer to the feds to provide dirt on his ex is, we learn, a ruse to make sure she is in the courtroom to watch him redeem himself.There’s some symmetry here. He becomes the toxic version of Saul because of Kim. He returns to the morally fastidious version of Jimmy for the same reason. In the next to last scene, the two are sharing a cigarette, just as they did at the beginning of their legal careers.Of course, love can’t fully explain the decision to choose 86 years of prison. Jimmy has opted for light over darkness, and that means giving himself the sentence he thinks he deserves. Sound improbable? Keep in mind that Jimmy/Gene has often lurched between good and bad, at moments and in ways that feel unpredictable. Which might be his defining quality and the only reason that the writers could pull the final switcheroo in this episode. It’s a narrative cliché that character is destiny, and Jimmy/Saul’s true character was a coin toss until the end. And thus, so too was his destiny.As for Kim, she is going to manage. She seems ready to leave her sprinkler company job to work again as a public defender. True love, however, might not be in the cards. She was never more amorous than when she and Jimmy were fleecing a mark. But if she finds another con man, she might avoid him the way alcoholics avoid booze.There is much to hash over in this episode but space for only one last question: What is the final verdict on “Better Call Saul”?Here’s Your Faithful Recapper’s take: it was occasionally a great show that was more often a pretty good show and too often a dull show. It got bogged down in story lines — everything involving Chuck, most notably — that were happily forgotten. It had trouble modulating its tone. There were goofy elements to the scheme to frame Howard, for instance, which felt out of place even before the guy was murdered. There were a few too many elaborate cons. And the writers seemed to relish their willingness to let Jimmy McGill’s biography unfold at its own sometimes glacial pace, ignoring the pace viewers might have preferred.The show was always an odd contraption. It had spare parts bolted on from “Breaking Bad,” and it told the story of cartel life before Walter White in segments that were often the most gripping in an episode. (Big round of applause for Hector, Gus, Nacho and Lalo.) It created two completely different planets and allowed them to cross orbits very rarely, albeit to thrilling effect. (Consider the restaurant meeting between Mike and Kim.) The writers gave themselves a nearly impossible task: to tell a story about love and ethics that kept being interrupted by a bunch of cunning and heavily armed sociopaths.In the end, what shines brightest to Your Faithful Recapper is the psychological richness of the show’s characters. One could argue over their motivations as if they were real people; their actions were often ambiguous enough for viewers to debate. Also, the show was always beautifully directed and shot. (Remember those ants swarming over sidewalk ice cream in Episode 3 of Season 5?) Attention to detail yielded all manner of Easter egg for vigilant viewers. (The same banal, hotel room painting appears in both “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” In this episode, Jimmy/Saul flies on Wayfarer, the same airline that suffers a mid-air collision in “Breaking Bad.”) And there was a lot of exceptional dialogue, ranging from poignant to hilarious. You often watched and thought, “Nobody on television writes this well.”Or showcases such superb acting. Jonathan Banks’s performance in Episode 6 of Season 1, which tells the back story of Mike Ehrmantraut, is just one of many standout performances. Then there’s Rhea Seehorn’s Sphinx-like style since she first appeared, which provided a wallop to her tearful catharsis in last week’s episode. Oh, and a hat tip to Betsy Brandt, who turns up in the finale and gives what is arguably Marie Schrader’s finest soliloquy.That’s all from Your Faithful Recapper, who will sign off with that pretend-gun double draw farewell and take a shot of tequila, the show’s tipple of choice, in tribute. Now it’s your turn. In the comments section, opine on this episode and the entire series. Also, nominate a character, or set of characters, who should get the next spin off so we can do this all over again. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      ‘Five Days at Memorial’ Tells the Harrowing Story of a Deadly Choice

      by

      A new scripted series on Apple TV+ dramatizes the crisis faced by a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina, as the waters and the death toll rose.It was tense and sweaty on the set of “Five Days at Memorial,” the new Apple TV+ limited series about systemic and personal failure at a New Orleans hospital in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The cast, emotionally invested and physically drained, was wiped out.It was time to play some Mafia.The freewheeling, ice-breaking role-playing game, which also goes by the name Werewolf, is a favorite of Cornelius Smith Jr., who plays the distraught Dr. Bryant King in “Memorial.” He brings it out whenever bonding is in order, and to hear the “Memorial” cast tell it, they would have wilted if they hadn’t come together when the cameras stopped rolling.“It was really extraordinary because here we were telling this story that is not all smiles — it’s a very deep story, a very troubling story, a very heavy story,” Smith said in a video interview from Washington, D.C., where he was playing Frederick Douglass in the musical “American Prophet.” “So it was nice to be able to counter that with a very joyous relationship and spending quality time with castmates and really developing a bond off-camera.”The eight-episode “Five Days at Memorial,” premiering Friday, can indeed be tough sledding. Based on the 2013 book by Sheri Fink, which was adapted from her Pulitzer-winning investigative article for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, it tells the story of Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, where 45 bodies were found in Katrina’s aftermath, in September 2005. (Sold in 2006, the hospital is now Ochsner Baptist Medical Center).“We didn’t want to dictate how people should feel about this story,” said Carlton Cuse (left, with Jessica B. Hill and Cornelius Smith Jr.), a creator of the series. “We didn’t want to take a side.”Sophie Giraud/Apple TV+The hospital had been flooded, its power and generators knocked out. Chaos reigned. Several health providers on the scene raised concerns that patients had been given lethal injections during the evacuation process.Both book and series depict the Memorial crisis as a series of impossible decisions, made by flawed individuals under unimaginable pressure, and complete systemic breakdown. In this sense, it’s a microcosm of Katrina, which had a death toll of more than 1,800 people.In a video interview, Fink, who was also a producer on the series, pointed out that the hospital had a 101-page bioterrorism plan. This was, after all, the post-9/11 era. But there was no emergency plan in place for evacuating over water.“I really hope that people watch the series and engage in thinking hard about the consequences of a failure to invest in preparedness for rare, but potentially catastrophic and very foreseeable circumstances,” Fink said in a video call. “A hurricane and a flood in New Orleans were very foreseeable.”Indeed, the levels of failure involved in the Memorial disaster, and Katrina in general, were staggering.“When you have this kind of systemic failure, it’s also a mechanical failure,” said John Ridley, who created the series with Carlton Cuse (“Lost,” “Bates Motel”). “It’s an electronic failure. And it’s a human failure. You’ve got to look at how humans interact in the systems we build.”In the hurricane’s immediate aftermath, hospital administrators did the equivalent of a victory lap and heaved a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, the levees, which had begun failing almost immediately, got progressively worse. Then the severe floods came. (Readers unfamiliar with what happened next may want to stop reading now.)The show depicts several Memorial staff members, including Dr. Anna Pou (played by Vera Farmiga), making plans to provide “comfort” for patients who they have determined would be difficult to evacuate, in the form of injections. Someone, you keep thinking, has to pay for this. But nobody does. (Pou, along with the nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo, played by Sharron Matthews and Sarah Allen, were later arrested on multiple counts of principal to second-degree murder but were never indicted by a grand jury.)“There was incompetence on every level of leadership,” Farmiga said of the failures at Memorial Medical Center. But she also defended her character’s commitment to help.Russ Martin/Apple TV+Viewers are likely to feel outrage at some of the events depicted. The series creators, however, argue that thirsting for revenge is pointless. To them, it was an impossible situation, with no clear-cut villains.“We didn’t want to dictate how people should feel about this story — we didn’t want to take a side,” Cuse said in a video interview. “I’m curious to see where people come out about all of this and what kinds of different opinions people have about how things went down.”One character who definitely has an opinion is King. He takes a look around and determines that something is rotten at Memorial. He seethes at the idea of lethal injections.He is also among a handful of Black doctors at the hospital — and the only one on duty during the crisis. He can see that most of the people affected by the breakdown are Black, as are most of the people seeking help who are turned away. King is acutely aware of this, even as it unfolds.“I like to say race is another character in the series,” Smith said. “It’s there whether you want to acknowledge it or not. It plays a role in how we all perceive things in life.”“They’re in New Orleans,” he added. “It’s a predominantly African American community. And what he experiences is clearly, to him, outlined by race. That’s what he’s seeing.”Farmiga acknowledged that human failure was rampant. “There was incompetence on every level of leadership,” she said in a video call. But she also defended Pou’s commitment to help. The surgeon reported for hurricane duty despite being told that other doctors could look after her patients.“She was motivated by humanitarian aid,” Farmiga said. “She chose to face those intolerable conditions. That takes an extraordinary amount of courage.”Much of the series was shot in an enormous, custom-made water tank, just outside Toronto, as a way to recreate the flooding at the hospital. Sophie Giraud/Apple TV+“Five Days at Memorial” was initially optioned to be a movie by the producer Scott Rudin, and then by the producer Ryan Murphy, who planned to use it for his “American Crime Story” anthology series. When Murphy scrapped those plans, Cuse came calling, won Fink over and approached Ridley to be his partner.Fink liked the idea of making “Memorial” into a limited series, with the time and commitment to present a detailed and balanced adaptation.“It just seemed like a great way to tell this story, because if it were done in a movie, there wouldn’t be enough time to bring out all of the nuance,” she said. “It is a long and detailed book, a work of journalism that took many years.” (Fink, who was a staff reporter at ProPublica when her article was published, is now a domestic correspondent for The New York Times.)Cuse is well aware of the parallels to a more recent health crisis. He remembers his partner, Ridley, reminding him of the adage that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And so “Five Days of Memorial” went into production amid the global health crisis of Covid-19, a crisis for which many argue the United States was ill prepared.“Instead of the question of who’s going to get on a helicopter to evacuate, we’re dealing with who gets a respirator or who gets a vaccine or who gets a monoclonal antibody,” Cuse said.Some of “Memorial” was shot in New Orleans, but much of it was shot in a custom-made, four-million-gallon water tank just outside Toronto. Cast and crew had to quarantine upon entering Canada from the United States because of the pandemic. It was a stressful process, and a prelude to a stressful shoot.They knew, however, that unlike the characters they portrayed, they would return to their ordered lives when their work was done — that they were ultimately playing make believe. And they knew they needed to get it right.“I felt an enormous sense of responsibility to the people of New Orleans, to the survivors,” Farmiga said. “It’s their heartache. It’s their trauma. It’s their story.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘House of the Dragon’ and U.S. Gymnastic Championships

      by

      HBO airs the “Game of Thrones” spinoff. Olympians Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles compete in the women’s gymnastic field.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, Aug. 15-21. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBETTER CALL SAUL 9 p.m. on AMC. The sixth and final season of this “Breaking Bad” prequel spinoff is finishing up its 13-episode arc on Monday, which came after a two-year break and an on-set health scare for Bob Odenkirk, who plays Saul Goodman. This episode will tie up lots of loose ends from an unexpected turn of events. The New York Times reporter David Segal wrote in last week’s episode recap that “the show has ditched the idea that this is a narrative about love. The show will culminate, it seems, by posing questions about fairness and justice and maybe mercy.”TuesdayAidan Turner in “Leonardo.”Lux Vide/CWLEONARDO 8 p.m. on the CW. After a successful first season run of this show in Europe and Canada, it is coming to the U.S. via the CW. The series stars Aidan Turner as a young Leonardo da Vinci in a fictional version of the real painter’s life. The first episode centers on Leonardo being arrested for poisoning Caterina de Cremona (which, for the record, did not happen in real life). The series also stars Matilda De Angelis and Freddie Highmore.DARK SIDE OF COMEDY 9 p.m. on VICE. This original series from VICE is addressing how the unexpected fame, societal pressures and internal battles that come along with being a notable comedian can have an impact on addiction or depression. Each episode will feature a comedian who has battled with mental health struggles or died of suicide. The first episode features Chris Farley, the “Saturday Night Live” comedian who died at 33 from an overdose of cocaine and morphine in 1997. Other episodes in this 10-episode series will feature Andrew Dice Clay, Roseanne Barr and Artie Lange.WednesdayTHE OLD MAN AND THE SEA (1958) 6:30 p.m. on TCM. This film, based on the Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name, is about a Cuban fisherman (Spencer Tracy), his 14-year-old friend Manolin (Felipe Pazos Jr.) and the fisherman’s three-day battle with a huge marlin fish. “It is an impressive ordeal, as ordeals in catching fish go, and Mr. Tracy represents it in an admirably rugged, stubborn way,” the New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote in his 1958 review of the film. “He looks convincingly ancient, with lank white hair and stubbly beard, and he performs with the creaky, painful movements of a weary, stiff-jointed old man.”ThursdayJeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz in “The Bourne Legacy.”Mary Cybulski/Universal PicturesTHE BOURNE LEGACY (2012) 6:42 p.m. on STARZ. This movie is the fourth in the franchise — with “The Bourne Identity” (2002), “The Bourne Supremacy” (2004) and “The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007) coming before. This movie does not actually feature the titular C.I.A. agent Jason Bourne because Matt Damon, who plays him, did not sign on. Instead, Jeremy Renner stars as the rogue spy Aaron Cross, who, having survived an assassination attempt, is on the run after Jason Bourne exposed black-ops programs to the public.FridayNEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS: SUPERSPREADER 10 p.m. on FX. This documentary series from FX in collaboration with The Times, which has included “Controlling Britney Spears” and “The Killing on Breonna Taylor,” is back with a new episode on Friday. This new episode takes a look at Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician in Florida, who has faced scrutiny and government regulatory action after spreading false information about the Covid-19 vaccine and instead recommending unproved and dangerous alternative treatments which benefits him financially. The episode will simultaneously air on FX and be available to stream on Hulu.Nathan Fielder in “The Rehearsal.”HBOTHE REHEARSAL 11 p.m. on HBO. With a six-episode arc, Nathan Fielder’s new show is wrapping up its first season. In this show, his follow-up to “Nathan For You,” Fielder directs rehearsals of staged scenarios featuring ordinary people to prepare them for the future events. “The show has a philosophical core: Is it ever possible to truly understand another person?” The Times’s television critic James Poniewozik wrote in his review of the show. “And there’s a tender, even beautiful side to its surreal moments.”SaturdayGASLIGHT (1944) 9 p.m., on PBS (check local listings). This spooky film noir, directed by George Cukor, stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula, a young woman who returns to her deceased aunt’s home in London with her new husband, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). Strange, unexplainable things happen in the house, but Gregory, who is not who he says he is, tries to convince Paula that it is all in her imagination and that she is hysterical. The verb “to gaslight” — to psychologically manipulate a person into questioning her own sanity — derives from this movie, J. Hoberman explained in his 2019 article in The Times.SundayU.S. GYMNASTIC CHAMPIONSHIPS 7 p.m. on NBC. The 2022 U.S. Gymnastics Championships are happening this week at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fl., and Sunday is the last day to watch the competition live. Olympians Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles will likely lead the women’s field and Yul Moldauer and Shane Wiskus will compete against Brody Malone as he tries to defend his 2021 title. With the 2024 Paris Olympics less than two years away, this championship acts as a preview for that competition. The gymnasts will participate in the all-around and apparatus competitions.HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 9 p.m. on HBO. Though “Game of Thrones” has been off the air for three years, this prequel spinoff, based on George R.R. Martin’s novel “Fire & Blood,” is set 200 years before. “Dragon” also features a new cast as warring factions of the Targaryen family: Matt Smith as Prince Daemon, Paddy Considine as King Viserys and Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra. “The trick here is, you don’t want to just remake the original show,” Casey Bloys, the HBO chief content officer, said in a recent interview with The Times. “You want to make a show that feels related and honors the original, but also feels like its own.” More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Anne Heche Is Brain-Dead After Crash, Representative Says

      by

      The actress, 53, was being kept on life support while it was being determined if her organs could be donated, the representative said.The actress Anne Heche, who had been in a coma since a car crash last week, has been declared brain-dead and is being kept on life-support to see if her organs are viable for donation, one of her representatives said Friday.Ms. Heche, 53, was critically injured on Aug. 5 when she crashed the Mini Cooper she was driving into a home in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, the authorities said. She sustained a severe anoxic brain injury and was being treated at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital, according to a statement released on behalf of her family and friends Thursday night.“It has long been her choice to donate her organs and she is being kept on life support to determine if any are viable,” the statement said.The declaration of brain death had come Thursday night but “her heart is still beating” on life support, the representative, Holly Baird, said Friday. The search for possible organ recipients could take a few days, even as Ms. Heche’s family and friends put out statements of grief.“Today we lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul, a loving mother, and a loyal friend,” her friends and family said in a statement released by Ms. Baird. “Anne will be deeply missed but she lives on through her beautiful sons, her iconic body of work, and her passionate advocacy.”The crash started a fire that took 59 firefighters more than an hour to extinguish, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Ms. Heche was the only person in the car, the authorities said.Jeff Lee, a public information officer with the Los Angeles Police, said an initial blood sample drawn from Ms. Heche at the hospital had revealed “the presence of drugs” but did not say what kind. He said a second test was needed to rule out any substances administered by hospital staff but those results could take “weeks.”In 1991, Ms. Heche won a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding younger actress in a drama series, for playing good and evil twins on the NBC soap opera “Another World.”She starred in several popular Hollywood films in the late 1990s, including “Donnie Brasco,” “Wag the Dog” and “Six Days Seven Nights.” She continued to have television roles, including on “Men in Trees” in 2006 and “Hung” in 2009, and performed on Broadway, starring in “Proof” in 2002 and “Twentieth Century” in 2004, for which she received a Tony nomination.In his review of “Twentieth Century,” Ben Brantley of The Times wrote of Ms. Heche’s portrayal of Lily Garland, “Her posture melting between serpentine seductiveness and a street fighter’s aggressiveness, her voice shifting between supper-club velvet and dime store vinyl, Ms. Heche summons an entire gallery of studio-made sirens from the Depression era: Jean Harlow, the pre-mummified Joan Crawford and, yes, Carole Lombard, who famously portrayed Lily in Howard Hawks’s screen version of ‘Twentieth Century.’”She has several projects that are in postproduction, according to IMDb, including “Supercell,” a movie with Alec Baldwin, and the HBO show “The Idol.” She had recently finished filming on “Girl in Room 13,” a Lifetime movie that is scheduled to premiere in September, Variety reported.Vimal Patel More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      Dolly Alderton’s ‘Everything I Know About Love’ Is Adapted for TV

      by

      The writer has turned her memoir, “Everything I Know About Love,” into a TV show, which plots its central friendship like a grand love story.LONDON — Dolly Alderton peered through the window of her old house in Camden Town, squinting to see inside the kitchen. She had last visited the tree-lined street in London the year before, “with my mates when we were drunk,” she said. When she asked the current tenants if she could look inside, “they said, ‘Did you write a book about living here?’” she recalled. It was, apparently, the first thing the landlord mentioned when advertising the property.On that visit, the 33-year-old writer had been in the midst of turning that memoir, “Everything I Know About Love,” into a TV show, which premieres in the United States on Peacock on Aug. 25. Both iterations are set in this area of North London — known for its rich rock ’n’ roll history and graffitied canal — where Alderton lived for almost 10 years, and which she jokingly described as “the second-most visited tourist destination in London after Buckingham Palace.”During that decade, Alderton worked as a story producer on the British reality TV show “Made in Chelsea,” wrote a dating column and created a hit podcast, “The High Low,” with the journalist Pandora Sykes. But what defined the period for Alderton was being single, in her 20s and living with friends.When it came to adapting her memoir for the screen, Alderton realized that readers connected with how she had framed her relationship with Farly Kleiner, her childhood best friend, as “epic and grand and romantic” — a love story. In the series, the two are fictionalized as Maggie (Emma Appleton) and Birdy (Bel Powley). With the show’s “ups and downs, tensions and silliness, surprise and excitement,” Alderton said, the seven episodes plot the narrative arc of their relationship like a romantic comedy.Alderton said that she saw Maggie, played by Emma Appleton in the show, “as someone who is 10 tracing paper copies away from me.”Matt Squire/PeacockMaggie’s more sensible best friend, C is based on Farly Kleiner, Alderton’s own childhood best friend.Matt Squire/PeacockWorking Title Films, which made rom-coms like “Notting Hill,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Love Actually” — acquired the film and TV rights for the memoir in 2017, when the book was still at the proposal stage.Eric Fellner, the production company’s co-chairman, also optioned “Bridget Jones” from Helen Fielding’s book. When he read “Everything I Know About Love,” he “thought, this writer has got a similar connection to an audience that Helen Fielding had all those years ago,” he said in a recent phone interview, “and maybe this is the millennial version.” Both writers, he added, “can look at their generation in a brilliantly humorous way.”At a cafe in Primrose Hill, Alderton said that for her generation, “sincerity has become unfashionable” and that coming of age in the 2010s meant growing up in “a very cynical time.” It is against this backdrop that “Everything I Know About Love” is set, in 2012 — “literally the year Camden stopped being cool,” Alderton added. ‌Rebecca Lucy Taylor, better known as the pop star Self Esteem, was in an indie band at that time. She contributed three songs to the show’s soundtrack, and said the episodes were “so evocative of the ever-competitive alt scene, where everyone is trying to seem like they’re not trying.”Birdy, Maggie and their two housemates, Amara (Aliyah Odoffin) and Nell (Marli Siu), are all “provincial or suburban” and “on the fringes of everything — in not a good way,” Alderton said. When they arrive in Camden, all four are ravenous for some big city experience.This lack of urban initiation is what distinguishes Alderton’s characters from their more aspirational forebears in shows like “Sex and the City” and even “Girls.” Alderton once pined for the glamour of the big city, too, she said. She grew up in Stanmore, a “comfortable” and “beige-carpeted” suburb of North London, she said, where “the buses are slow and infrequent.” As children, she and Kleiner would circle a single cul-de-sac on their scooters, and wander around the shopping mall without ever buying anything. “All we did was talk and dream,” Alderton said, adding that the lack of stimuli gave her brain “an Olympic workout for imagination.”Alderton spent nearly a decade living in the Camden area of London, a period she turned into a best-selling memoir.Ellie Smith for The New York TimesNow, Alderton is one of Britain’s best-known millennial writers. Between her memoir, podcast, a recent novel and her gig as an agony aunt for a British newspaper, many young British women see her as the trusted voice of a close friend.“There’s always women running up to her wanting to talk to her,” said Cherish Shirley, a writer and story consultant on “Everything I Know About Love.” Most days, Alderton said, she meets “amazing, generous, lovely girls” in bars, bookstores or bathrooms who want to talk. “Because I opened up a channel of communication,” she said, “they speak very intimately back to me.”But after the paperback edition of “Everything I Know About Love” came out in 2019, the amount of attention began to feel “unmanageable,” she said. Alderton moved back to her parents’ house for six weeks to spend some time being “really small and really quiet and really hidden away,” she said.For the first time in her career, she also began putting more distance between herself and her work. In adapting her memoir for television, she said she chiseled the show’s protagonist into a character who was less self-aware, and less precocious, than herself.“I see Maggie as someone who is 10 tracing paper copies away from me,” Alderton said. Another divergence from the book is the addition of characters of color, including Amara, a Black British dancer. “Criticism of the book — that I fully accept — is that it was very white,” she said. This was another reason she made the show “semi-fictional,” she said, and Shirley added that Alderton was intentional in bringing together “a mixed group of women from all sorts of backgrounds” to form the show’s writers room, and fill out its world with authentic, diverse characters.Clockwise from left, Birdy (Powley), Amara (Aliyah Odoffin), Nell (Marli Siu) and Maggie (Appleton) in their shared kitchen during a scene from the show.Matt Squire/PeacockIn March, three months before the show premiered on the BBC in Britain, Alderton had “a big wobble” about being thrust into the spotlight again, she said. Surian Fletcher-Jones, an executive producer on the show, instructed her to get “match fit.” Alderton said she stopped drinking for a while, and also started a course of cognitive behavioral therapy, billing the sessions to the production.Simon Maloney, a producer who also worked on Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You,” emphasized the importance of providing support for female showrunners who draw heavily from their personal experiences, Alderton said. “You can’t drag the story out of a woman like that, and then leave her alone,” she remembered him saying.Alderton described herself as “an oversharer,” but these days, she thinks carefully about how that sharing should take place, and posts less on social media. ‌“What I now realize,” she said, “is people don’t need to go into forensic detail of their emotional lives to get people to like, and then relate, to them.”Fellner revealed Alderton had a studio deal for a film adaptation of her fiction debut, “Ghosts.” She is also researching a novel about heartbreak and loss. “The work I do in fiction is still very exposing,” Alderton said, because it continues to reference her life, even if she is no longer the main character.“That’s enough of my heart, and soul, and brain and life spilled out everywhere,” she said.“What I now realize,” Alderton said, “is people don’t need to go into forensic detail of their emotional lives to get people to like, and then relate, to them.”Ellie Smith for The New York Times More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Julia Lester on Her ‘More Knowing’ Little Red Riding Hood

      by

      Her bold choices for “Into the Woods” have garnered the 22-year-old actress critical acclaim and a Broadway debut.Conventional wisdom has it that actors should not audition in costume. But Julia Lester did so anyway — fashioning a red cape out of a circle skirt — when she videotaped her audition for the part of Little Red Riding Hood in the Encores! production of “Into the Woods” this spring. Two weeks later — without even a callback — she heard from her agent: “Stephen Sondheim wants you to play Little Red.”Indeed, it was her many bold acting (as well as sartorial) choices for the fabled girl bound for grandmother’s house — her raised eyebrow, brassy willfulness and wry sophistication — that captured the attention of critics in May and catapulted Lester to a Broadway debut at just 22 years old after the show transferred there this summer. (The Broadway run has just been extended through Oct. 16.)“In Lester, we witness a major new comedic talent emerge,” said Johnny Oleksinski in The New York Post. “All her well-known jokes feel fresh, and she is unbelievably funny. My face was a lot red from laughing so hard.”The New York Times called her “pert and twinkling”; The Washington Post, “uber-confident, rough-and-ready”; The Wall Street Journal, “deliciously impish and knowing.”It was her aura of worldliness and tenacity that made the show’s director, Lear deBessonet, so certain in casting Lester. “I knew she was right 10 seconds into her audition video,” deBessonet said. “Having seen a number of Little Reds over the years, any sort of cutesy, girlie, victim thing was totally not of interest to me. As a woman, there are certain things I don’t ever want to see onstage again.“There is a lot of pressure on actors to live through other people’s eyes,” Lester said. “Learning to live unapologetically and as myself has been really important.”Raphael Gaultier for The New York Times“For me, the defining quality of the character is hunger, this delicious power lust which is so refreshing and unexpected,” deBessonet continued. “It was immediate upon seeing Julia. I was like, ‘Yup, well: There she is.’”Sipping water in a theater district hotel before a recent performance, in a braid and Doc Marten lace-up boots, Lester did come across as preternaturally comfortable in her own — admittedly callow — skin.Despite her cherubic face and wide-eyed words about getting to share the stage with so many veterans (including Sara Bareilles, Gavin Creel and Phillipa Soo), Lester talked about how she has grown increasingly self-assured over the last few years.“There is a lot of pressure on actors to live through other people’s eyes,” she said. “Learning to live unapologetically and as myself has been really important for me.“Our whole career is based on what other people think about us,” Lester continued. “It’s quite a struggle to know that other people are silently or non-silently judging you on a daily basis.”If onstage she seems experienced beyond her years, that’s because she is, having performed professionally since she was 5 and just completed her third season as Ashlyn Caswell in the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” the musical drama about high school theater students. (The fourth season starts shooting in Salt Lake City in September.)Lester, at the piano, with Olivia Rodrigo in the TV series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.”Fred Hayes/Disney +Show business also runs in Lester’s blood. Her great-grandfather and his siblings were part of a Yiddish opera company in Poland at the turn of the century. Her maternal grandparents, Helen and Peter Mark Richman, met doing summer stock theater. Her mother, Kelly, and father, Loren, continue to perform, as do her two older sisters, Jenny and Lily.“We’re a big performing family,” Lester said. “I can’t stress enough how supportive we all are of each other.”Her version of Take Your Daughter to Work Day was going to the Universal Studios lot and hanging out with her dad on commercial shoots. “I always knew from the second I was born that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Lester said. “So being able to be surrounded by it on a daily basis, and really learn from my family, is such a blessing.”Born on Jan. 28, 2000, in Los Angeles, Lester had been in productions of “Into the Woods” twice before: first as the cow Milky White in a community theater production when she was in elementary school (her sisters played other parts) and the next time at age 18 as Little Red in a 99-seat theater in Los Angeles.While many actors dread having to try out for parts — given their nerves and the statistical likelihood of rejection — Lester said she loves auditioning.“You’re being given the opportunity to do what you were put on this earth to do,” she said, “which is to perform.”Lester is also personally drawn to the character of Little Red, who, after being rescued from the mouth of the wolf, goes on to carry a knife for protection, to look after Jack (of beanstalk fame) and to grow up before the audience’s eyes. “She is so feisty and so funny,” Lester said. “In a lot of the moments when it’s really high stakes and dark themes are happening, she is a beacon of comedy and light. That’s always really fun — to be able to bring down the house during a quiet, serious moment.”Lester as Little Red Riding Hood and Cole Thompson as Jack in the Broadway revival of “Into the Woods.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWith her performance in this Encores! revival, which originated at New York City Center before moving to the St. James Theater on Broadway, the actress said she “wanted to reinvent the way people see Little Red.”“When I was working on the script, I tried my very best to look at every line that she says, and really think about, ‘What’s the most unexpected way to portray what’s written?’” she said.James Lapine, who wrote the show with Sondheim (who died in November), said it was the first time that he had seen an adult play the part, which its usually played by actors under 18. “She’s bringing something a little punchier to it and more emotional shadings,” he said. “She’s a more knowing Little Red Riding Hood.”The show’s actors say they, too, have been struck by Lester’s sure hand in getting big laughs and by how she brings a modern sensibility to the role without bastardizing it. “She has that radar which the greats have — they know when to put their foot on the brake or the gas,” said Brian d’Arcy James, who plays the Baker, adding that Lester’s interpretation is “totally fresh but also honoring what’s preceded.”Bareilles, who plays the Baker’s Wife, said she had been pleasantly surprised by Lester’s “natural fire” as well as by her palpable respect for the opportunity she had been given, for her fellow performers and for live theater itself. “She feels like an old soul to me,” Bareilles said. “She doesn’t carry any neediness or urgency to get seen. There is a reverence in how she approaches the work.”From left: Sara Bareilles, Brian d’Arcy James, Phillipa Soo and Lester in the show. “She has that radar which the greats have — they know when to put their foot on the brake or the gas,” James said of Lester.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs “a real die-hard theater kid,” Lester said, there is a pinch-yourself quality to what she’s living through, since she long admired from afar the very people she now finds herself performing next to onstage.“I never expected that I would be making my Broadway debut in a Sondheim show, let alone be surrounded by so many people that I’ve grown up loving and watching,” she said, adding, “Every single person has taken me under their wing.”While she is only committed to the show until Sept. 4, Lester said she would love to return to this Broadway production and to see it live on. “I’m sort of hoping for this show to be the new ‘Chicago’ and just be long-running forever and I can come back to it like home base whenever I am available,” she said. “This is definitely a show that I am not ready to say goodbye to anytime soon.”The personal response she has received from members of the audience has been particularly rewarding. Well aware that, as a full-figured young woman, she may not meet the traditional physical definition of an ingénue, Lester said she was gratified that other young women have looked to her as an affirming role model.“It’s taken a second to grow into myself and be comfortable with who I am, but it’s got to start somewhere,” she said. “If someone can say, ‘I see myself in you when you’re playing Little Red’ — when I’m standing on a Broadway stage — that’s exactly why I’m an actor and a performer.”“I’m really grateful to the people who have seen beyond what I look like,” she added, “and seen what I can offer to the world.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      In ‘House of the Dragon,’ Paddy Considine Claims the Crown

      by

      A string of critically acclaimed roles has made him many British actors’ favorite actor. It has also lifted him from hardscrabble roots to a seat on the Iron Throne.WINSHILL, England — On a blindingly sunny June afternoon, Paddy Considine whipped his sedan through a working-class neighborhood in this suburb in the West Midlands, pointing out the stolid taverns, churches and council houses that combine to cast the long shadows of his childhood.There was the gospel hall where he and his friends sang hymns when they weren’t “getting kicked out for fighting about.” The pub where men from his estate pursued nightly oblivion. The post office where his tempestuous father “tossed a wheelie bin through the front window” during one of his frequent swerves into rage, a moment Considine memorialized in his bleakly beautiful 2011 film, “Tyrannosaur.”He pulled to a stop in front of a pale gray two-family house and pointed to an upstairs window. It was his old bedroom, and he told a story about a kid desperate to show the world he had more to offer than it might think.“I’d run home after school and then put the music on and stand in the window, dancing to Adam and the Ants, so the parents would see me and look up,” he said. “It wasn’t like I was a show-off. I just wanted to be seen.”He looked at me with a grin that was equal parts affable and intense. “There’s a difference, you know,” he said.Over a two-decade career in film, TV and the occasional blockbuster play, Considine has thrived within that difference. He has crafted performances that demand to be seen, partly because they forgo performative pyrotechnics in favor of a palpable, at times unsettling sense of the real. The fact that he hasn’t had what you might call a signature role hasn’t kept him from becoming many British actors’ favorite actor.“I just believe him,” said Olivia Colman, a longtime admirer. “You sort of look into his eyes, and he’s feeling it all, and he means it all.”Considine’s profile is more modest in America, but it might not stay that way: Beginning on Aug. 21, he will be dancing in his largest window yet. That’s when “House of the Dragon,” the long-awaited “Game of Thrones” prequel series, lands on HBO. A family melodrama with all the violence, sex and power-lust one would expect from a tale set in Westeros, the series seeks to recapture the magic that made the original a global phenomenon before it stumbled to its polarizing conclusion in 2019.The story, based on “Fire & Blood,” a spinoff novel by the saga’s mastermind, George R.R. Martin, is set nearly 200 years before the events of “Game of Thrones.” It involves an earlier battle for the Iron Throne, one that threatens to crater the Targaryen clan long before their combustible descendant Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) arrives in the original series.At the heart of it all is Considine, who stars as King Viserys, the ruler whose decisions and frailties set into motion much of the conflict and carnage to come.Paddy Considine, who plays King Viserys Targaryen, in a scene from “House of the Dragon.”Ollie Upton/HBOIt is a surprising bit of casting, at first glance. After arriving as an eccentric thug in the 1999 film “A Room for Romeo Brass,” Considine has made his name mostly in small-bore dramas playing emotionally conflicted men who feel it all, and then some: a grieving immigrant father in “In America”; a religious zealot ex-con in “My Summer of Love”; a murderously vengeful veteran in “Dead Man’s Shoes.”While he has appeared in franchises (“The Bourne Ultimatum”), genre series (the Stephen King adaptation “The Outsider”) and surprising detours before (the goofball cop comedy “Hot Fuzz”), a dragon epic did not seem like the most natural fit.“If you look at the body of his work and the type of movies that he does, it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a big HBO franchise like this,” said Matt Smith, who stars in “House of the Dragon” as Viserys’s belligerent brother, Daemon. “But I think he’s got good taste, and I think he realized the part was really interesting.”Considine, 48, is a man of multitudes and paradoxes. An acclaimed actor, he nonetheless struggles with attacks of insecurity to the point that he considered leaving projects like “Hot Fuzz” because he felt he was flailing. He has an unmistakable toughness, but what makes it captivating is the sensitivity that bleeds through.Ryan Condal, one of the “House of the Dragon” showrunners, said that Considine imbued Viserys, a relatively passive character in the script, “with a bit of Paddy’s working class background.”“What Paddy brought to it was Targaryen-ness, this fierceness,” he said. But as the other showrunner, Miguel Sapochnik, noted: “He wears his insecurities on his sleeve.”Return to Westeros in ‘House of the Dragon’HBO’s long-awaited “Game of Thrones” spinoff will debut on Aug. 21.A Primer: Though it is the successor to the groundbreaking fantasy drama, “House of the Dragon” is actually a prequel. Here’s what else you need to know.The Stakes: Can the new series save the future of the “Game of Thrones” franchise? George R.R. Martin and HBO are about to find out.Wearing the Crown: A string of critically acclaimed roles has lifted Paddy Considine, who stars as King Viserys Targaryen in the show, from hardscrabble roots to a seat on the Iron Throne.‘Thrones’ Guide: Want to take a deep dive into past episodes and plot twists? Check out our obsessive compendium to the original series.This combination has already won over the toughest “Thrones” fan of all: Martin, who said Considine’s Viserys surpasses the one in the book.“Every once in a while, an actor or the writers will take a character in a somewhat different direction that is better,” Martin said. “And I look at it and I say, ‘Damn, I wish I had written it that way.’”Considine admits that he was flattered to be asked to lead such an enormous undertaking, which will almost certainly result in more people seeing him than ever before. But what drew him in were the same things he seeks in all his roles, qualities that his past and predisposition help him depict with rare delicacy.“There was just conflicts in him; there was pain in him,” he said. “There was stuff for me to do.”CONSIDINE SPENDS MOST OF HIS TIME far from the show-business fray. He lives with his wife of 20 years, Shelley, and their three children in the town of Burton-on-Trent, near where he grew up, located roughly 110 miles northwest of London. It helps him avoid having to glad-hand industry types or audition for roles, which he loathes because he’s terrible at it, he said.While Considine is generally immune to Hollywood cliché, he certainly looked the part when we first met. Sitting inside a coffee shop in a posh village near his home, he was wearing black on black with dark glasses, and he spent the first 20 minutes talking about his rock band, called Riding the Low. He knew how it all came across.“I know … an actor with a band,” he said.But the reality is, he has been playing music for longer than he’s been acting, and the band is no mere vanity project: In June, they played Glastonbury Festival, and their latest record included a cameo by Considine’s musical hero, Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices.As for the glasses, they contain special lenses to treat Irlen syndrome, a disorder that is believed to affect the brain’s ability to process visual information. (Much of the science and medical community is skeptical about the affliction, but Considine and many others say the lenses changed their lives.) Generally funny and easygoing in conversation, Considine said this condition, along with a mild form of Asperger’s he was diagnosed with in his 30s, contributed to a reputation for aloofness as a young actor.“I couldn’t concentrate or focus on you, so I’d have to look away,” he said. “It led to this behavior of me going within myself and being slightly unapproachable.”But he is used to being misunderstood — even as a boy in Winshill, Considine had a reputation that preceded him. But it wasn’t his own.Considine’s father was known as a brawler with a quick temper. “I grew up with a lot of labels on me when I was a kid, just because of the reputation mainly of my father,” the actor said.Max Miechowski for The New York TimesHe grew up with a brother and four sisters in one of the few two-parent households in his social circle. His mother, Pauline, was a natural nurturer who temporarily took in kids from around the council estate when things got rough at their own homes. “I’d go downstairs and there’d be, like, a six-foot punk lying on the sofa under a blanket, with a big red mohawk,” Considine said.His father was another matter. An Irish alcoholic with a depressive streak, Martin Considine was known as a brawler with a quick temper, and was given to staying in bed until the afternoon, “watching ‘Raging Bull’ over and over again,” Considine said.“I grew up with a lot of labels on me when I was a kid, just because of the reputation mainly of my father,” he said.For a while, he lived up to them, alienating his teachers by being an uninterested student and a class clown. But when he signed on to a school production of “Grease,” it was transformative in more ways than one. When he opened his mouth to sing “Greased Lightning” in the first rehearsal, he discovered a robust voice he didn’t know he had. On opening night, everyone else discovered something, too.“It changed the entire school’s perception of me,” he said. “The teachers perceived me differently, the students. And I thought, this is powerful.”At 16, Considine began a drama program but “didn’t really learn that much, and I just left,” he said. (He eventually got a photography degree.) But he struck up a fortuitous friendship there with Shane Meadows, a fellow Midlander with similar tastes in music and film. Several years later, Meadows cast Considine in “Romeo Brass,” which won both men acclaim.Higher-profile roles followed in films like the Factory Records chronicle “24 Hour Party People” (2002) and the melancholy immigrant tale “In America” (2003). Then came “Dead Man’s Shoes,” a nervy, lo-fi riff on a slasher picture that stars Considine, in a frightening but grounded performance, as an ex-soldier stalking his brother’s former tormentors.The film is still revered in Britain — nearly everyone I talked to about Considine mentioned it — though the actor long ago tired of discussing it. (“Part of me wants to die” when people bring it up, he said, but he has made his peace with it.)That indelible performance indirectly enabled Considine to subvert it, to change perceptions again. He met Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright on the awards circuit for “Dead Man’s Shoes” — it and their film “Shaun of the Dead” were both released in Britain in 2004 — and the result was a part as a doofus detective in “Hot Fuzz.”“Meeting Paddy in person was a revelation; he was incredibly warm and funny,” Wright wrote in an email. “We knew he had a comic presence that hadn’t been fully unleashed yet.”Considine (center, with Rafe Spall, left, and Simon Pegg) tried to quit “Hot Fuzz” over a crisis of confidence about his comic chops. “This was, of course, ridiculous,” said Edgar Wright, the film’s director.Rogue Pictures, via Alamy“Hot Fuzz” was where Considine met Colman, a co-star, who went on to lead his first feature as a director, “Tyrannosaur.” The film, which he also wrote, tells a grueling but powerful story about a splenetic widower (Peter Mullan) who befriends a devout woman (Colman) trapped in an abusive marriage.For Colman, then known primarily for comedy and TV, the wrenching performance opened new dramatic opportunities that eventually led to an Oscar for the 2018 film “The Favourite.”“He sort of directly changed the trajectory of my career,” she said.For Considine, it offered a chance to revisit his upbringing via the means that had allowed him to escape it. As we drove around Winshill, he pointed out landmarks that had inspired scenes in the film.“I think ‘Tyrannosaur’ was just a love letter and an apology to my parents,” he told me. “It was me just trying to make sense of some of the things I grew up with.”CONSIDINE STARTED ACTING long before he became an actor.As an insecure kid cowed by a chaotic home and by other parents who “shut doors in my face” because of the sins of his father, he learned to perform confidence and swagger. “I had to create a sort of carapace to be able to protect myself,” he said.That armor never entirely went away — he still dusts it off for premieres and red carpets. Neither did the insecurity. As his career blossomed, it became both the thing that made acting a misery, at times, as well as a force pushing him to go deeper into performances that dazzled his contemporaries.“In England, I think a lot of actors feel the same way about Paddy,” Smith said. “We hold him in very high regard.”Tony Pitts (“All Creatures Great and Small”), a friend of Considine’s and past co-star, called him “the male actor that most male actors want to be.”Considine is choosy about his parts — it’s hard to find an outright stinker on his IMDb page. Friends say this derives from the fact that acting can take a profound psychic toll on him, so he has to be invested in a role to accept it.“Paddy’s not one to just pitch up and say the lines,” Pitts said. “I’ve seen him when he’s been at the point where he said, ‘I don’t think I want to act again.’”Wright calls Considine “Mr. 11th Hour” because that’s when he “had to be talked out of leaving” both “Hot Fuzz” and a later comedy, “The World’s End,” over a crisis of confidence about his comic chops. “This was, of course, ridiculous,” Wright said. “It just shows me he cares, maybe too much.”From left, Glenn Speers, Considine, Stuart Graham and Genevieve O’Reilly in “The Ferryman,” Considine’s first performance in a play. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesConsidine went through something similar in “The Ferryman,” Jez Butterworth’s 2017 drama set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It was Considine’s first play, and he took it on as a kind of trial-by-fire apprenticeship because he felt limited by his lack of formal acting training, even after numerous series and films. “I was running out of places to hide, and I was running out of enthusiasm for it, too,” he said.He found stage acting terrifying. His self-doubt reached a crisis point during the initial run, at London’s Royal Court Theater, and then again when “The Ferryman” moved to Broadway — both times Sam Mendes, the director, helped him through it. (Reviewing the Broadway production, The Times said Considine gave “a superb, anchoring performance.”) The actor now says “The Ferryman” was “a game-changer,” in terms of his comfort with his craft.That comfort wasn’t always apparent on “House of the Dragon,” however. Considine said he based the physically ailing Viserys partly on his mother, who went through multiple amputations resulting from diabetes before dying of a heart attack. Colleagues said watching him inhabit the role sometimes bordered on concerning.“He turns himself inside out in his performance, and that metamorphosis is sometimes really painful to watch,” said Olivia Cooke, who stars as Alicent Hightower, a woman close to Viserys. “We spoke about it, and the only way he can access his performance, sometimes, is to go to such a horrid and painful place.”Sapochnik said that when Considine struggles with material or anything else, “his default is anger.” Directing him involved “helping to work through that, being patient about it, sometimes saying to him, ‘Mate, calm down,’” he explained. “But also then seeing how he brought that into Viserys.”Considine brought fierceness to Viserys, but he also “wears his insecurities on his sleeve,” said Miguel Sapochnik (right, with Considine and the actress Milly Alcock), a “House of the Dragon” showrunner.Ollie Upton/HBOAt the same time, his co-stars, from old hands like Smith to relative newcomers like Emily Carey, who plays a younger version of Alicent, roundly praised Considine as a funny, warm and supportive colleague and collaborator. The person he is hardest on is himself.“It sounds like I’m a miserable sod, but I have a good time doing these things, as well,” Considine said. “It’s just that when I perform in any way, I have these challenges in front of me again.”What keeps him going are the flashes of transcendence. He mentioned one late-season monologue Viserys gives before his family that “touched a bit of old Hopkins,” as in Sir Anthony, one of his acting heroes.“The moments where you are fully in it, all that goes — all that awareness, all that self-observation, all that stuff, that inner critic,” Considine said. “That horrible stuff just falls off you. And that’s ultimately what I’m searching for.”And to the extent that any of that horrible stuff is linked to his past, he’s learning to let some of that fall off him, too, as achievements mount and the passing years bring distance and perspective.“That kid in the window, he hasn’t got to die, but it can’t keep dominating your life,” he said. “You’ve got to explore other things, and ‘Game of Thrones’ is part of that.”“Who would’ve thought that kid would end up playing a [expletive] king?” he added. “Who would’ve ever conceived that I would be a king in anything?” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      What to Know About ‘House of the Dragon,’ ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel

      by

      HBO’s new “Game of Thrones” prequel takes us back to the land of Westeros, hundreds of years earlier. We’ve got your cheat sheet.In the final episodes of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” the mad queen Daenerys Targaryen incinerated most of the capital city of King’s Landing. But what was it like when it was all still standing, and the Targaryen dynasty ruled with an iron fist — er, throne?That’s the question explored by “House of the Dragon,” the new series set in author George R.R. Martin’s revisionist epic-fantasy world. Created by Martin along with Ryan Condal, who serves as showrunner with the veteran “Thrones” director Miguel Sapochnik, “Dragon” takes place far back into the ancestral line of the “Thrones” protagonists Daenerys and Jon Snow, whose own Targaryen identity was revealed late in the original show’s run.As their forebears battle for control of Westeros’s Iron Throne, what do you need to know about the new series, and its connection to what has gone before — or, more accurately, after? Our cheat sheet has you covered. Read on and prepare to dance with dragons.A pregame of thronesThough it is the successor series to “Game of Thrones,” “House of the Dragon” is actually a prequel. Set 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, it chronicles the history of her royal family during a tumultuous time, a calamitous internecine war known as “The Dance of the Dragons.” During this conflict, a slew of Targaryens and their dragon steeds — these fire-breathing beasts were more plentiful at this point in Westerosi history — did battle for the Iron Throne.That said, “Dragon” shares several key elements with its predecessor series. These include Martin, who wrote the books that form the basis of both shows — the “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels for the original series and the prequel book “Fire & Blood” for the new one.Return to Westeros in ‘House of the Dragon’HBO’s long-awaited “Game of Thrones” spinoff will debut on Aug. 21.A Primer: Though it is the successor to the groundbreaking fantasy drama, “House of the Dragon” is actually a prequel. Here’s what else you need to know.The Stakes: Can the new series save the future of the “Game of Thrones” franchise? George R.R. Martin and HBO are about to find out.Wearing the Crown: A string of critically acclaimed roles has lifted Paddy Considine, who stars as King Viserys Targaryen in the show, from hardscrabble roots to a seat on the Iron Throne.‘Thrones’ Guide: Want to take a deep dive into past episodes and plot twists? Check out our obsessive compendium to the original series.Condal is new to the franchise, as is the entire cast. But Sapochnik, the other showrunner, directed several of the most memorable “Thrones” episodes, including “Hardhome,” “Battle of the Bastards” and “The Bells.” The composer Ramin Djawadi returns, as do unmistakable elements of his “Thrones” theme music.In addition, the setting of King’s Landing and its royal seat, the Red Keep, are virtually identical to the versions we’ve seen previously, as are the various noble houses’ symbols or “sigils” and even their hairstyles. The Iron Throne itself may have been enhanced by hundreds more melted-down blades, but this is very much the same Westeros we’ve already occupied for eight seasons.“House of the Dragon” begins with the naming of Viserys as heir to the Targaryen throne.Ollie Upton/HBOA family affair“Game of Thrones” famously depicted strife between several noble houses, most notably the Starks and the Lannisters, who rose to power after the death of the last Targaryen monarch, the Mad King Aegon IV. But most of these houses — Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, Tyrell, Martell — recede into the background in “House of the Dragon.” The new show is focused almost exclusively on the Targaryen family, the dynasty that conquered Westeros over a century before the events that kick off “Dragon.”When the series begins, a great council of the aristocracy is convened to select Old King Jaehaerys Targaryen’s son Viserys (Paddy Considine) over his older female cousin, Rhaenys (Eve Best), as heir to the throne, on explicitly patriarchal grounds. The council, a comparatively democratic body during these feudal times, is intended to put such questions of succession to rest.In Westeros, as in our world, momentous decisions often reverberate in unexpected directions and lead to unanticipated conflict. The main players in “House of the Dragon” include the well-meaning but ineffectual King Viserys and his younger brother, the roguish Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), who would inherit the throne if his brother dies. Viserys’s closest adviser is Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), the Hand of the King — a position of great influence, as it was in “Thrones.” Hightower is a rival of the kingdoms’ richest man, the veteran seafarer Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), who is married to Rhaenys and who, like the Targaryens, is a descendant of the ancient empire of Valyria.In an echo of the earlier succession dispute, another natural claimant to the throne is Viserys’s daughter, Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock as a youth, Emma D’Arcy as an adult), his only surviving child. Also central to things is Rhaenyra’s childhood friend Alicent Hightower (played by Emily Carey and Olivia Cooke), the daughter of the ambitious and calculating Otto.Trouble, obviously, ensues.The story’s main players include Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) and Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best).HBOUnreliable narrators“Game of Thrones” was based on Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels: “A Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows” and “A Dance With Dragons.” (Still to come: “The Winds of Winter,” which Martin has been working on for years, and “A Dream of Spring.”) But “Fire & Blood,” the “Dragon” source material, is written as a faux-historical tome rather than as a proper novel. Martin wrote the book in the voice of one Archmaester Gyldayn, a historian from within the world of Westeros itself. As such, many of its main characters’ motives, actions and dialogue remain matters of conjecture.Complicating matters further, Gyldayn’s primary and secondary sources have their own conflicting writing styles, political loyalties and points of view. (Among the fandom, the most popular of these is “The Testimony of Mushroom,” a salacious account of events written by the Targaryen court jester, who does not seem to appear in “Dragon” at all, at least not yet.) These shifting viewpoints leave several crucial matters, from trysts to betrayals, in a did-they-or-didn’t-they limbo.Given that several of these question marks drive the battles for supremacy that will likely drive “Dragon” in turn, the show will have to come down on one side or the other. For longtime fans and newcomers alike, these are likely to be the juiciest and most thrilling sections of the story, which will unfold over multiple seasons, if the gods be good.Light your candles to the Seven, and we’ll learn together who comes out on top. More