Television

Big stars and strange tidbits lurk in the more obscure precincts of the Emmy nominations, which were announced on Tuesday.Nominations for the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards were announced Tuesday morning, and were quickly followed by the traditional anointing of favorites and lamenting of snubs in the high-profile categories.But there are scores of other, more obscure categories, and plenty of big stars and strange tidbits buried therein. A few highlights from this year:John Travolta was nominated for his second Emmy for his work on “Die Hart,” a Quibi show. Kevin Hart and Nathalie Emmanuel also picked up nominations for their performances on the series for the now-defunct short-form content platform.Where else are you going to see Julie Andrews and Stacey Abrams fight it out than in the character voice-over performance category? The other nominees in the category are Jessica Walter, Maya Rudolph, Tituss Burgess, Stanley Tucci and Seth MacFarlane.Anthony Hopkins was nominated for his sixth Emmy, for narrating the “Everlight” episode of “Mythic Quest,” the Apple TV+ gaming comedy.Unstructured and then some: Nominees in the unstructured reality program category include “Below Deck,” a Bravo show set on a luxury yacht; “Indian Matchmaking,” a Netflix show about arranged marriages; and “Selling Sunset,” a Netflix real estate series and tabloid staple.“Lucifer,” the once-Fox, now-Netflix series about the devil moving to Los Angeles and becoming sort of an assistant cop, was nominated for outstanding choreography for scripted programming.Zach Braff received his first Emmy nomination back in 2005, when he was one of the stars of the NBC hospital sitcom “Scrubs.” His second came Tuesday, for directing the second episode of “Ted Lasso,” “Biscuits.”More from “Ted Lasso”: Marcus Mumford, sans sons, was nominated, with Tom Howe, for composing the Apple TV+ soccer comedy’s theme song.Bo Burnham, comedy’s king of D.I.Y., received six nominations for his Netflix special, “Bo Burnham: Inside.” The program got a nod for outstanding variety special, and Burnham himself was nominated for directing and writing for a variety special. And for picture editing for variety programming. And music direction, and music and lyrics.Laurene Powell Jobs, the businesswoman and widow of Steve Jobs, was nominated for her first Emmy, for producing “Boys State.” Yes, it was on Apple TV+. More

ESSEX, Mass. — When he was 22 and flush from success as a member of the boy band New Kids on the Block, Jonathan Knight bought a Georgian house, built circa 1900, on the North Shore here, with a slate roof, Palladian windows, terraces and 12,000 square feet to pad around in.It was 1990, two years after the New Kids released their second studio album, “Hangin’ Tough,” which topped the Billboard charts, spawned several hit singles and went on to sell more than 14 million copies worldwide. Suddenly, the five members — Jonathan, his younger brother Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood — went from scruffy kids from Boston to fantasy boyfriends for suburban teen girls everywhere.Mr. Knight invited his large family to move out of the city and come up to live with him in the new place. “And then we went on tour, so it was up to my brothers and sisters and mother to do the shopping,” Mr. Knight said, meaning for furniture. His mother’s taste ran to frilly curtains, floral sofas, busy patterned rugs, all appropriate to the house but not to a young pop star.Mr. Knight’s circa-1760 farmhouse.Tony Luong for The New York TimesThe flower garden.Tony Luong for The New York Times“I came home and was, like, ‘What is going on?’” Mr. Knight said. “Looking back, I’m like, what a dummy for buying a house like that at such a young age. It was ridiculous. Waste of money. Just stupid. Best day was when I sold that house.”Mr. Knight, who is now 52 and back before our eyeballs again, this time with a home-renovation show on HGTV, “Farmhouse Fixer,” is nevertheless living a version of his life at 22. In some ways, it is humbler. In others, grander. Because now, instead of his family all piled into that house, each person gets their own on the 10-acre rural Shangri-La he created just down the road.There are gardens, a fenced-in horse pasture, antique barns, wildflowers climbing up stone walls and several historic houses, all of which Mr. Knight owns. His mother, Marlene, lives in the circa-1890 dwelling as you enter the property; his nephew stays in the farmhouse with Italianate details across the field. Mr. Knight and his partner, Harley Rodriguez, are building a new Colonial-style home on a gentle rise in the center of it all, while living temporarily in a pretty circa-1760 farmhouse with a white-painted clapboard exterior, a pond for their six ducks and a little barn for their three goats.A grand piano is one of the few hints of his musical career.Tony Luong for The New York TimesPlenty of greenery inside, too.Tony Luong for The New York TimesThe couple bought the farmhouse when it came up for sale last year, selling the circa-1800s house in the nearby town of Ipswich where they’d lived for just one year. “I was like, ‘I have to buy it, I have to,’” said Mr. Knight, stretched out on a sofa in the farmhouse’s high-ceilinged living room on a recent morning. “I didn’t want somebody moving across the street. It just adds to the whole family compound.”Plus, it’s 260 years old, and as viewers of “Farmhouse Fixer” have discovered, Mr. Knight has a passion for historic houses. He grew up in a Victorian in the Dorchester section of Boston, which his hippie parents bought for something like $25,000 in the ’70s. He referred to it affectionately as “a big, old, cold, drafty holes-in-the-wall house.”For him, refurbishing houses that have seen better years isn’t a pop star’s hobby. It’s how he made his living, especially in the lean years after the New Kids fell from the pop-culture firmament in the grunge-y ’90s.On the six-episode series, which debuted in March and was just renewed for a second season, Mr. Knight and his interior designer partner, Kristina Crestin, roam New England, the land of old farmhouses in slow decline. They add open-plan kitchens and central air while keeping the old charm in the house so their current owners won’t call the bulldozers. When they achieve the right balance of historic preservation and modern amenities, Ms. Crestin said, Mr. Knight has been known to cry off camera.“When he walks in, I’m, like, ‘Wait, wait, watch.’ I want him to lose it with happiness,” Ms. Crestin said. “To me, he’s reacting to what was done well then. He’s looking at the original stonework. He seems to be reflecting back to the people who did it and the pride they took in their work.”Back in the day. From left, Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, front, Danny Wood, Mr. Knight, front, and his brother, Jordan Knight.Michel Linssen/Redferns, via Getty ImagesFrom Hits to FlipsDressed in flannels and jeans and driving a pickup truck, on the show the still-boyishly handsome Mr. Knight comes across like a Yankee Chip Gaines — an image that isn’t made for TV. He actually does come home from a tour or recording session and hop on his tractor. He’s the sort who stops to admire an original newel post or a carpenter’s miter work from 200 years ago. His heart hurts a little when confronted with vinyl siding and plastic decking.Mr. Knight sighed thinking about those and other modern horrors. “I hate when people put trendy things in a house and it goes out of style so fast,” he said. “Like everybody’s using this pattern tile now. You’re going to look back and go, ‘That’s so 2020.’”Walking out to the property’s 18th-century post-and-beam barn, Mr. Knight explained that he hired a company to disassemble it, refurbish the wood beams one by one and rebuild it with a new roof and siding in a different spot, at probably 10 times the cost to build a new barn.“Everybody said, ‘Why?’” said Mr. Knight, looking up at the old ceiling beams. “It just has meaning. You know, it’s just my love of old things. It was standing since the 1700s. I wouldn’t tear it down. Now this thing will be around for another two or three hundred years.”From love songs to lavender.Tony Luong for The New York TimesHe never promised you a rose garden, and yet somehow….Tony Luong for The New York TimesMr. Knight was 16 when he joined the New Kids and 26 when their brand of sweet pop went out of fashion, they stopped selling out concerts and the carnival ride ground to a halt. With the rest of his life ahead of him, he had no idea what to do. While other young adults were in college or working their first jobs developing life skills, he’d lived inside the pop-star bubble. He didn’t know how to order for himself at a restaurant.“It was probably the scariest time in my life,” he said. “I just remember being home for a few days, opening the door to my bedroom in the morning and looking around and nobody’s there. The New Kids weren’t there. There were no tour buses. Everything was just done.”Mr. Knight spent a year staying up all night, sleeping until 4 in the afternoon and sinking into a deep depression. Then one day he got a call from a Boston cop who’d worked security detail for the group. He was flipping houses on the side and invited Mr. Knight to partner with him. “When he said ‘flip houses,’ I thought, Is this some mafia thing? We’re going to go in there and rob these people?” Mr. Knight said. “It was a term I’d never heard.”But Mr. Knight’s father was a carpenter and he’d grown up going to job sites with him on weekends. “And my mother is an old house nerd,” he said. “Me and my mother would drive around neighborhoods and look at old houses. To this day, I love driving slow down roads like, ‘Look at that place.’”Three horses owned by his mother are pastured on the property.Tony Luong for The New York TimesIn the vegetable garden.Tony Luong for The New York TimesSoon, Mr. Knight found himself pulling junk out of a trashy yard in West Roxbury and painting a banister at 3 a.m. ahead of the next day’s open house. Through the ’90s and into the 2000s, he estimates he bought, renovated and flipped a hundred or more houses, at first doing the construction work with his policeman partner and, as the business grew, with hired subcontractors.When the pair started doing new construction — “cookie-cutter boxes,” Mr. Knight called them — it was less appealing to him. And then the 2008 housing crash hit. “We’d just finished a nine-unit condo complex in Boston,” Mr. Knight recalled. “It was a lot of money lost in 2008. That’s actually when New Kids started up again. The timing was just perfect.”‘A Stress-Free Life’The band reunited in 2008 on the “Today” show, released a new album and went on a 150-date world tour. In the way of boy bands, Mr. Knight was the “shy one” in the group and his personal life largely remained a mystery to fans. He wasn’t closeted, but he also never declared on the cover of People, “I’m gay!” Rather, he was accidentally outed by fellow ’80s pop star Tiffany when she appeared on a 2011 episode of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen” and told the host they’d dated, and that “he became gay later. I didn’t do it! But he’s fabulous.” She publicly apologized to Mr. Knight. He thought the whole episode was funny.Until the HGTV series, few knew about his history with a hammer, either. “I was doing New Kids, I’d come home, renovate houses,” he said. “On tour, so many fans would ask, What do you do? Even the New Kids, they never really knew what I did.”Swing went the strings of his heart: over the decades, Mr. Knight has relaxed into rural life.Tony Luong for The New York TimesIn recent years, Mr. Knight’s life has fallen into a happy rhythm of touring for three months every other year with the reformed New Kids, taking on three or four renovations a year for clients and spending the rest of the time as caretaker of his mini Old Sturbridge Village.Mr. Knight is forever embarking on improvement projects that demand his scattered attention (“I was never diagnosed with A.D.H.D.,” he said, “but everybody’s like, ‘You’ve got A.D.H.D.’”) and that remain in various states of completion. Currently, he’s having the barn prepared to stable his mother’s three horses. He’s learning to care for the goats he was given by a rent-a-goat company he featured on the show. He’s tending vegetable and flower gardens.And then there’s the 1760 farmhouse, renovated by its previous owners in 2004 “and it already feels dated,” he said with a sigh, adding, “It needs paint and furniture and a new kitchen and new bathrooms. It’s a lot.” He’s not sure who will live in the house when he’s done. He and Mr. Rodriguez will be moving across the street, as soon as their new-old home is finished.Surveying his expanse while puffing on a cigarette under the hot sun, Mr. Knight said, quite earnestly, “It’s such a stress-free life, the country life.” More

Contrasting the fashions from the original series tells a much bigger story about trends overall.Even after the beloved teen drama series “Gossip Girl” ended in 2012, viewers couldn’t stop talking about the fashion. And now the show is back, with a Gen Z update. The reboot, which had its premiere on July 8 on HBO Max, takes place in the same world of wealthy Upper East Side elite as the original, but this time it’s barely recognizable as the same place.The show is significantly more diverse. The high school clique of the original show was mostly white and straight. Now there are several characters of color and plotlines that revolve around explorations of sexuality. The clothes the characters wear — maximalist sneakers, vintage purses, tote bags that promote their values — reflect a more intersectional worldview.The cast of the first season of “Gossip Girl,” when flats were the characters’ footwear of choice.Timothy White/The CWIn the rebooted series, Julien Calloway, played by Jordan Alexander, favors chunky Balenciaga sneakers.via HBOBalenciaga Sneakers Are the New Tory Burch Flats“Are those last season’s Tory Burch flats?” an incredulous Blair Waldorf asks a fellow student in Season 2 of the original show.Today, the question would be, “Are those Tory Burch flats?”When designing the wardrobes for the original show, the costume designer Eric Daman recalls walking by Upper East Side private schools and seeing groups of girls in Tory Burch flats. “It cemented the idea of, ‘OK, these young girls wear these designer brands and have cult favorites,’” he said. You’d see few logo-emblazoned ballet flats in that setting today.“The giant Balenciaga sneakers kind of replaced the Tory Burch flat,” Mr. Daman said. The change is indicative of what people, and young people in particular, consider the “it” shoe of today. Blending streetwear and luxury in a single commercial object, the sneaker is what epitomizes cool now.The new footwear is also part of the larger shift to sneakers, which rarely showed up in the old show. In the reboot, Zoya Lott, an outsider from Buffalo, wears the Adidas X Beyoncé Superstars in a key scene in which she meets the popular kids at school. The shoes are a gift from Julien, her half sister and an established Manhattanite. Showing up in the hot commodity shoes symbolizes a turning point for the character.“The shoes are kind of like a bridge into this other world for her,” Mr. Daman said.Blair Waldorf, played by Leighton Meester, carried a logo-heavy Louis Vuitton handbag in the original series.Ignat/Bauer-Griffin – GC ImagesWhitney Peak as Zoya Lott with one of her character’s signature expressive tote bags in the reboot.MediaPunch/ShutterstockThe New LogomaniaBig brand logos will be rare sights on the new show. Large logos don’t “feel authentic to what’s going on with this generation,” Mr. Daman said. “They’re less faithful to brands and less cliquey about them.”Logos used to signify status and a certain level of wealth, but today logos are often meant to convey political or social values. In the reboot, Zoya carries a tote from Revolution Books, a progressive indie bookstore in Harlem, as well as a “Recycling Black Dollars” tote bag from Melanin Apparel.Zoya’s bags are “all from really, really cool stores,” said Whitney Peak, who plays Zoya. “The bags very much speak to who she is.”Serena and Blair do their take on tights in the old series in 2007.Eric Leibowitz/The CWIn the new series athleisure pieces like bike shorts have replaced tights.via HBOAthleisure Is In, Tights Are Out“Tights are not pants!” Blair famously declared in the original series. Blair and her posse of mean girls commonly wore tights in a variety of colors and were offended at the sight of anyone wearing leggings without a skirt.With the exception of some plain black tights, the reboot is “a tightless world,” Mr. Daman said. And to what would certainly be Blair’s dismay, bike shorts are definitely considered pants now.Queen bee Julien frequently wears bike shorts, sometimes styling them with a collared shirt and tie. The athleisure movement, Mr. Daman said, “is a huge part of our culture and what’s going on in fashion. Coming out of the pandemic, people are holding onto their sweats but still want to dress up.”Jordan Alexander, who plays Julien, sees her character’s bike shorts as a highly relevant article of clothing today. “I don’t think it matters if you’re on the Upper East Side and in the one percent,” she said. “You’d still be rocking shorts.”Blair with an enormous, by today’s standards, handbag.Ray Tamarra/Getty ImagesJulien with a vintage Dior Saddle Bag.via HBODesigner Bags, But Now UsedIn the first iteration of the show, everything was big and new. Serena carried large hobo bags, and none of them were bought at resale shops. “If I brought in a secondhand bag to Serena van der Woodsen, she would’ve hit me with it,” Mr. Daman said.Today, staying true to Gen Z’s affinity for buying resale, several of the bags in the reboot are vintage. “We’ve done a lot of vintage Dior Saddle Bags, Fendi Baguettes,” Mr. Daman said. “It’s been great to have some eco-sustainability with these high-end bags.”Gen Z has been called Generation Green or the Sustainability Generation, and there’s a reason for it. Studies have shown that Gen Z makes shopping decisions based on how sustainable a business is, and at a higher rate than other generations. They want what they buy and what they wear to reflect their values.The size of the bags has also changed. The large hobo bag, Mr. Daman said, “is just not the jam” today. The micro Jacquemus Le Chiquito has yet to make an appearance, but it probably will soon, he said.Chuck Bass, played by Ed Westwick, in his element in a conventional men’s wear suit.Patrick Harbron/The CWThomas Doherty as Max Wolfe in a women’s Paco Rabanne blouse, breaking gender norms in a way the original show didn’t explore.via HBOExploring Gender Fluidity Through ClothesIn the original show, Chuck Bass was most often seen in a suit, conforming strictly to gender norms. “If I’d put a women’s blouse on Chuck Bass, it would’ve been a joke” Mr. Daman said.In the reboot, Max Wolfe, the flirty troublemaker of the group and the character most similar to Chuck, wears a white lace women’s Paco Rabanne shirt. Max, who is sexually fluid, is able to pull it off in a way that’s not kitschy or excessive. “To use clothing that doesn’t fit in with gender norms and not have it look like drag and be very sexy — he identifies as a male but wears this blouse — expands on the dialogue of what gender norms are and how we can have that conversation through clothing,” Mr. Daman said.Blair carried Chanel in the original series.James Devaney/FilmMagicSavannah Smith as Monet wears a classic Chanel belt.Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin – GC ImagesOld Chanel Is the New New ChanelIn the first iteration of the show, Chanel was huge for the characters’ style but also for getting other designers to open up their collections to the show. “We didn’t have access to all the designer houses and weren’t getting loans,” Mr. Daman said. “Once Chanel said yes to us, the floodgates opened.”Today Chanel pieces that hold historic value are of huge importance to the characters. “It’s these archival pieces that have a heritage to them that are on point, especially for the Zoomers who seem to love all things throwback to late ’90s and early ’00s,” Mr. Daman said. Classic Chanel handbags and accessories make heavy appearances in the show, as they are pieces that still resonate with younger generations.Headbands were practically mandatory in the original series and were an essential accessory for Blair.The CWJulien repurposing Zoya’s headband as a necktie when she was made fun of for wearing it.Gotham/GC ImagesGoodbye, HeadbandAny OG “Gossip Girl” fan knows that headbands were a big deal. “Blair Waldorf’s headband has a life of its own,” Mr. Daman said. “It was always like her security blanket, for someone who was very tightly wound, very Type A. It was like the last piece of a very thought-out outfit that holds it all together.”The Gen Z characters don’t need that anymore. “They have a different kind of self-confidence that comes from just being,” Mr. Daman said.In the reboot, the mean girl Monet de Haan snarks, “She has a headband on” when she spots Zoya, the out-of-towner. Julien, her half sister, promptly unties the silk scarf and slips it around Zoya’s neck.Headbands may be scarce, but neckties of all sorts are in. Audrey Hope, another member of the gang, wears hair ribbons or scarves around her neck, resembling a tie. “It really shows both sides of her — very feminine, classic energy as well as a side of her that’s a little bit more masc,” said Emily Alyn Lind, who plays Audrey.The desire to ditch the stuffy headband speaks to the times. “We’re in an internet age,” said Ms. Alexander, who plays Julien. “People don’t feel like they need to be one thing anymore. We’ve been exposed to so much.” More

Richard Branson’s spaceflight with his company Virgin Galactic was the talk of late night on Monday.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.Taking Up SpaceLate-night hosts couldn’t resist poking fun at Richard Branson’s trek into space over the weekend with his company Virgin Galactic, the first in a series of planned trips by billionaire entrepreneurs.“You know these are crazy times when it’s safer flying to space than going on a Carnival Cruise, don’t you think?” Jimmy Fallon joked in his monologue on Monday.“That’s right, Virgin Galactic made history by launching the first goatee into space.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, Branson went with two pilots and three of his employees. So if you think it’s awkward riding an elevator with your boss, try going to space.” — JIMMY FALLON“Actually, I got a little choked up watching Branson’s flight. It always warms my heart to see billionaires achieve their dreams.” — JIMMY FALLON“I was happy for him, though. Normally when a billionaire flies away faster than the speed of sound, it’s because they just got linked to Jeffrey Epstein.” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, Branson beat Jeff Bezos to space. That’s why Branson got home and found a little flaming Amazon package on his front porch.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Virgin Jokes Edition)“The Virgin flight took about an hour, which is the first time any virgin has ever done anything in an hour.” — ARSENIO HALL, guest host on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”“Branson’s trip to space only lasted about four minutes, which is honestly pretty good for a virgin.” — JIMMY FALLON“Now, technically — technically — Branson’s flight reached the edge of space, and the Virgin Galactic crew experienced only four minutes of weightlessness. He barely went in and lasted only a few minutes? Well, that is a virgin.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right, the flight went more than 50 miles high to the edge of space. Southwest heard and was like, ‘Big deal. We did that last week when one of our pilots fell asleep.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Eighty kilometers? That’s not even worth mentioning at a party.” — SETH MEYERS“Just ’cause you touched net doesn’t mean you can say you dunked. Branson’s like one of those guys who say, ‘Yeah, I’ve been to Texas’ and then you find out he changed planes once at Dallas-Fort Worth.” — SETH MEYERS“Call me when you’ve reached the moon, Richard. Surprised he didn’t call me yesterday — he’s probably got cell service up there.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingSeth Meyers’s “Closer Look” delved into some of the more notable moments from the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightRichard Branson, just back from space, will check in with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutFrom left, Murray Bartlett, Jolene Purdy, Natasha Rothwell, Christie Volkmer and Lukas Gage in “The White Lotus.” The series focuses on the interactions between guests and staff members at a luxury resort.Mario Perez/HBOHBO’s new series “The White Lotus” is a perfectly timed satire of privilege from Mike White, the writer behind the short-lived but beloved show “Enlightened.” More

The wrestler competed in the first WrestleMania, held in 1985 at Madison Square Garden.Paul Orndorff, the WWE Hall of Famer known to fans as Mr. Wonderful, who fought against Hulk Hogan in the first-ever WrestleMania, died on Monday in Fayetteville, Ga. He was 71.Mr. Orndorff’s death was announced by his son Travis Orndorff on Instagram. No cause was given.“Most of you will remember him for his physique,” his son said in the Instagram post. “Many will remember his intensity. But if I could only get you to understand and see his heart.”Mr. Orndorff joined the World Wrestling Federation, known today as World Wrestling Entertainment, in 1983, and debuted in 1984, according to WWE.He participated in the first WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden in March 1985 in a fight with Roddy Piper against Hulk Hogan and Mr. T., according to WWE. Mr. Hogan and Mr. T won the fight. The next year, Mr. Orndorff fought against Mr. Hogan in an event that drew more than 60,000 spectators to Canadian National Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, which Mr. Hogan won by disqualification.Mr. Orndorff was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005, in the same class as Mr. Hogan.On Monday, Mr. Hogan paid tribute to Mr. Orndorff on Twitter: “Thank you for always making me fight for everything in our matches, heaven just got even more wonderful.”Born on Oct. 29, 1949, in Brandon, Fla., Paul Parlette Orndorff Jr. attended the University of Tampa, where he was a running back, and graduated in 1972, according to the university. Mr. Orndorff was selected by the New Orleans Saints in the 12th round of the 1973 N.F.L. draft, but later began a career in professional wrestling.Mr. Orndorff won his first championship, Memphis territory’s Mid-Southern Heavyweight title, in 1977, according to the University of Tampa Hall of Fame, which he was inducted into in 1986.In a tweet, WWE said Mr. Orndorff “brought a swagger and style to the WWE Universe that turned his talent into a prototype for the modern-day superstar.”Gary Cassidy, a freelance writer who covers professional wrestling, said in a tweet that Mr. Orndorff was “an integral part of the strides that made it possible for Hulkamania to run wild and one of the most WrestleMania matches of all time.”He said that Mr. Orndorff was “without doubt, one of the greatest wrestlers to never hold a major world championship.”In Instagram posts before Mr. Orndorff’s death, his son alluded to concerns about brain damage from wrestling.Three days before Mr. Orndorff died, his son posted a picture of one of his father’s notebooks on Instagram with a phone number.“If you can’t read it, it says ‘son, I think.’ I haven’t had that phone number since 2005,” Mr. Orndorff’s son said in the caption. “I hope the world will start to take notice of the brain damage and the consequences of this lifestyle.”Mr. Orndorff was involved in several cases filed by a group of former wrestlers against WWE. They claimed that they had suffered neurological damage, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, “as a result of physical trauma they experienced while performing.”The cases were dismissed because the claims were filed after a statute of limitations expired or because they were “frivolous,” court documents show.Complete information on survivors was not immediately available on Monday night. More

The former star of the Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh” had pleaded guilty to two charges related to a girl he met online. She attended one of his concerts in 2017.Jared Drake Bell, a former star of the Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh,” was sentenced on Monday to two years of probation after pleading guilty to two charges against him relating to a girl he had met online and who attended one of his concerts in Cleveland in 2017. More

HBO airs a documentary about Ronan Farrow’s book “Catch and Kill,” and the MLB hosts its 91st annual All-Star Game.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, July 12 — July 18. Details and times are subject to change. More

The actor talks about his roles as a failed superhero in the new Marvel blockbuster and as a milquetoast accountant in Steven Soderbergh’s “No Sudden Move.”This article contains spoilers for the films “Black Widow” and “No Sudden Move.”It’s never a particularly good time to be a loser, but it’s an excellent moment to be David Harbour, who embodies misbegotten characters so fully in his latest movies.Harbour, who may be best known as the reluctantly heroic police chief Jim Hopper on Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” can currently be seen in “Black Widow,” the Marvel movie directed by Cate Shortland that opened over the weekend. In it, he plays Alexei, a Russian super-soldier who formerly led a thrilling life as the costumed champion Red Guardian. Now confined to a wintry prison where he has become feral and overweight, all he can do is reminisce about good old days that may not have happened as he remembers them. That is, until his rescue by Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), the spies he raised as his own daughters.Alexei is the latest in a series of strangely compelling deadbeats for Harbour. He also appears in Steven Soderbergh’s new HBO Max thriller, “No Sudden Move,” as Matt Wertz, a milquetoast accountant drawn into a criminal enterprise that’s well out of his league.And these are precisely the kinds of characters that Harbour loves to play. As he explained in an interview on Thursday: “Winners are great, and we like them, rah-rah. But to me, the beauty of human beings is in the flesh and the failures. We’re all frail.”Having performed over the years in Broadway productions of “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Coast of Utopia” as well as in films like “Brokeback Mountain” and “Revolutionary Road,” Harbour called his current renaissance “another step in a very even-keeled, slow trajectory, which I like.”Now 46 years old and married to the pop singer Lily Allen, Harbour said he was happier to have found success at this stage of his life. If he’d had this much attention as a younger man, Harbour said: “Oh God, that would be miserable. It took me so long to cultivate an artistic voice. If I had people judging me so early about whether or not they liked what I did, I wouldn’t be able to survive that.”Speaking via video from New Orleans, Harbour talked further about the making of “Black Widow” and “No Sudden Move,” his offbeat influences and the comfort of working with Soderbergh during a pandemic. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.Harbour with Scarlett Johansson, left, and Florence Pugh in “Black Widow.”Jay Maidment/Marvel/DisneyIs there a story behind how you were cast in “Black Widow”?It’s oddly pedestrian. I have friends who tested for “Guardians of the Galaxy,” who talked about a top-secret lair and getting sides [dialogue pages] and then they burn them. My agent said Cate Shortland wants to meet you for a movie she’s doing. He didn’t even know what it was about. I sat down with her, and she said, “I’m doing this ‘Black Widow’ movie for Marvel with Scarlett Johansson.” And then she proceeded to pitch my character as this dude who’s big and violent with tattoos and gold teeth and also needs you to like his jokes. She pitched me these incredible contradictions, and we talked about all these family dramedies with desperate people — movies like “The Savages” and Ricky Gervais on “The Office.” And I was like, hell yes, on so many levels.Please, elaborate on the Ricky Gervais connection.It’s just that he’s so desperately insecure, and that insecurity manifests itself in boastfulness. I love people like this. He now has such deep regret and emotional guilt, but he can’t feel any of those things. So all he does is exist on his sociopathic charm and his need for validation. Someone like Hopper [in “Stranger Things”] has guilt, but it’s so internal, whereas he’s loud in every way. Smelly and sweaty and big and hairy. So cringey, as the kids say.Is it flattering to be told by a director that she sees you as this person?I have such an odd ego. I am always flattered, and then I look back years later and I go, what were you flattered by? I’m sort of an outcast myself. Growing up, I was, certainly. And I’ve always wanted to act because I wanted people to feel less alone. Even when I’d play villains, people would say, “There was a way that you humanized the experience so that we understood someone, as opposed to judging them.” So that’s what flatters me — you’re using me as an artist to understand this deeply troubled and confusing individual that a less capable person would make a mockery of. I maybe proceed to do both. But I can hopefully give you some understanding of him.Had you ever worked with Johansson, Pugh or Rachel Weisz, who play the other members of your makeshift family?I had never even met them. But then we had rehearsals for about two weeks, which is rare on a movie this size, and we really did take on those family dynamics, right from the get-go. I did feel like Rachel was the woman I was meant to be with — no offense to Lily Allen, because she is the actual person I was meant to be with — but it did feel like Melina and Red Guardian had something beautiful. Scarlett felt like the oldest child; I started to see her as rigid in a certain way, and I started to poke fun at her rigidity. And Florence really felt like the baby of the family; I just wanted to coddle her and make her laugh.Which did you film first: the prologue scenes where your character is neat and trim, or the main sequences where he has gone to seed?I had grown the beard and the hair for “Stranger Things,” and I was like, “Let’s use the weight.” So I started eating even more. I got up to 280 pounds, and I loved it. I said to the first A.D. [assistant director], “Listen, we have to shoot the flashback stuff at the end, so that by the time we shoot the flashback, I’ll lose the weight and I’ll be thin.” And he was like, “You’ll never be thin.” [Laughs.] I was like, “Yes I will, man.” And I lost like 60 pounds through the shooting. The first stuff we shot was at the prison, so that belly that’s coming at you, that’s all real belly. And then as we shot, I started to lose weight. I was just hungry a lot of the shoot.”I’m the anti-Tom Cruise” when it comes to stunts, said Harbour, with his four-month-old puppy.Akasha Rabut for The New York TimesYou’re a recently married man — how was all of this physical transformation playing at home?[Dryly] It’s a true testament to my undeniable charisma when I say that my wife met me at 280 pounds with this beard and this hair. We went on a date at the Wolseley [restaurant] in London, and she really fell for me at my worst, physically and hair-wise. So as the thing went on, I started losing the weight and working out. And she honestly has some mixed feelings about it. Which is a good place to be in a relationship. It’s really good to start the relationship from that part, as opposed to being the young, handsome buck and watching yourself degenerate over the years.Did you get to do many of your own stunts on the film?They really want you to do it. They’re very encouraging. But I’m the anti-Tom Cruise when it comes to this stuff. I do not want to fly the helicopter. I want Alexei to be a production of eight different people. I’m the face. I’m very happy to put the stunt people in. But I do my own arm-wrestling. I wouldn’t let anyone else arm-wrestle for me.Your best-known characters now are men who, underneath their exterior shabbiness, possess at least the potential to redeem themselves. How did this come to be your particular turf?That’s what I love about Alexei and what I love about Hopper. It comes from my view of Walter Matthau. In “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” you have this schlubby leading man and you put him against Robert Shaw, who’s like the most bad-ass Brit in the world. You think he’s never going to take this guy. But there’s something about his American heart that we want to love, and I love embodying that. Once Hopper rolled around, it was like, swing for the fences. Give him the dad bod and let him smoke cigarettes, have him be a total mess.Just a few years ago, you were playing a lot of intimidating bruisers and flat-out villains. How did you pivot from that?It was very interesting to be perceived as a villain. There were heavies, but then I was cast as true, dangerous psychopaths, too. There’s something about the mental freedom of the psychopath that I can embrace in a certain way. It really was [the casting director] Carmen Cuba on “Stranger Things” who was like, “I know this guy’s been the villain and he’s been fifth and sixth on the call sheets for a long time, but I think he’s the Harrison Ford.” No one had seen that before. I always blamed it on the jawline or the brow, whatever it was. It really takes a sophisticated eye to go, it doesn’t matter whether he has a double chin. His heart is there.Harbour as a milquetoast accountant opposite Amy Seimetz in the new Steven Soderbergh crime drama, “No Sudden Move.”Claudette Barius/Warner Bros.How did you get your part in “No Sudden Move”?It got shut down during Covid, so they refashioned it and put that movie back together. A couple people couldn’t do it so a couple replaced them, and I was one of them. Steven Soderbergh’s process is very simple: He sent me the script. Would you like to do this? Yes, very much. And then I met him on the first day.Going by only the screenplay, what was your read on the character?Matt lives in a prison of his own making. The tragedy of Matt is that he can’t be who he is, and he’s been living this lie for a long time. There is a carrot that gets dangled in front of him, and as one of the characters says in the movie, he had the brass ring and he just let it go by. That’s the true tragedy of Matt Wertz. There’s some excitement that he may actually get to live a life, finally, after so much struggle. And he disappoints us. [Laughs.]Was this the first film you made during the pandemic?That was my first pandemic shoot. “Stranger Things” had come back for Season 4 in September, and they didn’t need me until January. And I freaked out. I love my wife and kids, but I also need to go to work, because I’ll lose my mind here, trying to home-school them. This job came to me, and I took it. We were in Detroit for two and a half, three months, sequestered in a hotel. But luckily it’s Soderbergh. He did “Contagion.” So all the C.D.C. guys that he worked with on that were there on set. We were talking about the vaccines. I would go to Soderbergh and be like, “When is this going to be over?” And he would be like, “Oh, sometime early next year, there’ll be vaccines.” I was like, “Which one?” He’s like, “Pfizer’s doing very well — two shots.” It was incredible. You’re making this movie and you’re finding out what’s actually happening at the C.D.C.Harbour on being asked to play losers: “I have such an odd ego. I am always flattered, and then I look back years later and I go, what were you flattered by?”Akasha Rabut for The New York TimesWhat are you permitted to say about the new season of “Stranger Things”?Ugh. I want to tell you something. I have my prepackaged answer, which is true, that it’s a super-exciting season. It’s gone to a whole other place. It started out, in Season 1, with this small-town police chief, and now it’s become this sprawling thing with a Russian prison and a monster. The brothers [series creators Matt and Ross Duffer] are big into video games, manga and anime, and we definitely play on that this season. We talked about “The Great Escape” and “Alien 3” as influences. In terms of Hopper, you get to see a lot of back story that you haven’t seen before, it’s only been hinted at. As opposed to this dad he’s become, eating chips and salsa and yelling at his teenage daughter, you’ll unearth some more of the warrior that he had been.Having now made a mega-budget Marvel movie, was there anything you could take from that experience into “Stranger Things”?I do a lot more stunts this season than I’ve ever done. And I — if I do say so myself — did some pretty impressive things. And that truly came from being humiliated on the set of “Black Widow,” being not able to do those things. There is an ego in me that’s growing. Hopefully by the time I’m 55, I’ll be hanging out of a helicopter as well, making my own version of “Mission: Impossible.” More