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    ‘Civil War’ Is No. 1 at Box Office

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    Alex Garland’s movie, starring Kirsten Dunst, surpassed “Godzilla x Kong,” with an estimated $25.7 million in North American ticket sales on its first weekend.Hollywood executives — not all, but most — have insisted for years that uncomfortable, thought-provoking, original movies can no longer attract big audiences at the box office.Moviegoers continue to bust that myth.Alex Garland’s dystopian “Civil War,” set in a near-immediate future when the United States is at war with itself, sold an estimated $25.7 million in tickets at North American theaters, enough to make the film a strong No. 1, surpassing the monsters sequel “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” Ticket sales for “Civil War” exceeded the prerelease expectations of some box office analysts by roughly 30 percent. IMAX screenings provided nearly 50 percent of the “Civil War” gross.More than 70 percent of the total audience was male, according to exit-polling services. PostTrak, one of those firms, said that people with “liberal” or “moderate” political views attended most heavily.“Civil War,” starring Kirsten Dunst as a journalist on a military embed, became the latest example of ticket buyers breaking with Hollywood’s conventional wisdom about what types of films are likely to pop at the box office. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a three-hour period drama about a physicist, took in $968 million, wildly surpassing studio expectations. “Poor Things” collected $117 million, a solid total for a surreal art film.Garland (“Ex Machina”) wrote and directed “Civil War,” which gave A24, the specialty film company, its first No. 1 opening. (A24 was founded in New York in 2012.) The movie also cost more to make than any A24 movie to date: at least $50 million, not including tens of millions of dollars in marketing.The R-rated film benefited from a savvy release date — a time when Americans, sharply divided, are paying attention to the coming presidential election but are not yet completely worn out by it — and a marketing campaign that positioned the story as more of an action thriller than a gritty exploration of the frightening but not unthinkable.“Dystopian thrillers are generally set in futuristic worlds that look very different from contemporary life,” David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers, said in an email. “They use a lot of special effects and science fiction to tell their stories. ‘Civil War’ is doing the opposite: It looks like right now.”That storytelling choice, he added, “is bending the genre into something contemporary and relatable. The story is not directly partisan, but it’s provoking partisan feelings. It’s a fine balance to strike. Audiences are emotionally engaged, and that’s impressive.” More

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      AMC Theaters, Looking for Movies, Turns to Blumhouse

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      The theater chain and the entertainment company are teaming up for a five-day festival of old horror films in 40 cities, compensating for a lack of new films.For five days starting on March 29, people who buy tickets to certain movies at certain AMC Theaters will see video messages starring … Jason Blum?It’s a long way from Nicole Kidman, whose breathy “We come to this place for magic” branding spot has become legend. But Mr. Blum, a horror film producer, has been working to build his entertainment company, Blumhouse, into more of a consumer-facing brand. The goal is to create an association between its name and everything scary, sort of like Marvel and superheroes. That, in turn, could make Blumhouse more valuable as an acquisition target in the years ahead.AMC and Blumhouse, which has made more than 200 horror movies and shows, are teaming up for what they are calling the Halfway to Halloween Film Festival. (It’s more like 40 percent of the way.) Previously released Blumhouse horror movies, including “Split,” “Ouija: Origin of Evil,” “The Purge,” “The Invisible Man” and “Insidious,” which will have its 13th anniversary on April 1, will be on offer in 100 AMC theaters in 40 cities.Mr. Blum, 55, will introduce each film with a tailored message, offering an anecdote about the production or a tidbit of trivia. James Wan, who directed “Insidious,” will appear in a video, as will Mike Flanagan, who directed “Ouija: Origin of Evil.” Ticket buyers will also see elaborate ads known as sizzle reels for Blumhouse, which will promote the event through its social media channels.“Horror has always attracted misfits, me included, and participating in events like this allows me to celebrate that,” Mr. Blum said, before referring to one of the company’s signature films. “I like taking risks on stories that other people find too risky — like ‘Get Out’ — and having a brand allows me to do that.”Anya Taylor-Joy in “Split,” which took in $278 million in 2017.Universal/BlumhouseWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Netflix Becomes a Broadway Producer With Peter Morgan’s ‘Patriots’

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      The streamer is co-producing a play about Putin’s Russia from the creator of “The Crown” while also developing a screen adaptation.Netflix, the streaming behemoth that has evolved from mailing out DVDs in red envelopes to becoming a hugely important player in the entertainment industry, is embarking on a new adventure: producing on Broadway.The company will pick up its first Broadway credit this spring as a producer of “Patriots,” by Peter Morgan, the creator of the hit Netflix series “The Crown.” The new play is about an oligarch who was an early supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but then fell out with him and wound up dead.Even before “Patriots” begins its Broadway previews on April 1, Netflix is already in the early stages of developing a screen adaptation of the story, according to Emily Feingold, a Netflix spokeswoman.“Patriots” will be Netflix’s first Broadway credit, but not its first stage venture. The company is actively involved as a producer of “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a play now running in London that is a prequel of sorts to the popular Netflix streaming series. The “Stranger Things” production is expected to come to Broadway, but the timing and other specifics are unknown.Netflix’s foray into Broadway producing comes at a time when the entertainment industry has been aggressively working to monetize intellectual property — adapting popular titles and franchises on many different platforms, including not only film, television and stage but also books, video games and immersive experiences.Broadway has long had the attention of Hollywood studios — Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal have been particularly active in pursuing stage adaptations of their films. And for some time now, the recording industry has been actively involved on Broadway, seeing the stage as another way to repurpose pop song catalogs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Introducing Nathan Lane, the Hip New Face of A24

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      When you’re pondering actors associated with the indie-film company A24, your thoughts may run to the young, hot and impossibly tousled.In years past, this stable of dewy ingénues has included the likes of Robert Pattinson (“Good Time,” “The Lighthouse”), Riley Keough (“American Honey,” “Zola”) and Lucas Hedges (“Lady Bird,” “Waves”). But it’s time to make way for the studio’s newest muse, a three-time Tony winner whose key roles this year in a pair of A24 films — Ari Aster’s trippy “Beau Is Afraid” and the gleefully silly “Dicks: The Musical” (opening Friday) — offer the delightful opportunity to turn to your cool nephew and exclaim, “Oh, he’s in this?”Rest assured, the he in question is just as surprised. “I’m now the poster boy for A24,” said Nathan Lane, 67, over a recent morning coffee date in Los Angeles. “Who would have guessed?”One of Broadway’s most beloved actors, Lane had his breakout moment on the big screen in 1990s studio fare like “The Lion King” and “The Birdcage,” which mined his musical-theater talents and expansive comic sensibility for all they were worth. But though Lane has worked continually in the theater and on TV ever since, the film industry hasn’t always known what to do with him, which makes his current renaissance all the sweeter: He was the first choice for his roles in both of those A24 envelope-pushers, even though they’re utterly unlike anything he’s done before.Take “Beau Is Afraid,” released in April, a three-hour mind-bender about filial anxiety that had Lane come in for a midmovie face-off with an intense Joaquin Phoenix. (SAG-AFTRA strike rules prohibit Lane from talking about it, but the guild gave him a waiver for the new film.) Or sample “Dicks,” a proudly filthy queer musical that asks Lane to spit deli meat at puppets and ensures that for the rest of his life, he will share an IMDb page with the rapper Megan Thee Stallion.“Don’t you love show business, when these things can happen to a little boy from Jersey City?” Lane quipped.Lane’s co-star Aaron Jackson said, “Now that people like us are coming of age and getting to write stuff, it’s like, what about casting one of the most brilliant actors we’ve ever had?”Erik Tanner for The New York TimesThe Lane-aissance could either be a feat of timing or the beginning of a trend. But it’s also a reminder, not long after Michelle Yeoh found Oscar-winning acclaim in A24’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” that the studio’s coolness can come from more than the minting of new stars: It can be just as rewarding to pluck well-known veterans and toss them into a world that’s unexpected and wild.“To me, he’s the foundation,” said Aaron Jackson, who co-wrote and co-stars in Lane’s new film musical with his comedy partner, Josh Sharp. As a child, Jackson would do an impression of Lane as the “Lion King” meerkat Timon to make his grandfather laugh; when he was older, he got a DVD of Lane in a filmed version of the 2000 play “The Man Who Came to Dinner” and watched it on a near loop. “Now that people like us are coming of age and getting to write stuff, it’s like, what about casting one of the most brilliant actors we’ve ever had?”Though Jackson, Sharp and the director Larry Charles were eager to get Lane into their movie, the actor wasn’t initially sure what to make of the project. A hard-R spin on “The Parent Trap” that Jackson and Sharp based on a play they used to perform in the basement of a Gristedes, their film casts the New York comedians as long-lost twins who conspire to reunite their daffy parents. Hayley Mills never had it so hard, though: Here, dear old Mom (Megan Mullally) is an eccentric shut-in with a detached vagina, while Dad (Lane) is a newly out bon vivant who’s uncomfortably devoted to the two disgusting sewer creatures he keeps caged in his living room.“When I read it, I said to my agent and manager, ‘Are you serious with this?’” Lane recalled. The script had made him laugh, but he worried the comic situations were too outrageous, even for him. To assuage his fears, Lane met Sharp and Jackson at an Indian restaurant near his house, where their comic sensibilities clicked and cosmopolitans were served until the house lights came on.“It went on for four hours, and I fell in love with them and wanted to adopt them,” said Lane, who was ultimately won over by the eagerness of Jackson and Sharp to fly in the face of decorum at a time when “Don’t Say Gay” bills were being written into law. “We’re going to say whatever we want,” Lane said, channeling the duo’s brio. “And you’ll have to live with it.”Still, it’s one thing to read those out-there scenes and quite another to actually perform them, as Lane found when he showed up on set. Many of his big moments revolve around those unnerving sewer creatures, a pair of diapered reptilians that his character dotes on like an attentive mama bird. (Hence the regurgitated deli meats.) Though the filmmakers considered hiring Cirque du Soleil gymnasts to play the sewer boys, they ultimately settled on two puppets, which may be an even creepier touch.Lane, left, with Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Ryan in “Beau Is Afraid.”Takashi Seida/A24Lane with, clockwise from top right, Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson and Megan Mullally in the new film. “When I read it, I said to my agent and manager, ‘Are you serious with this?’” Lane said.Justin Lubin/A24“I’m not crazy about puppets — I’ve worked with them in the past, it’s nothing but trouble,” Lane said, adding under his breath, “I’ll be getting hostile letters from Basil Twist.” In order to play the scenes with true affection despite the twisted context, Lane endeavored to think about the sewer creatures as though they were his character’s pet corgis.“It has to be very grounded and it has to be subtle,” Lane explained, “even when you’re spitting cold cuts at two ugly puppets in a cage.”The closing-credits blooper reel suggests that was a tough task: In more than a few blown takes, Lane wonders aloud how the hell he ended up in such a surreal situation. (Asked by the director to spit more deli meats into the puppets’ mouths, Lane playfully pronounces it the worst of “all the humiliations I’ve experienced in my years of show business, and they are legion.”) Even during our coffee, Lane was unable to describe an emotional clinch with the sewer creatures without bursting into laughter.“You can’t even explain it!” he said. “I was crying and holding these puppets and kissing them goodbye, thinking, I can’t believe this is happening.”Sharp praised Lane’s ability to still dial into those scenes and commit to something real. “There’s two or three sneaky little heart moments in the movie and Nathan drives all of them,” he said. “He’s a fabulous actor.”Lane just hopes people will notice. “I mean, this may have killed it,” he joked, “but if it led to other things in film, interesting stuff, that would be great.” A more robust movie career is something Lane wants but has always been wary of: Wouldn’t you feel skittish if you gave one of the most finely calibrated comic performances of the ’90s in “The Birdcage” and the only two film scripts you received afterward were for “Mouse Hunt” and “Mr. Magoo”?Though Lane felt the stage could offer him a more expansive suite of roles, including his most famous part, as Max Bialystock in “The Producers,” even there, the appearance of typecasting could make him bristle. In 2010, while playing Gomez Addams in a Broadway musical version of “The Addams Family,” Lane read an article in this paper by Charles Isherwood that deemed him the greatest entertainer to appear on Broadway over the past decade. While it was meant as high praise, the description rankled him.“Amy Sedaris likes to call herself an entertainer, but for some reason it really bothered me,” Lane said. “It’s not like I spent 48 years in Ringling Bros. — I had done plenty of plays, the work of Terrence McNally or Jon Robin Baitz or Simon Gray. I felt like I had shown a lot of different colors along the way, but you become known for a handful of things.”Determined to shake things up, Lane emailed his friend, the actor Brian Dennehy, who was mulling a new adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh.” Though that shattering drama wasn’t the sort of production he would immediately come to mind for, Lane pitched himself for the tricky role of Hickey, the salesman who forces his fellow bar mates to confront dreams long deferred.Despite acclaimed performances in the ’90s in “The Birdcage” and “The Lion King,” Lane had trouble getting traction in Hollywood films.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesDennehy was intrigued, and the two men signed on for a production that played at BAM in 2015. “It changed the way I approach everything now,” Lane said. “I wanted to be scared again. I wanted to think, I don’t know if I can do this.” From Isherwood, Lane earned a “lusty bravo,” though the review that mattered most was the kind one he received from Dennehy, who died in 2020. “He was a very loving and supportive mentor, and I miss him very much,” Lane said, tearing up.He hopes more roles akin to Hickey are in his theatrical future, though he noted, “I don’t think they would be handing me that part in a film.” So why is it that Lane can be widely recognized as an unparalleled multitalent and yet good movie offers can be so hard to come by? I asked his new co-star Jackson, who replied with a mordant chuckle.“Well, Hollywood does hate gay people, even still,” he said. “I mean, they pretend that they don’t, but they do.”Still, he hoped that Lane’s A24 hot streak indicates that a younger generation of people, raised on Lane’s performances, have more exciting ideas of what do with him than the old guard Lane initially encountered: “He’s so good at acting that now they’re like, ‘Maybe we should let a gay person be a star.’”In the meantime, there’s “Dicks.” “Our little baby is going out to the real world where people can’t wait to be offended,” Lane said. “When I saw it, I just said, ‘Well, either it’s going to be this cult hit, or we’ll all be deported.’”Though he isn’t sure how the film will be received — “I’d like to show this to Mitch McConnell, then he’d really freeze” — Lane still offered some marketing suggestions. He told Sharp and Jackson they should record a video to warn that watching the film in a theater could make the audience gay, then ask a few willing football players to serve as the guinea pigs: “You send in Aaron Rodgers and a couple of others, and then they come out of there in caftans.”The idea was vetoed when they heard that the recent comedy “Bottoms” might also be planning a turn-you-gay marketing angle, but Lane was just happy to have the company. “If you can get away with ‘Bottoms’ — if you can have a high-school comedy about teenage lesbians starting a fight club — you certainly can have ‘Dicks: The Musical,’” he said.With that remark, our coffee date was over. And though we had met in the early morning, at an hour when some party-hearty A24 stars might finally be crawling into bed, Lane assured me it was no trouble at all.“This was like therapy,” he said. “I cried, I laughed, I talked about ‘Dicks.’” More

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      Talking Heads Reunite for Restored ‘Stop Making Sense’

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      Appearing together for the first time since 2002, the band celebrated the film in a Q. and A. with Spike Lee at the Toronto International Film Festival.The hottest ticket at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival was not for the new auteur film from Hayao Miyazaki or Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the latest vehicle for Kate Winslet or Sean Penn, or grand prizewinners at Cannes and Venice. No, the most feverishly in-demand screening was for a 39-year-old movie that everyone in its sold-out audience could have watched at home, at the push of a button.But this isn’t just any 39-year-old movie. “Stop Making Sense,” directed by Jonathan Demme, is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of the form, a joyful documentation (and celebration) of Talking Heads’ 1983 tour supporting their album “Speaking in Tongues.” The Toronto festival screening marked the debut of A24’s new restoration of the film ahead of its theatrical and IMAX rerelease later this month.But the real draw in Toronto was the band’s reunion for a Q. and A. conducted by Spike Lee after the screening (and simulcast to IMAX theaters across the globe). “This is the greatest concert film ever!” he enthused with the musicians sitting next to him. “I can say that! You might not want to, but for me, I’m going on record, around the world: this is the greatest concert film ever.”The 25-minute chat was the first time the band members had appeared together since they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. That reunion was an event in itself, following what the frontman David Byrne recently described, with characteristic understatement, as an “ugly” breakup in 1991. His former bandmates haven’t been quite so delicate. In 2020, the drummer Chris Frantz published a memoir in which he accused Byrne of frequently diminishing the contributions of his fellow musicians, while the bassist Tina Weymouth referred to him as, among many other slurs, “a vampire.” (Byrne has since granted that he was “more of a little tyrant” in those early years.)But in Toronto, it was all good vibes for Byrne, Frantz and Weymouth (who are married) and the keyboardist and guitarist Jerry Harrison. “I’m very grateful to be here tonight, and to be able to watch this and to enjoy it so much,” Frantz said warmly at the beginning of the conversation. Byrne concurred: “When I was watching this just now, I was thinking, this is why we come to the movie theaters. This is different than watching it on my laptop!”And indeed it was. From the opening image — of Byrne’s scuffed-up white sneakers striding onto the stage, as he sets down a boombox and announces, “Hi, I got a tape I wanna play” — seeing “Stop Making Sense” in IMAX was like seeing it anew. The image, blown up from the original 35-millimeter negatives, was crisp and rich; the sound, an early digital audio recording, felt like it had been laid down last night. The restless, roving, participatory nature of Demme’s cameras make it much more than a standard concert documentary. It’s an exhilarating record of a group of talented people, at the peak of their considerable powers, having a great time making groundbreaking music that you can still dance to.A scene from “Stop Making Sense,” which was restored from the original negatives and shown in IMAX on Monday in Toronto.via A24Demme, who died at 73 in 2017, was attracted to the material, Byrne recalled, because the show they’d assembled told a story, with a beginning, middle and end. The picture starts, quite literally, with the forming of the band, as Byrne is joined by each additional member, one by one, and their show is built out from the bare stage on which it begins. By the midpoint, this odd little man and his friends have become a family, and when Byrne sings the kind and welcoming lyrics of “This Must Be the Place” (“Home/is where I want to be/but I guess I’m already there”), it’s as heartfelt and moving an emotional beat as you’ll find in any narrative film.Byrne recalled realizing that Demme, working with the editor Lisa Day, was actually making an ensemble film. “Like, you would have a bunch of actors in a location and you get to know each character, one by one,” Byrne explained, adding, “You get familiar with them, and then you watch how they all interact with one another. And I thought, I’m in my own world. But he saw that, he saw what was going on there.”The sheer visceral impact of the filmmaking, when shown at IMAX proportions, was staggering as well. Demme’s striking, out-of-the-box lighting choices and close-up compositions are jaw-dropping on the big screen, and Byrne comes across as even more like a (seemingly impossible) movie star, from his first reveal in the iconic Big Suit (“It was really big tonight,” Frantz quipped) to his serpentine slithering during “Life During Wartime.” He’s aware of the camera and plays to it savvily — not just singing the band’s songs, but performing them (and understanding the difference).But he’s far from the only attraction, and the detail of the IMAX restoration (coupled with Demme’s preference for long takes and wide shots) provides the viewer with plenty of opportunities to observe the dynamics, throughout the frame, between the group, additional musicians like the keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and the crew. The cameras capture their nonverbal communication, the little cues and asides and flashes of encouragement they’re throwing at one another through the entire show.“There’s all these moments that he caught, where one of us looks at the other, looks over at Bernie or Bernie looks at us, all those little quick interactions,” Byrne marveled. “And I thought, that stuff is amazing.”From left, Frantz, Weymouth, Harrison and Byrne reunited on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival.Shawn Goldberg/Getty ImagesHarrison said that “one of the reasons for the lasting power of the film is you see that we are having so much fun onstage,” adding that “the audience is brought right into it. We say, you’re part of this too. And I think that every time anybody watches it, it brings back that wonderful emotion.”That was certainly the case in Toronto. The rowdy crowd applauded every number, cheered for the band’s introductions and clapped along with the breakdown in “Take Me to the River.” One guy hollered, “Encore!” when the movie ended.Both “Once in a Lifetime” and “Burning Down the House” brought audience members to their feet, just like their onscreen counterparts, to dance in the aisles. To be fair, they’re very hard songs to not dance to. In the seventh row, at his aisle seat, David Byrne was on his feet with them, bobbing his head and rocking back and forth, once more, for old times’ sake. More

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      Meet Greta Lee, the Star of “Past Lives”

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      She’s known for playing offbeat characters in “Russian Doll,” “High Maintenance” and “Girls,” but Greta Lee is winning raves for her restrained performance in “Past Lives.” It almost didn’t happen.“I’ve played a lot of larger-than-life people,” Greta Lee said. “This is entirely different. I was really attracted to what that could be, and whether or not I could pull it off.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesGreta Lee shines at playing the entrancing oddball, the scene-stealing weirdo you can’t take your eyes off of.Over the years, the actress has channeled Soojin, an entitled, self-absorbed gallerist who thinks she’s poor but isn’t (“Girls”); Hae Won, a nail salon technician who can party with the best of them, in this case, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (“Sisters”); and Maxine, the free spirit on “Russian Doll” caught in an inescapable time loop with her best friend, played by Natasha Lyonne.What Lee hasn’t gotten to play much are characters who are, to use her word, restrained.For many actors, restraint is not necessarily something to strive for. “A lot of times, as performers, we’re fighting this unspoken desire to show you can do something,” she said. “To show that you understand the assignment.”Audiences will get to see a bit more restraint and a lot more of what Lee can do in the A24 drama “Past Lives,” which opens June 2. After years of making the most of small parts, the actress’s talents have long been there to see for anyone with eyeballs, whether she was performing on Broadway (briefly) or in some of TV’s most groundbreaking comedies. All that was needed for Lee to move up was the right role — in this case, her first leading role, one that almost didn’t come her way.In “Past Lives,” she plays Nora, a Korean Canadian playwright who reunites with the childhood sweetheart she left behind in Seoul when her family immigrated 24 years before. The film also stars Teo Yoo (“Love to Hate You”) as Hae Sung, the man who still wonders what might have been, and John Magaro (“Not Fade Away”), as Nora’s husband Arthur, a writer forced to wonder what might have been, too, when Hae Sung comes to New York for a short but affecting visit.Teo Yoo and Lee in “Past Lives.” Initially the roles went to other performers.A24In many ways, Nora is about as far from Lee’s roster of scene-stealing roles as you can imagine: measured and still rather than riotous or offbeat; the humor, when it comes, wry. It’s a breakthrough performance in a film that has already earned rave reviews (The Times described it as “a gorgeous, glowing, aching thing”) after it premiered at Sundance and played the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. The Los Angeles Times called her turn a “career-making performance,” while The Hollywood Reporter singled out the “extraordinary depths” of her portrayal of Nora.“I’ve played a lot of larger-than-life people,” Lee said. “This is entirely different. I was really attracted to what that could be, and whether or not I could pull it off.”The role almost eluded Lee, an experience she related one afternoon in a coffee shop in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. “I felt absolutely certain that it was not going to go my way,” she recalled.IF NORA IS NOTHING LIKE many of Lee’s previous party-girl characters, neither is Lee herself. She’s a mother, for starters, of two young boys with her husband, Russ Armstrong.On set, “Greta is like a Hunter S. Thompson-meets-Fellini character,” Natasha Lyonne said in an interview. “She’s a total original.”And while Lee’s characters can seem infinitely too cool to be seen with you or your friends, she herself isn’t above getting excited about all sorts of things, including how kind and receptive everyone has been about this latest movie of hers. “I’m going to show you,” she said, pulling out her cellphone. She played a tiny clip she had shot on her phone of the blocks-long line at a recent screening of “Past Lives.” “It keeps going! Still going. Still going. Isn’t this completely wild?”Lee, now 40, was born in Los Angeles and spent most of her childhood here. The daughter of Korean immigrants and the oldest of three, she experienced much of her early life as a series of firsts. “I was the first kid to be an American citizen in the family, the first to go to school here, just navigating all these things,” she said. “I always had a burning fire to prove something, either to myself, or to whatever authority figure there was in my life.”Growing up, she loved sports (“there are Olympic wrestlers on my dad’s side”) and musical performance. She played the piano, studied opera, sang Liza Minnelli numbers at the local mall, took modern-dance classes, competed in classical music festivals (and won). “I know a lot of Italian arias and German art songs,” she said.After high school, Lee attended Northwestern University in the hopes of going into musical theater. “Back then it was ‘Miss Saigon,’ ‘South Pacific,’ ‘The King and I,’” she said. “It’s kind of sad to think about now. It was so limited in what it could be. But it was still enough for me to feel like there was something here that I deeply want to be a part of.”For a time, she hustled for any type of role or gig. “I was meeting rejection and obstacles, and I remember feeling constantly like I was falling behind,” she said, recalling the five-year stretch when she booked just a few TV episodes.Still, all that auditioning paid off. In 2010, Lee found herself on Broadway in a revival of “La Bête,” a comedy in iambic pentameter set in the 17th century and starring David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley. Even then, she was multitasking. “I would do that play, and then change out of my corset and walk around the corner to MTV’s ‘TRL’ studios, where I was a VJ.”Supporting parts in celebrated series like “High Maintenance,” “Girls” and “Inside Amy Schumer” followed. In 2019, Lee landed regular roles on the streaming series “Russian Doll,” which finished its second season last month, and “The Morning Show,” which has been renewed for a fourth season.“I think the path I took, as an Asian American woman, was different from what is conventional,” Lee said. “Certain points in my life during this journey didn’t always make sense to other people. But it makes so much sense to me now.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesLee read the script for “Past Lives” the following year and was immediately captivated. “It really stood out in terms of what a romantic drama could be,” she said. “It’s not a conventional love story or love triangle. And the woman at the center of the story is really different from others I’ve seen in other films.”Not long after that first read, “I got a phone call from an assistant, asking if I was available for an important meeting” at a restaurant in the Village, she said. “I assumed I had gotten the job!” But the assistant had the wrong number, and it turned out the message, unrelated to “Past Lives,” was for Greta Gerwig.In fact, Lee wasn’t even being considered for the part. For months, Celine Song, the writer and director of “Past Lives,” had been looking at other Noras, other Hae Sungs. “They cast it with two other people,” Lee said.According to Song, the oversight had little to do with Lee herself. The film’s story is loosely based on the true-life reunion of Song, her American husband and her Korean school pal, which took place when the director was 29. “When you’re young, you think that being 29 is so interesting and cool and meaningful,” Song said. “So I was trying to find somebody at 30, or even in their twenties, and Greta, of course, was in her late 30s.”“It was really stupid,” Song admitted.AFTER SONG CAME TO HER SENSES, she contacted Lee. A year had passed since Lee had first read the script, but she still remembered it: her soul-mate film, she called it. Could she meet with Song, via Zoom, that day? After a video audition that stretched on for two and a half hours, with Lee reading key scenes as Song played the two male leads (“Celine makes an excellent Arthur and Hae Sung,” Lee said), Song offered Lee the part on the spot.The film began shooting in summer 2021. To help the actors convey the feeling of being reunited with someone after 24 years, when you’ve only communicated over Skype, Song kept Lee and Yoo apart as much as possible. “She told us, you guys can’t touch,” Lee said.For Yoo, “during the rehearsal process, the instinct is to say goodbye naturally, with a hug,” he said. “And Celine was like, no, no, no, you guys, no touching.” I’m allowed to touch and hug, she told them, but Yoo and Lee got shooed away when they tried.Song insisted that the actors were all in, and that she never had to scold them to keep them in line. “Is that what they’re saying?” she asked, with a laugh. “No, no. I think they wanted to go along with the trick.”Of course the actress balked, Lee said, at least at first. “I was like, we’re all professionals here, and there’s a question of, how much of this needs to be actualized? We’re acting. But I think we all wanted to support her vision of this, and I was also curious to see how this might affect the process.”“It was really visceral, that first moment when we hug each other,” Yoo said. “So I was glad that we were able to capture that, and the audience gets to experience it.”Much of “Past Lives” was filmed in New York, as Nora shows Hae Sung around the city during a particularly dreary, rain-soaked week. The shoot was a reunion for the cast — not with, say, a long-lost sweetheart, but with the city itself. Song and the three leads had all lived in New York when they were coming up. Lee and Yoo had spent years in the East Village as struggling actors: Yoo, above a pizza joint at the corner of Avenue A and St. Marks Place; Lee, above a Thai restaurant in a small apartment she shared with three other women.“I was the first kid to be an American citizen in the family, the first to go to school here, just navigating all these things,” Lee said. “I always had a burning fire to prove something.”Chantal Anderson for The New York Times“We were shooting on the actual streets I lived on in the East Village when I was just starting out as a young 20-something, really desperate for work and trying to make a living,” Lee said. “It’s embarrassing to put it this way, but I guess it did feel somewhat like destiny.”In addition to “Past Lives,” Lee returns this fall as the network executive Stella Bak in the third season of “The Morning Show.” “I think people are really going to be excited about her arc on this season,” Lee said.She’s also set to appear in “Problemista,” an A24 comedy written, directed and starring Julio Torres. Greta plays a painter unfairly maligned by an art critic (Tilda Swinton). The part is small, Torres said, but memorable. “Greta has a way of staying with you even when you haven’t seen a lot of her, which is a very powerful thing to have,” he said.Right now, however, Lee’s focus is on “Past Lives.” All those other experiences she’s gone through, the stage work and revivals, the sketches and half-hour comedies, the TV dramas and voice actor work, she said, have all helped prepare her for this moment.“I think the path I took, as an Asian American woman, was different from what is conventional,” she said. “Certain points in my life during this journey didn’t always make sense to other people. But it makes so much sense to me now.”“I feel like I’ve been working really hard,” she added, “to make sure I was ready for the day when a role like Nora Moon would come my way.” More

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      A24, the Indie Film Studio, Buys New York’s Cherry Lane Theater

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      The studio’s first venture into live performance follows the move by Audible, Amazon’s audio subsidiary, to stage works at the nearby Minetta Lane Theater.A24, the independent film and television studio barreling into next weekend’s Academy Awards with a boatload of Oscar nominations, is making an unexpected move into live performance, purchasing a small Off Broadway theater in New York’s West Village.The studio, which until now has focused on making movies, television shows and podcasts, has purchased the Cherry Lane Theater for $10 million, and plans to present plays as well as other forms of live entertainment there, in addition to the occasional film screening.A24, whose films include the leading Oscar contender “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” is not the first film studio to make such a move: the Walt Disney Company has been presenting stage productions at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theater, which it leases from the state and city, since 1997. But Disney, of course, is an entertainment industry behemoth that has mastered the art of multiplatform storytelling.A more comparable move, perhaps, was that by Audible, an Amazon audio subsidiary that since 2018 has been leasing the Minetta Lane Theater, in Greenwich Village, for live productions which it then records and offers on its digital platform. And Netflix, the streaming juggernaut, has in recent years taken over several cinemas, including the Paris Theater in New York, as well as the Egyptian and Bay theaters in Los Angeles.The A24 acquisition, coming at a time when many theaters are still struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, suggests a vote of confidence in live performance. A24 plans to present some events celebrating Cherry Lane’s centennial this spring, and then to close the theater for renovations before beginning full-scale programming next year.More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance This SpringMusical Revivals: Why do the worst characters in musicals get the best tunes? In upcoming revivals, world leaders both real and mythical get an image makeover they may not deserve, our critic writes.Rising Stars: These actors turned playwrights all excavate memories and meaning from their lives in creating these four shows, which arrive in New York in the coming months.Gustavo Dudamel: The New York Philharmonic’s new music director, will conduct Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in May. It will be one of the hottest tickets in town.Feeling the Buzz: “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” is back on Broadway. Its stars? An eclectic cast of dancers who are anything but machines.Much remains uncertain about how the company intends to use the theater. A24 declined to make anyone available to speak on the record about the acquisition, but an official there said that the company had not yet decided whether it would develop work for the stage, or present work developed by others. The official, who was granted anonymity to describe the company’s plans, said that the studio hoped the theater would allow it to strengthen existing relationships with writers and performers who work on stage and screen, and to develop new relationships with comedians and theater artists.A24 plans to retain the theater’s existing staff while adding to it with its own team, the official said, and as part of the renovation it plans to install technology so the theater can be used for film screenings.The official said A24’s theater venture is a partnership with Taurus Investment Holdings.“I really believe my theater is going into the right hands,” said Angelina Fiordellisi, who has owned the theater since 1996. “They love to develop and produce the work of emerging writers, and a lot of their writers are playwrights. I can’t imagine a better way to bring future life to the theater.”Fiordellisi, 68, has been trying to sell the theater for some time. “I don’t want to work that hard anymore,” she said, “and I want to spend more time with my family.”The purchase, which was previously reported by Curbed, includes three attached properties, including a 179-seat theater, a 60-seat theater and eight apartments, on the Village’s picturesque, curving Commerce Street. The Cherry Lane, in a 19th-century building that was a brewery and a box factory before being converted to theatrical use in 1923, bills itself as the city’s longest continually running Off Broadway theater.In 2021, Fiordellisi agreed to sell the property to the Lucille Lortel Theater for $11 million, but the sale fell apart. Last week, Lortel announced that it had spent $5.3 million to purchase a three-story carriage house in Chelsea, where it plans to open a 61-seat theater in 2025. The Lortel organization also has a 295-seat theater in the West Village.The Cherry Lane will now be a for-profit, commercial venture; Fiordellisi had operated it through a nonprofit, occasionally presenting work that she developed and more often renting it to nonprofit and commercial producers. Fiordellisi said she will convert her nonprofit to a foundation that will give grants to playwrights and small theater companies. More

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      Sundance, Once a Hotbed for Film Deals, Tries to Find Its Footing

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      The kind of independent movies that the festival showcases have struggled at the box office, spurring worries about what the market would be like this year.The past two years have been a time of major upheaval in the film business — and at the Sundance Film Festival.Between the diminishing audiences in movie theaters, the consolidation of studios and the shrinking amount being spent on content after the streaming giants had their wrists slapped by Wall Street, few were certain about what kind of market there would be for new films at the current Sundance — typically a hotbed of acquisitions for the brightest lights in the independent film world.Even the festival’s opening-night gala last Thursday, its first in person since 2020, felt tempered by the reality facing movies.“These last few years have brought extraordinary challenges for our industry, along with opportunities to respond to the needs of artists and reach audiences in new ways,” Sundance’s chief executive, Joana Vicente, told those assembled. “And as many of this year’s films illustrate, this is a moment when so much is at risk — the health of our planet, human rights, women’s rights, freedom of expression and democracy itself.”Not exactly a celebratory introduction.So on Monday, a collective sigh of relief rose through Utah’s Wasatch mountain range, where, within two hours, two high-profile films that had premiered at the festival found eager buyers. Netflix plunked down $20 million to take the worldwide rights to the thriller “Fair Play,” while Searchlight Pictures spent just under $8 million for the musical-theater-geek mockumentary “Theater Camp,” starring Ben Platt.A day later, Apple TV+ nabbed the musical drama “Flora & Son” for $20 million, and the indie distributor A24 bought the Australian horror film “Talk to Me” for a wide theatrical release this summer.Despite the deals, the state of movies and how audiences will watch them remained an underlying worry.The Race to Rule Streaming TVA Changing Medium: A decade of streaming has transformed storytelling and viewing habits. But we may be starting to hit that transformation’s limits.Netflix: Reed Hastings, one of the founders of Netflix, said that he was ceding his co-chief executive title and becoming the company’s executive chairman.Crime Shows: Just a few years ago, it looked as though old-fashioned police and court procedurals might not make the leap to the streaming future. Now, they aren’t just surviving, they are thriving.AMC’s Troubles: The company has struggled to earn enough from streaming to make up for losses from its traditional cable business. It is a widespread issue in the industry.“Everybody is wringing their hands about the industry,” said Vinay Singh, the chief executive of Archer Gray, a production company whose film “The Persian Version” was shown in competition at Sundance. “A lot of people have lost their jobs. There are cost-cutting measures happening on spending content. People are worried.”Indeed, no one seems to know any longer what kind of movie is worthy of theatrical release and what should be sent straight to a streaming service. Distribution and marketing executives have to figure out not only how to sell a movie to an increasingly fickle audience but also how to navigate the needs of corporate parents, often giant conglomerates whose business priorities are constantly in flux.Plus, there is always the fear of succumbing to “Sundance Fever”— making lightheaded decisions because of the high-altitude fervor of the audience. Over the decades, both streaming services and theatrical distributors have overpaid for films at the festival. Harvey Weinstein spent $10 million for “Happy, Texas” in 1999 only to see it flop at the box office. Focus Features paid $10 million for “Hamlet 2” in 2008, and in 2019, Amazon scooped up three movies for a combined $41 million while New Line paid $15 million for “Blinded by the Light,” only to have it gross $12 million. And that was when the industry was healthier.Now, with so much riding on every decision, a positive response to a film at Sundance is no longer enough to guarantee that it will attract a theatrical distribution deal.Netflix paid $20 million for “Fair Play,” starring Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor.Sundance Institute“I’d like to believe this movie could have done well in theaters,” said Ram Bergman, a producer of “Fair Play,” one of the festival’s most acclaimed and sought-after films. But despite the enthusiasm from the traditional studios, he said, there was little faith that the $5 million R-rated thriller, starring Phoebe Dynevor (“Bridgerton”) and Alden Ehrenreich (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”), could succeed opposite the superhero spectacles without a prohibitively expensive marketing budget.“You are dealing with a lot of the studios that have convinced themselves that these movies cannot really do well in theaters,” Mr. Bergman said. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And if a streamer, let’s say Netflix, really wants to get behind it and treat it as one of, like, their high-priority movies, it’s hard to compete.”Therein lies the challenge. Most filmmakers come to Sundance with the expectation that their film will be shown on big screens across the country. The reality is that their movies are exactly the kinds that are performing poorly at the box office: small, inexpensive, complex and lacking movie stars.Add the fact that independent chains like ArcLight Cinemas and Landmark Theatres, which were the traditional supporters of indie fare, have closed and the calculus required to make these films successful becomes even more challenging.Searchlight is counting on fans of Mr. Platt (“Dear Evan Hansen”) and live theater in general to power “Theater Camp,” which celebrates all those who dream of hitting it big on Broadway. The thinking goes that if Mr. Platt can sell out Madison Square Garden, as he has with his one-man show, he can draw audiences to a movie theater. (However, Mr. Platt’s last film endeavor, the adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen,” grossed only $15 million at the domestic box office.)“This is a crowd-pleasing movie, and it was designed with an audience in mind from inception,” said Erik Feig, chief executive of PictureStart, one of the producers of “Theater Camp.” “Yet we didn’t mitigate our risk with presales. We took a flier. We did our research into the market, but comparisons change like every 90 seconds, so you kind of build something for a business model that two weeks later is extinct.”Other buzzy projects did not generate the kind of sales that Sundance, which ends on Sunday, is normally known for. “Cat Person” pleased crowds at the festival, but the critics excoriated it, particularly for veering away from the viral New Yorker short story it was based on. “Magazine Dreams” features an Oscar-caliber performance by Jonathan Majors (“Lovecraft Country”), but he plays a character who spirals into madness and begins carrying a loaded gun — a particularly difficult film to buy in the wake of the two recent mass shootings in California.And the documentary “Justice,” which turns an investigative eye toward Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court appointment and was added to the festival’s lineup at the last minute with much fanfare, disappointed critics, too.“Magazine Dreams,” starring Jonathan Majors, proved to be a difficult sell because of its dark subject matter.Sundance InstituteThe “Justice” filmmakers say they have received new tips, since their film was announced, that they plan to follow up on. It’s just not clear that the film, which was self-funded by the director, Doug Liman, who is best known for glossy action movies, will find a distributor ready to back an incomplete project.Despite the challenges, people were thrilled to be back in person at Sundance.“I feel a deep sense of gratitude to be in this room watching a movie,” Davis Guggenheim said at the premiere of his documentary “Still,” about Michael J. Fox and his protracted battle with Parkinson’s disease.“Theater Camp” brought its actors onstage to perform. The documentary “Going Varsity in Mariachi” was supplemented by a live performance by Mariachi Juvenil de Utah, and the cast of “Flora & Son” rapped one of its songs. The screenings were often sold out, and a film’s reception could be judged on the spot by the number of standing ovations it received. Still, buyers were being much more selective.“I think it’s natural that we’re seeing things not happen overnight,” Mr. Singh of Archer Gray said. “I think that’s fine. I actually think it might be a sign of health, because there’s so much stuff in play.”Mr. Feig echoed that sentiment.“It’s definitely a challenging market,” he said. “For each of these movies that has landed buyers, there probably weren’t 25 different offers for each one of these. There may be more of a handful. You just have to kind of build them sensibly knowing what your potential options are.”He also noted the festival’s combination of established names and rising talent, adding with more than a dash of optimism: “This is why Sundance is so amazing — it’s a discovery of fresh new voices. You saw that with ‘Fair Play.’ You see it with ‘Talk to Me.’ You saw that with ‘Theater Camp.’ All brand-new filmmakers, with their very first movie, and they broke through, they made noise, and they found studio partners.” More

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      The Riddle of Riley Keough

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      The “Zola” actress has a knack for inhabiting working-class characters who feel real, even though her own family history is as outrageous as it gets.Most actresses play to you. When they’re thinking or feeling something, you know exactly what that thing is. But Riley Keough is a little more elusive.Whether she’s weighing matters of money and sex in “The Girlfriend Experience” or staring down a romantic rival in “American Honey,” Keough, 32, certainly looks like a star — it helps that she inherited ice-blue eyes and a chin curved like a question mark from her grandfather Elvis Presley — even though her screen presence remains unusually impassive and mysterious. What are Keough’s characters thinking? You can never quite tell.This isn’t a bad thing. Instead, it’s the primary source of her allure: That gap between what you don’t know but want to find out is what’s so beguiling. And then, as you scan Keough’s face for flickers of intention and emotion, you realize you’re leaning in.“She’s one of those actors who so effortlessly lands in the feet of her character that it almost seems like it isn’t acting,” said the director Janicza Bravo, who pursued Keough to play Stefani, an exotic dancer with murky intentions, for her raucous new comedy “Zola.” You’re compelled by Stefani even when you don’t fully trust her, and Bravo knew Keough could play that ambiguity to the hilt.“That morsel, that taste, that juice, that flavor — I wanted that,” Bravo said.In late 2018, the “Zola” script was sent to Keough, and a meeting was set at the starry, storied Chateau Marmont, in Hollywood. Bravo got there first and while she waited, a woman came by her table, said hello and began to hover. The Chateau boasted a high level of celebrity density in its prepandemic heyday but every so often, a civilian still got through. And this one wasn’t leaving.Though Bravo nodded back, she was busy scanning the room for her would-be star. But this normie, this noncelebrity, this interloper kept standing by her table like she expected something.And then she said, “I’m Riley.”Bravo apologized profusely to Keough that day, and now she laughs about it. “I had this idea of what I thought she was going to be like — I believed her to be a larger-than-life person — and what landed in front of me was someone with a good deal of ease,” Bravo said. “I’m maybe dancing around it, but I didn’t expect her to be normal.”Me neither. When I met Keough in mid-June at the home of a friend in Los Angeles, I was struck by her calm, undisturbed energy — something I’ve never sensed in even the most wellness-obsessed stars. With Keough, there is no eagerness to please, no need to impress or to have all eyes on her. You feel that you’re simply talking to and observing a normal person.So how does she hold on to that lack of self-consciousness in Hollywood? “I have an ability that’s really hard in this industry to be kind of like, ‘Meh,’” Keough told me, shrugging. “I don’t take things too seriously.”“Zola,” based on a notorious Twitter thread, is about people who use social media as an advertisement, but Keough prefers using it to puncture her own celebrity: Though she has starred in a few films for the hot studio A24, Keough hopped on her Instagram last year to breezily rattle off all the A24 movies she failed to book, including “Uncut Gems,” “Spring Breakers” and “The Spectacular Now.”Directors of those films messaged Keough to offer apologies, but the rejections hadn’t bothered her much to begin with. “I don’t care if I fail,” she said. “I have this attitude of, ‘Well, then I’ll just do better.’” And besides, there were bigger quandaries to spend that energy on.“I’ve lived my whole life in a sort of existential crisis,” she told me matter-of-factly, tucking strands of auburn hair behind her ear. “The minute I got to Earth, I was like, ‘What am I doing here? Why is everyone just acting like this is normal?’”Of course, Keough’s childhood was far from ordinary: When she was about 5, her mother Lisa Marie Presley split from her musician father, Danny Keough, and married Michael Jackson. One parent provided access to moneyed fortresses like Graceland and Neverland, while the other lived more modestly, in trailer parks with mattresses on the floor.Keough had no qualms about visiting her father; once, she even told him, “When I grow up, I want to be poor like you.” She hadn’t known then how offensive her remark was, but that bifurcated childhood with her brother, Benjamin, would come in handy in her 20s, when Keough pursued work as an actress: She had amassed enough authenticity to play regular people as well as enough privilege to live her life without much worry.And blasé suits her: In movies like “American Honey” and “Logan Lucky,” about hustlers just trying to get by, her characters feel real and lived-in rather than condescended to. Or, as a recent tweet put it, “Riley Keough understands the white working class way better than J.D. Vance.” Was it glib to compare her to the “Hillbilly Elegy” author turned struggling Senate candidate? Perhaps, but the tweet still got more than 1,000 likes: Keough’s brand is strong.Keough as a sex worker opposite Taylour Paige in “Zola.”  Anna Kooris/A24The Florida-set “Zola” at first appeared to be cut from that same cloth: Stefani is a Southerner and a sex worker, two types Keough has played plenty of in the past. Still, the actress wanted to use this opportunity to push things a little further. “I didn’t want it to be ‘American Honey,’ this really naturalistic, understated performance,” Keough said. “When you do something well, people want it again and then you kind of get stuck.”Bravo wanted her to go big, too. Adorned in blond cornrows and hoop earrings, Stefani shrieks and cajoles in a blaccent so pronounced that even Iggy Azalea might blush. At first, when Keough was trying to find Stefani’s voice, she would text recordings to Bravo: “And Janicza was always like, ‘More, more.’ I was like, ‘OK, if you say so!’”The movie’s Black heroine, Zola (Taylour Paige), can hardly believe the vibe that Stefani is putting down, and in an era when white appropriation of Black culture has become a hot topic, audiences might find themselves shocked by Stefani, too. “Riley said, ‘Am I going to get canceled for this?’” Bravo recalled. “But what she’s playing only lands if you’re going to the extreme. If you’re at all shying away from what it is, it can look like an apology.”The result is the polar opposite of Keough’s more tamped-down performances: Stefani is outrageous, over the line and gut-bustingly funny, even if Keough can sense that some viewers don’t know what do with her.“People are like, ‘Am I allowed to laugh? Am I a bad person?’” she said. “I love that. I’m a little bit of a troll in my heart, and I think I bring that into my work.” And if you have trouble sussing out Stefani’s intentions as she goads Zola into a road trip that quickly turns dangerous, that’s by design.“You don’t know if the whole thing’s a manipulation, even in her moments of being vulnerable,” Keough said. “That’s why I love playing these characters that would seem like the bad guy. It’s so much more fun to make people have moments with those characters where you’re like, ‘I feel bad for her.’ Or, ‘I’m having fun with her. I’d go with her, too.’”“Zola” premiered in January 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival, and Keough was excited for it to come out that summer: She’s always been kind of a searcher, and if the movie led to new and more interesting work in comedies, maybe those roles would help her to understand herself better. Then the pandemic scuttled those plans, and as Keough was adjusting to months off from work, her younger brother, Benjamin, killed himself in July 2020.What followed was “a year of feeling like I was thrown into the ocean and couldn’t swim,” Keough said. “The first four or five months, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was totally debilitated. I couldn’t talk for two weeks.”Even now, Keough finds the tragedy hard to accept. “It’s very complicated for our minds to put that somewhere because it’s so outrageous,” she said. “If I’m going through a breakup, I know what to do with that and where to file it in my mind, but suicide of your brother? Where do you put that? How does that integrate? It just doesn’t.”After the suicide of her brother, Benjamin, Keough went through “a year of feeling like I was thrown into the ocean and couldn’t swim.”Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesKeough got through it with the help of her friends and her husband, Ben Smith-Petersen, a stuntman, but first she laid down some ground rules: “I wanted to make sure that I was feeling everything and I wasn’t running from anything,” she said. To that end, Keough recently became a death doula. Instead of helping to facilitate a birth, she guides people through the issues that arise during the final portion of their lives.“That’s really what’s helped me, being able to put myself in a position of service,” she said. “If I can help other people, maybe I can find some way to help myself.”And she has lately found things to treasure about her grief, too, though she admits that if someone had told her to expect a silver lining shortly after Benjamin died, she probably would have replied with expletives. “But there’s this sense of the fragility of life and how every moment matters to me now,” Keough said.It’s her new normal, one she’s still getting used to: Maybe you’re never quite certain where Keough stands because until recently, she hadn’t been all that sure herself. It almost couldn’t be helped with a childhood that whiplashed between two extremes. But now, at 32, she’s finally figured something out.“I think growing up, I was always searching for answers,” she said. “Now I know that everything’s inside me. All you can do is surrender and be present for the experience.” More