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      For Two Broadway Stars, a Love Story Blossoms in a Honky-Tonk Bar

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      The new musical “The Lonely Few,” starring Lauren Patten and Ciara Renée, puts a romance between two women at its very heart.LOS ANGELES — During a rehearsal of “The Lonely Few” at the Geffen Playhouse, Lauren Patten, a Tony winner for her performance in “Jagged Little Pill,” was sharing a stage with Ciara Renée, whose Broadway credits include “Waitress” and “Frozen.” The performances were mesmerizing, and loud (drumsticks were broken; earplugs were provided), with Patten steam-rolling her way through a pair of headbangers about the joys of rock ’n’ roll and the desire to escape, and Renée filling the room with a heartbreaking ballad about unrequited love.“I would go see that band,” Zoe Sarnak, the show’s composer and lyricist, said during a break.The setting was about as far from a Broadway stage as one could imagine: a small rehearsal space in the Westwood neighborhood. And the actual performance space for the show, the Geffen’s Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, isn’t that much larger. The 114-seat theater has been reconfigured to resemble a dive bar in backwoods Kentucky, so audience members, sitting at tables and bar stools amid the players, will feel as if they’re at a neighborhood watering hole.“The minute you walk into the theater, you’re going to feel like you’re not at the Geffen,” said Ellenore Scott, who is sharing directing duties with Trip Cullman. “Performers will be walking right by you, or using your table, or doing an entire scene next to you.”For venues this size, Patten said, vocal adjustments need to be made. You’re still playing to the guy in the back row, she said, but with a care for the audience member sitting a few feet away. “I also think that with a show like this, with music like this,” she said, “it’s got to smack you in the face.”After five years of development, which included pandemic-related breaks, “The Lonely Few” is now having its world premiere, with preview performances scheduled to start Thursday and opening night set for March 9. In the musical, Patten plays Lila, a Save-A-Lot clerk who leads the Lonely Few, a preternaturally gifted band that plays Friday nights at Paul’s Joint, the local honky-tonk. Rounding out the band is Damon Daunno (“Oklahoma”), Helen J Shen (“Man of God”) and Thomas Silcott (“Birthday Candles”); Joshua Close (a star of the 2022 film “Monica”) portrays Lila’s brother Adam, the loving but troubled albatross around her neck.When Amy (Renée), an established musician, enters the club and offers Lila a chance to come on the road with her and open for her band, choices must be made, both practical and romantic.The new show has provided the two leads with a rare opportunity to create roles from the ground up. It’s a welcome change for Renée, who took over but didn’t originate the roles of Jenna in “Waitress” and Elsa in “Frozen,” both on Broadway.A recent rehearsal in Los Angeles. The show’s vibe is honky-tonk dive bar.JJ Geiger for The New York Times“I’ve done a lot in my career where I’ve been the Black woman who steps into a white role,” she said. “But this play doesn’t exist anywhere. It’s totally new. And there’s so much beauty in that.”“The Lonely Few” is also that rarest of shows: a musical that puts a love story between two women at its very heart.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.“Fun Home,” the musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s award-winning graphic novel, features the coming out narrative of an adolescent girl, as does “The Prom,” which opened on Broadway in 2018. But the romantic relationships in both of those musicals — though crucial to the stories — are largely secondary.“Those pieces are incredibly important to the canon, and I’m so thankful for them,” said Sarnak, whose previous shows include “A Crossing” for Barrington Stage Company. “But I can’t think of a show where the narrative center is a love story between two women who are out.”The first seeds of the show were planted in 2018, when Sarnak was talking with Rachel Bonds, who wrote the show’s book, about working together. They wanted to do a piece about two women with music in it, telling a story that could pull from their own experiences.For years, Sarnak had written songs about her life and past loves. “There are several relationships in my life that find their way into the show,” she said. “The first woman I ever dated, who I was with for four years, and then my marriage and divorce, and then relationships after that. It’s not any one relationship. There are pieces of anyone I’ve ever been with or been in love with.”For the play’s setting and people, Bonds drew from her childhood growing up in Sewanee, Tenn., home of the esteemed University of the South. “Sewanee is up on a mountain, and when you go down into the valley, it’s a whole different world,” she said. “There’s a real separation,” she added, “and I grew up very aware of that.”“Southerners are often portrayed as stupid or ignorant, and small-town folks are often portrayed as people without dreams or meaning in their lives,” Bonds continued. “I really wanted to fight against that.”Over time, the project morphed from “a play with music” to a full-blown book musical, a first for Bonds, whose plays include “Goodnight Nobody” and “Michael & Edie.” Many of Sarnak’s songs shaped the show’s plot about the star-crossed lovers Lila and Amy. “I think we both felt that these songs wanted to be a love story, this play had to be a love story,” Bonds said.Not long after, the two began considering possible leads. Sarnak had worked with Patten on readings and workshops, but never anything that had been produced.“We both felt that these songs wanted to be a love story, this play had to be a love story,” said Rachel Bonds, right, with Zoe Sarnak.JJ Geiger for The New York TimesGrowing up in Downers Grove, Ill., Patten was an early bloomer, staging home concerts in her living room when she was 3. “Apparently, the first song I sang was a Hank Williams song, ‘Long Gone Lonesome Blues,’ where he talks about drowning himself in a river because his woman left him,” she said. Commercials and theater roles soon followed.Patten made her Broadway debut in “Fun Home.” In 2021, she received a Tony for her role in “Jagged Little Pill,” but the show was criticized for changing Patten’s character, Jo, from seemingly nonbinary to gay and cisgender when the production moved from Boston to Broadway. In 2021, Patten released a mea culpa, in the form of a video conversation with the trans writer and activist Shakina Nayfack. “There’s a lot I wish was handled differently,” Patten said, looking back. “But I do feel grateful that even with something that was obviously a painful moment, I think it has a potential to move things forward in the industry.”Like Patten, Renée also began performing at an early age, winning singing competitions by the time she was 12. “I thought I was going to be a Christian music artist,” she said. In high school, however, she fell in love with the theater, and at 22, within three months of arriving in New York, she was offered roles in three Broadway shows. “I picked the flop,” she said of “Big Fish.”Then came a starring role in “Frozen,” though her run was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. “Every night I’d see these little girls, Black girls, girls of color, wearing Elsa, Anna, Olaf,” she said. “They were just so excited about their favorite characters, and about getting to see the leads of a show being played by women of color. I know how impactful that is, because I know that, growing up, I never saw it.”AS INITIALLY WRITTEN, the character of Amy in “The Lonely Few” was racially nonspecific, but that soon changed, even more so after Renée came aboard. “This whole piece could be open casting,” Bonds said. “But then when we started to place it in the South, we were interested in the tensions they’re in, and we really started to nail down who these women were.”So was Amy created for Renée? “I think it’s certainly being heavily shifted by my presence,” Renée said with a laugh.“It’s a testament to Rachel and Zoe really caring about my story as a Black woman,” she added, “and about this Black character in the South being queer, that there are things that complicate that in a way that’s different than if this character were white.”The show’s creators made a point of the care they are taking with the love story, and they have hired an intimacy director to help. “I feel a lot of trust in the room with Ciara,” Patten said. “We’re both doing very intense, emotional, vulnerable things in the show, and I feel very safe to do that with her.”During a break in rehearsal, the directors gave notes. In Lila’s line about chewing gum, Cullman told Patten it sounded like she was saying “gun.”“Oh my god,” Patten said. “Gum. Guuum.”“I feel a lot of trust in the room with Ciara,” Patten said. “We’re both doing very intense, emotional, vulnerable things in the show, and I feel very safe to do that with her.”JJ Geiger for The New York TimesBoth directors offered suggestions to Renée and Patten about their first scene together, when the two lock eyes in Paul’s Joint and the rest of the world (and the rest of the band) fades away.Many of the tweaks made over the past days and months are intended to ensure the show is as truthful to the place and its people as possible. The creators are quick to point out that the love story is the focus, not any sort of hatred or violence a lesbian relationship might provoke in the community. “I’m just not interested in seeing women get brutalized anymore,” Bonds said.In many ways, the musical toys with several possible expectations theatergoers might have coming into the show. How will this interracial love story between two women play out in a Kentucky dive bar? And just what is a band this good doing in a Kentucky dive bar in the first place?“This setting, this little bar, has become a bit of an enclave for folks who might feel like outsiders or weirdos or misfits,” Bonds said. “I think the community where Lila comes from actually surprises you in the end.”Despite the show’s specificity, the creators believe “The Lonely Few” will have broad appeal. “In my heart of hearts, I hope we have an Off Broadway run in New York,” Bonds said. “And then I hope we have a Broadway run.”“This is a queer love story,” she continued. “It’s a love story between two women. But my hope is that anybody could watch it, and be moved by it, and see themselves in it.” More

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      Acting Awards Without Gender Categories? Here’s Where Celebrities Stand

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      Nominees at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday were split on combining award show categories for best actor and best actress.LOS ANGELES — On the red carpet before the Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles on Sunday, stars answered the usual questions. Were they excited to be here? Yes. How did it feel to be recognized? Amazing. What TV show would they want to guest star in? “The White Lotus.”But one question we posed made nearly every person stop, ponder for several seconds and then deliver a thinking-aloud answer, often with a caveat or a pivot in the middle:“Should major award shows eliminate separate acting categories for men and women?” we asked.The ongoing debate over gender-neutral acting prizes, which could also mean fewer nominations for everyone, is part of the conversation again this awards season. In 2021, the Gotham Awards, which honor independent films, nixed separate acting categories for men and women. Last year, the Brit Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Grammys, merged its categories for best male and best female artist of the year into one gender-neutral top prize. And this year, the event faced backlash for not nominating any women for the award. The Grammy Awards eliminated many gendered categories beginning with the 2012 ceremony.Nonbinary actors such as Emma Corrin, who are often forced to choose a category in which to be considered, have called for gender-neutral award categories. The trans nonbinary performer Justin David Sullivan from the Broadway musical “& Juliet” withdrew their name from consideration when the Tony Awards eligibility rulings were announced earlier this month, putting public pressure on the awards. (Both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out Oscars, and the Television Academy, which handles the Emmy Awards, are looking into nongendered categories, according to The Los Angeles Times. Nominees are already able to request gender-neutral wording on their awards at both events.)The immediate response of many attendees at the SAG Awards was a desire for awards to be more inclusive.“I think it’s a positive thing,” said Will Sharpe, who plays Ethan Spiller, the workaholic tech nerd married to Harper on Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” which won the top TV award for a drama series on Sunday night, noting he believed it would “level out the playing field.”Will Sharpe from Season 2 of “The White Lotus” at the SAG Awards. Aude Guerrucci/Reuters“Why not?” said Michael Imperioli, who plays the womanizing Hollywood producer Dominic Di Grasso on “The White Lotus,” on combining the acting categories. “It’s all one big acting soup.”Other nominees addressed the potential benefit for nonbinary actors.“There are people who don’t want to be defined by gender, and I want to help make awards more inclusive for them,” said Rhea Seehorn, who plays the lawyer Kim Wexler in “Better Call Saul,” which was nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series for its final season.But then she paused.“At the same time,” she added, until women and nonbinary performers are afforded “as much screen time as the men, it’s not very fair to compare the performances.”Top awards often go to the actors who spend the most time onscreen, and a recent study found that, in 2021, in the top 100 grossing films, male characters outnumbered female ones by almost two to one.Jamie Lee Curtis, who won the supporting-actress statuette for her role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” over the Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and the BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), echoed Ms. Seehorn’s indecision.Jamie Lee Curtis won a SAG Award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role for her part in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Frazer Harrison/Getty Images“I’m all for inclusion, which is the most important thing,” she said, “but, at the same time, I want to make sure that the most opportunities are available to people. I know a lot of people believe in same-sex education. There are a lot of young women who get very quiet when the boys get really loud.”Female nominees in particular expressed concern that the idea of a single prize would put men at a distinct advantage because of the richer and more numerous roles available to them.“There’s still a lot of male parts,” said Patricia Arquette, who plays Harmony Cobel, Mark’s domineering boss, in “Severance,” which was nominated for outstanding ensemble performance in a drama series. “I don’t know if that would be fair.”Patricia Arquette plays Harmony Cobel in “Severance,” which was nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press“Until there’s a 50-50 opportunity, then we still need to have our own categories,” said Olivia Williams, who plays Camilla Parker Bowles in Season 5 of “The Crown,” which was also nominated for best ensemble performance in a drama series.Sarah Polley, the writer and director of the female-focused film “Women Talking,” which examines sexual assault in a religious community, said the potential for parity in consideration had to be weighed against the realities of the film and television industries.“What none of us want to see is a general acting category where it ends up being all-male nominees,” she said, “Which I think is the fear — and that’s a genuine fear.”But, she added, there were also important considerations to weigh that extend beyond fairness to the issue of fundamental identity.“We have a nonbinary actor in our cast,” she said, referring to August Winter, who plays Melvin, a character who lives as an openly trans man in a patriarchal society. “And there would have had to be a choice made between male and female, neither of which was accurate.”Members of the cast of “Women Talking” from left, Liv McNeil, August Winter, Kate Hallett, Michelle McLeod, Sheila McCarthy, Sarah Polley, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press“I’m not sure what the solution is,” she added, “but it certainly can’t stay the way it is, because it is excluding people from being recognized.”Mx. Winter, who uses the pronouns they and them, said they supported gender-neutral categories because they “honor the person who is making the art.”“Right now, you need to choose,” they said, referring to awards that separate categories for men and women. “And I don’t think people should be put in that position.”Other nominees noted, however, that they were concerned that combined categories would lead to fewer performances being recognized.Ms. Bassett said that collapsing the categories could lead to fewer chances for recognition. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Not enough opportunity.”Angela Bassett was nominated for a SAG award for outstanding performance by an actress in a supporting role for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressJon Gries, who plays Greg Hunt, the scheming husband of Jennifer Coolidge’s character, Tanya, in “The White Lotus,” echoed that concern. “When you have best actor, best actress, you have more awards,” he said. (“We like more awards,” said Sabrina Impacciatore, who plays the series’s uptight hotel manager, as she strolled up and put a hand on his shoulder.)Sally Field, who received a lifetime achievement award for her nearly six-decade TV and film career on Sunday night, expressed a general frustration with the competitive nature of awards. “It’s hard to compare actors, whether they be male or female, because the roles are so different,” she said. So the idea of a rule change that would recognize even fewer performances was befuddling to her.“Why would you do that?” she said, looking as though someone had just suggested she go roll through the mud in her ball gown. “I mean, you already can’t even compare Cate Blanchett and Viola Davis. They’re both beyond belief.”Quick Question is a collection of dispatches from red carpets, gala dinners and other events that coax celebrities out of hiding. More

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      in Television

      SAG Awards 2023: Complete List of Winners, Led by ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’

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      The film took the top prize, as well as lead actress and two supporting trophies. “Abbott Elementary” and “The White Lotus” were named the top TV shows.The Screen Actors Guild handed its top award for outstanding cast on Sunday night to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the hit sci-fi comedy that recently dominated the Directors and Producers Guild Awards and now appears to be a strong best picture front-runner at the Oscars. Three of the four individual acting trophies went to “Everything Everywhere” cast members, too.But will they also prevail with Oscar?The safest bet to repeat is “Everything Everywhere” comeback kid Ke Huy Quan, who won the supporting-actor trophy from SAG and has been collecting statuettes in that category all season. During Sunday’s show, which aired live on YouTube and will stream exclusively on Netflix next year, the 51-year-old Quan delivered his most touching speech yet.After rising to fame as a child actor in popular films like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Quan found few roles available for Asian actors and moved behind the camera, working in stunt choreography. Still, he paid his SAG dues every year, hoping and biding his time for the resurgence he’s finally experiencing.“To all those at home who are watching, who are struggling and waiting to be seen,” Quan said, “please keep on going because the spotlight will one day find you.”In an upset victory, Quan’s co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won the supporting-actress statuette over Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), suggesting that this may be the season’s most fluid acting race.“I know you look at me and think nepo baby, and I totally get it,” said a thrilled Curtis. “But the truth of the matter is I’m 64 years old and this is just amazing!”Later in the night, “Everything Everywhere” leading lady Michelle Yeoh won a crucial best-actress prize over “Tár” star Cate Blanchett, whom she acknowledged as a titan from the stage.“Thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this,” Yeoh told the crowd. “We want to be seen and we want to be heard, and tonight you have shown us that it is possible.”Though the SAGs have honored Asian performers from TV shows, Yeoh was the first Asian woman to win best actress in a movie category, and Quan was the first Asian male actor to win for movies as well.The only film actor to win who didn’t hail from “Everything Everywhere” was Brendan Fraser, who mounted a best-actor comeback with his transformational performance in “The Whale.” Though “Elvis” star Austin Butler earned best-actor prizes at BAFTA and the Golden Globes, Fraser wasn’t expected to win at the latter show, since he had publicly accused the former Globes head Philip Berk of groping him in 2003 and had said he wouldn’t attend the ceremony. (Berk denied the accusation.)Like many of the night’s winners, Fraser spoke about the ups and downs of a Hollywood career: “I’ve rode that wave lately, and it’s been powerful and good,” he said, “and I’ve also had that wave smash me right down to the ocean floor.”SAG’s track record with the Oscars is suggestive but spotty. Last year, all four SAG winners triumphed at the Oscars and Jessica Chastain’s SAG win for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” helped her vault to the front of a wide-open best-actress category. But the year before that, only two of the four SAG winners repeated at the Oscars.But the strongest takeaway from this year’s SAG ceremony is that “Everything Everywhere,” which cost only $14.3 million and took in more than $100 million worldwide, is almost certainly headed for a best-picture victory: Of the films that earned top honors at the DGAs, the PGAs and the SAGs — that is, all three major guilds — only Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” (1995) failed to go the distance with Oscar.When the season began, the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan were surprised that their quirky film was generating awards chatter. But with two weeks left until Hollywood’s biggest night, the real surprise would be if anything but “Everything Everywhere” becomes the Oscars’ ultimate victor.Here’s the complete list of SAG winners:FilmOutstanding Cast“Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Leading RoleBrendan Fraser, “The Whale”Actress in a Leading RoleMichelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Supporting RoleKe Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actress in a Supporting RoleJamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Stunt Ensemble in a Movie“Top Gun: Maverick”TelevisionEnsemble in a Comedy Series“Abbott Elementary”Ensemble in a Drama Series“The White Lotus”Actor in a Comedy SeriesJeremy Allen White, “The Bear”Actress in a Comedy SeriesJean Smart, “Hacks”Actor in a Drama SeriesJason Bateman, “Ozark”Actress in a Drama SeriesJennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”Actor in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesSam Elliott, “1883”Actress in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesJessica Chastain, “George & Tammy”Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series“Stranger Things”SAG Life Achievement AwardSally Field More

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      SAG Awards 2023: Complete List of Winners

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      Will “Everything Everywhere All at Once” take the top prize as it did at the Producers Guild Awards the night before?“Everything Everywhere All at Once” won the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night. Will it win again at the Screen Actors Guild Awards? And will that movie’s lead, Michelle Yeoh, take the SAG for best actress, or will that honor go to Cate Blanchett for “Tár”?Those are the biggest questions heading into the SAGs tonight. But we’re also keeping an eye on the supporting actress category. Will Angela Bassett, who won the Critics Choice for her turn as Queen Ramonda in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” prevail or will it be the BAFTAs’ choice, Kerry Condon from “The Banshees of Inisherin”? Or could Stephanie Hsu from “Everything Everywhere” sneak in?You can watch the ceremony, being held at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles and airing on Netflix’s YouTube channel starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific, or check back here as we post live updates of the winners’ list. More

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      Ireland Cheers Paul Mescal for Embracing Irish Language

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      On the red carpet for the British Academy Film Awards, the Oscar-nominated actor gave an interview in Ireland’s national language.Paul Mescal, the Irish actor nominated for an Oscar for his performance in “Aftersun,” is a familiar figure on red carpets. But on Sunday at the British Academy Film Awards, he did something he had never publicly done before: He spoke Irish.Mescal, 27, was walking the red carpet in London when he stopped to talk with TG4, an Irish-language public broadcaster. The interviewer opened the conversation in Irish, also known as Gaelic, and the actor nervously followed suit.For a man whom the BBC had erroneously identified as British only a few weeks before, it was quite a moment. The two-minute interaction, posted on Twitter, has been viewed one million times and set off a conversation across Ireland about the state of one of Europe’s most endangered languages.“I found it very emotional,” said Eithne Shortall, an Irish author who lives in Dublin. “The whole country is bursting proud of Paul Mescal.”The interview resonated in Ireland, where many want to speak the language but may find themselves short on confidence, Shortall said. According to the 2016 Irish census, the latest for which numbers are available, 39.8 percent of the Irish population can speak Irish, which is down from 41.4 percent in 2011. Of the 1.7 million people who said they could speak the language, only 73,803 — 1.7 percent of the population — said they did so daily outside an educational setting.“I’m sorry about my Irish — it was much better when I was in school,” Mescal said in Irish during the interview. “It’s slightly lost on me now.”Interviews With the Oscar NomineesKerry Condon: An ardent animal lover, the supporting actress Oscar nominee for “The Banshees of Inisherin” said that she channeled grief from her dog’s death into her performance.Michelle Yeoh: The “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star, nominated for best actress, said she was “bursting with joy” but “a little sad” that previous Asian actresses hadn’t been recognized.Angela Bassett: The actress nearly missed the announcement because of troubles with her TV. She tuned in just in time to find out that she was nominated for her supporting role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”Austin Butler: In discussing his best actor nomination, the “Elvis” star said that he wished Lisa Marie Presley, who died on Jan. 12, had been able to celebrate the moment with him.Irish is a mandatory subject in primary and secondary schools in Ireland, said Deirdre Ní Loingsigh, director of the Irish Language Center at the University of Limerick. As a result, almost all Irish people have a “cúpla focal” — a few words — but some are reluctant to use them. Shortall said seeing Mescal himself being hesitant to speak was encouraging.“A lot of the reason we can’t or we don’t is we’re nervous, and we’re kind of embarrassed,” Shortall said. “Maybe there’s a feeling that because it is our national language, we should be able to speak it better than most of us can.”Mescal wasn’t the only Irish actor who spoke Irish at the BAFTAs. Brendan Gleeson, a well-known Gaeilgeoir, or fluent Irish speaker, also gave an interview in Irish, while Colin Farrell, his co-star in “Banshees of Inisherin,” slowly backed away and was relieved to quickly find someone who would ask him questions in English.“Shame on me,” Farrell, who is also Irish, said.Mescal’s viral clip appeared against the backdrop of the so-called Green Wave — also affectionately referred to as Ireland’s going Oscar Wild. Twenty-five percent of this year’s acting Oscar nominees are Irish, according to The Los Angeles Times, and this is the first time an Irish-language film has been nominated for an Oscar, with “The Quiet Girl” up for best international feature film.“The language is almost like the central character of our film, you know, it’s been silenced over many years,” Colm Bairéad, the director of “The Quiet Girl,” said in an interview. “There’s something quite appropriate about the fact that the year where we have the most nominations in our history, our language is also part of that.”Irish, a Celtic language closely related to Scottish Gaelic, is the oldest spoken language in Western Europe, according to Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, a professor at Concordia University’s School of Irish Studies in Montreal. While Ireland was occupied by Britain, speaking Irish was often punished; when Ireland signed its Constitution in 1937 — after gaining independence in 1922 — Irish was designated as the national language, with English considered a second official language. Factors such as mass migration stemming from the Great Famine and present-day emigration have contributed to the language’s decline and led to the creation of Irish-language schools across the country, Ó hAllmhuráin said.Irish is currently considered “definitely endangered” by UNESCO. Shortall said part of the issue is the way the language is taught in schools, which is more academic than conversational. Bairéad said that as a result, Irish had failed to feel like a “living language” to many people and that had contributed to the country’s complex relationship with its native tongue.“Irish people do have a yearning for this expression of ourselves, as a people, that belongs to us,” Bairéad, who was raised bilingual, said. “This is a mode of expression that is ours, and that we can reclaim, but it takes a certain level of commitment. And when you see people like Paul being willing to do that, that’s inspiring for people.”The Irish have a phrase, “Is fearr gaeilge bhriste ná béarla cliste,” which translates to, “Broken Irish is better than clever English” — an idea that Mescal has come to embody, Shortall said.Mescal’s example has motivated her to speak more Irish, even if she needs to mix in the odd English word.“I really don’t think you can overstate how great this is for the language, to have someone so visible, young and cool speaking Irish,” Shortall said.As the interview wound down on the red carpet Sunday, the journalist asked Mescal one final question: Would he ever consider acting in an Irish-language film?“Yeah, absolutely,” he said — in English. More

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      Ricardo Darín: Argentina’s Lucky Charm at the Oscars

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      When the country has a nominated film, it has usually starred this veteran. But the actor says other people have believed in his talent more than he has.WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Fortune has long favored Ricardo Darín. More than the subjective concept of talent, it is providence, manifested as other people’s unwavering confidence in his abilities, that the actor credits for his storied career as Argentina’s most celebrated film star internationally.“I’ve had all the luck that my parents didn’t have as actors,” he said in Spanish during a recent interview at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood. “Many times, people have valued me far more than I value myself, and I often think, ‘Do I deserve all that?’”The latest example of his relationship with Lady Luck is his turn as the real-life prosecutor Julio Strassera in “Argentina, 1985,” a historical courtroom drama about the Trial of the Juntas, when military leaders were tried for human rights violations during the former dictatorship. Directed by Santiago Mitre, it earned Argentina an Oscar nomination for best international feature film.Darín seems to be his country’s lucky charm when it comes to the Academy Awards. He has starred in all four movies to earn Argentina a nod this century, including “Son of the Bride,” “Wild Tales” and “The Secret in Their Eyes,” which took home the statuette in 2010. And Argentina has also submitted several other Darín-led productions to the academy over the years — meaning that even though they didn’t all make the cut, the films in which he appears are almost synonymous with the best of Argentine cinema.From the first handshake, Darín, 66, radiates a welcoming aura. Casually dressed in bluejeans and a navy sweater, he speaks with a warmth and candor that most people reserve for their closest friends. That temperament translates onscreen.“Ricardo has an immense power to elicit empathy from the audience, and that’s rare,” said the director Juan José Campanella, who has collaborated with Darín on four features.“Ricardo has an immense power to elicit empathy from the audience, and that’s rare,” said the director Juan José Campanella.David Billet for The New York TimesThough the actor inherited a passion for performance from his parents, who were both working actors in Buenos Aires, neither was enthusiastic about his carrying on the family’s craft. “They didn’t fight me on it, but they also didn’t encourage me to do it,” he recalled.Darín thinks of his path as preordained. He was a regular on film and TV sets and theater stages in childhood, first acting professionally at 3 years old in the 1960 series “Soledad Monsalvo.” At 10 he debuted onstage alongside his parents. By the time he attended his first theater workshop at 14, Darín felt like a seasoned veteran who had already experienced many facets of the job firsthand.For a time in adolescence, he contemplated becoming a veterinarian, a psychologist or even a lawyer. But in the end, the world he had always been familiar with persuaded him to stay. Doors opened easily for him, with frequent invitations to participate in a variety of projects.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Tom Cruise’s Gravitational Pull: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.That trust from notable people in the industry is what he calls fortune. Darín has dear memories of the television director Diana Álvarez, who got into a fight with a network in 1982 so that he could be part of the show “Nosotros y Los Miedos.” She saw in him potential that others couldn’t.“In our profession, luck is very important,” Darín said. “There are very talented people out there with lots to tell who can’t find opportunities.”In the 1990s, Darín found immense success as the co-star of the sitcom “Mi Cuñado” (“My Brother-in-Law”), playing an impertinent but charming screw-up. His contract restricted him from other TV ventures but allowed him to pursue films. Among them was his first outing with Campanella, “The Same Love, the Same Rain” (1999), which helped other directors see beyond his TV persona.Darín’s academy-nominated films, clockwise from top left: “Argentina, 1985,” “Son of the Bride,” “The Secret in Their Eyes” and “Wild Tales.” Amazon Prime (“Argentina, 1985)”; Sony Pictures Classics (“Son of the Bride,” “Wild Tales”); María Antolini/Sony Pictures Classics (“The Secret in Their Eyes”)One of them, Fabián Bielinsky, cast him in the thriller “Nine Queens” (released in Argentina in 2000) as a sleazy con man. “He told me, ‘I hadn’t thought about you for this role. You are too charismatic, and I don’t want the audience to have any empathy for him,’” Darín recalled.In Campanella’s view, “There’s only one thing Ricardo cannot be, and that is unlikable. The clearest proof is ‘Nine Queens,’ where he plays an amoral crook, but we still root for him.”Campanella’s heartfelt “Son of the Bride” arrived the next year and mined Darín’s comic sensibilities for the role of a restaurant owner dealing with his aging parents.“Once an Argentine critic called him ‘our Henry Fonda’ because he projects great integrity,” Campanella said. “But he has something that Fonda didn’t, which is a great sense of humor.”Darín maintains that it was the one-two punch of “Nine Queens” and “Son of the Bride” that cemented his film career.“It was a great calling card for an actor to have the possibility of showing two absolutely opposite facets almost at once,” Darín said. “Even though I was already well known for TV and theater, that’s when I started to feel my colleagues were seeing me in a better light.”Since then, Darín has enjoyed his choice of roles, including Campanella’s acclaimed “The Secret in Their Eyes,” in which he starred as an investigator haunted by a gruesome, unresolved case.Another of Darín’s personal favorites is the dramedy “Truman” (2017), centered on a terminally ill man spending his final days alongside his best friends — one human and one canine. His wry character reminded Darín of his late father, also named Ricardo Darín, whom he described as a peculiar Renaissance man with an acid sense of humor and wild ideas that others found difficult to digest.Hollywood has reached out a handful of times, but he has declined, mostly because the most difficult thing for an actor to do is to think in another language, he said, adding that close-ups reveal when someone is reciting from memory rather than inhabiting an emotion.“I’ve always trusted my gut, more than my heart or my head,” Darín explained, then added, motioning to his stomach, “I trust in how the material hits me right here.”Hollywood has come calling, but Darín is largely uninterested because, he said, thinking in another language is the most difficult thing for an actor to do.David Billet for The New York TimesIn Argentina, his turn in Damián Szifron’s “Wild Tales” (released stateside in 2015) as a frustrated citizen who fights back against oppressive bureaucracy was widely embraced by audiences. “Ricardo has a lucid outlook on the realities that affect his country,” Szifron said. “He is a popular figure while at the same time being a sophisticated actor.”For “Argentina, 1985,” Mitre and Darín agreed not to mimic the voice or exact mannerisms of the real Strassera, but instead took a degree of artistic liberty in their re-creation.Mitre, who had directed Darín as a fictional Argentine president in the 2017 political saga “The Summit,” said he admired how the actor produces a truthful performance through a synthesis of his own sensibilities and the character’s.“It’s as if the camera could capture him in his entirety, show him in all his complexity,” Mitre said. “Whenever you see Ricardo act, you know there will be great honesty onscreen.”Beyond the positive critical reception of “Argentina, 1985” — and its Golden Globe win — Darín said the film’s most significant effect was making a younger generation aware of a sorrowful chapter in the country’s history.“We can’t forget that behind this reclaiming of the historical event that has brought us a lot of praise and happiness, there’s a deeply painful story about the kind of suffering for which there is no balm,” Darín noted with a solemn expression.His family’s acting tradition is being carried on by his son, Chino Darín, with whom he has formed a production company. The two starred in and produced the 2019 comedy “Heroic Losers.” The elder Darín never opposed his child’s interest in the craft, only advising him to follow the path that would bring the most satisfaction.“I’m one of those people who believe the most important thing in life is to try to be happy,” Darín said. “The closer you are to your vocation, the better chance you have at being happy.” More

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      in Movies

      Christoph Waltz Has Some Thoughts

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      Christoph Waltz knows a few things about acting, and he has the Academy Awards to prove it. Yet in a recent conversation, he made light of the skills required.“I don’t believe in good actor, bad actor,” he said. “If you’re playing an interesting part in a worthwhile story and you’re cast properly, you’d have to be a complete idiot to not be good.”It is difficult to tell how serious Waltz is when he makes this type of deliciously arch grand statement, just as it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly drives his latest screen creation — the title character of the satirical new Amazon workplace thriller “The Consultant.”Adapted by the “Servant” creator Tony Basgallop from the 2015 novel by Bentley Little, the eight-episode series, debuting Friday on Prime Video, tells the story of a video game studio after the sudden, violent death of its young founder, which sends the company into a tailspin. Out of nowhere, an off-putting stranger named Regus Patoff (Waltz), who claims to be a hired consultant from Crimea, appears and takes over. It is obvious immediately that something is a little off — or maybe a lot.Like many of Waltz’s best known characters, Regus is unfailingly soft-spoken and courteous — even when firing a guy for how he smells — as was Waltz, himself, on a recent morning in the Drawing Room of the Greenwich Hotel, in Lower Manhattan. And yet there is usually a wry edge to what he does, which often plays as ruthless in his characters, not least the two for which he won Oscars: an SS officer in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” and a bounty hunter in Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.”His character stays true to form in “The Consultant,” which he described as “the first series that I’ve done.” That isn’t entirely accurate — he has had many guest spots and he had regular roles in a few European series decades ago — but it is the first time Waltz, 66, has carried a modern Hollywood series, and with a role so thoroughly Waltz-like. (A series of Quibi short-shorts in which he starred, “Most Dangerous Game,” has since been condensed into a film.) Regus is as seductive as he is ominous, a frightening mix of outwardly pleasant and subtly menacing, a balance that Waltz has perfected over the years.“On the page the character is very harsh and forthright, but onscreen there’s only so far you can go in being nasty,” Basgallop, who is also the showrunner, said in a video conversation. “You also have to have a lot of charm, which I think Christoph brought to it,”“He never says, ‘I am the boss,’” Waltz said of his character in “The Consultant.” “He just acts like a boss and everybody immediately accepts it,” Waltz said. Michael Desmond/Prime VideoIn person, that edge Waltz brings to his roles is the furthest thing from menacing, but it does make for good sport. He is intellectual, playful, a little mischievous — as likely to challenge a question as to answer it. A man of wide-ranging interests, he quoted or paraphrased Stanley Kubrick, Charles Eames, Albert Einstein, Timothy Snyder, Aristotle and Stephen Sondheim in the course of an 80-minute conversation.In a typical rally, he hit a deceptively gentle lob back over the net after being asked if he had ever felt he nailed a scene or role.“All this market-economy vocabulary: ‘nailed it,’” he said. “Well, if you nail it, where do you nail it to? What kind of nail do you use? Why nail it in the first place? It can’t go anywhere anymore. Wouldn’t it be the goal to keep it flowing?”He leaned back in his seat, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.Born and raised in Vienna, Waltz spent decades bouncing around Europe in the workaday worlds of theater and television, doing the occasional film before landing his breakout role, in “Inglourious Basterds,” which debuted when he was 52. At the time, he told The New York Times that after acting in a lot of comedies, playing the villain had become “sort of the flavor of the past few years.”Most of it wasn’t particularly rewarding, but his relationship with Tarantino freed him to combine his facility for both comedy and villainy in more interesting ways — and to be choosier. It also brought him to Los Angeles, where he has been living full-time since the mid-2010s. (Just before the pandemic, he added American citizenship to his Austrian and German ones: “I very much believe in this old dictum of no taxation without representation,” he said, “and I wanted to be represented because I pay a lot of taxes here.”)With a successful run of films with some of the world’s biggest directors under his belt (Wes Anderson, Guillermo Del Toro and Cary Joji Fukunaga among the most recent), he hesitated, at first, to sign on for a TV show. Television requires a particular leap of faith, he said, that films do not.“They ask you to do a whole series but you don’t get anything but the pilot,” Waltz said. It was an experience he had never had before, and he described it with an unlikely metaphor.“The fastest animal is an alligator, but only for five meters,” he informed me. “So I thought, ‘What kind of alligator is that, jumping at me?’”Waltz has credited his analytical approach to acting, in part, to the technique of script interpretation taught by Stella Adler, to which he was exposed during a stint in New York beginning in the late 1970s. In his analysis, the power of his character in “The Consultant” rests in little more than people’s eagerness to follow someone who assumes an air of authority.“He never says, ‘I am the boss’ — he just acts like a boss and everybody immediately accepts it,” Waltz said.He segued to Representative George Santos of New York, who has built a career on brazen lies and self-confidence — but is still standing, even after being exposed.“He should be sitting in a quiet corner, hoping that this thing passes,” Waltz marveled with a gleam in his eye, like a gourmand about to dig into a particularly elaborate dessert. “Now it is pathology, clearly.”Waltz is interested in what makes people tick, but that doesn’t mean he wants to find an explanation or a meaning behind every decision he makes as an actor. Or at least he doesn’t want to dwell on it publicly.“I don’t talk about the process — or sometimes have a, let’s say, ironic distance to disclosing the process — because it’s a very personal thing,” he said. “You follow inklings that you don’t know where they’re coming from.”Regus is the latest in a line of roles in which Waltz deploys an unshowy virtuosity: He does a lot with little. (“It’s about the viewer, not the actor,” he said. “I’m not interested in seeing the actor work; I’m interested in forgetting about the actor altogether.”) Still, getting there takes plenty of experimentation and conversation that you don’t see onscreen. Waltz’s colleagues described him on set as collegial, honest and down to earth.Waltz takes an analytical approach to acting, preferring not to talk too much about his “process,” or at least to have “an ironic distance” when disclosing it. Erik Tanner for The New York Times“When he speaks, you listen because you know it’s heartfelt — you don’t think he’s trying to sell you something or trying to convince you of something,” Basgallop said. “He brings that to his characters as well — someone who has a very strong intellect but is also very calm and measured.“For some reason I think human beings find that terrifying: We’re programmed to be scared of someone like that because they can outthink us.”It’s tempting to draw parallels between Regus’s hold on the video game company’s staff and the one the best actors have on their audiences — and, evidently, on some of their colleagues.In a phone conversation, Nat Wolff, 28, who plays a coder, recalled shooting scenes in which his and Waltz’s characters take off on a bonding expedition. At the end of a busy day, Wolff said, Waltz volunteered some feedback.“He turned to me and he said, ‘You were …’ He took a long pause while I felt my anxiety rising, and then he went ‘ … exquisite today,’” he said. “I really wanted to get his approval, like a paternal figure.”The anecdote illustrates Waltz’s dry humor and precise timing, as well as the way he envisions the best conversations: as impish dialectic. Wolff recalled telling Waltz that he had wanted to get a puppy.“And he said, ‘Think about it from the puppy’s point of view,’” Wolff said, imitating his co-star’s German accent. “‘You’re going to be off on set and the puppy is going to be thinking, Where’s Nat?’”“So I didn’t get a puppy,” he added, laughing. “Whatever Christoph says, you listen to and you follow.” More

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      in Television

      Richard Belzer Had a Ball With the Relationship Between Comic and Crowd

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      Unlike his TV characters, his live shows were marked by spontaneity and physicality. He could even keep up with Robin Williams line by line.When Richard Belzer did stand-up on “Late Night With David Letterman,” he always entered to the opening riffs of “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones, dancing his way onstage, looking like the life of the party in dark shades. Once he arrived at the microphone, he made a point of engaging with the studio audience in a way you rarely saw on television. More than once, he asked, “You in a good mood?” and waited for a cheer. Then his tone shifted: “Prove it.”With that opening pivot, he turned the relationship between comedian and crowd upside-down. The expectation was now on the people in the seats: Impress me.Belzer, who died Sunday, is best known for his performances as a detective on TV, but his acting career was built on a signature persona in comedy, as a master of seductive crowd work who set the template for the MC in the early days of the comedy club. Often in jackets and shirts buttoned low, he cut a stylish image, spiky and louche. He could charm with the best of them, but unlike many performers, he didn’t come off as desperate for your approval. He understood that one of the peculiar things about comedy is that the line between irritation and ingratiation could easily blur.Throughout the 1970s, he ran the show at the buzziest of the New York clubs: Catch a Rising Star, stand-up’s answer to Studio 54. He roasted the crowds while warming them up, quizzing them about where they were from and what they did, establishing rapport and dominance. Long before Dave Chappelle dropped the mic at the end of shows, Belzer regularly did so.If the crowd wasn’t laughing, he could lay on a guilt trip: “Could you be a little more quiet? Because I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.” And if someone heckled, look out. According to a story from the comic Jonathan Katz, one night someone in the crowd yelled, “Nice jacket!” and Belzer responded that he got it on sale in his mother’s vagina.Belzer didn’t get famous as quickly as many of his peers, but he was a cult figure with wide influence in comedy. You can hear his clipped cadences, not to mention his use of the word “babe” as a nickname, in the act of Dennis Miller, who once referred to him as “the dark prince” of Catch a Rising Star. Andy Kaufman’s alter ego Tony Clifton was partly inspired by Belzer (notice the glasses).Even as an MC, Belzer was his own star attraction. He became famous for taking an incredibly long time to introduce a comic. In an interview for a documentary on him that has yet to be released, Belzer recalled once taking an hour and forty-five minutes to bring up the next comic. The writer Bill Scheft, who is producing the movie, said Belzer ad-libbed many lines “that became stock MC lines for others.”Few of Belzer’s live shows were taped, but you can find traces online. An all-purpose showman who could sing and dance, he even did pratfalls while spoofing a hipster pose. One wonderfully goofy bit involved getting his hand stuck while running it through his hair, dragging his whole body down to the ground. He leaned hard on flamboyant impressions including those of Ronald Reagan, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and especially Mick Jagger. There’s a wonderful competitive moment from the 2011 show “Green Room” when, in the middle of a conversation, Belzer gets into a “Jagger-off” with the comic Rick Overton. He triumphs, doing an impression he always called “peacock on acid.”More than any joke, what stands out from a deep dive into Belzer’s online comedy was an attitude: impatient, sarcastic, friendly but quick to jab. There was a percussive sound to his running retorts to the crowd: “Yeah, right, sure.” These move-it-along interruptions had a rhythm and sound that was quintessentially New York. When he dove into a familiar premise, his voice could move from dry to wry in a blink, mocking himself. It’s no wonder that Letterman, another ironist whose attitude perpetually commented on and upstaged his own jokes, booked him so often.Today, crowd work is much easier to see, in specials but also all over social media, where it has become a critical part of marketing and selling tickets for young comics. But in the 1980s, unless you went to a club, you didn’t often find people turning “Where you from?” into spontaneous comedy, so it’s striking that in his 1986 HBO special, he included plenty of such basic interactions. “There’s a lot of parts of New Jersey that are very nice,” he said, responding to one guy from the state. “I can’t think of any right now.”As early as 1978, he opened sets with a touch of hostility, looking up and asking, “Could you make these lights brighter? I’d like to go blind.”Nothing on video displays his stature as much as a 90-minute show celebrating the 10th anniversary of Catch a Rising Star that aired on HBO in 1982. It’s a terrific portrait of New York comedy at the time, with a long bill including Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal, Rita Rudner and David Brenner, along with the singer Pat Benatar, who was managed by the club’s owner, Rick Newman. Belzer introduces them all, keeping things just sarcastic enough to prevent anyone from taking themselves seriously. Once Joe Piscopo finished a Frank Sinatra impression in full costume and makeup, Belzer marveled: “What an honor. What a surprise. What a man. What a toupée.”At the end, Robin Williams heckled Belzer from the crowd, before going onstage and improvising a series of scenes to close out the night. Whereas Belzer was relatively unknown to the mainstream then, Williams was a giant television star and powerhouse live performer, frenetic and wildly unpredictable. Williams riffed punch lines effortlessly, but Belzer kept up and matched him, line by line. That some don’t land only adds gravitas to the feat, since it proves this was not an act polished for HBO but a real attempt to translate high-wire improv to television.This ephemeral work is not the part of comedy you tend to see in movies or specials, but when done well live, it can be thrilling. And part of the job of the MC is to be alert to the value of spontaneous moments. Belzer understood this as well as anyone.“The greatest thing for me is when I make the audience laugh in a moment that could only happen that night with that audience,” he said in a recent interview. “Sometimes I laugh with the audience because I’m hearing the joke the same time they are.” More