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      Ke Huy Quan Wins Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Capping Remarkable Comeback

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      Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar for his supporting role in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday night, completing one of the most impressive Hollywood comebacks of all time.After experiencing fame in the 1980s as a child actor in films like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “The Goonies,” Quan eventually moved behind the camera to work in stunt choreography. “I had to step away because the phone stopped ringing,” he told The Times about his two-decade absence from the screen. “Hollywood didn’t write roles for Asian actors.” But he continued to pay his Screen Actors Guild dues every month, as if biding his time for a return to acting.In 2018, inspired by the success of “Crazy Rich Asians,” Quan called an agent friend to represent him and only two weeks later, he was sent “Everything Everywhere,” in which he plays the kindhearted husband of Michelle Yeoh’s multiverse-jumping heroine. Since the film’s release, Quan has taken trophy after trophy from the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Critics Choice Awards, and Independent Spirit Awards.Now, in a year that saw a record number of Asian performers nominated in the acting races, Quan has added an Academy Award to that shelf of statuettes. Below is his full acceptance speech.Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you. My mom is 84 years old. And she’s at home watching. Mom, I just won an Oscar. My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow, I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage. They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This, this, is the American dream. Thank you so much.Thank you so much to the Academy for this honor of a lifetime. Thank you to my mom for the sacrifices you made to get me here. To my little brother David, who calls me every day just to remind me to take good care of myself. I love you, brother.Thank you to Kendall for all your support and everything you’ve done. Thank you to A24, the Daniels, Jonathan, Jamie, Michelle and my “Goonies” brother for life, Jeff Cohen. I owe everything to the love of my life, my wife, Echo, who, month after month, year after year, for 20 years, told me that one day, one day, my time will come. Dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. To all of you out there, please keep your dreams alive. Thank you, thank you so much for welcoming me back. I love you. Thank you thank you thank you. More

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      How Will Smith’s Slap Has Changed the Oscars

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      The Slap is sure to figure into the Oscars this year, even if the academy would prefer we all move on from the shocking moment on March 27, 2022, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage. The organization has said tonight’s telecast will not dwell on the episode. Then again, it has set up a crisis team to deal with any unexpected developments at the ceremony, proof that the incident continues to cast a long shadow. It will inform what you will — and won’t — see at the Dolby Theater tonight.The encounter itself unfolded quickly: Rock, on hand to present best documentary, fired off a series of jokes targeting stars in attendance. After he made a crack about Jada Pinkett Smith’s close-cropped hair, her husband, Will Smith, left his seat in the audience, walked onstage and struck Rock. After sitting down again, Smith yelled at Rock to keep Pinkett Smith’s name out of his mouth. Rock said he would, then quipped, “That was the greatest night in the history of television.”He was clearly stunned and the incident has reverberated in the months since. Here’s a look at the fallout:Will Smith: The star, who went on to win the best actor Academy Award that night for “King Richard,” was banned from the Oscars ceremony for 10 years (though he is still eligible to win awards). Tradition calls for the previous year’s acting winners to present statuettes this year, but he won’t be onstage tonight.The ban was imposed after Smith resigned from the academy and issued an apology on social media. He followed that up with a much longer apology a few months later on YouTube aimed at Rock, Rock’s family, Smith’s family and Questlove, who won the documentary prize but was overshadowed by what had just transpired. As for a direct conversation between Smith and Rock, the actor noted he had been told the comedian wasn’t ready to talk.The academy is not Hollywood, and in the industry Smith’s career continues to roll on. In January, it was announced that he was reteaming with Martin Lawrence on another sequel in the “Bad Boys” franchise.Chris Rock: In the aftermath of the incident, the comedian said little. At a standup show a few days later, he told a sold-out crowd, “I’m still kind of processing what happened.” Fast-forward nearly a year and Rock was clearly ready to talk on his livestreamed Netflix special Saturday night. Rock laid into Smith, criticizing him for picking on someone much smaller — “Will Smith is significantly bigger than me. We are not the same size. Will Smith does movies with his shirt off. You’ve never seen me do a movie with my shirt off” — and relishing any takedown of Smith: “Now I watch ‘Emancipation,’ just to see him get whupped,” Rock joked. (For a fascinating perspective also delivered via standup comedy, try Marlon Wayans’s new HBO Max special, which is all about the Slap from the point of view of an artist who has known the Smiths and Rock for decades.)Jada Pinkett Smith: The actress rolled her eyes when Rock spoke about her hair, and part of the controversy has focused on the insensitivity of the line given that she has alopecia, a condition involving hair loss. She has made a few comments over the past several months on social media but did not address the joke itself. (In his apology video, Will Smith took care to point out that Pinkett Smith had nothing to do with his decision to hit Rock.) Mainly the actress’s focus was on healing between the two men. On “Red Table Talk,” her Facebook Watch show, she said, “My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have the opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile.”The academy: Heavily criticized for doing little that night (officials asked Smith to leave, apparently, and he refused), the organization has issued a few mea culpas for its response, most recently at the nominees’ luncheon last month. “It was inadequate,” said Janet Yang, the academy president. “We learned from this that the academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis, we must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively.”How do they plan to do better next time? A crisis team will be stationed at the ceremony, according to a Time magazine interview with the academy chief executive, Bill Kramer, who explained: “We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place. We’ve run many scenarios.”“Emancipation”: This slave drama starring Will Smith was expected to be a strong Oscar contender this year — until the Slap greatly clouded its prospects. Though Smith could still have been nominated despite the ban, academy voters avoided that possibility when they omitted both the star and the film from the nominations.Jimmy Kimmel: The academy C.E.O. said over the summer that the 2023 telecast would not address the Slap, even in joke form. (“We want to move forward and to have an Oscars that celebrates cinema.”) But the Oscars host, Jimmy Kimmel, doesn’t seem to have gotten the message. His commercial promoting the Oscars includes several references to Rock, a former host himself. And the spot, a spoof of “Top Gun: Maverick,” explains that ABC was intent on finding an M.C. “who’s unflappable — and unslappable.” Kimmel’s response: “I can’t get slapped, I cry a lot.” More

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      Adam Brody Feels All the Feels With Surfing, ‘Avatar’ and Cate Le Bon

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      The “Shazam!” star revives himself with sprinkle doughnuts, Frank Black’s “Teenager of the Year” and daily naps.“Shazam!,” the 2019 DC Universe comic-adventure about some foster kids and their adult superhero alter egos, and its new sequel, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” might not change the arc of Adam Brody’s career exactly — though there are perks to being in a hit.“I’ve been acting for so long now but have barely set foot in any sort of big action movie,” said Brody, one of the stars of the FX series “Fleishman Is in Trouble.” “Being on something of this size is a thrill, just the huge setups and huge wire rigs, and you’re being chased by a dragon. It’s a big part of the Hollywood acting experience in the modern age that I really hadn’t got to play with before.”“Fury of the Gods,” opening Friday, finds the teens — including Freddy Freeman, played by Jack Dylan Grazer, with Brody as his grown version — fully endowed with otherworldly powers. Then the Daughters of Atlas (Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler) show up, and they want their magic back.But “Fury of the Gods” isn’t the only action Brody has seen recently. In an upcoming remake of “The River Wild” for Netflix, he’ll be occupying the same space, if not the same character, as the menace played in the 1994 original by Kevin Bacon. Brody’s wife, Leighton Meester, and their friend Taran Killam join him as distrusting siblings on a raft ride to hell.In a video call from Los Angeles, where he and Meester live with their daughter and son, Brody talked about venturing into the trenches with “Hardcore History,” revering Frank Black and listening to NPR in lieu of college. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1SurfingI’m from San Diego, and a big part of the beach for me is surfing. I was obsessed with it, and from junior high and high school that was my main focus. Then I moved to L.A. to try acting, and I ditched it for well over a decade. In my early 30s, I started dipping my toe because I missed the beach environment. And surf has slowly but steadily taken over my life again. My wife has picked it up and is obsessed. I’m at this really lovely place where the two halves of my life have converged.2DoughnutsI could eat them every day. I do enjoy this gourmet artisanal doughnut revolution that’s been going on for the last decade. I don’t like the chain ones — they seem so processed and lacking some flavor. But probably my favorite, even more than the really nice gourmet ones, are those strip-mall family-owned ones, usually Vietnamese- or Cambodian-owned but not always. They tend to be a little lighter, so you can take down a couple. My eye is very drawn to sprinkles. Pretty hard for me to say no.3Dan Carlin’s ‘Hardcore History’ PodcastHe’s always like, “Now remember, I’m not a historian.” I’m like, “But you are a historian. Why are you talking to me about this for 20 hours, then?” Every episode is five hours long, and one comes out every six months. “Blueprint for Armageddon” on World War I, which is the first one I listened to, blew me away.4Frank Black’s ‘Teenager of the Year’This is probably the only album or musician that I loved as a teenager that I still love. It’s not even that I listen to him a lot anymore, but I still revere him. It has a real irreverent, comedic and punk element to it. And he sings about so many subjects I think are great: California, space and astral planes and different dimensions, the Mariana Trench and the depths of the ocean.5Cate Le BonShe sounds like nobody else. I find the up-tempo stuff very groovy. At the same time it’s so off-kilter. There’s descending notes in minor chords and drone-y saxophone. And I find her singing emotional, and yet she’s Bowie-esque, distant and unknowable. Not a false note in the entire discography.6NapsI’ve always been pretty talented at napping. It doesn’t have to be that long, but there has to be one. I have less time to do it since I’ve been a parent. I’m sort of sounding scarily like my dad when I say that. I picture him asleep with a Kindle on his chest. But my favorite thing in a leisure-filled day: I’m going to start to read lying down, I’m going to close the book, take a nap, wake up and keep reading.7NPRI didn’t go to college, and I kind of consider it my alma mater. I like their breadth of coverage. It’s local, it’s national, it’s global. I like most of the personalities on it, and I find something about their — it’s not monotone, but it’s soft tones — very reassuring. It’s a calm, assured personality, giving you what I think is a well-rounded coverage. I’m sure some people would disagree, but they’re wrong.8‘The Crown’These are some of the best scenes on television. You have two great actors, and a monster scene for them to do with a real beginning, middle and end. I also am a big fan of the formatting, taking the historical record and bending it to a theme and an arc versus a cliffhanger. They’re really doing their own mini three-act movie in each episode.9‘Avatar: The Way of Water’I say this as someone who didn’t even like the first one. But I have a retroactive appreciation for it now because I like the second one so much. I took my daughter, who’s 7. I was like, “It’s over three hours long, and I’ve heard mixed things, but let’s go see, and if we want to leave, we’ll leave.” And I proceeded to have one of the best times I’ve had at the movies in decades. For starters, I cried — we both did — and I haven’t cried at a movie since “Titanic.”10‘Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter’My daughter and I watched the cartoon series that Goro Miyazaki did, and then we read the book. It’s a year in the life of this 9-year-old girl who lives in an abandoned fortress with her mother and her loving but volatile father and his group of robbers in medieval Renaissance times. She starts to explore the forest and then meets a boy her age. It’s so in touch with nature and the cycles of life, her very first pangs of love and her growing independence. And at the end of every chapter, the writer, Astrid Lindgren, had a phrase or two that really got to me — simple and yet emotional. More

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      Brett Goldstein Faces Life After ‘Ted Lasso’

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      LONDON — A few minutes into coffee last spring, Brett Goldstein wanted to show me something on his phone.I leaned over and saw puppeteers sitting on skateboards while they hid behind a table, rolling into one another in apparent bliss as their hands animated a clowder of felt cats above their heads. For Goldstein this represented a kind of creative ideal, as pure an expression of fun, craft and unbridled glee as any human is likely to encounter.“Imagine this is your actual job,” he said, his breathtaking eyebrows raised in wonder.Goldstein shot this behind-the-scenes video during his time as a guest star on “Sesame Street,” an experience this Emmy-winning, Marvel-starring comic actor and writer still describes as the single best day of his life.The clip is inarguably delightful, but Goldstein hardly has to imagine such a job. As the breakout star of “Ted Lasso,” the hit comedy about a tormented but terminally sunny American coach winning hearts, minds and the occasional football match in England, he is part of an ensemble that brought as much bonhomie, optimism and warmth to the set as Ted himself, played by the show’s mastermind, Jason Sudeikis, brought to the screen.“I will be absolutely devastated when it ends,” Goldstein said last year. “I think we all will.”And now it has ended. Or maybe it hasn’t. What is certain is that the new season of “Ted Lasso,” which starts on Wednesday, will conclude the three-act story the creators conceived in the beginning and there are no plans for more. Whether and how more tales from the Lassoverse arrive is up to Sudeikis, who told me he hadn’t even begun to ponder such things. “It’s been a wonderful labor of love, but a labor nonetheless,” he said.So even if the new season isn’t the end, it represents an end, one that hit Goldstein hard. In a video call last month, he confirmed that while shooting the finale in November, he kept sneaking off to “have a cry.”But even if “Lasso” is over for good, it is also inarguable that Goldstein has made the most of it. Chances are you had never heard of him three years ago, when he was a journeyman performer working on a TV show based on an NBC Sports promo for a service, Apple TV+, that few people had. (Humanity had plenty else to think about in March 2020.)Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jason Sudeikis in the third and final season of “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+But things have moved fast for him since “Ted Lasso” became the pre-eminent feel-good story of the streaming era, both in form — as an underdog sports tale about the importance of kindness — and function, as a surprise hit and career boost for a bunch of lovable, previously unheralded actors who have now amassed 14 Emmy nominations for their performances.None of them have turned “Ted Lasso” into quite the launchpad that Goldstein has. His Roy Kent, a gruff, floridly profane retired player turned coach, was an immediate fan favorite, and Goldstein won Emmys for best supporting actor in a comedy both seasons. He was also one of the show’s writers and parlayed that into a new series: “Shrinking,” a comedy about grief and friendship. Goldstein developed it with Bill Lawrence, another “Lasso” creator, and Jason Segel, who stars along with Harrison Ford. (It is Ford’s first regular TV comedy role.)Thanks to “Shrinking,” which came out in January and was just renewed for another season, you might have encountered Goldstein on “Late Night With Stephen Colbert,” “The Today Show,” “CBS Saturday Morning” or some podcast or another.Thanks to his surprise debut as Hercules — Hercules! — in a post-credits scene in Marvel’s 2022 blockbuster “Thor: Love and Thunder,” you will soon see him everywhere.Brett Goldstein in a scene from “Thor: Love and Thunder.”MarvelNone of this had come out when we met last year. Back then, he was still struggling to make sense of the ways “Ted Lasso” had changed his life after two decades of working in comparative obscurity in London’s theater and comedy trenches. Whatever the hassles of losing his anonymity, he said, they were more than offset by the benefits — the visit to “Sesame Street,” the opportunity to work with a childhood hero like Ford, the chance to work on “Lasso” itself.“I would happily do it for 25 more years,” he said, but that’s out of his hands.What Goldstein can control is what he does with his new Hollywood juice, which currently includes a second season of “Shrinking,” other TV concepts in development and whatever emerges from the whole Hercules thing. (He’s already mastered Marvel’s signature superpower: the non-comment.)No matter how long this window of opportunity stays open, he’s still chasing the same simple thing: a slightly coarser version of what he captured in that “Sesame Street” video.“It’s a bunch of grown people having the time of their [expletive] lives being very, very silly but also creating something that’s meaningful,” Goldstein said. “And it’s [expletive] joyous.”OK, a significantly coarser version. But to understand why, it helps to know a little about how he got here.‘I very much relate to the anger.’Goldstein, 42, grew up in Sutton, England, as a soccer nut by birthright — his father is a Tottenham Hotspur fanatic — who became just as obsessed with performing and movies, spending hours as a boy recreating Indiana Jones stunts in his front yard.Improbably, all of the above contributed to his current circumstances: It was his performing and soccer fandom that led to “Ted Lasso,” and he is now writing lines for Indiana Jones himself in “Shrinking” — lines Ford says while playing a character inspired by Goldstein’s father.But it took Goldstein a few decades to arrive at such an exalted position. After a childhood spent acting in little plays and his own crude horror shorts, he studied film and literature at the University of Warwick. He continued writing and performing through college and beyond, in shorts and “loads of plays at Edinburgh Fringe and off, off, off, off West End,” he said. A short film called “SuperBob,” about a melancholy lo-fi superhero played by a beardless Goldstein, eventually led to a cult feature of the same name.More important, it caught the eye of the casting director for “Derek” (2012-14), Ricky Gervais’s mawkish comedy about a kindly simpleton (played by Gervais) working at a senior care facility. Goldstein played a nice boyfriend. “That was my first proper TV job, and then it was slightly easier,” he said.Along the way he tried standup and it became an abiding obsession — even now he tries to perform several nights a week. “He’s always been the sexy, hunky dude in, like, really tiny comedic circles,” said Phil Dunster, who plays the reformed prima donna Jamie Tartt in “Lasso” and first met Goldstein roughly a decade ago, when he performed in one of Goldstein’s plays. (Dunster remembers being dazzled and intimidated by his eyebrows.)At some point a fan of Goldstein’s standup mentioned him to Lawrence, a creator of network hits like “Spin City” and “Scrubs,” who checked out Goldstein in a failed pilot and was impressed enough to cast him in his own new sitcom in 2017.That one also never made it to air. By then Goldstein was in his late 30s. “I had a sort of epiphany of, ‘I’ve missed my window,’” he said.Then came “Ted Lasso.”“I will be absolutely devastated when it ends,” Brett Goldstein said of “Ted Lasso.” “I think we all will.”Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesThe show’s creators, who also included Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, wanted some English soccer fans on staff, and Lawrence thought of Goldstein. He was hired as a writer but soon became convinced that he was the person to play the surly, fading pro Roy Kent. As scripting on the first season wrapped up, he made a video of himself performing several Roy scenes and sent it to the creators, stipulating that if he was terrible, all involved would never speak of it again. He was not terrible.It’s a story he has told many times. But it hits different in person, as the gentle fellow in a fitted black T-shirt recounts how he felt a bone-deep connection to the irascible Roy. The face is essentially the same, but the eyes are too friendly and the voice is smooth and mellifluous where Roy’s is a clipped growl.“I get that you would be confused by this,” Goldstein said, setting his coffee cup neatly into its saucer. “But I very much relate to the anger. I used to be very, very miserable and had a quite dark brain, and I’ve worked very hard at changing that. But it’s there.”Lawrence said that “of all the shows I’ve ever done, Brett is one of the top two people in terms of how different he is from his character.” (The other: Ken Jenkins, the friendly actor who played the caustic Dr. Kelso in “Scrubs.”)In some ways the connection between actor and character is clear. Both are prolific swearers, for one thing, and Goldstein lives by the chant that defines his famous alter-ego: He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere.Colleagues and friends are stupefied by how much he does. While shooting the first season of “Lasso,” he was also flying to Madrid to shoot “Soulmates,” the sci-fi anthology series he created with Will Bridges. During filming for Season 3, he acted in “Lasso” by day and joined the “Shrinking” writers’ room on video calls by night. He found time to interview comics, actors, filmmakers and friends for his long-running movie podcast, “Films to be Buried With.” He regularly squeezed in standup sets.“I’m not sure when he sleeps,” Dunster said. “But I know he gets it in, because he looks so young.”Goldstein said his workaholism predates his newfound Hollywood clout. “Even when I was doing stuff that no one was watching, I was always working,” he said. “Either I’m mentally unwell, or genuinely this is the thing that gives me purpose and makes me happy.”He acknowledged that both could be true. But then if “Ted Lasso” has taught us anything, it’s that nobody is just one thing.‘We joke our way through this.’“Ted Lasso” is a sprawling comic tapestry woven from characters — a wounded team owner (played by Hannah Waddingham), an insecure publicist (Juno Temple), a spiteful former protégé (Nick Mohammed) — threading their way toward better selves. The new season finds the AFC Richmond squad at its underdoggiest yet, back in England’s mighty Premier League and destined for an uncertain but sure to be uplifting fate.“Shrinking” is more intimate, a show about hard emotions and hanging out that happens to star a screen legend whose presence still astounds everyone. “It’s a year later and I still go, ‘Bloody hell, that’s Harrison Ford,’” Goldstein said.Harrison Ford is one of the stars of “Shrinking,” an Apple TV+ series Goldstein helped create. “It’s a year later and I still go, ‘Bloody hell, that’s Harrison Ford,’” Goldstein said.Apple TV+Ford’s character is an esteemed psychologist who has received a Parkinson’s diagnosis. He was inspired by several real-life figures, including Lawrence’s grandfather, who also had Parkinson’s disease; his father, who has Lewy body dementia; and his old friend from “Spin City,” Michael J. Fox. The character was also based on Goldstein’s father, another Parkinson’s survivor.“Brett and I share this thing with our families that we joke our way through this,” Lawrence said.Goldstein is exceedingly private about his personal life, but his father gave him permission to discuss the link — his reasoning was that he wasn’t ashamed of the condition and couldn’t hide it anyway. “And also,” he told his son, “the fact that I can tell people Harrison Ford is based on me is a pretty cool thing.”Goldstein joked that this gift he has given his father has expanded their conversational canvas by roughly 100 percent: “Football is still all me and my dad talk about,” he said. “That and the fact that he’s Harrison Ford.”The former, at least, is the way it’s always been. “I think that’s why sport exists,” he said. “It’s a way of saying ‘I love you’ while never saying ‘I love you.’”Such Trojan-horsing of human emotion has become Goldstein’s default mode, whether it’s using his podcast guests’ favorite films to get at their real fears and desires, portraying the discomfort of vulnerability via a clenched soccer star, or writing Parkinson’s jokes to work through the painful fact of his parents’ mortality.“Even when I was doing stuff that no one was watching, I was always working,” Goldstein said. “Either I’m mentally unwell, or genuinely this is the thing that gives me purpose and makes me happy.”Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesSegel said that Goldstein is always the one on “Shrinking” insisting that no matter how punchy the punch lines, the feelings must be pure and true. This wasn’t surprising, he added, because Goldstein is a Muppets fan.“It sounds like a joke,” said Segel, who as a writer and star of “The Muppets” (2011) does not joke about such things. “But it speaks to a lack of fear around earnest expression of emotion.”Which brings us back to the cat video and Goldstein’s other Muppet-related fascinations. (“The Muppet Christmas Carol” might be his favorite move ever, he said, and he’s been known to perform an abridged version on standup stages.)Those looking for a felt skeleton key to unlock his various idiosyncrasies aren’t likely to find one. But his Muppet affection does offer a glimpse at what motivates him as a performer, creator and workaholic, which is less about opportunities, franchises or scale than the vulnerability and risks of trying to reach someone and the openness required to take it in. The thing he’s always looking for, he told me over and over — to the point that he started apologizing for it — is a bit of human connection in a world that can seem designed to thwart it.“They put up this Muppet and I’m gone,” he said. “But that requires from both of us a leap of faith, like, ‘We’re doing this, and I’m all in and you’re all in.’ And if one of us did not commit to this thing then it’s [expletive] stupid — it’s just a [expletive] felt thing on your hand, and I’m an idiot for talking to it and you’re an idiot for holding it.“Do you know what I mean?” More

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      Robert Blake, ‘Baretta’ Star Acquitted in Wife’s Murder, Dies at 89

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      His film and TV career began with “Our Gang” comedies and was highlighted by a performance as a mass killer in “In Cold Blood.” But he led a tempestuous life.Robert Blake, an actor whose career portraying gritty characters like the television detective Tony Baretta was eclipsed by his trial and acquittal in the murder of his wife in 2001, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.The cause was long-term heart disease, a niece, Noreen Austin, said.Mr. Blake began performing at 2, when his father would take him and his brother and sister to New Jersey parks to dance for money. By age 5 he was a regular in the “Our Gang” film comedies.He went on to act in scores of films and on hundreds of television shows, all the while making regular visits to late-night talk shows, where he delighted in spouting flagrantly unorthodox views and savagely mocking his own career. He earned a reputation as a Hollywood enfant terrible. He insulted producers, punched a director, fought with fellow actors, abused alcohol and drugs, and sometimes went for years without work.He nonetheless became a television star in the late 1970s as Baretta, a detective who lived in a run-down hotel, had a pet cockatoo named Fred and used disguises — waiter, wino, janitor, barber — to chase bad guys. His catchphrase, “You can take dat to da bank,” became well known.One of Mr. Blake’s most acclaimed roles was as the mass murderer Perry Smith in “In Cold Blood,” the 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote’s true-crime book. In an interview with Playboy in 1977, Mr. Blake explained that he had sought the part to explore a question that nagged him.“Everybody knows what a murderer is a millionth of a second after he pulls the trigger,” he said. “But what is he a millionth of a second before he pulls the trigger?”A jury — and a transfixed American public — pondered whether he could answer that question during his trial, from late 2004 to March 2005, in the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.The details of the case could have come from a pulp novel. Witnesses portrayed Mr. Blake as trolling jazz clubs for women, then wooing them in the back seat of his truck. Ms. Bakley was alleged to be a petty criminal who sold nude pictures of herself to lonely men through the mail. She had nine former husbands and a dozen aliases and was on probation for fraud, according to court testimony.By 1999 she was in Los Angeles. She met Mr. Blake at a nightclub and, as both acknowledged, had sex with him in his car that night. At the time, she was having a sexual relationship with Christian Brando, the eldest son of Marlon Brando. When she gave birth to a daughter, tests revealed that the father was Mr. Blake and not Mr. Brando, whom she had first identified.Mr. Blake, whose marriage to the actress Sondra Kerr ended in divorce in 1983 after 22 years, said he had agreed to marry Ms. Bakley for the good of their daughter, Rose. According to trial testimony, the marriage was strained, and Ms. Bakley lived in a separate house on his property. Witnesses said he referred to his wife as a “pig” and spoke of wanting to “snuff” her.Robert Blake during his trial in the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in 2003. He was acquitted.Pool photo by Al SeibOn May 4, 2001, Ms. Bakley, 44, was found dead from a gunshot to her head in her husband’s Dodge Stealth, parked outside an Italian restaurant in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, where the couple had just dined. Mr. Blake said he was not there when she was shot; he said he had gone back to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he had left in a booth.That gun, it was determined, was not the murder weapon; one found in a nearby dumpster was.By April 2002, the police had nonetheless gathered enough evidence to charge Mr. Blake with “murder with special circumstances,” a capital offense. He was also charged with soliciting movie stuntmen to do the killing for him.After he pleaded not guilty to all charges, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office announced that it would not seek the death penalty. Mr. Blake was initially denied bail and spent 11 months in jail, until March 2003, when he was granted bail, set at $1.5 million, which he posted, allowing him to remain free for almost two years while he awaited trial.On March 16, 2005, after a three-month trial in which the stuntmen testified to having been solicited by Mr. Blake to kill Ms. Bakley, the jury decided that the prosecutors had not proved Mr. Blake’s guilt. In interviews afterward, jurors said the stuntmen had not been credible because they had admitted to being drug addicts. Mr. Blake said three restaurant workers had seen him return to get his gun, but he did not produce them.Ms. Bakley’s family later sued Mr. Blake in civil court for wrongfully causing her death. They won a $30 million judgment, which, after Mr. Blake appealed, was cut in half on the grounds that Ms. Bakley had been earning her living by illegal means. Mr. Blake filed for bankruptcy in 2006.Michael James Vijencio Gubitosi was born on Sept. 18, 1933, in Nutley, N.J. His childhood, as he later described it, was a Dickensian one whose horrors began before he was born. He told CNN in 2012 that his mother had twice tried to abort him with a coat hanger. In a series of interviews in 1992 and 1993, he said his father, who worked for a can manufacturer, had been an alcoholic who forced him to eat from the floor, locked him in closets and sexually abused him.When Michael was 2, his father enlisted him and his two older preschool siblings to dance for money in parks as “the Three Little Hillbillies” while the father played a guitar. “It was either doing that or stealing milk bottles off other people’s porches,” Mr. Blake said in a 1959 interview with The Los Angeles Times.Inspired by the success of child stars like Shirley Temple, his father in 1938 took his family to Hollywood. Michael was hired as an extra for the “Our Gang” shorts, later shown on television as “The Little Rascals.” When another child actor flubbed a line, Michael told the director, “I can do that.”From left, Robert Blake; Billie Thomas, known as Buckwheat; and Carl Switzer, known as Alfalfa, in ”Bubbling Troubles,” an “Our Gang” short made in 1940.MGMHe could, and he was eventually cast as a lead character, Mickey. He was billed as Mickey Gubitosi in most of the “Our Gang” shorts, and as Bobby Blake in the last few. He acquired the stage name Robert Blake in 1956.After the “Our Gang” series ended in 1944, he appeared in more than 70 films over the next decade, establishing himself as a tough, fast-talking young character actor with a mischievous grin. In “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” starring Humphrey Bogart, he was the Mexican boy who sold Bogart the lucky lottery ticket that set the plot in motion.Mr. Blake was thrown out of five schools before finally graduating. He neglected to register for the draft, and the penalty was immediate conscription into the Army. He was stationed in Alaska. After his discharge, he applied to study at the Actors Studio in New York with the acting guru Lee Strasberg. Strasberg, he said, advised against pursuing an acting career.Returning to Hollywood, Mr. Blake found work as a stuntman. He continued to act in movies, including “PT 109” (1962), about John F. Kennedy’s wartime experience in the Pacific; he played one of Kennedy’s fellow sailors.Robert Blake, left, and Scott Wilson in “In Cold Blood” in 1967.Columbia Pictures CorporationHis breakthrough movie was “In Cold Blood,” which received excellent reviews, as did he. But his next few movies struggled at the box office, and after filming “Busting” (1974), a detective drama in which he starred alongside Elliott Gould, he considered suicide, he told Playboy, and checked himself into a hospital for psychiatric treatment.Mr. Blake returned to television in January 1975 to take the title role in the ABC detective series “Baretta,” a retooled version of “Toma,” which had starred Tony Musante. When Mr. Musante quit after the 1973-74 season, the show was taken off the air, but ABC decided to reactivate it as a midseason replacement and asked Mr. Blake to be the star. He accepted, even though he made it clear in interviews that he considered himself above series television. He proceeded to make many suggestions to shape the renamed show to his liking.“I could have my name all over ‘Baretta,’ but I’ve never taken credit for writing or directing any of the shows,” he told Playboy. Mr. Blake won a 1975 Emmy and a 1976 Golden Globe for his performance, and “Baretta” was briefly a Top 10 hit, but it was canceled in 1978.Speaking of Mr. Blake in an interview with People magazine in 2002, Stephen J. Cannell, the creator of “Baretta,” said: “Complex doesn’t even begin to capture his personality. If you were in business with him, you just had to strap in really tight, because you were going to get lurched around a lot.”Mr. Blake claimed to be inspired by daredevils like circus high-wire performers and rodeo riders.“You get on a high wire without a net,” he said in the 2012 CNN interview. “You get on a bull and they open that goddamn chute and there’s nobody in the universe but you and God. And that’s where I’m comfortable, doing something that’s so scary that I can’t sleep at night.”Mr. Blake became a favorite on late-night talk shows, particularly “The Tonight Show,” where be made fun of himself in his tough-guy Baretta voice and gesticulated wildly with an unlit cigarette.Prodded by Johnny Carson, he excitedly shared his positive views on duck-hunting and negative ones on rodents and insulted Orson Welles for being overweight. Welles replied that he could perhaps be thin, but that Mr. Blake would always be stupid.Appearing in a number of television movies, Mr. Blake was praised for his performance as the Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa in “Blood Feud” in 1983. In 1985, he created the NBC series “Hell Town,” in which he starred as a tough-talking slum priest. Though Mr. Blake needed the income from the show to pay for his recent divorce, he walked away from the job, saying he was emotionally exhausted.He sought solace sleeping in his van, parked in the Hollywood Hills, and worked with a therapist on his childhood traumas. He returned to acting in 1993 in the made-for-TV movie “Judgment Day: The John List Story,” about a real-life New Jersey accountant who murdered his wife, mother and three children.To get that part, Mr. Blake had offered to forgo his $250,000 salary until the film was finished. He was paid in full. His last acting job was in “Lost Highway” (1997), a psychological thriller directed by David Lynch.Mr. Blake is survived by two children from his first marriage, Noah and Delinah Blake, and Rose Blake, his daughter with Ms. Bakley.After his trial, Mr. Blake told CNN, he grew a beard, lived on Twinkies and liked to wander into pool halls for a game of nine ball. “I was born lonely, I live lonely, and I’ll die lonely,” he said.April Rubin More

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      Topol, Star of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Onscreen and Onstage, Dies at 87

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      Wide acclaim for his portrayal of Tevye helped make him, according to one newspaper, “Israel’s most famous export since the Jaffa orange.”Topol, the Israeli actor who took on the role of the patriarch Tevye, the soulful shtetl milkman at the center of “Fiddler on the Roof,” in his late 20s and reprised the role for decades, died on Thursday at his home in Tel Aviv. He was 87.His son, Omer Topol, confirmed the death. He said in an email that his father had Alzheimer’s disease, which had caused his health to deteriorate over the last year.Topol — born Chaim Topol, he used only his surname throughout much of his professional life — came to international renown heading the cast of the 1971 film version of “Fiddler.” Its director, Norman Jewison, had chosen Topol, then a little-known stage actor, over Zero Mostel, who had created the part on Broadway.The film, for which Topol earned an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award, made him a star. For much of the late 20th century he would be, in the words of The Jerusalem Post in 2012, “Israel’s most famous export since the Jaffa orange.”Topol reprised Tevye in stage productions worldwide for decades, including a 1990 Broadway revival for which he received a Tony nomination. By 2009, he had, by his own estimate, played the character more than 3,500 times.His other films include “Galileo,” the director Joseph Losey’s 1975 adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s stage play, in which he played the title role; “Flash Gordon” (1980), in which he portrayed the scientist Hans Zarkov; and the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only” (1981), starring Roger Moore, in which he played the Greek smuggler Milos Columbo.On television, Topol played the Polish Jew Berel Jastrow in the 1983 mini-series “The Winds of War” and reprised the role for its sequel, “War and Remembrance,” broadcast in 1988 and 1989.Topol as Tevye in the movie version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The character is a weary, tradition-bound Everyman who argues with God, bemoans his lot as the penurious father of five daughters and lives warily amid the pogroms of Czarist Russia. United Archives/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesBut it was indisputably for Tevye — the weary, tradition-bound Everyman who argues with God, bemoans his lot as the penurious father of five daughters and lives increasingly warily amid the pogroms of early-20th-century Czarist Russia — that Topol remained best known.“Like Yul Brynner in ‘The King and I’ and Rex Harrison in ‘My Fair Lady,’ Topol has become almost synonymous with his character,” United Press International said in 1989. Over the years, Topol was asked repeatedly whether he ever tired of playing the role.“Let’s face it, it’s one of the best parts ever written for a male actor in the musical theater,” he told The Boston Globe in 1989, when he had played Tevye a mere 700 times or so. “It takes you to a wide range of emotions, happiness to sadness, anger to love.”Throughout his many Tevyes, some critics taxed Topol’s acting as larger than life to the point of self-parody. But most praised his soulful mien and his resonant bass baritone, heard in enduring numbers like “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Tradition” and “Sunrise, Sunset.”By the time Mr. Jewison began work on the “Fiddler” film, Tevye was one of the most coveted roles in Hollywood. The Broadway show, based on stories by the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem — with book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock — had been a smash hit since it opened in 1964. It won nine Tony Awards, including best musical, best direction of a musical (for Jerome Robbins) and, for Mr. Mostel, best actor in a musical.“The casting of it was the most agonizing thing I ever went through,” Mr. Jewison told NPR in 2001.Besides Mr. Mostel, aspirants to the screen role included Rod Steiger, Danny Kaye and — in a scenario that can be contemplated only with difficulty — Frank Sinatra.Mr. Jewison’s casting choice was all the more striking in that Topol had not wanted the part in the first place.Topol as the title character in the 1975 film version of Bertolt Brecht’s biographical play “Galileo.” Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesChaim Topol was born in Tel Aviv on Sept. 9, 1935. His parents, Jacob Topol, a plasterer, and Rel Goldman Topol, a seamstress, had fled shtetlach in Eastern Europe to settle in Palestine in the early 1930s. There, Jacob Topol became a member of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization.As a youth, Chaim studied commercial art and trained for a career as a printer. But in 1953, while he was serving in the Israeli Army, an officer overheard him regaling fellow recruits with jokes. He was placed in an army entertainment unit and found his calling there.He spent the next few years touring Israel with the group, entertaining soldiers with songs like “Sprinkler Hora,” a hit in that fledgling state, where making the desert bloom was a national imperative.Discharged in 1956, Topol settled with members of his unit on a kibbutz, where they formed a satirical theater group, Batzal Yarok (the name means “Green Onion”). Its members worked on the land two days a week and onstage for four.“It was great training because we had a very difficult, tired audience,” Topol told U.P.I. “Most of them had been out running tractors and such before performances.”He was later a founder of the Haifa Municipal Theater, where his roles included Petruchio in Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” Azdak in Brecht’s “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” and Jean in Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” a role that was originated on Broadway by Mr. Mostel. Topol’s first significant international exposure came in the title role of the 1964 Israeli film “Sallah” (also known as “Sallah Shabati”). One of the first film comedies to come out of Israel, it told the tale of a family of Mizrahi Jews — Jews historically from the Middle East and North Africa — uneasily resettled in Israel.“Sallah” won the Golden Globe for best foreign-language film; Topol, then in his late 20s, won the Golden Globe for most promising male newcomer for his portrayal of Sallah Shabati, the family patriarch, a man in his 60s.On the strength of that performance, he was asked to play Tevye in a Hebrew-language production of “Fiddler” in Tel Aviv. Unfamiliar with the show, he went to New York to see Mr. Mostel on Broadway.That, Topol, later said, was where his troubles with “Fiddler” began.“Zero was going wild” — even ad-libbing to the audience — he recalled in a 2008 interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph. “He said things like, ‘Mrs. Finkelstein, are you yawning because I’m boring you or was it because your husband kept you awake all night?’ I didn’t know what to do with myself. I telegrammed back saying there was no way I wanted to be connected to that show.”But on returning to Israel, Topol saw the Tel Aviv production and had a change of heart. He eventually replaced the actor portraying Tevye and played the role for about a year.Topol in a benefit performance in London in 2013. He was recognized for his charitable work, notably helping to found a holiday camp in Israel for ailing children from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. David M. Benett/Getty ImagesAround that time, the first London production of “Fiddler” was being cast. Someone suggested that the old Jewish actor who had played Sallah Shabati might be a worthy Tevye, and they summoned him to England. When Topol, barely 30, walked into the theater, producers thought they had invited the wrong man. But since he had made the long trip, they relented and let him audition anyway.Topol, who at the time knew “about 50 words of English” by his own account, had learned the songs phonetically from the Broadway cast album. He further impressed the producers with his ability to age 25 years simply through the rigorous control of his carriage.“At 29, I knew I had to restrain some muscles to make sure I didn’t suddenly jump in a way that destroyed the image of an elderly man,” he told The Boston Globe in 2009, in the midst of a multicity U.S. tour of the show. “I walked slower, made sure I wasn’t too erect when I danced. It was quite a job. Now, as I pass the age of 55 by 20 years, I feel totally free to jump and dance as much as I feel like.”Topol opened in London in February 1967, to glowing notices. By then he had jettisoned his first name: The English, he discovered, were flummoxed by the guttural consonant of “Chaim” and pronounced his name “Shame” as often as not.In June, with Israel fighting the Six-Day War, he left the production to return home, where he entertained the troops. (He would make a similar decision in 1991, with the outbreak of the Persian Gulf war, leaving the Broadway revival to be with his family in Tel Aviv.)After seeing the London “Fiddler,” Mr. Jewison made the unexpected decision to cast Topol, still a relative unknown in the United States, in the motion picture.“I wanted a third-generation European actor for the role, a third-generation man who understood the background,” Mr. Jewison told The Globe in 1971. “I did not want a Second Avenue version of Tevye” — a barely veiled swipe at Mr. Mostel and his unstoppable shtick.Topol, who underwent two hours of age makeup every day of the shoot — Mr. Jewison did his bit, contributing white hairs from his beard to be glued over his star’s dark eyebrows — made, in the view of many critics, a most persuasive Tevye.Reviewing the film in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote of him: “He’s a rough presence, masculine, with burly, raw strength, but also sensual and warm. He’s a poor man but he’s not a little man, he’s a big man brought low — a man of Old Testament size brought down by the circumstances of oppression.”Topol married Galia Finkelstein, an actress in his army entertainment unit, in 1956. In addition to their son, they had two daughters, Adi Margalith and Anat Barzilai. All four survive him, along with two sisters, Shosh and Tova, and nine grandchildren.Topol was the author of two books, the memoir “Topol by Topol” (1981) and “Topol’s Treasury of Jewish Humor, Wit, and Wisdom” (1994).His laurels included the Israel Prize, the country’s highest cultural honor, which he received in 2015. The recognition came both for his acting and for his charitable work, notably helping to found Jordan River Village, a holiday camp in Israel for seriously ill children from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Modeled on Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Connecticut, it opened in 2011.Year in and year out, Topol found the role he knew best to be a source of continuing illumination.“I did ‘Fiddler’ a long time thinking that this was a story about the Jewish people,” he said in a 2009 interview. “But now I’ve been performing all over the world. And the fantastic thing is wherever I’ve been — India, Japan, England, Greece, Egypt — people come up to me after the show and say, ‘This is our story as well.’”Alex Traub More

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      With Its Future at Stake, the Academy Tries to Fix the Oscars (Again)

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      The awards telecast has been losing viewers for years. New leadership wants to reverse that starting Sunday, and ensure the financial well-being of the organization.The stage design for the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday is more Doctor Strange modern and less Dowager Countess musty. That means plentiful video screens, including ones that cover the sides of the theater, with nary a Swarovski crystal curtain — the old standby — to be seen.Unlike last year, when eight categories were awarded during a nontelevised portion, all of the Oscars will be handed out live on air. To make the telecast interactive and help viewers better understand crafts categories, such as sound mixing and art direction, QR codes will appear before commercial breaks to direct viewers to internet vignettes about the nominees and behind-the-scenes footage and photos.To reinvigorate the red carpet preshow, Oscars organizers hired members of the Met Gala creative team. Expect much more star power, specialized lighting (to make a process that happens in daylight seem more like evening) and better integration with the theater’s entrance.But some of the most important changes — part of an urgent effort to help make the Academy Awards more relevant to young people and draw a broader international audience — involve things that most viewers won’t notice. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will post video of acceptance speeches in the six biggest categories in near real-time on TikTok and Facebook, and all speeches will quickly be posted on Twitter. In a first, Disney+ will stream the Oscars show live in parts of Europe. The academy has also sought out new marketing partners like Letterboxd, a social media site for movie fans (8.4 million members, most of them are ages 18 to 34), in a sad-but-true admission that it must convince people that they should care about the Oscars.“We didn’t have to before,” Janet Yang, the academy’s president, said in an interview at the organization’s Beverly Hills offices. “We could rest on our laurels and just let it carry itself.”Last year’s telecast drew 16.6 million viewers, with a spike in ratings coming after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesOne might respond with exasperation: You’re only now figuring that out? Perhaps the time to pull out all the stops to keep the Oscars vibrant was five years ago, when the telecast, for the first time, attracted less than 30 million people, a 20 percent decline from the previous year. Since then, the number of viewers for the Academy Awards has dropped another 37 percent, according to Nielsen’s data. About 16.6 million people watched “CODA” win the Oscar for best picture at the most recent ceremony, with viewership swelling after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage late in the show.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Asian Actors: A record number of actors of Asian ancestry were recognized with Oscar nominations this year. But historically, Asian stars have rarely been part of the awards.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.But Ms. Yang can’t be held responsible. She was elected president only in August. The academy also has a new chief executive for the first time in 11 years; Bill Kramer, the former director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, was appointed to that role in June. Together, Ms. Yang and Mr. Kramer have brought a blast of fresh air to the stuffy organization, working to improve transparency, calm a membership revolt over last year’s removal of several categories from the live Oscars telecast and shore up the academy’s wobbly finances.In the past, Ms. Yang said, “a lot of cultural institutions felt like they should be sitting on a hill, a little bit more protected, almost untouchable.” She added that the academy itself felt “ivory tower-ish,” but that it was now “a different time” and “a different culture.”ABC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Oscars ceremony until 2028 and provides the academy with about 80 percent of its annual revenue. Last year, Oscar-related revenue was $137.1 million, according to financial disclosures. Awards-related expenses totaled $56.8 million.The TV network generated an estimated $139 million across 70 commercials during last year’s show, according to Vivvix, which tracks ad spending. (To compare, ABC pulled in about $129 million across 56 ads in 2020.) A red-carpet preshow brought in an additional $16 million in advertising revenue.From left, Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Steven Spielberg, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Cruise are among this year’s nominees.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesTo secure a distribution contract of similar value when its deal with ABC expires, the academy must reverse viewership declines. A less lucrative deal could imperil some of the organization’s year-round activities, including film restoration. “This is so important to the livelihood and future of the organization that we better confront it,” Ms. Yang said.In many ways, however, the academy is hamstrung when it comes to reinventing the Oscars telecast.ABC and other traditional television networks are shadows of their former selves, with younger audiences in particular decamping en masse to streaming services. Some other awards shows are following them, notably the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which will stream live on Netflix starting next year. After an ethics, finance and diversity scandal, the Golden Globe Awards, long broadcast on NBC, are also looking for a new distribution partner.Many viewers have long complained that the Oscars ceremony is overlong, with groan-inducing banter between presenters adding to a feeling of bloat. Last year’s Academy Awards was three and a half hours, despite moving eight of the 23 awards off the live broadcast. (The offscreen acceptance speeches were recorded, edited and incorporated into the live show.) In the past, the Oscars telecast has run as long as four hours and 23 minutes. Jimmy Kimmel will return as the host on Sunday, having previously served as M.C. in 2017 and 2018, and he has been planning a traditional monologue.“We are working very hard to deliver the show on time with all disciplines honored,” Mr. Kramer said.Ariana DeBose won best supporting actress during last year’s Academy Awards, which was three and a half hours.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesLinda Ong, the chief executive of Cultique, a consulting firm in Los Angeles that advises companies on changing cultural norms, said that people were still interested in the award show’s winners and the things they had to say. The problem for the academy, she said, is that “people don’t feel the need to watch the show to be part of the conversation.”“They just watch some clips on social,” she added.Ms. Ong noted that, in a once-unthinkable move that speaks to the Oscars’ fading relevancy, the season finale of HBO’s hugely popular post-apocalyptic drama, “The Last of Us,” will broadcast head-to-head against the ceremony. “That’s a big cultural tell,” she said.The academy is hopeful that Nielsen’s ratings meters for the Oscars will tick upward on Sunday. Big musical stars, including Rihanna, are scheduled to perform their nominated songs; Lenny Kravitz will perform during the “In Memoriam” segment. Lady Gaga will be absent, though, with Oscars producers saying on Wednesday that she was too busy filming a movie to perform her nominated song from “Top Gun: Maverick.”The nominee pool for best picture has never before included more than one billion-dollar ticket seller, according to box office databases, and this year there are two. “Top Gun: Maverick” collected $1.5 billion, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” took in $2.3 billion. The front-runner for best picture, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” generated $104 million in ticket sales. (Viewership tends to increase when popular films are nominated.)But the academy says it’s not just about TV anymore — that relying on Nielsen’s numbers alone to assess relevancy is outdated, and that online chatter and streaming-service viewing should also be taken into account. “We have to rethink our success metrics,” Mr. Kramer said, noting that the Oscars will be available for viewing on Hulu the next day.Conversations on social media during and after award shows can be significant. Last month’s Grammy Awards, for instance, attracted about 12.6 million viewers. On the day of the ceremony and the next day, the Grammys generated about seven million mentions on Twitter, according to ListenFirst, an analytics company.If nothing else, the academy is hoping for a smooth show on Sunday. In the past, the academy started to plan for the Oscars as late as November. This time, planning started in June.“It should be about unity and celebrating this industry,” Mr. Kramer said. “People are still consuming movies. People love movies. Perhaps they’re doing it on streaming more than they did a few years ago. But our art form is as relevant as ever.” More

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      in Movies

      Lukas Gage on the Audition That Went Awry, ‘You’ and Writing His Own Ticket

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      Three years after his apartment was shamed by a director during a video tryout, the “You” actor is taking on his first lead role — in a film he co-wrote.Lukas Gage blew into the Tower Bar in West Hollywood like a ragged ocean breeze. He had come straight from Punta Mita, Mexico, where he was vacationing with the celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton. But Gage forgot his passport at the resort, causing him to miss his return flight to Los Angeles, and had to book alternate passage to Orange County, whence he took an Uber the 50 miles north to make it to this interview on time.And hence why he was still wearing his travel clothes: a cutoff “Pulp Fiction” T-shirt, baggy gray sweatpants and beat-up checkered Vans, paired with an enormous Old Navy zip-up hoodie and several items of beaded jewelry that he had bought in Mexico.Still, he managed to arrive at 12 on the dot, not a single minute late.That the 27-year-old finds himself here, talking about his burgeoning TV and film career at one of the industry’s favorite haunts — the kind of place with a no-photos policy and $24 cocktails — is the product of a similar dogged resolve.The youngest of four boys raised by a single mother in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, Gage moved to Los Angeles at 18 to pursue acting after a brief stint at the University of Oregon, where he got in a gruesome fight trying to protect a friend. “I have all these scars from where I had to get my face put back together,” he said. “Maybe, selfishly, I needed a reason to get out.”Following arcs on “Euphoria” and “Love, Victor,” he gained wider recognition for a role he didn’t get. In November 2020, he shared a video of a pandemic-era Zoom audition in which a director, not realizing his mic was on, bemoaned “these poor people” who “live in these tiny apartments.” (Gage did not name the off-camera offender at the time, but the British director Tristram Shapeero later apologized.)In the clip, Gage responds with quick-witted aplomb. “I know it’s a [expletive] apartment,” he says with a smile. “Give me this job, so I can get a better one.” But the critique stung.“I understand the politics,” Gage said, “but I also want a chance to have a seat at the table.”Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times“I had never judged my apartment until that day. I was like, it’s not a mansion or a house, but it has crown molding, good natural light and it was in Beachwood Canyon,” Gage told me, referring to a desirable neighborhood of Los Angeles. “I remember having this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach afterward, like, why am I judging where I’m at in my 20s, at the beginning of my career?”He posted that video while filming Season 1 of “The White Lotus” on Maui — Gage played the hotel employee caught in a compromising act with Murray Bartlett’s character — and since the HBO show aired, he’s consistently booked a string of supporting roles. Most recently, he played a duplicitous expat in Season 4 of “You,” and cameoed as himself in the series finale of the “Gossip Girl” reboot. He also moved out of that infamous apartment and bought his own place.Now, in the independent film “Down Low,” a dark comedy of errors that premieres at South by Southwest on Saturday, Gage is stepping into a lead role for the first time. He gives a full-bodied, screwball performance as a sex worker helping a repressed divorcé (Zachary Quinto) explore his sexuality. Along the way, there’s an inadvertent death and high jinks with Judith Light, Audra McDonald and Simon Rex.Inside the World of ‘The White Lotus’The second season of “The White Lotus,” Mike White’s incisive satire of privilege set in a luxury resort, is available to stream on HBO.End of a Journey: The actress Jennifer Coolidge discussed the ending of the second season and where the series, already renewed for a third season, might go from here.Dressing Gen Z: The costume designer for “The White Lotus” sees your mean tweets about how the younger characters dress. She told us how she created the chaotic and divisive looks.Michael Imperioli: The “Sopranos” star is enjoying a professional renaissance after years of procedurals and indies. In the new season of “The White Lotus,” he tries his hand at comedy.F. Murray Abraham: The buzzy series is one of several featuring the actor, who at 83 is finding some of the most satisfying work of his career.Gage also wrote the script with his friend and writing partner, Phoebe Fisher.Opposite Zachary Quinto in “Down Low,” which Gage wrote with Phoebe Fisher.Matt Infante/FilmNation Entertainment“I pitched it as a queer ‘His Girl Friday,’” Gage said. “I love a silence in a movie. I love a long shot. But I was like, let’s just make something snappy and fun that doesn’t go over an hour and 30 minutes.”Next he’ll co-star in the eco-thriller “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” Season 5 of “Fargo,” the “Dead Boy Detectives” series (based on the DC comics) and Doug Liman’s “Road House” remake, playing a bartender whom Jake Gyllenhaal trains to fight. He also plans to continue writing.Sitting in a velvety corner booth and sipping chamomile tea with honey, Gage discussed that viral video, the importance of sex scenes and protecting his private life. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Did you know your “You” character would have an affinity for kink when you signed on?I knew sexuality or nudity might be required, but I didn’t know anything past the first episode. I think I had auditioned for every single season of “You” and didn’t get it until then. I auditioned for [star Penn Badgley’s serial killer character] Joe originally. I played him like a mustache-twirling, villainous murderer, and the casting director was like, “Yeah, that’s totally tonally off, but thank you.”Penn Badgley recently said he no longer wanted to do sex scenes. You’ve said it would be a “disservice” to exclude them. Where does their value lie for you?If we’re showing this character [on “You”] who has a hidden kink and he’s struggling with being honest, or a guy [on “The White Lotus”] who is having his first queer experience with his boss, I feel like it’s a disservice to not see that. But I totally respect Penn and his views. Maybe because I’m not married with kids, I’m like, I’ve got to give it away while I can. [Laughs]There’s also a wider discourse advocating for ditching sex scenes altogether.It is a little weird. I get a lot of backlash in my DMs about it, saying, “That’s so disgusting.” And that pisses me off because I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum. But a lot of people can have a hard time separating the actor from the character, and then, suddenly, people are coming up to me at Starbucks asking [if the scene was real]. People forget it’s make-believe.Opposite Penn Badgley in “You.” Badgley, the series’s star, has opted against doing intimate scenes, but Gage argued that when such moments are key to a character or a plot, “it’s a disservice to not see that.”NetflixMurray Bartlett, left, Jolene Purdy, Natasha Rothwell, Christie Volkmer and Gage in the first episode of “The White Lotus.”Mario Perez/HBOIs it true that you watched Aaron Sorkin’s MasterClass to learn about screenwriting?Phoebe and I watched all of the MasterClasses on writing during lockdown. That one was our favorite. We also watched “Pretty Woman,” one of my favorite romcoms, and a documentary about “Pretty Woman” is what kind of inspired us with “Down Low” — what “Pretty Woman” was originally going to be before the studio got involved. It was super dark, and everyone was like, “This is too insane to make.”Were you always planning to star in “Down Low”?No. I honestly thought they weren’t going to allow me to do it. They sent comps of who they thought the character should be, people who are much more famous and important than me. But I was like, “Give me a chance to show you what I can do.”I tend to do that a lot. I understand the politics, but I also want a chance to have a seat at the table.Your video of an audition gone wrong went viral. Why did you decide to share that?I’d had a martini or two in Hawaii, and it happened out of a conversation I was having with [“White Lotus” co-star] Molly Shannon about our worst auditions. She was like, “You have to show people that.” Actors have the best job ever, but I was frustrated. And I want to be clear: That was definitely not the worst thing that’s happened to me in an audition. It just happened to be on camera.What was worse?In the [print and TV] commercial world, I remember, at 17 years old, people saying out loud what was wrong with my face and that I wasn’t in shape enough. As a teenager, that really makes you crazy. I had to stop commercial auditioning when I was younger because it was making me dysmorphic.Gage posted the audition footage that went viral out of frustration. “I want to be clear: That was definitely not the worst thing that’s happened to me in an audition,” he added. Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesLast year, you replied “You don’t know my alphabet” to a commenter who accused you of taking roles away from queer actors. In your career, have you felt pressure to label yourself?All the time. An agent that dropped me was like, “Stop dyeing your hair, stop wearing weird clothes and pick a lane: gay, bi or straight. It’s too confusing.” I understand representation and voices that need to be heard, but I don’t want to do anything on anyone’s accord but my own. Let me do it when I’m ready. And it’s acting. I feel like everyone should get the opportunity to play whatever they want.You and Chris posted a series of Instagram photos together in Mexico. A lot of people took that as a relationship announcement.If they want to think that, they can. I’m a pretty open book about most things in my life, but I have a problem with the culture of everyone needing to know everybody’s business and nothing can be sacred. It’s a weird line that I’m still trying to figure out.Have you been offered any roles yet? Or are you still auditioning for everything?I’m ready for some offers! I’m still auditioning my ass off. Now, I have a plain white screen that I pull down for a background. But I’m still at that point where I have to prove myself. I’m OK with it. I just want to keep surprising people that I’m not a one-trick pony. More