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      Mary Alice, Tony Winner for Her Role in ‘Fences,’ Dies at 85

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      A former Chicago schoolteacher, she appeared on TV in ‘A Different World’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ winning an Emmy in 1993.Mary Alice, an Emmy- and Tony-award winning actress who brought a delicate grace and a quiet dignity to her roles in Hollywood blockbusters (“The Matrix Revolutions”), television sitcoms (“A Different World”) and Broadway plays (“Fences”), died on Wednesday in her home in Manhattan. She was 85, according to the New York City Police Department.The death was confirmed by Detective Anthony Passaro, a police spokesman, who said officers responded to a 911 call and found Ms. Alice unresponsive.A former Chicago schoolteacher, Ms. Alice appeared in nearly 60 television shows and films. In 2000, she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.She first gained widespread attention in the Broadway production of August Wilson’s “Fences” in 1987. She earned a Tony Award for best featured actress for playing Rose Maxson, a housewife in 1950s Pittsburgh forced to balance duty with anger toward a philandering husband (played by James Earl Jones, who also won a Tony), who is filled with rage after a promising career as a baseball player devolved into a grueling life as a garbage hauler.“Ms. Alice’s performance emphasizes strength over self-pity, open anger over festering bitterness,” Frank Rich wrote in a review for The New York Times. “The actress finds the spiritual quotient in the acceptance that accompanies Rose’s love for a scarred, profoundly complicated man.”The role had deep resonance for Ms. Alice, who based her performance on memories of her mother, her aunts and her grandmother, women “who were not educated, living in a time before women’s liberation, and their identities were tied up in their husbands,” she said in an interview with The Times that same year.“I decided very early that I did not want — well, not so much that I did not want to get married, but that I did want to find out about the world,” she added. “I did that through college, through learning, through books and travel.”Ms. Alice, left, with Ray Aranha, center, and James Earl Jones in “Fences.” Ron ScherlMary Alice Smith was born on Dec. 3, 1936, in Indianola, Miss., one of three children of Sam Smith and Ozelar (Jurnakin) Smith. When she was a small child, the family moved to Chicago, where they lived in a house on the Near North Side that was later demolished to make way for the Cabrini-Green housing project.No immediate family members survive.Viewing teaching as a path to a stable, middle-class life, she graduated from Chicago Teachers College (now Chicago State University) in 1965 and took a job teaching at a public elementary school.Even so, she aspired to be an actress. “It was escapism,” she told The Chicago Tribune in 1986, adding: “We never lacked for anything. But my parents got up before the sun rose and worked all day. My father was tired. My mother had to cook. When I went to the movies, those people on the screen didn’t have to work.”Dropping the surname “Smith” and moving to New York City in 1967, Ms. Alice trained at the Negro Ensemble Company, landing in an advanced acting class taught by Lloyd Richards, the artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theater who went on to direct “Fences.” Ms. Alice, left, and Beatrice Winde in “Sparkle,” a 1976 film loosely based on the singing group the Supremes.Everett CollectionThroughout the 1970s and the early ’80s, she made numerous appearances in sitcoms like “Good Times” and “Sanford and Son,” while carving out a film presence in “Sparkle,” a 1976 musical loosely based on The Supremes, and “Beat Street,” the 1984 break-dancing film that helped nudge hip-hop culture into the mainstream.She earned praise onstage in a 1980 Off Broadway production of “Zooman and the Sign,” featuring Frances Foster and Giancarlo Esposito, as well as a 1983 Yale Rep production of “Raisin in the Sun,” featuring Delroy Lindo.After her success with “Fences,” she played Lettie Bostic, a resident director at a historically Black college who has an intriguing past, in “A Different World,” a spinoff of “The Cosby Show.” A year after that, she drew praise as the mother of Oprah Winfrey’s matriarch character in “The Women of Brewster Place,” a television mini-series based on the Gloria Naylor novel about a group of women living in a run-down housing project.By the 1990s, she had become a familiar face in film. She had roles in Charles Burnett’s “To Sleep With Anger” featuring Danny Glover, and in Penny Marshall’s “Awakenings” featuring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, in 1990; and in Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” with Denzel Washington in the title role, two years later.She also appeared in “The Bonfire of the Vanities” as the mother of a teenager struck by a car in a hit-and-run accident.Ms. Alice, right, and Jasmine Guy in a 1988 episode of the NBC sitcom “A Different World.” NBCU Photo Bank/GettyIn 1992, she was nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for her role in “I’ll Fly Away,” a series starring Sam Waterston and Regina Taylor and set in a fictional Southern town in the 1950s; she won the award for the same role the following year.Ms. Alice nearly took home another Tony in 1995. She was nominated for best actress for her performance as the fiery Bessie, one of two centenarian sisters looking back on a century of life, in “Having Our Say,” Emily Mann’s Broadway adaptation of the best-selling 1994 memoir by Sarah (Sadie) L. Delany and her sister Annie Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany, written with Amy Hill Hearth.Ms. Alice replaced Gloria Foster as the Oracle in the third installment of the Matrix film series in 2003, and continued acting until 2005, when she appeared in a television reboot of the 1970s detective show “Kojak.”“Acting has been a big sacrifice,” she told The Tribune in 1986. “I sometimes think that if I had continued to be a teacher, I would be retired already. The income would have been constant. But I didn’t feel about teaching the way I do about acting. It’s my service in life. I’m supposed to use it.” More

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      Bernard Cribbins, British Actor Known for ‘Doctor Who,’ Is Dead at 93

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      Mr. Cribbins’s long career included roles on stage, film and television.Bernard Cribbins, a British actor who had roles on “Doctor Who” and “Fawlty Towers,” and whose contributions to children’s programs delighted young audiences over a career that spanned seven decades, has died, his agent said on Thursday. He was 93.In a statement, the management and talent agency, Gavin Barker Associates, did not say when or where Mr. Cribbins died.Mr. Cribbins worked well into his 90s, the agency said, in a career that influenced some of the best-known comedy, drama and children’s programs in Britain. He started acting at the age of 14 in the Oldham repertory company. This period of onstage work broadened into other media, including television and film, for which he became widely known, according to IMDB.He was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2011 for his contributions to the arts. In addition to dozens of roles in film and television, he recorded the 1960s novelty song “Right Said Fred.”For three decades, Mr. Cribbins was regularly featured on “Jackanory,” a BBC children’s program in which an actor read books to young audiences. The program, which ran between 1965 and 1996, was meant to arouse an interest in reading.In one of his more than 100 readings, of “The Wizard of Oz” in 1970, Mr. Cribbins infused the voices of Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard and other characters with a full dramatic repertoire of whispers, tremors and shrieks.When he was awarded a BAFTA Special Award in 2009, he grew serious in an interview when asked about the hugely popular “Jackanory” and how it had influenced young audiences.“All you have to do,” he said, “is look down the lens, find one child, and just talk to that child. And you pull them in.”“It really works, and you think all over the country there will be little kids saying, ‘Just a minute, Mum,’ and they will be looking. And the stories, as I said before, were wonderful,” he said.Mr. Cribbins was born in Oldham, England, just outside Manchester, on Dec. 29, 1928, according to IMDB. After his early stage career, he narrated “The Wombles,” a 1970s animated television program created from a series of books about underground creatures, and joined the cast of the science-fiction TV series “Doctor Who” from 2007 to 2010. He had also appeared in a Doctor Who movie, “Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.,” in 1966.Mr. Cribbins, left, and his co-star David Tennant collected an award for “Doctor Who,” which was named most popular drama at Britain’s National Television Awards in 2010.Photo by Ian West/PA Images via Getty ImagesIn the TV series, which the producer Russell T Davies revived in 2005, Mr. Cribbins played a recurring role as the grandfather of one of the Doctor’s companions, Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate. In an Instagram post on Thursday, Mr. Davies wrote that Mr. Cribbins “loved being in Doctor Who. He said, ‘Children are calling me grandad in the street!’”Mr. Davies wrote that Mr. Cribbins had once “turned up with a suitcase full of props, just in case, including a rubber chicken.” He added, “He’d phone up and say, ‘I’ve got an idea! What if I attack a Dalek with a paintball gun?!’ Okay, Bernard, in it went!”Mr. Cribbins also starred in the 1970 film “The Railway Children,” based on the children’s book by Edith Nesbit. A review in The New York Times called it “a perfectly lovely little British movie” and said Mr. Cribbins was “excellent” as the stationmaster Albert Perks in a “simple tale about three children who putter around a Yorkshire village, sharing a loving kindness learned at home.”In 1975, Mr. Cribbins appeared in an episode of the comedy series “Fawlty Towers,” starring John Cleese as the hapless manager of a seaside hotel. Mr. Cribbins played a guest mistaken by Mr. Cleese’s character for a hotel inspector, who is trying to order a cheese salad for lunch and instead is served an omelet.A list of survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Cribbins’s wife, the actor Gillian McBarnet, died in October last year.In the interview after receiving the BAFTA award in 2009, Mr. Cribbins and his “Doctor Who” co-star Ms. Tate spoke about how quickly time had gone by during his long career.“I can remember a lot of things with total clarity, total recall,” he said, before adding jokingly, “I’ve got stories I haven’t even thought of yet.” More

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      Who Can Play the King? Representation Questions Fuel Casting Debates.

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      Should Shakespeare’s Richard III be reserved for disabled actors? Does the character have to be played by a white man? By a man at all? Three recent productions took different tacks.When three of the most prestigious Shakespeare companies in the world staged “Richard III” this summer, each took a different approach to casting its scheming title character in ways that illuminate the fraught debate over which actors should play which roles.At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, Richard was played by the actor Arthur Hughes, who has radial dysplasia, which means he has a shorter right arm and a missing thumb. The company said it was the first time it had cast a disabled actor to play the character, who describes himself in the opening scene as “deformed.” The production’s director, Gregory Doran, who was until recently the Royal Shakespeare’s artistic director, told The Times of London earlier this year that having actors pretend to be disabled to play “Richard III” would “probably not be acceptable” these days.The Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, took a different tack: It cast Colm Feore, who is not disabled, to play a Richard who has a deformed spine but who is not a hunchback. And in New York City, the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park went in yet another direction, casting Danai Gurira, a Black woman who does not have a disability, as the duke who schemes and kills his way to the throne of England.Their varying approaches came at a moment when an intense rethinking of the cultural norms around identity, representation, diversity, opportunity, imagination and artistic license have led to impassioned debates, and battles, over casting.It has been decades since major theaters have had white actors play Othello in blackface, and, after years of criticism, performances by white actors playing caricatured Asian roles are growing rarer in theater and film, and are being rethought in opera and ballet.Now there are questions about who should play gay characters (Tom Hanks recently told The New York Times Magazine that today he would, rightly, not be cast as a gay attorney dying of AIDS, as he was in his Academy Award-winning role in the 1993 film “Philadelphia”) or transgender characters (Eddie Redmayne said last year that it had been a “mistake” to play a trans character in 2015’s “The Danish Girl”) or characters of different ethnicities and religions. (Bradley Cooper faced criticism this year for using a prosthetic nose to play the Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein in a forthcoming biopic.)Tom Hanks recently said that today he would, correctly, not be cast as a gay attorney dying of AIDS, as he was in the film “Philadelphia,” which he starred in with Denzel Washington.TriStar PicturesWhile many celebrate the move away from old, sometimes stereotyped portrayals and the new opportunities belatedly being given to actors from a diverse array of backgrounds, others worry that the current insistence on literalism and authenticity can be too constraining. Acting, after all, is the art of pretending to be someone you are not.“The essential nature of art is freedom,” said the Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, whose many credits include Shylock, the Jewish moneylender of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” though Mr. Abraham is not Jewish. “Once we impose any kind of control over it, it’s no longer free.”And while the recent insistence on more authentic casting promises greater diversity in some respects, it threatens less in others — coming as many women and actors of color are getting more opportunities to play some of the greatest, meatiest roles in the repertory, regardless of whatever race or gender or background the playwrights may have initially envisioned.More About on Deaf CultureUpending Perceptions: The poetic art of Christine Sun Kim, who was born deaf, challenges viewers to reconsider how they hear and perceive the world.‘Coda’: The Oscar-winning film showcases deaf actors and lives. But some deaf viewers found its hearing perspective frustrating. Seeking Representation: Though deafness is gaining visibility onscreen, deaf people who rely on hearing devices say their experiences remain mostly untold. Name Signs: Name signs are the equivalent of a first name in some sign languages. We asked a few people to share the story behind theirs.Sometimes such casting is considered “colorblind,” in which case audiences are asked to look beyond an actor’s race or ethnicity, or other features. But in recent years the trend has been toward “color-conscious” casting, in which an actor’s race, ethnicity or identity becomes part of the production, and a feature of the character being portrayed.The casting of Mr. Hughes in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Britain was hailed as the first time the company had cast a disabled actor in the title role.Ellie Kurttz, via Royal Shakespeare CompanySome of the varied approaches were underscored by this summer’s productions of “Richard III,” and the different directions each theater took when choosing an actor to play Richard.Richard tells the audience in the opening scene that he is:Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my timeInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,And that so lamely and unfashionableThat dogs bark at me as I halt by themThe remark by Mr. Doran, the director of the Royal Shakespeare Company production, that it would “probably not be acceptable” these days to have actors pretend to be disabled to play Richard caused a stir in theater circles.Not only is Mr. Doran a renowned Shakespearean, but his husband, Antony Sher, who died last year, was one of the most memorable Richards of recent decades, using crutches in an acclaimed 1984 production and writing a book about his portrayal.Mr. Doran, whose production in Stratford-upon-Avon was critically lauded, later clarified his thinking about its casting, explaining that while any actor might be a successful Richard, he believed the role should be reserved for disabled actors until they “have the opportunities across the board now more widely afforded to other actors.”The new staging in Stratford, Ontario, featuring Mr. Feore, listed a “disability consultant” in its credits. His depiction was inspired by the discovery of Richard’s bones nearly a decade ago — the skeleton suggested a form of scoliosis — and rested on the idea that his physique “was less of a medical disability than a social and cultural one,” the company’s spokeswoman, Ann Swerdfager, said in an email. The critic Karen Fricker wrote in The Toronto Star: “As much as I admired Feore’s performance, it did lead me to wonder if this will be the last able-bodied actor making a star turn as a disabled character on the Stratford stage, given crucial conversations currently happening around deaf and disability performance.”And in New York, Ms. Gurira, who has appeared in “Black Panther” and the television series “The Walking Dead,” tried to explore the underlying reasons for Richard’s behavior. “There is a psychological reason for what he becomes,” she said in an interview. “He’s looking at the rules in front of him, and he feels he’s most capable, but the rules disallow him from manifesting his full capability.”The production’s director, Robert O’Hara, said that they made Richard’s difference key to the interpretation. “Richard’s otherness becomes an entire reason for his behavior,” he said in an interview. “He feels like now he has to play a part people projected onto him.”Ms. Gurira, left, said her approach to Richard aimed to get at the “psychological reason for what he becomes.” She appeared with Daniel J. Watts, right.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe rest of the cast for the production, which ended its run earlier this month, was notably diverse, and included several actors with disabilities in roles that are not usually cast that way. Ali Stroker, a Tony-winning actress who uses a wheelchair, played Lady Anne; Monique Holt, who is Deaf, played Richard’s mother, the two typically communicating onstage via American Sign Language.“I wanted to open up the conversation from ‘Why isn’t Richard being played by a disabled actor?’ to ‘Why isn’t every role considered able to be played by a disabled actor?’” Mr. O’Hara said.Ayanna Thompson, a professor of English at Arizona State University and a Shakespeare scholar in residence at the Public Theater who consulted on its “Richard III,” argued that the growing embrace of color-conscious casting reflected contemporary understandings of how different attributes inflect both actors’ identities and audiences’ perceptions.“All of our bodies carry meaning on stage, whether or not we want to acknowledge that. And that’s going to affect storytelling,” Ms. Thompson said.She pointed to an example from another play: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, friends of Hamlet’s, whom other characters often confuse for each other. “If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are played by Black actors and the Hamlet family is all-white,” she said, “the inability to distinguish carries a whole set of different meanings.”Many productions upend traditional casting to interrogate classics. Women played every role in a trilogy of acclaimed Shakespeare productions directed by Phyllida Lloyd at Donmar Warehouse in London, seen in New York at St. Ann’s Warehouse. A “Julius Caesar” directed by Mr. Doran reset the scene from ancient Rome to modern Africa. Even Hollywood has reimagined some blockbusters, as with the gender-swapped 2016 “Ghostbusters.”Harriet Walter, with hands outstretched, in a 2013 production of “Julius Caesar,” in which all of the roles were played by women. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut as there is a push for greater casting freedoms in some areas, there is an argument for more literalism in others, especially from actors with certain backgrounds who lack opportunities.Some disabled actors are upset when they see Richard III, one of the juiciest disabled characters in the canon, go to someone else. “We all want a level playing field where everybody can play everybody,” said Mat Fraser, an English actor who is disabled and has played Richard, “but my entire career I’ve not been allowed to play hardly anybody.”In 2016, while accepting an Emmy for his turn as a transgender character in “Transparent,” Jeffrey Tambor said that he hoped to be “the last cisgender male to play a transgender female.” Now, with a “Transparent” stage musical being created in Los Angeles, its creator, Joey Soloway, vowed in an interview: “No trans person should be played by a cis person. Zero tolerance.”The conversation on casting has been evolving in recent years.“It used to be that part of the measurement of greatness was your ability to transform yourself,” said Isaac Butler, the author of “The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act,” a new history of Method acting. “Is versatility still the hallmark of good acting? And how do you approach it if there are certain identity lines you cannot cross? And which are those identity lines?”Gregg Mozgala, left, an actor with cerebral palsy, says he has to bring his “full humanity to every character I play.” He appeared with Jolly Abraham in 2017 in a production of the play “Cost of Living.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesGregg Mozgala, an actor with cerebral palsy, has played roles that are not traditionally portrayed as disabled, as he did playing two monarchs in “Richard III” in New York, and sometimes plays characters written as having cerebral palsy, as he will this fall in a Broadway production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Cost of Living.”“I spent years trying to pretend my disability didn’t exist in life and onstage, which is ridiculous, because it does,” Mr. Mozgala said.“Every character I ever play is going to have cerebral palsy — there’s nothing I can do about that,” he added. “I have to bring my full humanity to every character I play.”Some still hold out hope for a day when identity will recede in the conversation.“A hundred years from now, do I hope white actors could play Othello?” said Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater’s artistic director. “Sure, because it would mean racism wasn’t the explosive issue it is now.” More

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      Why Brandon Perea’s ‘Nope’ Audition Made Jordan Peele Cry

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      The actor’s unexpected take on Angel, the Fry’s worker, so won over the director that he decided during their meeting to rewrite the script.When Brandon Perea was 15, touring the country as a professional dancer and roller skater, he had an epiphany in the parking lot of a Blue Coast Burrito: He would move from Chicago to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.But dreams rarely account for the rough patches. Perea thought he had it made when, at 20, he booked the series-regular role of student Alfonso Sosa, known as French, on the enigmatic Netflix serial “The OA,” but the show was canceled two seasons into its planned five-year arc.“I had so much confidence where I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m probably going to book a bunch of stuff after this,’” Perea said, though new roles proved elusive. “It’s that weird middle ground where ‘The OA’ was a good, life-changing job, but it’s not a piece on your résumé that’s going to beat out the A-list people that want the great stuff. You’re auditioning just in case they say no, and who the hell is going to say no to something great?”Still, Perea kept plugging away at his dream, and his efforts were rewarded when he scored a breakout role in Jordan Peele’s new film “Nope,” which stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as siblings trying to photograph an extraterrestrial entity looming above their California ranch. Their efforts eventually involve the bleach-blond electronics-store employee Angel, whom Perea has a ball playing: Though Angel appears terminally bored when we meet him, he quickly warms to the brother-sister duo, oversharing about his recent breakup and chatting eagerly about “Ancient Aliens” even as their circumstances grow ever more outlandish.Peele was so pleased with Perea’s work that he beefed up the role during the shoot, and now that “Nope” is out (and No. 1 at the box office), the 27-year-old actor is glad he stuck to his convictions.“I call this the miracle job for a reason — this is a God-given miracle for me, because this is far bigger than what I could ever imagine or dream,” Perea told me last week over Zoom. “To be working in Hollywood is a privilege and it’s tough to keep, so you’ve got to be grateful if you can keep it. If I wasn’t grateful, kick me out.”Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.With Daniel Kaluuya, left, and Keke Palmer in “Nope.” Perea met the film’s stars for the first time during filming. Universal PicturesWhat was going on in your life when you were cast in “Nope”?I hadn’t worked on anything truly significant in a long time, and there were a lot of lows before “Nope.” I got close to a big show — I went in the room three or four times and I just thought, “Oh man, this is it, I’m back” — and then I didn’t get that role. Then there was a really good script, and I felt like I murdered that audition. People I showed the audition to were like, “Oh man, you’re going to book this thing,” and I didn’t end up getting it.But there was a switch for me where I was just like, “You know what? I’m proud at the level that I’m performing at, and someone will trust me someday.” That eased the pressure I put on myself. It was the first time that I came to terms with it so I could move on and not sulk over a job.And then you heard about “Nope”?I got an email for an untitled Jordan Peele project, my first big audition in a long time. I was assuming it’d be a one-liner or something because he’s at the point where he can get any actor in the world to be in his films, but then I saw it was one of the leads. I was like, “Oh my God, he’s seeing auditions for a lead role? That’s insane. I’m going to deliver the best that I can, but what can I do that’s going to be different than everyone else?”So what was your take on the character?The initial audition was just three pages of simple dialogue of this dude working at an electronics store: “Hi, I can help you over here. Would you like an account with us?” It was very happy, very up. And I was like, “Hmm, you don’t see that when you go into an electronics store. The employees do not want to be there.” So, I played it that way, sent the tape off into the universe, and two weeks later I got a callback to meet with Jordan on Zoom.How did you feel?I was excited, humbled, nervous. I was like, “Man, I’m just happy to meet the dude. If I get the role, great, but also, I’m happy with where I got.” But then I had people around me that were like, “No, dog. Ask, believe, receive. This is your job and you’re going to get this.” And my roommate at the time introduced me to some Steve Harvey motivational videos and that really helped, because that got my confidence way up.I went in with this energy that was like, “I’m not here to audition, it’s a work session. I’m going to set. I’m not here to beg for the job.” And I acted like I already knew Jordan, because I had watched so many of his interviews to prep — I was like, “Yo, what’s good, J.P.? How we doing?” Just very comfortable and not like, “Hello, Mr. Peele, how are you?”Perea said the dialogue he was handed for his “Nope” audition depicted Angel as a happy, up worker. “I was like, ‘Hmm, you don’t see that when you go into an electronics store. The employees do not want to be there.’” Victor Llorente for The New York TimesYou were bringing colleague energy rather than fan energy.Yeah, exactly, and after it was over, I was so proud that I cried. I was alone on my couch, just like, “Man, I don’t even care if I get the job, he’ll book me one day.” And two days later, my reps reach out and they’re like, “Hey, are you free for an improv session this afternoon with Jordan?” I go in the Zoom call and Jordan’s like, “The thing is, the character you brought to the table is far different than what I wrote for. So, I need to see you do it some more ways, because I’d have to rewrite my entire script to cast you in this thing.”I’m like, “Damn, I’m probably out of the job.” And he was like, “You know what? That’s what I’m going to do. Yeah, I’m going to rewrite my script.” I was like, “What?” He was like, “Yeah, man. You got the job.” Boom, instant tears. I started going on a whole spiel: “Man, with Hollywood stuff, you get beat down — it’s a roller coaster full of ups and downs. Thank you for trusting me. You go through a million nos to get one yes, and I’d go through a billion to get this one.” And Jordan started crying as well. I remember him removing his glasses just like, “You got me, man, you got me.”That’s the tricky thing about being a working actor, I’d expect: You can continue to deliver knockout auditions, but you never know if you’re exactly what they’re looking for.It took a while, but I’m so glad I didn’t get the other jobs that I thought I needed and wanted so much. “Nope” came along at the perfect time because now I’m here and I’m prepared. There’s a lot of pieces missing that I really had to learn in life, not just as an actor or as an artist.What would have happened if you booked something like this right on the heels of “The OA”?I just wouldn’t have handled success the best, I think. At that time, I probably would have let it steer me away more from the art form just to get some money grabs or a big following. There was a popular TV show I thought I was close to booking, but I think my intentions were in the wrong place, where I was like, “Oh man, I can get a lot of viewers and young people to be on my side.” I wasn’t looking at it like, “I love this character, I really want to deliver in this series.” So I’m glad there was a no on that front, because it’s a very viral show and — —Was it “Euphoria”?Ooh, you guessed it. You’re good. But everything happens for a reason, and I had to learn that.So Jordan cast you. Then what?It was just an emotional roller coaster right after that — like, “Phew, now I have to go do the job and deliver.” And there was so much mystery. There was no synopsis, I had no clue what the hell I was about to do. On the day I got the movie, Jordan sent me a movie list of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Jaws,” “Alien,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “No Country for Old Men.” I was like, “OK, this is a random-ass list of movies. What’s he conjuring up? How does all this stuff connect?” And then a little while later, I get a text message from him being like, “Merry Christmas,” and he sent me a link to the script.”I remember reading it, being like, “Oh my gosh, no one’s going to expect this from Jordan.” And I did not know who the cast was, either, but he just started texting me random hints — he sent me “D.K.,” and I was like, “D.K., Daniel Kaluuya?” We’d even had a little conversation about Kaluuya because I took a nugget from watching his YouTube interviews, where a director gave him a note to never play the funny, always play the truth.Perea said he learned he got the job directly from Peele during a meeting. His reaction? “Boom, instant tears.” Victor Llorente for The New York TimesAfter watching so many videos of Daniel Kaluuya, what happens when you’re actually acting opposite him?The first time that we all met in person was the first time that we met on-screen. I was a stranger to him and Keke, and they already had their bond, so I was like, “Let me play this to my advantage. I’m just going to play Angel throughout, then I’ll say what’s up after.” And that’s what we did. The beats are awkward, and I’m challenging Daniel because he’s giving me eyes. I remember hearing him say to Keke, “My eyes see everything.” So I wasn’t breaking eye contact with him — it was hard nose vs. hard nose. I was like, “I’m here with you.”You posted a video of your emotional reaction to seeing the “Nope” billboard for the first time. What does it mean for you to be on those billboards and posters?My intention when I was younger was just, “I want to be on a billboard.” I wasn’t looking at it from a more complex, deeper meaning. But if you really look at the billboard for “Nope” and dissect it, it’s like, “Wow, I’m on a billboard, but I’m a Filipino Puerto Rican kid sharing this poster with Asian representation, Black representation and a Black director in a big spectacle film.” Man, I’m glad it took this long, because now I appreciate this privilege. Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Jordan Peele — I’m working with some of the best to be doing it right now. I am the new kid on the block, so the fact that I get to share a poster with all those people? I’m very grateful that they trusted me. More

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      B.J. Novak Went to Texas Looking for ‘Vengeance’ and Found America

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      A funny story that B.J. Novak likes to tell from the making of his new movie is about the day he thought he was having a stroke. Are you chuckling yet?At the start of 2020, Novak, a writer, comedian and alumnus of “The Office,” had finally gotten the green light to make “Vengeance,” a dark comedy set in small-town Texas. That’s when he thought he was slurring his speech and called a colleague to ask if he was noticing it, too.As Novak recalled, “I was like, you hear that, don’t you? And he said, I do. And I called my doctor and went in the next morning for an M.R.I., and they said you’re fine, and I realized I’m terrified to make this movie.”Like a lot of the humor that appeals to Novak — whose symptoms, rest assured, were completely psychosomatic — what’s funny about this story is a matter of perspective. You can laugh at it in relief, when you know the person telling it is no longer in danger.This is a theme that comes up frequently in “Vengeance,” which blends some of the awkward cringe comedy that “The Office” was famous for with a knowing, cynical sharpness that would never fly in the hallways of Dunder Mifflin.The film, which opens Friday, is Novak’s debut as a feature director and screenwriter, and he stars in it as Ben Manalowitz, a self-assured New York writer. When Ben learns that a woman he dated casually — very casually — has died under hazy circumstances in her Texas hometown, he travels there in hopes of turning the story into a hit podcast.Though Ben arrives with selfish motives and a stereotypical sense of red-state values, he grows enamored of the dead woman’s family (played by Boyd Holbrook, J. Smith-Cameron, Isabella Amara and Dove Cameron, among others). His investigation also leads him to an astute record producer (Ashton Kutcher) who exerts an ominous influence over the town.Boyd Holbrook, left, with Novak in a scene from the new film “Vengeance.”Patti Perret/Focus FeaturesFor Novak, “Vengeance” is an ambitious attempt to step out of his sitcom comfort zone and see if he can make it as an Albert Brooks-like leading man. As he said of his acting résumé, which has included small roles in “Inglourious Basterds” and other films, “I’m very much a reaction-shot guy. I’ve never been a point-of-view character.”“Vengeance” is also one of a small number of original comedies that will receive a theatrical release, and getting it made required a level of commitment that Novak had never expected.“I really felt like a madman on the corner,” he said. “I’m going to star in this movie, and it’s a comedy but also a thriller but also a love story. But it’s also about how technology does this to us. I really thought I was nuts, but I kept going.”One afternoon in June, Novak was relaxing in the patio of a hotel in downtown Manhattan, where he’d presented “Vengeance” at the Tribeca Festival. For the first time in several months, Novak said, “I haven’t been under some terrible cloud of writing and editing and fighting. I really like it.”Face to face, Novak, who turns 43 on July 31, comes across as easygoing and effortlessly humorous. Describing his life as a Boston-area transplant now residing in Los Angeles, he said, “Everyone in L.A. assumes I live in New York, which I take to mean: You’re Jewish, right? Or, I haven’t seen you in a while.”But there’s an intensity that colors all his anecdotes about “Vengeance,” whose central premise he had been kicking around for several years.“We live in divided times, quote-unquote, because we communicate completely on our own timelines,” he said. “It was from my experience dating and being a somewhat shallow person who didn’t really know what he was missing until it was too late.”Novak added, “Every year that went by, it became a more topical film, which I didn’t ever intend it to be.”Novak, concerned about starring in the film as well as directing, had a panic attack before shooting started.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesBetween 2015 and 2018, Novak said, he took research trips to Texas cities like Abilene and Pecos, seeking to dispel his misconceptions about a part of the country he assumed would be unwelcoming.“I thought that these huge dudes with beards and pickup trucks would be very suspicious of a Hollywood blue-state guy, and I found the exact opposite,” he said. “It’s the warmest culture I ever found. I went to Easter dinners and people would show me the poetry they had written.”Novak returned from his travels with the foundation for what would become “Vengeance,” and with the intention that he would play the lead. “I wrote the role to be impossible to cast with anyone but me,” he said. “You know, superficial with a possible hidden heart, blah blah blah.”Though the movie can be equally scathing in its satirical treatment of snobbish urbanites and credulous country folk, Novak said that the “Vengeance” screenplay benefited from lessons he learned while working on “The Office.”In particular, he said the sitcom taught him “the confidence to throw away your best joke if it didn’t feel authentic or damaged the character long-term — if you play an emotional moment honestly, the laugh will be more satisfying later.”That said, Novak also had to remind himself it was OK to depict his “Vengeance” character with some positive attributes — an approach he would have never taken at “The Office,” on which he, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein and other writers portrayed its supporting miscreants.On that show, Novak said, “We were too shy to pitch anything redeeming, so we played the least redeeming characters. We were all allergic to that in the writers’ room.”The cast for “Vengeance” grew to include Issa Rae, who plays a podcast producer Ben is hoping to impress; the singer-songwriter John Mayer, who plays one of Ben’s self-centered New York friends; and Kutcher, who previously employed Novak as an on-camera accomplice for his MTV prank series, “Punk’D.”Kutcher said he was particularly impressed with a long monologue that his character delivered, about people who seem to care less about the lives they lead than the digital records of them that they leave behind.“When you look at human behavior, and the obsessive nature of chasing that dopamine hit from posting every moment we think is interesting or cool or funny, you realize his theory has merit,” Kutcher said.Also, Kutcher said, he appreciated that Novak was open to letting him play his character with a mustache. “I just saw him having a mustache. I don’t know why,” Kutcher said.But as production moved forward, Novak became increasingly anxious about feeling that he had to carry the movie as the leading man, setting off his panic attack. It was in this time that he reached out to Mayer for what Novak described as “handsomeness coaching.”Mayer has been a longtime friend of Novak’s, dating to “The Office.” (In an email, Mayer explained that he allowed the show to use his song “Your Body Is a Wonderland” in return for a Dundie Award.)Mayer said he could not remember all the suggestions he offered Novak, but one of them was to give up alcohol before he started shooting. “First and foremost, you have to put drinking away,” Mayer said. “I know people wince just hearing that stuff. But that’s the truth.”He continued, “I think I mentioned getting the right haircut, basic stuff. But how sweet and vulnerable is that, for B.J. to ask before filming what advice I could give him?”Novak had to remind himself it was OK to depict his “Vengeance” character with some positive attributes — an approach he would have never taken at “The Office.”Erik Tanner for The New York TimesA few weeks into filming, production was suspended for several months because of the pandemic. At times Novak found himself juggling duties on the film and his FX on Hulu anthology series “The Premise.”“I filmed the FX show and then I went back to filming ‘Vengeance,’” he started to say, then corrected himself. “No, I was editing ‘Vengeance’ while I was writing. It was a mess, and I had Covid.”“I took extra time, because I was writing poorly and editing poorly because my brain was bad for a few weeks,” he said. “They were both going badly at various points because I couldn’t balance them and I thought I could.”Now “Vengeance” arrives in theaters on the heels of the blockbusters “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Jurassic World Dominion” and “Thor: Love and Thunder,” at a time when many other low-budget comedies and dramas about more earthbound matters are being released directly to streaming platforms.Jason Blum, the chief executive of Blumhouse, one of the companies that produced “Vengeance,” said the film could have just as easily received a streaming release.“I can’t tell you we didn’t contemplate that during the pandemic,” he said. “We contemplated every possible distribution outlet, ever.”But, Blum said, his company has had success with films from writer-directors who blended comedy and thriller genres, like Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” and he was hopeful that “Vengeance” might find a similar lane.“This movie is exactly the kind of movie that people say they want to see,” Blum said. “If it does well, it’ll open a path to put other original movies in theaters, too, not just movies based on existing intellectual property.”For Novak, the theatrical release is an opportunity to show “Vengeance” to the same people he hopes it captures, and to determine if they appreciate how he has depicted them.“I really want Texans to like it,” he said. “I wanted to make this Texans’ favorite movie. I even put a Whataburger in it. I remember seeing Dunkin’ Donuts in ‘Good Will Hunting.’ As a Bostonian, you just felt so seen.” More

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      Study Shows Disability Representation Onscreen Is Increasing, but Still Falls Short

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      The study published Tuesday also showed that television continues to lag behind film when it comes to representation of characters with disabilities.“CODA,” a film about the hearing child of deaf parents, won this year’s Academy Award for best picture, and one of its stars, Troy Kotsur, became the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar when he took home the award for best supporting actor. Lauren Ridloff became the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first deaf superhero in “Eternals.” The Hulu mystery-comedy series “Only Murders in the Building” won acclaim for an almost entirely silent episode that highlighted the perspective of a deaf character (played by James Caverly).Even with these prominent examples of disability representation onscreen, relative to the approximately 26 percent of adults in the United States who have a physical or psychological disability, representation continued to lag behind, a new study released Tuesday by Nielsen found. The report, whose release was timed to the 32nd anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, analyzed the representation of disabled characters on film and TV shows released from 1918 to 2022.The titles came from a Nielsen database that included about 164,000 films and TV shows that premiered over the past century. Of those, about 4.2 percent, or 6,895 titles, were tagged as having significant disability themes or content.Disability inclusion was highest, the study found, in 2019, when 518 productions with disability themes were released.Across the board in this year’s report, films again fared better than television — of the 6,895 titles that featured significant disability themes or content, about 59 percent (4,066) were feature films, and 18 percent (1,209) were regular series. (The remaining depictions were in other categories like short films, limited series, TV movies or specials.)Those numbers represent a slight shift toward television from last year, when a Nielsen report showed that 64 percent of depictions of disabled characters were in feature films, and 16 percent were in regular television series.A survey of more than 2,000 smartphone users on disability representation in media conducted in the first quarter of 2022 also found that people with disabilities were much more likely to take issue with portrayals of disabled characters. Viewers with disabilities were 34 percent more likely to say there was not enough representation of their identity group in media, and they were 52 percent more likely than those who did not identify as having a disability to characterize a TV portrayal of their identity group as inaccurate.Lauren Appelbaum, a vice president at RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization that participated in the Nielsen study last year, told The Times then that though the number of disabled characters continued to increase, approximately 95 percent of those roles were still portrayed by actors who did not have disabilities.But there have also been positive representations, as on the HBO series “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” which features a character who uses a wheelchair (played by Lauren Spencer, known as Lolo), a confident student who attends the show’s iconic nude party. Alaqua Cox also won acclaim for her performance as Maya Lopez/Echo, a deaf Cheyenne woman who has the ability to imitate other people’s movements, in the Disney+ series “Hawkeye.” More

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      Paul Sorvino, Master of the Mild-Mannered Mobster, Dies at 83

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      A would-be singing star, he found success in Hollywood playing a variety of roles, but they were often quiet, dangerous men, like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas.”Paul Sorvino, the tough-guy actor — and operatic tenor and figurative sculptor — known for his roles as calm and often courteously quiet but dangerous men in films like “Goodfellas” and television shows like “Law & Order,” died on Monday. He was 83. His publicist, Roger Neal, confirmed the death, at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. No specific cause was given, but Mr. Neal said that Mr. Sorvino “had dealt with health issues over the past few years.”Mr. Sorvino was the father of Mira Sorvino, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite” (1995). In her acceptance speech, she said her father had “taught me everything I know about acting.”“Goodfellas” (1990), Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed Mafia epic, came along when Mr. Sorvino was 50 and decades into his film career. His character, Paulie Cicero, was a local mob boss — lumbering, soft-spoken and ice-cold.“Paulie might have moved slow,” says Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, his neighborhood protégé in the film, “but it was only because he didn’t have to move for nobody.” (Mr. Liotta died in May at 67.)Mr. Sorvino almost abandoned the role because he couldn’t fully connect emotionally, he told the comedian Jon Stewart, who interviewed a panel of “Goodfellas” alumni at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. When you “find the spine” of a character, Mr. Sorvino said, “it makes all the decisions for you.”Mr. Sorvino with Ray Liotta in a scene from Martin Scorsese’s mob epic “Goodfellas” in 1990. Mr. Sorvino almost abandoned the role.That didn’t happen, he recalled, until one day when he was adjusting his necktie, looked in the mirror and saw something in his own eyes. When he saw what he called “that lethal Paulie look,” Mr. Sorvino told The Lowcountry Weekly, a South Carolina publication, in 2019, “I knew at that moment I had embraced my inner mob boss.”He had made his mark onstage as a very different but perhaps equally soulless character in “That Championship Season” (1972), Jason Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning tragicomedy about the sad reunion of high school basketball players whose glory days are decades past. In the original Broadway production, Mr. Sorvino played Phil Romano, a small-town strip-mining millionaire arrogantly having an affair with the mayor’s wife.Mr. Sorvino received a Tony Award nomination for best actor in a play and reprised the role in a 1982 film adaptation.Paul Sorvino (1939-2022)The tough-guy actor, who was best known for his role as the mobster Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas,” died at 83.Obituary: A would-be opera singer, Paul Sorvino found success in Hollywood playing quiet but dangerous men.Remembering ‘Goodfellas’: In 2015, we asked the cast to reflect on the film’s production 25 years later. Here’s what Mr. Sorvino recalled.An Operatic Soul: “Singing allows me to be me,” Mr. Sorvino told The Times ahead of his New York City Opera debut in 2006.Paul Anthony Sorvino was born on April 13, 1939, in Brooklyn, the youngest of three sons of Fortunato Sorvino, known as Ford, and Marietta (Renzi) Sorvino, a homemaker and piano teacher. The elder Mr. Sorvino, a robe-factory foreman, was born in Naples, Italy, and emigrated to New York with his parents in 1907.Paul grew up in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn and attended Lafayette High School. His original career dream was to sing — he idolized the Italian American tenor and actor Mario Lanza — and he began taking voice lessons when he was 8 years old or so.In the late 1950s, he began performing at Catskills resorts and charity events. In 1963, he received his Actors Equity card as a chorus member in “South Pacific” and “The Student Prince” at the Theater at Westbury on Long Island. That same year, he began studying drama at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York.Acting jobs were elusive. Mr. Sorvino’s Broadway debut, in the chorus of the musical “Bajour” (1964), lasted almost seven months, but his next show, the comedy “Mating Dance” (1965), starring Van Johnson, closed on opening night.Mr. Sorvino worked as a waiter and a bartender, sold cars, taught acting to children and appeared in commercials for deodorant and tomato sauce. After his first child, Mira, was born, he wrote advertising copy for nine months, but the office job gave him an ulcer.“Most of the time I was just another out-of-work actor who couldn’t get arrested,” he told The New York Times in 1972. “I had confidence in my ability, and I was angry as hell when other people didn’t recognize it.”Mr. Sorvino, second from left, with other cast members of “That Championship Season,” which started Off Broadway before moving to Broadway. With him, from left, were Walter McGinn, Richard Dysart, Michael McGuire and Charles Durning.Leo FriedmanThen his luck changed. He made his film debut in “Where’s Poppa?” (1970), a dark comedy directed by Carl Reiner, in a small role as a retirement-home owner. Then “That Championship Season” came along, starting with the Off Broadway production at the Public Theater.The film role that first won him major attention was as Joseph Bologna’s grouchy Italian American father in “Made for Each Other” (1971). Mr. Sorvino, almost five years younger than Mr. Bologna, wore old-age makeup for the role.He appeared next as a New Yorker robbed by a prostitute in “The Panic in Needle Park” (1972) but did not fall victim to the cops-and-gangsters stereotype right away. In 1973. he was George Segal’s movie-producer friend in “A Touch of Class” and a mysterious government agent in “The Day of the Dolphin.”Mr. Sorvino later played an egotistic, money-hungry evangelist with a Southern accent in the comedy “Oh, God!” (1977) and God Himself in “The Devil’s Carnival” (2012) and its 2015 sequel. He was a down-to-earth newspaper reporter in love with a ballerina in “Slow Dancing in the Big City” (1978). In “Reds” (1981), he was a passionate Russian American Communist leader just before the Bolshevik Revolution.Mr. Sorvino in 2000 with castmates in “Law and Order.” With him, from left, were Chris Noth, Michael Moriarty and Richard Brooks.NBCHe was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, complete with German accent, in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” (1995). And he played Fulgencio Capulet, Juliet’s intense father with an ancient grudge, in Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” (1996).But in a half-century screen career, Mr. Sovino’s characters were often on the wrong side of the law. He played, among others, Chubby de Coco (“Bloodbrothers,” 1978), Lips Manlis (“Dick Tracy,” 1980), Big Mike Cicero (“How Sweet It Is,” 2013), Jimmy Scambino (“Sicilian Vampire,” 2015) and Fat Tony Salerno (“Kill the Irishman,” 2011).And in at least 20 roles, he played law officers with titles like detective, captain or chief. For one season (1991-92), he was Sgt. Phil Cerreta on NBC’s “Law & Order,” but he found the shooting schedule too demanding — and difficult on his voice.Mr. Sorvino continued to sing professionally, making his City Opera debut in Frank Loesser’s “The Most Happy Fella” in 2006.His personal life sometimes reinforced his tough-guy image. Most recently, in 2018, when the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was on trial for criminal sexual acts — and Mira Sorvino had accused him of harassment — Mr. Sorvino predicted that Mr. Weinstein would die in jail. “Because if not, he has to meet me, and I will kill the [expletive deleted] — real simple,” Mr. Sorvino said in a widely aired video interview. Four months later, Mr. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison.Mr. Sorvino’s final screen roles were in 2019. He played a corrupt senator in “Welcome to Acapulco,” a spy-comedy film, and the crime boss Frank Costello in the Epix series “Godfather of Harlem.” Mr. Sorvino with his daughter Mira Sorvino in 2007. Kathleen Voege/Associated PressHe married Lorraine Davis, an actress, in 1966, and they had three children before divorcing in 1988. Mr. Sorvino’s second wife, from 1991 until their 1996 divorce, was Vanessa Arico, a real estate agent. He married Dee Dee Benkie, a Republican political strategist, in 2014.Mr. Sorvino began making bronze sculpture in the 1970s and considered his nonperforming arts work particularly satisfying. “That’s why I prefer it,” he told The Sun-Sentinel, a Florida newspaper, in 2005. “No one really tells you how to finish something.”“Acting onstage is like doing sculpture,” he said. “Acting in movies is like being an assistant to the sculptor.”Mr. Sorvino is survived by his wife, Dee Dee Sorvino; three children, Mira, Amanda, and Michael; and five grandchildren.Johnny Diaz More

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      Shonka Dukureh, Actress Who Sang ‘Hound Dog’ in ‘Elvis,’ Dies at 44

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      She made her Hollywood debut as Big Mama Thornton, giving a performance that one castmate called “a spiritual experience.”Shonka Dukureh, who made her Hollywood debut as the celebrated blues singer Big Mama Thornton in the new Baz Luhrmann film, “Elvis,” was found dead on Thursday in Nashville. She was 44.The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department confirmed the death but did not provide a cause, saying only that no foul play was evident. One of Ms. Dukureh’s two young children found her unresponsive in her bedroom on Thursday morning and ran to alert a neighbor, who called 911, the police said.“Elvis,” Mr. Luhrmann’s highly anticipated movie about the life of Elvis Presley, with Austin Butler in the title role and Tom Hanks as Presley’s manager, Tom Parker, opened in June. Big Mama Thornton, who recorded the original version of “Hound Dog” in 1952, a year before Presley had a hit with it, was Ms. Dukureh’s first major acting role. In Thornton, she found a role that melded her booming voice with her apparently emerging acting chops.Her rendition of “Hound Dog” especially captivated audiences. She had been planning to release a studio album, titled “The Lady Sings the Blues,” according to her website.Ms. Dukureh said she was from Nashville “by way of Charlotte, N.C.,” where she was born on Sept. 3, 1977. She originally planned to become a teacher and held a master’s degree in education from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, according to her website (which says she also held a bachelor’s degree in theater from Fisk University, also in Nashville). She instead pursued the arts. Her powerful voice was heard on international tours with Jamie Lidell and the Royal Pharaohs, and was a featured vocalist on several albums.Her performance in “Elvis” rapidly earned her fans; among them her fellow cast members. Olivia DeJonge, who played Priscilla Presley in the film, told Entertainment Weekly that watching Ms. Dukureh “was a spiritual experience.”“To watch a star essentially be born, to have something in her sort of break free, was just — it was insane to watch,” Ms. DeJonge said.Information on survivors was not immediately available. More