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      ‘He Presented Another Path’: Actors and Directors on Peter Brook

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      Patrick Stewart, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Tina Landau and Tim Robbins on being challenged and inspired by the legendary theater maker, who died last weekend.The actor Kathryn Hunter heard the news of the director Peter Brook’s death, last weekend at 97, in a telephone call from his longtime collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne. Then Hunter, an Olivier Award winner who played the witches in Joel Coen’s film “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” set off across London for Shakespeare’s Globe.“I’m playing Lear, which was, of course, Peter’s great, great play,” she said the other day, describing herself as overwhelmed at his loss after many years of working with him, including in New York. “As I was cycling in, I felt and almost saw a huge great light, and I felt it was Peter’s spirit.”That sort of mystical event seems apt for Brook, who over his long, globe-trotting career attained a kind of guru status — not least through his nine-hour landmark production “The Mahabharata,” a 1985 adaptation of the Sanskrit epic, and with revered texts like his 1968 book of theater principles, “The Empty Space.”Always in print: Brook’s “The Empty Space” laid out his principles of theater. London-born and Paris-based, Brook directed nine shows on Broadway, most famously his “Marat/Sade” in 1965 and his enduringly influential “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 1971. In recent decades in New York, he was a questing favorite at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Theater for a New Audience.Friends and colleagues who worked with him on this side of the Atlantic, and theater makers who never met him but look reflexively to his tenets — including openness and presence in the moment — spoke by phone this week about Brook’s impact as an artist and a human being. These are edited excerpts from those interviews.Can you spot Ben Kingsley in Brook’s 1970 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Stratford-upon-Avon, England? (He’s hanging top right.)Donald Cooper / Alamy Stock PhotoPatrick StewartThe actor on being cast, as a replacement, in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” in which he made his Broadway debut as Snout the tinker.One day I got off the subway. I found Peter standing alongside me, and we set off to cross the road when the lights were pedestrian lights. Peter said, “How are you?” I said, “Actually, Peter, I’m not very happy.” And he stopped dead, right in the middle of Seventh Avenue, and he turned to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said, “What is it? What’s wrong?” By then, the lights had changed, and the traffic was roaring down Seventh Avenue. He said, “No, no, tell me. I want to know.” I had to take him by the arm and almost drag him out of the way. We would have both been knocked down. What I mean is that when he turned to me and said, “What is it?,” there was no question, from the look in his eyes, that I was the only thing of importance in that moment. And that impressed me very, very much.Robert FallsThe director — who said he revisits Brook, via “The Empty Space” and films of his work, each time he stages a classic — on vivid first impressions of Brook’s artistry.I grew up in a farming community in downstate Illinois, the land of corn and soybeans. And when I was 12 years old, in 1966, I opened up America’s magazine: Life magazine. And there was this spread of “Marat/Sade” that was terrifying and gorgeous — a two-page spread of an image of beheaded aristocrats. Just a few years later, I saw “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in its American tour. It remains to this day the most mind-blowing experience of the theatrical event, of how theater can be made: circus, magic and absolute clarity of a text, and joy, actually, and surprise — again, terror. He really did, I think, change the way we look at Shakespeare.Tina LandauThe director on what Brook has bequeathed.He really catapulted us into the modern era of how we experience space when we sit down and collaborate. And that theater is a collaborative form, and that the greatest and ultimate collaboration is between the performers and the audience.Brook, right, with the playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney.via ALL ARTSTarell Alvin McCraneyThe playwright and screenwriter on witnessing Brook “model a life as an artist” at his Paris base.He was consistently workshopping plays, and I would find time to go do them. I spent the last however many years that was, 15 years, basically being a part of this ad hoc company around the world, which many people were. I always left it feeling very full. Like I had done a retreat, almost, in theater. Sometimes I would write, sometimes I would act, sometimes I would just watch. Sometimes I would move a set piece. And we always shared a meal. No matter what, there was a break so that we could be human beings and have a meal.Peter would attract a whole room full of folk. But the room understood that there was a space for everybody here. He was showing us that that is the practice: You have to practice making room for everyone.Tim RobbinsThe actor-director on Brook as challenge and inspiration.Reading “The Empty Space” when I was in college gave me the confidence to know that the theater that I wanted to do was legitimate and important. For me, that was the bible. I actually went to Paris a couple months ago, and I was going to meet him in person and have some lunch, and he was too ill. But Peter will be alive for a long time. He presented another path.A scene from “The Mahabarata” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in 1987.Giles Abegg, via BAM Hamm ArchivesKaren Brooks HopkinsThe former president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music on the magic dust that Brook sprinkled in 1987 by staging “The Mahabharata” there, for which BAM converted an old cinema into what is now its Harvey Theater.When you run an arts institution, you need great artists to work there. And Peter Brook made our reputation. I mean, there were others, too. But Brook, “The Mahabharata,” it just locked it in. It changed the whole Brooklyn thing, from people not coming to people knowing that this was the place to see something that would blow your mind that you wouldn’t see anywhere else.Jeffrey HorowitzThe artistic director of Theater for a New Audience, Brook’s frequent New York stage in recent years, on first pursuing him in the early 1970s.I decided to go out to Aspen, Colorado, and track down where Peter Brook was staying. I waited in the Hotel Jerome, and he came out. I said, “Mr. Brook, I wonder if I could audition for you. I’m a great admirer of your work.” Instead of dismissing me, he stopped and looked at me. Then he said, “What have you done?” I said, “Well, I’ve just graduated from drama school, so I don’t have any professional credits.” He just shook his head, gently: No. Didn’t say a word. But the troupe that he was with, I got to know some of the actors. They would invite me to rehearsals. So every time they came to New York for years, I would go to these rehearsals. And he let me watch.Gregory MosherThe director on bringing Brook and his production “Tierno Bokar” to Columbia University and Barnard College in 2005.One night, Peter was sitting on the aisle about halfway up, and right next to him was a student on his cellphone. The show started and the kid did not put away the cellphone. I just braced myself for Peter walking up the aisle where I was sitting in the back row and saying, “What is going on with the cellphones?” I didn’t let him get any momentum. I went down to him afterward and said, “It was good tonight, right? It’s so beautiful.” And he said, “Yes, the most interesting thing happened. There was a boy sitting next to me and he seemed very engaged in the play and also on his phone. And that was so interesting to me,” says Peter, “that both of those things could be true.”Michael Pennington in Arin Arbus’s 2014 production of “King Lear.”Ruby Washington/The New York TimesArin ArbusOn Brook giving her the courage to direct “King Lear,” which she did to acclaim for Theater for a New Audience in 2014.I felt very interested in the play. I also felt like, who the hell do I think I am? I was kind of paralyzed by that. We were in Paris for some reason, so I went to his apartment, and we talked for like half an hour. He was like, “What interests you about the play? What do you feel connected to?” You can talk about those plays for hours with people, and we didn’t. It was light. He was like, “Oh, well, you have to do it. There’s no way to find out the answers to the questions that you have unless you do it.” Kathryn Hunter and Marcello MagniThe actors, who are a married couple, on their yearslong collaboration with Brook.Hunter It was slow and it takes time, because what he’s looking for is not product. It was more about peeling away anything that was obstructing what is essentially you, so that you could really share something very fine and mysterious with the audience. When we’d go away and work with other people, coming back to Peter, I’d feel: I’m a very crass, crude person. I have to sensitize myself again.Our last production, and Peter’s last production, was Beckett’s “Happy Days,” in French.Magni We did a version where Willie appeared and was not hidden. Peter wanted to see the relationship between Winnie and Willie.I now resist a lot when I’m in a rehearsal room when I feel there is too much of a concept before you start to work. He allowed us a journey. With failure and with accidents and with bumps. But at the end, we would have come up with the stories. He was sending us the message: Go inside yourself. Be true. More

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      Zawe Ashton Isn’t Here to Be a Victim of Your Projections

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      The actress was never offered a period piece until “Mr. Malcolm’s List.” She was given 24 hours to decide whether to do it. Now she’s earning raves.“I haven’t necessarily had the privilege of being cast as the hero,” Zawe Ashton said. “And that’s OK.”This was on a recent steamy afternoon, and Ashton, 37, a star of the Regency-era romantic comedy “Mr. Malcolm’s List,” had cast herself in the role of a woman eating a hurried lunch at the New York office of a film company before heading to the airport. Low-key glamorous in bare feet, a black slip dress and a sweatshirt that read, “There Are Artists Among Us,” she radiated a particular mix of seriousness, playfulness and a questing intelligence.While the more gossipy corners of the internet know the London-born Ashton as the fiancée of the actor Tom Hiddleston — they met during a benefit reading of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which they later performed on Broadway — she has been a professional actor since elementary school and a playwright since her 20s. She has devoted most of her career to playing and writing about outsiders. Julia, a Regency belle, wouldn’t seem to be one of them. Ashton disagrees.“I think she is,” she said. “There’s something she’s not settling for.”This probably explains why Ashton infuses Julia with a kind of wildness, a hint of waywardness under and around the sparkle. While the reviews for “Mr. Malcolm’s List” have been mixed, Ashton has earned raves. She dominates, a critic for The Hollywood Reporter wrote, “with her razor-sharp comedic timing ensuring thrilling delivery of her tart lines.”Ashton may be better known for her engagement to Tom Hiddleston, but as a woman in the entertainment industry, she’s learned that “people will project onto you in the most intense way.”Heather Sten for The New York TimesNext summer she will appear in the Nia DaCosta-directed “The Marvels,” the follow-up to “Captain Marvel.” Reportedly, she will play the villain. And — after Ashton revealed her pregnancy during a recent screening of “Mr. Malcolm’s List” — at least one more debut is anticipated. Sensibly, she does not talk much about her personal life.Over salad, she discussed period dramas, playing women on the edge and finding truth underneath the corsetry. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.You look like you’re having so much fun in this movie. Are you?I really am. We all really are. We filmed it in a very intense wave of lockdown in Dublin. Our only bonding time was on site, doing the work. We weren’t even allowed to go to a pub. So there was this really rewarding element of coming together in group scenes and working off each other and understanding each person’s unique rhythm. That’s where some of the comedy is coming from, certainly where a lot of the flirtatious energy is coming from.You haven’t done many period pieces. Why this one?The big conversation that’s happening now around representation in period drama is very, very real. The reality is you can be acting for a long time and not be called to that table. There’s a sort of indifference that turns into mystification that turns into sadness around that. This was the first period piece I’ve ever been offered. I had 24 hours to decide, and then it was sweatpants to corsets.What can you tell me about Julia?What I really loved straight off the bat is where we find her, which is coming out into her fifth season in society without having made a match. It has a little tinge of a woman on the edge. She doesn’t want to be a victim of that society, so she rages against the machine. She does some questionable things. But I hope by the end, she has this humbling redemptive moment where she does find a love match with someone who loves her for her flaws, rather than despite her flaws.Opposite Freida Pinto, left, in “Mr. Malcolm’s List.” Ashton has been getting raves for her performance in the film.Bleecker StreetWhat unlocked her character?One of the first things I had to do was tap into something very truthful and authentic. Freida [Pinto, her co-star] and I had conversations about picking up something that felt more culturally specific to us. That was a real breakthrough. That you can leave the Austenification behind and find something that chimes with your experience. Then we had an amazing historian. She was really helpful with stuff like how you would drink tea, how you would walk through the streets of London with a man that you’re related to or not related to. That led to the physical life and then costume, hair and makeup, stepping into a corset, stuffing into a bonnet.Over the last decade you haven’t done many comedies. Why do a comedy now?I joined a very intense movie club during the lockdown. We watched a movie every night and fed back to each other at the end of every Saturday with Sundays off. We went really high and deliberately quite obnoxious — Bergman, Tarkovsky, Rohmer, Bresson. There was a catharsis there, but I definitely have been looking to escape much more through the work I’ve been doing, the people I want to inhabit.Your next project is “The Marvels.” Was a superhero project another escape?I was moving away from acting for a lot of the past five years or so. I did “Betrayal” here in New York without representation [an agent], and, at the end of that, I signed up with some people and I said, I don’t necessarily want to start feeding the machine. I would like to just meet with first-time female directors, or fledgling female directors, specifically directors who are coming from underrepresented backgrounds in our industry. Emma Holly Jones, who directed “Mr. Malcolm’s List,” being one of them. I got set up on a call with Nia DaCosta where we really connected. It was just a seeing of souls. And on the other side of it was a phone call asking me to be part of her new job.In a career devoted to outsiders, her “Malcolm” character wouldn’t seem to be one of them, but Ashton disagreed: “There’s something she’s not settling for.”Heather Sten for The New York TimesRumor has it you’re playing a villain in that film. Or maybe you’ve complicated the idea of a villain?I don’t really know any other way of going about it, to be honest. I have to start with something real and emotional and authentic and build out from there. I have to understand the deeper meaning in my head.I read about your engagement to Tom Hiddleston. Is it true you met doing “Betrayal”? Because the marriage in that play is not a good marriage!Oftentimes, the most distressing, deep work has the happiest companies. The play was called “Betrayal.” But the play behind the scenes was absolute trust.Well, I’m still hoping that your marriage works out better. It’s funny, you’ve been in this business for nearly 30 years, but when I Googled you, the top results all had to do with your personal life. What’s it like to experience this kind of scrutiny?As a woman in this industry, you become quite attuned to your identity as an artist shifting in proximity to different people. That’s not specific to dating someone. If there’s a conversation I would have off the back of this question, it’s really about letting women in this industry know that whatever point of career that you’re in, shore up your identity and reason for being, because people will project onto you in the most intense way. When that happens, you have to have an internal anchor. You have to be delighted and joyful in the work that you do. I’m not here to be a victim of projection. I’m here to continually grow as an artist. More

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      James Caan, Actor Who Won Fame in ‘The Godfather,’ Dies at 82

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      A Bronx native, he starred in countless movies and TV shows, but was most closely identified with the volatile character Sonny Corleone.James Caan, who built a durable film career in varied roles across six decades but was forever identified most closely with one of his earliest characters, the quick-tempered, skirt-chasing Sonny Corleone in the original “Godfather” movie, died on Wednesday. He was 82. His death was announced by his family on Twitter and confirmed by his manager, Matt DelPiano. Both his family and his manager declined to say where he died or cite a cause.By the time “The Godfather” was released in 1972, Mr. Caan had established himself as a young actor worth keeping an eye on. He had a meaty role in “El Dorado,” a 1966 western that starred John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. (Wayne, Mr. Caan said, cheated at chess games during breaks in the filming.)In “The Rain People,” a 1969 movie that was his first collaboration with the director Francis Ford Coppola, he earned critical praise playing a simple-minded former football player.“Brian’s Song” (1971), an early made-for-television movie, brought him to the attention of a wider audience. Based on a true story, it focused on the friendship between a Black football star, Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears (played by Billy Dee Williams), and a white teammate, Brian Piccolo. Piccolo died of cancer in 1970 at 26, and Mr. Caan played him with verve and humor in an unabashedly three-hanky film.Then came Mr. Coppola’s “Godfather.” Initially cast as the central figure, Michael Corleone — the role ultimately played by Al Pacino — Mr. Caan ended up playing Sonny, quick to anger and ultimately gunned down on a causeway. He threw himself into the role so fully that for years, he said, strangers would say things to him like “Hey, don’t go through that tollbooth again.”Some even mistook him for a real mobster. “I’ve been accused so many times,” he told Vanity Fair in 2004. “I won ‘Italian of the Year’ twice in New York, and I’m not Italian.”He was in fact Jewish, reared in Sunnyside, Queens, by German-born parents. “I was denied in a country club once,” he said. “Oh, yeah, the guy sat in front of the board and he says, ‘No, no, he’s a wiseguy, been downtown. He’s a made guy.’ I thought, ‘What, are you out of your mind?’ ”Mr. Caan received an Emmy nomination for best actor for “Brian’s Song” and an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor for “The Godfather.” His Oscar competition included Mr. Pacino and another “Godfather” actor, Robert Duvall. The three canceled one another out, and the award went to Joel Grey for “Cabaret.”Mr. Caan’s performance as the pro football player Brian Piccolo in the 1971 television movie “Brian’s Song” earned him an Emmy nomination.ABCBy then, Mr. Caan’s career had kicked into high gear. The decade that followed was especially fertile. Among his roles were a love-struck sailor in “Cinderella Liberty” (1973), a self-destructive professor in “The Gambler” (1974), an anti-authority athlete in “Rollerball” (1975), a fierce World War II sergeant in “A Bridge Too Far” (1977) and a not-too-bright ex-con in “Thief” (1981), a favorite movie of his.Not all his films received favorable notices, but with his rugged good looks and obvious smarts, his acting usually did. Reviewing “Cinderella Liberty” for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote: “Mr. Caan seems to be shaping up as the Paul Newman of the nineteen-seventies. An intelligent, versatile actor with a low-key but unmistakable public personality.”Like Paul Newman, Mr. Caan tried his hand at directing. But he did so only once, with “Hide in Plain Sight” (1980), in which he also acted, playing a man searching for his children after they and their mother are brought into the government’s witness-protection program. The film fared poorly at the box office and left him disenchanted.“Everybody wants to do ‘Rocky 9’ and ‘Airport 96’ and ‘Jaws 7,’ ” he said in 1981. “And you look and you listen, and what little idealism you have left slowly dwindles.”Mr. Caan with the actress Lilyan Chauvin, left, and his wife at the time, the actress Sheila Ryan, at a movie preview in 1975.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn his prime, Mr. Caan had a man’s-man reputation that he savored. In interviews, he strewed four-letter words like birdseed. He earned a sixth-degree black belt in karate. He roped steers on the rodeo circuit and managed a boxer — pursuits, especially rodeo, that left him with so many stitches and screws in his shoulders and arms that the sportswriter Jim Murray once said, “Jimmy Caan was not born, he was embroidered.”Mr. Caan also had a bad-boy reputation. He was married and divorced four times. He appeared as a character witness for an old friend from Queens who was on trial as a mobster because, he said, stand-up guys stay loyal to their pals. And he had his own brushes with the law.The police questioned him at length in 1993 after a man fell to his death from the fire escape of a Los Angeles apartment where Mr. Caan was staying. The authorities concluded that the death was accidental, and Mr. Caan said he was asleep when it occurred.The next year the North Hollywood police arrested him after he flashed a loaded pistol in public. He said he had done it only to break up a fight. The charges were dropped.Along the way, he checked into a rehab center for an addiction to cocaine that began after his sister, Barbara Licker, died of leukemia in 1981. The two of them had been close — she was president of a movie production company that included James and their brother, Ronald — and her death hit him hard.He barely worked for the next six years and wound up deep in debt. “I got into the whole lifestyle of girls and drugs and partying,” he told Entertainment Weekly, adding that “you really do get caught up in it, and it’s very destructive.”Mr. Caan in a scene from another of his best-known films, “Misery” (1990), in which he played a writer held captive by a crazed fan.Columbia Pictures/Getty ImagesBut he bounced back, starting in 1987 with the Vietnam War drama “Gardens of Stone,” another collaboration with Mr. Coppola, in which he played a tough sergeant. He then took on roles including a writer held captive by a crazed fan (played by Kathy Bates) in the box-office hit “Misery” (1990), directed by Rob Reiner and based on a novel by Stephen King; a tough but romantic mob guy in “Honeymoon in Vegas” (1992); yet another mobster in the comedy “Mickey Blue Eyes” (1999); and a cantankerous book editor in “Elf” (2003).He also turned to television, notably the series “Las Vegas,” on which he was seen from 2003 to 2007 as the president of operations and security chief for a casino. Still, though he worked steadily, his later career lacked the incandescence of his earlier years.Born on March 26, 1940, in the Bronx, James Edmund Caan grew up in Queens, the son of Arthur Caan, a wholesale dealer of kosher meat, and Sophie (Falkenstein) Caan, a homemaker.Street life held his interest more than classrooms did. He dropped out of several schools before settling down at Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan, where he graduated in 1956 at age 16.At Michigan State University, he hoped to make the football team but failed. He switched to Hofstra University on Long Island — Mr. Coppola was a classmate — but dropped out before long. Nonetheless, his interest in acting was kindled there. He went on to study for five years at the well-regarded Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in Manhattan.Mr. Caan at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2010.Hugh Hamilton for The New York TimesAt around that time he met an actress named Dee Jay Mathis, who became the first of his four wives (the lengths of his marriages ranged from 12 years to barely a year). He is survived by his brother, Ronald; five children, the actor Scott Caan and Tara, Alexander, James and Jacob Caan; and four grandchildren. Mr. Caan’s early work included roles in 1960s television series like “Route 66,” “Dr. Kildare” and “Wagon Train.” Movies soon loomed, with “The Godfather” dominant.In that film, he said, he had improvised some of his lines and actions, including two words that he did not invent but that he ushered into the vernacular. Sonny tells Michael how hard it will be to kill the family’s enemies: “You gotta get up like this and — bada bing! — you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.”“Bada bing? Bada boom? I said that, didn’t I?” Mr. Caan said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “Or did I just say bada bing? It just came out of my mouth. I don’t know from where.” More

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      Joe Turkel, the Spectral Bartender in ‘The Shining,’ Dies at 94

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      Also memorably seen in “Blade Runner,” he was a favorite among directors looking for someone who could bring zealous professionalism to even the smallest role.Joe Turkel, a gaunt-faced yeoman character actor who appeared in scores of movies but is best known for two of his final performances — as Lloyd the bartender in “The Shining” and Dr. Eldon Tyrell in “Blade Runner” — died on June 27 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 94.His son Craig Turkel said the death, at a hospital, was caused by liver failure.Mr. Turkel (pronounced ter-KELL) was a favorite among directors looking for someone who could bring zealous professionalism to even the smallest role.In movies like “Hellcats of the Navy” (1957) and “The Sand Pebbles” (1966), he held his own alongside leading men like Ronald Reagan and Steve McQueen. It was often up to Mr. Turkel to provide a subtle but unmistakable plot pivot, using his steely onscreen demeanor and perfectly delivered lines to shift a film’s entire mood.Nowhere was that more true than in the three movies he made for Stanley Kubrick, with whom he formed something of a mutual admiration society. Both men, who were about the same age, had grown up as working-class secular Jews in New York. Both were huge baseball fanatics. And both were perfectionists about their work.Mr. Turkel had a small role in “The Killing,” Mr. Kubrick’s 1956 film about a racetrack robbery, and then returned a year later as a condemned soldier in “Paths of Glory.” In both films, he contrasted a stony stillness with sudden explosions of manic action to convey meaning far beyond his few brief lines.He went on to become a prolific television actor, with roles on popular shows like “Bonanza,” “Ironside” and “Fantasy Island.”He returned to Mr. Kubrick’s service in 1980 for “The Shining,” an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. The story revolves around an author, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who is hired as the winter caretaker of the secluded, otherwise empty Overlook Hotel and moves there with his family.Under the influence of malevolent supernatural forces, Jack slowly goes crazy. At one point he enters the hotel’s bar, where he finds Lloyd, played by Mr. Turkel. Jack asks for a bourbon, and Lloyd pours him a shot of Jack Daniel’s.Mr. Nicholson dominates their conversation, but it is Mr. Turkel’s ominously stoic presence that shifts the film into a darker register.“In dress and demeanor, he’s the prototypical old-school hotel barman,” Mr. Turkel told The Toronto Star in 2014. “He obviously takes pride in his work and the corruption he enables; most bartenders are stylish and a little bit evil. Poor Lloyd doesn’t know the difference between bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, though.”Joseph Turkel was born on July 15, 1927, in Brooklyn. His father, Benjamin Turkel, was a tailor, and his mother, Gazella (Goldfisher) Turkel, was a homemaker and part-time opera singer.Along with his son Craig, Mr. Turkel is survived by another son, Robert; his brother, David; and two grandchildren. His wife, Anita (Cacciatore) Turkel, died before him.He joined the U.S. merchant marine in 1944 and the Army in 1946. After receiving an honorable discharge, he briefly returned to New York for acting classes before heading to Hollywood in 1947.His first credited role was in “City Across the River” (1949), a film about a program for juvenile delinquents that also featured a young Tony Curtis.His work on “The Shining” brought him to the attention of Ridley Scott, who was casting “Blade Runner,” his adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”He was cast as Dr. Tyrell, the brilliant but haughty founder of a company that produces robots so perfect that they blur the line between human and machine — an uncanniness that leads to Dr. Tyrell’s bloody demise at the hands of one of his creations.Although “Blade Runner” has become one of the most critically acclaimed science fiction films in history, it was originally a box-office dud. Mr. Turkel, having grown tired of grinding through auditions after decades in Hollywood, decided to retire; aside from a few more small TV and film roles, he never acted again.Instead he tried his hand at screenplays (although none of them were produced), became a regular on the fan-convention circuit and wrote a memoir, “The Miseries of Success,” which remains unpublished.“I’ve done some great films,” he told an interviewer for Blade Zone, a “Blade Runner” fan site, in 1999. “I know other actors that have done brilliant films. They still have to go out and audition and meet the producer, director, and please these people no matter what they’ve done. Of course the great big stars don’t do that. But there are great quality actors that do that and they find it demeaning.”Still, he added, “I’ve had a hell of a career.” More

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      in Theater

      A Chameleon Flies From ‘The Blacklist’ to ‘The Kite Runner’

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      After nine seasons on the NBC series, Amir Arison is making his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s popular 2003 novel.An early scene in the new Broadway play “The Kite Runner” is mostly spoken in Dari, the Afghan dialect of Farsi, though the action depicts a distinctly American art form.“This town ain’t big enough for the two of us!,” the 12-year-old Amir exclaims to his best friend, Hassan. The two boys, pretending to be cowboys, love American westerns, especially “Rio Bravo” with John Wayne. After a standoff, Hassan charges at Amir, but Amir trips him and Hassan stumbles and falls. They wrestle, tumbling and giggling — blissfully unaware of the dark forces that will soon tear them apart.The place is Kabul, the year is 1973 and the two actors playing the boys are actually adults. One of them, Amir Arison, 44, the veteran stage actor who recently left NBC’s hit series “The Blacklist” after nine seasons, portrays Amir as a young boy and an adult.The show, which is scheduled to begin previews on July 6 at the Helen Hayes Theater, is based on Khaled Hosseini’s popular 2003 novel of the same name. It tells the story of Amir, a privileged Pashtun boy growing up alongside Hassan, the Hazara son of his father’s servant. After a childhood act of cowardice, Amir spends most of the play reflecting on and trying to atone for his failure to come to the aid of his best friend.Arison, center, during rehearsals. He plays the protagonist, Amir, as both a child and an adult. Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesIn playing Amir as both a child and an adult, Arison jumps between acting out his childhood memories and narrating them from the present. He doesn’t leave the stage once.It may be a daunting part, but Arison, who cut his teeth on Off Broadway stages before appearing as an FBI counterterrorism expert in some 190 episodes of “The Blacklist,” is up for it.Over the years, he’s played a flashy Iraqi dermatologist in the documentary drama “Aftermath”; a mysterious newlywed in Christopher Durang’s dark comedy “Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them”; and a government accountant in Stephen Belber’s “The Muscles in Our Toes,”Still, he said over lunch recently, this role is the biggest challenge of his professional and personal life. “In the theater, you cut a vein open,” he said. “You give your voice, your body, your mind and your soul.”Matthew Spangler, who adapted the story for the stage, said of the role: “It does raise the bar for that actor quite a bit, but then it becomes something truly virtuosic.”Reporting From AfghanistanInside the Fall of Kabul: ​The Taliban took the Afghan capital with a speed that shocked the world. Our reporter and photographer witnessed it.On Patrol: A group of Times journalists spent 12 days with a Taliban police unit in Kabul. Here is what they saw.Face to Face: ​​A Times reporter who served as a Marine in Afghanistan returned to interview a Taliban commander he once fought.A Photographer’s Journal: A look at 20 years of war in Afghanistan, chronicled through one Times photographer’s lens.While the casting director Laura Stanczyk and the cultural consultant Humaira Ghilzai ensured that Afghan actors auditioned (and that it was easy for them to do so), the role of Amir ultimately went to Arison, who is Israeli American. He grew up in Florida the son of Israeli immigrants; his mother was born in a refugee camp to Holocaust survivors.In March, when Arison landed the audition for Amir, his first call was to Ghilzai, whose family fled Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion. He didn’t know of her affiliation with the show, but he had worked with her twice before — once for his role as a colonel in the Pakistani army in a West Coast production of J.T. Rogers’s “Blood and Gifts” — and asked for advice on his accent.Arison is a chameleon, Ghilzai said: He’s played Afghans, Arabs, Americans and “metamorphosizes into whatever you need him to be.”“The Kite Runner” was first staged in 2007 at San Jose State University, where Spangler teaches performance studies. Its first professional production took place in 2009, and it has since been staged in multiple countries. The Broadway production, directed by Giles Croft, is based on the version that ran at Nottingham Playhouse in 2013 and at Wyndham’s Theater in the West End three years later. (The play “mostly works on the level of childlike fable, satisfyingly schematic but frustratingly simplistic,” Stephen Dalton wrote in a Hollywood Reporter review.)The book — published two years after the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to depose the Taliban — has captivated millions of readers around the world. Now the play arrives on Broadway almost a year after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan and the Taliban seized power again.Hosseini’s tale gave readers a rare inside perspective on Afghanistan and the intricacies of life there, but it also has, as Arison pointed out, universal themes of immigration, power, redemption, and father and son relationships.Azita Ghanizada, who plays Amir’s wife, Soraya, with Arison.Nina Westervelt for The New York Times“The immigrant story never goes away,” Croft, the director, said in an interview. “Most of us have it in us somewhere. Even if we didn’t experience it ourselves, somewhere in our background, somebody will have traveled to get somewhere that they think will be better or safer. So we carry it with us.”As does Hosseini, whose family sought political asylum in the United States in 1980 after the Soviet army invaded the country, and told The Times last year that he still has “a perspective, and I do feel strongly about what’s going on in Afghanistan.” (In “The Kite Runner,” Amir and his father also escape Afghanistan — first to Pakistan, then to the United States.)Along with Arison, the cast has deep Middle Eastern and South Asian roots. Azita Ghanizada, who portrays Amir’s wife, Soraya, and Salar Nader, who plays the tabla onstage throughout the show, are both Afghan.“It’s been really heartening for me to see how devoted they are to representation,” Ghilzai, the cultural consultant, said of the cast members. “I think because their culture has been misrepresented so much that they really, really, really want to get it right.”Still, placing a non-Afghan in the central role was not a choice made lightly.“The thing that swung it for me,” Croft said of Arison’s casting, “was that he has an inherent warmth and generosity and vulnerability — all of which are qualities that the character has.”The director Giles Croft, left, said he cast Arison as Amir because he “has an inherent warmth and generosity and vulnerability — all of which are qualities that the character has.” Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesIn coaching the cast and creative team, Ghilzai guided actors through Dari pronunciations — including the names of characters and towns. The dialect is sprinkled throughout the script.One actor recently asked Ghilzai about Afghan body language: What should he do if he loses in a competition? She advised making a thumbs up motion, a Middle Eastern insult. (They later replaced it with a different gesture, so the meaning wouldn’t get lost in translation.)This production is Ghilzai’s first involvement as a consultant, and she worked closely with Spangler and Croft to re-evaluate the text. In a pivotal scene in the second act, Assef (Amir Malaklou), the neighborhood bully turned-Taliban member, taunts Amir, who has returned to Afghanistan from America.“But America’s not all bad,” Assef tells him. “You know who taught me how to use a Stinger missile? Your C.I.A.”The line emerged from conversations between Ghilzai, Spangler and Croft and was added for this production. It recognizes the role that U.S. foreign policy has played in the militarization of various groups in Afghanistan.Arison, third from left, played an F.B.I. special agent on the NBC series “The Blacklist.”David Giesbrecht/NBCIn his last episode of “The Blacklist,” Arison’s quirky character Aram Mojtabai told his colleagues that he’s leaving the FBI and plans to move to New York, where among other things, he’d likely see “a Broadway show.” (The episode left open room for him to return.)On Twitter, the actor explained to fans that he was a big fan of Hosseini’s novel, had done his first play in second grade, and couldn’t pass up the lifetime dream to be on Broadway himself.While his part there is “the most unheroic hero you’ll ever see,” he said in the interview, he has come to see it as personally meaningful in ways he didn’t expect.At the beginning of the second act, Amir and his father are hidden inside a fuel truck, fleeing Afghanistan to neighboring Pakistan. Soviet soldiers stop the truck, and father and son don’t know if they’ll live or die.“The other day I just lost it because I thought of my grandparents — that’s what happened to them,” Arison said. “That’s another way I connect, even though I’m not Afghan.“So I’m hoping — and I think every audience should take what they want,” he added, that “through an individual story, we do not forget that history is repeating itself.” More

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      In ‘Stranger Things,’ He Delivers Pizza and Stoned Comic Relief

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      Eduardo Franco, who joined the Netflix hit this season, has carved out a role as the show’s addled but reliably hilarious tension-release valve.The “Stranger Things” gang in Lenora Hills, Calif., is in danger — shots are being fired, and an agent is bleeding out. The camera switches abruptly to a view of an unknowing Argyle, played by Eduardo Franco, pulling up to the Byerses’ home as the catchy reggae hit “Pass the Dutchie” blares from his pizza delivery van.“Byers man, having a party and not inviting me, man?” he says. “That is so not cool.”As the group’s wheelman who “smokes smelly plants,” as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) puts it, Argyle serves as comic relief in the show’s most horrifying season, his lighthearted energy offsetting the dark forces bedeviling the gang.“Argyle delivers pizzas and he dwells in the psychedelics sometimes,” Franco said in a recent video interview. “That’s the perfect combination: to always have hot and ready food, and a little tree.”As one of the most prominent cast additions in Season 4 — the final episodes arrive Friday on Netflix — Franco has carved out a role as the show’s addled but reliably hilarious tension-release valve. But Argyle transcends the stoner-pal stereotype and adds a little heart to the story as well, primarily in the form of his sweet friendship with Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) — though admittedly this often involves the duo being stoned out of their minds.Franco’s most prominent role before Argyle came in Olivia Wilde’s coming-of-age comedy “Booksmart,” as a 20-year-old high school senior named Theo who was recruited to code for Google. That performance led to his current gig — Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler in “Stranger Things,” saw Franco in the movie and suggested him for the role.Franco spoke from Biarritz, France, where he was visiting as part of a “Stranger Things” branding partnership with the surf culture label Quiksilver, which supplied much of Argyle’s wardrobe. In conversation, he was clearly more astute than his character but similarly funny and informal, indulging in f-bombs as freely as Argyle does his smelly plants.In the interview, Franco discussed his inspirations for the character and “marinating in the awkwardness” that comes with life as the show’s designated burnout. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What was it about Argyle’s character that appealed to you?I loved that I could hopefully bring a breath of fresh air to the chaos that ensues in the show. It tends to get crazy, and I was hoping I could serve as “let’s laugh it off now, because I’ve been tense for the last 45 minutes.”Argyle provides reliable comic relief, but he transcends the stoner-pal stereotype.NetflixDid you take inspiration from any past cinematic potheads?Sean Penn in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” is always in the back of my mind. My initial approach was to just completely be blown out of my mind all the time — as the character, not Eduardo the actor! I wanted Argyle to be completely clueless: When someone says “Oh my god, Argyle, we gotta get out of here!” I’ll be like, “Huh?” But I know that for the sake of the energy and the adrenaline in the scenes, that wouldn’t always work.How old is the van you drive in the show?It was touchy, an 80-something. I was taught how to drive that van by this professional stunt driver — I’d never driven a stick shift before and it was the worst thing to learn on, because it was just so old. But he was always in the van with me when I was driving, hiding in the car just in case.Was there a scene that was particularly fun to film?The dinner table scene was my personal favorite. Eleven is bummed out. Mike is also concerned. Joyce and Murray [played by Winona Ryder and Brett Gelman] are lying about going to Alaska. And me and Jonathan are blown out of our minds.It was so fun sitting there, marinating in the awkwardness. When it was time for me and Charlie to do our lines, sometimes we would stall while everyone was waiting for us, and we’d be sitting there just eating slowly. It was hilarious, and it was awesome to be able to get Brett and Winona to laugh. I love going to work and making people laugh — the camera man, the crew, the people hauling things up and down all day. And everything felt so organic, sharing the screen with Charlie, Finn and everyone.What did Argyle’s relationship with Jonathan bring to the show’s dynamic?Jonathan is in pain. I think they became instant friends because Jonathan needed a set of ears, and Argyle happened to be right there. Argyle’s character is what we all wish we could be: completely judgment-free. He’s there to have a good time with his bud, and to listen to Jonathan and help him out, no matter what he says.Do you think Argyle is capable of handling whatever danger is coming his way?I can’t tell you anything, but geez, he’s out of his mind for sure. Poor guy.“I loved that I could hopefully bring a breath of fresh air to the chaos that ensues in the show,” Franco said.Ryan Lowry for The New York TimesHow has joining an enormous global phenomenon like “Stranger Things” changed your life?At the Season 4 premiere in New York, when we sat down to screen the first episode, I got mad emotional and started crying in my seat. I was glad it was dark and nobody could see anything. To be a part of something this massive was overwhelming, and I hope people can accept my character as a new guy in the show. I hope he does serve his purpose as a breath of fresh air from all the crazy madness.Have you started getting recognized in public?Yes! For an example, when I got to France last week, I was riding a bike down the street to grab some stuff from a market. My bike had no brakes, and as I’m pulling up, I put my feet down to try to stop, and there was this guy pointing and laughing. Then he double-takes and he was like, “You’re the guy from ‘Stranger Things’? What are you doing here, man?” I was like, “I came to get some chocolate croissants and an adapter to plug my phone charger in the wall.” It was so funny, but that’s just how massive this show is.A series like this generally provides a significant career boost. What kinds of things do you hope to work on in the future?I got a couple movies under my belt, but to be in a movie where people are going to the theater and I’m rockin’ people’s socks off is my dream. I don’t know if that era is already out the window, but I just recently watched “Top Gun,” and it was amazing. So I have hope.And I’d love to be a part of creating the projects, but I don’t know necessarily how to do all that yet. I’m trying to figure all this stuff out. I don’t know a [expletive] thing, but we’re all learning. More

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      Mary Mara, Actress on ‘ER,’ ‘Dexter’ and ‘Nash Bridges,’ Dies at 61

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      She appeared in dozens of movies and television shows in a career of more than 30 years. The police said they believed she died in a drowning accident.Mary Mara, a character actress who appeared on television shows including “Nash Bridges,” “Dexter” and “ER” in a career that spanned more than 30 years, has died in upstate New York. She was 61.The death was announced by the New York State Police, who said that Ms. Mara’s body was found on Sunday morning in the St. Lawrence River near Cape Vincent, N.Y., near the Canadian border, and that a preliminary investigation suggested that she had drowned while swimming.She lived in Cape Vincent.Ms. Mara was born on Sept. 21, 1960, in Syracuse, N.Y., to Roger Mara, the former director of special events for the New York State Fair, and Lucille Mara, an accountant. Her brother, Roger, who was a puppeteer, told The San Francisco Examiner in 1996 that he and Mary were encouraged by their mother’s flair for the dramatic.After graduating from Corcoran High School in Syracuse, Ms. Mara studied at San Francisco State University and later earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the Yale School of Drama. Throughout her career she dabbled in theater, most notably in 1989 in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Twelfth Night,” alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.That same year, she had her first onscreen credit, in the television movie “The Preppie Murder,” based on the true story of a young woman’s murder in New York. In 1992 she appeared in “Love Potion No. 9” and “Mr. Saturday Night,” in which Billy Crystal starred as a veteran stand-up comedian. Ms. Mara played his estranged daughter.Her other films included the 2008 horror movie “Prom Night.”She was perhaps best known for her recurring roles on “ER,” in which she played a patient, Loretta Sweet, from 1995-96, and on “Nash Bridges,” in which she played Inspector Bryn Carson from 1996-97.She once said she thought her character had been overshadowed by the male detectives played by Don Johnson and Cheech Marin on the latter show.“It is a male-dominated show with Don and Cheech the principals,” she told The Post-Standard of Syracuse in 1999. Although the show’s writers “started to write for me really well about halfway through the season,” she added, the producers “were afraid I would stand out too much.”Ms. Mara later appeared on “Dexter,” “Ray Donovan,” “Bones,” “Star Trek: Enterprise” and other shows. Her last credit was in the 2020 movie “Break Even.”In a statement, Ms. Mara’s manager, Craig Dorfman, described her as “electric, funny and a true individual.”Her survivors include a stepdaughter, Katie Mersola, and two sisters, Martha Mara and Susan Dailey, according to Variety.The Associated Press contributed reporting. More

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      Taika Waititi on “Thor” and “Our Flag Means Death”

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      Even when your job is to dream up the interplanetary adventures of a Norse god, you might still want to run off and play pirates.So during the weeks he was editing “Thor: Love and Thunder,” the Marvel movie that opens on July 8, Taika Waititi, its director and co-writer, would occasionally take weekends off for a different journey.He would get outfitted in a flowing gray wig, matching facial hair and temporary tattoos, and don deliciously fetishistic leather gear to portray Blackbeard, the swashbuckling, loin-kindling buccaneer of the HBO Max comedy series “Our Flag Means Death.”This is admittedly not a bad way to spend your spare time, though Waititi did occasionally fret over the trade-offs. As he explained recently, “Sometimes you’re pissed off at life and you’re like, ‘Why did I say yes to everything? I don’t have a social life — I’m just working.’ But then the thing comes out, you see where the hard work goes and it’s really worth it.”On TV, Waititi, 46, has had a hand in the FX comedies “Reservation Dogs” (as a co-creator) and “What We Do in the Shadows” (a series based on a movie he co-wrote and co-directed), as well as a “Shadows” spinoff, “Wellington Paranormal.” At the movies, you can hear him voice a good guy in “Lightyear” or see him play a bad guy in “Free Guy.”Waititi is also editing “Next Goal Wins,” a soccer comedy-drama that he co-wrote and directed for Searchlight. He’s writing a new “Star Wars” movie for Lucasfilm, a “Time Bandits” series for Apple TV+. He’s preparing two Roald Dahl projects for Netflix and adapting a graphic novel by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius for a feature film.“All my films are about underdogs,” Waititi said. “Not being able to choose your family and sometimes that’s not your blood family, it’s just who you end up gravitating towards.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesIf that isn’t enough, consider that it’s taken this many paragraphs to acknowledge that in 2020 Waititi won an Academy Award for the adapted screenplay of his World War II comedy-drama “Jojo Rabbit,” in which he played — in his own words — “a lovable, quirky, whimsical Hitler.”From this inventory alone (“not even mentioning the five other things that haven’t been reported on yet,” Waititi said), you can gauge how highly desired his services are. In just a few years, he has become one of the industry’s most ingenious and reliable purveyors of escapist fare while devising for himself some fulfilling escape routes from those escapes. And his filmmaking style is distinctive enough that it still shines through on monolithic and increasingly familiar Marvel movies.But his runaway résumé is also a sign of how difficult Waititi finds it to say no. And if you wonder how anyone can possibly balance so many demanding projects, rest assured Waititi is asking himself these same questions.“Sometimes I’ll wake up and be like, Am I having a midlife crisis?” he said. “Should I even be a filmmaker? Maybe I should have been a carpenter. Maybe I should just be a gardener.”Waititi’s estimable career isn’t necessarily the one he imagined for himself while growing up in New Zealand — half a world away from Hollywood and wondering how to gain its attention. “It was never my dream to do this,” he explained. “I would much rather have been a fighter pilot or a fireman, but then it appeared that you’ve got to be actually quite smart to be a pilot.”He added, more sincerely, that he didn’t start making films until his late 20s, at which point he’d already been a graphic artist, a musician and a comedian. “I don’t know if I’ve ever chased any of my dreams,” Waititi said. “My dreams have sort of developed through being part of the dream.”Though he fell in love with film, he calls it “an arranged marriage.” And the solution he has found for managing his workload is, essentially, not to think too much about it and never to stand in one place for too long.“Because if I was to step back and look at all of the things I’m doing, I’d probably have a panic attack,” he said. “I know there’s too many things. I know I’m doing a lot. I just have to keep pivoting every couple of hours.”Earlier this month, Waititi kept stationary long enough to savor a plate of smoked trout and avocado toast in the lobby of a Midtown Manhattan hotel. Wearing loosefitting clothes in pastel colors and a neatly trimmed mustache, he carried himself like all of the Marx Brothers rolled into one: He could be suave, sheepish or scheming, and was always ready with a self-deprecating quip.For example: “New Zealanders hate compliments,” Waititi said. “I think it’s because of our moms. Our moms are the ones who go, ‘Don’t worry — I still liked it.’ That’s the kind of support you’ll get.”Decked out in a gray wig and leather gear for “Our Flag Means Death.”HBO Max Chris Hemsworth in “Love and Thunder.” After the first sequel, he said, “we were waning, as far as support for the character.”Jasin Boland/Marvel StudiosWaititi was not the most obvious candidate to join the Marvel roster when the studio began to consider him in 2015. At the time, his directorial efforts included intimate short films (including the Oscar-nominated “Two Cars, One Night”) and features like “Boy,” an affectionate, coming-of-age tribute to his upbringing in a rural Maori community, about a child enthralled by his charmingly reprobate father (played by Waititi, of course).Before that, Waititi was a theater student at Victoria University of Wellington, where he befriended future collaborators like Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie (who would form the satirical rock duo Flight of the Conchords), obsessed over Monty Python and yearned for outlets for his wry comic voice.“In those days, you’re like, I wish I had something to work on,” Waititi said. “I would just make lists of things I would like to do.”Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and TV series continues to expand.‘Ms. Marvel’: This Disney+ series introduces a new character: Kamala Khan, a Muslim high schooler in Jersey City who is mysteriously granted superpowers.‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’: With a touch of horror, the franchise’s newest film returns to the world of the mystic arts.‘Moon Knight’: In the Disney+ mini-series, Oscar Isaac plays a caped crusader who struggles with dissociative identity disorder.‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’: In the latest installment of the “Spider-Man” series, the web slinger continues to radiate sweet, earnest decency.But others from that era regarded Waititi as highly motivated and likely to fulfill his ambitions.“I still see within Taika the same cheeky alternative comic from the 1990s,” said Rhys Darby, a longtime friend and a co-star on “Our Flag Means Death.”“He found that creating behind the camera was more viable than being in front of it,” Darby explained. “But even when he directs, he’ll get in front of the camera and show the actors what he wants them to do. He gets them to mimic him. That’s why he always ends up in his own films. Because he’s trying to control everything.”At Marvel, the studio knew it needed a comprehensive reinvention of “Thor.” That film’s sluggish 2013 sequel, “The Dark World,” remains no one’s favorite entry in the franchise.“We were waning, as far as support for the character,” said Chris Hemsworth, who has played Thor since 2011. “I felt fatigued and there was an audience fatigue, too. If we didn’t do something different and change it up, I wasn’t convinced we were going to bring back an audience.”The comic-book literate Waititi was no fan of the annoyingly flawless Thor, whom he described as “a rich kid from outer space who’s trapped in the ghetto.” But as he reflected further, Waititi wanted to understand his own resistance to the hero and see if he could make a movie that acknowledged and embraced those traits.Moreover, Waititi wanted to know if he could handle making movies at a mammoth scale. Addressing himself, he said, “You’ve always been scared of working with studios, worried about working in America and what it might do to you. But why not go straight into the deep end and see how that goes?”The result was the wildly successful “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017), in which the Viking deity is stripped of his magical hammer and shorn of his flowing locks but overcomes his villainous sister, Hela (Cate Blanchett), and the flamboyant Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum).Why do so many in Hollywood try to hire Waititi? “He gives you his cachet, and he puts himself 100 percent behind your ideas,” said David Jenkins, creator of “Our Flag Means Death.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesDirected by Waititi (from a screenplay credited to Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher L. Yost), “Ragnarok” featured plenty of his personal flair — like two different battle sequences set to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” — while allowing him to play the soft-spoken stone warrior Korg. (It was well-reviewed and sold more than $853 million in tickets worldwide, outstripping its predecessors.)Almost immediately, Waititi and Marvel began devising a follow-up, but getting him back in the director’s chair was not so simple. Within weeks of his Oscar victory, the pandemic hit.“Painting, learning a language, exercising — you think I did any of them?” he said. “No, I didn’t. What I wanted to do was sleep for a month and then I got to sleep for six months.”Then he launched into projects he had been neglecting. By this point, Marvel had become accustomed to sharing Waititi.As Kevin Feige, the studio’s president, explained, “On ‘Ragnarok,’ it was, ‘I’m just finishing this little thing.’” That turned out to be Waititi’s 2016 comedy-drama “Hunt for the Wilderpeople.” “While we were writing and developing this movie, it was, ‘I’m just going to do this other thing in Manhattan Beach.’” That was Waititi’s work on the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian,” for which he directed an episode and voiced the robot bounty hunter IG-11. “‘I’m just going to Hawaii for a few weeks.’ Oh, I guess family vacation?” Feige recalled. Actually, he was filming “Next Goal Wins.”Even after the “Thor: Love and Thunder” shoot ended in Australia last summer and postproduction began in Los Angeles, Feige said, “we were always on alert for Taika being spread too thin. We were very ready to be like, We’re in the cutting room, it’s 8 p.m., where is he? But he was always sitting right next to us.”Hemsworth said that Waititi’s numerous extracurricular activities are not diversions, but intellectual necessities. “If he isn’t continually creating, he would become stagnant,” Hemsworth said. “Most of us would fall flat on our asses from exhaustion. That’s what fuels him, in a strange way.”Waititi’s to-do list included “Our Flag Means Death,” whose creator, David Jenkins, spent three years wooing Waititi — first to serve as an executive producer and director of the pilot, and then to play Blackbeard.“It’s like writing a song for Prince,” said Jenkins, who got Disney and Marvel’s permission to borrow Waititi on weekends. “He gives you his cachet, and he puts himself 100 percent behind your ideas.”“I would much rather have been a fighter pilot or a fireman, but then it appeared that you’ve got to be actually quite smart to be a pilot,” Waititi said.Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesWaititi said he did not need much persuading to play Blackbeard once Jenkins suggested he was right for the part. “This is what I needed to hear,” Waititi said. “My ego loves that.”But “Our Flag Means Death” offered Waititi more than just a morale boost. (Here there be spoilers, me hearties.) While the series told the comic tale of Stede Bonnet (Darby), a befuddled but well-meaning aristocrat trying to make it as a pirate, it did not simply dangle Blackbeard as an unlikely mentor to Bonnet and a source of will-they-or-won’t-they, bro-ho-ho innuendo.In the first season’s penultimate episode, Bonnet and Blackbeard realized they loved each other and shared a tender kiss. Their romance has become integral to the series going forward, and the inspiration for countless works of fan art that Waititi keeps saved on his phone.As much as he understands the cultural fascination with Stede and Blackbeard’s kiss, Waititi said he wished it wasn’t remarkable for its rarity: “It needs to be normalized.”It is a wish that Waititi understands he cannot necessarily fulfill in a Marvel movie, despite some of the wink-wink repartee shared by Thor and his hunky ally Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) in a “Love and Thunder” teaser trailer.“No one talks about Tom Cruise hooking up with Jennifer Connelly in ‘Top Gun,’” he said. But in “Our Flag Means Death, “it’s a massive talking point that two dudes kiss on the beach. I’m cool with talking about it because I’m really proud of the moment. But my dream is to be like the world of the pirates, where no one bats an eye.”The new “Thor” is partly concerned with expanding the Marvel empire to include Russell Crowe as the vainglorious Greek god Zeus and Christian Bale as the nefarious Gorr the God Butcher. But as the title implies, the movie is also a romance, one that continues Thor’s journey from “Avengers: Endgame” (2019).Looking at the character there, Waititi said he asked himself, “What is he missing most in his life?” And the answer: “It was love. It was a partner. For people who are larger than life, what completes them? I think a lot of superheroes, when you look at them, they’re just lonely.”The story line provided the opportunity to bring back Natalie Portman, who played Thor’s love interest Jane Foster in the first two films but did not appear in “Ragnarok.”Portman, who gets to wield Thor’s mighty hammer in the new film, said that she had seen “Ragnarok” and was excited that Waititi’s style was “so free and creative.”“His other work, too, has impressed me so much over the years and how he’s able to blend the silly and the profound, all with a distinctive visual style,” Portman said. “Everything in his films always feels spontaneous and hilarious and full of heart.”The idea of yearning for companionship is particularly prevalent in this “Thor,” and one could speculate about why it appeals so strongly to Waititi. His parents separated when he was young, and he is divorced from the film producer Chelsea Winstanley, with whom he has two daughters.But as we talked about the strands that tie his work together, Waititi preferred to point to broader themes.“All my films are about underdogs,” he said. “Not being able to choose your family and sometimes that’s not your blood family, it’s just who you end up gravitating towards. You’re like, How did I end up with these weirdos? What is it about these guys?”Waititi didn’t start making films until his late 20s. “Before that,” he said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever chased any of my dreams.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesWithout quite naming himself, Waititi spun an extemporaneous monologue about why certain people — whoever they might be — can never see themselves as being successful or having made it.“What drives people is this idea of, I’ll show you,” he said. “Sometimes it’s an ill-perceived, false idea that people don’t believe in you. You still carry that around and people will be like, ‘You can stop now — you’ve proven your point.’”His voice rose to a comic volume as he continued: “No, there’s still some dead people I need to show! My dead dad, he needs to see!” Then in a softer, more sincere tone he added, “It’s a weird infatuation.”Once this “Thor” has been safely launched into the world, more work awaits Waititi. “I’m trying to write the ‘Star Wars’ idea at the moment,” he said. “I’ve got to see how that goes, because once I submit it, that might determine when it gets made or if it gets made, even.”But then again, “I am cool as well to take six months off and just go hang out with my kids.”I asked him if he was starting to feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in “Inception,” just desperate to walk through the front door and have his children embrace him, and Waititi did not dismiss the comparison. “They’re in New Zealand,” he said. “I mean, they couldn’t be further away.”For now, Waititi takes solace in the fact that he tried to have his daughters on the set of “Thor” as much as possible and provided them with experiences that would someday be meaningful to them.“I know in the future, they’ll look back and go, ‘Wow, we were on set with Christian Bale,’” he said. “‘And we were rude to him and ignored him.’” More