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      in Television

      The Actor Fred Savage’s New Role Is as a Watch Entrepreneur

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      The actor, who spent his childhood in “The Wonder Years,” has established a watch assessment service.Fred Savage, the actor best known for his childhood role in the television comedy “The Wonder Years,” has taken on a new part in real life: watch collector and entrepreneur.In the past six months or so, he attended Geneva Watch Days, WatchTime New York and the Dec. 6 Important Watches auction at Sotheby’s New York. He also is a member of Classic Watch Club, a collectors’ group in Manhattan, and owns about 50 watches.“Watch collecting started as a hobby, because I was really interested in these mechanical objects that still worked and looked so great a hundred years after they were manufactured,” Mr. Savage, 48, said during a phone interview (wearing, he noted, a Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox GT). “The deeper I’ve gotten into watches, my knowledge has grown. It has really enriched my life — almost every aspect of my life — because of the people that it has introduced me to.”And late last month Mr. Savage officially introduced Timepiece Grading Specialists, or TGS, a business that rates a watch’s condition for authentication or valuation purposes. Fees start at $250 per watch, which would include a detailed report with photos; appraisals, servicing and storage are available at additional cost. The business began accepting watches for evaluation last fall in a kind of soft launch, and three of the watches sold at the Sotheby’s sale in December had TGS assessments.Timepiece Grading Specialists is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, in the offices of Stoll & Company, which handles the horological work.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesMr. Savage said his company was meant to fill a void in the watch community. “I realized that, with the huge marketplace that’s like the Wild West, nobody’s looking out for the collector,” he said. “I looked at all these other collectible verticals: Whether it’s comic books or coins or baseball cards or sports cards or shoes or video games, every one of these collectibles has one, if not multiple, third-party authentication and grading services.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Demi Moore, On the Verge of Her First Oscar

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      Demi Moore is the star of one of the goriest, most audacious films ever nominated for an Oscar, the feminist body-horror satire “The Substance.” Onscreen, Moore, 62, dissolves and mutates in often grisly ways — nude, and in extreme close-up. And she could not be more self-actualized about it.The role required “wrestling with the flashes of my own insecurity and ego,” Moore explained. “I was being asked to share those things that I don’t necessarily want people to see.”She was speaking in a video interview last week, dressed in casual black and big glasses, twisting and tucking her legs under her, on her office couch, with every thought. Filming through that discomfort was a “gift — silver lining, blessing, whatever you want to call it,” she continued. “Once you put it all out there, what else is there? There’s nothing to hide. Being able to let go was another layer of liberation for me.” The following night, she won the Critics Choice prize for best actress.Her career and cultural resurgence is overdue, said Ryan Murphy, the showrunner and a friend who at long last convinced her to work with him in last year’s “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.” She had the beauty and aura of an old-school movie star, he said, with the professional discipline to match, but the flexibility of a seeker: “Game to do anything,” he said. “She’s a pathfinder. We all talk about what she’s done for the business and for other women.”“The universe told me that you’re not done,” Moore said in her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, talking about her role in “The Substance” that has her on the verge of an Oscar.And, he added, “she is one of the most emotionally intelligent people that you’ll ever meet. Whenever I have an emotional dilemma or I need advice, I do not go to my shrink — I go to her.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      ‘The Interview’: Denzel Washington Has Finally Found His Purpose

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      So many of Denzel Washington’s greatest performances — from the majestic title role in “Malcolm X” to the unrepentantly corrupt cop Alonzo Harris in “Training Day” — have been defined by a riveting sense of authority, an absolute absence of pandering or the need to be liked. There’s an inner reserve deep down inside his characters that is unassailable, a little enigmatic, and that belongs to them alone.The commanding qualities that have helped Washington become a cinematic legend are also, as I learned firsthand, the same ones that make him an unusual — and unusually complicated — conversationalist. The first of our two discussions was done remotely. He was at a photo studio in Los Angeles as the fires were still burning there, and I was at home in New Jersey. Even putting our physical distance aside, the discussion felt, well, distant. Or let me put it this way: We never quite figured out how to connect.The second time we talked, it was different. I met Washington in person, at a spare, drafty room in a Midtown Manhattan building where he was rehearsing for an upcoming Broadway appearance. He’s playing the lead in a new production of “Othello” that goes into previews on Feb. 24; it co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago and is directed by the Tony Award winner Kenny Leon. I can’t with any certainty really say why, but things just felt easier on the second go-round. What I do know, though, is that the entire interview experience was, for me, as indelible as one of his performances.Listen to the Conversation With Denzel WashingtonThe legendary actor discusses the prophecy that changed his life, his Oscar snub and his upcoming role starring alongside a “complicated” Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello” on Broadway.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppI saw that at the end of last year you were baptized and earned your minister’s license. I got baptized, and I have to now take courses to obtain a license. I’m not an ordained minister.Can you tell me about the decision to go through that process at this point in your life? I went for a ride one day. I decided to get in my car and drive up to Harlem. I stopped in front of the church that my mother grew up in. The door was cracked, so I went in. They were celebrating young students, members of the church, that were going to college. And I got involved in that, and one thing led to another, and weeks later, months later I got baptized. More

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      in Movies

      Critics Choice Awards Winners 2025: See the Full List

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      “Anora” scored big in the final minutes of the ceremony, while Demi Moore and Adrien Brody collected the top acting honors at the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards.See all the arrival photos from the 2025 Critics Choice Awards red carpet.“Anora” put some points — or, make that one big point — on the board at the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night, taking the top trophy for best picture just a month after it was totally shut out at the Golden Globes.Sean Baker, who directed the film, about an exotic dancer’s star-crossed romance with a Russian heir, used his acceptance speech to exhort the audience to support more independent movies released in theaters.“They’re going through some hard times,” Mr. Baker said. “We lost a thousand theaters during Covid — we lose them almost daily. That’s where we love to see films. Let’s see films in our local theaters, OK?”The Critics Choice ceremony, initially scheduled for Jan. 12, was postponed for several weeks because of the Los Angeles wildfires. This put the show, which was held in the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., in an unusual position: Voting had already concluded on Jan. 10, meaning the weeks that followed — marked by major events including the announcement of the Oscar nominations and a controversy over inflammatory tweets that engulfed “Emilia Pérez” and its star Karla Sofía Gascón — had no impact on the results.Ms. Gascón, who is under fire for posts that denigrated Muslims, George Floyd and the Oscars, was a no-show at the ceremony, though her co-star Zoe Saldaña, who won the supporting actress trophy, and the film’s director, Jacques Audiard, who accepted the foreign language film award, were both in attendance. “Emilia Pérez” also picked up a third trophy, for best original song.Ms. Gascón ultimately lost the best actress award to Demi Moore (“The Substance”), who won her second major televised prize after triumphing at the Golden Globes last month. The best actor award went to the “Brutalist” star Adrien Brody, furthering a comeback for the 51-year-old Mr. Brody, who has struggled to match his early success in the 2002 film “The Pianist,” for which he won the Oscar.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Theater

      Tony Roberts, Nonchalant Fixture in Woody Allen Films, Dies at 85

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      Tony Roberts, the affable actor who was best known as the hero’s best friend in Woody Allen movies like “Annie Hall,” and who distinguished himself on the New York stage with two Tony Award nominations and what the critic Clive Barnes of The New York Times called his “careful nonchalance,” died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.His daughter and only immediate survivor, Nicole Burley, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.Mr. Roberts played easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Alvy Singer, the hero of “Annie Hall” (1977), which won the Oscar for best picture, stuttered, dithered and fumbled his way around Manhattan’s Upper East Side alongside Rob (Mr. Roberts), his taller, better-looking, far more self-assured Hollywood actor friend and tennis partner. If truth be told, Rob would rather be in Los Angeles, where the weather is nicer, adding a laugh track to his sitcom.Mr. Roberts, center, with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in “Annie Hall” (1977). Mr. Roberts appeared in several of Mr. Allen’s films, playing easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Brian Hamill/United Artists, via Everett CollectionMr. Roberts played similar types in other Allen films. In “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” (1982), he was a jovial bachelor doctor at the turn of the 20th century. “Marriage, for me, is the death of hope,” his character announced. In “Stardust Memories” (1980), he was a brash actor who brought a Playboy centerfold model to a film festival.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Ralph Macchio on Getting In His Final Kicks in ‘Cobra Kai’

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      When Ralph Macchio was first approached about doing a “Karate Kid” series about the adult lives of Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, he was skeptical.“I was like, ‘I’m a car salesman?’” said Macchio, who starred in the original 1984 film as Daniel, a teenage transplant to Southern California, who learns karate and defeats his bully, Johnny (William Zabka), on the mat.“They didn’t have me at hello,” he said.But at a meeting that lasted over three hours in the courtyard of the Greenwich Hotel, in Lower Manhattan, the creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg won him over with their vision for that series, “Cobra Kai.” It wasn’t only a nostalgia play. It also looked to introduce a whole new generation of karate kids.“As they started talking about the younger characters — Miguel, Samantha, that next generation — and the parenting part,” Macchio said, “I started leaning forward.”Now, six seasons later, “Cobra Kai,” which is set in the San Fernando Valley approximately 30 years after the events of “The Karate Kid,” will release its final five episodes on Netflix on Thursday. The series, which stars Macchio and Zabka, puts a new lens on Johnny, who begins as a deadbeat dad, haunted by his fall from grace in the 1980s, but finds new purpose in reopening the Cobra Kai dojo and reigniting his rivalry with Daniel.Macchio in the sixth and final season of “Cobra Kai.” “It ends in a way that has all those ’80s movie feels and cheers and tears, and yet sees it through a ‘Cobra Kai’ kind of lens,” Macchio said.Curtis Bonds Baker/NetflixWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Merle Louise Simon, a Sondheim Mainstay, Is Dead at 90

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      She originated roles in four of his Broadway musicals between 1959 and 1987, and won a Drama Desk Award for her performance in “Sweeney Todd.”Merle Louise Simon, an award-winning stage actor and the only person to play roles in the original Broadway productions of four Stephen Sondheim musicals, died on Jan. 11 in Lake Katrine, N.Y., in Ulster County. She was 90.Her daughter Laura Simon confirmed the death, in a nursing home.Ms. Simon — who worked for most of her career under the name Merle Louise — began her run in Sondheim shows with “Gypsy,” in 1959, and continued with “Company” (1970), “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (1979) and “Into the Woods” (1987), Mr. Sondheim and James Lapine’s interpretation of fairy tales. (Mr. Sondheim wrote the lyrics for “Gypsy” and the music and lyrics for the other shows.)Ms. Simon in 1987, in the Broadway production of the Sondheim musical “Into the Woods.”Martha Swope, via Billy Rose Theatre Division/New York Public Library“Steve had a real history with Merle,” Mr. Lapine, who directed Ms. Simon in three roles, including the Giant in “Into the Woods,” said in an email. Mr. Sondheim, he added, “loved the energy she brought to the rehearsal room and the stage. Merle was usually the smallest person in the room but always the most ebullient and with the most glorious voice.”When “Gypsy” opened, Ms. Simon had a minor role. But she was promoted in early 1960 to be the understudy to the actress playing June, one of two daughters pushed into show business by their ambitious mother, Rose, played by the powerhouse Ethel Merman.Soon after becoming the understudy, Ms. Simon went on for the actress in the role, who was ailing, and ended up becoming the full-time June.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Emilia Pérez’ and the New Era of Online Oscar Scandals

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      As Karla Sofía Gascón’s resurfaced social media posts upend the campaign for the year’s most-nominated film, what happens now?Last August, when I first met and interviewed the “Emilia Pérez” star Karla Sofía Gascón, she told me that she was not the type of person to back down from a conflict.“I’m a great warrior,” Gascón said then. “I love to fight. If it was up to me, I would go to all the talk shows and fight with everybody all the time.”She shared this to illustrate how fraught her life had become in the years leading up to “Emilia Pérez,” when Gascón, previously known to Mexican audiences for her work in telenovelas, came out publicly as a trans woman. But that hint at her combative nature could also have been considered something of a sneak preview, now that the newly Oscar-nominated actress has become embroiled in a scandal — and embarked on a defiant media blitz — that has imperiled both her career and the formerly front-running awards campaign of “Emilia Pérez.”As recently as last week, the 52-year-old actress and the Spanish-language musical she stars in were riding high. With a field-leading 13 Oscar nominations, “Emilia Pérez” represented Netflix’s strongest shot at finally nabbing its first best-picture trophy, while Gascón had already made history as the first openly trans actress to be nominated for an Oscar.Gascón is the first openly trans actress to be nominated for an Oscar.Pathé FilmsThen, last Wednesday, the journalist Sarah Hagi unearthed years-old posts Gascón had written on X that denigrated Muslims (saying Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured”), called George Floyd a “drug-addicted con artist,” and criticized the diverse winners of the 2021 Oscar telecast (“I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8-M”). In a statement issued by Netflix the next day, Gascón apologized for the posts. But instead of allowing the dust to settle, the star took matters into her own hands.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More