More stories

  • in

    Director Pedro Almodóvar Through the Eyes of His Stars

    In advance of a gala celebration of the director’s career, we asked nine actresses about working with the auteur. They painted a picture of a precise artist.“I want to be an Almodóvar girl/Like Maura, Victoria Abril,” the singer-songwriter Joaquín Sabina crooned in 1992. The song was an ode to Pedro Almodóvar, who even then was a master of passionate cinematic liaisons, often starring defiant women in love.Over 45 years, numerous actresses have shared that desire to be part of his boldly saturated universe, where despair and elation, sex and violence, tenderness and intense hatred often occupy the same frame. “It’s a club that I really relish being in,” as Julianne Moore put it in an interview.Film at Lincoln Center will celebrate that legacy with its highest honor, the Chaplin Award, at a gala on Monday where the presenters will include Dua Lipa, John Waters and Mikhail Baryshnikov.“Even though he constantly reinvents himself and no two of his films are the same, you can always identify a Pedro film by watching just one frame,” said Penélope Cruz, one of his most loyal collaborators. She said Almodóvar’s films pay “homage to all women.”She and Moore were among nine actresses who talked to me about working with the auteur, describing him as both a precise and unique collaborator. Here’s what else they said:Julianne Moore, ‘The Room Next Door’ (2024)“That slightly elevated sense to his stories, the colors, the composition, the energy and the beauty, all of that is Pedro,” Moore said.Iglesias Más/El Deseo and Sony Pictures ClassicsThe first time Moore walked into Almodóvar’s apartment for a rehearsal of “The Room Next Door,” she was stunned. She had seen almost every object there and all the hues in one of his films. Moore described this as “physicalized storytelling,” because the human drama he conjured up also materialized in the eye-catching costumes and sets.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

  • in

    Patrick Adiarte, Actor Seen in Musicals and on ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 82

    As a young immigrant from the Philippines, he had roles on Broadway in “The King and I” and “Flower Drum Song.” He was later a familiar face on TV.Patrick Adiarte, who was imprisoned as a baby in the Philippines during World War II and then found a new life in the United States as an actor and dancer on Broadway, in Hollywood and on television, died on April 10 in Los Angeles. He was 82.The cause of death, in a hospital, was complications of pneumonia, said Stephanie Hogan, his niece.Mr. Adiarte had a varied career, in which he played many characters, of various ethnicities, before he was cast in the first season of “M*A*S*H” as Ho-Jon, the Korean helper of the wisecracking doctors Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and Trapper John (Wayne Rogers).As a child, Patrick portrayed one of the children of the king of Siam (now Thailand), who are tutored by a widowed schoolmistress in the original 1951 Broadway production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I.” As a teenager, he played an assimilated Chinese American character in another of their shows, “Flower Drum Song” (1958).Mr. Adiarte, center, with Mike Lookinland, left, and Christopher Knight in a 1972 episode of “The Brady Bunch.”ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesHe also appeared in the movie versions of both shows, in 1956 and 1961.In the 1960s and early ’70s, he was seen on several TV series. On “Bonanza,” he played a Native American named Swift Eagle; on “Ironside,” he was a Samoan boxer; on “CBS Playhouse,” he was a Viet Cong guerrilla. He played a Hawaiian tour guide in two episodes of “The Brady Bunch,” filmed in Hawaii.In “High Time,” a 1960 film directed by Blake Edwards, he played an Indian exchange student who rooms with Bing Crosby, whose character returns to college in his 50s.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

  • in

    With ‘Floyd Collins,’ Jeremy Jordan Finds Another Challenge Onstage

    In “Floyd Collins,” playing a hardscrabble Kentuckian trapped while exploring a cave, the actor finds inspiration in the claustrophobic restrictions.When Jeremy Jordan played a young, naïve cop in the Broadway show “American Son” alongside Kerry Washington, in 2018, he was fresh off several seasons on the “Supergirl” series. And so he tried to apply some of the techniques that worked for him on TV to a taut drama about police violence.“I had been making it work for so long, trying to mine gold from every moment, and I think that had stuck with me,” Jordan said. The director Kenny Leon intervened, with advice that Jordan still carries with him. Literally.“He gave me this note on some old piece of script,” Jordan said, fishing a tiny scrap of paper from his wallet and carefully unfolding it. “It says ‘you are good enough to just say these words.’”Leon’s counsel may be evergreen, but it particularly resonates with Jordan’s new project, where he is often unable to use many physical acting techniques.In “Floyd Collins,” which is at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Jordan portrays the title character of Adam Guettel and Tina Landau’s musical, a hardscrabble Kentuckian who becomes trapped while exploring a cave in 1925. As a media circus forms on the surface, Floyd withers away underground, stuck between rocks. (The musical is based on a true story, which also inspired the Billy Wilder film “Ace in the Hole,” from 1951.)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

  • in

    In ‘Ransom Canyon,’ Minka Kelly Enjoys the Ride

    There were times when Minka Kelly assumed that her acting career was over.Kelly, 44, had never planned on becoming an actress. Before breaking out in her mid-20s as the sassy cheerleader Lyla Garrity in the football weeper “Friday Night Lights,” she worked as a scrub nurse. A decade ago, during a slow period, she graduated from culinary school.So later, when fallow months turned into fallow years, she would tell herself this was fine. If Hollywood had finished with her, she would survive it.But recently, having published a sensitive, unsparing memoir, “Tell Me Everything,” a New York Times best seller, Kelly found herself again in demand. An offer came for “Ransom Canyon,” a Netflix neo-western series with romance elements. Kelly would fill the cowboy boots of Quinn O’Grady, a concert pianist who runs a dance hall in the Texas Hill Country. Quinn’s enthusiasms include soap making, love triangles, looking wistful in prairie skirts.Kelly didn’t think a romantic lead would be available to a woman in her 40s. But it was. And audiences have been enthusiastic: “Ransom Canyon,” based on the novel by Jodi Thomas, has been one of Netflix’s most popular shows since it debuted last week. And there is also more to come. After Kelly finished shooting “Ransom Canyon” in June, she flew to Paris to film her first romantic comedy, “Champagne Problems.” That movie will debut in November, also on Netflix.Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly in a scene from “Ransom Canyon.” “This is Lyla 20 years later,” Kelly said of her new role, comparing it with the one she played in “Friday Night Lights.”Anna Kooris/Netflix“I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I am my best, and now the best thing has happened,” she said.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

  • in

    How ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show’ Took Over TikTok

    I have never watched an episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show.” Yet here I am at my desk, singing to myself: “Aaron. Pierre. That’s Mufasa.”If you’re familiar with the tune, you’re singing it now too. If not, picture Pierre, the dashing actor who voiced the title character in “Mufasa: The Lion King,” strut-dancing his way down a hallway surrounded by … Actually, just watch it below and then keep reading.

    @jenniferhudsonshow Aaron Pierre, that’s Mufasa #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #aaronpierre #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show OK, welcome back.“The Jennifer Hudson Show,” a daytime talk show, is not a top syndicated program, according to the ratings agency Nielsen. But it has amassed a huge social media following with its behind-the-scenes promotional videos.Before taking the stage, guests make their way down a hallway as members of the show’s staff serenade them with a complicated, customized hype song, sung entirely from memory. Some of the biggest names in American culture — Michelle Obama, Usher, Angela Bassett — have danced, skated or nervously shimmied through this “spirit tunnel” as the TikTok cameras roll.Some of the videos are awkward. Some are suave. Most go viral.During the show’s first season in 2022, members of the show’s staff learned that cheering for Hudson before she took the stage boosted her confidence and energy.

    @jenniferhudsonshow We got @imkevinhart #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #kevinhart #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show

    @jenniferhudsonshow It’s Gwen! @Gwen Stefani! S-T-E-F-A-N-I! #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #gwenstefani #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show 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

  • in

    John Cena Confronts His Final WrestleMania

    As his in-ring career draws to a close, the most popular star in W.W.E. is trying out a new role: the bad guy.John Cena knew his time was up.For more than 20 years, Cena was a symbol of excellence and inevitability in professional wrestling. Cast as the ultimate good-guy character in World Wrestling Entertainment, he was Superman in jorts — a 16-time world champion and perhaps the last of the monocultural, crossover stars, following the likes of Hulk Hogan, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and the Rock.But even in the world of sports entertainment, Superman doesn’t live forever. And Cena remembered a promise he had made to the audience: When I get a step slow, I’m out.“And I’m a step slow,” he said.The realization kicked in a couple of years ago. Cena was down 15 pounds from his ideal in-ring weight. He couldn’t lift as much. He no longer looked like Mark Wahlberg ate Mark Wahlberg. It was time.“It is not from lack of trying. I’m just [expletive] old,” said Cena, who turns 48 this month. “I’ve never been the best wrestler out there — I know who I am and my capabilities. So, when I can feel myself getting a little slower, it’s time to go.”Cena says this inside a trailer on a movie set one snowy Sunday morning in early April near Cierne, a small Slovakian village near the border of Poland and the Czech Republic. He is roughly 6,000 miles away from Las Vegas, where on Sunday he will face Cody Rhodes in the main event at WrestleMania, Cena’s 17th and final time participating in W.W.E.’s flagship spectacle. A victory would make him the most decorated champion in the history of professional wrestling. But a set like this has become Cena’s work space as much as the squared circle over the years. He’s here filming “Matchbox,” the latest toy-brand-comes-to-life franchise with blockbuster ambitions, and Cena is the top-billed star. He makes sense in that role because even for people who don’t know an Attitude Adjustment from a People’s Elbow, Cena has become a household name.He’s been in action franchises (as Vin Diesel’s brother in the “Fast and Furious” movies), sex comedies (a buff boyfriend who is awful at dirty talk in “Trainwreck”) and world-conquering blockbusters (Mermaid Ken in “Barbie”). He’s a top-selling rap artist (that’s him on the mic for his enduring entrance music) and has made memorable appearances on “Saturday Night Live.”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

  • in

    There’s No People Like Show People

    In a new book, the Broadway photographer Jenny Anderson captures the craft and camaraderie of making theater.When Jenny Anderson was 7, her mother was cast in a local production of “Annie” in Brookhaven, Miss., near their hometown; Anderson, who had auditioned to be an orphan, was not. But sitting backstage watching her mom rehearse, she discovered a kind of “magic.” Where an actor’s job is to be seen, Anderson, even at 7, loved to look — not just at the razzle-dazzle happening onstage but at the alchemy that happened beyond it, transforming 1990s suburban kids into Depression-era orphans and a Mississippi theater into the streets of New York City.Anderson eventually made her way to New York, where she built a career as a theater photographer. THE IN-BETWEEN (Applause, $45), her first book, collects 16 years of her work behind the Broadway stage. The volume is a celebration of the labor and love that go into making theater — the trial and error of the rehearsal room; the transformative process of layering on costumes, makeup and wigs; the back-alley cigarettes and stairwell quick changes; the frenzied laughter, reflective calm and tears that all pour into a performance, and that turn a bunch of strangers into a momentary family.Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara in 2023, dressed to go on as a couple battling alcoholism in the musical “Days of Wine and Roses.”Jenny AndersonSarah Paulson warms up backstage at “Appropriate” in 2024.Jenny AndersonThough not a performer, Anderson is undeniably a member of that club called show people, and she suffuses each of her photographs with a palpable tenderness. Devotees of Broadway will find many familiar faces here; in the span of a few pages, you can trace Caissie Levy or Gavin Creel from baby-faced hippies in the 2010 “Hair” tribe to confident veterans leading the casts of “Frozen” (2019) and “Into the Woods” (2022). This is a book, in many ways, about becoming: a twisted mother, an underdog boxer, the goddess of the underworld, a bona fide Broadway star.Caissie Levy, Gavin Creel and Will Swenson rehearsing for “Hair” in 2010.Jenny AndersonLevy starring as Elsa in “Frozen” in 2019.Jenny AndersonAndy Karl prepares for his role as the titular boxer in the 2014 musical “Rocky.”Jenny AndersonThey say magicians should never reveal their secrets. But in exposing the inner workings of so many showstopping performances, Anderson pulls us all under the theater’s spell — holding our breaths as we race toward that moment when the room is hushed and everything is possible, just before the curtain goes up.Shaina Taub — the writer, composer and star of “Suffs” — at the 2024 Tony Awards, where she took home the prizes for best book and best original score.Jenny AndersonAmber Gray pauses before performing a number from “Hadestown” at the 2019 Tony Awards.Jenny AndersonCherry Jones and Celia Keenan-Bolger share a lighthearted moment backstage at “The Glass Menagerie” in 2013.Jenny AndersonLeslie Odom Jr. takes a moment for reflection before a 2023 performance of “Purlie Victorious.”Jenny Anderson More

  • in

    Olivia Munn’s 5 Favorite Places in Tokyo

    The baronial manors, rolling lawns and private clubs in the fictional suburban backdrop of the new Apple TV+ series “Your Friends & Neighbors” bear little resemblance to the buzzing sidewalks, neon lights and hidden warrens of Tokyo. But for the actress Olivia Munn, who plays an outsider turned socialite on the show, her childhood years in the city helped inform the role.Ms. Munn, right, stars in the Apple TV+ series “Your Friends & Neighbors,” which premiered last week.Jessica Kourkounis/Apple TV+, via Associated PressAt age 8, Ms. Munn, now 44, moved from Oklahoma City, where she was born, to Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, along with her mom, then stepdad (an Air Force major) and four siblings. Suddenly, she was the odd kid out, “thrust into new worlds” where she became determined to find her place, she said in a recent video interview. “I really got good at observing people.”Over the better part of a decade, she explored the now Instagram-famous alleys of Omoide Yokocho, where packed, tiny restaurants served “the most amazing yakisoba”; teeming Harajuku, where “everyone dressed up like anime” on Sundays; the warren of games and gadgetry in the Akihabara electronics district, where she and her brother combed through the bins for Casio watches; and Mount Fuji, about 60 miles away but visible from the city’s high-rises, where she and her family twice hiked to the summit and were rewarded with steaming ramen and stunning views.Ms. Munn moved back to the United States at 16 and attended the University of Oklahoma before going on to a career that has included the HBO series “The Newsroom” and the superhero blockbuster “X-Men: Apocalypse.” Though she minored in Japanese, her language skills have slipped a bit, she said, but “it all comes back to me” with a little practice when she makes one of her regular trips back to Tokyo.Ms. Munn is married to the comedian John Mulaney, and they have two young children.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesWe 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