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      in Movies

      ‘The Interview’: Bill Murray Says He’s Not the Man He Used to Be

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      In Bill Murray’s new movie, “The Friend,” currently in theaters and based on the beautifully bittersweet novel by Sigrid Nunez, he plays Walter, a writer and professor who is best friends with Iris, played by Naomi Watts. Through an upsetting course of events, Iris, who lives in a modest apartment in Manhattan, winds up having to take in Walter’s Great Dane. Not exactly ideal for her or the dog, and not exactly thoughtful of Walter.Witty and charismatic but also self-centered and responsible for real damage, Walter shares much in common with many of Murray’s late-career roles. I often think of the dramatic parts that he has specialized in since the late ’90s (consider the melancholy men of a certain age in “Rushmore,” “Lost in Translation,” “On the Rocks,” “St. Vincent” and so on) as being akin to alternate-world versions of the comedy characters that made him a star. Because Peter Venkman in “Ghostbusters” or Phil Connors in “Groundhog Day,” to pick just two of his most memorable comedic creations, could also be selfish and mean but, in the end, got away with it. Not so with Walter and his ilk. It’s as if Murray’s latter-day characters are suffering the karmic payback owed to his earlier ones.A similar balancing act — between charm and callousness, buoyancy and bad moods — has surfaced in Murray’s offscreen life too. Yes, he is a globe-trotting avatar of joyful surprise, known for his party crashing and playful high jinks, but directors and co-stars like Geena Davis, Lucy Liu, Richard Dreyfuss and Harold Ramis have said Murray was, to put it very mildly, not easy to work with. And in 2022, a female staff member working on the film “Being Mortal” claimed that Murray, who is 74, behaved inappropriately with her on set. She said that he straddled her and kissed her through masks, which they were wearing as part of Covid-19 protocols. The production was shut down, and eventually they reached a settlement.Given all this, Murray, enigmatic and mercurial, is a hard one to figure out. But on a rainy day in late March, at a hotel in downtown Manhattan, I had a chance to try.Listen to the Conversation With Bill MurrayThe actor talks about his new film “The Friend,” his jerky past and what he doesn’t get about himself.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppYou know, at The Times earlier today, your co-star in “The Friend,” the dog, was having his photo taken. He is a striking dog: 150 pounds, a Great Dane. His name is Bing. Bing! He lives in Iowa, and after a nationwide search he was chosen as the dog of the moment. He wasn’t wearing a tight sweater or anything. He was just the most capable dog. More

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      in Television

      Charlie Cox Thought He Missed His Superhero Shot. Then Came ‘Daredevil.’

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      “I’m still pinching myself if I’m honest,” the actor said, before extolling the virtues of cold plunges, TSA PreCheck and avoiding social media.As Charlie Cox approached 30, he watched his friends become superheroes — Andrew Garfield was Spider-Man, Henry Cavill was Superman, and Tom Hiddleston was Loki — and made peace with his fate.“I just assumed that the Marvel call was not coming unless maybe for a villain in another 20 years,” he said.Then something crazy happened. The role of the blind vigilante Daredevil became available in a Netflix series in 2015, and Cox was the right age for it. But three seasons later, the show was canceled, and that was that. Or so he thought.Now Cox, 42, is back, this time on Disney+ in “Daredevil: Born Again,” a sort of reboot that finds the crime fighter at war over New York City with his nemesis, the gangster Wilson Fisk, played by Vincent D’Onofrio.“I’m still pinching myself if I’m honest,” Cox said of his return — and hoping for an extended run with the announcement of a new comic in which Daredevil is 60.“That’s excellent; it means I’ve got another 20 years of this, or as long as they’ll have me,” Cox said before elaborating on the virtues of Russian baths and cold plunges, TSA PreCheck and mastering the art of plowing snow.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 Television

      ‘White Lotus’ Takes On Touchy Subjects. The Southern Accent Is One of Them.

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      <!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> Lorazepam, an anti-anxiety drug, seems to be having a moment, thanks to Ms. Ratliff’s frequent mentions, where her accent dances along the open vowels. [–> <!–>Lorazepam–> <!–> [!–> <!–>Lorazepam–> <!–> [!–> <!–>Lorazepam–> <!–> […] More

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      in Television

      For Pierce Brosnan, the World Is Just Enough

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      On the last day of March, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, fans approached the actor Pierce Brosnan every few minutes. Some addressed him as Mr. Brosnan, some as Mr. Bond, a reference to the four James Bond movies he made in the 1990s and early 2000s. (Brosnan has a face that demands honorifics.)Dressed in chic monochrome — navy trench, navy pants, a navy ascot at the neck of a navy shirt — he was gracious with them all, if lightly evasive. (And yes, he is the rare man who looks plausible in an ascot.) At 71, he doesn’t often show the whole of himself. People see what they want. Mostly they see Bond.“They miss a lot,” he said. “But it’s not up to me to show a lot. It’s not up to me to do anything but be pleasant.”There has always been more to Brosnan than meets the eye, although what meets the eye is obviously very nice. “He is very fortunate in the genes department,” said Tom Hardy, his co-star on the new Paramount+ gangster series “MobLand.” Brosnan refers to it all as “the Celtic alchemy.”Pierce Brosnan, center, with Helen Mirren and Anson Boon, plays a dapper killer in the new crime drama “MobLand.”Luke Varley/Paramount+, via Associated PressA longtime painter and art enthusiast, Brosnan counts “The Thomas Crown Affair,” a 1999 art heist caper, as the favorite of his movies, mostly because he got to keep the paintings. So when promotional duties brought him to New York — he splits his time between Malibu and Hawaii — he squeezed in a museum visit.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 Stars Come Out for George Clooney’s ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Opening

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      In the wake of President Trump unleashing a new series of tariffs that sent markets into a steep decline, a group of stars shoved into the Winter Garden Theater in Midtown Manhattan to see a play that lionizes the press, takes aim at right-wing politicians, and features actors talking about how they wake up in the morning unable to recognize the world around them.Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC were on the right side of the theater, a few rows behind Gayle King of CBS. Uma Thurman and Kylie Minogue hovered nearby.Even Jennifer Lopez was in the house, though that was not much of a surprise. The co-writer and star of the play she was about to see was George Clooney, who appeared alongside Ms. Lopez in the 1998 Steven Soderbergh caper “Out of Sight.”The play, “Good Night, and Good Luck,” is an adaptation of the 2005 film that Mr. Clooney directed and that takes place in the 1950s during the height of the red scare.It tells the story of Edward R. Murrow, the crusading CBS anchorman who used his platform to help bring about the downfall of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and end a government campaign against suspected American communists.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

      Val Kilmer Brought a Wonderfully Weird Sensibility to Every Role

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      Even his choice of parts could be eccentric. In the end, he’s best thought of as a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body.Val Kilmer doesn’t even need to appear onscreen as Iceman in “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) for the audience to feel his presence.Early on, Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” Mitchell is texting with his old rival, Iceman, but even though he’s just represented by words on a screen, you know exactly who that is, the joy of Kilmer’s boisterously cocky performance in the original 1986 film echoing through your memory.It makes the moment Kilmer actually shows up, late in the film, all the more powerful. Maverick has come to him for counsel. Kilmer still projects a regal energy, only now his character has earned his haughtiness, which presents as wisdom. Time has softened him a little, but Kilmer does not play Iceman as humbled. Instead, he’s more confident than ever, a sage of sorts even if the years have taken away his voice, as they did with Kilmer himself, who suffered from throat cancer.It seemed like everyone involved knew that the scene in “Maverick” would serve as a swan song for Kilmer, who died Tuesday at the age of 65 from pneumonia. But as brief as the sequence is, it is a reminder of just what kind of actor Kilmer was, one who thrived on unexpected choices and was constantly eager to surprise, no matter what the context.In his youth, Kilmer looked like the ideal movie star, with smoldering good looks that were punctuated by naturally pouting, kissable lips. That classically beautiful appearance could have led him down a different path, and, sure, Hollywood occasionally tried to make a traditional leading man out of him. Most notably he was constrained as the vigilante in the cowl in Joel Schumacher’s “Batman Forever” (1995). But he thrived more as a character actor, bringing a bit of weirdo spice to the screen.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

      Val Kilmer in ‘Batman Forever’ Was a True 1990s Moment

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      The actor took only one turn in the famous batsuit. That film, “Batman Forever,” couldn’t be a more representative artifact of its era.In June 1995 a pop confection hit thousands of movie screens. It seemed to embody what both boosters and critics have identified as that decade’s end-of-history nonchalance. It was, of all things, a Batman movie. And holding it together, the sturdy straight man surrounded by abject goofiness, was Val Kilmer, the actor who died at the age of 65 on Tuesday.“Batman Forever” was the third movie in a franchise kicked off in 1989 by the director Tim Burton’s brooding “Batman.” Starring Michael Keaton in the title role and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, “Batman” was, by the standards of the time, dark for a comic-book flick.Burton’s and Keaton’s follow-up, “Batman Returns” (1992), failed to repeat the original’s box-office success. So a new director, Joel Schumacher, was brought in expressly to make what one journalist termed a “Batman Lite.” Schumacher was a fan of Kilmer’s portrayal of Doc Holliday in the 1993 western “Tombstone” and tapped him as his leading man.This was not Burton’s Batman. “There’s not much to contemplate here,” the critic Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times, “beyond the spectacle of gimmicky props and the kitsch of good actors (all of whom have lately done better work elsewhere) dressed for a red-hot Halloween.”Schumacher favored showy camera angles and a garish color scheme. The villains — Jim Carrey played the Riddler, Tommy Lee Jones was Two-Face — were freely permitted to chew the scenery. Batman’s suit had nipples. The movie was weird.It was also a box-office smash. It broke an opening-weekend record and eventually brought in more than $336 million worldwide, besting its predecessor by tens of millions of dollars.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 Television

      Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper Talk About the Netflix Hit ‘Adolescence’

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      In an interview, the actors Owen Cooper and Stephen Graham explore the social and personal impact of the Netflix hit about a teenager accused of murder.In the three weeks since “Adolescence” arrived on Netflix, the drama about a 13-year-old boy accused of killing a schoolgirl after seeing misogynistic content online has soared in popularity. It has also made a star out of Owen Cooper for his portrayal of the teenager, Jamie Miller.Even so, Cooper, 15, had to return to high school in northern England on Monday.In a video interview this week, Cooper said that his first day back was “a bit mad,” with lots of attention from younger children. Tuesday was better, he said, with only “a bit of bother.”As Cooper discussed the complexity of his newfound fame, Stephen Graham, the actor who plays Owen’s father and was also taking part in the interview, sat up, alert. “What kind of ‘bother’?” Graham said, sounding like a concerned parent.Cooper explained that it wasn’t anything serious, just children coming up to him, shouting his name, then rushing off. To which Graham replied with relief and a smile, “Ah, just some silly bollocks.”“The reason I wanted to be an actor,” said Graham, who co-created the show, was “to make dramas that made me think.”Suzie Howell for The New York TimesCritics have highlighted that sort of bond between the two actors’ characters as one of the reasons for the show’s success, although it has also drawn praise for stirring debate about whether children’s access to social media should be restricted or smartphones banned from schools.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