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      What Role Will the Israel-Hamas War Play in Hollywood’s Awards Season?

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      Stars are increasingly vocal about political issues, but the Mideast conflict has divided Hollywood, magnifying the choice of whether to discuss the topic or remain silent.As Hollywood heads into the heart of its awards season — a three-month orgy of frothy self-celebration and pop culture glamour — celebrities and their handlers find themselves with a serious decision to make: what, if anything, to say about the Israel-Hamas war.Movie stars have become increasingly willing, even determined, to use award shows like the Golden Globes, scheduled for Sunday on CBS, to bring attention to progressive causes and concerns. In recent years, winners like Meryl Streep, Russell Crowe and Michelle Williams have incorporated topics like sexual harassment, the global refugee crisis, abortion rights, Trumpism, climate change, Black Lives Matter, veganism and the Ukraine war into acceptance speeches.Viewers from both political sides sometimes bristle at what they see as elitist lecturing. But in the Los Angeles ballrooms where these trophies are awarded and such speeches are made, the response is usually uniform praise. The couture-clad A-listers leap to their feet to offer ovations.The Israel-Hamas war is much more complicated.“It’s such a treacherous topic — there’s no response, especially in the sound-bite scrum of a red carpet, or in a breakneck acceptance speech, that won’t offend someone,” Martin Kaplan, who runs the Norman Lear Center for entertainment, media and society at the University of Southern California. “Add alcohol to the mix, as is often the case at these awards dinners, and what could possibly go wrong?”Susan Sarandon, center, at a protest in New York City in November. United Talent Agency dropped her after she made public statements about the war in Gaza.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesReaction to the conflict has convulsed Hollywood, where there is a large Jewish presence, along with many other parts of America. On one side, there is ardent support for Israel. On the other are those who view the Palestinian cause as an extension of the racial and social justice movements that swept the United States in the summer of 2020.Stars have been fired from movies. Agencies have dropped clients; clients have dropped agents. Friendships have been severed, with people accusing one another of hypocrisy and betrayal.Ahead of the Golden Globes, which kick-starts the awards season in earnest, some publicists and agents have been advising celebrity clients to say nothing about the Israel-Hamas war. One carelessly chosen word could torpedo their hopes for an Oscar, and maybe even their career. One longtime Hollywood publicist who has clients in this year’s Oscar race summed up her advice on the topic as “run for the hills.” A couple of A-list clients, she added, would walk red carpets but skip interviews. Too risky.Others worry that silence itself is a political message. After Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel, most Hollywood unions rushed to condemn the violence. But one leading union, the Writers Guild of America, refused to put out a statement and stuck with its decision in the face of enormous backlash from hundreds of its members.Jeffrey Wright, an awards contender for his role in “American Fiction,” has weighed in on the conflict on social media.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressSome leading Hollywood communications firms, including Rogers & Cowan PMK and ID PR, have offered yellow ribbons to wear in support of the hostages in Gaza. They see the effort, managed in part by Ashlee Margolis, who runs an entertainment and fashion marketing firm called the A-List, as nonpolitical, though some might disagree.“Wearing a symbolic yellow ribbon to support the 136 women, children and men — both Israeli and American — who were brutally kidnapped by terrorists is not only powerfully human, and certainly noncontroversial, but camera ready,” Melissa Zukerman, a managing partner of Principal Communications Group, said in an email.The parade of ceremonies after the Golden Globes will include the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards and the British Academy Film Awards, before culminating on March 10 with the Academy Awards. This year, the strike-delayed Emmy Awards and Governors Awards have also been squeezed into the corridor.Most of these galas come with red carpets lined by reporters. Stars should expect to be asked about the Israel-Hamas war, said Marc Malkin, a senior Variety editor and co-host of the official Golden Globes preshow on Sunday. “If they have posted about it on Instagram or signed an open letter it’s fair game,” he said.In response to the Hamas attack, Natalie Portman posted a statement on Instagram that read, in part, “My heart is shattered for the people of Israel.”Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat would seem to include the Israeli-born actress Natalie Portman, a nominee for “May December,” who has posted on social media expressing horror about the Hamas attack, and Jeffrey Wright, a nominee for his acting in “American Fiction,” who has questioned the wisdom of Israel’s retaliation. Bradley Cooper, a multiple nominee for “Maestro,” signed two public letters, one about the hostages that urged “the fight for their freedom to continue” and the other calling for “an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire.”Spokeswomen for those nominees either declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries.The coming self-congratulation-athon could certainly go off without a hitch, with celebrities speaking knowledgeably about the complex and divisive topic. But the odds are not in Hollywood’s favor. The movie business has a long if not proud history of tone-deaf behavior.There was the time in 2008 when Sharon Stone, walking a red carpet, started a media frenzy by saying an earthquake in China, which left 88,000 dead or missing, was perhaps karmic payback for the country’s handling of Tibet. In 2022, jaws dropped in living rooms across America when, moments after Will Smith attacked Chris Rock on the Oscar stage, guests inside the theater gave Mr. Smith a standing ovation after his teary best-actor acceptance speech.Award shows used to have a fiery speech here, a political shout-out there — whether it was Marlon Brando’s sending out an activist for Native Americans to decline his 1973 Oscar for best actor or Vanessa Redgrave’s denouncing “Zionist hoodlums” in 1978. For the most part, however, stars worked at being stars, turning on the charm and saying nothing that might alienate a single ticket buyer.Sacheen Littlefeather refused the Academy Award on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973. Bettman Archive, via Getty ImagesThat has changed, and the Golden Globes have led the way.In 2017, Ms. Streep tore into President-elect Donald J. Trump from the Globes stage. The next year, the Globes became a de facto rally for the Time’s Up movement, with actresses wearing black to protest sexual harassment and Oprah Winfrey delivering a scorching speech. In 2020, Ms. Williams gave an impassioned plea for abortion rights, while Mr. Crowe called attention to climate change and a bush fire crisis in Australia.Last year, the Globes gave airtime to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who gave a speech about his country’s war with Russia.Representatives for the Globes did not respond to queries about whether this year’s show would teeter into politics.Producers who specialize in awards telecasts say research, compiled mainly from Nielsen, indicates that most viewers dislike it when celebrities turn a trip to the stage into a political bully pulpit. One recent producer of the Oscars said minute-by-minute ratings analysis indicated that “vast swaths” of people turned off televisions when celebrities started to opine on politics. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential metrics.The comedian Ricky Gervais, hosting the Globes in 2020, used part of his monologue to tell Hollywood that it was testing the public’s tolerance for mixing serious causes with awards bacchanalia.“You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything — you know nothing about the real world,” Mr. Gervais said, adding: “If you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your god” and get off the stage. More

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      Lily Gladstone on ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

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      In college, Lily Gladstone studied the history of Native American actors in Hollywood. Now, she’s making it.The 37-year-old actress has been checking off all sorts of awards-season firsts thanks to “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the Martin Scorsese-directed period drama in which she plays Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman whose relatives are systematically murdered by her husband (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his uncle (Robert De Niro) in a bid to seize her family’s oil-rich Oklahoma land. If Mollie is the movie’s conscience, Gladstone is its center of gravity: Even when she shares scenes with A-listers like DiCaprio and De Niro, the film bends to her.That portrayal has so far earned Gladstone a best-actress win from the New York Film Critics Circle and nominations from the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, and major nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy Awards are likely to come in the weeks ahead. In the run-up to those ceremonies, Gladstone has been a hotly pursued presence for round tables and events on both coasts, and she’s taken to those opportunities with such command — using her platform to amplify other Native voices and concerns — that you’d never know that she wasn’t used to this, or that for a long time, she was hesitant to engage with Hollywood at all.“There’s a handful of people who love film that have been aware of my career for a while, but this has been like being shot out of a cannon,” Gladstone said, tracing the far-flung route that has led her to all those awards-show ballrooms. “My dad’s a boilermaker, my mom was a teacher. I was raised on a reservation, went to public school. It’s a very normal, sort of working-class upbringing in one way, and in another way, I’m just a rez girl.”Onscreen, Gladstone has the profile and indomitable presence of a 1940s film star. In person, when we met last month at a rooftop restaurant in Beverly Hills, Gladstone was more approachable but every bit as striking, with vivid brown eyes that her father once warned her were eminently readable. He said this mostly to dissuade her from telling lies, but he was right: When we feel for Mollie, it’s because of the fear and righteous indignation that Gladstone can convey in just a look.She also has a wry sense of humor, glimpsed in some of the Scorsese film’s lighter moments, and an ability to punctuate her conversation topics and awards-season speeches with an impressive command of history and facts. “Lily is a big nerd wrapped up in this very giving, curious person,” said the director Erica Tremblay, whose film “Fancy Dance” starred Gladstone. “If you’re at a dinner party with Lily, you’re going to find yourself talking about physics and bumblebees — and when I say she’ll be talking about physics, she’ll be talking about some very specific theory that Lily will know the mechanics of inside and out.”Awards season has meant perks like being interviewed by her favorite actress, Cate Blanchett. “I’m hugging myself right now,” Gladstone said. “I know your readers can’t see that.”Thea Traff for The New York TimesAt an Elle event in December celebrating women in Hollywood, Gladstone was honored alongside the likes of Jennifer Lopez, America Ferrera and Jodie Foster, but she particularly sparked to meeting the academic Stacy L. Smith, whose University of Southern California think tank, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, had recently issued a report about Native American representation in Hollywood. After analyzing 1,600 films released from 2007 to 2022, Smith found that the amount of speaking roles for Native American actors was virtually nil, less than one quarter of 1 percent of all the roles cataloged.A leading role like Gladstone’s in a film the size of “Killers” isn’t just unusual, it’s unprecedented, so much so that Smith subtitled her report, “The Lily Gladstone Effect.” Gladstone can hardly wrap her head around that recognition. “It’s the kind of paper that if I were a student now taking the same class, I would be citing in my studies,” she said.For DiCaprio, Gladstone has more than earned the plaudits. “To see her rise to this occasion and be somebody that’s so formidable as far as understanding the depth of her own industry and Native American history, it’s an incredible moment to be a part of,” he said in a phone call. “I’m just glad to be next to her.”To tout his co-star, DiCaprio has been a willing participant in the sort of red-carpet photo opportunities and awards-season parties he’d normally eschew. “It’s insane,” Gladstone said. “It’s like I’m trotting this mythical creature around, out and about, and he’s doing so of his own volition.” The ante was upped even further when Gladstone learned that her favorite actress, Cate Blanchett, would conduct a Q. and A. with her after “Killers” screened in London. “I’m hugging myself right now, I know your readers can’t see that,” she told me.Gladstone acknowledged that sometimes, the intensity of the awards-season spotlight can feel overwhelming. “I can’t speak from the heart if I’m not connected to what’s real about all this,” she said. In those moments, she endeavors to carry her community forward with her: “I know that all of this attention on me right now means so much more than just me.”In other words, don’t expect Gladstone to come out of this experience transformed into a demanding Hollywood diva, as so many have before her. She can’t be bowled over, onscreen or off.“I’ve talked to a lot of people who know Lily Gladstone and have been friends with her for a long time and seen this journey, and she is so steadfast and so immovable in terms of her values and her core,” Tremblay said. “I think she’ll be exactly the same, but with fancier clothes.”Gladstone is “so formidable as far as understanding the depth of her own industry and Native American history,” her “Killers” co-star Leonardo DiCaprio said.Apple TV+AS A CHILD growing up on the Blackfeet Reservation in northwestern Montana, there was one week that Gladstone looked forward to all year, when the Missoula Children’s Theater would roll up in a little red truck, construct a set out of P.V.C. pipes and cloth backdrops, and cast local kids in a production that the whole community would come out to see at the end of the week. “I was bullied a lot when I was a kid, partly because I was just goofy,” Gladstone said. “But that one week a year is when I was cool.”In the group’s production of “Cinderella,” the young Gladstone decided to play her ugly stepsister as if she were Roseanne Barr, studying how to walk and talk like the comedian. It was a lightning-strike moment when she realized that a little bit of craft could go a long way.“Somebody picked up on that in the audience and said, ‘She’s funnier than Roseanne,’” Gladstone said. “And my parents reminded me that somebody there from our community said, ‘We’re going to see her at the Oscars one day,’ just from that.”Performing has always been Gladstone’s true north, the place to which her inner compass is most attuned. She remembers watching “Return of the Jedi” at 5 and feeling such a strong desire to be an Ewok that she knew someday, she’d be on the other side of the screen. Similarly obsessed with “The Nutcracker,” Gladstone signed up for ballet, which she assumed would be the big performative outlet in her life until the body shaming became too tough to take: “Not just weight, but things like, ‘Your middle toe is too long,’” she said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, my grandma gave me that middle toe!’”But even in ballet class, instructors told her she was a natural-born actress, less concerned with nailing movements than with communicating a character. In her teenage years, when Gladstone’s family moved from Montana to the sometimes alienating suburbs of Seattle, she plunged fully into performance, acting in off-campus plays and auditioning for independent films. During her senior year, fellow students voted her “Most Likely to Win an Oscar.” They could already tell that acting was something she lived and breathed.“It gave me an identity when my identity was forming and reforming,” she said. “Being known as an actress felt good even when I wasn’t working, even before I got my SAG card, when people asked what I did: ‘Yeah, I’m working at Staples right now, but I’m an actress.’”In her 20s, many of Gladstone’s actor friends moved to New York or Los Angeles, but she was reluctant to follow suit. “I knew if I came to L.A. and was doing audition after audition, it would be really difficult for me,” she said. “And I knew how easily my love of ballet had been shot down by these boxes that I couldn’t fit in, so I was like, ‘I’m going to protect this a little bit.’”The boxes in Hollywood can be pernicious, and Gladstone is still wary of them. “I know myself and I know I’m difficult to cast,” she said. “I’m kind of ‘mid’ in a lot of ways.” Gladstone hastened to add that she didn’t mean “mid” like meh, dismissively as Gen Z uses it. Instead, she meant the word quite literally. She is in-between, hard to place, neither this nor that. Part of it is that she’s mixed-race: Her father is Blackfeet and Nez Perce, her mother white. But there is another part, too.“It’s kind of being middle-gendered, I guess,” said Gladstone, who uses both “she” and “they” pronouns. “I’ve always known I’m comfortable claiming being a woman, but I never feel more than when I’m in a group of all women that I’m not fully this either.”Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 indie “Certain Women” proved a breakthrough moment for Gladstone.Jojo Whilden/IFC FilmsShe recalled a heartfelt moment at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event when Jodie Foster told the nonbinary “The Last of Us” actor Bella Ramsey that the room was full of supportive sisters. “That’s wonderful and that’s true,” Gladstone said, but afterward she went up to Ramsey to “introduce myself and let them know, ‘You also have siblings here, too.’”Instead of moving to Hollywood, where she might have been prodded into walking a narrower path, Gladstone spent her postgraduate years in Montana, doing theater and renting out basements with like-minded performers just to make something. Working in independent films and Native-centric productions allowed her to qualify for the Screen Actors Guild without ever having to move her home base, and a breakthrough role in Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 indie “Certain Women” raised her profile considerably. Still, the mega-budgeted “Killers of the Flower Moon” represents a comparative quantum leap: Though Gladstone was unsure about coming to Hollywood, in the end, Hollywood came to her.It’s a heady thing to go from semi-known to perceived on a major scale, as Gladstone found out during the film’s mammoth Cannes Film Festival premiere in May, when photos of her walking the red carpet with DiCaprio were beamed all over the world. But the actual premiere of “Killers” in October provided an unexpected respite, since the actors’ strike at the time prevented Gladstone from promoting it.A silver lining was the number of Osage people who instead spoke at the movie’s premiere, enjoying the sort of red-carpet moments that would have typically gone to the film’s striking actors. Watching them discuss and debate “Killers” reminded Gladstone that she was raised to listen to her elders, and the strike-imposed silence provided the perfect opportunity to collect her thoughts and reflect.“There’s a level of ego that is wrapped up with being a public person speaking for other people, and a level of ego it takes being an actor, too,” she said. “So I think it was a real gift to be able to sit there and have another reminder that this is way bigger than me.”She spent the film’s opening day on a picket line in Times Square, marching back and forth in the rain near the New York headquarters of Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed “Killers” with Apple. “It was a little bit of my contrarian nature to choose Paramount that day,” Gladstone admitted with a grin. Later, while dining at an Italian restaurant in the city, a couple sitting next to her asked if she was Lily Gladstone from “Killers of the Flower Moon.” It was the first time she felt permission to own it.“I was like, ‘Yes, I am. Today, I am Lily Gladstone.’” Months later, recounting the story, she was still beaming.“If you’re at a dinner party with Lily, you’re going to find yourself talking about physics and bumblebees,” said Gladstone’s “Fancy Dance” director, Erica Tremblay.Thea Traff for The New York TimesIF GLADSTONE IS nominated for a best actress Academy Award on Jan. 23, she’ll be the first Native American contender in that category. With a win, she’d become the first Native performer to earn a competitive acting Oscar.Still, it’s one thing for Hollywood to celebrate underrepresented actors, and a whole other thing to actually provide for them afterward. Academy members were moved to vote for recent winners like Troy Kotsur (“CODA”) and Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) in part because of their inspiring personal narratives, but follow-up projects on par with their winning films can be hard to come by. DiCaprio hopes that Gladstone’s breakthrough year will finally change things.“I think she realizes that this really is a historical moment,” he said. “I know she has a plethora of other stories that she wants to tell, and I want her to be given those opportunities.”Whatever this season has in store, Gladstone is ready to make the most of it. At a recent Academy Museum gala, the Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly asked to meet Gladstone and wondered whether the demands of campaigning had already run her ragged. Gladstone was surprised to find herself replying that so far, she was doing just fine: “Maybe it says something about me that I’m kind of enjoying all of this right now.”The wider world appears invested in her success, too. After “Killers” received a standing ovation at Cannes, a clip of Gladstone’s moved reaction to the applause earned millions of views. Why does she think that video went viral, with so many excited commenters predicting the Oscar glory that now appears within reach?“I think people root for folks that come up from the grass roots having this global-stage moment, this dream coming true,” she said. “That’s something that I wish on everybody at some point in their lives, in whatever form that takes, and also for Native people.”Gladstone confessed that she had watched the Cannes clip “about a thousand times” since the premiere: “It’s a moment of transcendence that was wonderful to have captured.” But the moment was about more than just her own time in the spotlight: She recalled the way her Native co-star William Belleau let out a whooping war cry during the ovation and how the applause for the women playing her sisters — Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins and Jillian Dion — prompted Gladstone to let out a trilling lele. It wasn’t just a celebration. It was a release.“Whatever that oppressive system is that sometimes develops with colonial governments, that moment of transcendence for all of us, those are the healing moments,” Gladstone said. “Those are the ones that show people very clearly that we’re still here and we’re excellent. We’ve survived and we’re just soaring now.” More

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      in Music

      David Soul, a Star of the Hit Cop Show ‘Starsky & Hutch,’ Dies at 80

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      An actor and singer, he rose to fame in the 1970s as one half of the popular television crime-fighting duo. He also notched a No. 1 hit single in the U.S.David Soul, the doleful-eyed blond actor and singer who rose to fame portraying half of a cagey crime-fighting duo on the hit 1970s television show “Starsky & Hutch,” and who also scored a No. 1 hit single in 1977 with “Don’t Give Up on Us,” died on Thursday. He was 80.His death was confirmed in a statement by his wife, Helen Snell, who did not specify a cause or say where he died. He had been living in Britain since 1995 and became a British citizen in 2004.A Chicago-born son of a Lutheran minister, Mr. Soul had spent nearly a decade appearing on television shows like “Star Trek” and “I Dream of Jeannie”; he also had a regular role on the ABC western comedy series “Here Come the Brides,” before he won his career-defining role of Detective Ken Hutchinson, known as Hutch, also on ABC. The part would make him a regular presence in American living rooms, as well as a recognized heartthrob, from 1975 to 1979.As Hutch, Mr. Soul played the coolheaded Midwestern sidekick to Detective Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser), a savvy Brooklynite given to wearing chunky cardigan sweaters. The two tooled around the fictional Southern California burgh of Bay City in a red Ford Gran Torino emblazoned with a giant Nike-esque swoosh running down each side as they cracked open cases with the help of their streetwise informant, Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas).Mr. Soul had first caught the eye of the show’s creators with an icy performance as a vigilante motorcycle cop in “Magnum Force” (1973), the first of several sequels to the hit 1971 Clint Eastwood film “Dirty Harry.” But he initially had misgivings about the Hutch character, seeing him as nothing more than “bland white-bread,” as he said in the 2004 television documentary “He’s Starsky, I’m Hutch.”“I didn’t like him,” he said. “I wanted to play Starsky.”Even as old-school tough guys with badges, the characters stood out on the 1970s cop-show landscape by sharing an onscreen emotional intimacy that was striking for its day.While being interviewed by the talk show host Merv Griffin, who pointed out that TV Guide had singled out “Starsky & Hutch” as television’s most violent show, Mr. Soul responded: “My opinion of the show is that it’s a love story. It’s a love story between two men who happen to be cops.”In an interview for The New York Post’s Page Six feature in 2021, Mr. Glaser said that he and Mr. Soul had kidded about the show’s homoerotic undertones “all the time.”With his place in the pop-culture firmament cemented, Mr. Soul was able to make good on his long-simmering ambitions to be a pop star.In 1977, the year after releasing his debut album, he shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the lachrymose ballad “Don’t Give Up on Us.” Many years later, Owen Wilson, as Hutch, parodied the song in none-too-loving fashion in a 2004 feature-film comedy version of the show, which also starred Ben Stiller as Starsky and Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear.Mr. Soul, who often said that music was his priority over acting, released five albums in his career and notched four Top 10 hits in Britain in the 1970s, including “Don’t Give Up on Us,” which climbed to No. 1; “Silver Lady,” which also went to No. 1 although it reached only No. 52 in the United States; and “Going In With My Eyes Open” — No. 2 in Britain and No. 54 on the American chart.He became enough of a singing sensation that, in reviewing a 1977 concert of his at Radio City Music Hall, Robert Palmer of The New York Times described “camera-wielding teenage girls charging the stage, the flicker of hundreds of exploding flash cubes and a continual squealing.”Mr. Soul was born David Richard Solberg on Aug. 28, 1943, to Richard Solberg, a professor of political science and history as well as a theologian, and June (Nelson) Solberg, a teacher.In David’s youth, the family lived in Cold War-era Berlin as well as in South Dakota. He aspired to be a diplomat or a minister before turning his sights on a show business career. In his late teens, he learned that his girlfriend, Mim, was pregnant; under parental pressure, they married.Later, when he was 22, he found his wife another man, a friend of his, and left her and their young son, Christopher, to chase his dreams of stardom in New York.Once there, he whittled his surname down to Soul and, looking for a gimmick to boost his singing career, bought a $1 ski mask and rebranded himself as a mystery-shrouded pop crooner who never showed his face. After appearances on Merv Griffin’s show, he secured a deal with MGM Records and released a single, “The Covered Man,” in 1966.Once he tried to make it without the mask, however, his career faltered. Broke, Mr. Soul started selling himself sexually. “I was green,” he said in the documentary. “I was a kind of ‘Midnight Cowboy,’” a reference to the Oscar-winning 1969 film starring Jon Voight as a Texas dreamer turned Times Square hustler.Discouraged by the fizzling of his music career, Mr. Soul shifted to acting, breaking into Hollywood with an appearance on “Flipper,” the series centered on a pet dolphin.Once he made it big with “Starsky & Hutch,” he said, he spiraled into alcoholism before rediscovering religion in the 1980s. He met Ms. Snell, a public relations executive, in 2002, and they married in 2010.It was his fifth marriage. He had five sons and a daughter. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.After leaving the United States, Mr. Soul appeared in theater productions in London’s West End. In the mid-2000s, he landed the lead role of the outrage-courting talk show host in “Jerry Springer: The Opera.”Although he missed out on a financial windfall by selling his stake in “Starsky & Hutch” years ago for $100,000, according to a 2019 interview with The Sunday Times of London, he expressed few regrets.“I’ve had it all,” he said. “I’ve been a No 1 [star] in the world for a while — not now. I’ve had No 1 records around the world — not now. I have six wonderful children. I’m married to a wonderful woman. I’m happy. I’ve explored, I’ve seen, I’ve done.” More

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      in Movies

      How to Watch the Golden Globes 2024: Date, Time, Streaming

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      Hollywood usually looks to the annual awards as a party, but this year they also have an unlikely mission: A bid for relevance.The bar for a successful Golden Globes is usually low: Did at least one winner crack an acceptance-speech joke they’d probably regret the next day? Was there unpredictable political pontificating? Was the champagne still flowing into the wee hours?But then a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2021 revealed that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the eccentric, cloistered nonprofit of about 85 journalists that voted on the Golden Globes for some seven decades, had exactly zero Black members. The event has spent the last two years undergoing a reboot: The H.F.P.A. was dissolved. Private ownership took over, and new leadership was hired.This year, the Globes are back on TV, in their normal Sunday-night slot. (NBC didn’t broadcast the event in 2022, and last year’s pared-back Globes were booted to a Tuesday night because of football.) Now they’re on CBS, and a diversified voting body of more than 300 entertainment journalists has chosen the winners and added two new categories. (Oh, and they also found a new way to nominate Taylor Swift.)Will it be enough to win back audiences? (The 2023 Globes had about 6.3 million viewers, down 10 percent from the last televised Globes ceremony in 2021; by comparison, the Oscars draw about 19 million viewers.) Will the A-listers show up? Will the ceremony be a nod to the boozy, freewheeling affairs of old or play it more strait-laced like last year’s sober — some said, “boring” — ceremony?We’ll find out Sunday night. Here’s how to watch.What time does the show start, and where can I watch?The ceremony begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. CBS is the official television broadcaster.Online, you can watch the show live on the CBS app, which is free to download, though you’ll need to sign in using the credentials from your cable provider. The show will also stream on Paramount+, though only subscribers who have the Showtime add-on will be able to watch live. For those who do not, the ceremony can be streamed beginning Monday on Paramount+. There are also a number of live TV streaming services that offer access to CBS, including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and FuboTV, which all require subscriptions, though many are offering free trials.Is there a red carpet?Variety will stream red carpet arrivals beginning at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, 3:30 p.m. Pacific on its website and social media platforms as part of the official Globes preshow, which will be hosted by the Variety journalists Marc Malkin and Angelique Jackson and the “Entertainment Tonight” correspondent Rachel Smith. You can also watch on ETonline.com or the Golden Globes website.Who is hosting?The comedian and actor Jo Koy, who has released multiple Netflix specials and starred in the comedy movie “Easter Sunday” in 2022, will take the reins for the first time.Who is presenting?The lineup of actors, comedians and musicians who will hand out awards includes Amanda Seyfried, America Ferrera, Angela Bassett, Daniel Kaluuya, Florence Pugh, Gabriel Macht, George Lopez, Issa Rae, Julia Garner, Justin Hartley, Michelle Yeoh, Oprah Winfrey and Will Ferrell.Who votes on the awards?With the H.F.P.A. dissolved, an expanded group of more than 300 entertainment journalists from around the world is now responsible for selecting the nominees and winners. And the Globes have promised it’s a much more diverse group that now includes Black voters.What’s new this year?The Globes introduced two new categories, one for stand-up comedy on television and the other for blockbuster films — defined as those taking in at least $100 million at the domestic box office and $150 million worldwide (hello, “Barbie”-”Oppenheimer”-“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” showdown).With the exception of the blockbuster category, which has eight slots, the categories now have six nominees each, up from five. In other words, more stars to populate the televised ceremony and the red carpet spectacle.Who is nominated?“Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s live-action take on the popular doll, leads the pack with eight nominations, including three in the original song category. (Yes, “I’m Just Ken” made the cut.) Close on its heels is “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s three-hour blockbuster biopic about the theoretical physicist who led the effort that produced the first nuclear weapons. It’s up for best drama, director and actor, among other awards.On the TV side, it looks to be a big night for “Succession,” which ended last spring and earned a record nine nominations. The audience favorites “The Bear” and “Only Murders in the Building” picked up five apiece.What should you watch for?“Oppenheimer” will be looking to bolster its case at the Oscars with wins here in the best drama and director categories. But don’t count out “Killers of the Flower Moon,” whose female lead, Lily Gladstone, could become the first Indigenous performer to win best actress in a drama.Among the TV nominees, Meryl Streep, who is up for best supporting actress in a comedy for her role as the actress Loretta Durkin in Season 3 of “Only Murders in the Building,” could break her own record for the most Golden Globe acting wins with a victory (this would be her ninth statuette). Ali Wong, who played a successful businesswoman drawn into a road-rage-fueled feud in the Netflix comedy “Beef,” could become the first actress of Asian descent to win best actress in the limited series category.And, if “Succession” wins best drama, it will tie the record for most wins in the category (currently held by “Mad Men” and “The X-Files,” which each have three).Will Taylor Swift be there?The singer picked up her fifth Golden Globe nomination, for her concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” thanks to the new blockbuster film category, but no word yet on her plans for the evening. Will the winners in the TV categories offer any hints about the Emmys next week?What a strange year: The dual actors’ and writers’ strikes that largely brought Hollywood to a standstill also bumped the Emmys from their normal September spot, even though voting took place in June. They’re now set to air after Jan. 15, even though the winners for the 2022-23 season were locked in months ago. Which is to say: Nope! More

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      Taraji P. Henson on Almost Walking Away from ‘Color Purple’

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      Before things started to click for Taraji P. Henson, she sought career counseling from the man upstairs.“I had a talk with God a long time ago when things didn’t pop,” she said. Invoking the women she had watched as a child, like Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, and Diahann Carroll, she told him, “I want longevity and work that matters.”This, Henson has had: At 53, she is an Oscar-nominated actress with a long career that includes films like “Hidden Figures,” “Hustle & Flow” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” She also spent six seasons playing the music-industry matriarch Cookie on the Fox series “Empire,” a juicy role that netted her a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award.But she is candid about the frustrations she still faces in an industry that undervalues Black actresses. “The fact that I made it through is a blessing because a lot has happened,” she said, noting that she had to step away from work last year when things got to be too much. A monthlong trip to Bali helped to recenter her, as did attending to her successful beauty brand, TPH.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?  More

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      in Theater

      Vinie Burrows, Acclaimed Actress Who Became an Activist, Dies at 99

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      She got her start on Broadway at 15. But after finding a dearth of roles for Black women, she ultimately turned to one-woman shows that addressed racism and sexism.Vinie Burrows, a Harlem-born stage actress who made her mark on Broadway in the 1950s, but who grew frustrated by how few choice roles were available for Black women and turned her focus to one-woman shows exploring the legacies of racism and sexism, died on Dec. 25 in Queens. She was 99.Her death, at a hospice facility, was confirmed by her son, Gregory Harrison.Ms. Burrows made the first Broadway appearance of her seven-decade career in 1950 alongside Helen Hayes and Ossie Davis in “The Wisteria Trees,” a reimagining of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” by the writer and director Joshua Logan that shifted the drama from an aristocratic Russian estate to a 19th-century Louisiana plantation.Ms. Burrows in a scene from “The Wisteria Trees” (1950), in which she made her Broadway debut, with Ossie Davis, who is sitting beside her, and Maurice Edwards.Martin Beck Theater, via Performing Arts Legacy ProjectHer Broadway career continued to blossom into the mid-1950s. Among the high-profile productions in which she appeared was a 1951 revival of “The Green Pastures,” Marc Connelly’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1930 retelling of Old Testament stories from an African American perspective. In the early 1960s, she appeared with Moses Gunn and Louis Gossett Jr. in a New York production of “The Blacks,” a searing and surrealistic examination of racial stereotypes and Black identity by the subversive white French author and playwright Jean Genet.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?  More

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      Glynis Johns, a Tony Winner and Actress in ‘Mary Poppins,’ Dies at 100

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      In a trans-Atlantic career that endured for more than 60 years, she was also known for her role in the hit 1965 Disney movie “Mary Poppins.”Glynis Johns, the British actress who in a trans-Atlantic career that endured for more than 60 years won a Tony Award for her role in “A Little Night Music,” giving husky, emotion-rich voice to the show’s most memorable number, “Send In the Clowns,” and played an exuberant Edwardian suffragist in the Disney movie classic “Mary Poppins,” died on Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 100.The death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by her manager, Mitch Clem.Ms. Johns was 49 and on the brink of her fourth divorce when the Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music” opened at the Shubert Theater in February 1973. The New York Times described her character, Desirée Armfeldt, as “a slightly world‐weary and extremely lovewise actress in turn‐of‐the‐century Sweden.”The critics adored her. To Clive Barnes of The Times, “the misty-voiced and glistening-eyed Glynis Johns was all tremulous understanding.”To Walter Kerr, also writing in The Times, she was “that cousin of bullfrogs and consort of weary gods”; she was “discreet, dangerous … and gratifyingly funny.”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?  More

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      New Year, New Show: An Original ‘& Juliet’ Star Heads Home

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      Melanie La Barrie thought she would make it through her last performance of “& Juliet” without succumbing to tears.She was mistaken — though contributing factors include that it was the end of a nine-show holiday week; that she originated the role of Angélique, Juliet’s nurse, in this British jukebox-musical riff on “Romeo and Juliet” in 2019; and that she made her Broadway debut in it, at 48, in October 2022.On Saturday night at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, where “& Juliet” is one of Broadway’s poppiest hits, La Barrie sailed through her comic Act I duet with Paulo Szot, who plays Angélique’s long-lost love. But her poignant Act II solo, sung to Juliet (Lorna Courtney), undid her. Embracing Courtney at the finish, La Barrie kept her eyes shut tight against the audience’s ovation, needing to stay rooted in the show.Paulo Szot, who plays Angélique’s long-lost love, gave La Barrie an eloquent onstage tribute.Emily Soto for The New York TimesA Trinidadian Londoner whose West End credits include Mrs. Phelps in the original production of “Matilda,” La Barrie is about to play Hermes in the West End premiere of “Hadestown,” whose first week of rehearsal, in December, she attended on a vacation from “& Juliet.” During her Broadway sojourn, her partner of 15 years, Martin Phillips, a translator, was more often the one traveling back and forth.After La Barrie’s final bow in “& Juliet,” which Szot marked with an eloquent onstage tribute, thanking her “for giving life to the adorable Angélique,” she changed out of her costume and put on a Hermes pendant: a gift from Jeannie Naughton, her “& Juliet” dresser.La Barrie sat for photos, communed with fans at the stage door, declined offers of Jell-O shots from her young colleagues. Then she returned to her dressing room to talk, packing a bit as she did, because she had a New Year’s Eve flight to London the next day. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.“The thing that was the most important to me was for people to know how much I loved Juliet,” La Barrie said.Emily Soto for The New York TimesHow are you doing?I feel so satisfied. I’ve been with this show for such a long time. I did the first workshop of it in December 2017, in London. It was right after Liverpool, where I had played the Nurse in “Romeo and Juliet.” [The director Luke Sheppard] said, “Will you come and read something for me? I can’t really explain what it is, but it’s kind of top secret.”Jeannie Naughton, La Barrie’s “& Juliet” dresser, gave her a Hermes pendant in a nod to the role she is about to play in “Hadestown.”Emily Soto for The New York TimesHow did having played the Nurse affect your approach to Angélique?The thing that was the most important to me was for people to know how much I loved Juliet. They had to know that my entire being was to be an adjunct to Juliet’s wishes. To facilitate them, even reluctantly. Which is Shakespeare’s intention, you know. Everything I do is for Juliet. But this one then veers off and gives me my own story. Which is quite something.It’s a fizzy, funny, midlife romance. Tell me how you made that work so beautifully.Grown-ups don’t get love stories. They say to me at the stage door all the time — it’s always the mamas — they go, “Can my kid have a picture, and then can I have one?” A new love, or a re-sparked love in older people, they eat it up because they say, “I don’t know this. I don’t know this in the context of a jukebox musical or in the context of any musical at all.” I think that is the first thing: the audience’s desire for that. You put me with somebody that I love as deeply as I love Paulo Szot ——“The way that I tell stories comes from a deeply cultural place,” said La Barrie, a Trinidadian Londoner.Emily Soto for The New York TimesWhom you had never met before this show.Never met before. And when I came, I was so clear that I didn’t want to bring any of my experience of the [dynamic from the] London production. It would be very unfair, I thought, to come here and try to make Tony Award-winning Paulo Szot do what Broadway debutante Melanie La Barrie wanted to do. So why don’t we make it anew? He’s an acclaimed opera singer. He runs in serious circles. But he lives in a spirit of collaboration.When I first moved here, Paulo took me out. He took me to see a Brazilian symphony at Carnegie Hall. Then we went to Birdland afterwards, to watch some jazz. It was the best date — [laughs] sorry, Martin — one of the best friend dates that I have ever been on. And he knew that I had never been here before.You had never been here before?I probably, maybe, had a layover once or spent one day.And then you just moved here for over a year.I know. Isn’t that fun?“Grown-ups don’t get love stories,” La Barrie said. “They say to me at the stage door all the time — it’s always the mamas — they go, ‘Can my kid have a picture, and then can I have one?’” Emily Soto for The New York TimesIn March, when “Hadestown” tweeted that it was going back to London, you tweeted, “I am available.”I’d never even seen the show.Had you heard it?No, not really. But I knew that it was amazing.How much freedom do you have to make Hermes your own?One, I’m using my own accent. That brings its own music and its own sensibilities. And the way that I tell stories comes from a deeply cultural place. There’s a [Trinidadian] music called rapso. It’s social commentary, all in rhyme, in time to music. That’s the thing that informed me when I did my audition.We have taken the gender out of Hermes. Hermes is now just Hermes. It was something that I felt very, very deeply about. When I went in to audition, I just dropped all the “Mister” and “Missus.” I didn’t say it. I put in other words. Because I was like, I don’t feel like a Missus Hermes. I just feel like Hermes. And they’re so game for this kind of genderless god from the Caribbean. [laughs]“I love Broadway, and I love New York,” La Barrie said. “That’s also now a part of me, that’s like another lobe of my heart.”Emily Soto for The New York TimesWhat of your “& Juliet” experience will you take with you?This show and this part has changed my life. I probably never would have gotten Hermes if I didn’t play Angélique. People regard me differently. I had to wait until I was nearly 50 years old for that to happen. I think people would have still just had me in those smaller supporting roles if I hadn’t done this, and if I hadn’t done this on Broadway. Which then jumped it up a few pegs in the hierarchy of things.Will Broadway see you again?I hope so. I love Broadway, and I love New York. That’s also now a part of me, that’s like another lobe of my heart. I didn’t expect when I was growing up in Trinidad to ever be given anything like this. It’s like, not miraculous, because I have done the work. But still it’s wondrous. That wonder has been given to me. And that is why I am satisfied. More