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    The Gospel Star Tasha Cobbs Leonard Takes a New Leap: A Studio Album

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    Inspired in part by a book she published last year, the singer and songwriter reveals more of herself on “Tasha,” an album blending gospel and pop.“Tasha,” the new album from the gospel music star Tasha Cobbs Leonard, tucks messages of salvation, hope and encouragement into songs shaped by hip-hop, R&B and even bluegrass. Guest appearances include a gospel music icon and an EGOT winner.But fans of the singer and songwriter, 44, will be most surprised by what the LP, releasing July 25, doesn’t feature: the sound of an audience. Since her major-label debut 13 years ago, Cobbs Leonard has only released live albums. As a worship leader, she is most comfortable singing in front of a gathering, whether in a church or in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.“I’ve been doing this for almost 13 years,” she said during a recent video interview. “What keeps me relevant is stretching myself and doing the uncomfortable thing — not something completely new, but building on the foundation.”Walter Thomas, the senior vice president of Motown Gospel and TAMLA Records, said the goal was giving audiences a more three-dimensional picture of Cobbs Leonard. “We wanted to showcase who Tasha is outside of church,” he said. “There’s a pop side, there’s a fun side, there’s a family-oriented side. This body of work reflects that.”Cobbs Leonard has been slowly revealing herself for years. She’s a busy touring musician, a mother of a blended family of four and a pastor of the Purpose Place Church in Spartanburg, S.C., with her husband, the music producer Kenneth Leonard Jr. Chatting from her living room, wearing a baby-blue short-sleeve top that was nearly the same color as the walls behind her, a flourish of flaxen curls cascading across her forehead, Cobbs Leonard spoke candidly, smiling and laughing with the same infectious and welcoming enthusiasm she brings to her singing.“I’ve been doing this for almost 13 years,” Cobbs Leonard said. “What keeps me relevant is stretching myself and doing the uncomfortable thing.”Will Crooks 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

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      in Television

      Kristen Doute’s Path From Villain to the Voice of Reason on ‘The Valley’

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      In 2013, Kristen Doute was working as a server at the West Hollywood lounge SUR and struggling to make it as an actor when one of the restaurant’s owners — Lisa Vanderpump of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” fame — approached her with the opportunity to be cast in a new Bravo reality show.Called “Vanderpump Rules,” the show would follow the personal and professional lives of the young staff members at SUR. The two decided to give it a shot, unaware that one day, Ms. Doute’s boyfriend at the time, Tom Sandoval, would become the most hated man in the United States, and Ms. Doute would be publicly fired for racist behavior.“The worst-case scenario is that it doesn’t do well and no one ever hears about it again,” Ms. Doute, now 42, said of her decision to join the show during a recent interview. “Our IMDB pages are not through the roof right now. I think we’ll be OK.”After agreeing to join the cast, the two immediately went home and binge-watched MTV’s “The Hills,” one of the most popular reality TV shows of the time. “We wanted to learn how to, quote, unquote, do reality TV,” Ms. Doute said.Turns out, she did not need the help. With “Vanderpump,” Ms. Doute quickly became one of the network’s biggest reality stars — for better or worse. Since debuting on Bravo screens more than a decade ago, she has been an insatiable vortex for drama, earning the nickname “Crazy Kristen” for her drunken antics (i.e. throwing a drink on James Kennedy, a castmate), battling with gravity (i.e. tripping over a coffee table on a girls’ trip to Solvang, Calif.), and embarking on tireless quests for the truth — or at least her truth. (Her other cast-given nickname is “Detective Doute.”)In her time on “Vanderpump Rules,” Ms. Doute was known for creating drama wherever she went.Bravo/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesWe 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

      How ‘Superman’ Star David Corenswet Won the Role

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      Even before he became the linchpin of a new superhero universe, David Corenswet took great pride in being reliable.“I don’t know whether I’m a good actor in the sense that I see people onscreen and think, that’s a good actor,” he said. But what he does know, and what he aspires to, is that people can count on him. It’s a reputation Corenswet has cultivated since he was a child actor, when he once delivered his lines so efficiently during a commercial shoot that the crew got to go home early.“I want people to feel that every day that my name is on the call sheet is going to be a better day — a little bit of an easier day, and maybe a more fulfilling day,” he said.Now, Corenswet’s reliability will be put to its ultimate test. The 32-year-old is playing the iconic title character in James Gunn’s “Superman” reboot, which arrives in theaters this weekend burdened by big expectations. It’s the first feature from the newly rebranded DC Studios, which previously managed some successes (“Wonder Woman,” “Man of Steel”) and a passel of bruising bombs (“Justice League,” “The Flash,” “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”) in its efforts to keep pace with Marvel’s highly lucrative cinematic universe.David Corenswet wasn’t immediately sold on the role of Superman: “When the easy conversation is so exciting, I want to have the hard conversation: Let’s talk about what could go wrong.”These days, though, even Marvel is facing headwinds: In a market saturated with comic-book content, audiences don’t always show up for cape-and-tights spectaculars the way they used to. Warner Bros. is betting that Gunn, who was hired to co-lead DC Studios after directing Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, can restore the luster to its superhero shingle. But the future of the DC slate, including next year’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” hinges largely on just how high “Superman” can soar.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

      The Best Mafia Show, According to Morgan Spector of ‘The Gilded Age’

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      The actor, who plays a railroad magnate on HBO’s period drama, is into Russian war novels, “lefty” podcasts and his home gym.Morgan Spector’s character on “The Gilded Age” always seems to have it together, even if, behind the scenes, his business empire is teetering on the brink of collapse.In real life, well — he’s trying.Speaking from his home in Hillsdale, N.Y., where he lives with his wife, the actress Rebecca Hall, he was sleep-deprived because his 7-year-old daughter had been up in the middle of the night. His 1-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback, Stella, had vomited all over the house. His phone was acting up.“It’s been one of those days,” he said.Spector, 44, has become a fan favorite for his scene-stealing turn as the railroad magnate George Russell on HBO’s period drama about what happens when old money meets new money. His character has a crisis of confidence this season, as he allows himself to be swept along by a marriage plot hatched by his wife, Bertha (Carrie Coon), involving their daughter, Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), and the Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb) — a man George knows she doesn’t love.“It causes him to have a kind of existential reckoning,” Spector said. “Because despite all the sort of horrible robber baron-y things he does, he thinks of himself as someone with a moral code, particularly with regard to his family.”He shared his 10 cultural essentials, including the book that “made his entire personality” and the magazine he reads cover to cover. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.MomMy wife and I are both relatively busy working actors, which means our lives are logistically chaotic. That would make it extremely challenging to provide a grounded, consistent experience of childhood for my daughter, were it not for my mom. She jumped on board our crazy train early on and, as a result, it all functions pretty seamlessly.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

      What’s Next for ‘Love Island’ Contestant Jeremiah Brown? A Book Club.

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      Jeremiah Brown asked his 2 million TikTok followers what to do after being voted off the hit series. The answer has him, and his fans, reading “The Song of Achilles.”After he was voted off the dating show “Love Island USA” last month, Jeremiah Brown wasn’t sure what to do with his newfound fame.During his 16 days as a contestant, he’d gained more than two million followers on TikTok, up from just 44 before he went on the show. Shortly after his exit, a suggestion from a follower on social media immediately grabbed him.“Somebody said, you should start a book club, and I was like, oh my gosh, lightbulb,” Brown said in an interview. “The second I read this idea, I was like yeah, we got to do this.”When Brown posted about his book club in early July, the announcement generated wild enthusiasm. Soon, the club had around 120,000 members.“Y’all some nerds,” Brown told his followers.After polling club members on what genre they wanted to read (romance, naturally), Brown gave them a list of books to vote on, which included BookTok favorites like “It Ends With Us,” “Beach Read,” “Twisted Love” and “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.” The winner, by several thousand votes, was “The Song of Achilles,” by Madeline Miller.The novel, which is more of an epic tragedy than a romance, has already attracted a wide audience, selling more than 4 million copies since its release in 2012. Set during the Trojan War, it imagines a doomed love affair between the warrior Achilles and his devoted companion Patroclus.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 Surprising Presence in ‘The Gospel at Colonus’

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      Little Island’s revival of “The Gospel at Colonus” brings together a powerhouse ensemble of Black artists to tell a story of shame, exile and grace. At its center: the gospel singer and pastor Kim Burrell, who came under fire nine years ago after a sermon surfaced online in which she condemned homosexuality. Now, in her traditional theatrical debut, Burrell joins a production that asks whether redemption is possible.“The Gospel at Colonus,” directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, is a joyous fusion of Greek tragedy and gospel music. This is the show’s first New York production not led by its writers, the composer Bob Telson and Lee Breuer, a founder of the experimental theater group Mabou Mines. The musical, first produced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983 and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1985, uses the melodic language of a Black Pentecostal church service to retell the story of Oedipus, the king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother, then gouged out his eyes in shame.The jazz musician Frank Senior, left, and the bass-baritone Davóne Tines. “The Gospel at Colonus,” directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, is a joyous fusion of Greek tragedy and gospel music.Yuvraj Khanna for The New York TimesThe original production starred Morgan Freeman as the pastor who tells Oedipus’ story and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama as the singers who give voice to his pain. Now, Chowdhury has assembled a multitalented cast: the R&B singer-songwriter serpentwithfeet; the actors and singers Stephanie Berry, Ayana George Jackson and Jon-Michael Reese; and, sharing Oedipus’s singing parts, the operatic bass-baritone Davóne Tines and the jazz musician Frank Senior. Burrell appears as Theseus, the king who offers Oedipus refuge at the end of his life.Chowdhury, a Pulitzer-nominated playwright, studied and later taught about spirituals and other religious music at Stanford. He said he assembled this cast because of their voices. “There’s enormous sonic diversity under the umbrella of Black sacred music,” he wrote in an email, “and in gathering together a team for this production, I wanted to highlight that range of sounds and textures.”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

    • 125 Shares101 Views

      in Movies

      Danielle Deadwyler on ’40 Acres and Balancing Brutality and Family

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      The star plays a stoic matriarch raising a militant brood to protect their land and each other against cannibals in R.T. Thorne’s new horror indie.Onscreen, the actress Danielle Deadwyler has become known for expressing with her eyes what words rarely do. She can appear at once steely and heartbroken, fierce and fragile.She has used this ability to great effect in the HBO Max dystopian drama “Station Eleven”; in Jeymes Samuel’s 2021 western, “The Harder They Fall”; and in Chinonye Chukwu’s 2022 historical drama, “Till,” in which she played the doting mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old whose gruesome murder in Mississippi in 1955 helped spark the civil rights movement.Now, Deadwyler, 43, is applying her skill to R.T. Thorne’s first feature, the horror indie “40 Acres,” which is set in the near future. She plays a mother and former soldier, Hailey Freeman, who, alongside her partner, an Indigenous man named Galen (Michael Greyeyes), is preparing her brood for the harsh truths of their famine-decimated postapocalyptic life. They must fight threats from all sides, the scariest of which are bands of ferocious cannibals.The family tries to balance survivalist reality, including grisly encounters, with serene farm life. Days are spent training the four children to be warriors while also honoring their heritage and their land, finding surprising joy in the small things. In his critic’s pick review for The Times, Robert Daniels wrote that “Deadwyler’s forceful energy fills the frame” and that she “lends power and humor to this lovingly stern mother.”Hailey and her family are the descendants of African American farmers who settled in Canada after the Civil War, when the United States failed to fulfill Gen. William T. Sherman’s promise of 40 acres of land for Black Americans freed from enslavement.“It’s a unique family — R.T. said he hadn’t seen Black and Indigenous families together onscreen,” Deadwyler told me in a video interview in June. “I hadn’t either, like this.”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

    • 150 Shares93 Views

      in Music

      Gilberto Gil Steps Away From the Stage, Vowing ‘My Music Will Continue’

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      At 83, the lauded Brazilian singer and songwriter whose career in music and politics has encompassed six decades is on a farewell tour.Gilberto Gil had been living in exile for a month when he first saw Bob Dylan take the stage.That was in August 1969, when Gil, who is now a revered international figure with a 60-year career behind him, had just turned 27. The military dictatorship in Brazil had “invited” him to leave the country after an arrest on charges of “inciting youth to rebel” during a show in Rio de Janeiro, among other accusations. Forced to flee, Gil chose London — a meeting point for musician and artist expats, with its vibrant cultural scene and artistic freedom — as his new home.He arrived just in time for the Isle of Wight Festival and knew he couldn’t miss his chance to see Dylan play his first show since a motorcycle accident had nearly taken his life.“It’s that passivity, almost,” Gil said in a recent interview. “That calmness he has onstage, without many exuberant gestures. That’s what I wanted to soak up and apply to my own performance.”And through the years, whether his image was as an inciter of youth or an insightful philosopher, he did. Even as Gil stood onstage in São Paulo this April on his farewell tour, it was the eloquence of his words and the memories his music evoked that captivated 40,000 fans.A chorus of voices accompanied Gil as he guided concertgoers through the many genres of his career — samba, baião, jazz, reggae, rock and international pop, among them. An innovator with a knack for preserving his country’s classic styles while building on them, Gil has used both his music and his voice to help fellow Brazilians feel pride in where they come from and hope in where they’re going. In addition to releasing dozens of albums, he has worked in politics since 1987 and served as Brazil’s Minister of Culture from 2003 to 2008.Gil, now 83, admits that it’s time to slow down. He doesn’t shy away from talk about aging: It’s just another change in a life of metamorphosis. And the name he gave his final stadium tour — Tempo Rei (which translates to Time Is King), borrowed from his 1984 song about the passage of time, the brevity of life and the necessity of transformation — alludes to just that.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

    • 163 Shares130 Views

      in Movies

      Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman on Injuries, Action and ‘The Old Guard 2’

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      In the Netflix film “The Old Guard 2,” Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman play immortal warriors blessed — or cursed, depending on your outlook — with incredible recuperative powers. Stab them in the back, shoot them in the face, and wham-o, they heal in seconds. Theron’s character, Andromache of Scythia (Andy for short), has been fighting the good fight, and several bad ones, for over 6000 years; her archnemesis Discord, played by Thurman, is even older.The action epic marks Theron’s return to the franchise five years after the critically acclaimed first film (the Times’s A.O. Scott praised the movie’s action sequences and “tone of hard-boiled melancholy.”) It also marks Thurman’s high-profile return to the action movie genre, 21 years after she starred in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Volume 2.”The actors created two of the most celebrated action heroines of all time: Thurman’s The Bride, the vengeful, katana-wielding assassin of the “Kill Bill” films, and Theron’s Imperator Furiosa, the buzzcut-sporting, big rig-driving heroine of “Mad Max: Fury Road.” “Fury Road” was one action film among many for Theron (others include “Atomic Blonde,” “The Italian Job,” and the “Fast and the Furious” franchise). After the “Kill Bill” films, however, Thurman eschewed the action film genre for rom-coms, TV and a run on Broadway, among other things.The two recently got together at the Netflix offices in Hollywood to discuss women in action films, on-set injuries and what they won’t do in a picture. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.Uma Thurman, left, with Charlize Theron in New York.Uma, it’s been a while since you’ve done an action movie. Why now, and why this one?UMA THURMAN Well, I find Charlize to be very mysterious. I feel like she keeps a tight circle around her. But she’s revered and admired, and her work speaks for itself, so this was a special opportunity. Getting to work with a great actress is a precious thing, and projects are usually not designed to bring multiple heavyweight women together, as Charlize has done with this franchise. Every once in a while you see these great ensembles with, like, seven great actresses, and you always feel bad that you weren’t included! You look at them with, like, hunger.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