Curtis, Jamie Lee

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    There’s a New Kind of Woman Onscreen, Thanks to Women Behind the Camera

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    Movies contain a multitude of bodies in different sizes, colors and muscle tones, bodies that are trim, bulky, parched, surgically altered. Talking about them, though, especially women’s bodies, can be understandably fraught. For some observers, writing about them is unnecessary and objectifying, even if a lot of other people — politicians, activists, influencers, Supreme Court justices — can’t stop talking about them. “We’re always talking about the feminine condition and the role of women,” the filmmaker Agnès Varda once said. “But I want to talk about the woman’s body, about our bodies.” I want to talk about them, too.That’s because some of the most memorable movies that I’ve seen lately are from female filmmakers who are also clearly thinking about women’s bodies and helping expand what kinds of women we are seeing onscreen. One such movie I keep returning to is Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl,” a recently released drama set on the frayed edges of Las Vegas. In a scene that keeps playing in my head, a cocktail waitress, Annette — played by a soulful Jamie Lee Curtis — climbs atop a small platform in the casino where she works and begins dancing. As slot machines ping around her, she slowly gyrates to the 1980s hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Annette looks like she’s in her own world. She looks glorious.Curtis, who’s 66, has said the scene shows the “degradation of women at the end of their lives,” adding, that “nobody cares.” Scarcely any casino patrons glance at Annette as she dances, true. But I did care, and I suspect I wasn’t alone. I get it, though; older women can feel invisible — I do. Yet here Curtis, who’s bathed in beautifully diffused light during the scene, the camera pointed up in seeming adulation, is mesmerizing as she shimmies and dips into a squat, her thighs tense and strong. I adored watching Curtis play Annette, and I think Coppola wants us to love this character as much as she clearly does. That is also glorious.Playing the cocktail waitress Annette, Jamie Lee Curtis is mesmerizing as she shimmies and dips in a scene from “The Last Showgirl.”Roadside Attractions“The Last Showgirl” touches on mothering, friendships, the commodification of beauty and the role that women play, willingly or not, in their own objectification. It explores how identity is partly created, sustained and jeopardized by the gaze of others, and what it means when women gaze — at others, at themselves — which puts the film in dialogue with recent movies like “Babygirl,” “Nightbitch” and “The Substance,” which received five Oscar nominations. The protagonist of “Showgirl” is Annette’s friend, Shelly (Pamela Anderson) a dancer whose revue is shuttering. Clouded with worry, Shelly — like Anderson, the character is 57 — is anxious about her future and sense of self. Who is she, after all, if no one looks at her?Anderson likes to be makeup free; away from work, so does her character. Shelly loves being a showgirl — “feeling beautiful, that is powerful” — but when she puts on her costume, she’s cosplaying an old-fashioned ideal of femininity. Onstage, she plays a fantasy. When she’s offstage, Shelly is a person with a life, everyday concerns and friends, mostly women, who look at one another with gazes that find common cause. Coppola sees the world of “The Last Showgirl” as a metaphor for the America dream, one in which commodified bodies come with expiration dates. It is also an emblem for women in film, who have long fought against their perceived disposability and continue to find common cause in female-driven work.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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      At Toronto, ‘Dahomey,’ ‘Nightbitch’ and ‘Hard Truths’ Prove Highlights

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      Films by Mati Diop, Raoul Peck and Mike Leigh, among others, mesh the personal and political in engrossing, insistent ways.Each year at the Toronto International Film Festival, I travel the world virtually, moving through space and time in vivid color and in black and white. On the first day alone of this year’s event, which wraps Sunday, movies took me from Mexico to France, Benin, South Africa, the United States, England and Japan. One gift of an expansive, border-crossing festival like Toronto is that it reminds you there is far more to films than those that come out of that provincial town called Hollywood.It’s been a few rough years in the festival world, which continues to struggle with the aftershocks of the pandemic as well as the back-to-back 2023 actors and writers strikes, which left Toronto and other events with near-empty red carpets. Toronto endured another sizable hit when it lost a longtime major backer (Bell Canada). Since then, the festival has added a fleet of new sponsors and a market for buying and selling movies, a venture backed by major money from the Canadian government. That’s great news for this festival and for the enduring health of the film world, which is sustained and rejuvenated by the kinds of aesthetically adventurous, independently minded movies showcased at Toronto and other festivals.The other welcome news involves the good and the great, the provocative and the divisive movies headed your way in the coming months. Despite the usual grumblings about the program’s offerings (I’ve heard from other programmers that 2024 is a fairly weak year) and a sense that Toronto seems less vital than in the past, this year’s lineup did what it reliably does each fall. It helped restore my faith that however catastrophic the state of the movie industry seems to be, there are always filmmakers making worthy and even transcendent documentaries and narrative fiction. The forecast is often gloomy in movieland, but visionaries like Mati Diop and art-house stalwarts like Mike Leigh and Pedro Almodóvar are keeping the sky from falling.The photographer Ernest Cole in Raoul Peck’s documentary about him. Magnolia PicturesIn 2019, Diop, a Senegalese-French director born in Paris, made history at Cannes with her debut feature, “Atlantics,” when she became the first Black woman in the event’s main competition. (It won the Grand Prix, or second prize.) A dreamily haunting, haunted tale of love and loss, leaving and staying, “Atlantics” centered on a woman whose male true love leaves Senegal for Europe, a project that Diop likened to “the Odyssey of Penelope” when we spoke at Cannes. In her latest, “Dahomey” — which won top honors at the Berlin festival — Diop charts another fraught course, this time by exploring the political and philosophical questions raised when France returned 26 stolen treasures to Benin in 2019.“Dahomey” is a stunning exploration of cultural and artistic patrimony in the wake of colonialism; it’s one of the great movies of the year. (It will be at the New York Film Festival soon.) Running a richly complex, perfect 68 minutes, “Dahomey” opens in Paris and wryly announces its themes with a shot of gaudily colored Eiffel Tower souvenirs of the kind sometimes sold by African street vendors. From there, Diop skips over to the Quai Branly Museum where the treasures — which were looted in 1892 by French troops when Benin was known as Dahomey — are being packed up for their momentous trip home. By the time one of the statues began speaking in bassy, hypnotic voice-over, I was thoroughly hooked.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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      Barbra Streisand, Spike Lee and Other Stars Endorse Harris

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      Barbra Streisand lent her support to Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile stars and celebrities who have coalesced around her candidacy since President Biden endorsed her as his successor.“President Biden and Vice President Harris ushered this nation out of the Trump chaos,” she said in a statement to The New York Times on Monday. “I’m so grateful to President Biden and so excited to support Kamala Harris. She will work to restore women’s reproductive freedom and continue with the accomplishments begun in the Biden-Harris administration.”Ms. Streisand praised Mr. Biden as “an honorable and compassionate leader” and called former President Donald J. Trump “a convicted felon” and a “pathological liar” who had been found liable for sexual assault and who had “incited an insurrection against our democracy.”Endorsements from Hollywood’s most recognizable figures can add cultural cache to candidates, and have traditionally helped campaigns raise money, turn out crowds at rallies and generate excitement on social media. Some campaigns have been leery of appearing too close to celebrities, fearing accusations of elitism. Both parties seek them; at the Republican National Convention last week, Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and Dana White were among the celebrities supporting Mr. Trump.Since Mr. Biden announced he would not seek re-election, some stars have praised his decision, others have gotten behind Ms. Harris, and a few who made their views known earlier in the cycle have stayed quiet. Here’s a look at where some notable names in Hollywood now stand:George ClooneyMr. Clooney’s essay in The New York Times this month calling on Mr. Biden to not seek re-election rattled the Biden team and dealt a highly visible blow to the campaign at a particularly vulnerable moment, underscoring the power that stars can wield.A spokesman for Mr. Clooney said on Monday that the actor was not commenting on the latest developments in the race.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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      ‘The Bear’ Season 3: Tastes Great, Less Fulfilling

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      It’s still TV’s best and most beautiful series about work and creation. But the new season is a tease.This article discusses scenes from the beginning through the end of FX’s “The Bear” Season 3, now available in full on Hulu.No one loves a mixed review. The final moments of “The Bear” Season 3 confirm this, as Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), the doe-eyed maniac at the center of the dramedy, receives an alert for the make-or-break Chicago Tribune review of his ambitious, cacophonous restaurant. He has imagined a million versions of it — absolute raves, devastating pans. Now it’s here.We don’t get to see the review, only a Mad Libs rush of contradictory words, out of context: “Brilliant.” “Complex.” “Confusing.” “Innovative.” “Stale.” “Talent.” “Disappointed.” Carmy, alone with his phone and the verdict, lets fly the season’s last words, a hearty curse.Sorry, Chef: Sometimes the truth is mixed. It is for the third season of “The Bear,” in which one of the most brilliant shows on TV attempts a complex, at times confusing, elaboration on its themes. The 10 episodes are often innovative in execution but sometimes stale in their repetition of established conflicts. It’s an astonishing display of talent. But it is likely to leave anyone hoping for narrative momentum disappointed.“The Bear” does not lack confidence. The premiere, “Tomorrow,” is a bravura scene-setter that is as much an overture as an episode. Picking up the morning after the Season 2 finale — in which Carmy successfully soft-launches the Bear but sabotages his romance with Claire (Molly Gordon) — it’s an impressionistic tour of his manic consciousness.There is very little dialogue; mostly this episode, written by the series creator Christopher Storer, tells its stories in a series of quick cuts set to a mesmerizing score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It dips into the near and remote past, flashing on scenes from the previous seasons, sneak-peeking moments from later in Season 3 and fleshing out events from Carmy’s history. At times it’s hard to tell what’s present and past as you tumble about in his perseverating mind.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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      ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Is Big Winner at the Oscars

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      In the late 1960s, young cineastes shook up a moribund film industry by delivering idiosyncratic, startlingly original work. The moment became known as New Hollywood.When film historians look back at the 95th Academy Awards, they may mark it as the start of a new New Hollywood. Voters honored A24’s head-twisting, sex toy-brandishing, TikTok-era “Everything Everywhere All at Once” with the Oscar for best picture — along with six other awards — while naming Netflix’s German-language war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” the winner in four categories, including best international film.The Daniels, the young filmmaking duo behind the racially diverse “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” won Oscars for their original screenplay and directing. (The Daniels is an oh-so-cool sobriquet for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. They are both 35.) The film, which received a field-leading 11 nominations, also won Oscars for film editing, best actress and best supporting actor and actress, with Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis honored for their performances.“Ladies, don’t let anybody ever tell you that you are ever past your prime,” Yeoh, 60, said when accepting the best actress Oscar. “Never give up.” She was the first Asian woman to receive the award.Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023Quan’s win provided the Academy Awards with a hall-of-fame comeback story: After early success in movies like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” his acting career grew so cold that he turned to stunt work. “Dreams are something you have to believe in,” Quan said as tears streamed down his face and A-list attendees gave him a standing ovation. “I almost gave up on mine. To everyone out there, please keep your dreams alive.”Curtis was also in tears by the time she reached the fiery conclusion of her acceptance speech. “To all of the people who have supported the genre movies that I have made for all these years,” she said, “the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, we just won an Oscar together!”Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spread nominations remarkably far and wide this year. Two blockbuster sequels, “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” made the best picture cut. So did the little-seen art films “Triangle of Sadness,” “Women Talking” and “Tár.” Voters also made room for a musical (“Elvis”) and a memory piece (“The Fabelmans”). In some ways, spreading nominations widely reflected the jumbled state of Hollywood. No one in the movie capital seems to know which end is up, with streaming services like Netflix hot then not, and studios unsure about how many films to release in theaters and whether anything but superheroes, sequels and horror stories can succeed. Over the weekend, “Scream VI” was the top movie at the North American box office, with an estimated $44.5 million in ticket sales.First-time nominees filled 16 of the 20 acting slots, with new stars like Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”), Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”) and Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) honored for breakthrough roles.But first-time acting nominations also went to Hollywood stalwarts like Curtis, Yeoh and Brendan Fraser. To some degree, the inclusion of Quan, Curtis, Fraser and Yeoh was seen as redemption for Hollywood: All had somehow been cast to the side at some point over their careers.An overcome Fraser, who won the Oscar for best actor for his performance as an obese professor in “The Whale,” thanked Darren Aronofsky, the film’s director, “for throwing me a creative lifeline.”Clip Courtesy A.M.P.A.S.© 2023The academy was also trying to balance old and new in the Oscars ceremony itself. The academy’s chief executive had promised a return to the polished, glamorous Oscar ceremonies of the past to recover from last year’s chaotic telecast, when an angry Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Chris Rock. In a change from last year, when eight categories were scuttled to a nontelevised portion, all 23 Oscars were handed out live on air.As host, Jimmy Kimmel arrived on the Oscars stage by parachute, moments after a pair of “Top Gun”-style fighter jets flew over the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles at 345 miles per hour. He then breezed through a self-assured monologue that left the A-listers seated before him cheering in support. He teased Steven Spielberg — gently — for his lack of recreational drug use and Fraser and Quan for once appearing together in “Encino Man.” It was the kind of affable ribbing that once made Billy Crystal the king of the Oscar M.C.’s.The host Jimmy Kimmel arrived on the stage via parachute and breezed through his monologue.Todd Heisler/The New York Times“And if any of you get offended by a joke and decide you want to come up here and get jiggy with it? It’s not going to be easy,” Kimmel said, addressing last year’s slap without directly mentioning Smith. He then joked that people like Michael B. Jordan, the “Creed” star, and Pedro Pascal, who plays the title role in “The Mandalorian,” were prepared to intervene.“Seriously, the academy has a crisis team in place,” Kimmel said. “If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year — nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug.”As expected, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” received the Oscar for best animated feature, and “Navalny” was honored as best documentary. Less anticipated was Ruth Carter’s win for her “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” costume design. (Most awards handicappers had predicted victory for the “Elvis” costume designer Catherine Martin. Carter also won for “Black Panther” in 2019.)The #OscarsSoWhite outcries from 2015 and 2016, prompted by all-white slates of acting nominees, continue to reverberate at the academy, which has been trying to diversify its membership by race, gender and nationality. Nearly 50 percent of the academy’s most recent class of new members came from overseas. About 25 percent of the academy’s total membership of 10,000 now comes from outside the United States.But the academy was criticized this year for not nominating any women in the best director category. For decades, women and people of color were almost entirely excluded from the directing race. In 2021, for the first time, two women were nominated: Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), with Zhao winning. Last year, Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) won the Oscar for directing.This year, Sarah Polley (“Women Talking”) was left out even though her film was nominated for best picture. (Polley won for her adapted screenplay.) “I give up,” Patty Jenkins, whose directing credits include “Wonder Woman” and “Monster,” told Variety on Saturday about women being shut out of the category. “It’s still going to take a long ways to go. It’s going to take a lot more to really see truly more diverse awards.”The internationalization of the academy was on display among this year’s directing nominees. The Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) and the British-born Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) were honored. Joining them were Todd Field (Tár) and the Daniels. Filling out the best director category was Spielberg — a director who was once part of that New Hollywood crew and is now a Hollywood elder statesman with nine total nominations for directing, this one for “The Fabelmans.”The academy emphasized that the ceremony would feel modern — part of an urgent effort to make the telecast more relevant to young people. The 2022 show drew 16.6 million viewers, the second-worst turnout on record after the pandemic-affected 2021 telecast. If the Nielsen ratings do not improve, the academy faces a financial precipice: Most of its revenue comes from the sale of broadcasting rights to the show. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. (The most-viewed Oscars telecast was in 1998, when 57.2 million people watched “Titanic” win the trophy for best picture.)Rihanna performed her nominated song from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”Todd Heisler/The New York TimesBig musical stars, including Rihanna and Lady Gaga, sang their nominated songs; Lenny Kravitz performed during the “In Memoriam” segment. The best song Oscar went to “Naatu Naatu” from the Indian film “RRR.” The nominee pool for best picture had never before included more than one billion-dollar ticket seller, according to box office databases, and this year there were two. “Top Gun: Maverick” collected $1.5 billion, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” took in $2.3 billion. (Viewership tends to increase when popular films are nominated.)In another change, the red carpet was not red: Stars walked a champagne-colored rug, breaking with a 62-year tradition. The choice was made as part of an overhaul of the preshow spectacle, which, for the first time, was managed by members of the Met Gala’s creative team. In the days leading up to the Oscars, another in a series of rainstorms soaked Los Angeles, so much so that the academy sent an alert to the news media on Wednesday warning that it may “need to clear the carpet at a moment’s notice.” In the end, the weather cooperated, and it was a sunny 63 degrees. More

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      Jamie Lee Curtis Wins First Oscar for Best Supporting Actress

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      After a tight three-way race, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won the supporting actress Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday night, pulling ahead of Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”).The three women have traded wins all season. Bassett initially seemed to be the favored pick after victories at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, but Condon then picked up a win from the British voting body BAFTA, while Curtis triumphed at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.In her acceptance speech on Sunday, she noted all the many people who helped in her career, and shouted, “We. Just. Won. An. Oscar. Together!”Curtis got her start in Hollywood as a scream queen in the “Halloween” franchise before segueing to bombshell roles in “Trading Places” and “True Lies.” But she played well against type in “Everything Everywhere” as a grumpy, frumpy tax auditor.The 64-year-old is the daughter of the actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, who were both nominated for Oscars but never won. “To be connected through this legacy of their work and my work,” she told The Times last month, “it’s very powerful.”On Sunday, she asked the very enthusiastic audience to settle down, so she could deliver her speech without being played off. “Stop!” she told the crowd, and added, referring to the academy president: “I have 45 seconds, and I promised Janet Yang I wouldn’t do it well, because I’m a good girl.”Here’s the full text of her acceptance speech:I know it looks like I’m standing up here by myself, but I am not. I am hundreds of people. I’m hundreds of people. I am the — where are the Daniels? — Daniels [the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert], Jonathan [Wang], Ley Line Entertainment, the entire crew, my bae Michelle [Yeoh], Ke [Huy Quan], Steph [Hsu], the entire group of artists who made this movie. We just won an Oscar!To my dream team: my agent Rick Kurtzman, Alan Wertheimer, Heidi Schaeffer, Sean James, Grace Ahn, Jane Ross. We just won an Oscar!To my family, my beautiful husband, Christopher Guest; our daughters, Annie and Ruby; my sister Kelly. We just won an Oscar! To all of the people who have supported the genre movies that I have made for all these years, the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, we just won an Oscar together.And my mother and my father were both nominated for Oscars in different categories. I just won an Oscar. More

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      Acting Awards Without Gender Categories? Here’s Where Celebrities Stand

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      Nominees at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday were split on combining award show categories for best actor and best actress.LOS ANGELES — On the red carpet before the Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles on Sunday, stars answered the usual questions. Were they excited to be here? Yes. How did it feel to be recognized? Amazing. What TV show would they want to guest star in? “The White Lotus.”But one question we posed made nearly every person stop, ponder for several seconds and then deliver a thinking-aloud answer, often with a caveat or a pivot in the middle:“Should major award shows eliminate separate acting categories for men and women?” we asked.The ongoing debate over gender-neutral acting prizes, which could also mean fewer nominations for everyone, is part of the conversation again this awards season. In 2021, the Gotham Awards, which honor independent films, nixed separate acting categories for men and women. Last year, the Brit Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Grammys, merged its categories for best male and best female artist of the year into one gender-neutral top prize. And this year, the event faced backlash for not nominating any women for the award. The Grammy Awards eliminated many gendered categories beginning with the 2012 ceremony.Nonbinary actors such as Emma Corrin, who are often forced to choose a category in which to be considered, have called for gender-neutral award categories. The trans nonbinary performer Justin David Sullivan from the Broadway musical “& Juliet” withdrew their name from consideration when the Tony Awards eligibility rulings were announced earlier this month, putting public pressure on the awards. (Both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out Oscars, and the Television Academy, which handles the Emmy Awards, are looking into nongendered categories, according to The Los Angeles Times. Nominees are already able to request gender-neutral wording on their awards at both events.)The immediate response of many attendees at the SAG Awards was a desire for awards to be more inclusive.“I think it’s a positive thing,” said Will Sharpe, who plays Ethan Spiller, the workaholic tech nerd married to Harper on Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” which won the top TV award for a drama series on Sunday night, noting he believed it would “level out the playing field.”Will Sharpe from Season 2 of “The White Lotus” at the SAG Awards. Aude Guerrucci/Reuters“Why not?” said Michael Imperioli, who plays the womanizing Hollywood producer Dominic Di Grasso on “The White Lotus,” on combining the acting categories. “It’s all one big acting soup.”Other nominees addressed the potential benefit for nonbinary actors.“There are people who don’t want to be defined by gender, and I want to help make awards more inclusive for them,” said Rhea Seehorn, who plays the lawyer Kim Wexler in “Better Call Saul,” which was nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series for its final season.But then she paused.“At the same time,” she added, until women and nonbinary performers are afforded “as much screen time as the men, it’s not very fair to compare the performances.”Top awards often go to the actors who spend the most time onscreen, and a recent study found that, in 2021, in the top 100 grossing films, male characters outnumbered female ones by almost two to one.Jamie Lee Curtis, who won the supporting-actress statuette for her role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” over the Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and the BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), echoed Ms. Seehorn’s indecision.Jamie Lee Curtis won a SAG Award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role for her part in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Frazer Harrison/Getty Images“I’m all for inclusion, which is the most important thing,” she said, “but, at the same time, I want to make sure that the most opportunities are available to people. I know a lot of people believe in same-sex education. There are a lot of young women who get very quiet when the boys get really loud.”Female nominees in particular expressed concern that the idea of a single prize would put men at a distinct advantage because of the richer and more numerous roles available to them.“There’s still a lot of male parts,” said Patricia Arquette, who plays Harmony Cobel, Mark’s domineering boss, in “Severance,” which was nominated for outstanding ensemble performance in a drama series. “I don’t know if that would be fair.”Patricia Arquette plays Harmony Cobel in “Severance,” which was nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press“Until there’s a 50-50 opportunity, then we still need to have our own categories,” said Olivia Williams, who plays Camilla Parker Bowles in Season 5 of “The Crown,” which was also nominated for best ensemble performance in a drama series.Sarah Polley, the writer and director of the female-focused film “Women Talking,” which examines sexual assault in a religious community, said the potential for parity in consideration had to be weighed against the realities of the film and television industries.“What none of us want to see is a general acting category where it ends up being all-male nominees,” she said, “Which I think is the fear — and that’s a genuine fear.”But, she added, there were also important considerations to weigh that extend beyond fairness to the issue of fundamental identity.“We have a nonbinary actor in our cast,” she said, referring to August Winter, who plays Melvin, a character who lives as an openly trans man in a patriarchal society. “And there would have had to be a choice made between male and female, neither of which was accurate.”Members of the cast of “Women Talking” from left, Liv McNeil, August Winter, Kate Hallett, Michelle McLeod, Sheila McCarthy, Sarah Polley, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press“I’m not sure what the solution is,” she added, “but it certainly can’t stay the way it is, because it is excluding people from being recognized.”Mx. Winter, who uses the pronouns they and them, said they supported gender-neutral categories because they “honor the person who is making the art.”“Right now, you need to choose,” they said, referring to awards that separate categories for men and women. “And I don’t think people should be put in that position.”Other nominees noted, however, that they were concerned that combined categories would lead to fewer performances being recognized.Ms. Bassett said that collapsing the categories could lead to fewer chances for recognition. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Not enough opportunity.”Angela Bassett was nominated for a SAG award for outstanding performance by an actress in a supporting role for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressJon Gries, who plays Greg Hunt, the scheming husband of Jennifer Coolidge’s character, Tanya, in “The White Lotus,” echoed that concern. “When you have best actor, best actress, you have more awards,” he said. (“We like more awards,” said Sabrina Impacciatore, who plays the series’s uptight hotel manager, as she strolled up and put a hand on his shoulder.)Sally Field, who received a lifetime achievement award for her nearly six-decade TV and film career on Sunday night, expressed a general frustration with the competitive nature of awards. “It’s hard to compare actors, whether they be male or female, because the roles are so different,” she said. So the idea of a rule change that would recognize even fewer performances was befuddling to her.“Why would you do that?” she said, looking as though someone had just suggested she go roll through the mud in her ball gown. “I mean, you already can’t even compare Cate Blanchett and Viola Davis. They’re both beyond belief.”Quick Question is a collection of dispatches from red carpets, gala dinners and other events that coax celebrities out of hiding. More

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      SAG Awards 2023: Complete List of Winners, Led by ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’

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      The film took the top prize, as well as lead actress and two supporting trophies. “Abbott Elementary” and “The White Lotus” were named the top TV shows.The Screen Actors Guild handed its top award for outstanding cast on Sunday night to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the hit sci-fi comedy that recently dominated the Directors and Producers Guild Awards and now appears to be a strong best picture front-runner at the Oscars. Three of the four individual acting trophies went to “Everything Everywhere” cast members, too.But will they also prevail with Oscar?The safest bet to repeat is “Everything Everywhere” comeback kid Ke Huy Quan, who won the supporting-actor trophy from SAG and has been collecting statuettes in that category all season. During Sunday’s show, which aired live on YouTube and will stream exclusively on Netflix next year, the 51-year-old Quan delivered his most touching speech yet.After rising to fame as a child actor in popular films like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Quan found few roles available for Asian actors and moved behind the camera, working in stunt choreography. Still, he paid his SAG dues every year, hoping and biding his time for the resurgence he’s finally experiencing.“To all those at home who are watching, who are struggling and waiting to be seen,” Quan said, “please keep on going because the spotlight will one day find you.”In an upset victory, Quan’s co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won the supporting-actress statuette over Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), suggesting that this may be the season’s most fluid acting race.“I know you look at me and think nepo baby, and I totally get it,” said a thrilled Curtis. “But the truth of the matter is I’m 64 years old and this is just amazing!”Later in the night, “Everything Everywhere” leading lady Michelle Yeoh won a crucial best-actress prize over “Tár” star Cate Blanchett, whom she acknowledged as a titan from the stage.“Thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this,” Yeoh told the crowd. “We want to be seen and we want to be heard, and tonight you have shown us that it is possible.”Though the SAGs have honored Asian performers from TV shows, Yeoh was the first Asian woman to win best actress in a movie category, and Quan was the first Asian male actor to win for movies as well.The only film actor to win who didn’t hail from “Everything Everywhere” was Brendan Fraser, who mounted a best-actor comeback with his transformational performance in “The Whale.” Though “Elvis” star Austin Butler earned best-actor prizes at BAFTA and the Golden Globes, Fraser wasn’t expected to win at the latter show, since he had publicly accused the former Globes head Philip Berk of groping him in 2003 and had said he wouldn’t attend the ceremony. (Berk denied the accusation.)Like many of the night’s winners, Fraser spoke about the ups and downs of a Hollywood career: “I’ve rode that wave lately, and it’s been powerful and good,” he said, “and I’ve also had that wave smash me right down to the ocean floor.”SAG’s track record with the Oscars is suggestive but spotty. Last year, all four SAG winners triumphed at the Oscars and Jessica Chastain’s SAG win for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” helped her vault to the front of a wide-open best-actress category. But the year before that, only two of the four SAG winners repeated at the Oscars.But the strongest takeaway from this year’s SAG ceremony is that “Everything Everywhere,” which cost only $14.3 million and took in more than $100 million worldwide, is almost certainly headed for a best-picture victory: Of the films that earned top honors at the DGAs, the PGAs and the SAGs — that is, all three major guilds — only Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” (1995) failed to go the distance with Oscar.When the season began, the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan were surprised that their quirky film was generating awards chatter. But with two weeks left until Hollywood’s biggest night, the real surprise would be if anything but “Everything Everywhere” becomes the Oscars’ ultimate victor.Here’s the complete list of SAG winners:FilmOutstanding Cast“Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Leading RoleBrendan Fraser, “The Whale”Actress in a Leading RoleMichelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Supporting RoleKe Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actress in a Supporting RoleJamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Stunt Ensemble in a Movie“Top Gun: Maverick”TelevisionEnsemble in a Comedy Series“Abbott Elementary”Ensemble in a Drama Series“The White Lotus”Actor in a Comedy SeriesJeremy Allen White, “The Bear”Actress in a Comedy SeriesJean Smart, “Hacks”Actor in a Drama SeriesJason Bateman, “Ozark”Actress in a Drama SeriesJennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”Actor in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesSam Elliott, “1883”Actress in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesJessica Chastain, “George & Tammy”Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series“Stranger Things”SAG Life Achievement AwardSally Field More

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      2023 Oscar Nominees Luncheon: Tom Cruise’s Arrival Causes a Stir

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      The “Top Gun: Maverick” star and producer is mobbed as Austin Butler, Angela Bassett, Ke Huy Quan and others angle to chat with him.The “Elvis” star Austin Butler finally got an audience with Tom Cruise.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesFor the privileged few embarking on an Oscar campaign, the path to a nomination asks you to hobnob with so many of the same people that over the course of many months, your competitors can begin to feel like classmates.But on Monday afternoon, at a luncheon held in Beverly Hills for this year’s Oscar nominees, the arrival of a new student caused quite a stir.That would be Tom Cruise, nominated this year as a producer of the megahit best-picture contender “Top Gun: Maverick.” He was among the first notable names to walk into the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. The 60-year-old star had sat out both the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards this season, so many of his fellow nominees were encountering him for the first time. Before long, the ballroom had turned into a massive meet-and-greet.Together in the ballroom crush: from left, Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Steven Spielberg, Jamie Lee Curtis and Cruise. Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times“The Fabelmans” castmates Judd Hirsch and Michelle Williams shared a moment.Roger Kisby for The New York Times“I love you, I love you, oh my God!” said the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Ke Huy Quan, who hopped in place, exclaiming, “I want a picture with this man!” before seizing a selfie with Cruise. Director Guillermo del Toro went over for an embrace, as did the nominated actors Brendan Fraser, Angela Bassett and Michelle Williams. Cruise even posed for pictures with Steven Spielberg, a once-frequent collaborator whom the star has not been publicly photographed with in over a decade.The nominees luncheon is supposed to be an egalitarian affair where big stars and behind-the-scenes technicians are on equal footing, but there was no mistaking Cruise as the ballroom’s top dog: He had the gravitational pull of the sun and its burnt-orange countenance, too. Any of the nominees who might have pulled focus from Cruise had declined to attend: Original-song contenders Lady Gaga and Rihanna were busy with other obligations (including, for the latter, a just-concluded Super Bowl stint), and even surprise best-actress nominee Andrea Riseborough was missing in action.A caterer bringing out appetizers.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesJerzy Skolimowski, the director of “EO,” taking a break.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesStill, simply making it to Cruise took some time: In the schmoozy hour before lunch was served, he was so mobbed by his fellow nominees that he was hardly able to move more than a few feet. I watched for a while as “Elvis” star Austin Butler drifted with slow, inexorable determination toward Cruise, who finally pulled the younger man toward him by clamping a hand on his shoulder like a stapler. For several minutes, they were locked in such a tight bro-embrace that it was impossible to discern what they were talking about (or, more important, whether Butler was still speaking in his “Elvis” drawl).What would Lydia Tár think? Cate Blanchett at the event.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesSo instead, I made my way to “Top Gun: Maverick” producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who observed the scene serenely just a few feet away. “It’s my first time at the luncheon,” said the newly nominated producer, who’s better known for making explosive action movies than Oscar fare. “After 50 years in the business, I finally get here.”Malala Yousafzai, there on behalf of a documentary short, speaking with “The Whale” star Brendan Fraser.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesA supporting actress nominee in the house: Stephanie Hsu of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesIt was not the first time at the luncheon for songwriter Diane Warren, who has been nominated for an Oscar 13 times before and is back in contention this year for the song “Applause,” from the film “Tell It Like a Woman.”“It’s my favorite day,” Warren said. “No one’s a loser yet, everybody’s a winner.” I noted that Warren had received an honorary Oscar in November, and asked whether it had dimmed her desire to win a competitive statuette. “No, I still want to win,” she said, grinning. “He wants a friend!”Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) got time with Cruise while the “Top Gun: Maverick” screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and Butler chatted. Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesAs the nominees and their guests took their seats to nosh on mushroom risotto, the academy president, Janet Yang, came to the stage and addressed the fallout from the organization’s handling of the Will Smith slap at last year’s ceremony.“It was inadequate,” Yang said. “We learned from this that the academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis, we must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively.”One unrelated tweak has already been made: Unlike last year, when eight below-the-line Oscars were presented just before the telecast began, Yang promised that each category would be aired live during the March 12 telecast. Because of that, Yang pleaded with the nominees to keep their speeches short: “We need to be sensitive to our running time,” she said. “This is live television, after all.”Nominees from “Everything Everywhere All at Once” included, from left, Jamie Lee Curtis, directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, and producer Jonathan Wang.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesSpielberg and Ke Huy Quan, who as a child starred in the director’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesWith that settled, the nominees were called one by one to the front of the stage, where they would pose together for one massive “class photo.” The first name announced was Jamie Lee Curtis, who had earned her first Oscar nomination this year for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”“I’ve been acting since I was 19 and I’m 64 — do the math,” Curtis told me. “That’s many years of watching this photograph being taken.” Her late parents, the actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, had both been Oscar nominees. “To be connected through this legacy of their work and my work and now being included here, it’s very powerful,” she said.Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) posed for photographers.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesBrian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”) made his way into the ballroom.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesEventually, with all the nominees assembled,  the producer and academy governor DeVon Franklin counted down to a flashbulb — pop! — then counted down again as the academy photographer took another picture. “All right, three more,” Franklin said.“I’ve got one more expression,” shouted best-actor nominee Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”).Moments earlier, Farrell had been in an animated conversation with Warren, who was standing on the riser behind him. When the pictures were finished and the attendees started to make their way out of the ballroom, I asked Warren what they had discussed.“We talked about how we both did very badly at school,” she said, “and now here we are, at the coolest graduation picture ever.”Spielberg with Cruise, a longtime star of his.Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times More