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    Jay Ellis Considers Colson Whitehead His Literary GOAT

    “‘Harlem Shuffle,’ ‘Crook Manifesto,’ ‘Underground Railroad,’ ‘Nickel Boys’: I feel like I did not understand or see myself in fiction until I read him.”So far this year, Jay Ellis has played a basketball coach in the Netflix comedy “Running Point” and a record-setting M.V.P. in the action movie “Freaky Tales.”This summer, he’s swapping free throws for freestyles as he steps into the role of a hip-hop star in the Off Broadway play “Duke & Roya,” at the Lucille Lortel Theater. The drama finds him stumbling into a cross-cultural romance with life-threatening consequences.“At first glance,” he said, “there’s no reason why you think these two people would ever hit it off.”He added: “We’re in a world where everyone yells, no one listens. Everybody really just wants connection, to be seen, to be understood, and I just loved the idea that these two characters do.”Ellis, 43, temporarily relocated his family of four to New York from their home in Los Angeles. One particular aspect of the local culture suits him well.“I absolutely love pizza,” he said, name-dropping his latest find, Fini. “My daughter took a bite and was like, ‘Why don’t we have pizza like this in L.A., Daddy?’”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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    ‘Somebody I Used to Know’ Review: Reigniting Old Flames

    In Dave Franco’s new comedy, Alison Brie plays a reality television showrunner attempting to break up her ex-boyfriend’s engagement.In the catalog of comedies about city strivers who decamp to their suburban hometowns to hassle former lovers, Dave Franco’s “Somebody I Used to Know” is an upbeat but minor entry, destined to recede behind the worthier stories from which it borrows. The unfortunate irony of the movie’s title — one word off from the Gotye earworm, presumably to preserve search engine optimization, if not originality — is that the film lacks the indelible details and authentic feeling necessary to encode it in long-term memory. Indeed, soon after finishing the movie, it already feels far away.The story begins as Ally (Alison Brie), a reality television showrunner, craftily wrests a tearful disclosure from an interview subject on camera. It should be a triumphant moment, but the implication is that in her pursuit of Hollywood success, Ally has sold her soul and sacrificed her dignity. Not to worry: The chance for a reset arrives after the network declines to renew the show, and Ally, whose workaholism has left her friendless, makes the impromptu decision to visit her mother (a criminally underused Julie Hagerty) in Leavenworth, a small town situated in the mountains of Washington.This cinematic overture is among the most successful sequences in the movie, and sets us up for a conventional but comforting journey back to more wholesome roots. It also teases a gleefully unlikable protagonist who’s more schemer than achiever and more sourpuss than socialite; Brie (who co-wrote the script with Franco) has a knack for tapping into her nasty side, and as we zigzag through a handful of set pieces that don’t quite register comedically — one hinges on cat diarrhea — we yearn for our city mouse to go fully feral.Regrettably, the moment never arrives. While in Leavenworth, Ally bumps into her ex-boyfriend, Sean (Jay Ellis), and is aggrieved to learn of his recent engagement to Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons), a self-possessed local punk singer. Ally spends the remainder of the film’s running time batting eyelashes and crashing wedding events as she conspires to reignite their old flame. It’s remarkable that nobody tells her to get lost and get a life; despite some side-eyeing, even Cassidy and her protective pals seem glad to have the grating Ally around.As the movie’s co-writer and director, Franco brings a sunny disposition and a touch of idiosyncratic farce. There are the usual jaunty montage sequences and forlorn shots of characters gazing out windows, but there is also vomit, obscene texts and an overwhelming dose of public nudity. Franco and Brie are clearly riffing on a suite of movies about career women rediscovering roots and wreaking havoc on old relationships — “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Young Adult” come to mind — and seek to inject the familiar premise with millennial novelty.But there’s something missing from the equation. Each of those predecessors appreciate that their heroines, in acting harshly toward their peers, also become their villains. By reeling in Ally’s ruthlessness, expunging her comeuppance and mollifying those she wrongs, “Somebody I Used to Know” actually distances us from Ally and her issues. The truth is that jealousy and cruelty are human; anything less is just a portrait with the blemishes erased.Somebody I Used to KnowRated R for full-frontal nudity. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More

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    Meet the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Cast

    From trying not to vomit in flight to oiling up for a beach scene, the actors playing pilots got a crash course in the Tom Cruise school of action filmmaking.Thirty-six years after Iceman, Hollywood and Cougar took to the skies in “Top Gun,” a new team of colorfully nicknamed characters are suiting up in “Top Gun: Maverick.”This time, the aviators are recent graduates of the Navy’s elite fighter school, a.k.a. Top Gun, and they’re tasked with a near-impossible mission overseen by Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, the brash pilot played by Tom Cruise. Flying alongside Rooster, the son of the original film’s ill-fated Goose, are Hangman, Phoenix, Bob, Coyote, Fanboy and Payback, who must help destroy a foreign enemy’s uranium plant and get out alive. (Though the characters all have actual names, they’re introduced by their aviator call signs, and that’s how they’re known.)The intensive tutelage began offscreen: Cruise monitored the actors’ progress during a grueling five-month training program that culminated in the cast shooting their own action sequences from the back of real F/A-18 jets flown by Navy fighter pilots.Here’s a peek at the new generation of actors behind the call signs.Glen PowellThe actor initially auditioned for the role that went to Miles Teller.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 33“Maverick” role: HangmanWhere you’ve seen him before: “Set It Up,” “Hidden Figures,” “Scream Queens”‘Top Gun’: The Return of MaverickTom Cruise takes to the air once more in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the long-awaited sequel to a much-loved ’80s action blockbuster.Review: The central question posed by the movie has less to do with the need for combat pilots in the age of drones than with the relevance of movie stars, our critic writes.Tom Cruise: At a time when superheroes dominate the box office, the film industry is betting on the daredevil actor to bring grown-ups back to theaters.A New Class: Thirty-six years after Iceman, Hollywood and Cougar, a new team of colorfully nicknamed characters have suited up for the sequel.Filming Challenges: The aerial feats on show in “Top Gun: Maverick” look like the result of digital wizardry. They aren’t.Powell originally auditioned to play Rooster (then called Rascal) but lost out to Miles Teller. Then, when Powell was offered the role that would become Hangman, he turned it down for fear it would be a copy-and-paste take on Val Kilmer’s antagonistic Iceman in the 1986 film. Cruise persuaded Powell to sign on, and they worked together to make the character distinctly Powell’s own. Still, the cocky, confrontational pilot shares more than a few traits with Iceman — as does Powell with Kilmer. When Powell moved out of the San Diego hotel where he had stayed during filming, he bumped into Kilmer, who had just arrived to shoot his scene. “The last things that I moved out of my room were protein powder, weights and tequila,” Powell said. “I’m literally wheeling them on a luggage cart into the elevator, and as the doors are about to close, Val steps in. He looks at me. Then he looks at the luggage cart. And he just started dying laughing. He’s like, ‘This is ‘Top Gun’ right here.’”Monica BarbaroThough the actress could change her character’s call sign, she had good reason to stick with it.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 32“Maverick” role: PhoenixWhere you’ve seen her before: “The Good Cop,” “Chicago Justice,” “UnREAL”The military did not allow women to fly in combat until 1993, and in the first “Top Gun,” all of the Navy fighter pilot characters were men. Barbaro’s role in the sequel is a reflection of the service’s inclusive shift, and her filmed flights were all handled by female Navy fighter pilots. “When I found out I got the part, I was like, ‘Mom, I got it! And guess what? I get to play a pilot. I’m not a love interest!’” the Northern California native said. “We used the women that we got to fly with as role models for how we designed the character.” And while the actors were allowed to change their characters’ call signs, it quickly became clear during the cast’s downtime together that “Phoenix” was a good fit for Barbaro: “Let’s just say, we had one pretty wild night, and the next morning they were surprised that I arose from the ashes.”Greg Tarzan DavisHe was a schoolteacher not long before turning to acting.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 28“Maverick” role: CoyoteWhere you’ve seen him before: “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Good Trouble,” “Chicago P.D.”Not long before landing “Maverick,” Davis was an elementary schoolteacher in his home state of Louisiana. “I’m a big believer in following your dreams. I would preach that to my students,” Davis said. “But I realized I wasn’t doing that — because my dream was to be an actor. So I decided to give it a shot.” In a role reversal, Davis, who has gone by Tarzan since his own “wild” youth, said he felt like a kid throughout production, enthralled by the aviation toys and tasked with learning new things. While “Maverick” was in postproduction, he got a call from Christopher McQuarrie, the writer-director of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”; the frequent Cruise collaborator was asking him to join the cast, no audition required. “I put the phone on mute and jumped up and down and screamed,” Davis said. “That was my first offer, and having an offer is an actor’s dream.”Lewis PullmanThe back story for his character’s call sign didn’t make it into the movie.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 29“Maverick” role: BobWhere you’ve seen him before: “Outer Range,” “Bad Times at the El Royale,” “Catch-22”Of all the call signs, Pullman’s “Bob” (also his character’s first name) is the most mysteriously straightforward. “Bob is reclusive and quiet and a hard nut to crack,” Pullman said. “One of the original drafts had this moment where he kind of earned his stripes, and Hangman says, ‘I think I know what Bob stands for: Big Ol’ Balls.’ They didn’t end up using that, but it gave me a reference for Bob’s trajectory. He starts out as this unassuming guy, who then finds his strength.” Pullman needed strength of his own when Cruise walked into the first table read. Despite being the son of the actor Bill Pullman, Lewis was star-struck. “Tom basically ripped through the doors. His motorcycle in the background. He’s got his helmet on. The sun is glistening. He takes his helmet off, and his hair is perfect,” he said. “Tom is like Cary Grant and Buzz Aldrin and Buster Keaton and Evel Knievel all woven into one man.”Jay EllisAs a boy, the actor saw the original “Top Gun” with his father on an Air Force base.Scott Garfield/Paramount PicturesAge: 40“Maverick” role: PaybackWhere you’ve seen him before: “Insecure,” “Escape Room,” “The Game”Ellis distinctly recalls the day his father, who was then a mechanic in the Air Force, took him to see the first “Top Gun” in a theater on base in Austin, Texas. “I remember just looking up at the screen thinking, ‘I want to do that. Whatever those guys are up there doing, I want to be a part of that somehow,’” he said. Rather than enlist, Ellis became an actor. Fast forward three decades, and he found himself shooting “Maverick” and paying homage to the original’s beach volleyball scene with a game of beach football as the camera panned over the cast’s glistening muscles for a sun-dappled montage. “We probably went through five different types of oil because the makeup team was trying to figure out what wouldn’t soak into everyone’s skin so quickly,” Ellis said. “We started out with baby oil, then we moved on to argan oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. We switched to glycerin at one point. They were spraying us down with Evian bottles. It made for a very slippery game.”Danny RamirezHe thought he wouldn’t have to worry about his fear of flying. He was wrong.Paramount PicturesAge: 29“Maverick” role: FanboyWhere you’ve seen him before: “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “On My Block,” “Assassination Nation”Before signing on, the actors had to check a box attesting they weren’t afraid of flying. “I lied,” Ramirez said with a laugh. “I was like, What’s the worst that could happen? It’s a Tom Cruise movie, that means he’ll be the one doing the stunts.” Without his usual commercial-flight routine of wine and noise-canceling headphones, Ramirez found himself struggling not to vomit as his F/A-18 rolled and dove through the air. The actors each had their own tricks to cope with motion sickness: Davis relied on Dramamine. Pullman preferred a preflight diet of rice and fresh ginger. For Ramirez, slowly building tolerance in incrementally smaller and faster planes was key. Adding to the degree of difficulty: They not only had to deliver their lines, but also set up the shots and adjust the cameras themselves once in the air. “I was like, ‘Are we going to get some kind of camera operator credit or what?’” he said. “Having to line up another jet going 500 miles an hour to stay within the frame was an experience I’m probably never going to have again.” More