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      The Best and Worst Moments of the 2022 Emmys

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      The show returned to a pre-Covid format, with the usual array of leaden gags, shameless commercialism and genuinely poignant moments.After two consecutive ceremonies shaped by the pandemic, the Primetime Emmys returned to what felt more or less like a pre-Covid format on Monday night. The awards were handed out in the celebrity-stuffed Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, and the corny bits were about TV clichés, not masks and social distancing.The show remained fixated on a milder existential threat, however: streaming services. The theme remained dominant even though the ceremony ran on Peacock as well as NBC, with the host, Kenan Thompson, working multiple Netflix digs into his monologue. “For one more year,” The Times’s Mike Hale wrote in his review of the telecast, “we got the weird spectacle of broadcast TV nervously proclaiming its relevance as if it wouldn’t have the chance to do so much longer.”Along the way, there was the usual array of leaden gags, shameless commercialism and genuinely poignant moments that transcended all the award-show contrivance. There was also, in the success of series like “Abbott Elementary,” evidence that the broadcasters still have some Emmy relevance left in them, even as prestige cable and streaming services claimed the biggest prizes. JEREMY EGNERGive Sheryl Lee Ralph another award.Sheryl Lee Ralph won her first Emmy on Monday, for her role in “Abbott Elementary.”Phil McCarten/Invision, via Associated PressA key to good comedy is having a distinctive voice. Sheryl Lee Ralph, the former “Dreamgirls” actress who won best supporting comedy actress for “Abbott Elementary,” has that in more ways than one.She took the stage and belted the opening lines of “Endangered Species” by Dianne Reeves before launching into a fervent acceptance that deserved a statuette of its own. JAMES PONIEWOZIK‘Abbott Elementary’ emerges.Quinta Brunson won the Emmy for best writing for a comedy series for her work on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” which she also created and stars in.Mark Terrill/Invision, via Associated Press“Abbott Elementary,” the breakout ABC sitcom set in a struggling Philadelphia public school, won two Primetime Emmys for its inaugural season, ahead of next week’s Season 2 debut.In addition to Ralph’s acting win, the show’s creator, Quinta Brunson, who also stars, picked up a prize for best comedic writing, and the series won a Creative Arts Emmy this month for best casting.Of its seven total nominations, one was for best comedy; had “Abbott” won, it would have been the first network comedy to do so since “Modern Family” in 2014. Based on its performance in its first time out, “Abbott” should be a top Emmy contender for years to come. KALIA RICHARDSONJennifer Coolidge wins and overshares.Accepting the supporting actress Emmy for her role in “The White Lotus,” Jennifer Coolidge made a disclaimer right up front. Mark Terrill/Invision, via Associated PressJennifer Coolidge won her first Emmy on Monday for her supporting role in the HBO anthology series “The White Lotus.” The show’s creator, Mike White, made the character specifically for Coolidge, who in her early 30s lost her own mother.True to the oversharing nature of the women she often plays, Coolidge was quick to offer a disclaimer up front: “I just want to say, you know, I took a lavender bath tonight right before the show, and it made me swell up inside my dress,” she said. “And I’m having a hard time speaking.” KALIA RICHARDSONHere comes the music …Cutting winners’ speeches short, the ceremony made time for tired bits, like this one, riffing on Mariska Hargitay’s and Christopher Meloni’s “Law & Order” characters.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe rhythm of the show was weirdly off. The intros, clips and bits often felt as if they were in the wrong order; the commentary from the announcer, Sam Jay, didn’t land, and the banter segments were too varied to hit a consistent pace. The ceremony just couldn’t find its stride.One conspicuous result was that while winners on award shows often note that the countdown clock for their speeches is intimidating, Monday’s Emmy winners seemed extra pressured and thus extra flustered. The show played off engaging winners like Quinta Brunson and Jennifer Coolidge while making plenty of time for inane “copaganda” segments and slow bits that went nowhere.The point of the show is the speeches! Let us have them! Budget the time better! MARGARET LYONSLizzo enlivens the show.Lizzo gave an elated acceptance speech after her reality show, “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” won the award for best competition program.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” took the award for outstanding competition program is a breath of fresh air for a stagnant category.“The Amazing Race” has won 10 times, “The Voice” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” each four times, and no show had won the category in its first season. There were so many as-predicted winners this year — not a vice per se; “Succession” is a great series — that this was especially refreshing, and Lizzo’s emotional acceptance speech helped energize a flagging show. MARGARET LYONSSnubbed but hilarious.Henry Winkler and the rest of the “Barry” creative team went home empty-handed on Monday.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressBoth “Barry” and “What We Do in the Shadows,” two of TV’s best comedies, got shut out. They lost out to worthy winners, but those shows are both extraordinary, and I hope “Shadows,” especially, gets its awards glory at some point. MARGARET LYONSWe played off Jennifer Coolidge for this?What’s the best way to celebrate what people love most about TV? Not with a surprise dose of what people hate most about TV.This year’s broadcast included a massive Kia ad, smuggled in under the guise of a sketch about TV dialogue. I know TV runs on car commercials, but this one drove me nuts. JAMES PONIEWOZIK‘Squid Game’ makes history.The “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae became the first person from a foreign-language series to win best actor in a drama.Mark Terrill/Invision, via Associated Press“Squid Game,” the dystopian Netflix drama that exploded into an international smash hit, made history on Monday, picking up multiple drama awards.Lee Jung-jae, the star of the series, took home the top acting prize and became the first person from a foreign-language show to win best actor in a drama. And Hwang Dong-hyuk won the drama directing Emmy. The series, Netflix’s most watched new series ever, according to the streamer, was also up for the Emmy for best drama, an award “Succession” ultimately won.Coming into Monday, the show had been nominated for 14 Emmys and won four, including awards for guest acting, stunts production design and visual effects, presented this month in the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony.In his acceptance speech, Lee praised the show and those involved with it for making “a realistic problem we all face come to life so creatively.” MATT STEVENS‘Ted Lasso’ doubles up.“Ted Lasso” repeated as best comedy.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesThe Apple TV+ comedy “Ted Lasso” enjoyed a strong Emmys night for the second consecutive year, taking home several top prizes, including its second win for best comedy.Jason Sudeikis likewise won best comedic actor for a second straight year, and Brett Goldstein once again broke his promise not to swear on TV (while picking up a repeat win for supporting actor). MATT STEVENS‘Succession’ reclaims the throne.The “Succession” creator, Jesse Armstrong, center, accepted the award for best drama, the second time the HBO series has won top honors at the Emmys.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Television Academy once again made “Succession” its favorite child, awarding that HBO dramedy about a Murdoch-like corporate clan the prize for best drama, solidifying its status as the most esteemed series on television right now. It previously was named best drama in 2020.Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, won for best writing for a drama series, but the show came up short in other areas — it won four of the 25 categories in which it was nominated, with Matthew Macfadyen taking the only acting prize, for his supporting role. (The fourth win was for casting.) — JULIA JACOBSMike White invokes ‘Survivor’ as ‘The White Lotus’ dominates.From left, the creator Mike White, the executive producer David Bernad and the actresses Alexandra Daddario and Sydney Sweeney of HBO’s “The White Lotus.”Kevin Winter/Getty Images“The White Lotus,” the hit HBO series that skewered the entitled behavior of wealthy vacationers, scooped up five Primetime Emmys, including the award for best limited series. The show’s creator, Mike White, who picked up back-to-back Emmys for writing and directing, compared his writing win to increasing his threat level on the reality competition show “Survivor,” on which he was once a contestant.“I just want to stay in the game,” he said, adding: “Don’t come for me. Don’t vote me off the island, please.” KALIA RICHARDSON More

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      ‘Succession’ Wins Best Drama at Emmys as HBO Triumphs Again

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      “Succession,” HBO’s portrait of a dysfunctional media dynasty, won best drama at the 74th Emmy Awards on Monday night, the second time the series has taken the prize.Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, also took home the Emmy for best writing, the third time he’s won in that category. And Matthew Macfadyen won best supporting actor in a drama for the first time for his performance on the show.It was the sixth time in eight years that HBO has taken the television industry’s biggest prize for a recurring series, making it yet another triumphant night for the cable network. HBO, as well as its streaming service, HBO Max, won more Emmys (38) than any other outlet, besting its chief rival, Netflix (26).“The White Lotus,” the cable network’s beloved upstairs-downstairs dramedy that took place at a Hawaiian resort, won best limited series, and tore through several other categories. The show won 10 Emmys altogether, more than any other series. Mike White, the show’s creator and director, won a pair of Emmys for best directing and writing. And performers from the show, Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge, both received acting Emmys.“Mike White, my God, thank you for giving me one of the best experiences of my life,” Bartlett, who played an off-the-wagon hotel manager, said from the Emmys stage.But HBO’s chronicles of the rich were not the only winners on Monday night.“Ted Lasso,” the Apple TV+ sports series, won best comedy for a second consecutive year, as the tech giant continues on an awards show tear. Apple TV+, which had its debut in November 2019, won best picture at the Oscars (“CODA”) earlier this year. And Jason Sudeikis repeated as best actor in a comedy as the fish-out-of-water soccer coach in “Ted Lasso.”There were other big moments in the comedy awards. Quinta Brunson, the creator of the good-natured ABC workplace sitcom, “Abbott Elementary,” about a group of elementary schoolteachers at an underfunded Philadelphia public school, won for best writing in a comedy. It was only the second time a Black woman won the award (Lena Waithe was the first, in 2017, for “Master of None”).In one of the night’s most electric moments, Sheryl Lee Ralph won best supporting actress in a comedy for her role on “Abbott Elementary” as a veteran teacher at the school. Ralph began her Emmys speech by singing “Endangered Species” by Dianne Reeves, and received a standing ovation from the room full of nominees. Her victory was also historic: It was only the second time a Black woman won the award. The last time was in 1987, when Jackée Harry won for her role in the NBC sitcom “227.”This has been the most competitive Emmys season ever: Submissions for all the categories surged, and 2022 is very likely to set yet another record for the highest number of scripted television series.But there was also a sense of concern among the executives, producers and agents in attendance at Monday night’s Emmy Awards, that 2022 represents the pinnacle of the so-called Peak TV era, which has produced the highest number of scripted television series, nearly every year, for more than a decade.Netflix, which lost subscribers this year for the first time in a decade, has laid off hundreds of staffers and is reining in its spending. HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, has shelved projects and is about to lay off a significant number of employees. NBC executives are considering ending its prime-time lineup at 10 p.m., and handing the hour over to local stations.Business challenges aside, the night was mostly a feel-good celebration. Zendaya won her second Emmy by taking best actress in a drama for her role as a troubled teen in HBO’s “Euphoria.” Jean Smart repeated as the best actress in a comedy for her role as a Joan Rivers-like comedian in HBO Max’s “Hacks.”“Squid Game,” the blood-splattered, South Korean Netflix series, won a pair of awards: Lee Jung-jae for best actor in a drama, and Hwang Dong-hyuk for directing. Those wins represented a major breakthrough for a foreign language show as television becomes more global, and as American audiences are increasingly receptive to series with subtitles.Michael Keaton, who played a small town doctor in “Dopesick,” took the best actor award in a limited series. And Amanda Seyfried won best actress in a limited series for her well-received performance as Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout.”Emmy voters often have a habit of finding a winner, and sticking with it, and this year was no different. John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” won the best talk show category for a seventh consecutive year, and “Saturday Night Live” took the best variety sketch series for a sixth straight year.This year’s ceremony was the first return to the Microsoft Theater since the pandemic. Producers for the Emmys incorporated an element that it experimented with at last year’s ceremony, which took place inside a tent: Instead of theater-style seating, nominees were gathered around tables with bottles of champagne and wine around them.This year’s host, Kenan Thompson, the “Saturday Night Live” veteran, opened the ceremony in a top hat and led a group of dancers in a bizarre interpretive dance to theme songs of famous TV series like “Law & Order,” “The Brady Bunch” and “Game of Thrones.”During his monologue, Thompson took a dig at Netflix’s recent woes.“If you don’t know what ‘Squid Game’ is, it is the contest you enter when you’re in massive debt and desperate for money,” the host said. “Joining the cast next season? Netflix.” More

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      2022 Emmy Winners: Updating List

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      The list of winners for the 74th annual Emmy Awards.[Follow live updates of the 2022 Emmy Awards here.]The 74th Emmy Awards are being broadcast live now from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles — and streaming live for the first time on Peacock.Similar to last year, the ceremony will be largely in-person and reminiscent of prepandemic award shows. Kenan Thompson, who won an Emmy in 2018 for his work on “Saturday Night Live,” is hosting.HBO’s satirical family drama “Succession” is up for the most awards, with 25 nominations including for best drama. At the Creative Arts Emmys, which was held over two ceremonies this month, it picked up its first award: outstanding casting for a drama series.The Apple TV+ sitcom “Ted Lasso” is up for 20 awards, including for best comedy and for best actor in a comedy for its lead, Jason Sudeikis. And “The White Lotus” is this year’s most nominated limited series, with 20 nods.The list below will be updated throughout Monday night’s ceremony.These are this year’s Emmy winners so far.Best Actor, Limited Series or TV MovieMichael Keaton, “Dopesick”Supporting Actress, DramaJulia Garner, “Ozark”Supporting Actor, DramaMatthew Macfadyen, “Succession”Supporting Actor, Limited Series or MovieMurray Bartlett, “The White Lotus”Documentary Or Nonfiction Series“The Beatles: Get Back” (Disney+)Documentary Or Nonfiction Special“George Carlin’s American Dream” (HBO)Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (HBO)Outstanding Variety Special, Pre-Recorded“Adele One Night Only” (CBS)Outstanding Variety Special (Live)“The Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show” (NBC) More

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      Natasha Rothwell Used to Be Paid in Beer

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      Voting is underway for the 74th Primetime Emmys, and this week we’re talking to several acting nominees. The awards will be presented on Sept. 12 on NBC.Natasha Rothwell used to be paid in beer at the Upright Citizens Brigade.During three-minute skits, she would impersonate an agitated therapist or a heckling dog watcher in the brigade’s blacked-out, basement theater in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. It was a raucous, feet-first entry to performing — and provided plenty to drink — for early career comedians looking for a glimmer of recognition or even Hollywood stardom.Now a decade later, instead of booze, she has received an Emmy nomination for her supporting role as an overworked and underappreciated spa manager in the HBO series “The White Lotus.”Rothwell’s first Emmy nod for acting is a pivotal moment for someone who had her beginnings on the New York improv stage and has since transitioned into directorial and acting roles with Netflix and HBO. To her, the nomination validates the hard work she has done to help give a voice to people of color who are often expected to keep hidden in the background.In “The White Lotus,” Rothwell, 41, plays Belinda, who works in the titular resort’s wellness center tending an endless parade of entitled guests, among them Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), who has traveled to Hawaii to scatter her mother’s ashes. To Tanya, Belinda is a miracle-worker, and she offers to fund a wellness business of Belinda’s own. But by the time Belinda creates a business plan, Tanya’s interest has wilted, and in the final episode she hushes Belinda with a wad of cash.“These characters aren’t glaringly problematic,” she said. “I mean for people of color our lenses are tuned and we know that it’s clearly problematic. But it’s not your MAGA-hat wearing Karen walking through, throwing privilege around.”“It’s the nuance of the privilege” as it was portrayed, she added, “that really provoked people.”The quiet storm churning in Belinda, Rothwell said, reflects the experience of service industry professionals who feel powerless in their position. (Rothwell herself took family photos at JCPenney and worked the drive-through window at McDonald’s before landing the big gigs.) She credits the writer and director Mike White for imbuing her character with tenderness and depth without making Belinda’s struggle the focal point.“She just wasn’t a prop in other people’s story; she had a drive and a desire,” Rothwell said. “He really highlighted the real experience of Black people in customer service where we can’t say what we think when we think it. We don’t have that luxury.”At U.C.B., Rothwell poured her heart into every character she played, something her manager, Edna Cowan, recognized immediately. In their first meeting, at Cowan’s apartment, Rothwell expressed her desire to break into the entertainment industry, which began their partnership of more than a decade.“I feel like I have matches in one hand and dry sticks in the other,” Rothwell recalled having said to Cowan. “And I just need someone to help me make fire.”More on the 74th Emmy AwardsThe 2022 edition of the Emmys, which celebrate excellence in television, will take place on Sept. 12 in Los Angeles.‘The White Lotus’: Natasha Rothwell’s nomination for her portrayal of an underappreciated spa manager is a pivotal moment for the actress, whose career began on the improv stage.‘Pam & Tommy’: After her Emmy-nominated role in the Hulu mini-series, Lily James has a new appreciation for the many complications of being Pamela Anderson.‘Severance’: Christopher Walken and John Turturro, both nominated for best supporting actor in a drama, drew upon their years of friendship in the techno-thriller.‘Dopesick’: Kaitlyn Dever is up for her first Emmy for her role as a young woman with an opioid addiction in the mini-series. She sought to approach the role with the utmost sensitivity.Cowan was among the first people Rothwell called after the Emmy nomination. Rothwell peeled from her bedsheets around 9:30 a.m., lurched for her phone — as she normally does — and watched as celebratory alerts overwhelmed her screen. She had made a calendar reminder on her phone to congratulate Coolidge, who was heavily favored for a nomination, but she had not anticipated receiving one of her own.She thought she was still dreaming.“I had to catch my breath,” Rothwell said. “It was pretty special.”As Rothwell wiped tears from her eyes, the two shrieked from excitement, scaring Rothwell’s salt-and-pepper goldendoodle, Lloyd Dobler, a reference to John Cusack’s character in “Say Anything.” Rothwell reminded Cowan of the analogy she had made in their first conversation.“We made fire, we made fire,” Rothwell recalled saying.Cowan, in a recent video interview, put it this way: “I think it’s the culmination of many years of consistently good work.”Natasha Rothwell, left, with Jennifer Coolidge; both received Emmy nominations for their roles in “The White Lotus.”Mario Perez/HBOBorn in Wichita, Kan., Rothwell grew up as an Air Force brat, living in bases around the world, from Florida to Turkey. (She attended two elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools.) She was thankful for being exposed to a variety of cultures, she said, but not all of her memories were good — such as being called the N-word for the first time, at her high school in Fort Walton Beach, Fla.“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” she remembered thinking. “Literally.”Such experiences motivated her to better understand human behavior. She joined an improv troupe at her second high school, in Maryland, which helped liberate her from obsessive, intrusive thoughts, and went on to study theater at University of Maryland. Her dream was to become a Broadway actor, and she felt discouraged after graduation when she kept landing mostly comedy roles.On the advice of one of her former professors, she decided to embrace her talent for comedy.“I’m so grateful that I stopped trying to resist my natural sort of inclination and was able to apply my dramatic skill set to comedy, which I think makes it hit harder,” she said.After “Saturday Night Live” was criticized in 2013 for not having a Black female cast member, the artistic director at U.C.B. informed Rothwell of special auditions; “S.N.L.” hired her as a writer in 2014 but she left after a single season, feeling undervalued.But things picked up quickly after that. In 2016, she was featured in the short-lived but critically admired Netflix comedy series “The Characters,” and later that year she began a full-series run as the protective and fiercely loyal friend Kelli Prenny in HBO’s “Insecure.” (She was also a supervising producer and writer of “Insecure,” sharing its Emmy nomination for best comedy in 2020, and directed an episode of the final season, her directorial debut.)As she helped develop her “Insecure” character, Rothwell asked herself: What would it be like to be in the world and not once doubt your worth or your value? She hoped Kelli’s unapologetic truth would allow Black, plus-sized viewers to feel seen, she said. Kelli was a character she had needed to see herself.“When I would walk through the airport of Philly, when I would be visiting my family, they’d be like, ‘Yes, Kelli, I see you!’ and it was just this love for her that made me protective of her,” she said.Although the role wasn’t official, she kept on her writer’s cap during the production of “White Lotus,” too. She remembered pulling White aside at one point and saying, “You know, we don’t talk the way we talk around y’all,” referring to the different ways people speak at work compared with in their personal lives.White was receptive to working the idea into the show, she said. In Episode 3, viewers see Belinda relax as she talks to her son about Tanya’s wellness center proposal, capturing one of the character’s few relieving moments.Given Rothwell’s reputation in comedy, people are often surprised, she said, when she takes on more serious roles. But she has tried not to let herself become limited to one genre, inspired, she said, by the versatility of performers like Robin Williams and Lily Tomlin. And she is still motivated by her early love for drama.“The comedy I write and am drawn to produce, direct and consume has both levity and gravity,” she said. “They necessitate each other.” More

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      Himesh Patel on the Pandemic, Fatherhood and ‘Station Eleven’

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      Voting is underway for the 74th Primetime Emmys, and this week we’re talking to several acting nominees. The awards will be presented on Sept. 12 on NBC.“I’m a little bit of a nerd,” Himesh Patel warned.That was on a recent Tuesday evening, on a video call from a red-walled room in his London home. Dressed in a black Adidas T-shirt, with a pair of white stripes snaking down each shoulder, he looked less like a nerd than someone ready to take the field.That is, until he began breaking down strategies for hay and brick trade deals in the board game “Settlers of Catan.”“You’re all sort of trying to trick each other into trading the wrong thing,” said Patel, 31, in a British accent that would be shocking to anyone who had seen only his performance in the post-apocalyptic HBO Max drama “Station Eleven.” The role earned him his first Emmy nomination, for best lead actor in a limited series. His Chicago accent was flawless.Hay and brick trades … Sounds … riveting?“I know,” he said. “It sounds lame, but it’s really fun and there’s lots of strategy involved.”Patel played a different kind of settler on the HBO Max series “Station Eleven,” based on the book by Emily St. John Mandel, which follows the survivors of a devastating pandemic in their efforts to rebuild society — with art and community more than bricks and hay. When Patel’s character, a freelance writer named Jeevan, decides to take in an orphaned young actress, Kirsten (Matilda Lawler), he must also navigate the challenges of becoming a de facto parent.Like Jeevan, Patel was an understated presence on the show, and his nomination — the show’s sole acting nod among the seven it earned overall, including for writing, direction and score — came as a surprise to many, himself included. (He found out on a train ride to visit his parents in London).“I like it that way,” said Patel, who, like Jeevan speaks softly and slowly, weighing every word. “I’m not very good at being on the red carpet.”Patel grew up in Cambridgeshire in eastern England, the child of Indian parents who were both born in Africa. (“I was a child of two worlds,” said Patel, who grew up speaking Gujarati.) He characterized his cultural upbringing as a cross between Bollywood films and fantasy blockbusters like “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings.” (If he had not become an actor, he said, he likely would have been a computer modeler.)After spending his teenage years doing plays with a local youth theater, he got his first big break when he was cast in “EastEnders,” the long-running British soap opera, when he was 16. He dropped out of school, then spent nine years playing the role of Tamwar Masood from 2007 to 2016.More on the 74th Emmy AwardsThe 2022 edition of the Emmys, which celebrate excellence in television, will take place on Sept. 12 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.‘The White Lotus’: Natasha Rothwell’s nomination for her portrayal of an underappreciated spa manager on the show is a pivotal moment for the actress, whose career began on the improv stage.‘Severance’: Christopher Walken and John Turturro, both nominated for best supporting actor in a drama, drew upon their years of friendship in the Apple TV+ techno-thriller.‘Dopesick’: Kaitlyn Dever is up for her first Emmy for her role as a young woman with an opioid addiction in the mini-series. As she prepared for the part, she sought to approach the role with the utmost sensitivity.Although “EastEnders” made him a star across the pond, American audiences began to notice him more when he landed the lead role in Danny Boyle’s 2019 musical romantic comedy “Yesterday,” in which he plays a struggling musician who suddenly becomes one of the few people in the world who remember the Beatles. Then he scored a role as the fixer Mahir in “Tenet” (2020), Christopher Nolan’s time-bending spy thriller.Even more recognize him now because of “Station Eleven” and his most recent film role: Playing the journalist love interest of Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) in Adam McKay’s star-studded 2021 disaster comedy “Don’t Look Up.”“If I’d told my 11-year-old self that, I think he would’ve been like, ‘Shut up, stop taking the piss out of me,’” he said, laughing.“Station Eleven” episodes did not begin airing until late last year, but Patel began work on the series in 2019, when the cast filmed the last shots of Episode 1, in which Jeevan and Kirsten leave the apartment and walk through the snow toward the lake, in Toronto, standing in for Lake Michigan, in Chicago. Then the pandemic sent them into lockdown. (They passed the time by playing board games over Zoom, with “Settlers of Catan” featuring heavily in the rotation.)“We didn’t change the story to try to make it feel more relevant,” Patel said. “But you could feel the influence of the pandemic creeping in.”Himesh Patel with Matilda Lawler in a scene from “Station Eleven.” Patel plays a freelance journalist who takes in an orphaned young girl as a pandemic rages.Parrish Lewis/HBO MaxThe show’s creator, Patrick Somerville, based the screen version of Jeevan on the character in Mandel’s novel, though he said he tailored the character to Patel’s acting style.“He has a stillness about him that was vital to the show actually working,” Somerville said in a video interview from outside the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, as Lake Michigan waves lapped in the background.“I’m the loudmouth of the group,” he added. But with Patel, he said, he learned that “one line — or no line — could carry the weight emotionally of a scene.”One particular scene in Episode 9, which wasn’t in the book, resonated deeply with Patel: A scene in a makeshift birth center, in which Jeevan becomes a birthing partner to a handful of women. The episode was filmed less than three months after Patel had watched his own wife give birth to their daughter.“I was in the early months of being a father and not knowing the ins and outs of how to do it when we shot that,” he said. “It was so easily accessible because I was going through it.”Lawler, who plays young Kirsten, said she saw a change in Patel after his daughter was born. “He had more of a fatherly presence” in their relationship, she said. (She had advice for him, too, she said: Learn how to braid hair, stat.)In a video interview from sleepaway camp in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, Lawler, who, as in the series, comes across as much older than her 13 years, said the bond between her and Patel was immediate and effortless — a chemistry that was reflected onscreen.“It’s a strange bond — we just naturally understood each other,” she said.She offered some other insights on Patel: He’s a great dancer. He’s fantastic at Ping-Pong. He’s “taller than I thought” and “absolutely not intimidating as a person.”“It’s disarming how inclusive he is,” she said. “He always made everyone feel really comfortable.”He is also, she confirmed, “kind of nerdy.”Hiro Murai, who was nominated for two directing Emmys this year — for the pilot of “Station Eleven” and for an episode of “Atlanta” — said he and Patel had a number of conversations about how to balance Jeevan’s emotional intimacy and the comedy, particularly in Jeevan’s relationship with Kirsten.“There’s something very funny about a guy who’s kind of a stunted adolescent trying to take care of this little girl who’s much older than him in spirit,” he said. “The humanity was the most important part, and the comedy had to come out of the character rather than leaning into situational jokes.”In the future, Patel, who recently wrapped shooting in Southport, N.C., on “Providence,” an indie murder-mystery comedy in which he stars alongside Lily James and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, would like to do more producing and potentially writing work, he said; one idea is for a series about the lives of the more than one million Indian soldiers who fought for the British Empire during World War I.“Those were a tumultuous few years in Britain in terms of identity and people understanding their cultural history,” he said, “There are lots of stories to help fill in.“What excites me,” he added, “is the opportunity to have so many brown actors in front of and behind the camera.” More

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      Lily James Experiences Beaches a Little Differently Now

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      Voting is underway for the 74th Primetime Emmys, and this week we’re talking to several acting nominees. The awards will be presented on Sept. 12 on NBC.Actors usually talk about the thrill of digging into a role, how excited they are when they crack the code. Lily James does evoke those emotions when asked about channeling Pamela Anderson in the Hulu mini-series “Pam & Tommy,” but there is always a slight shadow.She was scared, she said — and she got a little obsessive. She spent her hours in the makeup chair listening to collections of Anderson interviews and excerpts from shows like “Stacked,” “V.I.P.” and, of course, “Baywatch.”“I was so fricking terrified that I wasn’t going to pull it off,” James, who is British, said in a recent video conversation. (Her accent was one of many transformations she had to undertake for the role.) “I haven’t ever worked harder, just because it needed that.”She did pull it off: Her performance earned both wide praise — The New York Times’s James Poniewozik described it as “sneakily complex” when the show premiered, in February — and James’s first Emmy nomination. (“Pam & Tommy” got 10 nods overall, including one for best limited series.)During a recent video chat, the co-showrunners D.V. DeVincentis and Robert Siegel confirmed James was all in, all the time.“There was no hanging out or gossiping by the food, nothing like that,” DeVincentis, also a writer and executive producer on the show, describing her ethic on set. “If she wasn’t shooting she was always sitting listening to interviews with Pamela Anderson to keep the voice in her head.”“Also just being lovely and cheerful and approachable,” Siegel, who is also the creator, added quickly — lest anybody think James had gone to antisocial, diva-like extremes. “She had so many opportunities where she could have snapped or lost her temper, and it would have been completely forgivable and justified. She never really did.”James, 33, could not have been more cordial when we talked, even though she had to carve out time from her last moments of rest in Tuscany — where she was staying before moving on to Rome to start work on a film by Saverio Costanzo, the Italian director behind the Elena Ferrante adaptation “My Brilliant Friend” on HBO.She had the talking-with-her hands thing nailed already, and she looked relaxed and easygoing, with an excellent of sense of how to still look great on Zoom. She projected an endearing mix of low-key confidence and lighthearted self-deprecation, which included an overly severe assessment of her own interview skills.“I feel I’m really bad talking about work,” she said. “I always remind myself, ‘I’m an actor, so it’s fine, I don’t have to be good at this bit.’”Anderson is yet another step up for James, whose three-season stint as Lady Rose MacClare on “Downton Abbey” lifted her into increasingly high-profile roles — including the younger version of Meryl Streep’s Donna Sheridan in “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” and Ansel Elgort’s girlfriend in Edgar Wright’s stylish, bubble gum action movie “Baby Driver.”It wasn’t the first time she had played a historical person, though Churchill’s wartime secretary, Elizabeth Layton, who died in 2007, was in no position to nitpick the way James portrayed her in the period drama “Darkest Hour,” from 2017. Both title characters in “Pam & Tommy,” on the other hand, are very much alive.Lily James, left and Sebastian Stan as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, whose stolen and leaked sex tape become a tabloid phenomenon in the 1990s. Erin Simkin/HuluOne of the few moments of hesitation during our conversation came when I asked whether she had ever met Anderson — who was not involved in the series and let it be known afterward that she had not checked it out.“Still nothing,” James said, “and I totally respect that. That’s her choice. It’s a bizarre thing because I’ve played her, and I feel so attached but …” She drifted off. “I hope that if she was ever to watch it, she would feel that the show was just so behind her.”To break away from it all, James enjoys being in nature, away from people and cities. “When you see the perspective of the ocean and the horizon in front of you, you’re like, ‘Oh, this is all OK,’” she said.But asked whether she was still able to chill on beaches — or whether they now triggered visions involving rescue cans and slow-motion running — she flashed back to shooting a big “Baywatch” scene in “Pam & Tommy.”“That one is going to go down in my life as one of the craziest days,” she said, shaking her head. “There were paparazzi wading into the sea, taking pictures of me — and I’m someone that never likes to be photographed in my bikini, let alone in Pamela Anderson’s red bathing suit.”That suit is now an integral part of the 1990s cultural landscape. And if “Pam & Tommy” has achieved one thing, it’s to make us reconsider Anderson’s role in it, particularly the early part of her marriage to the Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan, who was also nominated for an Emmy), when the couple’s sex tape was stolen and found its way on the marketplace.Lee came out of the scandal fairly unscathed — rockers gonna rock — but Anderson was relentlessly mocked and vilified. “The show is about looking at our culpability as a human being, our lack of empathy,” James said. “The responsibility of how the show would be received weighed heavily on me, so I really couldn’t let it go, and I didn’t film for a long time afterwards.”“I didn’t feel able to,” she added. “I found myself still speaking in an American accent.”You can’t let yourself disappear in someone else’s life and psyche — and physical appearance — the way James did without being affected. “Pam & Tommy” may have felt like a bit of a lark on paper, but it led to some soul-searching.“It’s made me want to keep going and shoot for really challenging roles,” James said, adding, “I felt like I needed some sort of change in my career and this was it, a sort of crossroads.” More

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      in Theater

      Mary Alice, Tony Winner for Her Role in ‘Fences,’ Dies at 85

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      A former Chicago schoolteacher, she appeared on TV in ‘A Different World’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ winning an Emmy in 1993.Mary Alice, an Emmy- and Tony-award winning actress who brought a delicate grace and a quiet dignity to her roles in Hollywood blockbusters (“The Matrix Revolutions”), television sitcoms (“A Different World”) and Broadway plays (“Fences”), died on Wednesday in her home in Manhattan. She was 85, according to the New York City Police Department.The death was confirmed by Detective Anthony Passaro, a police spokesman, who said officers responded to a 911 call and found Ms. Alice unresponsive.A former Chicago schoolteacher, Ms. Alice appeared in nearly 60 television shows and films. In 2000, she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.She first gained widespread attention in the Broadway production of August Wilson’s “Fences” in 1987. She earned a Tony Award for best featured actress for playing Rose Maxson, a housewife in 1950s Pittsburgh forced to balance duty with anger toward a philandering husband (played by James Earl Jones, who also won a Tony), who is filled with rage after a promising career as a baseball player devolved into a grueling life as a garbage hauler.“Ms. Alice’s performance emphasizes strength over self-pity, open anger over festering bitterness,” Frank Rich wrote in a review for The New York Times. “The actress finds the spiritual quotient in the acceptance that accompanies Rose’s love for a scarred, profoundly complicated man.”The role had deep resonance for Ms. Alice, who based her performance on memories of her mother, her aunts and her grandmother, women “who were not educated, living in a time before women’s liberation, and their identities were tied up in their husbands,” she said in an interview with The Times that same year.“I decided very early that I did not want — well, not so much that I did not want to get married, but that I did want to find out about the world,” she added. “I did that through college, through learning, through books and travel.”Ms. Alice, left, with Ray Aranha, center, and James Earl Jones in “Fences.” Ron ScherlMary Alice Smith was born on Dec. 3, 1936, in Indianola, Miss., one of three children of Sam Smith and Ozelar (Jurnakin) Smith. When she was a small child, the family moved to Chicago, where they lived in a house on the Near North Side that was later demolished to make way for the Cabrini-Green housing project.No immediate family members survive.Viewing teaching as a path to a stable, middle-class life, she graduated from Chicago Teachers College (now Chicago State University) in 1965 and took a job teaching at a public elementary school.Even so, she aspired to be an actress. “It was escapism,” she told The Chicago Tribune in 1986, adding: “We never lacked for anything. But my parents got up before the sun rose and worked all day. My father was tired. My mother had to cook. When I went to the movies, those people on the screen didn’t have to work.”Dropping the surname “Smith” and moving to New York City in 1967, Ms. Alice trained at the Negro Ensemble Company, landing in an advanced acting class taught by Lloyd Richards, the artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theater who went on to direct “Fences.” Ms. Alice, left, and Beatrice Winde in “Sparkle,” a 1976 film loosely based on the singing group the Supremes.Everett CollectionThroughout the 1970s and the early ’80s, she made numerous appearances in sitcoms like “Good Times” and “Sanford and Son,” while carving out a film presence in “Sparkle,” a 1976 musical loosely based on The Supremes, and “Beat Street,” the 1984 break-dancing film that helped nudge hip-hop culture into the mainstream.She earned praise onstage in a 1980 Off Broadway production of “Zooman and the Sign,” featuring Frances Foster and Giancarlo Esposito, as well as a 1983 Yale Rep production of “Raisin in the Sun,” featuring Delroy Lindo.After her success with “Fences,” she played Lettie Bostic, a resident director at a historically Black college who has an intriguing past, in “A Different World,” a spinoff of “The Cosby Show.” A year after that, she drew praise as the mother of Oprah Winfrey’s matriarch character in “The Women of Brewster Place,” a television mini-series based on the Gloria Naylor novel about a group of women living in a run-down housing project.By the 1990s, she had become a familiar face in film. She had roles in Charles Burnett’s “To Sleep With Anger” featuring Danny Glover, and in Penny Marshall’s “Awakenings” featuring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, in 1990; and in Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” with Denzel Washington in the title role, two years later.She also appeared in “The Bonfire of the Vanities” as the mother of a teenager struck by a car in a hit-and-run accident.Ms. Alice, right, and Jasmine Guy in a 1988 episode of the NBC sitcom “A Different World.” NBCU Photo Bank/GettyIn 1992, she was nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for her role in “I’ll Fly Away,” a series starring Sam Waterston and Regina Taylor and set in a fictional Southern town in the 1950s; she won the award for the same role the following year.Ms. Alice nearly took home another Tony in 1995. She was nominated for best actress for her performance as the fiery Bessie, one of two centenarian sisters looking back on a century of life, in “Having Our Say,” Emily Mann’s Broadway adaptation of the best-selling 1994 memoir by Sarah (Sadie) L. Delany and her sister Annie Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany, written with Amy Hill Hearth.Ms. Alice replaced Gloria Foster as the Oracle in the third installment of the Matrix film series in 2003, and continued acting until 2005, when she appeared in a television reboot of the 1970s detective show “Kojak.”“Acting has been a big sacrifice,” she told The Tribune in 1986. “I sometimes think that if I had continued to be a teacher, I would be retired already. The income would have been constant. But I didn’t feel about teaching the way I do about acting. It’s my service in life. I’m supposed to use it.” More