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      Tim Baltz on B.J.’s Test in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’

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      Sunday’s episode was a test for Baltz’s character, but B.J. seized the moment. Still, his victory came at a price.This interview contains spoilers for Sunday night’s episode of “The Righteous Gemstones.”The first thing to know is that the testicles were fake — in one of the shots, at least. Anyone who has seen Sunday night’s episode of the HBO televangelist family satire, “The Righteous Gemstones,” knows which shot.Near the end of the episode, the sixth of Season 3, Tim Baltz’s character, B.J., gets in a brutal brass-knuckle fight with a naked man that spills onto a suburban front lawn. Just when it seems that B.J. is out cold, his eyes fly open and he reaches, grabs, twists. The neighborhood children watch in horror.In an instant, the typically mild-mannered B.J. has victory well in hand. His nemesis, the philandering Christian rock guitarist Stephen (Stephen Schneider), drops to his knees and pays a brutal price for his affair with B.J’s. wife (Edi Patterson).It was a difficult scene to film, Baltz said last month by video from his home in Los Angeles, and not only because of the endless takes. He also did most of his own stunts — and accidentally got punched in the face several times.“There were a lot of little very quick decisions that either injured us, or barely avoided injury,” Baltz said of shooting the scene, which took all day. He added: “That’s the most intense day of work I’ve ever had.”Baltz grew up in Joliet, Ill., near Chicago, and he has the kind of boyish blond looks, deadpan delivery and cheery Midwestern affect that can make it difficult to tell whether he’s putting you on. (Given the circumstances, I believed him about the shoot.) That affect is one reason he is so convincing as B.J., a sensitive soul who lets his wife dress him in shiny pink rompers and who Rollerblades in full protective gear: It’s hard to believe that anyone could ever really be that earnest; B.J. keeps surprising you because he really is.“Despite being an atheist or a nonbeliever, he’s the most pious and religious character in the show,” Baltz said. “Which is odd,” he added, for a character who married into a family of preachers.Baltz’s character, B.J., has been a pushover for most of the series but Sunday’s brutal battle was a turning point.Jake Giles Netter/HBOB.J. also may be the most meme-worthy character in “Gemstones,” which is saying something in a show created by and starring Danny McBride. Baltz talked about the character, his outfits and the true cost of B.J.’s fight. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.First things first: How did you guys choreograph that, uh, decisive shot?That fight scene took an entire day to film. Once we got outside, we were worried about losing light, and with the camera looking up, the camera moving, I have to grab these fake testicles. I’m looking up at Stephen, who’s barely covering his own junk, and I’m like: “All right man, here we go, and we’ve got to get it right for the camera, too.”There was a stuntman involved for at least some of your parts, right?Yeah. My stunt double for the show has been a guy named T. Ryan Mooney, who looks shockingly like me. Same body type, too. To be honest, I don’t think that I’m like B.J. in real life, but I never feel more like my character than when I watch a guy who looks like me and has my body type do insane stunts, and he does it for a living. It’s kind of emasculating. But aside from B.J. getting thrown through the lattice work or when he gets dragged off the brick steps into the front yard, every shot you see, I did.Stephen seems like a champ for having done his whole part naked. What were your conversations about the scene like?He was really awesome. He was wrestling with whether he should go au naturel or use a prosthetic. It ended up being the last shoot day of the season for both of us, so there was a lot of buildup and anticipation. Stephen would come into town every few months to film stuff, and I would be like, “Let me take you out to dinner, man, because we’re going to have an intense day.” And then halfway through the season, he’s like: “I’m going to do it. I’m going to be naked. I just think there are only so many challenges in life, and I see this as a challenge.”Baltz tried to get to know his co-star Stephen Schneider ahead of time. “By the end, I considered him a dear friend, this naked guy I had to fight,” he said.HBOPresumably he had to get your consent.I mean, the intimacy coordinator definitely called several times to prep me. But for me, it was more like: “All right, this guy’s being really vulnerable with this. So every time he comes into town, we’re going to get to know each other so that we’re buddies going into this.” And honestly, it really worked. By the end, I considered him a dear friend, this naked guy I had to fight.You’ve played around with this image of the wholesome naïf a lot over the years. How much of that feels like you?I grew up playing sports — I was hypercompetitive. I really am not like [B.J.] at all. If I relate to the character in any way, it’s just the kindness and the generosity that he has, and I think a lot of people see that as being a mark in our society.When you book something, you lean into it as hard as you can whether it’s a nice character or someone creepy. But this one in particular you have to understand, Where does the unconditional love come from? And how do I keep in touch with that? This season that really gets tested for the first time, and it gets tested so much that he thinks that he has to change who he is. And the fight scene is the culmination of that.After the fight, B.J. tells Judy, “I hope you like me now.” Does he feel worse about beating up Stephen than he feels about having gotten beat up himself?I think he’s probably more hurt that he betrayed his own values. Danny always said: “When you play B.J., he’s the eyes of the audience within the show. He’s looking at the family the way we all look at the family.” I’ve carried that with me the entire time. So that moment is, “Not only did you cheat on me, but you made me betray myself.”Do you think there’s any part of standing up for himself that he takes in a positive way?I think so. It’s a fascinating evolution of the character. When I first read it, I was excited because I think it puts that card on the table for him. I think parts of our culture see something like that as a rite of passage, or something that you have to rise to the occasion to do. So in that sense, he does do it. But when he comes back, you can also look at that final line as saying, “I’m not the same anymore, so I hope you like what this has changed me into.” You can’t go back after something like that.Baltz said he his not anything like B.J. “If I relate to the character in any way, it’s just the kindness and the generosity that he has,” he said.Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesIt’s like a more complex George McFly moment.Right. The sliding-door part of that [“Back to the Future”] trilogy is you see what happens if he doesn’t throw the punch, and his life is miserable. And then if he does throw the punch, everything is saved and the family’s OK. With this, I think B.J. probably looks at it and is like, “No, that’s a doorway that I can step back and forth from as I see fit now.” The truth is, his values are, “You shouldn’t do that.” He was forced to do it, and he rose to the occasion. But if given a choice, then he probably wouldn’t.Can we talk about the outfits? There’s a flamboyant dimension to them, and I’ve always wondered what that signifies.There’s a blend of a few things. First, I think he starts as Judy’s kept man; this is her wardrobe for him, and he feels a bit out of place. And then I think he gets more comfortable with it and starts to take bigger swings. Also, if you walk down King Street in Charleston [S.C., where the series is filmed], you will see guys kind of dressed like that. Maybe not as opulent, but the color palettes — there’s a lot of pastels.A lot of salmon.Before I’d really explored Charleston and saw some of these outfits, I thought, “Whoa, this is really out there.” And then in the real world you see it, and these people aren’t making a joke of it. They’re going about their regular lives. I always say that if B.J. was a Christian holiday, he’d be Easter because of the pastels. And it’s incumbent on me to feel comfortable and live in those outfits without making them the point of the joke. More

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      Danny McBride Keeps It Righteous

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      The party started early. Like, 10:30 a.m., still-drinking-lousy-hotel-coffee early. It was late March, a warm and overcast coastal morning, and all I knew of the day’s schedule was that Danny McBride, the creator and star of the HBO comedy “The Righteous Gemstones,” planned to swing by with a driver who would take us to an oyster farm, located somewhere among the islands and salt marshes of South Carolina Lowcountry.I did not expect him to arrive in a fully stocked party bus with several of his closest associates, including his longtime collaborator David Gordon Green, though in retrospect perhaps I should have. While reporting a different story two months earlier, I had met Walton Goggins, who plays the oily televangelist Uncle Baby Billy in “Gemstones.” When I told him that I was going down to Charleston to see McBride, who lives and produces the series in the area, Goggins responded, “I hope you like tequila.”As an icebreaker, I shared this anecdote with McBride. On cue, his wife, Gia, an art director, furnished a bottle of Código 1530. “This is George Strait’s tequila!” McBride beamed, and a look ping-ponged around the bus that asked, “Too early?”It was not too early. As we raised candy-colored plastic shot glasses in the glow of two TV screens made to look like aquariums, I decided to stash my notebook for a while: Day 1 of my visit would be less about taking notes than about taking in the life McBride has made for himself since moving here from Los Angeles.McBride does little press, so getting to know him was, of course, the goal. When “Gemstones” returns on Sunday for Season 3, it brings back what has been the most Danny McBride of his creative efforts. It is his third HBO series — following the cult-favorite baseball comedy “Eastbound and Down” (2009-13) and the deranged public school comedy “Vice Principals” (2016-17) — and he created it alone. It sets a new personal benchmark for creative cursing and comic male nudity, which was already high.McBride created “The Righteous Gemstones” and stars as Jesse, the eldest son in a family of televangelists. (With Walton Goggins.)Jake Giles Netter/HBOMcBride’s characters offer “a funny and deeply complex view of men in general, especially men in America,” said his “Gemstones” co-star Edi Patterson. (With Adam Devine.)Jake Giles Netter/HBOIt is also his most Southern show. Both previous HBO series were set down South, but “Gemstones” is the first since he and his production company, Rough House Pictures, which he shares with Green and another longtime collaborator, Jody Hill, moved from Los Angeles to Charleston in 2017. It’s a true hometown production.Of McBride’s various creations, his most beloved have been Southerners who embody a flamboyantly American brand of male chauvinism, and Jesse Gemstone is no exception. The eldest son in a dysfunctional family of rich televangelists, Jesse vies perhaps only with the hard-partying narcissist Kenny Powers of “Eastbound” for McBride’s biggest blowhard, a high bar.It is the kind of satire that comes from a deep place of knowing. The kind whose execution appears so effortless that its target might not realize it is satire.“I know probably not his whole audience sees it the way I do — they’ll think, like, ‘Oh, I’m exactly like Kenny Powers,’ or whatever — but I think that’s part of the fun and part of the appeal,” said Edi Patterson, who plays Jesse’s unhinged sister, Judy, and is a “Gemstones” writer. “It’s such a funny and deeply complex view of men in general, especially men in America.”But “Gemstones” has also seen McBride, 46, broadening his creative range. He oversees every script, directs episodes. Its cast is a true ensemble, and its many characters and subplots have enabled him to explore new kinds of stories and relationships, some with tear-jerking sensitivity.Friends and colleagues reliably describe him as genuine, inclusive, a deep thinker. But more than many screen stars he is both blessed and dogged by fans who sometimes have trouble remembering he is not his boorish characters.I wondered whether the lines ever blurred for him, and whether the fan confusion chafed. The answer to both, he insisted, was no. He had left Hollywood and built a tight creative community 2,500 miles away for many reasons, and one of them seemed to be to preserve his integrity of self.“You can think I’m whatever, and if it makes you like the show more because you think that’s me, go for it,” he said the next day as we toured the “Gemstones” studios, located at a mall, inside a former Sears. “I would rather people not know what my deal is than clearly have an understanding of where the line is drawn.”“I don’t see myself as some alpha, and so I feel like there’s something inherently that makes me laugh about trying to present myself like an alpha,” McBride said.Elizabeth Bick for The New York TimesFunny enough, comedy is not McBride’s favorite genre — he prefers horror and reality TV — nor is it something he always pursued.Early on, he also didn’t imagine himself on camera. He wanted to write and direct. Raised Baptist, mostly in Fredericksburg, Va., he went to film school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, in Winston-Salem, where he met Green; Hill; John Carcieri, another writer for “Gemstones”; and Ben Best, who created “Eastbound” with Hill and McBride and died in 2021. The film school was tiny, and then only two years old.“Everybody in that school was a misfit or a reject,” Green said. Their group bonded over one another’s VHS collections and found creative kinship and freedom. “It was all just a bunch of kids that kind of were trying to figure it out,” he said.Green was the first to make a splash after college with the critically lauded indie film “George Washington” (2000). After a main cast member of his next feature, “All the Real Girls” (2003), bailed a week into shooting, Green called “the funniest guy I know,” McBride, who was doing below-the-line postproduction work in Los Angeles.McBride asked his boss for time off, was denied, then quit and drove to North Carolina, where Green was shooting. The film debuted to rapturous reviews.Still, McBride’s break came a few years later with “The Foot Fist Way” (2008). Directed by Hill and written by Hill, Best and McBride, the film starred McBride as a Southern strip-mall taekwondo instructor whose ego grossly outstrips his skills. Copies circulated after its 2006 Sundance debut, landing eventually with Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, then producing partners, who got it into theaters. “Eastbound,” which McKay and Ferrell executive produced, soon followed.“With comedy, one of the tricks is knowing how you come off just physically,” McKay said. “And Danny knows he comes off like a guy who, if you cut him off in the parking lot of a Sam’s Club, would key your car while you’re in there shopping.”McBride said he was always satirizing a certain kind of guy he grew up with, a kind of guy he was not. He seemed amused by the outward contradiction.“I don’t see myself as some alpha, and so I feel like there’s something inherently that makes me laugh about trying to present myself like an alpha,” McBride said over lunch on Day 2 at a restaurant near his home. (McBride lives on an island near Charleston, and he had driven us there in his golf cart.)“They’re all just sort of dudes that I think have subscribed to this antiquated way of what the rules are, like what a dude’s supposed to be,” he added. “They’ve committed to it, and then the reality of it isn’t adding up to the illusion.”“Danny knows he comes off like a guy who, if you cut him off in the parking lot of a Sam’s Club, would key your car while you’re in there shopping,” Adam McKay, a past collaborator, said.Elizabeth Bick for The New York TimesMcBride and I talked a lot about masculinity, about fathers and sons. It is a central theme of “Gemstones” — and the Bible, he noted — with its “Succession”-like story about a powerful megachurch pastor (John Goodman) and his three feckless children. (Adam Devine plays the younger brother, Kelvin.) McBride’s own father left when he was young, and he hasn’t seen him since high school. But he insisted he isn’t resentful.“I like how my life turned out,” said McBride, himself a father of two. “Him exiting from our life is probably part of what enabled me to be able to go on and do the things that I did.” The biggest effect it had on his life, he said, was to make him more determined to be a supportive parent.McBride loves his characters and the South in the complex, sometimes ruthless way of familial love. On the surface, “Gemstones” picks some easy marks — megachurches, new money, homoerotic jocks; Season 3 promises monster trucks and militias — but soft targets can be tougher to nail. What allows for authenticity is affection, however complicated.“That’s the tightrope,” he said. “A lot of times I see, when things in the South are presented, it’s always such a boring take.”Back on Day 1, after we all spilled out of the party bus, we wound up on a muddy oyster skiff off Wadmalaw Island, several shots down, pulling salty Sea Cloud oysters straight from their floating cages. Still, having only just met McBride, it was hard not to wonder how much of the day’s events were a show put on for the benefit of a reporter — a good-time performance by a performer who plays characters who are constantly performing.I asked everyone I talked to about him afterward; they all insisted I shouldn’t flatter myself.“I want you to feel really special right now, but that’s kind of Danny,” said Cassidy Freeman, who plays Jesse’s beleaguered wife, Amber. When McBride is the ringmaster, “everyone’s invited,” she added. Hill called him “the fun coordinator of our group.”Cassidy Freeman, who plays the wife of McBride’s character in “Gemstones,” described him as an inveterate host.Jake Giles Netter/HBOWhen I reported back to Goggins, he put it this way: “He’s certainly not doing that as a way to impress you.” Whoever shows up, McBride “just rolls out the red carpet.”McBride seems to find community wherever he goes. Otherwise, he imports it. Green moved from Austin to Charleston. Rough House’s president, Brandon James, who was on the boat, moved with McBride from Los Angeles. As of last month, Hill was preparing to move there with his pregnant wife. For a time, the country singer Sturgill Simpson was in the Charleston crew. He’s in Season 3.It seems like creative utopia. The region’s lower production costs have made it easier for Rough House to develop an array of dream projects, relying on local crews fed and ferried by local businesses. Green’s 2018 “Halloween” sequel, which McBride helped write, was an early example. Green’s first film in their “Exorcist” sequel trilogy, for which McBride has a story credit, is scheduled for October.“I think what they’re doing is going to now become the norm with what’s changing here in Hollywood and the way commercial entertainment is made,” McKay said. “I think stuff is going to go hyperlocal, and I think it’s going to be really cool.”Dare to dream. For now, McBride seems genuinely grateful to have found a way to keep poking fun at things with his closest friends — to keep the party going.“Ultimately it’s really just trying to entertain people and give them something funny to laugh at,” he said. “It makes us laugh. And so we assume hopefully it will make other people laugh, too.” More

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      ‘The Idol’: The Weeknd, Sam Levinson and Lily Rose-Depp on Their Graphic Pop Drama

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      In an interview, the Weeknd, Sam Levinson and Lily Rose-Depp discussed their controversial new HBO drama. “Running headfirst into that fire is what thrills us all,” Levinson said.From left, Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a. the Weeknd), Sam Levinson and Lily-Rose Depp during filming of “The Idol.” The series, premiering Sunday on HBO, has already been the subject of scathing reports and reviews.Eddy Chen/HBOLast month, the director Sam Levinson and his stars, Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a. the Weeknd) and Lily-Rose Depp, walked into the Lumière Theater at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of the first two episodes of their show, “The Idol,” to a standing ovation. The lights hadn’t yet dimmed, but celebrity fuels Cannes, where ovations are cheap. By the time the screening was over, the amped-up crowd was on its feet again and critics were racing out to fire off some of the most scathing reviews to emerge from this year’s event, with pans studded with barbs like “regressive,” “chauvinistic,” “skin-crawling” and “grim disaster.”“The Idol” centers on a chart-busting pop star, Jocelyn (Depp), who, in the wake of a nervous breakdown, is prepping for a comeback. Surrounded by handlers — the cast includes Hank Azaria, Troye Sivan, Jane Adams, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and the horror-film impresario Eli Roth — Jocelyn has made a lot of money for a lot of self-interested people. One night at a Los Angeles dance club, she meets Tedros (Tesfaye), a smooth-talking enigma with a rattail. Before long, she has invited him back to her mansion and they’re grinding in the shadows, and a mystery has taken root: What in the world is she doing with this guy?Created by Levinson, Tesfaye and Reza Fahim, “The Idol,” which premieres on Sunday, was already a heat-seeking target by the time it played at Cannes. In April 2022, word hit that its original director, Amy Seimetz, had left the show amid a creative overhaul. For whatever reason, the brain trust at HBO decided to pump up the show’s notoriety in a teaser, released three months later, that trumpeted Levinson and Tesfaye as “the sick & twisted minds” behind “the sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood.” But unwanted attention arrived this past March in a damning Rolling Stone article that, among other rebukes, accused Levinson’s version of being “a rape fantasy.” That teaser has since disappeared from HBO’s YouTube channel.Levinson, Tesfaye and other “Idol” collaborators have vigorously defended the show and its creators. “The process on the set was unbelievably creative,” Azaria said at a news conference a day after the Cannes premiere, as Adams nodded along. “I’ve been on many, many a dysfunctional set, believe me,” Azaria continued. “This was the exact opposite.”For his part, Levinson, who is best known for “Euphoria,” yet another HBO show about a beautiful young woman in crisis, said at the news conference that the specifics in the article felt “completely foreign.” But he also seemed to welcome the controversy.“When my wife read me the article,” he explained, “I looked at her and I just said, ‘I think that we’re about to have the biggest show of the summer.’”On the day after the “Idol” news conference, I met with Levinson, Tesfaye and Depp — whose father, Johnny Depp, was also at the festival this year — for a sit-down at the Carlton Cannes, one of the grand hotels that faces the Mediterranean in this rarefied resort city. We talked about the show while tucked into a private patio corner, just out of earshot of nervously hovering publicists and other minders. During our chat, Levinson and his two colleagues alluded to the negative reviews, but if they were upset by them, they didn’t show or share it.“I’m still spinning from it,” Levinson said of the premiere. “It was maybe the most surreal moment I’ve had — I don’t really leave my house much.” These are edited excerpts from the interview.Can we talk about the genesis of “The Idol”?SAM LEVINSON Abel and I have known each other for quite a few years, and we’ve always wanted to work together. We got on a Zoom because I’d heard he has this project. The genesis was he said, “Look, if I wanted to start a cult, I could. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing.”ABEL TESFAYE I actually don’t remember saying that [laughs]. I think I was just trying to say anything to finally work with you. I’ve always wanted to work with Sam; we’ve been friends forever. It was more about celebrity culture and how much power they have.How much power they have?TESFAYE It’s probably hard to believe, but I can’t see myself in that way. I never have. Even when I move around with security, it feels so weird because I don’t ever want to be seen. I feel like I have to be seen — fans want to see who they listen to, who they love. But for me, celebrity culture was always fascinating, and how much power they have on their fans.Depp plays a pop star named Jocelyn who comes under the sway of an enigmatic man named Tedros, played by Tesfaye.Eddy Chen/HBOLily, you grew up in a famous family, but it was fame by proxy.LILY-ROSE DEPP I’ve experienced it by proxy since birth. That’s simultaneously a strange thing and also not strange at all, because I don’t know anything different. My childhood looks nothing like Jocelyn’s, a character who has been working from a young age, and who was a child performer and had a mother who was pushing her. My childhood was never going to be “normal,” but they gave us the best sense of normalcy that we could have.Did you watch any of the Britney Spears documentaries?TESFAYE It’s not about Britney at all, but how could we not pull inspiration from Britney, from Madonna, from every pop star that’s gone through any kind of serious pain? I’ve always called Lily one of the creators of the show, because I couldn’t write Jocelyn until we knew who was going to play her. Once Lily got the role, she and Sam worked together on creating the character. What I could provide was the music industry around her — management, labels, touring, everything that I know.DEPP I was so nervous about the musical aspect. It’s not what I do and this character has been doing this her entire life. I remember the first time that I had to sing in front of Abel, I was, like, I’m going to blow my brains out. Little by little, we got to know each other more and got comfortable with each other.LEVINSON We basically moved into Abel’s house, which was our shooting location. We knew that we were going to shoot the entire show in this one place, so we turned it into a live set.Abel, obviously performing for a live audience is different from performing in a music video, and this is very different.TESFAYE I never wrote Tedros for myself; it was Sam who planted the idea. I just focused on being Tedros and living as the character and spending all my time with Sam and listening and allowing him to just be my teacher. Tedros is such a dark, complicated, scary, pathetic human — I had to just distance myself from who I am. And it’s scary, you know, it’s a big risk.“Tedros is such a dark, complicated, scary, pathetic human,” Tesfaye said of his character.Eddy Chen/HBOSo far, the only pathetic thing about him is his hair.TESFAYE We made sure of it. He’s pathetic. It’s funny, we were in the theater watching Tedros and there are moments where only us three were laughing. People have no idea ——LEVINSON —— where it goes. The moment that Tedros clicked for me and, I think, for Abel was, imagine you have all of this ambition, all of this drive, this ability to tell a story through music. But none of the talent. So you have to find a puppet, someone to work through. I also think part of what was fascinating is that he’s rolling up to this mansion and it’s a world that he’s never been invited into. She opens this door ——TESFAYE —— like Dracula, inviting him in.In the first episode there’s a lot of comedy about the intimacy coordinator who doesn’t want Jocelyn to expose part of her body. What is agency for someone brought up in a bubble?DEPP I totally respect and love intimacy coordinators. I think they belong on sets, and that it’s important to make everybody feel safe. I’m very comfortable saying, “I’m fine to do this or not this,” but some people aren’t. At the same time, you have to have this nudity rider, it has to be submitted in advance and it has to be signed by this person and the lawyer. It becomes this very structured legal thing when the purpose is to give freedom and safety to the person who may or may not be doing nudity. You literally can’t make a decision about your own body.“I think that they are two twisted psychopaths who love each other,” Depp said. “She’s going to use him, too.”Eddy Chen/HBOIs Jocelyn her own person? She’s surrounded by this apparatus. Abel, is the show inspired by your life in terms of wanting to do what you want to do?TESFAYE There have been moments where I’ve felt like it is me-against-them. But because of my situation — I own my masters — I’m very fortunate. But what if I didn’t? They would automatically win: 99.99999 percent of pop stars don’t have that and are in Jocelyn’s position. So it’s not autobiographical; it’s like an alternate reality.LEVINSON That’s part of what we wanted to set up. Here is this machine and we’re not sure how complicit she is. We see how it grinds her down. But that moment of agency is when they’re in bed and Tedros says, “Maybe I should move in for work purposes.” You see this slight smile on her face. That’s her going, I’ve got him. He’s hooked.DEPP It’s going to be easy for the audience to immediately think, Oh my God, he’s using her. I think that they are two twisted psychopaths who love each other. She’s going to use him, too.TESFAYE Everything is very intentional. We knew that the reaction was going to be the way it is because of those two episodes.Much of the early talk surrounding the show has been about the amount of nudity. Lily, were you surprised by how your body was shown?DEPP No, honestly. Her bareness, physically and emotionally, was a big part of the discussions that we all had. Those were decisions I was completely involved in. There are many women who have felt exploited by the nudity they’ve done and have thought, I didn’t feel great about that. But I’m comfortable performing in that way, I enjoy it. It informed the character. In the conversation around the risqué aspects, there’s the implication that it’s something being consistently imposed upon women. Obviously, that has been true a lot historically.LEVINSON It also plays into that feeling that the audience has: Oh, she’s a victim. She has to be a victim. I believe people will underestimate Jocelyn as a character because of how exposed she is.I wondered about all the nudity, and about having a Black man be the villain.LEVINSON Playing into those stereotypes in the first couple of episodes is important for the journey and the arc and the emotional experience. It has a way of disorienting us because of our knowledge of who we are, and what has happened in the world. I think the audience will slowly begin to see who the true villain of the piece is.TESFAYE We wanted to make a fun show, as well. It’s a thriller. There are a lot of topics, but it’s really important that it’s entertaining as well.Do you worry about how the show will be received, given that larger discussions about race, gender and representation are so fraught right now?LEVINSON That’s what makes it exciting, that these discussions are fraught. I think running headfirst into that fire is what thrills us all.TESFAYE Someone’s got to do it. No one’s really doing it now. They just need to see the whole show.DEPP We always knew that we were going to make something that was going to be provocative and perhaps not for everyone. That was a draw for all of us. I don’t think any of us were interested in making anything that was going to be, you know, fun for the whole family.TESFAYE When I first started making music, it was the exact same thing. It was provocative, and I knew it was going to be tough for people. And a lot of people didn’t like it. Not to compare it, but I feel that this is kind of like that again. This is not going to be for everybody, and that’s fine. We’re not politicians. More

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      ‘Succession’ Finale Drew 2.9 Million Viewers Sunday, a Series High

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      The acclaimed HBO drama ended on a high note, with its largest audience for a season closer.The series finale of “Succession” drew 2.9 million viewers on Sunday night, a viewership high for the decorated HBO drama, the network said on Tuesday.That audience was a considerable improvement from the Season 3 finale, which had 1.7 million viewers on the night it premiered, in December 2021. For the fourth and final season, HBO said that “Succession” was averaging 8.7 million viewers per episode, including delayed viewing, also a new high for the show.The ratings put an exclamation point on an improbable 39-episode run for “Succession,” which debuted in 2018 to modest expectations and turned into a critics’ favorite and an awards show beast. In addition to multiple Golden Globes wins, “Succession” has won 13 Emmys, including best drama (2020 and 2022), acting honors (Jeremy Strong, Matthew Macfadyen) and best writing (three times for the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong).Even with those highs, “Succession” remains somewhat of a niche series, particularly compared with some of HBO’s other recent hits. The second season of “The White Lotus,” which concluded in December, averaged 15.5 million viewers per episode, nearly double the viewers for the final season of “Succession.” The second season of “Euphoria,” which premiered in early 2022, averaged 19.5 million viewers. And mega-hits like “House of the Dragon” and “The Last of Us” averaged roughly 30 million viewers per episode, according to the network.But “Succession” is already the early favorite to take best drama honors at this year’s Emmy Awards for a third time. Shows eligible for this year’s Emmys had to premiere between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023. Voting for the Emmy nominations begins on June 15, and the nominees will be announced in July.The viewership figures are compiled by HBO and tallied up from a combination of views from Max, HBO’s streaming service, and of ratings from the live airing and repeat telecasts on traditional cable television. Many entertainment companies, like Netflix, release internal numbers to tout the popularity of their biggest series, though they are difficult to verify. During the live 9 p.m. broadcast of “Succession” on the HBO cable network, for instance, 789,000 viewers tuned in, according to Nielsen. More

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      Sarah Goldberg on the ‘Barry’ Finale and Bad Decisions

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      “I signed up for a comedy,” the actress Sarah Goldberg said of her role in “Barry.” “I never thought I’d have to cry so much in a comedy.”This was on a recent morning at Joe Allen, a theater district mainstay. Goldberg, dry-eyed and graceful in a relaxed take on a power suit, was stirring a Shirley Temple, angling for the cherry. The wall behind her was decorated with the posters of famous Broadway flops: “Rockabye Hamlet,” “Home Sweet Homer,” “Carrie.” Yet Goldberg, who spent the first decade of her career in theater, is currently enjoying a generous pour of success.“Sisters,” the comedy she created with Susan Stanley, debuted earlier this month on IFC. (In solidarity with the Writers Guild strike, she would not discuss it.) She is now shooting a substantial role for Season 3 of the Max series “Industry.” And the cherry at the bottom is “Barry,” the HBO not-quite-a-comedy that earned Goldberg an Emmy nomination in 2019 and aired its violent, mordant, wrenching final episode on Sunday night. (Titanic spoilers follow.)The log line of “Barry,” which began in 2018, sounds like the setup to a joke that increasingly held its punchlines: A hit man (Bill Hader’s Barry) walks into an acting class. Goldberg was cast as Sally, a fellow student and Barry’s love interest.Season 4 jumps ahead to a time when Sally (Goldberg) and Barry (Bill Hader, right) have a son, John (Zachary Golinger).Merrick Morton/HBOWith the blessing of the series creators, Hader and Alec Berg, Goldberg, 37, conceived Sally as a social experiment: Could she take the girl next door and restyle her as a gaping maw of narcissism and need? Yes, she could. In her hands, Sally became a sunlit catastrophe of a person. And in a pattern familiar to other prestige series (“Breaking Bad,” “The Sopranos”), online commenters seemed to judge Sally more harshly than her antihero partner. Did that ever feel bad?“Only in the way that every single day as a woman can feel bad,” she said.Over its four seasons, the dark Hollywood satire of “Barry” gave way to something even darker: a catalog of hungry, damaged people playing pretend. But while the finale left Barry dead and the acting guru Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) jailed for life, Sally broke good. Having finally left Barry in an effort to protect their son, the one-time actress and showrunner is shown years later, directing high school theater somewhere snowy.“It is as close to a happy ending for Sally as possible,” Goldberg said.Over mocktails, Goldberg discussed the finale, the series’s tonal leaps and how Sally survived. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.So what was “Barry” about?“Barry” was a morality tale. “Am I a good person?” Every character has that question. It’s the crux of the show. Every character is up against that. It’s like, how many bad decisions or bad choices make you that person?What was the show ultimately saying about acting?It’s a real cautionary tale, isn’t it? I wouldn’t watch that show and think: You know what? I’m going to pack my bags and drive to L.A.! In Cousineau’s classes, he gets people to bring their trauma to the forefront. The whole thing becomes this game of competitive grief.Goldberg wanted Sally “to be as morally bankrupt as the men on the show,” she said. “I wanted her to remain complex.”Merrick Morton/HBOWas “Barry” a show that believed that people can change?For the most part, no. But for Sally, in the finale, she finally makes an unselfish choice. She chooses this child that she didn’t even want and walks away from Barry. She still needs the reassurance from her child the same way she needed it from Barry. That narcissism and insecurity is still there. However, she’s up there with the students getting real joy out of having made this show. It’s not about fame or huge applause. It’s about having done something joyful with these kids. If she had become incredibly famous, things might have gone a lot worse for her. I don’t think it would have worked out.Why did Barry have to die?I always felt he was going to die. And I wondered who was going to kill him. I wondered if it was going to be Sally for a while. And if this is a morality tale, then there’s the question of consequences or repercussions. It’s brave storytelling to kill your lead. There’s a fun finality to it. It’s really over.Redemption never really worked for him. He tried. Became a “nice” guy, went to church. But in the end, he still went back to Los Angeles to kill Gene.All that redemption was on such a superficial level. None of it was going deep. Because ultimately, if he felt threatened, he would make the selfish choice. So it was just more performance.Was this really a comedy, especially in this final season?It was definitely a comedy when we started. The tone became really expansive. This season, particularly in the latter half, we changed genre almost every episode: thriller, horror, drama. I was surprised that the show could hold that. I laugh out loud, still, watching the show, but “comedy” doesn’t sum it up.How much say did you have in shaping Sally?I had a lot to say, which I never took for granted, because it’s rare. I’ve always said that with Sally, you don’t have to like her. You just have to know her. Likable? Dislikable? That’s a barometer we really only use for women. I wanted her to be as morally bankrupt as the men on the show. I wanted her to remain complex. I asked for that from Season 1. I find it interesting to play characters who are making bad decisions. I’m not interested in playing nice people.Sally attracted a lot of online hate, which reminded me of the reactions to female characters on other series. Why do people hate these women so much?I wish I had an answer that made any logical sense. I feel like there’s just this undercurrent of cultural misogyny — the sexism involved in how we view those characters is wild to me. “Barry” was no exception. I was curious how that would go. My hunch was correct that we were met with the same type of misogyny, but that only made me want to double down and go harder.Did any of it feel bad?Only in the way that every single day as a woman can feel bad. When I was growing up, I was taught that we lived in an equal world, and I believed it. When I went to theater school, in my year, there were 20 boys to eight women. We were told: “Well, this is a model of the industry. It’s representative of what kind of roles are available to you.” And we all just nodded along like, “Oh, that makes sense.” I have a lot of latent rage around those things. Some of it I was able to channel through Sally’s outbursts, but I felt so frustrated as an actress when I was starting out at what was available. I’d have this litmus test of like, Does she only ask questions? Does she say, “I’m so worried about you, babe”? Does she have a point of view? Does she have a job?”My hunch was correct,” Goldberg said about the misogyny aimed at her character online. “But that only made me want to double down and go harder.”Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesWhat can you tell me about the character you’ll play in “Industry”?Petra, she’s the polar opposite of Sally. That was the draw. She’s an incredibly contained woman who is very successful and wickedly smart. While Sally was many things, contained was not one of them. Sally is always searching or floundering. Actually sitting still and taking the higher status is harder for me. So that’s why I’m enjoying it. It’s been a lovely job so far.How has “Barry” changed your career?Well, it changed my life. There’s only so long one can survive on a theater salary. Opposite to Sally, I’m someone who very much enjoys anonymity. The people who watch “Barry” seem to really love the show. If I’m approached in the street, it’s usually someone very kind who shyly wants to say, “I love the show.” And that’s lovely. Honestly, my life hasn’t changed all that much. Especially in London, nobody cares. I just feel lucky that the material I’ve been able to do has been stuff that I want to do. I haven’t had to compromise. As long as I can sustain that, I think I’ll be happy.You can just play nice girls from now.Yes, that will be my question: Is she likable, though? More

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      Succession Finale: Was Tom Wambsgans a Reference to Bill Wambsganss?

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      When Tom Wambsgans outmaneuvered the Roy siblings, getting himself named as the U.S. executive running Waystar Royco for GoJo at the end of a rollicking finale of the HBO series “Succession,” it likely came as a shock to many of the viewers at home. But to fans of baseball’s early days, and internet conspiracy theorists, the signs were there for Tom to come out on top, besting three competitors at the same time.“It’s me,” Wambsgans said to his wife, Shiv Roy.The clues were there for some, thanks to Bill Wambsganss, a second baseman for Cleveland from 1914 to 1923. Wambsganss didn’t hit much, and there’s little indication he was a stellar base runner or a top-notch fielder. But he had one moment of pure glory, turning the first — and only — unassisted triple play in World Series history.Tom Wambsgans also did not stand out to many ahead of the finale for much beyond his poor treatment of Cousin Greg and his destructive relationship with his wife. But his unusual surname, and the notion that he would have to knock out three opponents at once, caught fire on social media in recent days, thanks to a viral TikTok by Sophie Kihm, the editor in chief of Nameberry, an online catalog of baby names.Thanks to her video, people began to speculate if the show’s writers had tipped their hands as to who would come out on top — and how. The theory had existed in various places for awhile — some believe it explained the ending of Season 3 — but, as the series began to wrap up, the idea that Tom could end up winning, just like Wambsganss, started to feel more and more plausible.Whether the connection was intentional or not, it shined a light on a player who has been all but forgotten beyond one outrageously good play. Sean Forman of Baseball Reference reported on Sunday night that there had been a surge of traffic on Wambsganss’ player page in the wake of the show’s finale.What people are finding is an unremarkable player who made a play that is worth all the attention.Wambsganss and Cleveland were facing Brooklyn in the 1920 World Series. In the fifth inning of Game 5, with Cleveland leading by 7-0, Brooklyn’s Pete Kilduff and Otto Miller both singled. Clarence Mitchell then hit a liner that looked as if it could score a run or more.In a breathless story about the game the next day, which ran on page A1, The New York Times recounted what happened once the ball left Miller’s bat. Wambsganss, who had been playing fairly far from second base, “leaped over toward the cushion and with a mighty jump speared the ball with one hand,” the paper reported.“Wamby’s noodle began to operate faster than it ever did before,” the article continued. “He hopped over to second and touched the bag, retiring Kilduff, who was far down the alley toward third base.”With two outs already having been recorded on the play, Wambsganss turned his attention to Miller.“Otto was evidently so surprised that he was just glued to the ground, and Wamby just waltzed over and touched him for the third out,” the paper reported.The play gave Wambsganss a level of notoriety that eclipsed anything else about his career, or even his life despite his having gone on to manage in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.“Funny thing, I played in the big leagues for 13 years, 1914 through 1926, and the only thing that anybody seems to remember is that once I made an unassisted triple play in a World Series,” he said in the 1966 baseball oral history, “The Glory of Their Times.” “Many don’t even remember the team I was on, or the position I played, or anything. Just Wambsganss-unassisted triple play! You’d think I was born on the day before and died on the day after.”With “Succession” having completed its wildly popular run on television, we will never know if Tom Wambsgans was able to thrive after completing a triple play of his own, or if he would come to be defined only by the one moment, as Wambsganss was.In Wambsganss’s defense, it has been more than 100 years since the unassisted triple play, and people are still talking about him. You would have to assume Tom Wambsgans would be OK with having the same fate. More

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      in Music

      ‘Succession’: A Soundtrack Fit for a Concert Hall

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      Nicholas Britell’s score for the HBO series, which concludes on Sunday, has developed, episode by episode, into a classic theme-and-variations work.There comes a moment near the start of most “Succession” episodes when a faint beat enters the scene, right before some punchline or turn of the screw.Then the show’s theme music kicks in. Over snippets of vintage family videos, a piano fantasia as grainy as the footage unfurls like a sample for swaggering hip-hop alongside courtly, imperious strings.Like any effective theme, it lodges itself in your head immediately. But this music’s composer, Nicholas Britell, isn’t a mere tunesmith, and he doesn’t stop there. Over the four seasons of “Succession,” which ends on Sunday, he has written something unusual in television: a sprawling yet conceptually focused score that has developed, episode by episode, into a classic theme-and-variations work that would be just as fit for the concert hall as for the small screen.This is characteristic of Britell, who doesn’t tend to simply set the emotional tenor of a scene. A screen composer at the forefront of his generation — not a successor to John Williams and his symphonic grandeur but rather a chameleonic, sensitive creator of distinct sound worlds — Britell draws as freely from late Beethoven as he does from DJ Screw, and is as compelling in modes of aching sincerity and high satire alike.Britell is one of the foremost screen composers of his generation, drawing freely from a diverse array of influences including classical music and hip-hop.Clement Pascal for The New York TimesAnd in “Succession,” he evokes a classical music tradition in which a composer doodles at the piano to improvise on a theme, putting it through permutations based on mood and form. This could serve as good parlor entertainment, but also the basis for inventive, kaleidoscopic works; Britell’s soundtrack, in its pairing of piano and orchestra, has an ancestor in Rachmaninoff’s concerto-like “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” He would do well to adapt his score into a similar piece.With his theme and variations, Britell offers a parallel of the show itself: an idée fixe established at the start — a patriarch’s departure from the top of his business empire is more of a when than an if — and a circular (some would say static) plot about the ways in which three of his children maneuver to take over.It is a premise that carries on even after the father’s death early this season; the most recent episode, about his funeral, demonstrates the psychological hold Logan Roy still has over his children and how, united in grief, they nevertheless continue to scheme.The musical seed for all this couldn’t be simpler: not the theme for the main titles, but a lumbering, eight-chord motif that appears within it, and at the start of the “Strings Con Fuoco” cue.From there, variations surface with nods to Classical and Baroque forms: a dancerly minuet or rondo, a concerto grosso of angular strings, a wandering ricercare.Many cues have titles resembling those of a symphony’s movements, tempo indications like “Adagio” and “Andante Con Moto.” Others could blend in with a chamber music program, like Serenade in E flat, or Impromptu No. 1 in C minor, which shares its name with one of Schubert’s most famous piano solos.That can’t be a coincidence. Listening to Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor (K. 475), “Succession” fans might feel transported to the show’s soundtrack.An excerpt from Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor (K. 475)Mitsuko Uchida (Decca)In the first two seasons, Britell followed a fairly confined playbook of the eight-chord motif’s different guises: a beating piano similar to that Mozart fantasia, darkly regal strings and brasses.Generally, each variation was recognizably developed from the same cell. The biggest departures occurred whenever the Roy family left New York. For an episode at Connor’s New Mexico estate, Austerlitz, Britell interjected a guitar variation not heard before or since.Scenes in England took on a stately fanfare. And, at the family’s country house, preparations for a meal were accompanied by a Schubertian violin sextet.Something changed by Season 3. The music, like the story, became more openly emotional; for every cunning rondo, there was a doleful largo. Unsteady ground onscreen translated to surprises in the sound, such as Britell’s first use of a choir at the end of the season finale. Again the score swerved, stylistically, when characters were away from Manhattan. During the climactic episodes, set in Tuscany, he put his theme through an Italian prism for cues like “Serenata — ‘Il Viaggio.’”In the final season, Britell has expanded his palette of variations even further. Logan Roy’s authoritarian monologue on the floor of his news channel ATN is given a coda of chilling dissonance. Suspended chords conjure the in-between state of the children after his death. The irrepressible feelings at the most recent episode’s funeral might as well have a cue title like “Appassionata.”The question is, how will Britell’s theme and variations end? Historically, composers have gone one of two ways: by revisiting the beginning, as in the Aria of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, or with the potential for further development, as in Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations.You could ask the same of the Roy children, who going into the series finale are behaviorally similar to where they started but also, on a deeper level, are not. Will they achieve resolution? Or will their cycles of intrigue continue? Chances are, the answer will be in Britell’s music.In the final season of “Succession,” Britell has expanded his palette of variations even further.Clement Pascal for The New York Times More

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      On HBO’s ‘Succession,’ if You’re Eating Food, You’re Losing

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      When it comes to the high-powered Roy dynasty, food is for the weak and striving.Autumn light filters through the treetops of Central Park West, streaming into Jean-Georges, giving the gray banquettes a matte, silver gleam. The space is plain, severe in its neutrality, undeniably grand and hushed. Each table, though in clear view of the others, is luxuriously cocooned by space, almost private.It’s the ideal place, really, for the Roy children — the scions of the Waystar Royco media empire on HBO’s “Succession” — to discuss their father’s funeral arrangements.The conversation is brisk, and though they chose Jean-Georges as their meeting spot, they don’t eat the food. They leave the pastries — the dark, oversize canelés and fruit-studded buns — along with the platter of fanned, cut fruit, completely untouched. They get up from their seats without so much as unraveling a napkin or dirtying a plate. The slight, feathered mark of Shiv’s nude lipstick on a coffee cup is the only trace of their presence.It’s not unusual for the Roys to avoid eating. From Logan’s humiliating game of “Boar on the Floor” to the menacing box of doughnuts he sends his children when they try to meet in secret, the food on “Succession” has always been deliciously toxic, dissonant and loaded — a clear line into the family’s trauma and power dynamics.But in the final season, things are especially warped and grim. It’s as if the show has stepped into its Ozempic era and real power can only be found in the total absence of appetite. For those with meaningful status in “Succession,” food doesn’t exist for pleasure or nourishment — it barely exists at all. If a character does have a nibble, no matter how small, it tends to be a red flag.At a business retreat in Norway, Tom Wambsgans, right, passes on the buffet.Graeme Hunter/HBOTom Wambsgans, Siobhan Roy’s husband, didn’t come from money, but married into this super-rich family, and has carefully studied their patterns and prerogatives. He is hyper-aware of the contradictions and intricacies of America’s unspoken upper-class etiquette — and often the first to criticize a faux pas.“She’s wolfing all the canapés like a famished warthog,” Tom tells cousin Greg, clocking the inappropriate date Greg brought along to Logan’s birthday lunch. Because what could be more plebeian, what could signify her being any more out of place, than actually eating the food?Not long after, at Logan’s wake, Tom misjudges his position and nominates himself to take over as interim chief executive for the company. If it wasn’t already clear he’d made a terrible mistake, it is when Tom pops a fish taco into his mouth. As he’s powerless, chewing, Karl imagines how the board might see him: “You’re a clumsy interloper and no one trusts you. The only guy pulling for you is dead, and now you’re just married to the ex-boss’s daughter, who doesn’t even like you.”By the time the Waystar team flies to Norway to finalize the sale of the company to Lukas Mattson, the billionaire chief executive of GoJo, Tom sees hospitality as pure gastro-hostility. As Waystar’s senior executives pile their plates with food at a buffet, he’s careful not to be seen eating breakfast at all. “Ambush!” he calls out cheerfully to his colleagues. “You took the bait, fattened for the kill.”And Tom’s not wrong. A GoJo executive comments on the portion size, too: “Hey, easy buddy, leave some for us.” The Waystar team’s desire for breakfast pastries isn’t the only thing that now feels embarrassing — the Americans are overdressed for the countryside, anxious for the deal to go through, fearful of losing their jobs. Their hunger, their appetite, their keenness, it’s a squishy surplus of vulnerability.As Season 4 opens, Logan is competing with his children to buy Pierce Global Media, and escapes his own birthday party in a huff to visit Nectar, a Greek-owned coffee shop on Madison Avenue. (For Town & Country, Charlotte Druckman wrote about this excursion as its own kind of power move.)In a rare moment of vulnerability, we see Logan eating. But first, he insists to his bodyguard, Colin, who is on the clock, that Colin is his best friend, that human beings are merely economic units in the market, that he isn’t sure what happens when we die. Emotionally, he’s a mess.“Nothing tastes like it used to, does it?” Logan says wistfully. “Nothing’s the same as it was.”Connor Roy and Willa Ferreyra hosted their rehearsal dinner at the Grill, a classic Midtown power-lunching spot. It ends up predictably miserable.Macall B. Polay/HBOIn the episode that aired on Sunday, the family reaches the heights of both their incompetence and their power. Election Day in the newsroom was already tense for Tom without the Roy siblings stomping around, sliding notes directly to TV anchors, pushing their agendas on his top voting analyst, scrolling through Twitter, reframing the headlines because, well, the right-wing candidate asked them to. Tom loses his temper when Greg approves cheap sushi as his lunch.It’s not much of a power move — it is not, for example, Logan telling the staff to scrape an entire over-the-top steak and lobster dinner for the family into the trash, then order pizza instead — but it’s the only move that Tom, who has lost control of the newsroom, who never had any control over in the first place, has left. He will allow the election results to be nudged and massaged, the newsroom to be compromised and swayed. He will allow the world to burn, but look, he is above the sushi. He will not touch the sushi.Greg, on the other hand, is happy to dig into his “bodega sushi” as the siblings pressure Darwin, ATN’s election analyst, to call the election before he’s ready. It’s a devastating and hilarious sequence. “This isn’t actually a numbers thing,” says Roman. “I’m just going to say we’re good and that’s on me.” “You can’t make the call ’til I make the call,” says Darwin, angrily.But a moment later, Darwin has given up all sense of editorial integrity and is punished for it, as he accidentally smears wasabi from Greg’s sushi into his own eyes. Greg, in a bumbling, misguided effort to help, pours stinging, lemon-flavored LaCroix right into the wound.It’s as if he didn’t know there’s no making things better with food — there is only making things worse.Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More