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      ‘The Interview’: Denzel Washington Has Finally Found His Purpose

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      So many of Denzel Washington’s greatest performances — from the majestic title role in “Malcolm X” to the unrepentantly corrupt cop Alonzo Harris in “Training Day” — have been defined by a riveting sense of authority, an absolute absence of pandering or the need to be liked. There’s an inner reserve deep down inside his characters that is unassailable, a little enigmatic, and that belongs to them alone.The commanding qualities that have helped Washington become a cinematic legend are also, as I learned firsthand, the same ones that make him an unusual — and unusually complicated — conversationalist. The first of our two discussions was done remotely. He was at a photo studio in Los Angeles as the fires were still burning there, and I was at home in New Jersey. Even putting our physical distance aside, the discussion felt, well, distant. Or let me put it this way: We never quite figured out how to connect.The second time we talked, it was different. I met Washington in person, at a spare, drafty room in a Midtown Manhattan building where he was rehearsing for an upcoming Broadway appearance. He’s playing the lead in a new production of “Othello” that goes into previews on Feb. 24; it co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago and is directed by the Tony Award winner Kenny Leon. I can’t with any certainty really say why, but things just felt easier on the second go-round. What I do know, though, is that the entire interview experience was, for me, as indelible as one of his performances.Listen to the Conversation With Denzel WashingtonThe legendary actor discusses the prophecy that changed his life, his Oscar snub and his upcoming role starring alongside a “complicated” Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello” on Broadway.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppI saw that at the end of last year you were baptized and earned your minister’s license. I got baptized, and I have to now take courses to obtain a license. I’m not an ordained minister.Can you tell me about the decision to go through that process at this point in your life? I went for a ride one day. I decided to get in my car and drive up to Harlem. I stopped in front of the church that my mother grew up in. The door was cracked, so I went in. They were celebrating young students, members of the church, that were going to college. And I got involved in that, and one thing led to another, and weeks later, months later I got baptized. More

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      What to Know About the Karla Sofía Gascón and ‘Emilia Pérez’ Controversies

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      The actress’s old social media posts have threatened to derail the film’s Oscar campaign, but backlash has been building for months for other reasons.When “Emilia Pérez” premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival last May, the reaction from critics in attendance and the jury was overwhelmingly positive.The French-produced, Spanish-language musical about a Mexican cartel boss who transitions into a woman and attempts to become a paragon of virtue won the jury prize (essentially third place) and its stars — Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz — shared the best actress award.Netflix, the powerful global streaming company that has had a best picture Oscar in its sights but out of its grasp since the 2019 ceremony, acquired the unconventional picture by the French director Jacques Audiard and launched an imposing awards campaign. Widely embraced by the film industry, “Emilia Pérez” received 13 Oscar nominations last month — leading this year’s pack and falling one short of tying the record.One of those nominations belongs to Gascón, who plays the titular character and became the first openly trans actor nominated for an Academy Award. In recent weeks, she has become engulfed in controversy that has threatened to derail the awards hopes for both her and the film. But since “Emilia Pérez” debuted in select theaters and then on Netflix late last year, there has been plenty of backlash on multiple fronts that has marred its pathway to Oscar glory. Here are the broad strokes of the controversies.Karla Sofía Gascón’s Resurfaced Social Media PostsLast week, the journalist Sarah Hagi unearthed offensive statements that Gascón posted in Spanish on X over the last few years. The disparaging comments touched on topics like George Floyd, Islam, and even the 2021 Oscar ceremony.Gascón has since apologized, deleted her X account and given a lengthy interview on CNN en Español that she booked without Netflix’s involvement or authorization. She has also stayed active on Instagram, defending herself against criticism.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Critics Choice Awards Winners 2025: See the Full List

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      “Anora” scored big in the final minutes of the ceremony, while Demi Moore and Adrien Brody collected the top acting honors at the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards.See all the arrival photos from the 2025 Critics Choice Awards red carpet.“Anora” put some points — or, make that one big point — on the board at the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night, taking the top trophy for best picture just a month after it was totally shut out at the Golden Globes.Sean Baker, who directed the film, about an exotic dancer’s star-crossed romance with a Russian heir, used his acceptance speech to exhort the audience to support more independent movies released in theaters.“They’re going through some hard times,” Mr. Baker said. “We lost a thousand theaters during Covid — we lose them almost daily. That’s where we love to see films. Let’s see films in our local theaters, OK?”The Critics Choice ceremony, initially scheduled for Jan. 12, was postponed for several weeks because of the Los Angeles wildfires. This put the show, which was held in the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., in an unusual position: Voting had already concluded on Jan. 10, meaning the weeks that followed — marked by major events including the announcement of the Oscar nominations and a controversy over inflammatory tweets that engulfed “Emilia Pérez” and its star Karla Sofía Gascón — had no impact on the results.Ms. Gascón, who is under fire for posts that denigrated Muslims, George Floyd and the Oscars, was a no-show at the ceremony, though her co-star Zoe Saldaña, who won the supporting actress trophy, and the film’s director, Jacques Audiard, who accepted the foreign language film award, were both in attendance. “Emilia Pérez” also picked up a third trophy, for best original song.Ms. Gascón ultimately lost the best actress award to Demi Moore (“The Substance”), who won her second major televised prize after triumphing at the Golden Globes last month. The best actor award went to the “Brutalist” star Adrien Brody, furthering a comeback for the 51-year-old Mr. Brody, who has struggled to match his early success in the 2002 film “The Pianist,” for which he won the Oscar.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tony Roberts, Nonchalant Fixture in Woody Allen Films, Dies at 85

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      Tony Roberts, the affable actor who was best known as the hero’s best friend in Woody Allen movies like “Annie Hall,” and who distinguished himself on the New York stage with two Tony Award nominations and what the critic Clive Barnes of The New York Times called his “careful nonchalance,” died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.His daughter and only immediate survivor, Nicole Burley, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.Mr. Roberts played easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Alvy Singer, the hero of “Annie Hall” (1977), which won the Oscar for best picture, stuttered, dithered and fumbled his way around Manhattan’s Upper East Side alongside Rob (Mr. Roberts), his taller, better-looking, far more self-assured Hollywood actor friend and tennis partner. If truth be told, Rob would rather be in Los Angeles, where the weather is nicer, adding a laugh track to his sitcom.Mr. Roberts, center, with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in “Annie Hall” (1977). Mr. Roberts appeared in several of Mr. Allen’s films, playing easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Brian Hamill/United Artists, via Everett CollectionMr. Roberts played similar types in other Allen films. In “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” (1982), he was a jovial bachelor doctor at the turn of the 20th century. “Marriage, for me, is the death of hope,” his character announced. In “Stardust Memories” (1980), he was a brash actor who brought a Playboy centerfold model to a film festival.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How a Family’s Life Is Upended in ‘I’m Still Here’

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      The film’s director, Walter Salles, narrates a sequence from his film, which is nominated for best picture. Its star, Fernanda Torres is nominated for best actress.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.A relaxing time at home turns menacing in this scene from the Brazilian drama “I’m Still Here.”The sequence begins with Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former congressman, playing a game with his wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres). But they are interrupted by the military police, who have arrived to take Rubens in for what they say is a deposition, one from which Rubens won’t return.What was lighthearted becomes dark, both emotionally and visually, as the police begin closing curtains in the house. The joy is drained from the room, and uncertainty and fear permeate the moment, all while the adults try to make it appear, for the couple’s children, that everything is normal.The film, primarily set in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, is based on a 2015 memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son of Rubens. Narrating this sequence, the director Walter Salles discussed switching the camera from a static position to hand-held at the moment the officers enter the scene. He said, “the camera relays the instability of the situation, pulsing with the characters.”During the tense sequence, one of the couple’s daughters, Nalu (Barbara Luz), enters the house and goes upstairs to talk to her father as he is getting dressed to leave the home for what Nalu doesn’t know will be the last time. Salles called it “a vital scene,” and said that it was “staged as the real Nalu told me it happened.”Toward the end of the sequence, we see Eunice in close-up as she stands in the doorway to see Rubens off. Salles said that it is “the first of the only two close-ups in the entire film. We saved it for the last glance between Rubens and Eunice.”Read the “I’m Still Here” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      ‘Love Hurts’ Review: A Valentine Full of Action

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      Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose play reunited former associates from a criminal outfit. Sparks don’t exactly fly.In “Love Hurts,” Ke Huy Quan plays a cheery, cookie-baking real estate agent who has tried hard to forget his past life as an assassin. Ariana DeBose plays a former associate who emerges from the shadows and reminds him of what he’s left behind, in a movie that does its utmost to repress any memories of both stars’ being recent Academy Award winners.“Love Hurts” is the feature directorial debut of Jonathan Eusebio, who has amassed an eye-popping list of stunt- and fight-coordinating credits (“John Wick,” “The Matrix Resurrections”). In effect, he plays that role here as well, because there is little else worth directing: The plot is a barely-there thread of random incidents designed to string together action scenes in which Quan, banishing any thoughts of his own past playing Data from “The Goonies,” demonstrates an impressive facility for martial arts. The screenwriters, for their part, find ways to weaponize unlikely items: sharpened pencil here, amethyst there. Boba straws sure are sharp.The casting is effective, in part because few would guess that Quan would show such balletic grace in hand-to-hand combat, even though he has a background in stunts from the aughts. DeBose eventually steps up as an action star, too, albeit without quite as much sparring. (She generally seems to have more munitions on hand.) But somebody should have built them more of a movie to play in. At 83 minutes, “Love Hurts” falls somewhere between making a virtue of brevity and wheezing its way to the finish line.No sooner has Quan’s Marvin Gable (his name sounds distractingly like Marvin Gaye throughout) entered his office for the day than the Raven (Mustafa Shakir), a fellow assassin from the old days hiding there, smacks him in the face. It’s Valentine’s Day at the agency, and while everyone else — including Marvin’s dour assistant (Lio Tipton) — is doing their best to be festive, Marvin, behind a closed door, is fending off a killer who has a coat full of knives and a book of original poetry. His verses suggest an emo high schooler imitating Robert Frost.The Raven wants to know the whereabouts of Rose (DeBose), whom Marvin’s kingpin brother, Knuckles (Daniel Wu), had long ago ordered killed. Knuckles thought Rose was dead, but lately she has taken to sending out valentine cards. She is also Marvin’s secret love, and what drama there is turns on whether he will profess his ardor, and on whether, as he is increasingly bloodied, he will manage to keep his new life and status as “regional Realtor of the year.” The chemistry between DeBose and Quan is nonexistent, but it barely matters — the emphasis is on hurt, not love. But this self-amused movie barely leaves a mark.Love HurtsRated R. Love, lies, bleeding. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Parthenope’ Review: Goddess Worship

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      Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, this decadent drama about a beautiful young woman is a one-sided meditation on art, desire and spirituality.“Beauty is like war — it opens doors,” says the middle-aged American writer John Cheever (Gary Oldman) to Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta), a statuesque brunette from Naples whom he meets at a resort. It’s southern Italy, 1973, and Cheever (Oldman in a small but memorably melancholic part) strikes up a friendship with her early on in the film.“Parthenope,” a characteristically decadent drama by the director Paolo Sorrentino, is about all the doors opened by Parthenope’s beauty. At first — when she’s seen primarily in a bikini, lounging by crystalline ocean waters — this means capturing the hearts of male suitors, like her namesake siren from Greek mythology.Cheever, who in real life spent years traveling around Italy, is one of the few men in the film who is immune to her charms — maybe it’s the booze, or his repressed yearning for men. Or maybe it’s because a woman like her should be admired from a distance as one does a religious icon or marble statue.If this way of idealizing women sounds painfully retrograde, know that Sorrentino isn’t interested in realism — or political correctness, for that matter. His work (including the Oscar winner “The Great Beauty” and the HBO series “The Young Pope”) is less about people than it is about big ideas: art, desire, religion, and, yes, beauty; the way they shape our lives with an almost mystical power.Now add to this an enduring fixation with Sorrentino’s native Italy, its past and present, and its contradictions. The country is home to some of the world’s great triumphs — think ancient Rome and the Sistine Chapel — but the director also depicts it as a hotbed of spiritual rot personified by its corrupt leaders. At one point in the film, Parthenope enjoys a dalliance with a monstrous bishop (Peppe Lanzetta), representing a union of the sacred and the profane.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More