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      For ‘Only Murders’ Season 3, Not the Same Old Song and Dance

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      Meryl Streep joined the cast for a season that moved much of the action to Broadway, enlisting a musical theater supergroup to write the songs.Meryl Streep was looking for levity — she was “in despair of the world for so many reasons,” she said, namely the climate crisis. So she reached out to the funniest people she could think of: Steve Martin and Martin Short, whose late-career resurgence as a double act has included a touring stage show, TV specials and their Emmy-winning Hulu comedy, “Only Murders in the Building.”“I knew they were doing their tour,” Streep said. “So I just basically called them and said, ‘If you ever want to work together, let’s do something.’”They did. Short and Martin suggested a stint on the third season of “Only Murders,” in which they play, along with Selena Gomez, amateur sleuths and podcasters who solve murders in their Upper West Side apartment building. Streep said yes without knowing what exactly would be required of her, but the series’s co-creator and showrunner John Hoffman already had a part in mind.“It really was like the stars were aligned,” Streep said.As it turned out, not only would she play a prominent guest role as Loretta Durkin, a struggling actress cast in a play directed by Short’s Oliver Putnam; she would also have to sing. (Streep and the other cast members interviewed all spoke before the actors’ strike began.)That’s because Season 3 of “Only Murders,” which premiered on Tuesday, moves out of the building — well, mostly. There is still a murder; viewers saw Paul Rudd drop dead on a stage at the end of Season 2. And technically, the murder still happens in the Arconia (it’s complicated), the stately prewar co-op of the series’s title.But rather than risk letting the show’s winning formula become too formulaic, the producers this season took the investigation to Broadway, where Oliver is staging an original musical. And to do it right, they enlisted the aid of a musical theater supergroup led by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, known for their work on “Dear Evan Hansen” and “La La Land.”Given the cast and creative team assembled, it all makes for a very star-studded love letter to Broadway. Streep likened the experience to being a “theater company.” Paul compared it to “theater camp.”“It was just through and through a Broadway experience — there are just cameras filming it,” Paul said. “There was that same sort of ensemble sense, whether it was Meryl or Paul Rudd or Marty or Steve, that everybody was making this show together.”Paul Rudd, left (with, center left, Gerald Caesar; center right, Steve Martin; and Jason Veasey), plays a vainglorious movie star who makes a lot of enemies. Patrick Harbron/Hulu“Only Murders” has always had show-business jokes — Oliver is known for his legendary flops; Steve Martin’s Charles-Haden Savage is a washed-up TV star — but this season leans even further into its jazz hands impulses. In the premiere, a vainglorious movie star played by Rudd, who is starring in a nonmusical production from Oliver titled “Death Rattle,” is mysteriously offed (it turns out he survived that collapse onstage), potentially by another cast member.Desperate for the show to go on, Oliver tries to save his already absurd production by turning it into a musical: “Death Rattle Dazzle!,” an all-singing spectacle about infant triplets who might have committed murder.Hoffman said he could have played it safe, knowing that the coup was just getting the celebrities on board. Instead he decided to get ambitious with the song and dance numbers.“My idiocy is that instead of containing myself and giving them nothing but great, hopefully, dialogue scenes to do, let’s swing for the fences and go for everything we could possibly dream of,” he said.And it was the stuff of Hoffman’s dreams. He had thought Streep would be right for the part of Loretta but figured it would never happen, before learning that Short and Martin had been speaking with her. He also had Pasek and Paul on his wish list of potential composers when he discovered that one of his writers, Sas Goldberg, was an old friend of theirs. Turns out, they had already expressed interest in contributing when they learned she was on staff.“I was like, if they need a ditty, if they ever need anything, we’re obsessed with that show,” Pasek said. When Goldberg texted to take them up on that offer, “it felt like a very serendipitous moment,” Pasek added.Pasek and Paul just had one condition for Hoffman: They wanted to bring in several top Broadway songwriters to help out. Hoffman said yes.From left: Martin, Selena Gomez and Ryan Broussard in a scene from Season 3, which situates much of the action amid the production of a Broadway musical about murder.Patrick Harbron/HuluIn the show, the songs are written by Oliver, a man who survives mostly on dips and once directed a musical called “Newark! Newark!” In reality, the songs were written by accomplished professionals, who thus had to master a tricky tone: The songs needed to work for a patently ridiculous production but also be genuinely entertaining for viewers at home.For a complicated, ear worm of a patter song that Martin’s character sings as the detective in “Death Rattle Dazzle!,” Pasek and Paul brought on Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman of “Hairspray” and “Some Like It Hot.” (“It was a thrill to sing and a thrill to be done with,” Martin said.) The playwright and composer Michael R. Jackson, whose musical “A Strange Loop” won a Pulitzer Prize and two Tonys, contributed a late-season showstopper for Streep.The Tony-nominated and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles was called in to co-write a lullaby titled “Look for the Light,” which Streep’s Loretta, playing a nanny in the musical, delivers to the tiny murder suspects. To prepare, the songwriters listened to Streep’s previous vocal performances to get a sense of her range.“It’s always nice when you know who you’re writing for because you can sort of tailor something to play to someone’s strengths,” Bareilles said. They emerged with a lovely ballad in which Streep croons in harmony with her fellow cast member Ashley Park, another Broadway veteran (“Mean Girls”).Streep, however, said she had been intimidated by the challenging melody. On the day of the recording session, she said, she had a “sort of a mental breakdown” after having to prep in only two days and being faced with new orchestration and a group of about 20 people gathered to hear her sing.“I really felt a responsibility to the music and to the song, which is a beautiful song, and I felt observed,” she said, adding that she “basically pulled a tiny diva move and said, ‘I can’t work like this’ or something.” (She laughed and then noted: “Oh god, that will be horrible unless you put it in all caps in print.”)There’s a burden to the expectation that comes with being Meryl Streep. “I just feel like sometimes the Meryl Streep of it all walks in like this ship, and everybody thinks, ‘Oh we’re going to watch the launch.’ And I think, ‘Oh yeah, you’re going to see the Titanic go down,’” she said.Her collaborators sang her praises.“It’s quite beautiful to witness after all of the laudatory things that have come her way, justifiably so, to watch her be nervous and to watch her be unsure,” Hoffman said.And Streep, of course, nailed it.“There was so much tenderness in her vulnerability,” Bareilles said. “She let that speak through her singing.”Short’s character, Oliver, tries to salvage his Broadway play by turning it into a musical, “Death Rattle Dazzle,” about whether infant triplets could have murdered their mother.Patrick Harbron/HuluThe world of backstage drama was, of course, familiar for the central trio. Short got his start in the 1972 Toronto production of “Godspell.” Martin has written two Broadway productions: the play “Meteor Shower” and the musical “Bright Star.” Gomez is the only one of them without Broadway experience, but she has toured as a pop star.“All three of us know show business and, I’d say, the stage world so well,” Martin said on a video call with Short and Gomez. “We draw upon a lot of memories: You know, the volatile director, the sensitive actor. And we don’t have to exaggerate to do it because we all have been there.”Still, Streep’s presence can be daunting for even the most seasoned performer, including Short.“I’m old and I’ve done this a long time,” he said. “And I’m driving to work the first day to work with Meryl, who I’ve known socially through the years but never worked with, and I found myself for first time in a long while going, Gee, I’m a little bit nervous.” During a pause in filming, Short was surprised to learn she had similar jitters.Selena Gomez was also star struck. “I never in a million years thought I would get to work with Meryl Streep,” she said. Streep’s performance, she added, made her cry. Alas, despite her other career as a pop recording artist, Gomez does not have a song in the onscreen musical.“I’m a terrible singer,” Martin said. “Selena should have a song, but her character is not in show business.” (Gomez does perform a quick Fosse-inspired dance number in a dream sequence.)During filming of the stage performances, which were shot at the United Palace in Washington Heights, Streep took up residence in the audience. Specifically, she wanted to watch Martin do his big tongue-twister number, “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?”“We had a green room we could go to and sit around and bitch, but nobody went,” Streep said. “Everybody sat up there and watched him over and over and over. It was just divine.”So did the experience cure Streep’s malaise?It did, indeed, she said.“They go into everything on this show with this kind of 1940s cockeyed optimism,” she said. “And it was so lovely to be in that world.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Outlander’ and ‘Hard Knocks’

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      The Starz series comes back for a sixth season and the HBO documentary series on NFL training camp follows the New York Jets.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Aug. 7-13. Details and times are subject to change.MondayCameron Diaz, Dermot Mulroney and Julia Roberts in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”Tri-Star PicturesMY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING (1997) 8:10 p.m. on Starz Encore. In this movie, the sexual tension between Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts) and Michael O’Neal (Dermot Mulroney) (the ring-stuck-on-the-finger scene, if you know you know) makes the plot feel almost irrelevant. But, if we were to focus on plot, the story follows Julianne as she tries to end the marriage between her best friend, Michael, and his fiancée Kimberly Wallace (Cameron Diaz) before it has even started. The story is filled with mostly just shenanigans on the part of Julianne and culminates in an ending that is simultaneously happy and heartbreaking.THE GREAT AMERICAN RECIPE 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). If you took “The Great British Bake-off” but made it American and focused on cooking instead of baking, that would be this show. The eight-part competition series features cooks from all different parts of the U.S. who showcase their signature dishes.TuesdayHARD KNOCKS 10 p.m. on HBO. In mid-July, NFL players fly out to university campuses near home base for their respective teams and start the hard work that goes into training for the season. And since 2001, HBO cameras have been there filming one team as they prepare — this year the series focuses on the New York Jets. Most notably, sports fans will get a glimpse of the four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers as he begins his first season with the Jets.WednesdayErik Gunn, David Eigenberg and Tony Huynh in “LA Fire & Rescue.”Casey Dunkirk/NBCLA FIRE & RESCUE 8 p.m. on NBC. No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: that is Steve Brady (David Eigenberg) from “Sex and the City.” Perhaps even more important, it’s Lieutenant Christopher Herrmann from “Chicago Fire,” which has the same producers as this new docu-series that follows the days of firefighters at the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Wildfires, medical emergencies, crimes and accidents are featured in these episodes, and of course a station visit from Eigenberg.ThursdayFIGHT TO SURVIVE 8 p.m. on The CW. If you are a fan of “Survivor,” “Alone,” “Naked and Afraid” or “American Ninja Warrior,” you might be seeing some familiar faces on this show. Seventeen contestants, all alumni from those shows, are sent to a remote tropical island to try to survive for a chance to win $250,000 in this quasi social experiment.THE CHALLENGE 10 p.m. on CBS. If you prefer a competition show that is perhaps not as harrowing but still has familiar faces, this might be the show for you, because honestly they aren’t that much different. Alumni from “Big Brother,” “Love Island,” “Amazing Race” and “Survivor” compete in physical challenges and have the chance to win $250,000. T.J. Lavin returns as host.FridayOUTLANDER 8 p.m. on Starz. We’re halfway through the seventh season of the show that originated in the World War II era and there are lots of loose ends to tie up. Spoilers ahead! As Claire (Caitriona Balfe) discovers the body of Jamie (Sam Heughan) on the battlefield, she learns that a second Battle of Saratoga is imminent, and Roger (Richard Rankin) makes a plan to time travel back to his son.MEN IN KILTS 9:35 p.m. on Starz. Not so dissimilar to some aspects of “Outlander” I suppose (you’ve definitely seen a kilt or two on that fictional show), this documentary series follows the actors Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish on a road trip to learn more about their heritage. In the first season they traveled around Scotland but now their travels are taking them around New Zealand.SaturdayJudd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall in “The Breakfast Club.”Universal Pictures/Everett CollectionTHE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) 7:30 p.m. on CMT. If you grew up in the 80s or 90s there is a good chance you daydreamed about your crush coming to your window with a boombox propped on their shoulders (no? just me?) — and you can thank an iconic scene in this movie for that. Watching this will answer the question: What happens when you gather up the athlete, the brain, the bully, the princess and the loner and put them in detention together? In this movie “which he wrote and directed, John Hughes lets the kids challenge, taunt and confront each other as if this were ‘Twelve Angry Men,’” Janet Maslin wrote in her review for The New York Times.HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON (1957) 8 p.m. on TCM. Keeping up with our theme of survivalist competition show (and World War II, for that matter), this fictionalized version puts Mr. Allison, a Marine corporal played by Robert Mitchum, and Sister Angela, a Roman Catholic nun played by Deborah Kerr, stranded on an island in the South Pacific. As they are in constant danger of enemy attacks, they are forced to hide and survive together.SundayBILLIONS 8 p.m. on Showtime. This show, which dives into the world of New York City banking and insider trading, is Showtime’s longest running drama. And this week, it is coming back for its seventh and final season. The most anticipated part of this season is the return of the main protagonist, the hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). When the character left in season 5, he was moving to Switzerland to avoid prosecution from the Attorney General of New York Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti), so his return is likely going to be anything but smooth.TELEMARKETERS 10 p.m. on HBO. Though a documentary about telemarketers may not catch one’s attention, this is less about the practice of telemarketing and more about the true crime scheme two employees of a New Jersey call center were unknowingly covering up. The documentary follows them as they work to uncover the conspiracy that’s been a part of their day to day for the past 20 years. More

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      Mike Epps’s Favorite Things

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      The star of the Netflix sitcom “The Upshaws” borrowed some of his comedic timing from Redd Foxx and was inspired to act from watching Denzel Washington.When Mike Epps was growing up in Indianapolis, his grandmother’s house was home base for the entire family.“My grandma had 11 kids. And some of those 11 kids had five or six kids each,” he said in a phone interview in July, before the SAG-AFTRA strike began, adding: “You got aunts and uncles and all them coming over and hanging out, checking each other out — a house full of people.”In time, her house also became the place the future comedian tried out his earliest material.“That was my first breaking ground,” he said. “My first experimental jokes were in that house among my cousins and my family and my people.”It is part of the inspiration for “The Upshaws,” Epps’s sitcom about a blue-collar family in Indianapolis whose new season becomes available Aug. 17 on Netflix.“If you look at the show, it’s my voice. It’s who I am. It’s my city, my friends, it’s my family. It’s my everything,” Epps said.He talked about some of the other components — the books, TV shows, unicycle — that make up his life. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1‘Sanford and Son’I love “Sanford and Son.” That was a show that modeled itself from our people, from Black people. It was definitely a template of what we are and who we are. I watched it every day. I borrow a lot of timing from that show. Redd Foxx’s timing was impeccable, more than you could chew off.2ChessI play chess so well in my normal life that it’s almost hard to do it on the board sometimes. The game is a reflection of who I am and the decisions that I make. So, sometimes I can play the board game and see where I was delinquent in my life or see where I could move better or see the sacrifice. The game is very parallel to my life. So, when I’m playing, I’m thinking about those decisions.3‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’Robert T. Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad” changed the way I thought about money and people with money. It also reinforced how I grew up. It’s easy to be poor when you don’t have a lot of goals. Once I started having goals of wanting more, it was over with. I was like: I got to have more in life. I deserve more. There is more. I don’t have to settle for being poor.4‘Creed’I have some positive jealousy about “Creed.” I can really box, but I was too old to be in the movie, and I think Michael B. Jordan did a great job. When you’re a Black man and you see a Black movie like that that is macho, you know, you want to be a part of it in some capacity.5UnicycleI love riding one wheel. When I was a kid, I always tried to find something that made me stick out and be different from everybody else. So I learned how to ride a unicycle — short and tall. When people see me riding it, they look at me like I’m crazy and say: “What the hell you doing? Why did you do that?” And then they try to get on it. That’s what it does to you.6Denzel Washington“Glory” was the first movie that I saw that inspired me. When I saw Denzel Washington, I was like, That’s what I want to do, right there.7Jackson Hole, Wyo.I’ve vacationed in Miami, the islands, all the tropical spots. But I’m a Black cowboy. I love the cowboy feeling of something. I love dirt. I love desert. Jackson Hole, Wyo., is a really quiet, subdued place. To get a cabin there in the summertime — oh, man, it is breathtaking.8Killer MikeIt’s always good to hear a voice in our community speaking the truth. Killer Mike is one of those guys that has been blessed to have that voice for our people. His songs are thought-provoking, they move you in a lot of ways. He’s touching on a lot of good points in the hip-hop industry, in the Black community itself, and white America.9Treasure HuntingWhen I’m out on the road telling jokes, the first thing I want to hit is a vintage store. I want to hit the vintage clothing store, and I want to hit the antique furniture store. You go to a store in one of these cities outside of where you live, man, and you find some jewels up in there. Some of these old people, they bring stuff in these places that you wouldn’t believe, and in perfect shape.10DetroitMy favorite city to perform in is Detroit. They have the most fun. They love to come out and celebrate. My audience in Detroit, man, they got fur coats on, they got diamonds, they got thick glasses on, the women are looking good — they sparkling. That’s my audience. More

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      Mark Margolis, Scene-Stealing Actor in ‘Breaking Bad,’ Dies at 83

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      His character, an ex-drug lord in a wheelchair, was unable to speak, but Mr. Margolis, who also appeared in “Better Call Saul,” didn’t need dialogue to wield fearsome power.Mark Margolis, the prolific actor whose simmering air of menace as the fearsome former drug lord Hector Salamanca in “Breaking Bad” transformed the innocent ding of a bellhop bell into a harbinger of doom, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 83.His death, at Mount Sinai Hospital following a brief illness, was confirmed in a statement on Friday by his son, Morgan Margolis. Mr. Margolis lived in Manhattan.Mr. Margolis notched more than 160 credits in movies and on television, gaining particular notice with memorable roles in Brian De Palma’s “Scarface” (1983), playing opposite Al Pacino as a cocaine-syndicate henchman, and in the Jim Carrey comedy “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” (1994), in which he played Ventura’s aggrieved landlord with delicious malevolence.He also became a go-to actor for the director Darren Aronofsky, appearing in his films “Pi” (1998), “Requiem for a Dream” (2000), “The Fountain” (2006), “The Wrestler” (2008), “Black Swan” (2010) and “Noah” (2014).But no role made him as instantly recognizable to millions of viewers as Hector in Vince Gilligan’s critically acclaimed series “Breaking Bad,” which ran for five seasons on AMC, starting in 2008, starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and Anna Gunn, and in its prequel, “Better Call Saul,” which ran for six seasons starting in 2015, starring Bob Odenkirk and Giancarlo Esposito — two of the many actors who appeared in both shows — as well as Rhea Seehorn.The role, in “Breaking Bad,” brought Mr. Margolis an Emmy nomination in 2012 for outstanding guest actor in a dramatic series.An aging former drug cartel don from Mexico, Hector, also known as Tio, had come to live in a New Mexico nursing home, unable to speak or walk following a stroke but still firmly in control of his power as a rival to Walter White (Mr. Cranston), a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher who evolves into a coldhearted kingpin in the crystal methedrine trade.Despite his lack of dialogue in “Breaking Bad,” Mr. Margolis proved a scene stealer from his wheelchair, his eyes bulging, his face trembling with rage, despite the nasal cannula pumping oxygen up his nose and his palm furiously banging his bell, taped to an arm of the chair, whenever he needed attention.“Everybody says, ‘My God it must be difficult to work without words,’” he said in a 2012 interview with Fast Company. “My joke is, ‘No. I’m already grounded in the fact that I’ve been acting without hair for years, and that’s not a problem. So, now I’m acting without words.’”As a young actor, he added, he had trained to communicate emotions without dialogue. He also borrowed mannerisms, including a tobacco-chewing motion with the side of his mouth, from his mother-in-law, who had been confined to a Florida nursing home after a stroke.As viewers discovered in “Better Call Saul,” which featured Mr. Margolis as an ambulatory and verbose Hector, the character had wound up in a wheelchair after a defector in his organization switched his medication to incapacitate him, leading to the stroke.Despite the character’s broken moral compass and hair-trigger rage, Mr. Margolis managed to evoke Hector’s complexity — his humanity, even.“You don’t play villains like they are villains,” he said in a 2012 interview with The Forward, the Jewish newspaper. “You play them like you know exactly where they are coming from. Which hopefully you do.”Mark Margolis was born on Nov. 26, 1939, in Philadelphia to Isidore and Fanya (Fried) Margolis. He attended Temple University briefly before moving to New York, where at 19 he got a job as a personal assistant to the method acting guru Stella Adler. He also took a class with Lee Strasberg at his famed Actors Studio.After making brief appearances on television shows like “Kojak” and in movies like the Dudley Moore comedy “Arthur” and Mr. De Palma’s “Dressed to Kill” (both from 1981), Mr. Margolis got his first taste of renown in “Scarface,” playing Alberto the Shadow, a bodyguard and hit man for Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar), the Bolivian drug boss who shows Mr. Pacino’s Tony the ropes in the cocaine business.Mr. Margolis, left, played a bodyguard and hit man for a mobster (Paul Shenar, right) in Brian De Palma’s movie “Scarface,” from 1983.Universal/courtesy Everett CollectionIn one slyly comic moment in “Breaking Bad,” Hector is seen watching on television a famous scene from “Scarface” in which Tony spontaneously shoots Alberto in the head when he learns that Alberto’s planned car-bomb murder of a nosy journalist would also kill the journalist’s wife and children.Despite his turns as a Latin heavy, Mr. Margolis, who was Jewish, did not speak Spanish, a point that earned him no shortage of derision from native speakers.“I’ve lived in Mexico,” he said in 2016 interview with Vulture, New York magazine’s culture site. “I know enough of the grammar of it, and I’m pretty good with the accent of it. If I get a good tutor, I can lock into it pretty quickly.”In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife of 61 years, Jacqueline Margolis; a brother, Jerome; and three grandchildren.In the years between “Scarface” and “Breaking Bad,” Mr. Margolis’s prodigious output made him a known actor, if not a famous one. “People will often come up to me and say, ‘You’re that wonderful character actor,’” he told The Forward, apparently half seriously. “But I’m not a character actor. I’m a weird-looking romantic lead.”Unlike most romantic leads, though, Mr. Margolis struggled at times to make a living. Fans, he told The New York Observer in 2012, “think that I’m some sort of rich guy, that everyone in the movies is making the kind of money Angelina Jolie is making.”He and his wife had lived in the same apartment in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood since 1975.At least his turn as Hector provided him with a dash of supplemental income at the show’s peak, after a messaging app called Dingbel appropriated Hector’s simplest bell command — one ding for yes, two for no. Dingbel hired him as a spokesman.As Mr. Margolis told Vulture: “I tell people I’m the second-most famous bell ringer after Quasimodo.” More

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      ‘Heartstopper’ Season 2, Watched With L.G.B.T.Q. Teens

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      Three British 16-year-olds took an advance look at Season 2. There was popcorn, giggling and more than a little eye-rolling.This week, the British coming-of-age drama “Heartstopper” returned to laptop screens all over the world. Based on Alice Oseman’s webcomics, the Netflix series follows a romantic relationship between two high school students, Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor), whose friendship group includes a young trans woman, Elle (Yasmin Finney), and a lesbian couple, Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell).The first season of this fizzy, feel-good show amassed 24 million hours of views in its first week, according to Netflix, and received glowing reviews from critics. But does it really reflect reality for British L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers? “It’s probably my only comfort show,” said Sharan Sahota, 16, as she settled into an armchair on a recent afternoon to watch the first four episodes of the new season. In “Heartstopper,” Charlie is outed as gay in eighth grade; Sahota, who identifies as pansexual, was also outed at school around the same age.“It wasn’t a pleasant experience,” she said, adding that seeing a similar ordeal depicted in “Heartstopper” has helped her feel less alone. “If they can get through it, and they’re living happily, so can I,” she said.Sahota, Oscar Wittams-Nangle and Ari Przytulski, all 16, recently gathered in London for a “Heartstopper” watch party. The trio — who attend a weekly youth club run by the charity Mosaic L.G.B.T.+ Young Persons’ Trust — discussed the show’s relevance and accuracy, as well as its surprisingly chaste attitude to sex. There was popcorn, giggling and more than a little eye-rolling.The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity, and contains mild spoilers.In this season, we see Nick struggling to come out as bisexual multiple times. How relevant is coming out to your generation?ARI PRZYTULSKI I think it’s still definitely relevant. Many kids still feel like they have to come out, especially to parents. I came out to my mum twice, first I was gay, then I was like, actually I’m trans.OSCAR WITTAMS-NANGLE Coming out is definitely a pressure. But at least for me, it was always an external pressure that came from other people, rather than something I felt I needed to do for me.SHARAN SAHOTA When you’re outed, you’re just like, “I can’t do anything.” The closet is just glass after that. But when you change environments, you don’t have to come out.PRZYTULSKI I understand why they wrote Nick feeling like he needs to come out to everyone in order to actually be out. But I feel like it would be a better message to show that you don’t need to. You can just exist as an L.G.B.T. person, and just be in a relationship without having to tell everyone that you are this way.From left, Felix (Ash Self), Naomi (Bel Priestley) and Elle (Yasmin Finney) at an art school.Netflix/Samuel DoreWhat do you think “Heartstopper” is doing that other L.G.B.T. films and shows aren’t?PRZYTULSKI What I like about the show is that it doesn’t overdramatize for shock value, or just to play with your emotions. It’s about gay people, but it’s not tragic. A lot of queer films just show how sad it is. Especially in shows like “Euphoria”: It’s all about how horrible everyone is and how everything just goes badly. In “Heartstopper,” people fix stuff by talking.WITTAMS-NANGLE “Queer as Folk” was released in 1999 in Britain. I saw a few reviews draw comparisons to that. And it’s like, not really: It’s not that the reviewers didn’t understand it, but it was definitely a result of them not having this sort of show when they were growing up. There aren’t that many cultural references that they can draw on.What do you make of the lack of sex in the show?PRZYTULSKI A lot of other shows focus way more on sex when it’s not all about that: It’s also your affection toward people. That’s why so many straight people misunderstand us. It’s not about being proud of liking boys, or whoever you like, it’s about the experience of being gay in a heteronormative society.WITTAMS-NANGLE It’s good that “Heartstopper” moves away from sexuality being purely about sex. It does mean more than that to me. It’s an identity, it’s a community. I think there are some things that are sanitized, but I wouldn’t say it would be the portrayal of sexuality.Locke and Connor in Season 2 of “Heartstopper.”Netflix/Samuel DoreWhich aspects are sanitized, do you think?WITTAMS-NANGLE The Harry character is very sanitized. Most queerphobic bullies say things that are a lot worse. I’ve had worse.SAHOTA In real life there’s a whole group of them.WITTAMS-NANGLE Exactly.PRZYTULSKI Whether it’s people staring at you, or it’s people outright harassing you, it’s a constant struggle. I understand why you wouldn’t want to include that in the show, because it’s meant to be a happy show.WITTAMS-NANGLE Also, it definitely is not easy in this country to be able to get gender affirming care, especially at our age, because you need to either have money, or luck.We don’t see Elle’s transition on the show.WITTAMS-NANGLE If you can get past all the waiting lists, all the appointments go well, then maybe you’ll get it on the N.H.S. [Britain’s National Health Service]. But, otherwise, there’s no chance. I think that is a struggle that isn’t shown in any media.Does it matter that the two main characters are two cisgender white boys?PRZYTULSKI I think it does. That’s one of the things that makes it less relatable to me as a trans woman. With Nick and Charlie both being white cis boys, it’s more digestible. They’re the default, and then there’s one variable, that they’re gay, or bi.WITTAMS-NANGLE Personally, I’m fine with it not being perfect, because there is absolutely no way you can make the perfect show for something which is as varied and as individual as living life as a queer person.Do you think “Heartstopper” is aiming for realism, or is it depicting an aspirational world?SAHOTA I think it’s a mix.WITTAMS-NANGLE Aspiration is the word. A lot of people don’t have accepting parents, or don’t have an accepting peer group, don’t have friends they feel comfortable coming out to. I watch the show and I’m like, “I wish my school could’ve been like that.”PRZYTULSKI They’re kissing a lot. They really were shoving each other into the wall. They’re in the middle of school and practically making out!WITTAMS-NANGLE It was quite funny, the changing room scene where they’re like, “We shouldn’t be kissing at school. We need to be discreet.” And they’re talking really loudly. Not doing very well on the discreet thing. More

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      ‘And Just Like That …’ Season 2, Episode 8 Recap: Domestic Bliss

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      Carrie and Aidan play house. Miranda and Charlotte get back to work.Season 2, Episode 8:Who could have guessed that Che would be the hero we needed to finally ask, out loud, the burning question so many of us have had for Carrie and Aidan for the last 20 years or so?“I mean come on,” Che says to them innocently enough. “Why did this not work out the first time?”It’s a question Carrie hasn’t been able to get out of her head since that fateful Valentine’s Day dinner in last week’s episode. When this week’s kicks off, we find out Carrie and Aidan have been fully back on, spending night after night in hotels, living on $26 room service omelets.It’s not just that they’re dating again. As Carrie tells it to Miranda, she and Aidan are connected in a way now that feels beyond what they ever had. Could it be, Carrie wonders as she walks down the street — clad in some strange jammies-and-slippers get-up with a baby blankie coat to match — that some toxic attachment to Big never allowed her to truly let Aidan in. Maybe she missed out. Maybe, she tells Miranda, Big was a “big mistake.”It kind of makes sense, then, that Carrie and Aidan find themselves playing house, gaming out a life that could have been.Of course, Aidan lives in a Virginia farmhouse with his three sons and an undisclosed number of chickens, but when he’s in New York, he and Carrie essentially live together. They rent out Che’s apartment, saving Che from a string of unruly Airbnb-ers, and when Carrie and Aidan discover that Che has little to no houseware to speak of, they all but clean out a Williams Sonoma (or Crate and Barrel or wherever they are) to fill that void, looking as happy as any couple picking out items for their wedding registry.Naturally, Carrie and Aidan quickly become a “we.” It’s a little too quick for Seema, who dodges Carrie’s invitation to join her and Aidan for dinner. It’s not just jealousy that Carrie has a new boyfriend and Seema doesn’t. The real hurt she feels, as Seema confesses to Carrie over a melodramatic cigarette on Madison Avenue in the rain, is that Carrie has experienced great love — not once, but twice. The harsh truth for Seema is that she may never get that chance. And if she winds up third-wheeling in the Hamptons house she and Carrie are supposed to share this summer, that feeling is going to weigh on her a little too heavily.The Hampton plans are nixed, and Seema insists that she needs space. Carrie lets her go, even though she doesn’t want to.While Carrie and Aidan are rapidly advancing their relationship, both Miranda and Charlotte are taking off in their careers. Although Miranda is merely an intern at Human Rights Watch, she is thrilled about her new position — she’s finally free from corporate law and instead engaged in actual do-gooding. Her fellow interns, who are much younger but have been at the organization longer, are less thrilled when Miranda becomes the supervisor’s pet and is immediately selected for the coveted role of note-taker while they’re stuck slaving over citations. They quickly ice out Miranda like a couple of high school mean girls.Charlotte, on the other hand, has an entirely different, more enlightening experience with the younger set at work.Leading up to her first day at Kasabian Gallery, Charlotte finds herself obsessed with an extra few tummy pounds that simply will not do underneath her perfect new gallerina dress. She consumes nothing but bone broth all week and double bags herself in shapewear, but the “pooch,” which is nearly nonexistent, remains.Charlotte shows up to work, sucked and tucked, covering her midsection with her coat as if she were hiding a pregnancy. But when a 20-something co-worker, who is larger than Charlotte but confidently baring her midriff, swoops down the stairs and tells Charlotte her dress is fierce, Charlotte shakes off all the drama she internalized during the heroin chic era.It’s an abrupt about-face, which is kind of jarring, but as a Xennial who bore witness to Y2K’s relentless body shaming, I can attest, at least anecdotally, that Gen Z is truly an inspiration to older women everywhere in their unabashed embrace of all body sizes and their devil-may-care attitude toward which women are “allowed” to wear certain garments. Even though the crop-top queen Britney Spears ruled our youthful years, few millennial and Gen X women had the stick-slender body type at the time “required” to sport that look. Today, girls bare whatever bellies they’ve got. And as becomes clear immediately to Charlotte, that attitude is helping women of all ages to finally exhale.The best revelation of the episode, though, comes toward the end, when Carrie stops wondering about all of her past missteps and instead starts understanding them.Back in Che’s kitchen, between sips of beer, a quiet pause lingers over Che’s question: Why did things go so wrong between Carrie and Aidan? To Carrie, the answer simple.“Because I made a mistake,” Carrie says, clearly, and with conviction. But the look she gives Aidan right after says even more. Carrie isn’t referring only to the affair she had with Big, which broke up her and Aidan the first time. Nor is she talking only about the cold feet she got during their engagement, which split them up the second time — though certainly those events appear to be huge regrets.Carrie knows now that choosing Big over Aidan, at all, was a colossal blunder, and that the last couple of decades could have been far happier and more fulfilling if she had chosen a life with Aidan instead.And honestly, hallelujah. A significant portion of the fan base (me!) agrees and has never really gotten over it.Carrie and Aidan embrace, and I couldn’t help but wonder … can’t we just end the series right here?Things still taking up space in my brain:It doesn’t take a psychologist to figure out that when Carrie tells Seema she can’t have space because space between friends just leads to more space, she is talking about Samantha. Luckily, Seema doesn’t abscond to London and finds the strength to show up to the “we” dinner, with a smile to boot.If Carrie and Aidan fizzle out by the season finale, I truly don’t know if I can take it. Big got 20-some years. The Aidan stans are owed our longer arc. More

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      ‘The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart’ Review: The Right Kind of Melodrama

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      Sigourney Weaver stars in an Australian family thriller full of stormy emotions and strangely beautiful terrain.The title of the new Amazon offering “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” with its echo of V.C. Andrews’s Gothic novels of family calamity, is a case of truth in advertising. The seven-episode Australian mini-series, which is based on the novel by Holly Ringland and premiered Thursday on Prime Video, is an unapologetic melodrama — a family saga in which lies and secrets proliferate beyond all reason, putting parents and children, friends and bystanders, through unnaturally intense storms of emotion.That it’s also entertaining, moving and vividly atmospheric is a pleasant surprise in a time when melodrama tends toward the banal (some variety of soap opera) or the scolding (some variety of humorless social critique). “Lost Flowers” is a reminder that when it is handled with skill, sophistication and a measure of restraint, melodrama can be as satisfying as any other style of storytelling.The story involves a complicated web of relationships centering on Thornhill, a flower farm that doubles as a refuge for troubled women, who are called “flowers.” Some of the women, though not all of them, are escaping abusive men. The farm is run by a forbidding matriarch, June (Sigourney Weaver), with the help of her Indigenous lover, Twig (Leah Purcell), and their adopted daughter, Candy (Frankie Adams).June is one pole of a story in which the keeping of shameful family secrets is the foundation of tragedy. The other pole is Alice, who is a child when we first see her (played by Alyla Browne) and knows nothing about June, her grandmother. Savage events unite them early on so that they can spend the rest of the series being drawn together and, as Alice works her way through June’s lies, torn apart again.Most of the first half of “Lost Flowers” is tied to the point of view of this young Alice, and the director and cinematographer, Glendyn Ivin and Sam Chiplin, give these episodes the seductive texture of an ominous, doom-tinged fairy tale. Using the strangely beautiful landscape of the New South Wales coast, they create an ambience that reflects Alice’s childlike, wavering apprehension of the unreasoning violence that regularly bursts into her life.They are helped immensely by Browne, who gives a terrific performance even though Alice spends several episodes mostly mute while recovering from trauma. Sadness, rebelliousness and a puckish sense of humor are there in her eyes. Though she shares the screen with Weaver and with the Australian star Asher Keddie, who plays a sympathetic but self-righteous local librarian, Browne draws you right to her.Alycia Debnam-Carey plays an older version of Alice, who after a 10-year leap forward in the story appears to be repeating harmful family patterns.Amazon StudiosMidway through, the series jumps ahead more than a decade, and Alice, now a young woman played by Alycia Debnam-Carey, finds herself in another magical setting — this time a national park where a volcanic crater provides a haven for wildflowers.The change of scenery is symbolic — away from the protection of the farm, Alice is free both to find herself and to start repeating harmful family patterns when it comes to men. And the writing, led by the series’s showrunner, Sarah Lambert, dries out a little along with the landscape. These episodes feel more like something we’ve seen before, though a bit of the earlier enchantment lingers in a plot strand involving Twig’s long road trip in search of Alice.What carries you through, finally — as you might expect — is Weaver. “Lost Flowers” doesn’t play to her traditional strengths — the taciturn, bottled-up June doesn’t provide much of a canvas for Weaver’s regal-yet-feral intelligence or her deadly sense of humor. She can get more out of sheer presence and stubborn charisma, however, than most performers do from busily acting, and in the later episodes she takes over, carrying off some wonderful moments as June slows down and opens up. Weaver’s work in series has been sparse and unpredictable; getting to spend seven episodes with her is the icing on the melodrama. More

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      A Times Reporter on the SAG-AFTRA Actors’ Strike and Hollywood’s Future

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      Lights. Camera. Action? Brooks Barnes, who covers the entertainment business, discussed the state of film and television amid an industrywide shutdown.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.It was around 1 a.m. one Thursday last month when Brooks Barnes received the email he’d been waiting up for.“SAG-AFTRA TELEVISION, THEATRICAL AND STREAMING CONTRACTS EXPIRE WITHOUT A DEAL,” read the subject line on the email, sent by a union representative.Movie studios and unionized actors failed to reach a deal after weeks of negotiations. Hours later, members of SAG-AFTRA’s national board voted to strike, and tens of thousands of actors joined the screenwriters already on the picket lines over issues including pay. The decision brought film and television productions to a standstill and left the fate of Hollywood hanging in the balance.“When something big like this happens, you just have to put down everything else you’re working on,” said Mr. Barnes, a reporter who covers Hollywood for The New York Times. In an interview, he shared his thoughts on Hollywood’s first industrywide shutdown in more than 60 years and on how the repercussions may be coming to a theater near you. This interview has been edited.What do unionized actors want?There’s a long list of things; their proposals are detailed and specific, down to what a background dancer gets paid for rehearsal time, for example. But the main sticking point is that actors want residual payments from streaming services.In the traditional model, actors would get paid for the work that they do on a TV show or movie; they would get paid residuals once that show or movie was resold as a rerun on TV. Sometimes the residual money could be huge, depending on a show’s popularity.In the streaming era, that model has changed. Actors still get paid a residual for streaming work. But it’s essentially a flat fee. Actors want those payments to be based on a show’s popularity — more for a hit like “Stranger Things,” for example, and less for something that flops.The other big sticking point is artificial intelligence. Actors want guardrails so their likenesses will not be reused digitally without their approval and a payment.Using an actor’s likeness without their consent makes me think of a recent “Black Mirror” episode, in which characters’ likenesses were used in bizarre ways without their permission.That’s exactly what this is about, but it’s also to protect background actors. In a crowd scene, they might scan a background actor’s likeness and reuse it in another movie just to populate the scene. It doesn’t have to be Salma Hayek or Tom Cruise.How does the writers’ strike fit into all this?The writers are on strike for similar issues, including residual payments. Writers are also looking for a type of quota system; they want studios to staff a writers’ room with a minimum number of writers. Streaming services often use minirooms, a type of writers’ room used early in the show-development process that involves half as many writers. Basically, they’re doing much of the same work with fewer people. The union wants protections against those job cuts. How soon will we see the repercussions of the actors’ strike?Viewers won’t see too many repercussions for a while because the assembly pipelines work so far in advance; a lot of upcoming TV series and films are already finished. But some big movies planned for Christmas have been pushed to next year, and the fall TV schedule will be heavy on reality shows and reruns. Actors are also not allowed to promote any of the work that they have already finished. And that’s crucial to studios; they want actors on talk shows and podcasts to promote their projects.You recently wrote about a factor that’s contributing to the strikes: the absence of a power broker to help mediate.Yes, the last Hollywood strike took place in 2007-8. In those days, it was a simpler business; Netflix was mostly an indie company and had just begun streaming. Back then, there were studio elders and senior statesmen who could come in and say, OK, let’s iron this out and get back to work. That kind of person doesn’t exist so much anymore.Why not?Companies just have different cultures and priorities — a Netflix versus a Disney versus an Apple. The other reason is some of the studio executives who could mediate have had problems. Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, has become a bit of a villain for comments he made about the strike on CNBC, so he’s not really the greatest person to generate trust. You need someone whom both sides trust, respect and will listen to.I wonder about your thoughts on the success of “Barbenheimer” at the box office. It feels bittersweet.It’s exciting to know that Hollywood can still deliver these kinds of cultural thunderclaps, but the reality is the reality: The hits are few and far between. And it’s hard to feel very good about the business when hundreds of thousands of people are on strike or impacted by the strikes. More