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The Times invites readers to share their comments and observations about the 2023 Academy Awards.As The Times covers the 95th Academy Awards, from the (not actually red) red carpet to the best picture announcement, we invite readers to share their comments here. More
Jenna Ortega hosted an episode that featured appearances by Fred Armisen and also took aim at Tucker Carlson and a Tennessee politician with questionable Instagram habits.There was a time — say, just before a certain incident near the end of last year’s Academy Awards show — when the ceremony itself was a dignified proceeding and the embarrassment was largely confined to the preshow red carpet program.That’s the spirit that “Saturday Night Live” tried to return to this weekend with an opening sketch that imagined the celebrity arrival for Sunday’s Oscars, complete with vacuous hosts and overly excited nominees.“S.N.L.,” which was hosted by Jenna Ortega and featured the musical guest the 1975, began with an “Access Hollywood” Oscars preview emceed by Marcello Hernández (as Mario Lopez) and Heidi Gardner (as “either Maria Menounos or Kit Hoover, they haven’t told me which yet,” she said).Following a plug for their sponsor, Ozempic (“I guess everyone in Hollywood has diabetes”), they welcomed Kenan Thompson, who was playing Mike Tyson, now overseeing Oscars security for the purposes of this sketch.“I am ready to handle the proceedings judiciously and expeditiously,” Thompson said. “But I should warn you, the following things will set me off: clapping, statues of gold people and shows that last more than two hours. And also hearing the phrase ‘the magic of movies.’”He added that a few changes had been made since the previous Oscars show: “This year all the nominees have been given Tasers,” Thompson said. “All the seat fillers have been given guns. And Jimmy Kimmel has been given a flame thrower.”For safety purposes Thompson said that Will Smith had been surreptitiously given an Apple AirTag to track his location. “We know exactly where he’ll be at all times,” he said. “Unless of course he changes pants and then he could be anywhere.”The hosts then welcomed Chloe Fineman, playing the Oscar nominee Jamie Lee Curtis of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Fineman, however, wanted to sing the praises of “Tár,” which she said was “iconic, vivacious, carnivorous, queer, vague, confusing, long, partially in German, and it was hands down the funniest movie of the year.”Playing bookmakers from the online betting site DraftKings, Andrew Dismukes and Devon Walker gave odds on possible Oscars events: a young actor bringing out an old actor in a wheelchair and regretting it immediately (3-1); an actress who made $20 million last year saying the phrase “we are all Ukraine” (2-1); and someone from the in memoriam segment still being alive (10-1).They also predicted various celebrities who could make surprise appearances at the Oscars, a list that included Chris Rock, Jared from Subway, Armie Hammer, the judges that overturned Roe v. Wade and George Santos pretending to be Tom Cruise.Sure enough, the hosts were soon joined by Bowen Yang, playing Santos (but claiming to be Cruise).“No, no,” Yang insisted. “I’m definitely Thomas Q. Cruise, star of this year’s blockbuster film ‘Top Gun 2: Top Bottom.’”He added, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go be everyone, everywhere, all at once.”‘S.N.L.’ Alumnus of the WeekAfter Ortega used a portion of her monologue to shout out Fred Armisen, the former “S.N.L.” cast member who plays Uncle Fester in her Netflix series, “Wednesday,” it was a given that Armisen would later show up in a sketch on the show.But who could have foreseen it would be in this sketch, about the filming of a remake of “The Parent Trap,” where Ortega’s character is cast as a pair of reunited twin sisters and Armisen is the 56-year-old crew member who reads opposite her when her body double calls out sick for the day. We give the sketch extra credit for observing that if “The Parent Trap” were remade today, the parents in question probably would be played by Ed Helms and Leslie Mann.Filmed Segment of the WeekIt was reported earlier this week that the postproduction editors at “S.N.L.” have set a deadline of April 1 for a potential strike as they seek equitable pay, health benefits and other provisions from the show. If an agreement isn’t reached before the next live broadcast, “S.N.L.” could lose out on segments like this one: a filmed sketch that presents itself as a sendup of a teenage soap opera, where a young couple played by Ortega and Hernández are on the verge of breaking up in the parking lot of a Waffle House.Of course all the real action is taking place inside the Waffle House, just beyond the windows and slightly out of focus, where various cast members play the employees and dissolute customers feuding with each other. “S.N.L.” may be a fundamentally live show, but film — and the sight of a bare-chested Mikey Day with cornrows and pierced nipples — is crucial to the program too.Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the Oscars and President Biden’s proposed budget.As his screen showed images of former President Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Jost began:This weekend, bitter rivals who have been desperately pandering for votes and trying to force their politics on America will finally face off in person. I’m of course talking about tomorrow’s Oscars. The Motion Picture Academy has rejected a request from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to make an appearance during the Oscars. But they promised that “Volodymyr Zelensky” will be how John Travolta pronounces “Viola Davis.” Organizers of the Oscars said they changed the color of the arrival carpet from red to Champagne so the mood would be more mellow. But I don’t know, switching from red to Champagne usually turns me into a full-on bitch.Che continued:President Biden proposed his budget that would help fund Medicare with a 25 percent tax on billionaires. Ha, take that, Rihanna. President Biden’s proposed budget included $400 million to counter Chinese disinformation. It will target the No. 1 source of Chinese disinformation: fortune cookies.Weekend Update Guest of the WeekAn awkward television interview with Lt. Gov. Randy McNally of Tennessee, in which he tried to explain why he’d published approving comments on racy Instagram photos posted by a 20-year-old gay man, yielded a bounty of material for Molly Kearney, who impersonated McNally in a desk-side segment on Weekend Update.While the real-life McNally (who also serves as speaker of the Tennessee senate) has backed new laws in the state designed to restrict drag performances in public spaces and ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors, Kearney said, “I believe a woman should be in the home and a man should be 143 pounds of dancing to Dua Lipa.” Told by Jost that these online interactions did not appear to be innocent, Kearney replied, “I’m just looking out for the little guy — every Tom, Dick and hairless.” More
The “Shazam!” star revives himself with sprinkle doughnuts, Frank Black’s “Teenager of the Year” and daily naps.“Shazam!,” the 2019 DC Universe comic-adventure about some foster kids and their adult superhero alter egos, and its new sequel, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” might not change the arc of Adam Brody’s career exactly — though there are perks to being in a hit.“I’ve been acting for so long now but have barely set foot in any sort of big action movie,” said Brody, one of the stars of the FX series “Fleishman Is in Trouble.” “Being on something of this size is a thrill, just the huge setups and huge wire rigs, and you’re being chased by a dragon. It’s a big part of the Hollywood acting experience in the modern age that I really hadn’t got to play with before.”“Fury of the Gods,” opening Friday, finds the teens — including Freddy Freeman, played by Jack Dylan Grazer, with Brody as his grown version — fully endowed with otherworldly powers. Then the Daughters of Atlas (Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler) show up, and they want their magic back.But “Fury of the Gods” isn’t the only action Brody has seen recently. In an upcoming remake of “The River Wild” for Netflix, he’ll be occupying the same space, if not the same character, as the menace played in the 1994 original by Kevin Bacon. Brody’s wife, Leighton Meester, and their friend Taran Killam join him as distrusting siblings on a raft ride to hell.In a video call from Los Angeles, where he and Meester live with their daughter and son, Brody talked about venturing into the trenches with “Hardcore History,” revering Frank Black and listening to NPR in lieu of college. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1SurfingI’m from San Diego, and a big part of the beach for me is surfing. I was obsessed with it, and from junior high and high school that was my main focus. Then I moved to L.A. to try acting, and I ditched it for well over a decade. In my early 30s, I started dipping my toe because I missed the beach environment. And surf has slowly but steadily taken over my life again. My wife has picked it up and is obsessed. I’m at this really lovely place where the two halves of my life have converged.2DoughnutsI could eat them every day. I do enjoy this gourmet artisanal doughnut revolution that’s been going on for the last decade. I don’t like the chain ones — they seem so processed and lacking some flavor. But probably my favorite, even more than the really nice gourmet ones, are those strip-mall family-owned ones, usually Vietnamese- or Cambodian-owned but not always. They tend to be a little lighter, so you can take down a couple. My eye is very drawn to sprinkles. Pretty hard for me to say no.3Dan Carlin’s ‘Hardcore History’ PodcastHe’s always like, “Now remember, I’m not a historian.” I’m like, “But you are a historian. Why are you talking to me about this for 20 hours, then?” Every episode is five hours long, and one comes out every six months. “Blueprint for Armageddon” on World War I, which is the first one I listened to, blew me away.4Frank Black’s ‘Teenager of the Year’This is probably the only album or musician that I loved as a teenager that I still love. It’s not even that I listen to him a lot anymore, but I still revere him. It has a real irreverent, comedic and punk element to it. And he sings about so many subjects I think are great: California, space and astral planes and different dimensions, the Mariana Trench and the depths of the ocean.5Cate Le BonShe sounds like nobody else. I find the up-tempo stuff very groovy. At the same time it’s so off-kilter. There’s descending notes in minor chords and drone-y saxophone. And I find her singing emotional, and yet she’s Bowie-esque, distant and unknowable. Not a false note in the entire discography.6NapsI’ve always been pretty talented at napping. It doesn’t have to be that long, but there has to be one. I have less time to do it since I’ve been a parent. I’m sort of sounding scarily like my dad when I say that. I picture him asleep with a Kindle on his chest. But my favorite thing in a leisure-filled day: I’m going to start to read lying down, I’m going to close the book, take a nap, wake up and keep reading.7NPRI didn’t go to college, and I kind of consider it my alma mater. I like their breadth of coverage. It’s local, it’s national, it’s global. I like most of the personalities on it, and I find something about their — it’s not monotone, but it’s soft tones — very reassuring. It’s a calm, assured personality, giving you what I think is a well-rounded coverage. I’m sure some people would disagree, but they’re wrong.8‘The Crown’These are some of the best scenes on television. You have two great actors, and a monster scene for them to do with a real beginning, middle and end. I also am a big fan of the formatting, taking the historical record and bending it to a theme and an arc versus a cliffhanger. They’re really doing their own mini three-act movie in each episode.9‘Avatar: The Way of Water’I say this as someone who didn’t even like the first one. But I have a retroactive appreciation for it now because I like the second one so much. I took my daughter, who’s 7. I was like, “It’s over three hours long, and I’ve heard mixed things, but let’s go see, and if we want to leave, we’ll leave.” And I proceeded to have one of the best times I’ve had at the movies in decades. For starters, I cried — we both did — and I haven’t cried at a movie since “Titanic.”10‘Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter’My daughter and I watched the cartoon series that Goro Miyazaki did, and then we read the book. It’s a year in the life of this 9-year-old girl who lives in an abandoned fortress with her mother and her loving but volatile father and his group of robbers in medieval Renaissance times. She starts to explore the forest and then meets a boy her age. It’s so in touch with nature and the cycles of life, her very first pangs of love and her growing independence. And at the end of every chapter, the writer, Astrid Lindgren, had a phrase or two that really got to me — simple and yet emotional. More
A guide to everything you need to know for the 95th annual Academy Awards on Sunday night.It’s looking like the year of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”The sci-fi smash from the directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert has already swept the top prizes at the four major Hollywood guild awards, and the only other films to ever do that — “Argo,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “American Beauty” — all went on to win the best picture Oscar.But! It’s the academy, and there’s always at least one surprise. Will Steven Spielberg spoil the Daniels’ bid for best director with his semi-autobiographical tale, “The Fabelmans”? Will Michelle Yeoh beat Cate Blanchett for best actress? Will Angela Bassett, who’s nominated for best supporting actress for her performance in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” bring home the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first acting Oscar? There’s sure to be drama.Among about 50 stars lined up to present trophies are Ariana DeBose, Florence Pugh and Jonathan Majors. (Another key question: Will DeBose reprise her viral BAFTAs musical rap?)Here’s what you need to know:What time do the festivities start?The ceremony begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. On television, ABC is the official broadcaster. Online, if you have a cable login, you can watch via abc.com/watch-live/abc, or if you’re an ABC subscriber, via the ABC app. For cord-cutters, there’s also Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, YouTube TV or Fubo, all of which require subscriptions, though many are offering free trials.Is there a red carpet?Well, there will be star arrivals, but they will be treading a champagne-colored carpet. To watch, head to the E! network beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific if you’re in the mood for some preshow celebrity spotting. (ABC will also have champagne-carpet coverage beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern, which you can watch live on its website, with no sign-in required.)Is there a preshow?The official Academy Awards preshow, “On the Red Carpet Live: Countdown to Oscars 95,” airs on ABC from 1 to 4 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Pacific (and will be available to stream on the ABC News Live website beginning at 1:30 p.m. Eastern, 10:30 a.m. Pacific until the start of the Oscars).Then, also on ABC, Ashley Graham, Vanessa Hudgens and Lilly Singh will host the “Countdown to the Oscars” lead-in show, which will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the big night, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, 3:30 p.m. Pacific.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Trying to Fix the Oscars: Acceptance speeches on TikTok? They’re part of an urgent effort to win back viewers.Oscars Fashion: A Versace runway show was a fitting start to the series of extravagant days that represent the unholy marriage between Hollywood and fashion: Oscars weekend.Inside the Oscars Campaigns: Despite the big show of sealed envelopes, Oscars voting is a highly contingent, political process. Here’s how the quest for awards-season glory got so cutthroat.Reading Suggestion: A new book that tracks the history of moviedom’s biggest night examines the glamour, societal changes and bloopers embodied in 95 years of step-and-repeat.Who will be hosting?Jimmy Kimmel will return for his third round as M.C. after previously guiding the ceremonies in 2017 (the “Moonlight”-“La La Land” mix-up year) and 2018.Who will be presenting?Three of last year’s acting winners — Jessica Chastain, DeBose and Troy Kotsur — as well as Riz Ahmed, Halle Bailey, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Majors, Janelle Monáe, Deepika Padukone, Pugh and Questlove.Will Will Smith be there?Smith, who took home last year’s best actor statuette for his performance as the father of Venus and Serena Williams in the biopic “King Richard,” was barred from the Oscars and other academy events for 10 years after he slapped the comedian Chris Rock at the 2022 ceremony. (Rock recently joked about the explosive moment on a live Netflix show.)Will Jennifer Coolidge be there?It feels like she should be, right? But alas, no. (Or, at least, not that we know of!)What should you watch for?After considerable backlash from industry professionals following last year’s decision to pretape eight of the competitive categories, all 23 categories will be awarded live this year.And there are a number of milestones to keep an eye out for: Yeoh could become the first Asian star to win best actress for her performance as the multiverse-surfing mother in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” if she can hold off Blanchett’s ambitious conductor in “Tár.” If Spielberg, 76, wins best director for “The Fabelmans,” he would become the oldest winner in the category. And if John Williams, 91, wins best original score for “The Fabelmans,” he would become the oldest person to win a competitive Oscar.Is anyone close to an EGOT?Viola Davis became the 18th member of the club of overachievers who have an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award after she won a Grammy for the audiobook of her memoir, “Finding Me.” But sadly, none of the nominees have the chance to join her on Sunday.Who do we think will win?“Everything Everywhere All at Once” received the most nominations — 11, including best picture, actress (Yeoh), supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan) and supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu) — and there’s a very real possibility that it could win, well, everything everywhere all at once. The odds-making site Vegas Insider currently has it as the runaway favorite, distantly trailed by Martin McDonagh’s drama “The Banshees of Inisherin” and the German war film “All Quiet on the Western Front,” each of which earned nine nominations.Our Projectionist columnist, Kyle Buchanan, thinks Yeoh has the edge over Blanchett, and that Brendan Fraser, who underwent a full-body transformation to play an obese professor in “The Whale,” will triumph over the “Elvis” star Austin Butler.In the supporting categories, Quan is a virtual lock for supporting actor, but Buchanan is predicting Kerry Condon of “Banshees” for supporting actress. See his complete list of predictions here.What’s this I’ve heard about Andrea Riseborough?Ah, yes, the tale of this year’s surprise (understatement) best actress nominee involved a social media blitz on her behalf by a cadre of movie stars, snubs of Danielle Deadwyler in “Till” and Viola Davis in “The Woman King,” and an academy review of the campaign on her behalf. (The verdict? She’s clear — for now.) Here’s an explainer.I only have time to watch one film before ceremony. Which one should I choose?To get the most bang for your buck, we’d recommend “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” (Or just hop into the multiverse and watch all of the nominees simultaneously.) If you’re short on time, Sarah Polley’s female-focused drama “Women Talking” is the shortest of the best picture nominees, at 1 hour 44 minutes. Of course, “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Triangle of Sadness” have an X factor in their favor: the donkey quotient. If you face a time crunch, you’ll want to save “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which stretches past the three-hour mark, for another day; you’re already committed to watching a three-hour-plus broadcast on Sunday night! (Then again, what better day than Oscars Sunday to devote more than a third of your waking hours to film?)OK, I watched “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — and wait, what was that ending?Here’s an explainer.Who is that Oscar statuette supposed to be a likeness of?It’s said to be modeled after the Mexican filmmaker and actor Emilio Fernández (who, the story goes, posed in the buff).Why are they called the Oscars, again?It’s said that when the longtime academy employee Margaret Herrick first saw the statuette in the 1930s, she remarked that it reminded her of her Uncle Oscar — a nickname for her second cousin Oscar Pierce.I’m hosting an Oscars party this year. What delicious food should I make?You can’t go wrong with loaded nachos, cheese straws or dipped chocolate anything. Feeling fancy? Try our caviar potato chips and lemon cream recipe.I need some joy in my life. What’s the quickest way to get it?Follow Ke Huy Quan on Instagram. More
LONDON — A few minutes into coffee last spring, Brett Goldstein wanted to show me something on his phone.I leaned over and saw puppeteers sitting on skateboards while they hid behind a table, rolling into one another in apparent bliss as their hands animated a clowder of felt cats above their heads. For Goldstein this represented a kind of creative ideal, as pure an expression of fun, craft and unbridled glee as any human is likely to encounter.“Imagine this is your actual job,” he said, his breathtaking eyebrows raised in wonder.Goldstein shot this behind-the-scenes video during his time as a guest star on “Sesame Street,” an experience this Emmy-winning, Marvel-starring comic actor and writer still describes as the single best day of his life.The clip is inarguably delightful, but Goldstein hardly has to imagine such a job. As the breakout star of “Ted Lasso,” the hit comedy about a tormented but terminally sunny American coach winning hearts, minds and the occasional football match in England, he is part of an ensemble that brought as much bonhomie, optimism and warmth to the set as Ted himself, played by the show’s mastermind, Jason Sudeikis, brought to the screen.“I will be absolutely devastated when it ends,” Goldstein said last year. “I think we all will.”And now it has ended. Or maybe it hasn’t. What is certain is that the new season of “Ted Lasso,” which starts on Wednesday, will conclude the three-act story the creators conceived in the beginning and there are no plans for more. Whether and how more tales from the Lassoverse arrive is up to Sudeikis, who told me he hadn’t even begun to ponder such things. “It’s been a wonderful labor of love, but a labor nonetheless,” he said.So even if the new season isn’t the end, it represents an end, one that hit Goldstein hard. In a video call last month, he confirmed that while shooting the finale in November, he kept sneaking off to “have a cry.”But even if “Lasso” is over for good, it is also inarguable that Goldstein has made the most of it. Chances are you had never heard of him three years ago, when he was a journeyman performer working on a TV show based on an NBC Sports promo for a service, Apple TV+, that few people had. (Humanity had plenty else to think about in March 2020.)Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jason Sudeikis in the third and final season of “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+But things have moved fast for him since “Ted Lasso” became the pre-eminent feel-good story of the streaming era, both in form — as an underdog sports tale about the importance of kindness — and function, as a surprise hit and career boost for a bunch of lovable, previously unheralded actors who have now amassed 14 Emmy nominations for their performances.None of them have turned “Ted Lasso” into quite the launchpad that Goldstein has. His Roy Kent, a gruff, floridly profane retired player turned coach, was an immediate fan favorite, and Goldstein won Emmys for best supporting actor in a comedy both seasons. He was also one of the show’s writers and parlayed that into a new series: “Shrinking,” a comedy about grief and friendship. Goldstein developed it with Bill Lawrence, another “Lasso” creator, and Jason Segel, who stars along with Harrison Ford. (It is Ford’s first regular TV comedy role.)Thanks to “Shrinking,” which came out in January and was just renewed for another season, you might have encountered Goldstein on “Late Night With Stephen Colbert,” “The Today Show,” “CBS Saturday Morning” or some podcast or another.Thanks to his surprise debut as Hercules — Hercules! — in a post-credits scene in Marvel’s 2022 blockbuster “Thor: Love and Thunder,” you will soon see him everywhere.Brett Goldstein in a scene from “Thor: Love and Thunder.”MarvelNone of this had come out when we met last year. Back then, he was still struggling to make sense of the ways “Ted Lasso” had changed his life after two decades of working in comparative obscurity in London’s theater and comedy trenches. Whatever the hassles of losing his anonymity, he said, they were more than offset by the benefits — the visit to “Sesame Street,” the opportunity to work with a childhood hero like Ford, the chance to work on “Lasso” itself.“I would happily do it for 25 more years,” he said, but that’s out of his hands.What Goldstein can control is what he does with his new Hollywood juice, which currently includes a second season of “Shrinking,” other TV concepts in development and whatever emerges from the whole Hercules thing. (He’s already mastered Marvel’s signature superpower: the non-comment.)No matter how long this window of opportunity stays open, he’s still chasing the same simple thing: a slightly coarser version of what he captured in that “Sesame Street” video.“It’s a bunch of grown people having the time of their [expletive] lives being very, very silly but also creating something that’s meaningful,” Goldstein said. “And it’s [expletive] joyous.”OK, a significantly coarser version. But to understand why, it helps to know a little about how he got here.‘I very much relate to the anger.’Goldstein, 42, grew up in Sutton, England, as a soccer nut by birthright — his father is a Tottenham Hotspur fanatic — who became just as obsessed with performing and movies, spending hours as a boy recreating Indiana Jones stunts in his front yard.Improbably, all of the above contributed to his current circumstances: It was his performing and soccer fandom that led to “Ted Lasso,” and he is now writing lines for Indiana Jones himself in “Shrinking” — lines Ford says while playing a character inspired by Goldstein’s father.But it took Goldstein a few decades to arrive at such an exalted position. After a childhood spent acting in little plays and his own crude horror shorts, he studied film and literature at the University of Warwick. He continued writing and performing through college and beyond, in shorts and “loads of plays at Edinburgh Fringe and off, off, off, off West End,” he said. A short film called “SuperBob,” about a melancholy lo-fi superhero played by a beardless Goldstein, eventually led to a cult feature of the same name.More important, it caught the eye of the casting director for “Derek” (2012-14), Ricky Gervais’s mawkish comedy about a kindly simpleton (played by Gervais) working at a senior care facility. Goldstein played a nice boyfriend. “That was my first proper TV job, and then it was slightly easier,” he said.Along the way he tried standup and it became an abiding obsession — even now he tries to perform several nights a week. “He’s always been the sexy, hunky dude in, like, really tiny comedic circles,” said Phil Dunster, who plays the reformed prima donna Jamie Tartt in “Lasso” and first met Goldstein roughly a decade ago, when he performed in one of Goldstein’s plays. (Dunster remembers being dazzled and intimidated by his eyebrows.)At some point a fan of Goldstein’s standup mentioned him to Lawrence, a creator of network hits like “Spin City” and “Scrubs,” who checked out Goldstein in a failed pilot and was impressed enough to cast him in his own new sitcom in 2017.That one also never made it to air. By then Goldstein was in his late 30s. “I had a sort of epiphany of, ‘I’ve missed my window,’” he said.Then came “Ted Lasso.”“I will be absolutely devastated when it ends,” Brett Goldstein said of “Ted Lasso.” “I think we all will.”Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesThe show’s creators, who also included Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, wanted some English soccer fans on staff, and Lawrence thought of Goldstein. He was hired as a writer but soon became convinced that he was the person to play the surly, fading pro Roy Kent. As scripting on the first season wrapped up, he made a video of himself performing several Roy scenes and sent it to the creators, stipulating that if he was terrible, all involved would never speak of it again. He was not terrible.It’s a story he has told many times. But it hits different in person, as the gentle fellow in a fitted black T-shirt recounts how he felt a bone-deep connection to the irascible Roy. The face is essentially the same, but the eyes are too friendly and the voice is smooth and mellifluous where Roy’s is a clipped growl.“I get that you would be confused by this,” Goldstein said, setting his coffee cup neatly into its saucer. “But I very much relate to the anger. I used to be very, very miserable and had a quite dark brain, and I’ve worked very hard at changing that. But it’s there.”Lawrence said that “of all the shows I’ve ever done, Brett is one of the top two people in terms of how different he is from his character.” (The other: Ken Jenkins, the friendly actor who played the caustic Dr. Kelso in “Scrubs.”)In some ways the connection between actor and character is clear. Both are prolific swearers, for one thing, and Goldstein lives by the chant that defines his famous alter-ego: He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere.Colleagues and friends are stupefied by how much he does. While shooting the first season of “Lasso,” he was also flying to Madrid to shoot “Soulmates,” the sci-fi anthology series he created with Will Bridges. During filming for Season 3, he acted in “Lasso” by day and joined the “Shrinking” writers’ room on video calls by night. He found time to interview comics, actors, filmmakers and friends for his long-running movie podcast, “Films to be Buried With.” He regularly squeezed in standup sets.“I’m not sure when he sleeps,” Dunster said. “But I know he gets it in, because he looks so young.”Goldstein said his workaholism predates his newfound Hollywood clout. “Even when I was doing stuff that no one was watching, I was always working,” he said. “Either I’m mentally unwell, or genuinely this is the thing that gives me purpose and makes me happy.”He acknowledged that both could be true. But then if “Ted Lasso” has taught us anything, it’s that nobody is just one thing.‘We joke our way through this.’“Ted Lasso” is a sprawling comic tapestry woven from characters — a wounded team owner (played by Hannah Waddingham), an insecure publicist (Juno Temple), a spiteful former protégé (Nick Mohammed) — threading their way toward better selves. The new season finds the AFC Richmond squad at its underdoggiest yet, back in England’s mighty Premier League and destined for an uncertain but sure to be uplifting fate.“Shrinking” is more intimate, a show about hard emotions and hanging out that happens to star a screen legend whose presence still astounds everyone. “It’s a year later and I still go, ‘Bloody hell, that’s Harrison Ford,’” Goldstein said.Harrison Ford is one of the stars of “Shrinking,” an Apple TV+ series Goldstein helped create. “It’s a year later and I still go, ‘Bloody hell, that’s Harrison Ford,’” Goldstein said.Apple TV+Ford’s character is an esteemed psychologist who has received a Parkinson’s diagnosis. He was inspired by several real-life figures, including Lawrence’s grandfather, who also had Parkinson’s disease; his father, who has Lewy body dementia; and his old friend from “Spin City,” Michael J. Fox. The character was also based on Goldstein’s father, another Parkinson’s survivor.“Brett and I share this thing with our families that we joke our way through this,” Lawrence said.Goldstein is exceedingly private about his personal life, but his father gave him permission to discuss the link — his reasoning was that he wasn’t ashamed of the condition and couldn’t hide it anyway. “And also,” he told his son, “the fact that I can tell people Harrison Ford is based on me is a pretty cool thing.”Goldstein joked that this gift he has given his father has expanded their conversational canvas by roughly 100 percent: “Football is still all me and my dad talk about,” he said. “That and the fact that he’s Harrison Ford.”The former, at least, is the way it’s always been. “I think that’s why sport exists,” he said. “It’s a way of saying ‘I love you’ while never saying ‘I love you.’”Such Trojan-horsing of human emotion has become Goldstein’s default mode, whether it’s using his podcast guests’ favorite films to get at their real fears and desires, portraying the discomfort of vulnerability via a clenched soccer star, or writing Parkinson’s jokes to work through the painful fact of his parents’ mortality.“Even when I was doing stuff that no one was watching, I was always working,” Goldstein said. “Either I’m mentally unwell, or genuinely this is the thing that gives me purpose and makes me happy.”Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesSegel said that Goldstein is always the one on “Shrinking” insisting that no matter how punchy the punch lines, the feelings must be pure and true. This wasn’t surprising, he added, because Goldstein is a Muppets fan.“It sounds like a joke,” said Segel, who as a writer and star of “The Muppets” (2011) does not joke about such things. “But it speaks to a lack of fear around earnest expression of emotion.”Which brings us back to the cat video and Goldstein’s other Muppet-related fascinations. (“The Muppet Christmas Carol” might be his favorite move ever, he said, and he’s been known to perform an abridged version on standup stages.)Those looking for a felt skeleton key to unlock his various idiosyncrasies aren’t likely to find one. But his Muppet affection does offer a glimpse at what motivates him as a performer, creator and workaholic, which is less about opportunities, franchises or scale than the vulnerability and risks of trying to reach someone and the openness required to take it in. The thing he’s always looking for, he told me over and over — to the point that he started apologizing for it — is a bit of human connection in a world that can seem designed to thwart it.“They put up this Muppet and I’m gone,” he said. “But that requires from both of us a leap of faith, like, ‘We’re doing this, and I’m all in and you’re all in.’ And if one of us did not commit to this thing then it’s [expletive] stupid — it’s just a [expletive] felt thing on your hand, and I’m an idiot for talking to it and you’re an idiot for holding it.“Do you know what I mean?” More
His film and TV career began with “Our Gang” comedies and was highlighted by a performance as a mass killer in “In Cold Blood.” But he led a tempestuous life.Robert Blake, an actor whose career portraying gritty characters like the television detective Tony Baretta was eclipsed by his trial and acquittal in the murder of his wife in 2001, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.The cause was long-term heart disease, a niece, Noreen Austin, said.Mr. Blake began performing at 2, when his father would take him and his brother and sister to New Jersey parks to dance for money. By age 5 he was a regular in the “Our Gang” film comedies.He went on to act in scores of films and on hundreds of television shows, all the while making regular visits to late-night talk shows, where he delighted in spouting flagrantly unorthodox views and savagely mocking his own career. He earned a reputation as a Hollywood enfant terrible. He insulted producers, punched a director, fought with fellow actors, abused alcohol and drugs, and sometimes went for years without work.He nonetheless became a television star in the late 1970s as Baretta, a detective who lived in a run-down hotel, had a pet cockatoo named Fred and used disguises — waiter, wino, janitor, barber — to chase bad guys. His catchphrase, “You can take dat to da bank,” became well known.One of Mr. Blake’s most acclaimed roles was as the mass murderer Perry Smith in “In Cold Blood,” the 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote’s true-crime book. In an interview with Playboy in 1977, Mr. Blake explained that he had sought the part to explore a question that nagged him.“Everybody knows what a murderer is a millionth of a second after he pulls the trigger,” he said. “But what is he a millionth of a second before he pulls the trigger?”A jury — and a transfixed American public — pondered whether he could answer that question during his trial, from late 2004 to March 2005, in the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.The details of the case could have come from a pulp novel. Witnesses portrayed Mr. Blake as trolling jazz clubs for women, then wooing them in the back seat of his truck. Ms. Bakley was alleged to be a petty criminal who sold nude pictures of herself to lonely men through the mail. She had nine former husbands and a dozen aliases and was on probation for fraud, according to court testimony.By 1999 she was in Los Angeles. She met Mr. Blake at a nightclub and, as both acknowledged, had sex with him in his car that night. At the time, she was having a sexual relationship with Christian Brando, the eldest son of Marlon Brando. When she gave birth to a daughter, tests revealed that the father was Mr. Blake and not Mr. Brando, whom she had first identified.Mr. Blake, whose marriage to the actress Sondra Kerr ended in divorce in 1983 after 22 years, said he had agreed to marry Ms. Bakley for the good of their daughter, Rose. According to trial testimony, the marriage was strained, and Ms. Bakley lived in a separate house on his property. Witnesses said he referred to his wife as a “pig” and spoke of wanting to “snuff” her.Robert Blake during his trial in the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in 2003. He was acquitted.Pool photo by Al SeibOn May 4, 2001, Ms. Bakley, 44, was found dead from a gunshot to her head in her husband’s Dodge Stealth, parked outside an Italian restaurant in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, where the couple had just dined. Mr. Blake said he was not there when she was shot; he said he had gone back to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he had left in a booth.That gun, it was determined, was not the murder weapon; one found in a nearby dumpster was.By April 2002, the police had nonetheless gathered enough evidence to charge Mr. Blake with “murder with special circumstances,” a capital offense. He was also charged with soliciting movie stuntmen to do the killing for him.After he pleaded not guilty to all charges, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office announced that it would not seek the death penalty. Mr. Blake was initially denied bail and spent 11 months in jail, until March 2003, when he was granted bail, set at $1.5 million, which he posted, allowing him to remain free for almost two years while he awaited trial.On March 16, 2005, after a three-month trial in which the stuntmen testified to having been solicited by Mr. Blake to kill Ms. Bakley, the jury decided that the prosecutors had not proved Mr. Blake’s guilt. In interviews afterward, jurors said the stuntmen had not been credible because they had admitted to being drug addicts. Mr. Blake said three restaurant workers had seen him return to get his gun, but he did not produce them.Ms. Bakley’s family later sued Mr. Blake in civil court for wrongfully causing her death. They won a $30 million judgment, which, after Mr. Blake appealed, was cut in half on the grounds that Ms. Bakley had been earning her living by illegal means. Mr. Blake filed for bankruptcy in 2006.Michael James Vijencio Gubitosi was born on Sept. 18, 1933, in Nutley, N.J. His childhood, as he later described it, was a Dickensian one whose horrors began before he was born. He told CNN in 2012 that his mother had twice tried to abort him with a coat hanger. In a series of interviews in 1992 and 1993, he said his father, who worked for a can manufacturer, had been an alcoholic who forced him to eat from the floor, locked him in closets and sexually abused him.When Michael was 2, his father enlisted him and his two older preschool siblings to dance for money in parks as “the Three Little Hillbillies” while the father played a guitar. “It was either doing that or stealing milk bottles off other people’s porches,” Mr. Blake said in a 1959 interview with The Los Angeles Times.Inspired by the success of child stars like Shirley Temple, his father in 1938 took his family to Hollywood. Michael was hired as an extra for the “Our Gang” shorts, later shown on television as “The Little Rascals.” When another child actor flubbed a line, Michael told the director, “I can do that.”From left, Robert Blake; Billie Thomas, known as Buckwheat; and Carl Switzer, known as Alfalfa, in ”Bubbling Troubles,” an “Our Gang” short made in 1940.MGMHe could, and he was eventually cast as a lead character, Mickey. He was billed as Mickey Gubitosi in most of the “Our Gang” shorts, and as Bobby Blake in the last few. He acquired the stage name Robert Blake in 1956.After the “Our Gang” series ended in 1944, he appeared in more than 70 films over the next decade, establishing himself as a tough, fast-talking young character actor with a mischievous grin. In “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” starring Humphrey Bogart, he was the Mexican boy who sold Bogart the lucky lottery ticket that set the plot in motion.Mr. Blake was thrown out of five schools before finally graduating. He neglected to register for the draft, and the penalty was immediate conscription into the Army. He was stationed in Alaska. After his discharge, he applied to study at the Actors Studio in New York with the acting guru Lee Strasberg. Strasberg, he said, advised against pursuing an acting career.Returning to Hollywood, Mr. Blake found work as a stuntman. He continued to act in movies, including “PT 109” (1962), about John F. Kennedy’s wartime experience in the Pacific; he played one of Kennedy’s fellow sailors.Robert Blake, left, and Scott Wilson in “In Cold Blood” in 1967.Columbia Pictures CorporationHis breakthrough movie was “In Cold Blood,” which received excellent reviews, as did he. But his next few movies struggled at the box office, and after filming “Busting” (1974), a detective drama in which he starred alongside Elliott Gould, he considered suicide, he told Playboy, and checked himself into a hospital for psychiatric treatment.Mr. Blake returned to television in January 1975 to take the title role in the ABC detective series “Baretta,” a retooled version of “Toma,” which had starred Tony Musante. When Mr. Musante quit after the 1973-74 season, the show was taken off the air, but ABC decided to reactivate it as a midseason replacement and asked Mr. Blake to be the star. He accepted, even though he made it clear in interviews that he considered himself above series television. He proceeded to make many suggestions to shape the renamed show to his liking.“I could have my name all over ‘Baretta,’ but I’ve never taken credit for writing or directing any of the shows,” he told Playboy. Mr. Blake won a 1975 Emmy and a 1976 Golden Globe for his performance, and “Baretta” was briefly a Top 10 hit, but it was canceled in 1978.Speaking of Mr. Blake in an interview with People magazine in 2002, Stephen J. Cannell, the creator of “Baretta,” said: “Complex doesn’t even begin to capture his personality. If you were in business with him, you just had to strap in really tight, because you were going to get lurched around a lot.”Mr. Blake claimed to be inspired by daredevils like circus high-wire performers and rodeo riders.“You get on a high wire without a net,” he said in the 2012 CNN interview. “You get on a bull and they open that goddamn chute and there’s nobody in the universe but you and God. And that’s where I’m comfortable, doing something that’s so scary that I can’t sleep at night.”Mr. Blake became a favorite on late-night talk shows, particularly “The Tonight Show,” where be made fun of himself in his tough-guy Baretta voice and gesticulated wildly with an unlit cigarette.Prodded by Johnny Carson, he excitedly shared his positive views on duck-hunting and negative ones on rodents and insulted Orson Welles for being overweight. Welles replied that he could perhaps be thin, but that Mr. Blake would always be stupid.Appearing in a number of television movies, Mr. Blake was praised for his performance as the Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa in “Blood Feud” in 1983. In 1985, he created the NBC series “Hell Town,” in which he starred as a tough-talking slum priest. Though Mr. Blake needed the income from the show to pay for his recent divorce, he walked away from the job, saying he was emotionally exhausted.He sought solace sleeping in his van, parked in the Hollywood Hills, and worked with a therapist on his childhood traumas. He returned to acting in 1993 in the made-for-TV movie “Judgment Day: The John List Story,” about a real-life New Jersey accountant who murdered his wife, mother and three children.To get that part, Mr. Blake had offered to forgo his $250,000 salary until the film was finished. He was paid in full. His last acting job was in “Lost Highway” (1997), a psychological thriller directed by David Lynch.Mr. Blake is survived by two children from his first marriage, Noah and Delinah Blake, and Rose Blake, his daughter with Ms. Bakley.After his trial, Mr. Blake told CNN, he grew a beard, lived on Twinkies and liked to wander into pool halls for a game of nine ball. “I was born lonely, I live lonely, and I’ll die lonely,” he said.April Rubin More
“Yes, it sounds expensive, but how should he know?” the “Late Show” host said. “He’s never bought a book.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Dear DonaldDonald Trump has a new book coming out: “Letters to Trump,” a collection of missives he’s received from public figures over the last 40 years.The price? A mere $99. Stephen Colbert says it’s part of Trump’s “insatiable need for cash and external validation.”“Now, you may be thinking, ‘Hey, Steve, this book sounds like another one of our greedy ex-president’s shameless cash grabs,’ and you would think real good, because this book he didn’t write costs $99. Yes, it sounds expensive, but how should he know? He’s never bought a book.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Well, I mean, it’s good to know he’s finally learned his letters: [singing] A, B, C, D, E, F, G, person-woman-man, camera, TV.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Former President Trump is releasing a book called ‘Letters to Trump’ that’s made up of 150 private letters sent to him by big-name celebrities like Oprah, the Clintons, and Liza Minnelli. It’s kind of strange. Trump is bragging, like, ‘Look at all the friends I used to have. It’s all in the book.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, the first five letters are from celebrities, the rest are just fan mail from Scott Baio.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Final Notice Edition)“Former President Trump is set next month to publish a new book of private letters sent to him titled ‘Letters to Trump.’ Though, really, it’s mostly final notices from utility companies.” — SETH MEYERS“It’s actually a book of correspondence written to him, so, naturally, the cover features him writing a letter.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I would like to see the letters that Trump wrote. Like, [imitating Trump] ‘My dearest Colonel Sanders, I can’t wait to meet you.’” — JIMMY FALLON“If the book does well, the next volume will be a collection of his favorite subpoenas.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingOmar Epps, the actor, sat down with his longtime friend Marlon Wayans on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutJessica Chastain and Arian Moayed as Nora and Torvald Helmer in “A Doll’s House” at the Hudson Theater. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJessica Chastain stars as Nora Helmer in Jamie Lloyd’s modernized Broadway revival of “A Doll’s House,” now playing at the Hudson Theater. More
Three years after his apartment was shamed by a director during a video tryout, the “You” actor is taking on his first lead role — in a film he co-wrote.Lukas Gage blew into the Tower Bar in West Hollywood like a ragged ocean breeze. He had come straight from Punta Mita, Mexico, where he was vacationing with the celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton. But Gage forgot his passport at the resort, causing him to miss his return flight to Los Angeles, and had to book alternate passage to Orange County, whence he took an Uber the 50 miles north to make it to this interview on time.And hence why he was still wearing his travel clothes: a cutoff “Pulp Fiction” T-shirt, baggy gray sweatpants and beat-up checkered Vans, paired with an enormous Old Navy zip-up hoodie and several items of beaded jewelry that he had bought in Mexico.Still, he managed to arrive at 12 on the dot, not a single minute late.That the 27-year-old finds himself here, talking about his burgeoning TV and film career at one of the industry’s favorite haunts — the kind of place with a no-photos policy and $24 cocktails — is the product of a similar dogged resolve.The youngest of four boys raised by a single mother in the San Diego suburb of Encinitas, Gage moved to Los Angeles at 18 to pursue acting after a brief stint at the University of Oregon, where he got in a gruesome fight trying to protect a friend. “I have all these scars from where I had to get my face put back together,” he said. “Maybe, selfishly, I needed a reason to get out.”Following arcs on “Euphoria” and “Love, Victor,” he gained wider recognition for a role he didn’t get. In November 2020, he shared a video of a pandemic-era Zoom audition in which a director, not realizing his mic was on, bemoaned “these poor people” who “live in these tiny apartments.” (Gage did not name the off-camera offender at the time, but the British director Tristram Shapeero later apologized.)In the clip, Gage responds with quick-witted aplomb. “I know it’s a [expletive] apartment,” he says with a smile. “Give me this job, so I can get a better one.” But the critique stung.“I understand the politics,” Gage said, “but I also want a chance to have a seat at the table.”Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times“I had never judged my apartment until that day. I was like, it’s not a mansion or a house, but it has crown molding, good natural light and it was in Beachwood Canyon,” Gage told me, referring to a desirable neighborhood of Los Angeles. “I remember having this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach afterward, like, why am I judging where I’m at in my 20s, at the beginning of my career?”He posted that video while filming Season 1 of “The White Lotus” on Maui — Gage played the hotel employee caught in a compromising act with Murray Bartlett’s character — and since the HBO show aired, he’s consistently booked a string of supporting roles. Most recently, he played a duplicitous expat in Season 4 of “You,” and cameoed as himself in the series finale of the “Gossip Girl” reboot. He also moved out of that infamous apartment and bought his own place.Now, in the independent film “Down Low,” a dark comedy of errors that premieres at South by Southwest on Saturday, Gage is stepping into a lead role for the first time. He gives a full-bodied, screwball performance as a sex worker helping a repressed divorcé (Zachary Quinto) explore his sexuality. Along the way, there’s an inadvertent death and high jinks with Judith Light, Audra McDonald and Simon Rex.Inside the World of ‘The White Lotus’The second season of “The White Lotus,” Mike White’s incisive satire of privilege set in a luxury resort, is available to stream on HBO.End of a Journey: The actress Jennifer Coolidge discussed the ending of the second season and where the series, already renewed for a third season, might go from here.Dressing Gen Z: The costume designer for “The White Lotus” sees your mean tweets about how the younger characters dress. She told us how she created the chaotic and divisive looks.Michael Imperioli: The “Sopranos” star is enjoying a professional renaissance after years of procedurals and indies. In the new season of “The White Lotus,” he tries his hand at comedy.F. Murray Abraham: The buzzy series is one of several featuring the actor, who at 83 is finding some of the most satisfying work of his career.Gage also wrote the script with his friend and writing partner, Phoebe Fisher.Opposite Zachary Quinto in “Down Low,” which Gage wrote with Phoebe Fisher.Matt Infante/FilmNation Entertainment“I pitched it as a queer ‘His Girl Friday,’” Gage said. “I love a silence in a movie. I love a long shot. But I was like, let’s just make something snappy and fun that doesn’t go over an hour and 30 minutes.”Next he’ll co-star in the eco-thriller “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” Season 5 of “Fargo,” the “Dead Boy Detectives” series (based on the DC comics) and Doug Liman’s “Road House” remake, playing a bartender whom Jake Gyllenhaal trains to fight. He also plans to continue writing.Sitting in a velvety corner booth and sipping chamomile tea with honey, Gage discussed that viral video, the importance of sex scenes and protecting his private life. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Did you know your “You” character would have an affinity for kink when you signed on?I knew sexuality or nudity might be required, but I didn’t know anything past the first episode. I think I had auditioned for every single season of “You” and didn’t get it until then. I auditioned for [star Penn Badgley’s serial killer character] Joe originally. I played him like a mustache-twirling, villainous murderer, and the casting director was like, “Yeah, that’s totally tonally off, but thank you.”Penn Badgley recently said he no longer wanted to do sex scenes. You’ve said it would be a “disservice” to exclude them. Where does their value lie for you?If we’re showing this character [on “You”] who has a hidden kink and he’s struggling with being honest, or a guy [on “The White Lotus”] who is having his first queer experience with his boss, I feel like it’s a disservice to not see that. But I totally respect Penn and his views. Maybe because I’m not married with kids, I’m like, I’ve got to give it away while I can. [Laughs]There’s also a wider discourse advocating for ditching sex scenes altogether.It is a little weird. I get a lot of backlash in my DMs about it, saying, “That’s so disgusting.” And that pisses me off because I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum. But a lot of people can have a hard time separating the actor from the character, and then, suddenly, people are coming up to me at Starbucks asking [if the scene was real]. People forget it’s make-believe.Opposite Penn Badgley in “You.” Badgley, the series’s star, has opted against doing intimate scenes, but Gage argued that when such moments are key to a character or a plot, “it’s a disservice to not see that.”NetflixMurray Bartlett, left, Jolene Purdy, Natasha Rothwell, Christie Volkmer and Gage in the first episode of “The White Lotus.”Mario Perez/HBOIs it true that you watched Aaron Sorkin’s MasterClass to learn about screenwriting?Phoebe and I watched all of the MasterClasses on writing during lockdown. That one was our favorite. We also watched “Pretty Woman,” one of my favorite romcoms, and a documentary about “Pretty Woman” is what kind of inspired us with “Down Low” — what “Pretty Woman” was originally going to be before the studio got involved. It was super dark, and everyone was like, “This is too insane to make.”Were you always planning to star in “Down Low”?No. I honestly thought they weren’t going to allow me to do it. They sent comps of who they thought the character should be, people who are much more famous and important than me. But I was like, “Give me a chance to show you what I can do.”I tend to do that a lot. I understand the politics, but I also want a chance to have a seat at the table.Your video of an audition gone wrong went viral. Why did you decide to share that?I’d had a martini or two in Hawaii, and it happened out of a conversation I was having with [“White Lotus” co-star] Molly Shannon about our worst auditions. She was like, “You have to show people that.” Actors have the best job ever, but I was frustrated. And I want to be clear: That was definitely not the worst thing that’s happened to me in an audition. It just happened to be on camera.What was worse?In the [print and TV] commercial world, I remember, at 17 years old, people saying out loud what was wrong with my face and that I wasn’t in shape enough. As a teenager, that really makes you crazy. I had to stop commercial auditioning when I was younger because it was making me dysmorphic.Gage posted the audition footage that went viral out of frustration. “I want to be clear: That was definitely not the worst thing that’s happened to me in an audition,” he added. Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesLast year, you replied “You don’t know my alphabet” to a commenter who accused you of taking roles away from queer actors. In your career, have you felt pressure to label yourself?All the time. An agent that dropped me was like, “Stop dyeing your hair, stop wearing weird clothes and pick a lane: gay, bi or straight. It’s too confusing.” I understand representation and voices that need to be heard, but I don’t want to do anything on anyone’s accord but my own. Let me do it when I’m ready. And it’s acting. I feel like everyone should get the opportunity to play whatever they want.You and Chris posted a series of Instagram photos together in Mexico. A lot of people took that as a relationship announcement.If they want to think that, they can. I’m a pretty open book about most things in my life, but I have a problem with the culture of everyone needing to know everybody’s business and nothing can be sacred. It’s a weird line that I’m still trying to figure out.Have you been offered any roles yet? Or are you still auditioning for everything?I’m ready for some offers! I’m still auditioning my ass off. Now, I have a plain white screen that I pull down for a background. But I’m still at that point where I have to prove myself. I’m OK with it. I just want to keep surprising people that I’m not a one-trick pony. More
