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      Why Willem Dafoe Can’t Slow Down

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      Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.WILLEM DAFOE, DRESSED in a black leather jacket, enters the downtown Manhattan restaurant where we’d planned to meet. He has his phone up to his ear, a look that’s almost a parody: In walks a Very Busy Guy. He sees me at the table, gestures at the phone extravagantly, rolls his eyes and grimaces at the absurdity of it. As the seconds go by, his apologetic demeanor morphs into something more like comedy — his head shaking, his hand waving in a vaguely Italian-style telegraph of exasperation, all of it coalescing into a fascinating improvisational bit.He stood a few feet from our table as he finished the call, giving the staff at the Georgian cafe ample opportunity to take in the actor in their midst. Maybe the performance was for their benefit, too? Yet it didn’t feel showy: He was not too famous to hide, not too self-conscious to resist doing what he does almost unthinkingly, which is use his body to perform. Acting is not so much a job for Dafoe as a way of being in the world, a practice so essential he can’t go without it.The digital cover of T’s 2023 spring Men’s Fashion issue.Collier SchorrDafoe, 67, is an unusual celebrity, perhaps the world’s most famous character actor — one who came up through New York experimental theater, who never intended to appeal to the masses. Like a Christopher Walken or a Ralph Fiennes, he suggests in his choices of roles as much as his performances that he thrives on parts that other actors might find distasteful or unflattering; he differentiates himself by a certain lack of discrimination. He’s been in nearly 150 films since his first starring role, as a young but hardened biker in Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Loveless” (1981). Many of them have been blockbusters, but some have never played in the United States and many were made by young directors about whom he knew little more than, as he puts it, that they gave him “a good feeling.”This month, Dafoe stars in “Inside,” a debut feature by the Greek director Vasilis Katsoupis, 46, about an art thief trapped by an elaborate security system within a minimalist high-end apartment that’s dangerously low on life-sustaining necessities. For 90 minutes, the camera rarely strays from Dafoe, as his character, over the course of months, endures near-starvation, total isolation and the absence (no small thing) of a functioning toilet. Working on the project required the actor to live apart from his family and friends for six weeks, “like a monk,” he says, cooking for himself in a small rental in Cologne, Germany. In the film, he lays himself bare, physically and psychologically, burrowing deep into the humbling ugliness of true desperation. He was, Dafoe told me later, “in heaven.”The actor Willem Dafoe, photographed in New York City on Nov. 16, 2022, wears Bottega Veneta jacket and pants, price on request, bottegaveneta.com; and stylist’s own turtleneck.WILLEM DAFOE WAS born William Dafoe in Appleton, Wis., where he was drawn to community theater, the kid who’d do anything for a laugh. The second youngest of eight children, he made sure he would be seen, even amid the chaos of a home packed with older teenagers, their comings and goings barely monitored by his mother, a nurse, and his father, a surgeon (both now dead). “It doesn’t take a psychologist to figure out that when you’re in a big family, you gotta find your place,” he says. “I became the entertainer.” An extrovert with a transgressive streak, he dropped out of high school after being falsely accused, he says, of making a pornographic film for a communications class. He nonetheless briefly attended the University of Wisconsin and eventually joined an experimental troupe called Theatre X. (Along the way, the young man who’d been known as Billy decided to switch to Willem, a name a friend from college called him.)At 21, Dafoe arrived in 1970s-era downtown Manhattan, a creative playground for artists attracted to its cheap, empty lofts. Here, he came to admire the work of Elizabeth LeCompte, the pioneering director known for her role shaping the work of Spalding Gray, the polymathic performance artist. Dafoe began collaborating with both and then helped the couple form the theater troupe that would become the Wooster Group in 1980. But his integration into their world started with a major disruption: He fell in love with LeCompte, who left Gray to embark upon a 26-year relationship with Dafoe. (He and LeCompte have one son, Jack, who’s 40.) The three ended up subdividing the loft LeCompte had shared with Gray with a wall and separate entrances so no one had to move out. A hothouse of talent, tension and creativity, the Wooster Group soon became one of the most influential theatrical companies in New York, central to downtown culture, in conversation with the city’s emergent dance and performance art scenes. Their work wasn’t linear, but there was nothing haphazard about their highly stylized, carefully rehearsed projects, which often ran on tight clockwork choreographies, integrating video and complicating ideas of plot.Dior Men coat, $5,600, shirt, $950, and pants, $890, dior.com; Prada turtleneck, $1,890, and boots (worn throughout), $1,790, prada.com; stylist’s own socks; and Dafoe’s own ring (worn throughout).Dafoe fell naturally into work that demanded both a strong ego and a spirit of collaboration. But the actor Kate Valk, another founding member who still performs with the Wooster Group, recalls Dafoe as providing the kind of energy associated with the frontman in a band: captivating and telegenic. “He was an important part of the charisma of the group,” she says. “He had that impish impulse always. He very much represented the id in the room.” Both Valk, now 65, and LeCompte, now 78, remember Dafoe as hungry to be looked at. “He wants very much to be needed,” says LeCompte. “And if he’s needed, he’ll give everything. He has to work.” Wooster also made experimental movies, in which it became clear that Dafoe — his chiseled face teetering between beautiful and gaunt — might have a future on film. (“Who needs the American West when you have all the planes on that face?” asks Valk.) He became known for taking on dark roles: the soulless killer in “To Live and Die in L.A.,” the 1985 William Friedkin thriller; a maniac with a surprising underlying pathos in E. Elias Merhige’s “Shadow of the Vampire,” for which he earned his second of four Academy Award nominations in 2001. But for many years, he toggled between two extremes: heartless freaks (“Wild at Heart,” 1990) and the near-saintly (Sergeant Elias in “Platoon,” 1986; Jesus Christ in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ,” 1988). “When I saw him as Jesus, I thought, ‘Oy — Jesus,’” says LeCompte. “I realized, ‘He can be on a very big screen.’”Prada coat, price on request, shirt, $4,600, and turtleneck.So much of Dafoe’s movie career reflects the expressionism he honed at Wooster, in performances that were highly physical. Those qualities endure in his depiction of the Green Goblin in Marvel’s “Spider-Man” films; he appears in four of them, but his operatic performance in the first one, from 2002, is considered essential to the success of the series. And yet, another of his most memorable performances is a study in understatement. In the 2017 independent film “The Florida Project,” he embodies a man who’s made many choices he regrets but is trying, nonetheless, to do right by those he can help, however modestly. The film relied on local Floridians without feature film experience; the director, Sean Baker, shot the ending on an iPhone. At this stage in his career, Dafoe says, he has the luxury of accepting assignments on instinct: “When you’re starting out, you feel like every film can ruin you. Now I can take more risks.”IN “INSIDE,” THE burden of carrying the movie rests squarely on Dafoe, and on what he can still do with his body. A former student of karate, a daily practitioner of Ashtanga yoga, a skilled tango dancer, Dafoe, in one of the film’s memorable scenes, constructs a 28-foot-high tower of furniture, his breath labored as he lugs tables and breaks down chairs. In attempting to escape through a skylight, he crawls to the top of the structure and nimbly stands up before stretching his arms overhead. The athleticism on display from an actor in his late 60s is so striking that it’s almost distracting.Collier SchorrWatching the movie, I told Dafoe, I had the sense of him as an actor who — but he cut me off before I could finish: “Who’s not even entertaining the question of ‘Who’s going to see this, and what’s it going to do for me?’” He smiled.I was going to say I had the sense of an actor who is intent on proving — to directors, but more so to himself — that he is still strong enough, still motivated enough psychologically, to do grueling work; who refuses to let age be an impediment. Dafoe’s longevity, says the director Abel Ferrara, 71, with whom he’s collaborated several times, reflects his two and a half decades with Wooster. The grounding with the theater meant he never left for Los Angeles, where so many actors hustle for the wrong things. And as long as he was with the company, he was acting most days, rather than waiting out empty stretches in between projects, as other stars do. “You can’t be an actor, not working,” says Ferrara. “He knows that.”“Inside” was the kind of project that Dafoe relishes, one in which the role itself is a work in progress. “We had a pact,” says Katsoupis, the director, “that although we had a beautiful script, we would be discovering this character day by day.” Dafoe’s input was essential, down to the drawing he made of the mural his character would eventually create as he grasped for his own humanity within the unrelentingly hostile apartment. Stories he told Katsoupis over dinner — about a tuneless nursery rhyme that an ill patient of his mother’s used to sing, or about a particular hilarious but repetitive joke that a Bulgarian translator once told him — ended up in the film.Emporio Armani jacket and pants, price on request, armani.com; and Sunspel T-shirt, $90, sunspel.com.“You throw yourself into it,” Dafoe says. “And you have a beautiful day full of adventure and impressions that you don’t always get — and then you feel turned on.” He likens the experience of working with a director to being in love. “You feel energized and like your best self — you’re so enamored of this person that you want to be the best person possible. That’s the proposal: ‘We need you to do this thing, to go on this mission.’” The waiter at the restaurant brought a plate of Georgian desserts, including a rich honey cake, and, over oat vodka, Dafoe showed me some recent images on his phone: an ice skater he enjoyed watching on television; a digital clock in a cab showing the time 4:44 (part of the name of a 2011 film he made with Ferrara); a photo of him near a painting by the Brazilian artist Maxwell Alexandre, a copy of which is featured in “Inside.” He had been stunned to see the original in the lobby of the Shed, a Manhattan arts space, earlier that week and had someone take a photo of him in front of it — with his pants around his ankles. (“I told you, I like transgression!” he explains.) For Dafoe, performing for an audience, even a personal one, often involves high jinks and spontaneity. At some level, he’s clearly still driven by the desire to entertain, to shock, that drove him as a young actor. But interwoven with that is another motivation that takes more commitment: wringing the most meaning possible from inhabiting someone else’s story. He may get immediate satisfaction from the big laugh, but the truly hard days are justified by something else — finding significance in an object as simple as a glass filled with water, an example he gives from his latest film, how much it changes depending on who’s poured it, who’s drinking it, with what experience behind it. “Your curiosity in that moment — it’s not normal,” Dafoe says. “It’s hyperawareness.”Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello coat, $7,000, and pants, $1,290, ysl.com; and Prada turtleneck.His intention is to try to bond with other confused humans, he says, by acting out versions of their stories. It’s an impulse, he adds, as old as dancing in front of the campfire: “I’m going to get up and do this for me and for you and for all of us.” Comfort, consolation, connection — what else matters? “Because really,” he says, “there’re only two events. There’s birth. And there’s death. And in between, it’s all —” Then Dafoe makes the kind of crazy eyes that render him riveting onscreen, and the spiral hand gesture for “nuts” with a hand on either side of his head, emitting the babbling sound — garbled, funny, unnerving — of a madman.DURING THE 26 years that Dafoe collaborated with the Wooster Group, film was always something he did privately, on his own. His Hollywood income helped keep the company afloat; his colleagues supported the movies without being particularly interested in them. Eventually, he says, his absences — and then the fame that came after “Spider-Man,” in the aughts — took a toll on the relationships he had with his fellow company members. “They were a family,” he says matter-of-factly. “And I was like a man with many families.” In 2003, Dafoe, who was filming in Italy, fell in love with Giada Colagrande, an Italian director who was 27 at the time. A mutual friend had introduced them not long after she directed and starred in “Open My Heart” (2002), an erotic noir that had been a sensation at the Venice Film Festival. In a painful break with LeCompte — and therefore the Wooster Group — Dafoe moved part time to Rome to be with Colagrande, whom he married in 2005. The dissolution of that relationship was a shock not just to LeCompte but to the whole group. “I nearly had a nervous breakdown,” Valk says. And yet it somehow came as a surprise to Dafoe that he was exiled from the troupe.“I was totally naïve,” he says now. Leaving LeCompte meant losing some of his closest friends — and it meant walking away from experimental theater. “I just took a different life,” he says. “I started seeking out other opportunities in the theater, but it was very difficult after working in the company.” This past decade, he performed in two Robert Wilson productions in New York City — “The Old Woman” (2014), opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov, and “The Life and Death of Marina Abramović” (2013) — and he continues to pursue ambitious avant-garde projects with the few well-known collaborators who can launch them on a prominent stage. But he has little interest in conventional theater, he says: “It has to be something that I’ve never done before.”Emporio Armani jacket (sold as part of a suit); and Sunspel T-shirt.Now, when he’s not filming, he spends whatever time he has with Colagrande in New York and in Italy. During the pandemic, her mother moved into a farmhouse an hour’s drive outside of Rome, where the couple frequently join her. Over time, they’ve built it into a working farm, with goats, alpacas, a renegade ram, some showy turkeys (“They think they’re peacocks,” Colagrande says) and a vegetable garden big enough that they supply a nearby restaurant with cauliflowers, eggplants, tomatoes and lettuces.The actor has discovered, relatively late in life, how much he loves animals — maybe even identifies with them. “Paul Schrader” — who directed him in “Light Sleeper” (1992) — “says that all actors are like farm animals,” Dafoe told me. “They like to work.” I had gone to see him in Italy, where we were now chatting in the house, over the din of a green monk parrot, Paco, whom Colagrande, now 47, had rescued off a Roman street. It seemed to me the farm is like one big ensemble group, a cast of characters — sacred, showy, chirpy, recalcitrant — who demand attention and time, and also, crucially, who need Dafoe.Dafoe, for his part, seems perennially drawn to new troupes. He frequently works with the American directors Wes Anderson (five films together) and Robert Eggers (three). More recently, he has been drafted into the group of actors who collaborate with the Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. He just finished filming, in New Orleans, a Lanthimos project with Emma Stone called “And,” the details of which have not been revealed; the two actors also recently wrapped another Lanthimos movie, “Poor Things,” based on a novel with a Victorian setting and a “Frankenstein”-inspired theme.  On the CoversHermès jumpsuit, $6,150, hermes.com; Sunspel T-shirt; and stylist’s own turtleneck.Zegna polo, $4,700, zegna.com; and stylist’s own turtleneck.While making “And,” Stone was struck by how much Dafoe loved being on set. The actors, she recalls, would often hear one assistant director announcing to another, over a walkie-talkie, that Dafoe was “self-motivating to set” — meaning, showing up even though there was no official reason to be there. “That’s what you want from actors,” says Lanthimos, 49. “To want to be part of it in any way.” In one scene, Stone’s character is seen slapping Dafoe’s, who’s meant to be off camera; ordinarily, Stone would make the gesture without an actor present, but Dafoe insisted that the move would look more genuine if he were actually being slapped, and then took the (staged) blow some 20 times.“There’s this instinct to perform that many actors have — the ‘look at me, look at me!’ kind of performer,” says Stone. “He’s the opposite of that.” Her comment, notably, was the opposite of how LeCompte and Valk characterized his relationship to the audience — an apparent eagerness to delight the viewer. “Maybe it’s changed through the years,” Stone says. “A lot of actors I bond with have been doing this for a long time, and you know they’ve gone from ‘I’ to ‘We.’”Dafoe says he saw his relationship to acting shift in tandem with the stages of life. He started out an extrovert, performing for the attention. Then it turned into an adult affair: “Once you start working, you use that as a means to survive.” For those who stick with it, the study of the craft takes over; the extroversion turns inward. “And then,” he says, “it becomes like a spiritual thing — to find your connection with all things.” He seems, in one sense, to be racing against time — to be seizing on his hard-won status to work as often as possible, in roles that are as physical and challenging as possible, while he still can. Other actors slow down over the years; for Dafoe, a sense of mortality makes all the more compelling his desire to “melt into things,” as he says, choosing parts that connect him to something bigger than himself.At the farm, after bowls of pasta, I asked Colagrande what kind of role she’d like to see Dafoe try next. “The head of a cult,” she told me. They’re both fascinated by figures who could create an awakening in large groups of people — while using that talent possibly for evil. Dafoe was reluctant to answer the question himself — to him, it’s never about the role but the whole project. He acknowledged that he wanted to keep doing parts that were vital: physical ones, like being the captain of a ship, or performing love scenes or working with animals. Off the table are kindly or ailing grandfathers.Colagrande and I had been talking privately for almost half an hour; we realized it was time to call me a taxi. Dafoe was — understandably — getting restless after all the leisure, the long lunch, the chores that had been put off. He had Italian to study, he had animals to feed, he had scripts to read — there was work to do, thank God, and he wanted, he needed, to go do it.Hair by Adlena Dignam at Bryant Artists using Oribe. Grooming by Aya Iwakami. Set design by Robert Sumrell. Production: Hen’s Tooth. Digital tech: Jarrod Turner. Photo assistants: Ariel Sadok, Dylan Garcia, Terry Gifford. Set assistant: Erin Turner. Director of photography: Angel Zinovieff. Assistant camera: Erin Althaus. Tailor: Eugenio Solanillos. Stylist’s assistant: Verity Azario More

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      in Theater

      When Clothes Fly Off, This Intimacy Coordinator Steps In

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      It takes a lot of people to make a movie. You’ve got the director for overall vision, the gaffer on the lights, the set decorators to add texture to the film’s world, and the costume designers to envision the actors’ looks.And when those costumes come off and things start to get a bit steamy? That’s where Jessica Steinrock comes in.Ms. Steinrock is an intimacy coordinator — or intimacy director, when she’s working on theater and live performance — who facilitates the production of scenes involving nudity, simulated sex or hyper exposure, which she defines as “something someone might not otherwise uncover in public, even if it’s not legally nudity.” Much like a stunt coordinator or a fight director, she makes sure that the actors are safe throughout the process, and that the scene looks believable.The role has come to prominence in the last five years. As the entertainment industry reeled from the litany of abuses brought to light by the #MeToo movement, many productions were eager to publicly demonstrate their commitment to safety. Hiring an intimacy coordinator was one way to do that.“A lot of places were really excited about the possibility of this work and being ahead of the curve — showing that their company cared about their actors, cared about consent,” Ms. Steinrock said in a Zoom interview from her home in Chicago.Ms. Steinrock — who has worked on projects including the critically acclaimed Showtime survival drama “Yellowjackets,” Netflix’s teen dramedy “Never Have I Ever” and the Hulu mini-series “Little Fires Everywhere” — has been involved in intimacy coordination since its early days. The industry took off thanks in large part to the highly publicized work of the intimacy coordinator Alicia Rodis on the HBO show “The Deuce” in 2018. At that time, Ms. Steinrock, whose background is in improv comedy, was working on a master’s degree in theater at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, focused on navigating questions of consent in that space.“In the improv world, I was picked up a lot or kissed or grabbed, or jokes were made about me that I didn’t consent to,” she recalled in a TikTok video. “And I was really curious if there were ways to navigate that better.”Jessica Steinrock explains to students in an intimacy and consent performance workshop at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, how the acronym CRISP describes how to give and receive consent.Mary Mathis for The New York TimesMs. Steinrock uses a range of modesty garments and barriers, including pouches, pads and strapless thongs, to keep actors safe when performing intimate scenes.Mary Mathis for The New York TimesThe issue was particularly thorny in improv, which is grounded in a philosophy of accepting and building on whatever your scene partner gives you.“You got placed in these uncomfortable or even harmful positions because the whole culture is ‘yes, and … ,’” said Valleri Robinson, the head of the university’s theater department, who advised Ms. Steinrock on her master’s degree and Ph.D. “It really started to come to the foreground for her that this was a problematic way of creating art.”Ms. Steinrock and Ms. Rodis met through Ms. Steinrock’s then-boyfriend, now husband, who is a fight director. Ms. Rodis recognized a kindred spirit, with all the makings of a great intimacy coordinator, in Ms. Steinrock. She mentored Ms. Steinrock on her first gig: a 40-person orgy on the TNT show “Claws.” “She was thrown into the lion’s den, and she absolutely smashed it,” Ms. Rodis recalled.Ms. Steinrock quickly rose to become a leader in the burgeoning field, and she now dedicates much of her time to educating people about it. In April 2022, she started her TikTok account, which now has more than 700,000 followers. In her videos, she critiques “spicy” scenes on TV shows (her current favorites include “Bridgerton,” “Sex Education” and “House of the Dragon”); breaks down how such scenes are filmed; and answers frequently asked questions about her work, such as “What do you do if an actor gets an erection?” or “If two actors are in an offscreen relationship, do they still have to follow the same protocols?” She’s not just demystifying her job, but also engaging people in broader conversations about intimacy and consent.The role of the intimacy coordinator can be a tricky balancing act between choreography and care, and Ms. Steinrock brings an academic grounding in feminist and performance theory to the work, coupled with innate people skills.“She’s very patient,” said Karyn Kusama, a director and executive producer on the Showtime drama “Yellowjackets,” who worked with Ms. Steinrock on the show’s pilot. “She listens. She’s looking to the actor to take the lead in terms of … what will make them feel most cared for.”Melanie Lynskey, as Shauna, and Warren Kole, as Jeff Sadecki, in an episode of the Showtime survival drama “Yellowjackets.” Ms. Steinrock worked on the show’s pilot, including on a scene where Shauna masturbates while looking at a picture of her teenage daughter’s boyfriend.Kailey Schwerman/ShowtimeThe pilot of “Yellowjackets” includes several intimate scenes, including one where two high schoolers, played by Sophie Nélisse and Jack Depew, have sex in a car, and another where a housewife, played by Melanie Lynskey, masturbates. Having Ms. Steinrock on set for those scenes was vital, Ms. Kusama said.As a director, Ms. Kusama said she has always felt a deep empathy with how vulnerable actors are in these scenes and makes a point to check in. But even if she poses a question, it can be hard for an actor who is uncomfortable to respond honestly knowing how much is on the line. An intimacy coordinator, as a neutral party, is more likely to get an honest answer.“Societally, sex is really hard to talk about,” Ms. Steinrock said. Her role is to “create more pathways of communication,” she explained, so the actors feel safe discussing any issues, big or small, that may come up.Having an intimacy coordinator doesn’t just create a safer environment, Ms. Kusama said: It also makes for better, sexier art.“It demands that you take responsibility for your story with the actors, that you actually say, Yeah, we’re depicting sex and here’s what it needs to mean — i.e. it needs to mean something,” she said. “And conversely, I can say to an intimacy coordinator, ‘You know, it feels like I’m watching two people peck each other on the cheek, and there’s zero heat here.’”This is where the choreography piece of Ms. Steinrock’s job comes in: She can offer ways to use breath or adjust positions to make a scene more evocative.Ms. Steinrock and her husband, Zev Steinrock, an associate theater professor, demonstrate an example of consensual touch. Mary Mathis for The New York TimesIn just five years, intimacy coordinators have become a vital part of the entertainment industry. HBO has required them on all of their productions since 2019 (Ms. Rodis oversees their program). At this point, Ms. Kusama said, it’s hard for her to imagine signing on to a project with intimate scenes without one.The discipline’s explosive growth has meant that coordinators have had to create standards in real time — like building the tracks of a roller coaster as it shoots into the air. “We have to first define this role and agree on what it is,” Ms. Steinrock said. “That’s Step 1 of building a new profession. And then we have to define what being qualified for that role looks like.”In 2020, Ms. Steinrock, Ms. Rodis and another intimacy director, Marie Percy, formed Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, with Ms. Steinrock at the helm. She had never been a chief executive before, but she taught herself on the job, quickly growing I.D.C. into the leading training and accreditation organization in the field. Its four-level program includes a mix of virtual and in-person classes. It is the only organization to offer certification for both intimacy coordination and direction, and it also runs workshops for other artistic professionals, such as actors or directors, who want to bring these practices into their work.“Jessica has created the accountability structures so that we can say: ‘This is what our certification means. Here’s all the education behind it. Here are the equitable practices we have, and here’s the accountability we have to these artists,’” Ms. Rodis said.Two students practice giving and receiving consent to touch each other during a workshop taught by Ms. Steinrock, who sees education as essential to IDC’s mission to “create a culture of consent in which intimate stories can be told with safety and artistry.”Mary Mathis for The New York TimesMs. Steinrock sees advocacy for these standards as a key part of I.D.C.’s mission. She was part of a working group organized by the Screen Actors Guild to establish new safety standards for intimacy, which were published in 2020; in 2022, the union launched a registry of vetted intimacy coordinators and announced that it would create a pathway to union membership for these professionals.“Intimacy coordinators are not a panacea for an industry that has historically abused its actors — and, frankly, historically abused most of the people in it,” Ms. Steinrock said. But integrating them into productions is a clear step that institutions can take, as part of a broader commitment to safety and equity.For Ms. Steinrock’s part, that commitment also includes working to diversify intimacy coordination. While it is a rare female-led discipline in an industry dominated by men, it is still predominantly white and straight — one of the pitfalls of a young profession that has largely relied on word of mouth to grow.Ultimately, the hope is that intimacy coordination becomes standard across the entertainment industry, and “that it helps us see each other and the role of sex in our lives differently, as something richer and more filled with possibility,” Ms. Kusama said.“Ultimately, I serve as a place where folks can come to ask questions that are otherwise very difficult to ask,” Ms Steinrock said, “and to make sure that they have someone who can advocate for them, especially if they’re feeling uncertain about how to advocate for themselves.”Mary Mathis for The New York TimesMs. Robinson has been excited to see her former student bring these issues out into the open. “She’s enhancing our vocabularies and giving us pathways beyond the industry to address these topics that people find so difficult,” she said. And while much of that awareness has happened via TikTok, Ms. Robinson also noted that Ms. Steinrock’s dissertation had been downloaded more than 700 times — another sign of just how much interest there is in this area.Inviting people to re-examine how sex works in the media they consume, Ms. Steinrock said, could improve the way they approach sex in general.“Media is so many people’s first experience with intimacy,” she said. “And when we care about how things are made, it starts conversations about how things are operating in other spaces, and I think that can have a huge impact as to what people expect in their day-to-day lives.” More

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      in Television

      Chris Chalk of ‘Perry Mason’ Takes a Deep Breath

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      Chris Chalk put his stamp on HBO’s dark, dynamic “Perry Mason” during a key scene in the first season, when his character, the deeply conflicted beat cop Paul Drake, pays a visit to Perry’s home. Paul has just danced around the truth on the witness stand to protect himself and his white superiors, and it doesn’t sit well. Nor does the cash payoff he received for his obedience.“Every day I got to wake up with this ball of fear inside of me,” he tells Perry, the defense attorney played by Matthew Rhys. “Gotta go put on that uniform, and go out there and play the fool.” And the wad of cash he received? “What they give me for being a good boy. I do not like feeling owned.”It’s a central moment in the series, which returns on Monday, a searing encapsulation of how it feels to be a principled and ambitious Black man in 1930s Los Angeles. Chalk conveys every nuance with relaxed intensity, a trait for which he is known by viewers and admired by peers.“He vacillates between being very intense and focused about his work and just really silly and fun,” Diarra Kilpatrick, who plays Paul’s wife, Clara, said in a video interview. “He lives between those two spaces.”This is an exciting time for Chalk. He plays a bigger role in the new “Perry Mason” season, as Paul goes to work as Perry’s chief investigator. He just returned from the Sundance Film Festival, where the new film in which he stars, “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” received a mostly positive reception. He recently directed his first feature, “Our Deadly Vows,” in which he stars alongside his wife, K.D. Chalk.But Chalk, like Paul, also carries a good deal of stress. During a video interview last month from his home in Los Angeles, he gulped from a large glass of corn silk tea, intended to ease some prostate issues that he said might be stress-related. He wears small bandages on a finger and a thumb, casualties of excessive smartphone use.“It’s life, isn’t it?” he said. “We all got our things, and we just have to breathe through it and be grateful.”From left, Matthew Rhys, Chalk and Juliet Rylance in a scene from “Perry Mason.” In Season 2, Chalk’s character, Paul, has become Perry’s chief investigator.Merrick Morton/HBOFor all of these slings and arrows, Chalk, 45, remains one of those actors for whom seemingly nobody has an unkind word.“I would love to talk about how awesome Chris Chalk is, it’s one of my favorite subjects!” wrote Alison Pill, who worked with Chalk on the HBO series “The Newsroom,” from 2012 to 2014. “Chris Chalk is like a one-in-a-million human,” Kilpatrick said. “When he walks into the makeup trailer, I’m always slightly envious-slash-borderline resentful, because he’s a physical specimen,” Rhys said in a video interview.“And he’s always very stylish — he looks good in every sense,” Rhys added. “I’m always like, ah, [expletive] you, Chalk.”Chalk, and Paul, are crucial to the mission of “Perry Mason.” Kilpatrick joked that the original “Perry Mason,” which starred Raymond Burr and aired on CBS from 1957 to 1966, was “the favorite show of every Black grandmother in the world.” But this is not your grandmother’s show. This “Perry Mason” is savvy about race, gender and class — the second season centers on two Mexican American teens charged with murdering a white businessman — elements that were rarely front and center in the original series.“Old-school ‘Perry Mason’ is lovely, but it’s literally only white people, and barely any women,” Chalk said.The new version, which premiered in 2020, focuses on a group of three outsiders in a gritty, noir-drenched Los Angeles: Perry, a disheveled, heavy-drinking private investigator-turned attorney still traumatized by his World War I experiences; Della Street (Juliet Rylance), Perry’s right hand, who is navigating the sexism of the courtroom and life as a closeted lesbian; and Paul, who is trying to do right by his conscience and his people in a time and place where the racism is out in the open.Chalk grew up poor in Asheville, N.C., where he said he had shotguns pointed at him. “The only way to survive was to shift who I was depending on how dangerous of a room I was in,” he said.Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesMichael Begler, who, with Jack Amiel, assumed showrunner duties in the new season from Ron Fitzgerald and Rolin Jones, said that none of it worked without Chalk. (Fitzgerald and Jones stepped down to focus on other projects, a spokesman for HBO said; to take over, the network tapped Begler and Amiel, who had created “The Knick” for Cinemax, an HBO subsidiary.)“What was great about working with him is he was constantly challenging me as the writer to get it right,” Begler said in a video interview. “The story that we’re telling with him really lets us dive into not just the typical, ‘Oh yeah, there’s a lot of racism’ idea. We go deeper into what he’s feeling, and his ethics.“He goes deeper, and I think that speaks to Chris and who he is as a person.”He learned early. Chalk grew up poor in Asheville, N.C. “Asheville is lovely for tourists, but it’s a pretty racist place,” he said. “I definitely had shotguns put to the back of my head. I don’t think there are many people who would want to trade childhoods with me.”But his upbringing also turned out to provide unexpected training. “I believed at that time that the only way to survive was to shift who I was depending on how dangerous of a room I was in,” he said. “I became very good at that.”Chalk studied theater at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, then moved to New York, where he immersed himself in the drama world. He was a reader at Labyrinth Theater Company under the artistic director Philip Seymour Hoffman, and soon won parts of his own, culminating in the 2010 Broadway production of “Fences” opposite Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Television and film followed, including roles in “Homeland,” “Gotham,” “Detroit” and “When They See Us.”With success comes new stress, Chalk acknowledged, and he has experienced a lot of both lately. “We all got our things,” Chalk said. “We just have to breathe through it and be grateful.”Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesThere are, by most accounts, two Chris Chalks. One likes to joke around on the set and make friends. The other is an intense professional who seeks out serious conversation and cuts up his scripts and pastes the segments into an ever-ready notebook so he can make notes on each scene.Sometimes the two Chalks converge. Pill fondly remembered Chalk engaging her to read Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play “Dutchman” with him during downtime on the “Newsroom” set. The confrontational and allegorical play is about a Black man and a white woman on the New York subway.“So many of our conversations are about race and misogyny and the world, and they also come back to why we make art, and pragmatism and reality, and what the game is,” Pill said by phone. “He operates on all of these different levels all the time, and hopping back and forth between them is something that I think he does really well.”Chalk’s facility for switching modes — and codes — sounds a lot like Paul Drake. He spends his personal life with his family in the working class Black neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. Then he enters the world of investigating for Perry, a world that sometimes puts him at odds with his own values and other Black people, an internal conflict that comes to a head in the new season. He has definitively moved on from his identity as a go-along-to-get-along police officer.“Paul was this ideal man, if one is behaving within the constructs of a white supremacist America,” Chalk said. “He was your Negro; you knew he was safe. And now, I don’t know. Paul might even be, dare I say, reckless.”Paul could stand to relax a little. So could Chalk, by his own admission. He’d like to get those prostate numbers to a better place. Reduce that cellphone usage. Maybe even tap into his lighter side a little more.“I like to do very dark and complicated things,” he said. But it might not be the worst idea, he ventured, to “throw some comedy in there to relax the system a little bit.”“The stuff I’ve done has largely been surrounding trauma,” he added. “I do enjoy doing that. But it might be time to do ‘Sesame Street.’” More

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      Late Night Gives the Lowdown on CPAC

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      “CPAC stands for ‘Clowns Periodically Assembling in Convention Centers,’” Jimmy Kimmel joked on Wednesday.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.‘Gathering of the MAGA-los’The annual Conservative Political Action Conference kicked off outside of Washington on Wednesday.Jimmy Kimmel called it “the annual gathering of the MAGA-los,” saying the conference is “a chance for the far right to get together and share crazy thoughts.”“CPAC stands for ‘Clowns Periodically Assembling in Convention Centers.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s basically Coachella for people who post on Facebook in all caps.” — JIMMY FALLON“They started it with the traditional 21 assault rifle salute and the pledge of allegiance to Donald Trump.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“CPAC calls itself ‘the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world.’ The speeches will be serious, while the people trying to dance at the after-party will be hilarious.” — JIMMY FALLON“The conference is being held at the Gaylord Harbor National Resort and Convention Center, which is another reason Mike Pence won’t come.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“They’ve got some great panels lined up this year. These are real — we didn’t make these up. These are not jokes. People pay to go see panels like ‘No Chinese Balloons Above Tennessee,’ ‘Sacking the Woke Playbook,’ ‘Parents with Pitchforks.’ I saw Parents with Pitchforks at Coachella last year. Really good band.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But this is nice: After each speech, there will be a QAnon — I’m sorry, Q. and A.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Women’s History Month Edition)“Today is March 1, which means it is the start of Women’s History Month. Exactly right. Yeah. Just remember, behind every great woman is a man loudly repeating her ideas.” — JIMMY FALLON“Women’s History Month started as Women’s History Week back in 1982, and then somebody thought, you know, ‘Hey, women should probably get more time than sharks on the Discovery Channel.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s an opportunity to look back at the history of women’s rights, especially this year, when so many of women’s rights are history.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingHasan Minhaj deactivated his Twitter account on air during Wednesday night’s “Daily Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightSteven Spielberg will sit down with Stephen Colbert on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutVictory Gardens Theater staged “cullud wattah” until its playwright, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, forced the company to stop the run to protest the ouster of its artistic director.Liz LaurenBlack playwrights in several cities have halted production of their work based on concerns with theater administrators’ lack of follow-through on promises of diversity and inclusion. More

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      Stream These 5 TV Shows and Movies Before They Leave Netflix in March

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      Cult-favorite TV shows and some movies that should have gotten more Oscar love than they did: Catch these titles before they’re gone for U.S. subscribers.This month’s departing titles on Netflix in the United States include two cult-favorite television shows worth your attention, a slapstick comedy with a peculiar origin story and two dramas that should have won more Oscars than they did. Stream them while you can. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘Hap and Leonard’ Seasons 1-3 (March 5)“The Wire” wasn’t the only top-notch television showcase for the dearly departed Michael K. Williams; eight years after that show’s finale, he took a leading role in this excellent adaptation of the crime novels by Joe R. Lansdale. (The series was developed by Nick Damici and Jim Mickle, whose screen adaptation of Lansdale’s “Cold in July” is one of the hidden gems of 2010s genre cinema.) Williams plays Leonard Pine, a gay Vietnam veteran, and James Purefoy plays Hap Collins, an ex-cop who is Leonard’s best friend. Their adventures in East Texas in the late 1980s have a lowdown, chewy snap that recalls Elmore Leonard, and the show’s supporting cast (including Andrew Dice Clay, Brian Dennehy, Irma P. Hall, Christina Hendricks and Jimmi Simpson) is delightfully eclectic.Stream it here.‘The Butler’ (March 16)The director Lee Daniels followed up the triumph of “Precious” (and the somewhat less enthusiastically received “The Paperboy”) with something utterly unexpected: a historical drama. He tells the story of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), a character based on the true figure Eugene Allen, who served as the White House butler from the Eisenhower through Reagan administrations. But this is no staid biopic; Daniels uses his signature wild humor, unpredictable tempo and gonzo casting choices (Robin Williams as Ike Eisenhower! John Cusack as Richard Nixon! Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan!) to create a one-of-a-kind take on an overdone genre.Stream it here.‘Shtisel’ Seasons 1-3 (March 24)This Israeli drama began airing in 2013, years before it could benefit from being labeled an ultra-Orthodox “Succession.” But when it began streaming on Netflix in late 2018, that simple and apt comparison turned it into a word-of-mouth hit, prompting a third season five years after the Season 2 finale. It’s not hard to figure out why; the series is filled with the kind of familial betrayal, stifled sexuality and sibling rivalries typical of prestige TV mainstays like “Succession,” “The Sopranos” and “Mad Men” but with an added layer provided by its setting in an insular community. In other words, it is highly bingeable, so get on it.Stream it here.‘30 Minutes or Less’ (March 31)The director Ruben Fleischer and his “Zombieland” (2009) star Jesse Eisenberg re-teamed in the wake of that hit for this slapstick action-comedy. Eisenberg stars as Nick, a pizza delivery guy who is merely doing his job when he is kidnapped by bumbling criminals, who strap a bomb to his chest and threaten to detonate it unless he robs a bank for them. If the plot sounds familiar, it should: The script is based loosely on a true story, which inspired the Netflix true crime docu-series “Evil Genius.” And while turning a real (and tragic) crime into a wacky comedy is perhaps questionable, Fleischer orchestrates the manic proceedings with style, and the supporting cast of comic M.V.P.s (including Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride, Michael Peña and Nick Swardson) land plenty of laughs.Stream it here.‘Brokeback Mountain’ (March 31)This 2005 drama from Ang Lee has become so synonymous with Oscar injustice — although Lee won best director, the best picture prize went to the comparatively didactic and graceless “Crash” — that it is easy to focus on that loud aftermath rather than the film. And that’s unfortunate for such a modest picture, such a firm but quiet whisper of need and desire. “Brokeback” is based on a short story by Annie Proulx and has a commensurate narrative and emotional focus, telling the story of two cowboys (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) in Wyoming, circa 1963, whose drunken sexual encounter turns into a decades-long secret relationship. This is one of Ledger’s most wrenching performances; Gyllenhaal provides potent contrast as the more expressive and emotional of the two, while Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway are heartbreaking as the spouses who don’t know, but do.Stream it here. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Responds to Reports He Caused a ‘Trumper Tantrum’

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      A report said Donald Trump tried to get Disney to reprimand Kimmel for making fun of him. “In other words, President Karen demanded to speak to my manager,” Kimmel said.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.‘Trumper Tantrum’On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel addressed a Rolling Stone report that said in 2018, then-President Trump asked White House officials to call Disney and demand that Kimmel stop making jokes about him. Disney owns ABC, which broadcasts Kimmel’s show.“The report says at least two calls were made from the Trump White House to ‘convey the president’s anger regarding Kimmel’s monologues and jabs,’” Kimmel said. “In other words, President Karen demanded to speak to my manager.”“You’d think the guy who fathered Eric and Don Jr. would know how to handle jokes, but I guess not.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You know what, maybe this is why Donald and Melania sleep in separate bedrooms — she was laughing too hard at my monologue at night.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But really, joking aside, this is a blatant abuse of power. I wonder if Fox News — you know they’re always screaming about censoring comedians — will they defend me on this? I doubt it.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I wonder what it was specifically that sparked this, his Trumper tantrum.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Low Confidence Edition)“The U.S. Energy Department just released a new report that said the Covid pandemic might have been started by a Chinese lab leak. Americans heard and were like, ‘Hey, thanks for that three years too late information. Any “Game of Thrones” spoilers?’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, they think Covid started in a lab, but said, ‘They only have low confidence in the report.’ ‘Low confidence,’ which is just one notch above, ‘We have no freaking idea.’” — JIMMY FALLON“How can you conclude something with low confidence? That’s not a conclusion. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘guess.’” — HASAN MINHAJ, guest host of “The Daily Show”“I mean, low confidence — that’s like me saying, ‘I think I can bench 3,000 pounds, but I have low confidence.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, you could tell by the way they delivered the news: ‘Um, maybe it was a lab leak? That’s stupid. Forget I said anything.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The conclusion had low confidence. But honestly, once the ‘Queer Eye’ guys get ahold of it, give it a new haircut, teach it how to make guacamole, it’ll be a whole new conclusion, you just wait.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth Watching“Neil Young” performed the new viral hit “Angela Bassett Did the Thing” on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe actress Rebel Wilson will appear on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutRachel Brosnahan and Oscar Isaac in Anne Kauffman’s revival of “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan star in a rare revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” More

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      Acting Awards Without Gender Categories? Here’s Where Celebrities Stand

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      Nominees at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday were split on combining award show categories for best actor and best actress.LOS ANGELES — On the red carpet before the Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles on Sunday, stars answered the usual questions. Were they excited to be here? Yes. How did it feel to be recognized? Amazing. What TV show would they want to guest star in? “The White Lotus.”But one question we posed made nearly every person stop, ponder for several seconds and then deliver a thinking-aloud answer, often with a caveat or a pivot in the middle:“Should major award shows eliminate separate acting categories for men and women?” we asked.The ongoing debate over gender-neutral acting prizes, which could also mean fewer nominations for everyone, is part of the conversation again this awards season. In 2021, the Gotham Awards, which honor independent films, nixed separate acting categories for men and women. Last year, the Brit Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Grammys, merged its categories for best male and best female artist of the year into one gender-neutral top prize. And this year, the event faced backlash for not nominating any women for the award. The Grammy Awards eliminated many gendered categories beginning with the 2012 ceremony.Nonbinary actors such as Emma Corrin, who are often forced to choose a category in which to be considered, have called for gender-neutral award categories. The trans nonbinary performer Justin David Sullivan from the Broadway musical “& Juliet” withdrew their name from consideration when the Tony Awards eligibility rulings were announced earlier this month, putting public pressure on the awards. (Both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out Oscars, and the Television Academy, which handles the Emmy Awards, are looking into nongendered categories, according to The Los Angeles Times. Nominees are already able to request gender-neutral wording on their awards at both events.)The immediate response of many attendees at the SAG Awards was a desire for awards to be more inclusive.“I think it’s a positive thing,” said Will Sharpe, who plays Ethan Spiller, the workaholic tech nerd married to Harper on Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” which won the top TV award for a drama series on Sunday night, noting he believed it would “level out the playing field.”Will Sharpe from Season 2 of “The White Lotus” at the SAG Awards. Aude Guerrucci/Reuters“Why not?” said Michael Imperioli, who plays the womanizing Hollywood producer Dominic Di Grasso on “The White Lotus,” on combining the acting categories. “It’s all one big acting soup.”Other nominees addressed the potential benefit for nonbinary actors.“There are people who don’t want to be defined by gender, and I want to help make awards more inclusive for them,” said Rhea Seehorn, who plays the lawyer Kim Wexler in “Better Call Saul,” which was nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series for its final season.But then she paused.“At the same time,” she added, until women and nonbinary performers are afforded “as much screen time as the men, it’s not very fair to compare the performances.”Top awards often go to the actors who spend the most time onscreen, and a recent study found that, in 2021, in the top 100 grossing films, male characters outnumbered female ones by almost two to one.Jamie Lee Curtis, who won the supporting-actress statuette for her role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” over the Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and the BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), echoed Ms. Seehorn’s indecision.Jamie Lee Curtis won a SAG Award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role for her part in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Frazer Harrison/Getty Images“I’m all for inclusion, which is the most important thing,” she said, “but, at the same time, I want to make sure that the most opportunities are available to people. I know a lot of people believe in same-sex education. There are a lot of young women who get very quiet when the boys get really loud.”Female nominees in particular expressed concern that the idea of a single prize would put men at a distinct advantage because of the richer and more numerous roles available to them.“There’s still a lot of male parts,” said Patricia Arquette, who plays Harmony Cobel, Mark’s domineering boss, in “Severance,” which was nominated for outstanding ensemble performance in a drama series. “I don’t know if that would be fair.”Patricia Arquette plays Harmony Cobel in “Severance,” which was nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press“Until there’s a 50-50 opportunity, then we still need to have our own categories,” said Olivia Williams, who plays Camilla Parker Bowles in Season 5 of “The Crown,” which was also nominated for best ensemble performance in a drama series.Sarah Polley, the writer and director of the female-focused film “Women Talking,” which examines sexual assault in a religious community, said the potential for parity in consideration had to be weighed against the realities of the film and television industries.“What none of us want to see is a general acting category where it ends up being all-male nominees,” she said, “Which I think is the fear — and that’s a genuine fear.”But, she added, there were also important considerations to weigh that extend beyond fairness to the issue of fundamental identity.“We have a nonbinary actor in our cast,” she said, referring to August Winter, who plays Melvin, a character who lives as an openly trans man in a patriarchal society. “And there would have had to be a choice made between male and female, neither of which was accurate.”Members of the cast of “Women Talking” from left, Liv McNeil, August Winter, Kate Hallett, Michelle McLeod, Sheila McCarthy, Sarah Polley, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated Press“I’m not sure what the solution is,” she added, “but it certainly can’t stay the way it is, because it is excluding people from being recognized.”Mx. Winter, who uses the pronouns they and them, said they supported gender-neutral categories because they “honor the person who is making the art.”“Right now, you need to choose,” they said, referring to awards that separate categories for men and women. “And I don’t think people should be put in that position.”Other nominees noted, however, that they were concerned that combined categories would lead to fewer performances being recognized.Ms. Bassett said that collapsing the categories could lead to fewer chances for recognition. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Not enough opportunity.”Angela Bassett was nominated for a SAG award for outstanding performance by an actress in a supporting role for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressJon Gries, who plays Greg Hunt, the scheming husband of Jennifer Coolidge’s character, Tanya, in “The White Lotus,” echoed that concern. “When you have best actor, best actress, you have more awards,” he said. (“We like more awards,” said Sabrina Impacciatore, who plays the series’s uptight hotel manager, as she strolled up and put a hand on his shoulder.)Sally Field, who received a lifetime achievement award for her nearly six-decade TV and film career on Sunday night, expressed a general frustration with the competitive nature of awards. “It’s hard to compare actors, whether they be male or female, because the roles are so different,” she said. So the idea of a rule change that would recognize even fewer performances was befuddling to her.“Why would you do that?” she said, looking as though someone had just suggested she go roll through the mud in her ball gown. “I mean, you already can’t even compare Cate Blanchett and Viola Davis. They’re both beyond belief.”Quick Question is a collection of dispatches from red carpets, gala dinners and other events that coax celebrities out of hiding. More

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      SAG Awards 2023: Complete List of Winners, Led by ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’

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      The film took the top prize, as well as lead actress and two supporting trophies. “Abbott Elementary” and “The White Lotus” were named the top TV shows.The Screen Actors Guild handed its top award for outstanding cast on Sunday night to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the hit sci-fi comedy that recently dominated the Directors and Producers Guild Awards and now appears to be a strong best picture front-runner at the Oscars. Three of the four individual acting trophies went to “Everything Everywhere” cast members, too.But will they also prevail with Oscar?The safest bet to repeat is “Everything Everywhere” comeback kid Ke Huy Quan, who won the supporting-actor trophy from SAG and has been collecting statuettes in that category all season. During Sunday’s show, which aired live on YouTube and will stream exclusively on Netflix next year, the 51-year-old Quan delivered his most touching speech yet.After rising to fame as a child actor in popular films like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Quan found few roles available for Asian actors and moved behind the camera, working in stunt choreography. Still, he paid his SAG dues every year, hoping and biding his time for the resurgence he’s finally experiencing.“To all those at home who are watching, who are struggling and waiting to be seen,” Quan said, “please keep on going because the spotlight will one day find you.”In an upset victory, Quan’s co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won the supporting-actress statuette over Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), suggesting that this may be the season’s most fluid acting race.“I know you look at me and think nepo baby, and I totally get it,” said a thrilled Curtis. “But the truth of the matter is I’m 64 years old and this is just amazing!”Later in the night, “Everything Everywhere” leading lady Michelle Yeoh won a crucial best-actress prize over “Tár” star Cate Blanchett, whom she acknowledged as a titan from the stage.“Thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this,” Yeoh told the crowd. “We want to be seen and we want to be heard, and tonight you have shown us that it is possible.”Though the SAGs have honored Asian performers from TV shows, Yeoh was the first Asian woman to win best actress in a movie category, and Quan was the first Asian male actor to win for movies as well.The only film actor to win who didn’t hail from “Everything Everywhere” was Brendan Fraser, who mounted a best-actor comeback with his transformational performance in “The Whale.” Though “Elvis” star Austin Butler earned best-actor prizes at BAFTA and the Golden Globes, Fraser wasn’t expected to win at the latter show, since he had publicly accused the former Globes head Philip Berk of groping him in 2003 and had said he wouldn’t attend the ceremony. (Berk denied the accusation.)Like many of the night’s winners, Fraser spoke about the ups and downs of a Hollywood career: “I’ve rode that wave lately, and it’s been powerful and good,” he said, “and I’ve also had that wave smash me right down to the ocean floor.”SAG’s track record with the Oscars is suggestive but spotty. Last year, all four SAG winners triumphed at the Oscars and Jessica Chastain’s SAG win for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” helped her vault to the front of a wide-open best-actress category. But the year before that, only two of the four SAG winners repeated at the Oscars.But the strongest takeaway from this year’s SAG ceremony is that “Everything Everywhere,” which cost only $14.3 million and took in more than $100 million worldwide, is almost certainly headed for a best-picture victory: Of the films that earned top honors at the DGAs, the PGAs and the SAGs — that is, all three major guilds — only Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” (1995) failed to go the distance with Oscar.When the season began, the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan were surprised that their quirky film was generating awards chatter. But with two weeks left until Hollywood’s biggest night, the real surprise would be if anything but “Everything Everywhere” becomes the Oscars’ ultimate victor.Here’s the complete list of SAG winners:FilmOutstanding Cast“Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Leading RoleBrendan Fraser, “The Whale”Actress in a Leading RoleMichelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actor in a Supporting RoleKe Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Actress in a Supporting RoleJamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”Stunt Ensemble in a Movie“Top Gun: Maverick”TelevisionEnsemble in a Comedy Series“Abbott Elementary”Ensemble in a Drama Series“The White Lotus”Actor in a Comedy SeriesJeremy Allen White, “The Bear”Actress in a Comedy SeriesJean Smart, “Hacks”Actor in a Drama SeriesJason Bateman, “Ozark”Actress in a Drama SeriesJennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”Actor in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesSam Elliott, “1883”Actress in a TV Movie or Limited SeriesJessica Chastain, “George & Tammy”Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series“Stranger Things”SAG Life Achievement AwardSally Field More