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      Trevor Noah Takes on Trump’s Attempt to Terminate the Constitution

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      “There was no proof of a conspiracy to help defeat Donald Trump,” Noah said. “But you know who doesn’t care about any of that? Donald Trump.”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.The TerminatorOver the weekend, Donald Trump floated the idea of terminating the Constitution. He was responding to a report about Twitter, specifically its decision, during the 2020 presidential campaign, to block links to an article about Hunter Biden’s laptop.As Trevor Noah noted, some people expected the report — hyped in advance by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk — to show that Twitter had colluded with Democrats to repress the story. Instead, it seemed to show the Biden campaign asking Twitter to take down not-safe-for-work Hunter Biden photos. Still, Trump seemed to believe it proved “Massive Fraud” that justified the “termination” of parts of the Constitution, in order to reverse the election results.“There was no proof of a conspiracy to help defeat Donald Trump,” Noah said. “But you know who doesn’t care about any of that? Donald Trump.”“The Constitution is one of the documents he actually stole and took to Mar-a-Lago.” — JAMES CORDEN“Former President Trump on Saturday said that the 2020 election should be overturned and the Constitution should be terminated. Well, I’ll say this for him, he does give a memorable wedding toast.” — SETH MEYERS“Yeah, that’s right. The Republican front-runner for president of the United States wants to terminate the Constitution because Twitter wouldn’t allow him to see Hunter Biden’s [expletive].”— TREVOR NOAH“Again with the Hunter Biden laptop! Give it a rest! You don’t hear anyone obsessing over the former president’s son’s laptop. And Eric’s got a good one — it’s made by Fisher-Price, and it can tell you what sound a cow makes.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So yeah, sorry, everyone, if you want to see naked people, you’ve got to go to every other website on the internet, I guess.” — TREVOR NOAH“You know, not everyone is a stable enough genius to write down their intention to overthrow democracy in a social media post, but he thinks the Constitution is something that can be terminated, like it’s Meat Loaf on an episode of ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’ It doesn’t go like that.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s only fair. Trump got to win an election through Facebook, Biden should get to win one through Twitter.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Walker’s Big Run Edition)“Some political news, tomorrow is the Georgia Senate runoff between Herschel Walker and Senator Raphael Warnock. Warnock’s supporters said that they’re voting for him because of his policies, while Walker’s supporters say they’re voting for him because it’s funny.” — JIMMY FALLON“More than 1.8 million Georgia residents have already voted, and that’s just Herschel Walker’s children.” — JIMMY FALLON“Right now, Warnock is leading Walker in the polls by about four points. Yeah, only four points. That explains Warnock’s slogan, ‘Even if I win, I’m genuinely hurt.’” — JIMMY FALLON“President Biden said on Friday that Democrats must win the Georgia Senate runoff to avoid a 50-50 split in the chamber. ‘But that would mean the end of my presidency!’ said Joe Manchin.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Haley Lu Richardson shared the first text message she received from her co-star Aubrey Plaza before they started working together on “The White Lotus.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe all-woman tap group Syncopated Ladies will perform on Tuesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutJerrod Carmichael in a scene from his HBO stand-up special “Rothaniel.”HBOJerrod Carmichael’s “Rothaniel” and Atsuko Okatsuka’s forthcoming HBO Max special “The Intruder” are among the best comedy of 2022. More

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      Kirstie Alley, Emmy-Winning ‘Cheers’ Actress, Dies at 71

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      She also starred in the NBC sitcom “Veronica’s Closet,” which aired from 1997 to 2000.Kirstie Alley, the actress whose breakout role as the career-minded Rebecca Howe in the sitcom “Cheers” catapulted her career and earned her an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe, died on Monday. She was 71.The cause was cancer, according to a statement from her family on Twitter.Ms. Alley quickly won over millions of viewers while playing Rebecca in “Cheers,” the timeless NBC show that ran for 11 seasons in the 1980s and ’90s. She had stepped in to replace Shelley Long in the ensemble cast in 1987, at the height of the series’ popularity, and remained through the final season.Critics noted how Ms. Alley had brought a refreshing new dynamic to the character, with scripts giving her a more fun arc that helped create a “denser joke machine,” as one writer noted. At times, Rebecca, who managed the bar in the show, appeared to be a hapless and gold-digging mess. In other moments, Ms. Alley portrayed Rebecca with a faux-bravado, and with an attitude of indifference to others romantic advances.Her character gradually evolved from being a corporate-pleasing manager to a full-fledged, genial member of the gang who was perky yet perpetually disappointed.In an interview with “Entertainment Tonight” in 2019, Ms. Alley looked back on her “Cheers” years as a somewhat chaotic time, with all kinds of misbehavior being the norm on a set that included co-stars like Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson.“We never paid attention, we were always in trouble,” she said. “We never showed up on time.”Kirstie Alley with Ted Danson, left, and Woody Harrelson in “Cheers.”Photo by Kim Gottlieb Walker/NBCU via Getty ImagesIn addition to her 1991 Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for “Cheers,” Ms. Alley also won the 1994 Emmy for lead actress in a mini-series for the title role in “David’s Mother,” a drama about a mother who raises her autistic son alone.Ms. Alley, who acted regularly for about four decades, also starred in the NBC sitcom “Veronica’s Closet,” which ran from 1997 to 2000. Her character was the successful head of a lingerie company.Marta Kauffman, a creator and an executive producer of “Veronica’s Closet,” said of Ms. Alley in 1997: “She is crazy most of the time, and I mean that in the best sense of the word.”Ms. Alley was born on Jan. 12, 1951, in Wichita, Kan., where she was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She was particularly close with her grandfather, a lumber-company owner.She attended Kansas State University but dropped out to become an interior decorator. Around that time, she developed an addiction to cocaine.She eventually moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in Narconon, a rehabilitation program affiliated with the Church of Scientology.When asked by Barbara Walters in 1992 why she had joined a religion with a problematic past, Ms. Alley said that she had “not come across anything” negative.“It answered a lot of questions for me,” Ms. Alley said in 1997 of the church. “I was a pretty able person. I wasn’t looking for something like that. But I wanted to get rid of the barriers keeping me from what I wanted, to be an actress. It’s just part of my life.”While living in Los Angeles, Ms. Alley began to take an interest in acting. In 1982, she made her film debut in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” playing a half-Vulcan, half-Romulan lieutenant with pointy ears.In 1989, she starred alongside John Travolta in the film “Look Who’s Talking,” a comedy in which a baby’s thoughts are narrated by Bruce Willis. Vincent Canby, who reviewed the movie in The Times, wrote that “cute” was the “operative word” for a movie that starred “some good actors doing material that is not super.”In 2005, Ms. Alley shifted her attention to a mock-reality show about her weight. She said at the time that the show, “Fat Actress,” drew from her experience as a woman in Hollywood who did not meet the industry’s stereotypically slim beauty standards. Another show, “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life,” also focused on Ms. Alley’s weight-loss journey.Ms. Alley was married to Bob Alley, and the two eventually divorced. A later marriage to Parker Stevenson also ended in divorce.She is survived by her two children, True and Lillie Parker. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.Ms. Alley told The New York Times in 1997 that she had sought out TV series throughout her career in order to have a normal schedule and be closer to her family.“It’s the best life style,” Ms. Alley said. More

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      Gary Oldman Found James Dean and His Wife at a Gallery

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      The Oscar-winning star of “Slow Horses” on Apple TV+ likes comedians in dramas, makes photos the hard way and is still discovering the Beatles.The actor Gary Oldman knows a few things about playing spies.He picked up the first of his three Oscar nominations for his portrayal of George Smiley, the agent at the heart of the 2011 movie “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” which was adapted from John le Carré’s thriller by the same name. (He won in 2018, for “The Darkest Hour.”)In the Apple TV+ series “Slow Horses,” based on Mick Herron’s “Slough House” novels, Oldman is a similarly unglamorous spy, one of several dealing with divorce, alcoholism, gambling problems and other misfortunes. As Oldman said in a phone interview last month, they are far from “that rather sort of glossy world of Jason Bourne and James Bond.”There is certainly no gloss to Oldman’s character, Jackson Lamb, a perpetually rumpled and frequently drunk MI5 agent who oversees spies tucked away for being embarrassing or otherwise undesirable. But Oldman has decided to spend more time with him than with any other character in his more than 40-year career.“He publicly humiliates. He’s provocative. He’s deliberately confrontational. He’s all of those things,” he said. “And yet, he has an incredible sort of moral compass, and he’s very loyal, and I think that is sort of, if you like, redeeming.”Season 2 of “Slow Horses” premiered Friday, while the third season is in production. (A fourth has been ordered.) Oldman talked about the books he’s giving for Christmas, the music he makes on his iPhone and the plays he performs on Zoom. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Richard Miller I collect photographs. Once, I was looking for a print of a photograph of James Dean on a break during the shooting of “Giant,” sitting on a sofa, reading a Look magazine with Elizabeth Taylor on the cover. Next to him on the sofa is Elizabeth Taylor, with her head on his arm, asleep. I went over to the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles to see if they had a print. I described it but said I didn’t know who it was by. A voice behind me said, “Oh, that’s Richard Miller.” I turned around and met the gallery’s director, Gisele Schmidt, who is now my wife.2. “The Dumb Waiter” I’ve had a chance to work with a wonderful actor and a lovely man lately called Arliss Howard. We recently got onto Zoom and read “The Dumb Waiter,” a one-act play by Harold Pinter about a pair of hit men. We did it for ourselves — you know, just keeping your hand in the game. I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere. Maybe Arliss and I will do it one of these days.3. iPhone Music Recordings Again, purely for the hell of it, a friend in Canada and I have been recording songs by David Bowie, who was a very good friend of mine. We send tracks back and forth to each other by email and text. I’ll put down, say, the piano track, and he’ll put guitar on it. You’ll be amazed what you can do with an iPhone. When you hear these tracks put together, you would think they were recorded live in a studio with a band.4. London’s National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museums, the National Gallery — these are all places that are part of growing up in England. They’ve always been there. Always been accessible. Every time I go back to the National Portrait Gallery, I see new things.5. The Beatles A friend of mine, the painter George Blacklock, always says that if you could look at a painting and get it all in five minutes, then it wouldn’t be worth painting it. They reveal new things to you over time. I feel that way about the Beatles. My God, the artistry. I am constantly in awe and total admiration for what they achieved.6. John le Carré John le Carré had an eye for detail that I think is quite remarkable. “Tinker, Tailor,” for me, is the jewel in the crown of his writing. But I liked one of his next George Smiley novels, “Smiley’s People,” very much. We were going to do it. It never happened, for a variety of reasons, but I would’ve loved to have revisited George again.7. Stella Adler The other day, I was talking to Saskia Reeves — who plays Catherine Standish on “Slow Horses” — about the many methods and techniques of acting. She’s sort of from the Stanislavski school, as many of us are, and she was talking about Uta Hagen and, I think, Sanford Meisner, but she was sort of unfamiliar with the great actor and teacher Stella Adler. So I think the book “Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov” will be in Saskia’s Christmas stocking.8. Comedic Actors Working on Dramas I loved “The Patient” with Steve Carell and happen to think he’s a really wonderful dramatic actor. I also liked “Severance.” I was shocked to see that some episodes were directed by Ben Stiller. I knew he’d directed before, but it was really quite masterful. Sometimes we go: “Oh my God, this person can be funny and be dramatic!” And yet, for years, the wonderful Jack Lemmon bounced between the two.9. Family Christmas This year, we’re having Christmas at the house, and it’s our first big, big, big Christmas. We have 14 for Christmas Day and five dogs. So, it’s going to be a houseful. We’re going to try and coax my son Charlie into making his carbonara.10. Wet-Plate Photography I started learning about the wet-plate photography process when I was writing a script about the 19th-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge. I made one good plate and thought, “I’ve been searching all my life for this — why haven’t I discovered it earlier?” I find it incredibly satisfying, and it takes me away from my main job. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘His Dark Materials’ and the People’s Choice Awards

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      The third and final season of “His Dark Materials” begins on HBO. And the 2022 People’s Choice Awards air on NBC.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Dec. 5 -11. Details and times are subject to change.MondayHIS DARK MATERIALS 9 p.m. on HBO. Following the trilogy structure of the Philip Pullman novels on which it is based, the fantasy series “His Dark Materials” is slated to end after its new, third season, which debuts on Monday. The first season introduced Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), a runaway living in an authoritarian fantasy world who is pulled into a quest that involves multiple realities. The second season ended on the brink of a war. Reviewing the first season for The New York Times, James Poniewozik wrote that the show conjures a spectacle without losing sight of the weightier ideas of the source material. It “has a more rebellious, questioning outlook — adolescent, in a good way — than some other fantasy sagas,” he wrote. “Where the Harry Potter series and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ presumed that the ruling institutions were essentially good, if vulnerable to corruption, ‘His Dark Materials’ suggests that its theocracy is rotten all the way up.”TuesdayKenan Thompson at the 2021 People’s Choice Awards. He will return to host this year’s show.Alberto Rodriquez/E! Entertainment/NBCPEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS 9 p.m. on NBC. Kenan Thompson returns for a second consecutive year to host the People’s Choice Awards. The show casts a large net, handing out prizes in movies, TV, music and general pop-culture categories. It’s a looser affair than the Oscars, Grammys or Emmys: “Social celebrity of 2022” is one honor here, and nominees for the top movies category include “Jurassic World Dominion,” which you’re probably unlikely to find in the running for best picture at the Academy Awards.CASABLANCA (1942) 10:15 p.m. on TCM. The perennial best-of-list classic “Casablanca” premiered in New York on Nov. 26, 1942, but decades later, its story of wartime love and displacement still has plenty to say. New Yorkers can pair an 80th-anniversary viewing with a trip to the Neue Galerie in Manhattan, where a showcase of memorabilia spotlights the Central European exiles who made the movie.WednesdayTITANIC (1997) 8 p.m. on Paramount Network. James Cameron is set to return to theaters next week with the sci-fi sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water.” For a refresher on Cameron’s special ability to create a spectacle, revisit his “Titanic,” with Kate Winslet (who is also in “Avatar: The Way of Water”) and Leonardo DiCaprio.ThursdayFrom left, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan and Eliza Scanlen in “Little Women.”Wilson Webb/Columbia PicturesLITTLE WOMEN (2019) 3 p.m. on FXM. Greta Gerwig adapted Louisa May Alcott’s 19th-century novel “Little Women” for a new generation with this film version, in which Gerwig moves between the four March Sisters — played here by Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan and Eliza Scanlen — as adults and as younger versions of themselves, creating something of a before and after coming-of-age story. In his review for The Times, A.O. Scott said that this adaptation can appeal to both fans of Alcott’s book and newcomers. “Without resorting to self-conscious anachronism or fussy antiquarianism,” Scott wrote, “Gerwig has fashioned a story that feels at once entirely true to its 19th-century origins and utterly modern.”OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001) 5:15 p.m. on TNT. When the director Steven Soderbergh released this blockbuster heist movie remake in 2001, the review in The Times by the critic Elvis Mitchell referred to the film’s cast as “a Who’s Who of People magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive.” George Clooney and Brad Pitt were in it. Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and Andy Garcia, too. And of course, don’t forget Carl Reiner. These days, “Ocean’s Eleven,” which places a group of thieves in a Las Vegas casino-robbing plot, makes for a taut 2000s time capsule. TNT will show it on Thursday in a marathon alongside its contemporary sequels — though the more interesting pairing might involve watching this version with the 1960 original, which has Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin in its cast, and airs Friday on TCM at 3:45 p.m.CMA COUNTRY CHRISTMAS 9 p.m. on ABC. The country-pop singer-songwriter Carly Pearce will host the 13th edition of this annual Christmastime special. The lineup of performers includes Maren Morris, the War and Treaty, Molly Tuttle and Steven Curtis Chapman.FridayELLA WISHES YOU A SWINGING CHRISTMAS WITH VANESSA WILLIAMS 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The singer Vanessa Williams and the American Pops Orchestra pay tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and her classic album of jazzy Christmas music in this hourlong special. The program originally aired in 2020, the 60th anniversary of the album, but, like the album it celebrates, it has evergreen appeal as a seasonal treat.SaturdayFrom left, Christian Bale, John David Washington, and Margot Robbie in “Amsterdam.”20th Century StudiosAMSTERDAM (2022) 7:45 p.m. on HBO. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington play three friends pulled into an over-the-top murder conspiracy in 1930s Europe in this crackpot mystery from David O. Russell (“American Hustle”). The plot kicks off with a dead man, and an autopsy that leaves questions unanswered. What follows is “a handsome period romp,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times, “a 1930s screwball pastiche filled with mugging performers who charm and seduce as they run around chasing down a mystery, playing detective, tripping over their feet and navigating an international conspiracy that is best enjoyed if you don’t pay it too much attention.”SundayNATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING: CELEBRATING 100 YEARS 8 p.m. on CBS. The annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Washington dates back to the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. The 2022 ceremony, which took place Nov. 30 and will be broadcast on Sunday, two weeks before the holiday, includes performances by LL Cool J, Shania Twain, Yolanda Adams, Ariana DeBose, the United States Marine Band and more.MASTER OF GLASS: THE ART OF DALE CHIHULY 9 p.m. on Smithsonian Channel. With colorful, dizzying glass works often installed far outside the walls of museums, the artist Dale Chihuly, 81, has for decades been one of the most recognizable artists of his generation. His life has also included well-documented physical and mental struggles. This program looks at Chihuly’s career. More

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      Bob McGrath, Longtime ‘Sesame Street’ Star, Dies at 90

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      He was an original cast member who, for nearly half a century, played a sweater-clad and easygoing music teacher who dispensed advice.Bob McGrath, who played the sweater-clad neighborhood music teacher and general advice-giver on “Sesame Street” for almost half a century, died at his home in New Jersey on Sunday morning. He was 90.Mr. McGrath’s daughter Cathlin McGrath confirmed his death by email on Sunday. She said Mr. McGrath died from complications after a stroke. She said that the night before Mr. McGrath passed, his family had decorated his room for Christmas, and sung and danced around him. “We just knew that he wanted to go the way he lived.”Mr. McGrath wasn’t particularly interested when an old Phi Gamma Delta fraternity brother stopped him one night to tell him about his new project, a children’s show on public television. But then he had never heard of Jim Henson, the puppeteer, and he had never seen a Muppet. After his first meeting and a look at some of the animation, he knew this show would be different.“Sesame Street” had its premiere in November 1969, with Mr. McGrath and other cast members gathered around an urban brownstone stoop, in front of the building’s dark green doors, beside its omnipresent collection of metal garbage cans. His character, conveniently and coincidentally named Bob, was reliably smiling, easygoing and polite, whether he was singing about “People in Your Neighborhood” (the butcher, the baker, the lifeguard), discussing everyday concerns with young humans and Muppets, or taking a day trip to Grouchytown with Oscar the Grouch.Viewers were outraged when Mr. McGrath and two other longtime cast members — Emilio Delgado, who played Luis, and Roscoe Orman, who played Gordon — were fired in 2016. When HBO took over the broadcasting rights to “Sesame Street,” their contracts were not renewed.But Mr. McGrath took the news graciously, expressing gratitude for 47 years of “working with phenomenal people” and for a whole career beyond “Sesame Street” of doing family concerts with major symphony orchestras.“I’m really very happy to stay home with my wife and children a little bit more,” he said at Florida Supercon, an annual comic book and pop culture convention, later in 2016. “I’d be so greedy if I wanted five minutes more.”Robert Emmett McGrath was born on June 13, 1932, in Ottawa, Ill., about 80 miles southwest of Chicago. He was the youngest of five children of Edmund Thomas McGrath, a farmer, and Flora Agnes (Halligan) McGrath.Robert’s mother, who sang and played the piano, recognized his talent by the time he was 5. He was soon entering and winning competitions in Chicago and appearing on radio. He did musical plays and studied privately but, as a practical matter, intended to study engineering.But he was invited to attend a music camp outside Chicago the summer after his high school graduation. Teachers there encouraged him to change his plans, and he “did an about-face,” he remembered in a 2004 video interview for the Television Academy Foundation.He majored in voice at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1954. He spent the next two years in the Army, mostly in Stuttgart, Germany, where he worked with the Seventh Army Symphony. Then he went to New York, where he received a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music.He took a job with St. David’s, a private boys’ school in Manhattan. Freelance singing assignments, obtained through a vocal contractor, paid the bills until 1961, when “Sing Along With Mitch” came along. He was one of 25 male singers who appeared every week on that show, on NBC, performing traditional favorites like “Home on the Range,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” and “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”As St. Patrick’s Day approached, the program’s host and producer, Mitch Miller, asked Mr. McGrath if he knew the song “Mother Machree.” He was so impressed with Mr. McGrath’s rendition and his light lyric tenor — he had been singing the sentimental Irish American number since he was a little boy — that he doubled his salary and made him the show’s featured male soloist.After “Sing Along With Mitch” ended in 1964, the cast played Las Vegas and did a 30-stop tour in Japan. That led to an unusual chapter in Mr. McGrath’s career: teenage idol.Schoolgirls chanted his name at concerts and organized fan clubs. Their demand brought him back to Japan nine times over the next three years, and he recorded nine albums there, singing in both English and Japanese. His repertoire included Japanese folk ballads on which he was accompanied by a shakuhachi, or bamboo flute. Back home, he amused American television viewers by singing “Danny Boy” in Japanese.When “Sesame Street” began, it led to a very different collection of albums for Mr. McGrath, with names like “Sing Along With Bob” and “Songs and Games for Toddlers.”He also learned American Sign Language, which he used regularly on camera with Linda Bove, a cast member who was born deaf.Asked about important memories of his years on the series, Mr. McGrath often named the 1983 episode devoted to children’s, adults’ and Muppets’ reactions to the death of Will Lee, who had played Mr. Hooper on the show for 13 years. Another favorite was the holiday special “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” (1978), particularly the Bert and Ernie segment inspired by the O. Henry story “The Gift of the Magi.”In 1958, Mr. McGrath married Ann Logan Sperry, a preschool teacher whom he met on his first day in New York City. They had five children. He is survived by Ms. McGrath, who is 89, and their five children, Liam McGrath, Robert McGrath, Alison McGrath Osder, Lily McGrath and Cathlin McGrath, as well as eight grandchildren. He is also survived by an elder sister, Eileen Strobel.“It’s a very different kind of fame,” Mr. McGrath reflected in the Television Academy interview about his association with “Sesame Street.”He recalled a little boy in a store who came up to him and took his hand. At first he thought he had been mistaken for the child’s father. When he realized that the boy seemed to think they knew each other, Mr. McGrath asked, “Do you know my name?” “Bob.” “Do you know where I live?” “Sesame Street.” “Do you know any of my other friends on Sesame Street?”“Yep,” the boy answered and promptly gave an example: “Oh, the number 7.”Livia Albeck-Ripka More

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      A Previvor’s Tale

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      A television writer deals with too much plot.A storyteller wants to know the future. That’s our job, after all: to map out the plot. We must keep a bird’s-eye view of the whole saga in mind — beginning, middle and end — while we make our way through each individual moment.This narrator’s drive to predict the future has always been so compulsive in me that it’s manifested in daily actions ranging from the practical (to-do lists, calendars) to the goofy (astrology, tarot). What happens next, I ask the cards, yearning for certainty, for control over my own story.Before I got married, all I did was wonder if I would ever get married. And soon after my wedding (a firm conclusion to that question), I visited a gynecologist, hoping to tackle the next big plot point. I was 35, a professional screenwriter, and I had always wanted children.Your Questions About Menopause, AnsweredCard 1 of 6What are perimenopause and menopause? More

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      Brad William Henke, N.F.L. Player Who Turned to Acting, Dies at 56

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      A defensive lineman who played for the Denver Broncos, he later appeared in “Orange Is the New Black,” “Dexter” and “Lost.”Brad William Henke, a former N.F.L. player who later turned to acting and became known for his role as a prison guard on “Orange Is the New Black,” died on Tuesday. He was 56.His death was confirmed by his manager, Matt DelPiano, who said Mr. Henke died in his sleep but did not specify the location. He also did not cite a cause, but in May 2021 Mr. Henke posted on Instagram that he had a 90 percent blockage in an artery, and the next month he said he had received two stents in his heart.Mr. Henke played many roles in film and television across a 25-year career, but he was probably best known for his appearance on more than two dozen episodes of the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” from 2016 to 2018. His character, Desi Piscatella, a gay corrections officer at the penitentiary where the show was set, was an integral part of the drama in its fourth and fifth seasons, and in 2017 he shared in the cast’s Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series.Although “Orange” could be considered Mr. Henke’s breakout role, it was far from his first. His acting career began in 1996 with the film “Mr. Wrong,” which starred Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Pullman and Joan Cusack. Among the dozens of television shows on which he was seen were “ER,” “Judging Amy,” “Dexter,” “October Road” and “Lost.” His movies included the original “Space Jam.”Mr. Henke was born on April 10, 1966, in Columbus, Neb., and raised in Littleton, Colo. He played football for the University of Arizona in the late 1980s. A 6-foot-3, 275-pound defensive lineman, he was drafted by the New York Giants in 1989 as but was cut, he told The Tucson Citizen in 1998, He went on to play for the Denver Broncos and was on the team when it lost the 1990 Super Bowl to the San Francisco 49ers.His football career ended in the early 1990s after several injuries, and he held a number of jobs, including assistant football coach at a community college in California. An unexpected encounter with Rod Martin, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, set him on a new path.“Rod mentioned there was a need for actors to play football players for commercials, so I tried out for it and got one for Pizza Hut,” Mr. Henke told The Citizen. “While I was there, a guy invited me to attend an acting class. I went and it hit me that this is what I wanted to do.”The depth and types of roles Mr. Henke landed progressed with each credit. In a 2021 interview with CGMagazine, Mr. Henke said that at the start of his career he was learning the business and was taking jobs to earn money, but that things changed. “Lately, I’ve just tried to do it for the love of it,” he said. “Just cause I love creating the characters — figuring out how they talk, how they stand, all the physical things and all the emotional things.”Mr. Henke told the website Tell-Tale TV in 2020 that his role as Tom Cullen on the mini-series “The Stand,” the most recent adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same title, which starred Whoopi Goldberg and Alexander Skarsgard, was challenging yet rewarding.“It was the best experience I’ve had in acting so far in my whole career,” he said. “I haven’t had very many opportunities in my career where I have been offered this job three months before it starts. So many times, it’s just right before it starts. So I had so much more time to work on it and prepare and just think about it, dream about it.”Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.Jesus Jiménez More

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      For Emma Corrin, Identity Is an Ever-Evolving Project

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      The British actor Emma Corrin knew that signing on to star in an adaptation of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” the racy D.H. Lawrence novel, would mean nudity and sex — and lots of it. They were even prepared to be wet, thanks to a pivotal scene in the rain, when the titular couple (Corrin as the lady and Jack O’Connell as the paramour) lovingly frolic naked. “It was that scene in the script that really drew me to the project, because I was like, that’s wild. I haven’t seen anything like that onscreen,” Corrin said.And yet, that sequence was also “the single most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life,” they said. (Corrin identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.) There was no movie magic, no hiding behind camera angles and modesty protectors: It was leaping, dripping, fleshy full-frontal vulnerability. Watching the movie, they said, took “a lot of whiskey.”Corrin gamine-eyed their way to international fame and award recognition in 2020, playing Princess Diana in “The Crown,” their first major role. Though the settings are decades apart, there is a connection between the young Diana, contorting herself to meet an impossible ideal, and Constance Reid, an independent mind who marries into high aristocracy, circa World War I, only to find her Lord Chatterley dismissive of her needs. They are both “trapped women, searching for freedom,” Corrin said.Connie finds it in “Lady Chatterley” — it premieres on Netflix on Friday — through moments of sexual intimacy rarely depicted in period drama. (Masturbation under all those skirts!) Bringing that to the screen, “you know that you’re doing something that is taking up space that needs to be taken up,” Corrin said. “I felt emboldened, with this edge of, ‘Oh, this is a bit terrifying.’ That’s an exciting place to be as an actor.”Corrin opposite Jack O’Connell in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”NetflixIt’s not a big leap from the projects and characters that Corrin has lately chosen to their own exploration of gender, love, power, and the responsibilities and costs of being heard. They are currently starring in the title role in a West End production of “Orlando,” based on Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending, time-traveling novel.Corrin’s ascent could have been simple: the English rose ingénue, who’s at home in flouncy frocks and looks as if they can blush on cue. (If only, they said.) Instead, Corrin has shared images of their experiments with chest binding and has changed pronouns twice, as their understanding of how they want to present evolved.“My identity and being nonbinary is an embrace of many different parts of myself, the masculine and the feminine and everything in between,” they said. They hoped only for patience, and for roles that encompass the full spectrum of individuality. “It’s hard to be discovering something in yourself at the same time you’re navigating an industry that demands a lot of you, in terms of knowing who you are,” they said.Dan Levy, the “Schitt’s Creek” star, is a friend who has become “a lifeline” for Corrin, as they put it. He said that the expectation, in the social-media age, that all facets of a star be accessible is dangerous, “especially as a queer person navigating your place in the world.”“You want to lend your voice to the conversation,” he wrote in an email, but “doing so comes at the cost of a sense of privacy. Emma has been really thoughtful about what they want to say and who they want to be publicly.” What he admired most, he said, has been “their frankness about not being entirely sure — that who they are is an ever-evolving internal conversation. I know that must be of comfort to many people who can relate.”The Return of ‘The Crown’The hit drama’s fifth season premiered on Netflix on Nov. 9.The Royals and TV: The royal family’s experiences with sitting for television interviews have been fraught. The latest season of “The Crown” explores that rocky relationship.Meeting the Al-Fayeds: The new season includes portrayals of the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, his son Dodi and his personal valet — who had all connections with the royal family.Republicanism on the Rise: Since “The Crown” debuted in 2016, there has been a steady increase in support for abolishing Britain’s monarchy. Has the show contributed to that change?Casting Choices: In a conversation with The Times, the casting director Robert Sterne told us how the drama has turned into a clearinghouse for some of Britain’s biggest stars.Corrin, 26, lives in North London, in a décor-jumbled flat (they have a penchant for Lego sets), with three roommates, friends from their school days, and Corrin’s doted-upon dog, Spencer. On a warm fall afternoon, they turned up for lunch in Manhattan in shorts and a sweater vest, with short platinum hair curled, a new style they quite liked. In the group chat with the roomies, they floated the idea of getting a perm. “It’s very Renaissance boy, which I feel like I channel in my soul anyway,” Corrin told me of the look.Corrin spent the summer in New York working on a new series.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesAbsolutely not, came the immediate texted reply: a photo of three blondes in a universal, arms-crossed, N-O. They are, Corrin said, the kind of friends “who know you so well that you can’t get away with anything, which is wonderful.”Their support network is robust, almost to a fault. Corrin’s mother, a speech therapist, and two younger brothers attended the “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” London premiere. “I did give them all the disclaimers,” Corrin said. “And it was, yeah, mortifying. I think worse for my flatmates, to have to sit next to my family watching it.” But they appreciated the film, Corrin added: “I got such sweet texts from my brothers afterwards.”Since their big debut, Corrin has worked nonstop — “I’m a stranger to breaks,” they said. “I’m bad at not doing anything.” They spent the summer in New York to film a coming FX mystery series and to be profiled by Vogue, the first nonbinary star to appear on the cover.Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, the French director of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” understood why Corrin — whose pronouns were she/they during production — is in demand. The star “has a quality of being here and now,” the filmmaker said. “She’s believable in the ’60s, in the ’20s, today, but she has this immediacy and the spontaneity that brings you back to the present with her, and that’s a very strong quality. The singular energy that she has, the way she talks, the way she moves, it’s always surprising.”Physicality is a big part of Corrin’s performances. They have worked with Polly Bennett, a movement coach and choreographer, regularly since meeting on “The Crown,” where they set out to unpack “Diana-isms,” Bennett said, like the princess’s signature head tilt. “When you try to look at it from an actor’s perspective, it’s to understand why Diana did that,” Bennett said. “Match the physical world to the emotional.”Corrin as Diana in “The Crown.” They worked with a movement coach on the character’s signature head tilt.Des Willie/NetflixOn “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” Bennett put the leads through “some really quite outlandish, abstract perspective drama school stuff,” said O’Connell, who plays Oliver Mellors, the solitary but sensitive estate groundsman Connie falls for. “And I don’t have drama school experience, so I was very open to it.”In rehearsals, the leads and filmmakers, along with an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, blocked out the sex scenes and found their boundaries.For O’Connell, who is from the same part of Britain as D.H. Lawrence and recognized Mellors as a familiar sort of local figure, the coaching helped him “sit with feeling uncomfortable,” he said. “Before every take, there was like an overwhelming sensation that I did not want to do it.”The rain scene, in particular, seemed to test everyone involved.For starters, though they filmed in and around an estate in normally drizzly, muddy Wales, “it was like the most sunny summer of the last decade,” said de Clermont-Tonnerre. Cue the rain machine.The scene, which comes late in the film and serves to amplify Connie and Oliver’s love and connection, lasts 90 seconds. (To skirt an NC-17 rating, de Clermont-Tonnerre had to keep all the most explicit moments trim.) It needed to feel spontaneous and joyful, a natural exhilaration in a verdant field.“That scene was so reliant on two people in physical abandon,” Bennett said. “You can’t just send two people out to do that. We choreographed shapes and moments, and how garments came off.”But much of it was improvised. “We’re in the field and we looked at each other, and I’d never seen my own terror reflected back at me so intensely,” Corrin said. “We were like, what do we do?”For one nude scene with O’Connell, “I’d never seen my own terror reflected back at me so intensely,” Corrin said.Josefina SantosOn a closed set of about eight people, with music blasting to pump them up, Corrin and O’Connell cut loose. “It was scary for all of us,” de Clermont-Tonnerre said. “And also liberating, in the way that we all wanted to get naked and go running with them.”And O’Connell learned to quiet his inner doubts. “Once you get over the initial discomfort and sometimes shock, something really exhilarating can stem from that,” he said. “And that’s quite rewarding.”Lawrence’s novel, originally published privately in 1928, was famously banned for decades, but after social mores loosened, it was the subject of multiple screen adaptations. De Clermont-Tonnerre wanted to ground hers in Connie’s perspective, as she leaves behind the rule-bound grand manor for earthier pleasures.Ecstasy, in all its forms, was what she was after. “I needed this version to be erotic and to actually glorify eroticism as an actual and vital need,” she said. “I want people to get desire, and to really get horny.”The kind of sexual awakening that Connie undergoes, “I think it’s at the center of a lot of our lives, definitely in terms of self-discovery — probably throughout your life,” Corrin said, adding, “I think that her determination to find something that is very genuine, and a real connection, definitely made me want the same. She’s brave in a way that really inspired me.”Corrin hopes that some of the boldness sticks with them in other ways. “I’m very bad at conflict,” they said. At work, when a request feels iffy, they call Levy for advice. “He’ll be like, that’s out of order, you need to say no and set a boundary.” (“Self-preservation is a team effort!” he said.)Getting angry, raising their voice onscreen, still feels foreign to Corrin. “I’m always worried that I’m not landing it, because I’m so unused to that feeling in my own body,” they said.Crying and having sex, on the other hand, “I can do all day.” More