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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

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘True Lies’ and ‘Black Girl Missing’

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      An action series premieres on CBS, and a new film on Lifetime highlights how missing Black women are treated by the police and the media.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, Feb. 27-March 5. Details and times are subject to change.MondayAlhajji Sharif, a former prisoner, in “Attica.”SHOWTIMEATTICA (2021) 5:45 p.m. on SHO2. This Oscar-nominated documentary from the director Stanley Nelson explores the enduring violence and racism of the prison system, and the ongoing need for reform, through the lens of the Attica prison revolt of 1971. Using archival footage and interviews with survivors of the uprising, reporters and government officials, the documentary takes the viewer through the events as they unfolded, building to “a powerful final half-hour that makes the case that the brutality used in ending the riot was excessive, criminal and racist — a show of force closer to revenge,” as Ben Kenigsberg wrote in his review.TuesdayClockwise from left, Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton in “Apollo 13.”Ron Batzdorff/Universal StudiosAPOLLO 13 (1995) 7:55 p.m. on Syfy. Adapted from the 1994 book “Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13” by Jim Lovell, the astronaut who commanded the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, and Jeffrey Kluger, this Academy Award-winning film follows Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and what happened during their failed Moon landing mission. In a 1995 article about the film for The Times, John Noble Wilford, the science journalist who covered “the ill-starred flight” in 1970, attests to the film’s authenticity. The story “evokes a time when people took risks to reach grand goals,” Wilford wrote, adding that “perhaps the retelling of the Apollo 13 story will remind Americans of who we were and who we want to think we are.”WednesdaySURVIVOR 8 p.m. on CBS. This Emmy Award-winning competitive reality television series returns for its 44th season. Hosted by Jeff Probst, the season premiere introduces the 18 contestants who will compete in a series of games and challenges until only one person remains to claim the show’s $1 million prize.TRUE LIES 10 p.m. on CBS. Inspired by the James Cameron action film of the same name, this new series follows the suburban Tasker family as Helen (Ginger Gonzaga), a language professor, finds out that her husband, Harry (Steve Howey), is a spy for Omega Sector, a U.S. intelligence agency. The show follows the couple as Helen is recruited by Omega and the pair begin working together, all while keeping their double lives a secret from their children.ThursdayBREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) 8 p.m. on TCM. This Grammy and Academy Award-winning romantic comedy, adapted from Truman Capote’s 1958 novella of the same name, follows Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), a country girl turned socialite, as she falls in love with Paul Varjak (George Peppard), a struggling writer in the same apartment building. “It is a completely unbelievable but wholly captivating flight into fancy composed of unequal dollops of comedy, romance, poignancy, funny colloquialisms and Manhattan’s swankiest East Side areas captured in the loveliest of colors,” A.H. Weiler wrote in a 1961 review for The Times.FridayThe poet Ruth Stone’s work explored the nature of creativity, grief and family dynamics.Ruth Stone TrustRUTH STONE’S VAST LIBRARY OF THE FEMALE MIND (2021) 9 p.m. on PBS WORLD. The poet Ruth Stone’s work explored the nature of creativity, grief and family dynamics; she died in 2011 at 96, and wrote for much of her life in obscurity. Through interviews with Stone at different points in her life, interviews with her family and colleagues, readings of her poetry and an animation by her granddaughter, this documentary, premiering on PBS for Women’s History Month, is an intimate look at Stone’s legacy and art.SaturdayBLACK GIRL MISSING (2023) 8 p.m. on Lifetime. A part of Lifetime’s Emmy Award-winning public affairs campaign, “Stop Violence Against Women,” the movie “Black Girl Missing” highlights how missing Black women are handled by the police and the media. The film follows Cheryl (Garcelle Beauvais) as she tries to find her daughter, who has been labeled a runaway while the police and the media are too busy following another missing person: a white girl. The movie is accompanied by “Beyond the Headlines: Black Girl Missing,” which tells the true stories of missing women of color through interviews with their families.SundayFrom left, Tameka “Tiny” Harris, Kandi Burruss, LaTocha Scott and Tamika Scott, members of Xscape, in “SWV & XSCAPE: The Queens of R&B.”Phylicia J.L. Munn/BravoSWV & XSCAPE: THE QUEENS OF R&B 9:30 p.m. on Bravo. Two of the best-selling ’90s R&B girl groups are brought together for a one-night-only concert event in this six-part limited series. Viewers will follow the Grammy Award-nominated, multiplatinum trio SWV and the quartet Xscape as they explore the dynamics of sisterhood in music groups on and off the stage. Each episode will capture the highs and lows of these seven women’s journeys as they work together — and against one another — to put on a massive concert. More

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      ‘The Last of Us’ Season 1, Episode 7: Secret Origins

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      This week, an extended flashback fills in significant aspects of Ellie’s life in the Boston Quarantine Zone.Season 1, Episode 7: ‘Left Behind’Although Ellie talks almost nonstop, during her long trip across the country with Joel she has said very little about herself.Going by the few details she has let slip — and what he have seen ourselves — we know she grew up in the Boston Quarantine Zone with no parents. She does not have a boyfriend. She did have a friend who knew how to perform an infamous finishing move in the video game “Mortal Kombat II.” She loves the comic book series “Savage Starlight.” She thinks whiskey is “gross.” She is wild about Will Livingston’s “No Pun Intended” joke books. She experienced shooting and violence firsthand back in Boston. And she got her nonfatal cordyceps infection while exploring a sealed-off shopping mall.About 95 percent of this week’s episode consists of an extended flashback to Ellie’s life in the QZ, while in the present day she scrambles to keep the wounded Joel alive. Most of what we see in the flashback confirms what we already knew. But some details are a bit different — and those details matter.For example: Ellie wasn’t just being educated by FEDRA; she was being indoctrinated. Singled out from her class as a future leader, she was being trained physically and mentally to protect the QZ and hunt Fireflies. Her stubbornness though was causing trouble. She was bucking authority, sneaking out at night, and fighting with the other girls — spurred on in part by her rebellious roommate Riley (Storm Reid).When the flashback starts, Riley has been AWOL for three weeks; but while Ellie is asleep in their barracks after lights-out, Riley sneaks back in and explains her where she has been. She joined the Fireflies, after meeting Marlene and commiserating about how much they both hate FEDRA fascism. Ellie is skeptical, but still agrees to join her best friend for a wild after-hours excursion — which turns out to be a trip to the mall. For those of us watching at home, the alarms bells are already ringing.Inside the Dystopian World of ‘The Last of Us’The post-apocalyptic video game that inspired the TV series “The Last of Us” won over players with its photorealistic animation and a morally complex story.Game Review: “I found it hard to get past what it embraces with a depressing sameness, particularly its handling of its female characters,” our critic wrote of “The Last of Us” in 2013.‘Left Behind’: “The Last of Us: Left Behind,” a prologue designed to be played in a single sitting, was an unexpected hit in 2014.2020 Sequel: “The Last of Us Part II,” a tale of entrenched tribalism in a world undone by a pandemic, took a darker and unpredictable tone that left critics in awe.Playing the Game: Two Times reporters spent weeks playing the sequel in the run-up to its release. These were their first impressions.It takes a while before any trouble starts; and in the hour or two before then, these two girls have the greatest night of their lives. The building has working electricity, so Riley lights the whole place up, and as the young ladies head down what Ellie calls the “electric stairs,” Riley announces her intention to show her “the four wonders of the mall.” Hearing this, Ellie beams and says, “You planned stuff?”Ellie’s excitement is the first clear sign that she is hoping this outing could — if played right — turn romantic. Anyone who has ever had an intense hang session with a pal they secretly have a crush on will recognize this vibe. When Riley makes fun of the mall’s un-looted Victoria’s Secret store and jokes about what Ellie would look like in lingerie, Ellie blushes and then surreptitiously checks her hair in the window’s reflection. Later, Riley takes Ellie’s hand to lead her to a working carousel, which plays what sounds like an instrumental version of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” Is this flirting?We experience all these moments from Ellie’s perspective, sharing her hesitancy to make the next move. Sometimes their faces get close, and Ellie clearly wants to lean in further for a kiss. But what if she is misreading the signs? The romantic tension is more stressful than a clicker attack.Throughout this episode, there is some foreshadowing of the looming tragedy. Before they enter the mall, Ellie and Riley come across a QZ resident who has killed himself with pills and booze. After they liberate his alcohol (which Ellie pretends to enjoy), the corpse falls through the floor. Later, while they are enjoying the marvels of a video arcade — playing “Mortal Kombat II,” naturally — the camera moves away to show a wall-clinging monster, awakened by the noise. It is a nerve-racking mood-shift, worthy of a great horror movie.Ellie and Riley have some cranky moments together, arguing about whether the Fireflies are a force for good. Ellie fancies herself a freethinking anti-authoritarian, but she has spent much of her adolescence being inundated with anti-Firefly propaganda. When Riley grumbles about how the QZ can keep the lights on but can’t feed their own people, Ellie counters that the Fireflies didn’t help matters when they blew up a storage depot. The friends later briefly split up after Ellie realizes that Riley didn’t just stumble across this mall but has in fact been posted there by the Fireflies, who have her building explosives for them. (Ellie is not persuaded when Riley insists she would never let them use those bombs on her.)Ellie comes back though, because Riley is about to be reassigned to Atlanta, and Ellie doesn’t want their last memory of each other to be her storming away in anger. They reunite in the Halloween store — the final planned “wonder,” after the carousel, a photo booth and the arcade — where Riley talks about how the Fireflies have replaced the family she lost.“I matter to them,” she says.“You mattered to me first,” Ellie says.Then they put on monster masks, dance around to Etta James’s cover of “I Got You Babe,” and finally kiss. Ellis panics and apologizes; but Riley says, “For what?” The huge smile that spreads across Ellie’s face — followed by her asking, “What do we do now?” — is one of the sweetest and most relatable moments yet in this series.The magic can’t last. While Ellie and Riley are still giddy over their first kiss, that wall-clinging savage from earlier barges in. The girls kill him off, but not before he wounds them both. Ellie, we know, will survive. Riley, presumably, does not. (Her death is not shown, but it is possible that when Ellie hinted to Joel back in Kansas City that she had killed before, she meant Riley.)Earlier in the episode, a FEDRA officer mapped out Ellie’s future, pointing to two possible choices. She could keep goofing around and then spend the rest of her life as a miserable QZ worker-bee; or she could follow the rules and one day become a boss. Toward the end of the episode, Riley offers a different binary. They go ahead and kill themselves; or they could savor every last remaining second of their humanity. Riley knows what the right option is: They stay alive until the decision is out of their hands: “Whether it’s two minutes or two days, we don’t give that up.”Back in the present — in the basement of a snow-covered suburban home — Joel says the opposite. She wants Ellie to leave him, to let him die. Instead, she tears the house apart until she finds a needle and thread to stitch Joel up. He holds her hand tenderly, before she threads the needle and gets to work.Two more minutes down.Side QuestsThis episode is based on a downloadable expansion to the “The Last of Us” video game, released about a year after the original’s 2013 debut.The scene where Riley lights up the mall is absolutely beautiful, rich with the soft, colorful glow of retail outlet signs. (Also oddly touching is the electronic clatter of an old arcade, echoing through the empty walkways. Who would have guess that a “Mortal Kombat II” punching sound could be poignant?)The funniest visual gag in the episode: The sign on the multiplex box office reading “Back in 5 min.”The Ellie/Riley debates about FEDRA are fascinating, because during Ellie and Joel’s journey, both sides have at different times been proven right. Law and order has indeed broken down in some “liberated” QZs. But some of those communities fell apart in the first place because FEDRA’s rule was unbearable.Nearly everything in Ellie and Riley’s room either comes up again in this episode or is a part of Ellie’s lore. We see a “Savage Starlight” comic, an Etta James tape, a “Mortal Kombat II” poster, and, of course, the first volume of “No Pun Intended.”“How does the computer get drunk?” “It takes screen shots.” Another Will Livingston classic! (Ellie and Riley, born too late for that kind of tech, don’t get it.) More

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      ‘Saturday Night Live’ Mocks Trump’s Trip to Ohio

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      Woody Harrelson was the host this week of an episode, which featured Jack White as musical guest.The “Saturday Night Live” opening sketch has reliably become a showcase for the cast member James Austin Johnson — it’s simply a matter of which political figure or celebrity he’ll impersonate in the segment. This week the wheel was spun and it landed on former President Donald J. Trump, who on Wednesday visited the town of East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a train derailment that has led to a toxic chemical spill.This week’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, which was hosted by Woody Harrelson and featured the musical guest Jack White, began with Johnson playing Trump as he addressed an East Palestine firehouse.“It’s wonderful to be here in the town of East Palestine,” Johnson said. “Not a great name. But I had to come here and see these wonderful people who have been abandoned by Biden. He’s on spring break in Ukraine with his friend Zelensky in the T-shirt, very disrespectful. Zelensky thinks he’s rocking that ringer tee like Scott Pilgrim. But I’m here and I brought hats. Cameras and hats.”Relating a story that he claimed had happened on his visit, Johnson said, “Earlier today a farmer came up to me, big fella, and he said, ‘Sir, we have nothing to eat because our dirt is poisoned.’ And I said, well, what are you doing eating the dirt? Don’t eat the dirt, folks. Don’t eat the dirt. You should be eating the cold McDonald’s I brought you. And the bottled water, Trump Ice. I’ll be honest, I just put my sticker on some Dasani.”Indulging in a bit of Trump-style free association, Johnson said, “I was looking at your river and it’s so shiny. I’ve never seen water so beautiful. Beautiful rainbows and discolorations, it’s great. It’s wearing makeup. Fenty beauty water. Fenty by Rihanna. Rihanna. By the way, you know she was pregnant doing Super Bowl, can you believe that? I said of course she is, she’s not moving at all. It was just arms, right?”He added, “But your train exploded and who do we blame? We blame Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg. This was his responsibility. Unfortunately he was too busy being a nerd and being gay.”Promising his audience a special guest, Johnson brought out Chloe Fineman, who was playing Emily Kohrs, the forewoman of a special grand jury in Georgia that was investigating election interference by Trump and his allies.Kohrs drew attention for the quantity of news media appearances and interviews she made this past week. Johnson introduced Fineman by saying, “She’s an odd duck but we like her. She’s either seven or 40, we can’t tell.”When he was unable to get the excitable Fineman to reveal the grand jury’s decisions, Johnson said, “Wow, we don’t like that. We don’t like that sound. Because she knows if I’m getting indicted.”He added, “They almost had me and then this little horse girl comes in and saves the day.”Concluding his remarks, Johnson said, “I’m gonna get out of here soon ‘cause the air is full of poison.” He speculated that this could somehow be a benefit for flatulent men. “Blame the train, right?” he said. “You’d normally blame it on the dog but they’re all dead now, aren’t they?”Weekend Update jokes of the weekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on President Biden’s trip to Ukraine and the political responses to the train derailment in East Palestine.Jost began:This week President Biden made a historic visit to Ukraine and met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, where they greeted each other like two action figures having sex. While Biden was in Ukraine, Republicans criticized his delayed response to the Ohio train derailment. But Biden said he was just waiting to shoot the train down until it was over the ocean.Che continued:President Biden is being praised for his surprise visit to Ukraine by taking a 10-hour train ride from Poland. Big deal. You know who else takes a long-ass train ride through an active war zone? Every New Yorker. China is trying to help the war in Ukraine and proposed a 12-part plan for peace. The catch is, the 12 parts have to be assembled by children.Jost then picked up the thread:Donald Trump visited East Palestine, the site of the recent train derailment, because Trump usually tries to make himself look better by standing next to a train wreck. [His screen showed a photo of Rudy Giuliani.] The train that derailed was carrying highly toxic vinyl chloride, which I think is something Trump recommended as a cure for Covid. And while visiting the disaster site, Trump also gave out bottles of Trump brand water. Said residents, “Thanks but we’d rather drink the toxic train water.” I just love that Trump is the one who rolled back train safety standards when he was president and now he’s giving the victims bottles of water. What’s next? Is he going to visit all the migrant kids he put in cages and give them a gift card to Dave and Buster’s?Delayed Gratification of the WeekLongtime fans of “S.N.L.” know that when a celebrity guest hosts the show for the fifth time, the occasion is usually marked with a little pomp and circumstance. But for Harrelson — who took nearly 34 years to finally cross that threshold, having made his first appearance as host in 1989 — there was seemingly no such celebration coming.Harrelson halted his opening monologue a couple of times to extend his arms in expectation of a ceremonial jacket that never arrived. He also cheekily called attention to this when he set up the first musical performance from White, who was also appearing on “S.N.L.” for his fifth time: “You know what,” Harrelson said, halting his introduction, “he’s been here five times, too. Does he get a jacket?”At the end of the show, as Harrelson, White and the cast took the stage to say good night, Kenan Thompson said that on behalf of everyone at “S.N.L.,” he was proud to present a five-timers’ jacket … to White. Not to worry: Harrelson also got a jacket from Scarlett Johansson, Jost’s wife and a fellow five-timer herself. More

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      SAG Awards 2023: Complete List of Winners

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      Will “Everything Everywhere All at Once” take the top prize as it did at the Producers Guild Awards the night before?“Everything Everywhere All at Once” won the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday night. Will it win again at the Screen Actors Guild Awards? And will that movie’s lead, Michelle Yeoh, take the SAG for best actress, or will that honor go to Cate Blanchett for “Tár”?Those are the biggest questions heading into the SAGs tonight. But we’re also keeping an eye on the supporting actress category. Will Angela Bassett, who won the Critics Choice for her turn as Queen Ramonda in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” prevail or will it be the BAFTAs’ choice, Kerry Condon from “The Banshees of Inisherin”? Or could Stephanie Hsu from “Everything Everywhere” sneak in?You can watch the ceremony, being held at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles and airing on Netflix’s YouTube channel starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific, or check back here as we post live updates of the winners’ list. More

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      in Television

      ‘The Consultant’ Review: When Your Start-Up Goes to Hell

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      Christoph Waltz plays a very, very bad boss in a dark tech-industry satire from Amazon Prime Video.“The Consultant,” an amusing trifle on Amazon Prime Video that burns through most of its dark-comic capital before its eight episodes are up, is set during a critical moment at a tech company: when new, “competent” management takes over for the brilliant but callow founder.It’s a Tim Cook-Steve Jobs scenario — there’s even a scene involving a sledgehammer, to reinforce the Apple connection — with a twist that both gives the show its satirical energy and limits the reach of its dark humor. The evil new boss, a silver-haired suit named Regus (Christoph Waltz), is actually evil: He arrives, like Old Scratch, with a contract and finagles the leader of a struggling video-game company into signing it, thereby bartering away the business. (The young technocrat doesn’t appear to have a soul to give up.)“The Consultant” was created and written by the British screenwriter Tony Basgallop, based on a novel by Bentley Little, and it is in the vein of his previous American series, “Servant” on Apple TV+. Basgallop dresses up basic horror premises with curlicues of mordant, deadpan humor, and creates an ambient pea soup of unease that, for his well-employed but economically insecure young characters, constitutes a reign of terror. Key to the formula is the coy refusal to specify whether what we’re seeing is supernatural malevolence or simply really bad behavior.“Servant,” a creepy-babysitter drama that counts M. Night Shyamalan among its executive producers, succeeded in its early going largely on the basis of Lauren Ambrose’s antic, fearless performance as a frantic tiger mom. “The Consultant” doesn’t have that kind of energy at its center — Waltz, recycling his oddball cultivated-creepy persona for the umpteenth time, is amusing but not much more as the coldblooded, possibly diabolical capitalist.You can’t really blame Waltz, though, because there’s not much to the character beyond the idea of boss as devil. Basgallop and his collaborators, who include the director Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”), seem to have started with that notion and then worked, with diminishing results, to stretch it out in a way that didn’t answer any questions and left open the possibility of a second season.The satire of the tech industry is microchip thin, though often clever in its specifics. The almost entirely faceless staff of CompWare are uniformly indolent and feckless; Regus, who knows nothing about the product or the business, treats the office as a jungle and sets the workers against one another like players in one of the company’s games. In an industry that prides itself on its unconventionality, he’s the real chaos agent. But he’s also an unrepentant Luddite, or maybe just an ancient soul — he refers to a phone as “your hand device” and lovingly, manually sharpens a long row of pencils. (The pencils, like the stairs leading to Regus’s office, are a suggestive blood red.)Just a handful of performers, besides Waltz, have roles of any significance. His primary co-stars are Brittany O’Grady (“White Lotus”) and Nat Wolff (“The Stand”) as Elaine, an executive assistant, and Craig, a coder. They are the only employees who bother to act on their suspicions of Regus, whose plans appear to extend beyond CompWare in lurid and possibly apocalyptic ways.Their investigation of him provides most of the show’s plot as well as a semblance of thematic complexity. Elaine is a loyal corporate soldier who tries to temper Regus’s crueler impulses while angling for a better title; Craig is a smart but lazy man-child opposed to any exercise of authority that threatens his good times. (Wolff gives the show’s liveliest performance.) The ability of the two to work together for a larger good is a test of Regus’s beliefs about human nature.Some of Basgallop’s ideas pay dividends — Regus’s tone-deaf commitment to keeping his bargain with the CompWare founder has droll results — and there’s pleasure in the arch, offhand way Waltz puts across his character’s old-world weirdness. (When Regus discovers that one of his employees is lesbian, he tells the assembled work force, “Ursula lies with a woman.”) But Basgallop’s cross of “Silicon Valley” and “The Devil’s Advocate” doesn’t come together because he hasn’t invested sufficiently in the dramatic infrastructure. We’re left waiting for Regus’s mask to come off and wondering if there will be anything there when it does. More

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      in Movies

      Ricardo Darín: Argentina’s Lucky Charm at the Oscars

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      When the country has a nominated film, it has usually starred this veteran. But the actor says other people have believed in his talent more than he has.WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Fortune has long favored Ricardo Darín. More than the subjective concept of talent, it is providence, manifested as other people’s unwavering confidence in his abilities, that the actor credits for his storied career as Argentina’s most celebrated film star internationally.“I’ve had all the luck that my parents didn’t have as actors,” he said in Spanish during a recent interview at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood. “Many times, people have valued me far more than I value myself, and I often think, ‘Do I deserve all that?’”The latest example of his relationship with Lady Luck is his turn as the real-life prosecutor Julio Strassera in “Argentina, 1985,” a historical courtroom drama about the Trial of the Juntas, when military leaders were tried for human rights violations during the former dictatorship. Directed by Santiago Mitre, it earned Argentina an Oscar nomination for best international feature film.Darín seems to be his country’s lucky charm when it comes to the Academy Awards. He has starred in all four movies to earn Argentina a nod this century, including “Son of the Bride,” “Wild Tales” and “The Secret in Their Eyes,” which took home the statuette in 2010. And Argentina has also submitted several other Darín-led productions to the academy over the years — meaning that even though they didn’t all make the cut, the films in which he appears are almost synonymous with the best of Argentine cinema.From the first handshake, Darín, 66, radiates a welcoming aura. Casually dressed in bluejeans and a navy sweater, he speaks with a warmth and candor that most people reserve for their closest friends. That temperament translates onscreen.“Ricardo has an immense power to elicit empathy from the audience, and that’s rare,” said the director Juan José Campanella, who has collaborated with Darín on four features.“Ricardo has an immense power to elicit empathy from the audience, and that’s rare,” said the director Juan José Campanella.David Billet for The New York TimesThough the actor inherited a passion for performance from his parents, who were both working actors in Buenos Aires, neither was enthusiastic about his carrying on the family’s craft. “They didn’t fight me on it, but they also didn’t encourage me to do it,” he recalled.Darín thinks of his path as preordained. He was a regular on film and TV sets and theater stages in childhood, first acting professionally at 3 years old in the 1960 series “Soledad Monsalvo.” At 10 he debuted onstage alongside his parents. By the time he attended his first theater workshop at 14, Darín felt like a seasoned veteran who had already experienced many facets of the job firsthand.For a time in adolescence, he contemplated becoming a veterinarian, a psychologist or even a lawyer. But in the end, the world he had always been familiar with persuaded him to stay. Doors opened easily for him, with frequent invitations to participate in a variety of projects.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Tom Cruise’s Gravitational Pull: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.That trust from notable people in the industry is what he calls fortune. Darín has dear memories of the television director Diana Álvarez, who got into a fight with a network in 1982 so that he could be part of the show “Nosotros y Los Miedos.” She saw in him potential that others couldn’t.“In our profession, luck is very important,” Darín said. “There are very talented people out there with lots to tell who can’t find opportunities.”In the 1990s, Darín found immense success as the co-star of the sitcom “Mi Cuñado” (“My Brother-in-Law”), playing an impertinent but charming screw-up. His contract restricted him from other TV ventures but allowed him to pursue films. Among them was his first outing with Campanella, “The Same Love, the Same Rain” (1999), which helped other directors see beyond his TV persona.Darín’s academy-nominated films, clockwise from top left: “Argentina, 1985,” “Son of the Bride,” “The Secret in Their Eyes” and “Wild Tales.” Amazon Prime (“Argentina, 1985)”; Sony Pictures Classics (“Son of the Bride,” “Wild Tales”); María Antolini/Sony Pictures Classics (“The Secret in Their Eyes”)One of them, Fabián Bielinsky, cast him in the thriller “Nine Queens” (released in Argentina in 2000) as a sleazy con man. “He told me, ‘I hadn’t thought about you for this role. You are too charismatic, and I don’t want the audience to have any empathy for him,’” Darín recalled.In Campanella’s view, “There’s only one thing Ricardo cannot be, and that is unlikable. The clearest proof is ‘Nine Queens,’ where he plays an amoral crook, but we still root for him.”Campanella’s heartfelt “Son of the Bride” arrived the next year and mined Darín’s comic sensibilities for the role of a restaurant owner dealing with his aging parents.“Once an Argentine critic called him ‘our Henry Fonda’ because he projects great integrity,” Campanella said. “But he has something that Fonda didn’t, which is a great sense of humor.”Darín maintains that it was the one-two punch of “Nine Queens” and “Son of the Bride” that cemented his film career.“It was a great calling card for an actor to have the possibility of showing two absolutely opposite facets almost at once,” Darín said. “Even though I was already well known for TV and theater, that’s when I started to feel my colleagues were seeing me in a better light.”Since then, Darín has enjoyed his choice of roles, including Campanella’s acclaimed “The Secret in Their Eyes,” in which he starred as an investigator haunted by a gruesome, unresolved case.Another of Darín’s personal favorites is the dramedy “Truman” (2017), centered on a terminally ill man spending his final days alongside his best friends — one human and one canine. His wry character reminded Darín of his late father, also named Ricardo Darín, whom he described as a peculiar Renaissance man with an acid sense of humor and wild ideas that others found difficult to digest.Hollywood has reached out a handful of times, but he has declined, mostly because the most difficult thing for an actor to do is to think in another language, he said, adding that close-ups reveal when someone is reciting from memory rather than inhabiting an emotion.“I’ve always trusted my gut, more than my heart or my head,” Darín explained, then added, motioning to his stomach, “I trust in how the material hits me right here.”Hollywood has come calling, but Darín is largely uninterested because, he said, thinking in another language is the most difficult thing for an actor to do.David Billet for The New York TimesIn Argentina, his turn in Damián Szifron’s “Wild Tales” (released stateside in 2015) as a frustrated citizen who fights back against oppressive bureaucracy was widely embraced by audiences. “Ricardo has a lucid outlook on the realities that affect his country,” Szifron said. “He is a popular figure while at the same time being a sophisticated actor.”For “Argentina, 1985,” Mitre and Darín agreed not to mimic the voice or exact mannerisms of the real Strassera, but instead took a degree of artistic liberty in their re-creation.Mitre, who had directed Darín as a fictional Argentine president in the 2017 political saga “The Summit,” said he admired how the actor produces a truthful performance through a synthesis of his own sensibilities and the character’s.“It’s as if the camera could capture him in his entirety, show him in all his complexity,” Mitre said. “Whenever you see Ricardo act, you know there will be great honesty onscreen.”Beyond the positive critical reception of “Argentina, 1985” — and its Golden Globe win — Darín said the film’s most significant effect was making a younger generation aware of a sorrowful chapter in the country’s history.“We can’t forget that behind this reclaiming of the historical event that has brought us a lot of praise and happiness, there’s a deeply painful story about the kind of suffering for which there is no balm,” Darín noted with a solemn expression.His family’s acting tradition is being carried on by his son, Chino Darín, with whom he has formed a production company. The two starred in and produced the 2019 comedy “Heroic Losers.” The elder Darín never opposed his child’s interest in the craft, only advising him to follow the path that would bring the most satisfaction.“I’m one of those people who believe the most important thing in life is to try to be happy,” Darín said. “The closer you are to your vocation, the better chance you have at being happy.” More