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      Late Night Anticipates Jan. 6 Hearings

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      Late-night hosts poked fun at Louie Gohmert, the Republican congressman who complained about not being able to lie to the F.B.I. about Jan. 6.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.Louie Lou-lieThe Jan. 6 committee hearings will be televised beginning this Thursday — or, as Stephen Colbert referred to it, “America’s Got Treason.”On Monday, late-night hosts poked fun at Louie Gohmert, the Republican congressman from Texas who spoke out against the indictment of former Trump adviser Peter Navarro by complaining Republicans can’t lie to Congress or the F.B.I.“Gohmert is upset because some of his fellow Republicans are getting hit with contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with the committee investigating the insurrection on Jan. 6, and what he’s upset is they’re not even allowed to lie about it.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“At least he’s not lying about how upset he is about not being allowed to lie, I guess. Small victory.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This statement used to be the kind of thing that could ruin a person’s political career, but now that we’ve been MAGA-tized it barely even makes a dent.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“[imitating Gohmert] Nowadays you can’t even lie to Congress or lie to the F.B.I. or hot wire a car, then drive that car to a bank and grab all the money at gunpoint, then head to the nearest zoo to throw rocks at the pandas? There’s a two-tiered justice system: one tier for people who obey the law and a whole different one for people who break the law. How is that fair?” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Holo-Grandma’ Edition)“That’s right, Britain marked the queen’s 70-year reign with four days of parades, parties and celebrations. Yeah, four days. Basically, the queen is like your annoying friend who insists on celebrating their birthday month.” — JIMMY FALLON“Lilibet took the throne at age 25, on Feb. 6, 1952. So naturally, the Brits are celebrating her 70th anniversary in June. They were aiming for London’s annual day of sunshine.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, 70 years makes it the queen’s Platinum Jubilee, so I believe the traditional gift to give her is Africa.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yep, the queen celebrated 70 years of sitting on the throne. When he heard, your uncle who does The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle said, ‘Challenge accepted.’” — JIMMY FALLON“It was a star-studded event with performances from Elton John, Rod Stewart and Ed Sheeran. Yeah, when Ed first walked out, the queen was like, ‘Oh, Harry, you’re back.’” — JIMMY FALLON“During a parade over the weekend honoring her Platinum Jubilee, a hologram of Queen Elizabeth was shown in her Gold State Coach and whatever you think of the queen, her duet with Tupac was amazing.” — SETH MEYERS“Nothing says you’re healthy and doing fine like resorting to technology from Disney’s Haunted Mansion.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The crowd sang ‘God Save the Queen’ as the holo-grandma passed them by. At this point, God must be like, ‘Enough already with the song, I’m doing it. She’s 96 — do you not see me saving the queen?’” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingBobby Brown sat down with Trevor Noah on Monday’s “Daily Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightTig Notaro will appear on Tuesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutJoel Kim Booster at Akbar in Los Angeles. He said that before filming of “Fire Island” started, he thought, “This is either going to change my life or it’s going to be the biggest flop of my career.”Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York Times“Fire Island” star Joel Kim Booster reflects on making the rare romantic comedy that puts gay Asian-American men at its center. More

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      ‘Ms. Marvel’ Introduces a New Hero (and a New Actress)

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      When Iman Vellani watches herself as the title character in “Ms. Marvel,” she cannot help but feel a sense of disbelief. Before this Disney+ series came her way, she was a high school senior with a seemingly impossible dream to be in a Marvel project — now she’s playing one of its powerful costumed champions, just like some of the actors she has spent her life idolizing.At times, Vellani said it was hard to connect her present-day self with the person she sees on the show. “I look so young,” she said recently. “I feel different now. I feel like I’ve matured 20 years.”To be clear, Vellani had turned 18 when she filmed “Ms. Marvel,” and she is 19 now.For all the experience Vellani has gained from the series (which debuts on Wednesday), she knows she will still be underestimated for her age and her status as a newcomer whose greatest concerns, not all that long ago, were writing term papers and applying to colleges.But none of that has discouraged Marvel from placing her at the center of its latest superhero adventure.In “Ms. Marvel,” Vellani (with Matt Lintz) plays a New Jersey high school student who gains mysterious powers.Marvel Studios/Disney+“Ms. Marvel,” based on the comic-book series, tells the story of Kamala Khan, a Jersey City high schooler who admires the Marvel superheroes from afar — until she is mysteriously granted powers that allow her to fight alongside them.When the character was given her own comics series in 2014, Khan was a crucial part of Marvel’s effort to diversify its publishing lineup — she was a rare protagonist who was Muslim and Pakistani American. Now “Ms. Marvel” offers a similar potential for wider representation in the ever-expanding behemoth that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe.If that’s not enough of a burden, Vellani is making her screen acting debut in “Ms. Marvel,” and does not have the years of celebrity or lengthy résumés that her newfound peers already possessed when they were recruited into the Marvel pantheon.But what she does have is a fan’s unapologetic love for the franchise she has joined.“My entire world, everything I talked about was Marvel,” Vellani said. “And now people actually have to listen when I talk about it.”In mid-May, Vellani was speaking in a video interview from Los Angeles as part of her first-ever round of media promotion. Only two years prior, she was in high school in Markham, Ontario, where her family had emigrated from Karachi when she was about a year old.Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and TV series continues to expand.‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’: With a touch of horror, the franchise’s newest film returns to the world of the mystic arts.‘Moon Knight’: In the Disney+ mini-series, Oscar Isaac plays a caped crusader who struggles with dissociative identity disorder.‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’: In the latest installment of the “Spider-Man” series, the web slinger continues to radiate sweet, earnest decency.‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’: The superhero originated in comics filled with racist stereotypes. The movie knocked them down.Though she was just 5 when the first MCU movie, “Iron Man,” was released, Vellani has grown up to be the type of zealous Marvel devotee who blithely confesses that her three favorite people in the world are Robert Downey Jr., Billy Joel, and the Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.“My entire world, everything I talked about was Marvel,” Vellani said. “And now people actually have to listen when I talk about it.”Bethany Mollenkof for The New York TimesWhen she auditioned for her high school’s drama department at age 13, Vellani said then that her dream role would be anything in the MCU. A few years later, she came to school for Halloween dressed in a Ms. Marvel costume she had made with her grandmother.“No one knew who I was,” Vellani said. “Everyone thought I was the Flash. So I had to buy a comic book and hold it with me.”At a certain point in her studies, the precocious teen had soured on becoming a professional actor. “When you’re in a room with 15-year-old kids who all think they’re Daniel Day-Lewis, it’s like the worst place to be in,” she said. “You immediately hate drama.”But her curiosity was reignited when she learned of an opportunity to try out for “Ms. Marvel.” “My aunt opened a group chat that she never opens and someone had forwarded this casting call through WhatsApp that she sent to me,” Vellani explained. “It was the most brown way this could have happened.”Compared to longstanding Marvel heroes like Captain America (who predates the United States’ entrance into World War II) or Spider-Man (introduced in 1962), Kamala Khan is a youngster.She was created less than a decade ago by a team that included Sana Amanat, who was a Marvel publishing editor before becoming a production and development executive at the studio and an executive producer on “Ms. Marvel.”The Kamala Khan character was given her own comic book series in 2014 as part of Marvel’s effort to diversify its lineup.Marvel EntertainmentIn conversations with her then-colleague Stephen Wacker, who also helped create the character, Amanat said she expressed a desire for a heroine who, like herself, was Muslim and a child of Pakistani immigrants. Amanat said she wanted her stories to reflect “some of the tribulations of being an awkward brown teenager — going to prom by myself, fasting and playing basketball or lacrosse, wearing tights underneath my shorts in 90-degree weather.”In her earliest comics, written by G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by artists that included Adrian Alphona and Jamie McKelvie, Khan deliberately sought to model herself on Captain Marvel, the superhero alter ego of Carol Danvers.That narrative choice, Amanat said, was meant to illustrate a real-life dynamic that she had experienced in her youth.“For a person of color,” she said, “you look outside and who are the people that you’re worshiping and want to be like? They look nothing like you. Captain Marvel is really emblematic of that — she’s blonde, blue-eyed and tall. And so the story spun from there.”Bisha K. Ali, who is the head writer and an executive producer of the “Ms. Marvel” television series, said she faced competing goals in her adaptation of the comics: to preserve the parts of Khan’s character and her world that readers already appreciate, and to help viewers establish connections to her for when she makes further MCU appearances — which she is already slated to do in “The Marvels,” a new movie planned for 2023 release.“The challenge was really, what do we pick?” said Ali, who was also a writer on Marvel’s “Loki” TV series. “What do we choose that will set this person up for being in the MCU — being part of this huge, global media phenomenon, but also feels intimate and personal and vital?”Ali said she approached “Ms. Marvel” as the story of a person discovering who she is: “All superheroes have powers,” she said. “But if someone in their heart knows themselves, there’s so much empowerment in that, especially for someone from a historically marginalized group.”From left, Mohan Kapur, Vellani, Saagar Shaikh and Nimra Bucha in “Ms. Marvel.” The writers sought to preserve key aspects of Khan’s world while connecting her to the MCU.Marvel Studios/Disney+As Vellani cleared the various stages of her casting process in early 2020 — providing a headshot; submitting a self-taped audition; traveling to Marvel’s offices in Los Angeles for an on-camera test — her future colleagues found themselves charmed by her enthusiasm and her guilelessness. (“Not only is Iman an incredible new talent,” her hero Feige wrote in an email, “but she’s also a huge fan of the MCU who knows and loves this character as much as anyone at Marvel Studios.”)Recalling a video conversation with Vellani, Amanat said, “When she was showing me her room, she had this Iron Man cologne. She’s like, ‘I don’t know, my dad got this for me — it doesn’t smell that bad.’” (In the “Ms. Marvel” series, Khan will also have Iron Man cologne in her bedroom.)When she and Vellani were introduced in Los Angeles, Ali said, “She spots me and she’s like, ‘You’re Bisha? I’m Iman. You’ve got to tell me everything about the TV and film industry.’ She just embodied Kamala-ness. She’s so curious and so active.”Vellani said she grew increasingly anxious about her prospects, particularly after her visit to Marvel. “I felt like I was on the inside, man,” she said. “I got this little taste of what life could be like. I was like, I can’t possibly go to university after this. I can’t think of anything else I would want to do.”Later that spring, after she’d already been accepted into her first-choice college, Vellani was driving around Markham with friends when she got a fateful call from Feige and asked to step out of the car.After learning she’d gotten the role, Vellani said, “I was trying not to have a reaction because my friends were watching. I got back into the car and my friends were like, ‘Did you win the lottery?’ I was like, ‘Basically.’ And then we got celebratory burritos.”Now Vellani must reckon not only with the benefits of playing a Marvel superhero but also the drawbacks — not least of which is a subset of audience members who regard any effort to depict diversity as an infringement on past tradition and register their outrage on social media.Asked if she had encountered this strain of criticism in her time at Marvel, Amanat gave a knowing chuckle. “Oh boy,” she said. “Don’t look for my name on YouTube — it’s not a good idea.””If I go to work every day thinking, ‘I’m the first Muslim superhero,’ I’m never going to get anything done,” Vellani said.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York TimesSuch backlash “is just the nature of the business,” Amanat said. She added, “I don’t understand why the toy box is so small. We’re not taking anything away from Captain America — we’re over here doing our own thing. It makes me a little sad and a little frustrated.”Even so, Amanat said that projects like “Ms. Marvel” were important to an audience that is not accustomed to seeing themselves in entertainment franchises.“I think of my nieces and my goddaughters and my friends’ kids,” she said. “I think about them growing up and having Iman Vellani, out in the world, wearing a superhero outfit, and it’s really amazing to me. They’ve never had this.”Vellani was more circumspect in how she talked about this criticism of the Ms. Marvel character.“I’m not on social media, so I haven’t encountered anything directly,” she said. “You can’t make everyone happy, and that’s not our goal, anyway. That’s just setting yourself up to fail.”She added, “If I go to work every day thinking, ‘I’m the first Muslim superhero,’ I’m never going to get anything done.”The high-class problems Vellani would rather contend with include deciding whether to watch new MCU movies in her hometown theater with her friends, or in exclusive screenings for the Marvel employees who worked on them.When she “finessed” her way into a recent showing of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” that had been arranged for Marvel staff, Vellani said she enjoyed aspects of it, like meeting Xochitl Gomez, who plays the young hero America Chavez.But there were downsides to watching with a fervent Marvel squad, too.“I realized I like watching these movies a lot more with a normal group of nerds,” Vellani said. “Because these guys clap for everything, man. People will show up, who we know are in the movie, and they’ll clap.”“I get it — they’re clapping for their crew,” she added. “But still, I need to focus when I’m watching.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: The Tony Awards and ‘P-Valley’

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      The 75th Tony Awards air on CBS. And Katori Hall’s “P-Valley” is back on Starz.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, June 6 – 12. Details and times are subject to change.MondayIRMA VEP 9 p.m. on HBO. With a wink, Olivier Assayas revisits his 1996 film of the same name in this mini-series, which itself follows a disastrous attempt to remake “Les Vampires,” the silent serial film from the 1910s. The show stars Alicia Vikander as an American movie star who signs on to play Irma Vep, the heroine in the old story. The role seeps into her own life.TuesdayPENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1981) 10 p.m. on TCM. Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Walken and Jessica Harper star in this offbeat musical, which was adapted from a BBC series. Martin plays a sheet-music salesman in Depression-era Chicago whose knotty romances are heightened by lip-synced renditions of popular songs from the 1920s and ’30s. A “neo-Brechtian comedy-melodrama with music,” is the label that the critic Vincent Canby used in his 1981 review for The New York Times, adding that he watched the movie “with what might be best described as baffled interest.”WednesdayChris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard in “Jurassic World.”Chuck Zlotnick/Universal PicturesJURASSIC WORLD (2015) 5:30 p.m. on FX. How many $100 bills do you have to stack to reach the average height of a T. rex? You might ask the producers of the “Jurassic World” trilogy: This 2015 entry and its first sequel, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” (2018) are among the highest-grossing movies of all time. The final entry in the trilogy, “Jurassic World: Dominion,” is set to hit theaters this weekend. Here’s a chance to revisit the first entry — about the meltdown of a theme park populated by cloned dinosaurs, set more than two decades after the original “Jurassic Park” — alongside the sequel “Fallen Kingdom,” which airs immediately afterward, at 8 p.m. on FX.ThursdayLAMB (2021) 8 p.m. on Showtime. A ewe gives birth to an unusual creature on a foggy, forlorn, somberly photogenic Icelandic sheep farm in this debut feature from Valdimar Johannsson. The husband and wife who run the farm, Maria and Ingvar (Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason), raise the oddball offspring as their own. As it grows, things become tenser — and weirder. The result, Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The Times, is a film that “plays like a folk tale and thrums like a horror movie.” It contains “an Oscar-worthy cast of farm animals,” Catsoulis added.FridayJUDY GARLAND MOVIES all day on TCM. Friday would have been Judy Garland’s 100th birthday. To celebrate, TCM has an entire day of a Garland lined up. Highlights include: ZIEGFELD GIRL (1941), airing at 8 a.m., which also stars James Stewart and Hedy LaMarr; the Busby Berkeley-directed musical FOR ME AND MY GAL (1942), in which Garland stars opposite Gene Kelly, in his first feature, airing at 2 p.m.; and, naturally, THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), at 8 p.m., followed at 10 p.m. by THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ: 50 YEARS OF MAGIC (1990), a documentary about the making of that movie.SaturdayOscar Isaac in “The Card Counter.”Focus FeaturesTHE CARD COUNTER (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. The screenwriter and director Paul Schrader took another dive into the mind of a loner in this drama, which centers on an American military veteran and professional card player named William Tell, played by Oscar Isaac. (For more of Schrader’s loners, see his previous movie, “First Reformed,” and his screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.”) Tell is haunted by memories of an old, abusive superior, Maj. John Gordo (Willem Dafoe). His life changes when he begins a partnership with a gambling manager (Tiffany Haddish) and meets the teenage son (Tye Sheridan) of one of his former military compatriots. “It’s a haunting, moving story of spirit and flesh, sin and redemption, love and death,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times. Schrader, she said, “likes playing with film form but he isn’t interested in conventional heroes and beats, and even when he hits familiar notes he does so with his own destabilizing rhythm and pressure.”SundayTHE 75TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS 8 p.m. on CBS. This year’s Tony Awards will be the first to recognize shows that opened after the theater closures during the time of pandemic lockdowns. Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer-winning meta-musical, “A Strange Loop,” will go into the night with the most nominations (it received 11), though it has formidable competition in the best new musical race: The other shows nominated in that category are “Paradise Square,” “Six,” “MJ the Musical,” “Girl From the North Country” and “Mr. Saturday Night.” The nominees in the best new play category are “Clyde’s,” “Hangmen,” “The Lehman Trilogy,” “The Minutes” and “Skeleton Crew.” The acting categories include a range of well-known performers, including Sam Rockwell, Mary-Louise Parker, Billy Crystal, Hugh Jackman, Uzo Aduba, Rachel Dratch, Phylicia Rashad, Ruth Negga and Patti LuPone.Nicco Annan and Brandee Evans in “P-Valley.”StarzP-VALLEY 10:06 p.m. on Starz. The Pulitzer-winning playwright Katori Hall (“Hot Wing King,” “The Mountaintop”) is behind this series, a drama set at a strip club in a fictional Mississippi town. In the new, second season, which began last week, the personal and professional pressures felt by the show’s characters — including Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan), who owns the club, and Mercedes (Brandee Evans), a decorated dancer there — are heightened by the pandemic. Hall discussed the intention of the show in a recent interview with The Times: “I wanted to create an image of women who could hold their own weight, literally and figuratively, but in the next second, could burst into tears because the power dynamic in their life shifted for whatever reason,” she said. “I wanted to show Black women in their full humanity.” More

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      Woman Testifies That Bill Cosby Kissed Her When She Was 14

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      She testified at a civil trial in Los Angeles brought by another woman accusing Mr. Cosby of sexual assault. A spokesman for Mr. Cosby denied all the accusations against him.Kimberly Burr testified Friday that she was 14 years old when Bill Cosby invited her into his trailer on a film set in Los Angeles in 1975 and started kissing her.Ms. Burr was testifying in the civil trial in Los Angeles where Mr. Cosby has been sued by another woman, Judy Huth, who has accused Mr. Cosby of sexually assaulting her that same year, when she was also a teenager.Ms. Burr, who is now 61, said that she had met Mr. Cosby at a tennis tournament in Palm Desert that year, where he had invited her to the set of the film “Let’s Do It Again” in Los Angeles with the promise of being an extra. While her mother and other members of her family waited outside, she said, he led her into his trailer to help him fix his bow tie, where he grabbed both her arms and started kissing her.“I was stuck,” Ms. Burr told the court. “I was struggling, trying to get away.”When he let go, she said, she “walked right out of the trailer down the steps” and didn’t tell her family because she didn’t want to ruin the day for them.During cross-examination, Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Mr. Cosby, challenged her account, asking how, after such a traumatic experience, she could have kept photographs in the family home of the meeting showing Ms. Burr and her brother with Mr. Cosby. “Did it bother you that they were there?” she said.A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, dismissed the testimony. “These are just allegations made up to support Judy Huth, whose claims are not factual at all,” he said in an interview.Ms. Huth’s case is the first civil suit accusing Mr. Cosby of sexual assault to reach trial. In her lawsuit, Ms. Huth says that she was sexually assaulted by Mr. Cosby at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 1975, when she was 16, after she and a friend met him in a park where he was filming “Let’s Do It Again,” the same movie he was working on when he met Ms. Burr.The Sexual Assault Cases Against Bill CosbyAfter Bill Cosby’s 2018 criminal conviction for sexual assault was overturned, the first civil case accusing him of sexual misconduct has reached trial.The Civil Trial: Judy Huth has accused Mr. Cosby of assaulting her as a teenager. She sued in 2014, but the case had been on hold while he was criminally prosecuted.Criminal Conviction: In 2018, a jury found the disgraced entertainer guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home near 14 years earlier,His Release From Prison: After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction, Mr. Cosby was released from prison on June 30, 2021.The Ruling: The conviction was overturned on the grounds that prosecutors violated Mr. Cosby’s rights by reneging on a promise not to charge him.Days after their meeting, Mr. Cosby invited Ms. Huth and her friend to his tennis club, Ms. Huth’s lawyers have said, where Ms. Huth played a game where she had to drink alcohol every time he won at billiards, and then they both followed him in their car to the Playboy Mansion. Once there, Ms. Huth has said, Mr. Cosby forced her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom.Mr. Cosby has denied he sexually assaulted Ms. Huth, or any of the other women who have come forward in recent years to accuse him of sexual misconduct.More than 50 women have accused Mr. Cosby of sexually abusing them. This was the first time Ms. Burr has spoken publicly.As Ms. Huth’s lawyers have sought to demonstrate a pattern of behavior and abuse by Mr. Cosby, they called another witness, Margie Shapiro, 65, who had already come forward with accusations in 2015.Ms. Shapiro testified that she was 19 in 1975 when Mr. Cosby met her at the doughnut shop where she was working and invited her to the set of another movie he was filming in Los Angeles. Later that day, they went to the Playboy Mansion, where, she said, he drugged and assaulted her. She said that they had played pinball together in the game room at the mansion, and that he had offered her a pill after she lost. She said she remembered waking up: “My next memory was foggy, but I was in a bed naked and Bill Cosby was naked, inside me,” she said.She said she told a friend what had happened but never went to the police. “I felt I went there consensually, I took a pill and he’s him and I am me,” she said. “I felt stupid because I felt at the time I put myself in that situation.”Mr. Cosby’s spokesman, Mr. Wyatt, issued a statement Friday afternoon which said that the accusers were “discrediting themselves” and questioned their accounts. “Since we stand on the foundation of truth and facts,” he said in the statement, “we believe that Mr. Cosby will be vindicated of ALL allegations in order to move forward with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”In challenging Ms. Shapiro’s account in court, Mr. Cosby’s legal team questioned whether she was working at the doughnut shop on the morning she said she met Mr. Cosby, and whether she went to the Playboy Mansion. They acknowledged that Ms. Shapiro went to Mr. Cosby’s house, but they insisted that the relationship was consensual. Ms. Shapiro said she stood by her account.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have noted in court proceedings that Ms. Huth’s recollection of when her encounter took place has changed: While she initially said it happened in 1974, when she was 15, she more recently concluded it was in 1975, when she was 16. The law in California classified a 16-year-old as a minor. In disputing Ms. Huth’s account, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have suggested they met years after the time she said they did, when she was no longer a minor.In their opening remarks, his lawyers sought to discredit Ms. Huth’s account by pointing out that she and the friend who accompanied her to the Playboy Mansion stayed for hours after the alleged encounter with Mr. Cosby, swimming in the outdoor pool and watching a movie.The friend, Donna Samuelson, has testified that Ms. Huth was distraught and wanted to leave but Ms. Samuelson persuaded her to stay.Ms. Huth’s lawsuit, which she filed in 2014, had largely been put on hold while prosecutors in Pennsylvania pursued Mr. Cosby criminally on charges that he sexually assaulted Andrea Constand.Mr. Cosby’s 2018 conviction in that case was overturned last year by an appellate court, which ruled that a non-prosecution agreement he made with a previous prosecutor meant that Mr. Cosby should not have been charged in the case. Mr. Cosby walked free after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence.Mr. Cosby, 84, is not scheduled to testify and has not attended the opening days of testimony, but his deposition testimony is expected to be played in court.Ms. Huth, 64, who has been in attendance, is intending to give her account to the jury. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to HBO, Hulu, Apple TV+ and More in June

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of June’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Erin Doherty as Becky Green in “Chloe.”Luke Varley/Amazon StudiosNew to Amazon Prime‘Chloe’Starts streaming: June 24In this British psychological thriller series, Erin Doherty plays Becky Green, a clever schemer who is plagued with self-doubt and prone to daydreaming — like a cross between Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and James Thurber’s Walter Mitty. Becky has a habit of scrolling through social media accounts, looking for high-end parties to crash, which gets her into trouble when one of her favorite influencers, Chloe Fairbourne (Poppy Gilbert), mysteriously leaves her two phone messages before being found dead. Becky uses her uncanny ability to fit in with the elites to get close to Chloe’s friends, in hopes of figuring out what really happened.Also arriving:June 3“The Boys” Season 3June 10“Fairfax” Season 2June 17“The Lake” Season 1“The Summer I Turned Pretty” Season 1From left, Joel Kim Booster, Maya Rudolph and Ron Funches in Apple TV+’s “Loot.”Colleen Hayes/Apple TV+.New to Apple TV+‘For All Mankind’ Season 3Starts streaming: June 10Though “For All Mankind” has been one of TV’s best dramas since it debuted in 2019, it has never drawn much social media buzz or awards attention. Perhaps the more overtly science fiction-oriented Season 3 will win some new fans. The show is set in an alternate history where the 1960s Cold War space race between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated instead of petering out, leading to cultural changes for both nations — some subtle, some not — in the ensuing decades. Season 3 is set in the 1990s, as the push toward the stars extends to Mars, which the Americans and the Russians are scrambling to conquer first, while their respective governments deal with multiple political crises back on Earth.‘Loot’ Season 1Starts streaming: June 24The writer-producers Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard — the team behind the smart, strange afterlife dramedy “Forever” — team up again with the actress and producer Maya Rudolph for the sitcom “Loot.” Rudolph plays Molly, a recent divorcée who has billions of dollars at her disposal and no sense of direction in her life. She decides to rededicate herself to her charitable foundation, and quickly finds that decades of living in a bubble have left her way out of touch with the kind of people her money is meant to help. Mj Rodriguez plays the foundation’s director, who needs Molly’s money but doesn’t really want her input. “Loot” is essentially an old-fashioned workplace comedy, but rooted in the uniquely modern problem of mega-rich folks who want to leave a positive legacy but aren’t accustomed to taking advice.Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and TV series continues to expand.‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’: With a touch of horror, the franchise’s newest film returns to the world of the mystic arts.‘Moon Knight’: In the Disney+ mini-series, Oscar Isaac plays a caped crusader who struggles with dissociative identity disorder.‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’: In the latest installment of the “Spider-Man” series, the web slinger continues to radiate sweet, earnest decency.‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’: The superhero originated in comics filled with racist stereotypes. The movie knocked them down.Also arriving:June 3“Physical” Season 2June 10“Lovely Little Farm”June 17“Cha Cha Real Smooth”“Home” Season 2Iman Vellani will play the latest Marvel hero in “Ms. Marvel.”Marvel/DisneyNew to Disney+‘Ms. Marvel’ Season 1Starts streaming: June 8This action-comedy series introduces one of the most popular new comic book superheroes of the past decade to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iman Vellani plays Kamala Khan, an awkward 16-year-old Pakistani American girl from Jersey City, N.J., who is a superfan of the cosmic Avenger Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel. When Kamala inherits a device that gives her powers of her own, she has to balance her daily life as the daughter of strict Muslim parents with the wild experiences of a superhero-in-training. Less epic in scale than other Marvel movies and TV shows, “Ms. Marvel” — like the comics it’s based on — is really a coming-of-age story, featuring a hero who often feels like a hapless outsider whenever she’s not in costume.Also arriving:June 3“Hollywood Stargirl”June 10“Beyond Infinity: Buzz and the Journey to Lightyear”June 15“Family Reboot” Season 1June 24“Rise”“Trevor: The Musical”June 29“Baymax!” Season 1Alicia Vikander as Mira in “Irma Vep.”Carole Bethuel/HBONew to HBO Max‘Irma Vep’Starts streaming: June 6The French writer-director Olivier Assayas revisits and updates the themes of his 1996 film “Irma Vep” for this new mini-series, which, like the original, is about a movie crew remaking Louis Feuillade’s classic 1915-16 serial “Les Vampires.” Alicia Vikander plays Mira, an American actress who agrees to take the lead in the picture both to stretch her talents and to escape the pressures of being a big star. When Mira unexpectedly finds herself surrounded by indecisive crew members, duplicitous castmates and a parade of ex-lovers, she copes by disappearing more and more into her character: a devious master criminal. The particular details of this “Irma Vep” are different from the old version, but once again Assayas is interested in the peculiar ecosystem of a film set, which can be baffling to outsiders but welcoming to weirdos.‘The Janes’Starts streaming: June 8This timely documentary looks back at the years just before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision laid the groundwork for abortion rights. Directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, “The Janes” covers a Chicago-based underground network that helped women procure safe and affordable abortions in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Using archival footage and new interviews, Lessin and Pildes recall how dangerous the pre-Roe America could be for women, whose needs were often overlooked by the male-dominated medical establishment — and who could be exploited by criminals out to make a quick buck from people too desperate to complain. The film is also about the era’s growing feminist movement, which was born in part from women bonding over common experiences rarely discussed in public.Also arriving:June 9“Amsterdam” Season 1“Summer Camp Island” Season 6June 16“Father of the Bride”June 23“Menudo: Forever Young”June 26“Westworld” Season 4June 30“Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Underground Rock Experience”John Lithgow in “The Old Man.”Kurt Iswarienko/FXNew to Hulu‘The Old Man’Starts streaming: June 17Based on a Thomas Perry novel, the road-trip thriller “The Old Man” stars Jeff Bridges as a former intelligence officer who has been in hiding for decades, living a relatively quiet life under the alias Dan Chase. When his past finally catches up with him, Chase goes on the run, pursued by an old associate (John Lithgow). The ex-spy’s faculties have dimmed considerably during his downtime, but he remembers enough tradecraft to keep the game going — even though he’s risking everything he holds dear just to stay alive and out of prison a little longer. “The Old Man” combines slam-bang action scenes with quieter character moments, in which grizzled warriors reflect on their successes and mistakes.‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 2Starts streaming: June 28Last summer’s surprise streaming hit returns for a second season, with Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez reprising their roles as New York neighbors who launch a true-crime podcast in an effort to solve a shocking crime in their apartment complex — and perhaps to revitalize their moribund personal lives. Season 1 of “Only Murders in the Building” ended with the amateur detectives finding the killer, then immediately becoming the chief suspects in yet another homicide. Expect another twisty and surprising mystery in Season 2, as well as more charming interplay between the show’s three main characters, who are each emotionally needy in their own way but fundamentally good-hearted.Also arriving:June 2“The Orville: New Horizons” Season 1June 3“Fire Island”June 13“The Worst Person in the World”June 15“Love, Victor” Season 3June 17“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande”June 23“The Bear” Season 1Annette Bening and Bryan Cranston as a couple who crack the Massachusetts lottery in “Jerry and Marge Go Large.”Jake Giles Netter/Paramount+New to Paramount+‘Jerry and Marge Go Large’Starts streaming: June 17Based on a true story, the dramedy “Jerry and Marge Go Large” stars Bryan Cranston as Jerry Selbee, a retired Michigan factory worker and amateur number-cruncher who discovers a glitch in the Massachusetts lottery’s odds and puts together a consortium of his small-town friends and neighbors to buy enough tickets to maximize returns. The community’s feel-good story hits a bump when a group of Harvard students discovers the same lottery loophole and conspires to drive the Selbees out of business. Directed by David Frankel from a Brad Copeland screenplay (adapting an article by Jason Fagone), the movie features a cast of older comedians and actors, including Annette Bening as Jerry’s wife, Marge.Also arriving:June 1“South Park: The Streaming Wars”June 12“Evil” Season 3June 16“Players” Season 1Jana Schmieding and Ed Helms in “Rutherford Falls.”Ron Batzdorff/PeacockNew to Peacock‘Rutherford Falls’ Season 2Starts streaming: June 16The first season of “Rutherford Falls” delivered incisive and funny riffs on the indelible stain of colonialism, via the story of a proud New England historian named Nathan Rutherford (Ed Helms) who sells tourists a skewed version of American history in which his ancestors worked happily arm-in-arm with the native Minishonka tribe. Season 2 picks up after last year’s big twist, which saw the Minishonka casino owner Terry Thomas (Michael Greyeyes) and Nathan’s best friend Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding) seizing control of the town and choosing to maintain its idealized take on the past in order to enrich their own community. The power dynamic between these characters has changed, but the show’s writers are still coaxing dark comedy out of the many ways they scramble to maintain lies rather than face painful truths.Also arriving:June 14“Dateline: The Last Day” More

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      Antony Starr Contends With Accountability, Onscreen and Off

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      Starr, who plays the cruel superhero Homelander on the Amazon Prime Video series “The Boys,” returns to TV after his conviction in an assault in Spain earlier this year.One lesson taught repeatedly by “The Boys,” the superhero series on Amazon Prime Video, is the danger of celebrity: Do not be too worshipful of any public figures, it warns, because you never really know what they’re like behind the scenes.The show’s most vivid embodiment of this message is the character of Homelander, a seemingly virtuous crime fighter played by Antony Starr. In the eyes of the wider world, Homelander can do no wrong; he is stalwart and honorable, with blond hair, a gleaming smile and a striped, star-spangled cape.But as viewers of “The Boys” know well, this is all a facade. Beneath these superficialities, Homelander is self-centered, manipulative and cruel.“The Boys,” which returns Friday for its third season, takes place in a morally gray world where good deeds are not always rewarded and transgressions are not always punished. Its other characters can be measured against Homelander and by the choices they will or won’t make in the service of stopping him, but he himself is the one person who cannot be redeemed — the unapologetic heel of the show.Actors are not the roles they play, but Starr, 46, a veteran film and TV star from New Zealand who has gained new visibility from “The Boys,” knows exactly what he signed on for.As he said in an interview recently, “The standard superhero movies that are out there, they’re bound to their moral compass. Even if Superman goes bad, you know he’s coming back to true north because that’s the model.”But in “The Boys,” if Homelander were to find a glimmer of goodness in himself, Starr said, “you’re going to have to turn him back into a narcissistic psychopath at some point.”It is not a role every performer might want for a long-term assignment, but Starr said he appreciated how it offered moments where all pretenses are dropped and the truth of the character is revealed.Citing a favorite expression from an old acting teacher, Starr explained, “He said you’re never more yourself than when you eat alone, and I love that this show gives us those moments of eating alone, where we really get to see what’s going on.”Starr has faced a different sort of reckoning in recent months. In early March, he was arrested after he assaulted another man in Alicante, Spain, where Starr was filming a movie. The actor was drinking in a pub late one night when, after a brief confrontation, he twice punched the man, 21-year-old Bathuel Araujo, and hit him with a glass, the Spanish newspaper Información reported.Starr pleaded guilty in a local court. He was given a 12-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay a fine of about $5,500.In our interview nearly three months later, in late May, Starr did not dismiss questions about the assault, but he tended to speak about it in general terms.“You mess up,” he said. “You own it. You learn from it. You move forward.”Starr spoke with me in a video interview from his home in Los Angeles. Freed from his Homelander guise, the actor had dark brown hair and a shaggy beard and wore a pair of rectangular, Clark Kent-like eyeglasses.And he had little of his alter ego’s zealotry as he spoke about the country where he now resides. “I love America,” Starr said. “America’s been very good to me, but the old girl is definitely in need of some therapy at the moment.”Working in the film and TV industry of his native New Zealand, Starr broke through with a series of roles, most notably on the series “Outrageous Fortune,” a comic crime drama that cast him as identical twin brothers with diametrically different personalities.In America, he gained notice for his lead performance in “Banshee,” an action series about an ex-convict masquerading as the sheriff of a fictional Pennsylvania town, which ran on Cinemax from 2013 to 2016.When Starr was first approached about portraying Homelander on “The Boys,” which is adapted from a comic-book series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, he was busy with other work and initially dismissive of a request to film himself for an audition.In the earliest script pages he was given, Starr said, “There wasn’t a hell of a lot for me to go on, other than ‘Bad Superman.’ So I did the audition almost out of anger. Threw it down, sent it in and went, there’s your audition.”But as Starr got further into the tryout process and learned more about the series, he became intrigued with the opportunistic Homelander, who has no compunction about using his abilities for his own gain and delights in punishing anyone who might try to expose him for who he actually is. He saw an opportunity to connect with audiences by playing the character’s deficiencies to their fullest degree.“I want people to revel in seeing him in pain,” he said. “I want people to really enjoy watching him do horrible things with a little bit of a glint in his eye.”Erin Moriarty, a “Boys” co-star who plays a more trustworthy and righteous hero named Starlight, said her scenes with Starr can sometimes be “gut-wrenching” to film, because of the raw emotion involved and also “the possibility that he could just laser her right there and kill her.”“You have to be able to shake it off at the end of the day,” Moriarty said. “It might take a second, but it definitely helps that Antony, in addition to being professionally present as a human being, is so unlike Homelander and so kind and so funny.”And as Starr anticipated, his work on “The Boys” has led to other prominent projects, including his role in the upcoming action film, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, that he was working on in Spain earlier this year.Información reported that Starr and Araujo had encountered each other at the pub. Araujo told Información that a friend with him had asked a friend of Starr’s to calm down the actor who appeared drunk. Araujo said Starr began to curse and shove him, and that when he pushed back, Starr punched him and hit him with a glass. After Starr was ejected from the pub, the two men encountered each other outside, Araujo said, and they scuffled further.In our interview, Starr did not offer an account of what happened on the night of the assault. “There’s not much point in me re-litigating the facts,” he said. “They’re out there. They’ve been said. I’ve got nothing to add to that.”He added that he is a someone who “believes in accountability and taking responsibility.”“I got myself into a situation that was negative and I reacted poorly, and the way forward from that was very clear,” Starr said. “It was quite simply to take ownership of it, which I do, and then really learn from it and move forward.”Had he considered quitting drinking after this incident?“I wish it was that simple,” he replied. “I don’t know anyone that hasn’t, on a personal level, got things that they want to work on.”Contacted on social media, Araujo reaffirmed his previous descriptions of his confrontation with Starr. He said that he did not bear the actor the actor any ill will.“I feel that all humans have the right to make mistakes and he was no exception,” Araujo wrote. “He has lived the consequences of his actions and I hope he has learned from it. I wish him good things and I hope he doesn’t go through the same thing again.”Moriarty said she felt no hesitation about continuing to work with Starr in the future.“There’s no world in which I would feel uncomfortable or unsafe,” she said. “I think he’s a wonderful dude that got caught up in a moment and is implementing the lessons appropriately. It’s not impacting my perception of him at all, as an actor and as a human.”Since Will Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock in late March, Hollywood has had to confront the question of what sort of consequences are appropriate when celebrities engage in violence, however brief. For Starr, the incident in Spain does not appear to have affected his status on “The Boys.” In recent weeks, Starr he has continued to appear in magazine features promoting the series and he attended a premiere event for it with his co-stars in Paris.Eric Kripke, who developed “The Boys” for television and is its showrunner, declined to comment for this article.Starr, however, seemed uncomfortable examining himself through a broader cultural lens. “I’ve really just kept this issue to a personal level, because it is a personal issue — a personal issue that I’ve taken responsibility for,” he said.He spoke with more enthusiasm about “The Boys” and its seemingly inexhaustible versatility at the present moment.On the one hand, he said the show can be viewed as a caustic parody of countless other films and TV shows adapted from comic books, one that uses now-familiar elements of the genre to comment on the frustrations and futility of 21st-century society.Or, Starr said, it can simply be watched as a superhero entertainment itself, where good guys and bad guys put on colorful costumes and engage in combat until only one side is left standing.“You could take it at face value,” he said. “Let it wash over you and go, aha — there’s blood and gore and fun stuff, and enough drama to make it interesting.”“I think you can go as deep as you want,” he said. More

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      George Shapiro, Talent Manager Who Pushed for ‘Seinfeld,’ Dies at 91

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      He left his job as an agent in the 1970s to guide the careers of Jerry Seinfeld, Carl Reiner and other comics.George Shapiro, an ebullient Hollywood talent manager who nurtured and oversaw the careers of comic personalities like Jerry Seinfeld, Andy Kaufman and Carl Reiner, died on May 26 at his home in the Beverly Hills section of Los Angeles. He was 91.His family announced the death in a statement.Mr. Shapiro was most closely associated with Mr. Seinfeld, whom he signed as a client soon after watching him perform at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles in 1980. He lobbied NBC to build a series around him and was an executive producer of the hugely popular “Seinfeld” sitcom.“He was the only person to read every draft of every episode of the series and was very critical as they went from first draft to shooting draft,” Mr. Seinfeld said in a phone interview. “He was the only one who really knew what we were doing.”He added: “The bond between George and I was, we thought show business was the greatest thing invented by man, and we couldn’t get enough.”Mr. Shapiro was also an executive producer of Mr. Seinfeld’s Netflix series, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” which is on hiatus.A schmoozer who loved to be on sets, Mr. Shapiro was a partner for more than 40 years with his childhood friend Howard West in their talent management firm Shapiro/West & Associates.As managers, they oversaw and protected their clients interests by being executive producers of various projects, including “The Last Remake of Beau Geste” (1977), starring and co-written by Marty Feldman; “Summer Rental” (1985) and “Sibling Rivalry” (1990), which Mr. Reiner directed; and two TV specials starring Mr. Kaufman.Mr. Shapiro first watched Mr. Kaufman perform at the Improv comedy club in Los Angeles in 1975 and was impressed by his bizarre, idiosyncratic act. He soon signed him and persuaded him to join the cast of the sitcom “Taxi” in 1978, despite the comedian’s reluctance.“They already had the character of Latka. And, of course, Andy did this Foreign Man character, so it was a perfect match,” Mr. Shapiro told Newsday in 1999. “Taxi,” too, was a hit.Mr. Shapiro and Mr. West were executive producers of “Man on the Moon” (1999), which starred Jim Carrey as Mr. Kaufman. (Mr. Kaufman died in 1984 at 35.) Danny DeVito, a producer of the film, played Mr. Shapiro, and Mr. Shapiro had a role as a club owner who had once fired Mr. Kaufman.Early in the film, Mr. DeVito tells Mr. Carrey, “You’re insane, but you also may be brilliant.”Mr. Shapiro’s other clients included Robert Wuhl and the producer and writer Bill Lawrence, who is known for the TV series “Spin City” and “Scrubs.”George Larry Shapiro was born on May 18, 1932, in the Bronx. His father, Ira, was a furrier. his mother, Sylvia (Lebost) Shapiro, was a social activist. George’s time at P.S. 80 in the Bronx, where he met Mr. West, was the subject of two documentaries, “The Bronx Boys,” in 2003, and “The Bronx Boys Still Playing at 80,” 10 years later.As a youngster, he loved comedies, including those made by Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello. “I sat in the theater and felt like someone was tickling me,” Mr. Shapiro said in a Television Academy interview in 2007.He got a stronger whiff of show business as a teenager while working as a summer lifeguard at the Tamiment, a resort in the Poconos, where writers like Neil Simon; actors like Dick Shawn, Carol Burnett and Pat Carroll; and the director and choreographer Herb Ross created revues and other shows. Agents traveled from Manhattan to scout talent on weekends — the sort of future that appealed to Mr. Shapiro.“I said, ‘This is your job?” he said in the Television Academy interview. “To watch the show, to have a nice dinner, to come to a resort with a lake? I have to look into that.”After graduating in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree from what is now New York University’s College of Business and Public Administration, Mr. Shapiro served in the Army for two years. He considered a career in social work and sales — his older brother, Don, was a salesman in Texas and offered him a job — but got a mailroom position at the William Morris Agency in Manhattan with help from Mr. Reiner, his uncle.He was soon promoted to agent, with a salary of $38 a week, before eventually moving to the company’s Los Angeles office, where he specialized in packaging mid-1960s TV series like “Gomer Pyle — USMC” and “That Girl” with the actors, writer and directors represented by William Morris.But Mr. Shapiro disliked being responsible for so many clients, and so in 1973 he started his own management firm to focus on a few preferred ones. Mr. West, with whom he had worked at William Morris, soon joined him, and they ran Shapiro/West & Associates until Mr. West’s death in 2015.To push for a sitcom for Mr. Seinfeld, Mr. Shapiro sent numerous letters to Brandon Tartikoff, the president of NBC Entertainment. The nudging eventually led to a meeting with Mr. Tartikoff and other network executives at which Mr. Seinfeld laid down a firm rule.“Jerry made one thing clear,” Mr. Shapiro told the Television Academy. “He said, ‘I’m not going to play a shoe salesman or an accountant or a father with a job.’ And he came up with the premise of the series, that he would play himself.”In recent years, Mr. Shapiro produced “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast” (2017), a documentary in which Mr. Reiner talked to nonagenarians like Betty White and Dick Van Dyke, and “The Super Bob Einstein Movie” (2021), about the comic actor and writer known for his ongoing television portrayal of Super Dave Osborne, a hapless parody of a daredevil.Mr. Shapiro is survived by his former wife, Melody (Sherr) Shapiro, from whom he was divorced; his daughters, Carrie Shapiro Fuentes and Stefanie Shapiro; a son, Danny; five grandchildren; and his brother. His marriage to Diane Barnett ended with her death in 2005.Mr. Reiner’s son Rob Reiner, the actor and director, said Mr. Shapiro had been a nurturer, professionally and personally.“He loved my dad, he looked up to him — he was like a father to him,” said Mr. Reiner, whose company, Castle Rock Entertainment, produced “Seinfeld.” “George loved being around my dad, and when he started getting older, he’d come over to the house and walk him around the block. That’s the thing you need to know about George: He took care of everybody.” More

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      ‘This is Going to Hurt’ Finds Dark Humor on the Maternity Ward

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      “This Is Going to Hurt,” a dramedy starring Ben Whishaw, kindled debate in Britain about hospital care for pregnant women and the pressures on doctors.LONDON — In December 2010, Adam Kay was working on a British maternity ward helping a more junior doctor to perform a cesarean section. Kay had successfully delivered well over 1,200 babies, but this operation was a disaster.The mother had an undiagnosed condition affecting the placenta, and she should not have been allowed to go into labor. The doctors only just managed to save her life — she lost 12 liters of blood — but they couldn’t save the baby.“You want healthy mum plus healthy baby, and it was the first time I’d had neither of those things and was the most senior person in the room,” Kay said in a recent interview. He said that he had felt traumatized but that the reaction from the hospital “was like I’d sprained my ankle or something.”Adam Kay, who created the show and wrote the book it is based on, said its central character was supposed to be reprehensible.Charlie CliftAfter that incident, Kay left medicine. A scene revisiting the operation does not appear in “This Is Going to Hurt,” a medical drama written by Kay and starring Ben Whishaw that premieres on AMC+ and Sundance Now on Thursday after being a hit in Britain. But plenty of other episodes from his six years of working in hospitals do, in fictionalized form.Given that the show tries to show the reality of life on a maternity ward, some moments are harrowing. But many are also funny, including a moment when Whishaw’s character, an overstressed and underpaid doctor called Adam, has to retrieve, from inside a woman, a toy egg containing an engagement ring — the woman had inserted it as a surprise for her boyfriend.The show was commissioned shortly after Kay published a warts-and-all collection of diaries (called “This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor”) documenting his life in British hospitals. That collection, released in 2017, sold more than 2.5 million copies and was translated into 37 languages.Kay described the book as a “confidence trick,” where silly anecdotes were used to sell a book that contained serious comments about health care and about how politicians treat doctors and nurses (it was published the year after doctors in England went on strike over working conditions). The book’s success led to Kay’s meeting Matt Hancock, the British health minister at the time, to push for more funding for doctors in need, and to his writing columns in newspapers.Kay said that the current health minister, Sajid Javid, had also sent a note, saying that his wife liked the book. Kay’s reaction, he said, was to wonder about the minister, “Have you read it? It’s you who needs to read it.”Whishaw and Michele Austin, who plays a midwife in the show. Anika Molnar/AMCDespite his prominence, when “This Is Going to Hurt” appeared on the BBC in February, Kay didn’t get a universally positive reaction. Milli Hill, founder of the Positive Birth Movement, which tries to combat negative ideas around giving birth; and some users of Mumsnet, an influential parenting website, labeled both Kay and Whishaw’s acerbic character misogynist for mocking women in his care. There was also criticism over the absence of pregnant people’s voices in the show, while Hill said that the birthing scenes would be unpleasant to watch for anyone expecting a baby or who had gone through a traumatic birth.Sitting in a London hotel bar recently, Kay, 41, seemed confused by those responses. “I heard criticism that the show should be about mums,” he said. “But that’s someone else’s program. I’m a bloke who used to be a doctor.”Whishaw’s character was also meant to be reprehensible, Kay added — a doctor so under pressure that his life falls apart, affecting others around him. Once a few episodes had aired, Kay said, the public debate changed and he started getting emails from doctors thanking him for raising awareness of the mental health struggles that medics can face.The show wasn’t really about the ward at all, Kay said, but about the pressures doctors are under at work, including unsustainable hours, bullying bosses and patients, low pay and often disintegrating home lives — with little way out. Whishaw’s character can be seen as passing his troubling behaviors onto a colleague, Shruti (Ambika Mod), a younger doctor meant to be under his wing.Those mental strains are still “a taboo topic” in many hospitals, Kay said. “Doctors are not meant to get ill, and they’re specifically not meant to get mentally ill,” he noted, adding that a doctor dies by suicide every three weeks in Britain.The pressure on doctors in the country is only getting worse, he added. There is a severe shortage of workers in the N.H.S. — the service has around 100,000 vacancies — and staff were already suffering burnout long before the pandemic. “When I left, I was a total outlier, as no one ever stopped being a doctor,” Kay said. “Now everyone’s got one eye on the exit sign as the workload feels absolutely unsustainable.”Ambika Mod plays Shruti, a younger doctor on the maternity ward. Mod said that she received a “crash course” in obstetrics and gynecology before filming.Anika Molnar/AMCDespite the message at its heart, Kay and the show’s two lead actors — Whishaw and Mod — said in interviews that the series was a joy to make. Whishaw said in an email that when he got the script it immediately “rang out with a truth.” The dark comedy “was exactly the type of humor people use when faced with awful things,” he added, “and I liked the awkward, flawed, troubled person at the center of it.”Mod, in her first major role, said that the two actors received a “crash course” in obstetrics and gynecology before filming, including learning how to deliver babies with forceps and how to perform cesarean sections. On set, real doctors, scrub nurses and anesthetists appeared as extras, she added, while prosthetics helped give the show its realism.She said that she was surprised by viewers who called the show’s operations gory and intense in posts on social media. “I didn’t think about that at all when we were filming as we would just be surrounded by pools of blood and amniotic fluid talking about what we were going to have for lunch,” she said.Kay said that, despite the show’s focus being on Britain’s health service, he hoped it would touch a nerve in the United States, too. He imagines that “a labor ward’s a labor ward, wherever it is,” he said. After his book came out in 2017, he got messages from doctors in countries including Chad, Belarus and Venezuela, he added, saying that the themes also rang true for practitioners in those countries.“This Is Going to Hurt” was written as a one-off series, and Kay said that he had no plans to do a follow-up. He knew he would hit his “shelf life as a writer” at some point, he said, and when that happened, he expected to return to medicine, to teach or to try and change health policy.“I’ve got a lot of guilt about leaving,” Kay said. “Obviously, I believe the arts have enormous value, but you’d have to have quite some ego as a writer to think it was anything other than 10 steps away from saving someone’s life in an operation.” More