We Are Lady Parts (TV Programs)

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    Anjana Vasan Just Wants Stanley Tucci to Cook for Her

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    “Maybe I can engineer it where I work with him, and then he makes me a drink and a bowl of pasta,” the “We Are Lady Parts” actress said.The past three years have been good to Amina, the introverted scientist in London with rock-star dreams played by Anjana Vasan on the Peacock series “We Are Lady Parts.”Amina completed her Ph.D. in microbiology. She landed a job in stem-cell research. And she underwent a glow-up befitting the lead guitarist of an indie punk band made up of five Muslim women.Farewell, shrinking violet. Amina is in her “villain era” now.“She’s found this confidence, and it’s almost like a new pair of shoes that she’s breaking in,” Vasan, 37, said in a video interview. “She hasn’t quite found her landing yet.”The sitcom’s three-year hiatus was also good for Vasan — born in India, raised in Singapore and now living in London — who won a Olivier Award in 2023 for her performance as Stella in a revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”“We were determined for a show like this not to just be this anomaly, that the show with five women of color at the helm had to have another iteration — it had to go even deeper,” she said before explaining her fascination with YouTube wormholes, “Veep” on repeat, Townes Van Zandt’s music and the stationery she assembles before taking on a new job.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1The Art of Zarina HashmiZarina was the first time I’d seen someone’s art and gone, “Oh, wow, I love this.” Then I realized she was of Indian heritage herself. So much of her art is about borders and home and memory and place. There was something about a simple piece of art that spoke to me in a really visceral way.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      No Sophomore Slump for ‘We Are Lady Parts’

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      The comedy about a Muslim punk band returns for a raucous encore.For the early punks, many of them white British blokes, their music was about declaring themselves outside the larger society. The Sex Pistols dreamed of “anarchy for the U.K.” The Clash howled for “a riot of my own.” To be punk was to give offense, to make one’s self unpalatable, to choose to stand apart.But what is punk when your society has already made you an outsider? This is the musical question that the raucous, cheeky comedy “We Are Lady Parts,” returning Thursday for its second season on Peacock, seeks to answer.The first season, back in 2021, introduced Lady Parts, a punk band of Muslim women in London: Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), the caustic lead singer; Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), the fearsome drummer; and Bisma (Faith Omole), the earth-motherly bassist. Together with their manager, Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse), a savvy Malcolm McLaren in a niqab, they recruit a reluctant lead guitarist, Amina (Anjana Vasan).Amina is no one’s idea of a rock star, least of all her own. She is an introverted microbiologist who worships Don McLean, with a severe case of stage fright that causes her to heave her guts while performing — and not in a defiant, Iggy Pop way. (Vasan gives Amina an engaging nerd-hero energy, similar to Quinta Brunson in “Abbott Elementary.”)Over the six-episode season, Amina finds that Lady Parts gives her a way of defining herself rather than being defined, whether by the conservative suitors who tell her “Music is haram” or by her free-spirited mother (Shobu Kapoor), who wishes Amina would wait to seek a husband.The root conflicts of “We Are Lady Parts” are familiar rock-band woes — having no money, having no gigs, being judged by family and by hipsters. This is where making the series about Muslim women rockers accomplishes more than representational box-ticking: It makes an old story new and nuanced.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With ‘We Are Lady Parts,’ Nida Manzoor Rocks On

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      “Silliness is hugely important to me,” said the writer, whose comedy about a Muslim female punk band has won awards and challenged stereotypes.When the writer-director Nida Manzoor began dreaming up Season 2 of “We Are Lady Parts,” the comedy about an all-female Muslim punk band, one of her earliest ideas was a song: “Malala Made Me Do It,” a neo-Western hype track celebrating the activist Malala Yousafzai. And then she had another idea: Maybe she could get Malala, whom she had met briefly at a talk, to star in the video.She wrote Yousafzai a love letter. To Manzoor’s surprise, Yousafzai, who loves comedy, responded. And this is why, in the second episode of the new season of “We Are Lady Parts,” which premieres on Thursday on Peacock, Yousafzai appears on a horse, resplendent in a white cowboy hat, while the band irreverently sings her praises: “Nobel Prize at 17/the baddest bitch you’ve ever seen.”Directing her idol brought on some fan-girl panic. “I was, like, totally not cool,” Manzoor said. “But it was joyful to work with her.”Joy has been an animating force for Manzoor, 34, the assured and wildly original creator of “We Are Lady Parts” and “Polite Society,” a martial arts film about a teenage girl rebelling against her sister’s arranged marriage. In a moment where nearly everything onscreen feels like a reboot, a reprise, a retread, a spinoff, Manzoor’s works (an urban Muslim musical comedy, a surreal teenage eugenics-addled action caper) reliably feel like nothing else, each a microgenre unto itself.“I like to just make the genre smaller and smaller and be the only one in there,” Manzoor said one morning in early May, speaking on a video call from her home in Bristol, England. She wore a blazing orange sweater over a bright green shirt and her affect was by turns giddy, introspective, confiding, resolute. Her work resists generalization — Manzoor resists it, too.In Manzoor’s 2023 martial arts film “Polite Society,” a teenage girl rebels against her sister’s arranged marriage. Parisa Taghizadeh/Focus FeaturesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in May

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      “The Idea of You,” “Scrublands,” “The Big Cigar” and “Hacks” are streaming.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of May’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.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘The Idea of You’Starts streaming: May 2Anne Hathaway plays a middle-age woman on a wild, globe-hopping adventure with a new lover in this romantic dramedy, based on Robinne Lee’s best-selling novel. Hathaway stars as Solène, who accompanies her teenage daughter to Coachella, where she meets and discovers an instant rapport with Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), a 24-year-old lead singer of a mega-popular boy band. The movie’s director, Michael Showalter — who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Westfeldt — has shown a facility with blending low-key humor and realistic relationship angst in his films “The Big Sick” and “Spoiler Alert.” So while “The Idea of You” features fabulous-looking people and catchy songs, it’s mostly about how the two leads’ genuine yearning for each other helps them withstand some uncomfortable public scrutiny.Also arriving:May 9“The GOAT” Season 1“Maxton Hall: The World Between Us”May 16“Outer Range” Season 2May 23“The Blue Angels”“The 1% Club”May 24“Dom”May 31“The Outlaws” Season 3Jay Ryan in “Scrublands.”Sundance NowNew to AMC+‘Scrublands’ Season 1Starts streaming: May 2In the opening sequence of this Sundance Now mystery series, a priest (Jay Ryan) in a run-down Australian Outback town pulls out a rifle after Sunday services and kills five of his congregants. One year later, a burned-out investigative journalist (Luke Arnold) is assigned to write a short article about how the community is recovering from the trauma. But thanks to a helpful local (Bella Heathcote), the reporter quickly realizes that the official story about what happened that Sunday may be wrong. Based on a Chris Hammer novel and directed by Greg McLean (best-known for the Aussie horror classic “Wolf Creek”), the moody and twisty “Scrublands” is about a town with dark secrets and a man who risks his life and career to expose them.Also arriving:May 3“Skeletons in the Closet”May 12“Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire” Season 2May 13“Harry Wild” Season 3May 15“In the Kitchen With Harry Hamlin” Season 1May 17“Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever”May 27“The Truth”May 31“Stopmotion”André Holland in “The Big Cigar.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Dark Matter’Starts streaming: May 8Based on a novel by Blake Crouch (who also serves as the series’ showrunner), this trippy science fiction thriller stars Joel Edgerton as Jason, a physics professor who has a happy life with his wife (Jennifer Connelly) and their teenage son (Oakes Fegley). When Jason is attacked one night by a masked stranger, he finds himself transported to an alternate reality where he has no wife and no son — but where he does have the kind of prestigious reputation that his brilliant scientist brother (Jimmi Simpson) has always enjoyed. Once he shakes off the initial disorientation, Jason faces a choice: to accept that this new version of himself is who he was always meant to be, or to use his knowledge of quantum theory and inter-dimensional travel to embark on a quest through infinite worlds, to find his way back to his family.‘The Big Cigar’Starts streaming: May 17The magnificent actor André Holland plays the Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton in “The Big Cigar,” which tells the strange but mostly true tale of his friendship with the politically progressive Hollywood producer Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola). When Newton was wanted for murder, Schneider reportedly helped him escape to Cuba, using a fake movie production as a cover. The mini-series recreates the headiness of the early 1970s, when various artistic, social and cultural movements were pushing hard against the establishment. This historical drama is based on a magazine article by the reporter Joshuah Bearman, whose work previously inspired the Oscar-winning movie “Argo,” a similar story about the worlds of showbiz and politics colliding.Also arriving:May 1“Acapulco” Season 3May 8“Hollywood Con Queen”May 22“Trying” Season 4Jim Henson, in “Jim Henson Idea Man,” a documentary.Disney+New to Disney+‘Jim Henson Idea Man’Starts streaming: May 31Jim Henson will always be remembered for creating the Muppets, which have been beloved since they debuted on television in 1955. But Henson was also a filmmaker, a visual artist, and a businessman shrewd enough to use the commercial appeal of his creations to bankroll his more ambitious projects, most of which were made to celebrate to the warmer side of the human spirit. For the documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man,” the director Ron Howard and his team were allowed extensive access to the Henson archives. The film combines archival clips of the Muppets with rare home-movie footage and diary entries — along with behind-the-scenes photos and sketches and new interviews with some of Henson’s collaborators — to tell the story of a visionary who built an empire out of feelings and felt.Also arriving:May 4“Star Wars: Tales of the Empire”May 5“Monsters at Work” Season 2May 8“Let It Be”May 10“Doctor Who” Season 14May 22“Chip ’n’ Dale: Park Life” Season 2May 24“The Beach Boys”Tomoaki Hamatsu, or Nasubi, in “The Contestant.”DisneyNew to Hulu‘The Contestant’Starts streaming: May 2In 1998, an aspiring comedian named Tomoaki Hamatsu — nicknamed Nasubi, the Japanese word for eggplant, because of his long face — won the opportunity to compete on an extreme kind of game show. Locked in a spartan apartment and stripped naked, Nasubi was challenged to survive off whatever he could win from mail-in contests advertised in magazines. Unbeknown to him, his ordeal was broadcast to a rapt nation. Clair Titley’s documentary “The Contestant” looks back at Nasubi’s year of deprivation and isolation, which was framed for the TV audience as a hilarious and heartwarming adventure. The truth, of course, was far more complicated, which Titley covers in a film that examines how fans of reality TV can sometimes forget they’re watching — and judging — real people.Also arriving:May 1“Elvis”“Shardlake” Season 1May 2“Welcome to Wrexham” Season 3May 3“Prom Dates”May 7“Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story”May 8“In Limbo” Season 1May 9“Black Twitter: A People’s History”May 10“Biosphere”“Eileen”“Past Lies” Season 1May 12“Where the Crawdads Sing”May 14“The Killing Kind” Season 1May 15“Uncle Samsik” Season 1May 17“Birth/Rebirth”“The Sweet East”May 22“Chief Detective 1958” Season 1May 24“Ferrari”Jean Smart in Season 3 of “Hacks.”Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/MaxNew to Max‘Hacks’ Season 3Starts streaming: May 2The first two seasons of the dramedy “Hacks” followed the codependent relationship between a complacent stand-up comic, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), and the cynical, self-sabotaging comedy writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), hired to help add edge to Deborah’s Las Vegas act. Season 2 ended with the ladies parting ways after working together on a hit comedy special; but they reunite in Season 3 as Deborah makes plans to right some old wrongs by landing a gig as a late-night talk show host. “Hacks” is about the sometimes wildly varying values of two different generations of comedians. It’s also about two women who have made a lot of messes in their lives — and have come to rely on each other to help with the cleanup.Also arriving:May 2“Turtles All the Way Down”May 3“Stop Making Sense”May 9“Pretty Little Liars: Summer School”May 10“The Iron Claw”May 11“Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die”May 20“Stax: Soulsville U.S.A.”May 23“Thirst with Shay Mitchell”May 29“MoviePass, Moviecrash”From left: Katja Herbers, Aasif Mandvi and Mike Colter in “Evil.”Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+New to Paramount+‘Evil’ Season 4Starts streaming: May 23One of TV’s most unusual and entertaining dramas comes to an end with its latest season, which finds its demon-hunting heroes dealing with satanic cults and devil babies. Katja Herbers returns as Dr. Kristen Bouchard, a forensic psychologist who works alongside the Catholic priest David Acosta (Mike Colter) and the tech whiz Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) to investigate paranormal phenomena. The job frequently puts them at odds with the mysterious sociopath and impish mischief-maker Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson). Created by Michelle and Robert King (the team behind “The Good Fight” and “Elsbeth”), “Evil” is a witty and often genuinely creepy horror procedural, which considers whether the modern world’s wickedness is supernatural in nature or just a case of humans being humans.Also arriving:May 1“Behind the Music” Season 2May 7“Kiss the Future”May 10“The Chi” Season 6, Part 2May 14“Pillowcase Murders”May 17“Mourning in Lod”“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” Season 9“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars: Untucked” Season 9May 21“LOLLA: The Story of Lollapalooza”May 30“Pyramid Game”Harvey Keitel in “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”Martin Mlaka/Sky UKNew to Peacock‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’Starts streaming: May 2In this historical drama based on a true story, an older Jew named Lali Sokolov (Harvey Keitel) meets regularly with the aspiring author Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey) to tell her a story he had previously kept to himself, for almost his entire life: all about how he survived Auschwitz by making himself useful to his jailers. Based on the book that the real-life Morris produced from interviews with Sokolov — a blend of unflinching Holocaust testimony and page-turning fiction — “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” portrays the moral compromises required to endure an atrocity. But it’s also about an unlikely love affair, which develops between Lali (played by Jonah Hauer-King in flashbacks) and Gita (Anna Prochniak), a woman he befriends while he’s tattooing her arm.‘We Are Lady Parts’Starts streaming: May 30One of Peacock’s best foreign TV acquisitions, this British sitcom is the brainchild of the writer-director Nida Manzoor, whose work draws on her love of pop culture and her experiences growing up in a Pakistani Muslim family. Last year she released her debut feature film “Polite Society,” a martial arts comedy; and now Manzoor returns with a second season of the wonderful “We Are Lady Parts,” which stars Anjana Vasan as Amina, a dorky college student and observant Muslim who joins a radical all-female, all-Muslim punk band. In Season 1, this eclectic group of ladies became a cult success. In Season 2, they have an opportunity to record an album and grow their audience but find themselves unsure if that’s what they really want.Also arriving:May 3“The American Society of Magical Negroes”May 7“Eurovision Song Contest 2024”May 9“Love Undercover” Season 1 More