Say goodbye to Monstropolis and hello to Pandora — Disneyland Resort is shuttering its “Monsters, Inc.” ride to make way for a new “Avatar” experience inspired by the oceans of James Cameron’s sci-fi world.

Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! will close in early 2026 to allow construction to begin on an “Avatar”-themed land in the Hollywood Backlot area of Disneyland California Resort, Disney announced Thursday.

Whereas the “Avatar”-themed ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida is based on Cameron’s first “Avatar” film, the new Anaheim experience is shaped around the Pandora of “Avatar: The Way of Water.”

Imagineers first announced the “Avatar” destination at a fan convention last summer, describing it, in true Disney fashion, as “dynamic, intense and an emotional experience on a grand scale.”

Official details on what the attraction will entail and a timeline for construction remain under wraps.

Concept imagery shared on the Disney Parks Blog shows guests aboard a boat traveling through a bioluminescent lagoon and encountering a massive whale-like creature called a Tulkun that leaps from the ocean — hinting at the possibility of a water-based ride.

The closure of the “Monsters, Inc.” ride, which opened in 2006, marks the end of an era for fans of the Pixar classic. The family-friendly ride took guests on a fast-paced journey through the streets of Monstropolis, re-creating scenes from the original 2001 film as guests raced to help monsters Mike and Sulley rescue their human friend Boo.

In addition to creating the “Avatar” experience, the resort is working on a new “Coco”-themed attraction, two new “Avengers” attractions and a parking structure.

Disney announced Thursday that construction on the “Coco” adventure was set to begin in the fall.

“The attraction will be filled with the characters — and music! — you know and love from the beloved movie, as you join Miguel on a trip to the land of the dead,” said Disney in a blog post. “This marks the first-ever ‘Coco’ ride in a Disney park!”

No timeline is available for the construction of the attractions in the Avengers Campus at Disneyland California Adventure.

The new parking structure will be built on the east side of Disneyland Resort and provide around 6,000 parking spaces as well as shuttle and rideshare areas. A pedestrian bridge will be added to connect Harbor Boulevard to the transportation hub.

“This is just the beginning of exciting growth here at Disneyland Resort,” Disney said in a blog post. “We look forward to sharing more about all of these projects in the future.”

There is no containing a star of Belinda’s caliber.

In the making of her fifth studio album “Indómita,” the Mexican singer and actor began to understand that what made her hard to contain — in life, in love and in her career — was worth writing an album about.

“I was reading a book and all of a sudden the word ‘indómita’ appeared,” says Belinda in an audio call from her home in Mexico City. “For two days, I kept dreaming of that word. ‘Indómita, Indómita,’” says Belinda during a recent audio call from her home in Mexico City.

Out on June 5, “Indómita” is an assortment of corridos tumbados, reggaeton, rock and pop ballads with exciting collaborations — ranging from the American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars to Latin stars like Tokischa and Tito Double P.

“This album is very special, not just for women but for everyone who feels untameable, who feels strong, who feels like a warrior,” she explains.

The title directly translates to indomitable, or untameable, a term that seems to perfectly suit the 35-year-old artist, whose long and prosperous career made her an international household name.

Born in Madrid, Spain, as Belinda Peregrín Schüll, but known widely by her mononym, Belinda began her legacy in Mexican television, taking on lead roles in early 2000’s childhood telenovelas like “Amigos x siempre,” “Aventuras en el tiempo,” and “Cómplices Al Rescate,” where she played a set of twins who has been separated at birth. She also broke through the Disney sphere, appearing in the popular 2006 sequel of “The Cheetah Girls 2” as Marisol, a Spanish pop star and competitor of the titular girl band.

Belinda’s music career has been equally as fruitful, including a stint as a singing coach on the TV competition “La Voz” and dozens of hit singles, such as the popular “Amor a Primera Vista,” a 2020 collaboration with Los Ángeles Azules and Lalo Ebratt. Her previous studio albums, 2003’s “Belinda,” 2006’s “Utopía,” 2010’s “Carpe Diem” and 2013’s “Catarsis” have all graced Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart.

Her new LP marks a personal artistic triumph for the artist, given its unique regional Mexican edge. “300 Noches,” her 2024 corrido track with Natanael Cano, made No. 4 on the Mexican Billboard pop chart and appeared on the Billboard Global 200, making it Belinda’s first appearance on the chart. Other corridos tumbados, like the rugged “La Cuadrada” featuring Tito Double P and the blistering “Mírame Feliz” with Xavi, unleash a new alter ego of the famed singer known as “Beli bélica,” the latter of which means “warrior” in Spanish.

“With this album, I’d like to open up the door to more women to sing corridos tumbados of heartache,” says Belinda.

The record is already scorching hot, with songs like “Cactus” making a subtle, prickly nod to her past relationship with Mexican crooner Christian Nodal, who famously tattooed her eyes on his chest. There’s also the reggaeton-corrido fusion called “La Mala,” which coyly addresses the rumors that Belinda is a cold, calculated lover — which heightened in the wake of her high-profile relationship.

Still, her notoriety as a heartbreaker has simultaneously granted her sainthood status from fans, who created fake prayer cards of the enchanting star to bolster their own love life.

“This album was made up of things that we live every day,” says Belinda. “Someone breaks our heart, we feel better, we fall in love, they break our heart again and so forth. Life is like that.”

But “Indómita” is much more than Belinda’s foray into regional Mexican music; there’s also “Jackpot,” a dazzling club alongside Kenia Os, a tribute to lightning-fast cars in “Rayo McQueen” — and even her love of anime in “Death Note.”

“I’m a versatile artist and this record reflects that,” says Belinda.

This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.

What motivated you to release this album over a decade after your last one, “Catarsis”?
I know it might seem like it’s been a long time, but I never left. I’ve always been involved in music. I’ve done collaborations with Los Ángeles Azules, “Amor a Primera Vista,” that was super popular, with Ana Mena in “Las 12,” Lola Indigo and Tiny in “La Niña de la Escuela,” with Juan Magán and Lapiz Conciente in “Si No Te Quisiera.”

I’ve made a lot of music, but obviously this record means so much to me. It’s not the same to work on collaborations and music for other artists as it is to do it for myself. The album is full of collaborations with Thirty Seconds to Mars, who are one of my favorite bands of all time. It also has Kenia Os, Tito Double P, Neton Vega, who’s a hard-hitting act in the world of reggaeton and corridos tumbados, and Natanael Cano, who I can’t forget either. It’s a complete album, with lots of different styles.

Many of the songs on this album are corridos tumbados. Why did you dive into that style of music?
It’s a really stigmatized genre, and a genre that is specifically for men and for certain kinds of lyrics. I wanted to break that [idea] and say that instruments used — like the trombone, the alto horn, tololoche — aren’t just for men or for specific lyrics or a specific market. There can be more romantic lyrics, a mixing of sounds like pop with urban music. The challenge was also getting my collaborators to believe in this too, since they are used to other topics, but everyone trusted me and believed in the song[s] since the beginning and it was organic.

Tell me more about your collaborations. What did you learn from them and what did you teach them?
They’re so talented and play instruments very well, especially Natanael Cano — you can tell him to play any instrument. He’s very talented. We were in the studio and he started to play a Metallica song and I was like, “Wow!” Although we might pigeonhole them into this genre, they’re very versatile and talented. I admire them.

One of the singles of this album, “Cactus,” talks about your feelings toward an ex. How did it feel to release your emotions? And would you say that it helped you heal, as the song suggests?
I love healing through music. The first phrase of the song goes: “Therapy helps, but music heals more bad-ass.” Perhaps I couldn’t express with words what I can through music. As a composer we express our emotions through our lyrics. But it’s also important that people remember that not everything is based on experiences. It’s music so that people can identify themselves in love or heartache. I never mention anyone by name, but people can make their own conclusions or deductions. At the end of the day, I make music for people who can relate to the lyrics.

You’ve been in the spotlight for so many years. Do you believe there are two Belindas that exist? As in, one that is for the public and one that’s just for close family members?
Of course, I can guarantee it. There’s also a song where I express that idea that many times people have categorized me as a bad character, “La Mala.” At the end of the day, I know who I am and the people around me know the heart that I have — my feelings and intentions, my day-to-day. That’s what counts for me. If I paid attention to every comment [people made of me], my God, I’d be locked up in a room without an exit, which sometimes does happen to me.

How do you tune out those outside critics?
I try not to see these things. Sometimes it’s inevitable but I’m also not going deep into the web to find what people are saying. I do other more productive things that nourish me.

Obviously it hurts, because even if certain comments are not true, they still hurt because they carry negative energy. I don’t want to give into these comments as truth, but that energy of negativity or insult or humiliation or anything that comes from a negative side, obviously has a consequence. So one has to be careful about how they express themselves, because there’s so much negativity that exists, so it would be nice if we could just throw a bit more of love.

I heard you’re a big anime fan, and you show that in your song “Death Note.” Why was it important to include that?
I’m [an] otaku, even if people don’t believe it. I really like anime. I’m a fan of “One Piece,” “Death Note,” everything, “Attack on Titan,” but “Death Note” is my favorite. It’s pretty dark, but Ryuk is one of my favorite characters in life. I’ve always been a fan of terror, because within the darkness, there’s always some light.

You were born in Spain but were raised in Mexico. How have you navigated both identities?
I can’t pick one or the other, but I’ve always considered myself Mexican, because I was raised in Mexico and my accent is Mexican. I’m very, very much Latina.

What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t take everything so personally and enjoy life. When I was little, I would think too much about what the world thought. I was always like, “do you like it? Oh you don’t, why?” and I would suffer. And now if I like it, OK, and if no one else likes it, then too bad, I like it!

Jaret Reddick remembers the first time he met Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh. He had flown to L.A. because Povenmire and Marsh were hoping Reddick, the lead singer of the pop-punk band Bowling for Soup, would sing the theme song for their new animated series, “Phineas and Ferb.”

The meeting went well and Reddick not only got to sing the show’s theme song, “Today’s Gonna Be a Great Day,” but he was also cast as the voice of Danny, the lead singer of the show’s fictional band Love Händel.

“I walked out of there going, ‘Man I love those guys. I really hope this show does well for them,’” Reddick recalls.

And done well it has. Since its premiere in 2007, “Phineas and Ferb” has become the most successful animated series for children and tweens in Disney Television Animation history. The series about two brothers — Phineas (Vincent Martella) and Ferb (David Errigo Jr.) — trying to make the most of their 104 days of summer vacation ran for four seasons and spawned multiple movies including 2020’s “Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe.”

Now, 10 years after the show’s fourth season ended, the series returns for a fifth season Thursday at 8 p.m. PT on the Disney Channel. The first 10 episodes of the new season will also debut Friday on Disney+. Most of the main voice cast has returned, including Martella, Ashley Tisdale — who voices the continually exasperated older sister, Candace — and Caroline Rhea, the boys’ ever serene mother, Linda.

For this new batch of episodes, Povenmire and Marsh embraced the show’s successful formula where the boys come up with new and always increasingly creative ways to entertain themselves. “I think there’s probably a bunch of episodes this season that are going to be people’s favorite episodes that they have ever seen,” says Povenmire, who also voices the show’s inept nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Just like how Phineas always knows what he and Ferb are going to do today, Marsh knew what Disney was expecting with the show’s return. “They really just wanted more of the same,” Marsh says. “The show always worked before and it was always sort of timeless. It was not anything that relied on current events or the current zeitgeist. We really just had to keep doing what we are doing and keep pushing the envelope into new areas and do it without violating the framework that we had set up.”

One thing that has changed for the new season is the writers’ room, which now includes writers who grew up watching the show. And Olivia Olson — you may remember her as Joanna, the little girl singing “All I Want for Christmas is You” at the end of “Love Actually” — who voices Vanessa Doofenshmirtz on the series, has also come on board as a writer. Olson says this new role formalizes the unofficial one she had shadowing her dad, Martin Olson, who wrote for the series during its original run. Now they’re a writing team on the series.

“There’s a lot more Vanessa in this new season,” she says with a laugh. “It’s really cool to write for my own character and see the stories I wanted to have for her play out and I just learned so much. To come back and write with my dad is really cool.”

Since the beginning, the show’s music has set the series apart. “Phineas and Ferb do something completely out of the box and different every day,” Olson says. “The music just mirrors that.”

Marsh recalls an early episode featuring the song “Let’s Take a Rocket Ship to Space,” which was an homage to Frank Sinatra. Executives were worried the show’s target audience wouldn’t get it, but that wasn’t the case. As the show grew in popularity, so did the music, which crosses multiple genres. “Country songs, rock songs, pop songs, operatics, big band, rap stuff — it’s all over the map,” Marsh says. “The songs move the story along, hopefully they bring humor as well as telling us something about the characters.”

Reddick says during Bowling for Soup concerts, in addition to the band’s biggest hits like “Girl All the Bad Guys Want” or “1985,” fans demand to hear the show’s theme song. “It’s so infectious,” he says. “We managed to record a song that is just accepted by everybody. Everyone loves it.”

When the show was first starting out, Povenmire and Marsh would tell series composer and song producer Danny Jacob to not pick up the phone when they called so they could leave a message on his answering machine with their latest song. “We sounded like a bunch of college frat boys singing into a tape recorder,” Marsh says.

While the technology they use has improved, their approach to the show’s music has not changed. Jay Stutler, senior vice president of music at Disney Television Animation, has been with the show since the first episode. “That pilot was the most fun pilot I’ve ever worked on,” he says. Povenmire and Marsh brought a musical aesthetic that “took chances and leaned into some really obscure musical references from around the world.”

“What this show did better than any other show was establish that the song can be whatever it needs to be,” he adds.

One of the stories from this season’s sixth episode, “Lord of the Firesides,” finds the show’s Girl Scout-like troop, the Fireside Girls, going completely feral, like in the famous William Golding novel. It features the song “Watch It Burn.” “It’s a really thrashing screaming song for the sweetest little girls in the world,” Povenmire says. “It’s the hardest-rocking song that would ever be on the Disney Channel.”

Tisdale, who also starred in the “High School Musical” franchise, jokes that her new edict to her agent is “iconic stuff only please.” Tisdale, who lent her voice to some of the show’s most memorable songs including “Busted” and “Gitchee Gitchee Goo,” is delighted to be back voicing Candace. “She’s so fun. She’s just a crazy sister trying to bust her brothers. I truly just feel like she wants to be seen.”

In the fifth season, Candace is now 16, a year older than she was during the original run. In addition to her updated cellphone, the new season finds Candace getting her driver’s license and going to therapy, “which she totally needs to do,” Tisdale says.

In addition to the returning main voice cast, Povenmire and Marsh lined up many guest stars — they marvel at who they were able to get: Brendan Hunt, Alan Cumming, John Stamos, Leslie Jones, Anna Faris, Cristo Fernández, Megan Rapinoe, Meghan Trainor, Jonathan Banks, Rhys Darby, Ruth Negga and Michael Bublé. Bublé plays himself and serenades an audience during a beach concert. Povenmire recalls Bublé texting him, “You would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting with my manager when I told him what I really wanted to do at this point in my career is sing a song called ‘Tropey McTropeface.’”

The musical guest stars have always been a highlight of the show. Povenmire fondly recalls the time they wrote “I Believe We Can,” which featured performances from Clay Aiken and Chaka Khan for the 2010 episode “Summer Belongs to You,” and then realized they had to actually get Aiken and Khan for the joke to work. They did.

Although they joke around, the series’ return packs an emotional punch for the duo, who famously pitched the series for 13 years before Disney picked it up. “I watched the first episode and came back into the writers’ room and I was crying,” Povenmire says. “It feels like ‘Phineas and Ferb’ are back. That’s what I want people to feel. This show is back with a vengeance.”

Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media company to shed employees from its cable TV channels, with several dozen positions jettisoned Wednesday.

The layoffs, confirmed by an executive not authorized to comment publicly, are aimed at improving efficiency across the company as cable TV revenues sink because of cord-cutting.

The moves at Warner Bros. Discovery come two days after the Walt Disney Co. implemented a bloodletting across its film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate operations.

The cuts at Disney numbered in the hundreds. The figure for Warner Bros. Discovery is much smaller than that, though an exact number was not disclosed.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s movie and TV production studios and streaming operation, soon to go back to its earlier name, HBO Max, will not be hit by the cutbacks.

The cuts come as Warner Bros. Discovery is said to be pondering a possible spinoff of its declining cable TV assets, which include its Turner channels, Discovery Networks, HGTV and Food Network, similar to what Comcast is doing with its NBCUniversal cable outlets (with the exception of Bravo).

Comcast is putting MSNBC, CNBC, the Golf Channel, USA Network and other outlets into a new company called Versant, separating the mature businesses from the rest of the company as it focuses on streaming.

Warner Bros. Discovery recently reorganized into two business units. The entertainment giant last year took a $9.1-billion writedown to reflect the declining value of its TV networks.

The cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery come just a day after a rare shareholder rebuke of its executive pay packages, a sign of growing unhappiness with the company’s financial performance.

A majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted against the 2024 compensation package given to Chief Executive David Zaslav and other executives at the company’s recent annual meeting, according to a regulatory filing.

Almost 60% of the votes cast came in against the 2024 executive pay package at the company, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. The vote is nonbinding, and thus symbolic.

As an Emmy-winning director on “The Sopranos,” “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones,” Alan Taylor has made a name for himself on some of television’s most highly regarded series. Still, when he learned that he would be helming the most consequential action sequence in the history of “House of the Dragon,” he took a moment to consider the enormity of the task at hand. “I hadn’t really realized what a big deal it needed to be,” Taylor said.

Action set pieces rarely come bigger than the three-way dragon battle that concludes “The Red Dragon and the Gold,” the fourth episode of the fantasy series’ second season. A landmark event in “Fire & Blood,” author George R.R. Martin’s fictional history of the royal Targaryen clan that inspired the show, the so-called Dance of the Dragons sees a trio of fire-breathing beasts clash in the sky, leading to the death of one major character, the hideous disfigurement of another and countless soldiers killed in the fallout.

To bring the roughly 12-minute sequence to the screen required a serious battle plan, one that involved multiple departments and took more than a year to execute. “Everything I was doing with the dragons was trying to make them feel real and palpable and alive,” Taylor said. “Dragons have to be characters, not just transportation or weapons.”

The sequence begins with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) leading an army toward the castle of Rook’s Rest. He intends to claim the territory on behalf of King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), who is at war with his half-sister Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). But the assault is really a strategic ruse. Cole and Aegon’s mercurial brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) expect Rhaenyra to launch an offensive of her own at the site and plan to use Aemond’s enormous dragon Vhagar to kill her.

Instead, Rhaenyra’s lieutenant Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best) arrives on her dragon Meleys to take on Cole’s forces. To her great surprise, the king himself rides his dragon Sunfyre into battle, hoping to prove his valor. Once Rhaenys orders Meleys to attack the king, Aemond rushes forward, commanding Vhagar to unleash a torrent of fire. The blast strikes Aegon and sends the young monarch and his dragon plummeting to the ground.

Locking talons, Meleys and Vhagar collide, but the larger beast gains the upper hand. Soon, Rhaenys, Meleys and Sunfyre are dead, while Aegon barely clings to life.

“We had to dramatize this thing that everybody’s been so afraid of, which is dragon-on-dragon war,” said showrunner Ryan Condal, who wrote the episode. “You see how terrible it is, and also how stunning and spectacular, as these gods are fighting in the sky.”

Working with his longtime partner Jane Wu, director Taylor began storyboarding the sequence in the early weeks of 2023. During their research, the pair discovered footage of birds of prey engaging in midair, and they chose to incorporate those movements into the dragon fight. “One usually turns upside down, so they meet talon to talon,” Taylor said. “That means they’re locked together, so then it becomes a death spiral. The idea of doing that but with [creatures the size of] two 747s seemed like it would be appropriately big.”

Wu’s images became the foundation for the previsualization, or “previs,” of the Rook’s Rest battle. Serving as a kind of road map, the “previs” allowed the filmmakers to plot out every detail of every scene — from what camera angles would be used to how the CG dragons would move. Understanding precisely how and when each creature would bank, tilt, soar or nosedive was necessary for planning the dragon-riding scenes.

For those shots, largely filmed at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, the series’ production headquarters, the actors were seated on a buck atop a motion-controlled base surrounded by large blue screens. The base was then programmed to simulate the specific movements of each character’s dragon, while wind machines and special lighting re-created aerial conditions.

“Trying to find a way to make these clashes look as violent as they would really be while keeping the actors safe was a challenge,” said visual effects producer Thomas M. Horton. “How do we shoot this with a buck and a motion-controlled camera so it looks like they’re being spun around at 90 miles per hour but actually they’re not?”

It’s not the easiest environment in which to create authentic emotional moments, noted Taylor, who singled out Best for delivering heartbreaking work under difficult circumstances. “She’s doing a very intense, subtle performance while she’s being slammed around on this bucking bronco with wind machines and a robotic camera,” Taylor said. “She was a trouper.”

Mitchell described the buck work as something of a thrill ride that greatly informed his performance. “Having that feedback from what is effectively a machine, it really brings the scene to life,” the actor said. “It’s almost like a horse jockey. I’m leaning over as opposed to sitting back handling the reins, really putting all my body into it.”

To capture certain shots of Aemond and Vhagar against the Rook’s Rest tree line, a makeshift buck was brought to Bourne Woods in the English county of Surrey, where the physical battle was filmed — the first time the series attempted to do buck work on location. “To be suspended 30-40 feet up in the air? Nothing beats it,” Mitchell said. “It’s escapism to the max.”

During the roughly 10-day shoot, which took place in August 2023, drones approximated the dragons’ flight path so the actors on the ground knew where to look when they craned their necks toward the sky. Stunt performers posed as knights, donning layers of protective gear beneath their costumes so that they could safely be lighted on fire and burn for up to 15 seconds before being extinguished.

The ground was also littered with artificial burning bodies to simulate the dragons’ victims. “Obviously, there’s a safety issue with real fire, but for the most part, it’s a help because it motivates the ability to put lots of atmosphere through [the shots], and putting lots of atmos and smoke into the shot helps photographically,” said cinematographer P.J. Dillon.

The various elements of the sequence were stitched together during postproduction, with the final scenes completed just weeks before the episode aired. “Three dragons, buck shots, fire, we had to create the castle, the whole cliff and the sea, there was a big army enhancement as well — the ratio of super complex, very heavy-lift shots in that episode is off-the-charts high,” said VFX supervisor Daði Einarsson.

Baseball isn’t boring and the CW isn’t stupid, at least when it comes to the Savannah Bananas, the Georgia-based team that has rewritten the rules around the classic American pastime. The network has picked up rights to broadcast the July 27 Bananas game at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia.

“Banana Ball” incorporates humor, gymnastics, lip syncs and snappy dance choreography in a minor league baseball game with rules that definitely don’t match those of Major League Baseball — though many of the players once had MLB aspirations. This year the team has sold out 18 major league ballparks, plus three football stadiums with capacities of more than 70,000.

The CW in recent years has been leaning into live sports coverage, which has generally been delivering ratings results in a rapidly changing TV-viewing landscape. The network has the NASCAR Xfinity Series, WWE NXT on Tuesday nights, Grand Slam Track, AVP beach volleyball on summer Saturdays, ACC and Pac-12 football games in the fall and, starting next year, PBA professional bowling.

The Savannah Bananas come with a built-in audience earned via posts on TikTok, Facebook Reels and the like. The team has 10 million followers on TikTok alone.

“We’ve always been very clear about our goal,” Bananas owner Jesse Cole told The Times in 2022. “We exist to make baseball fun.”

“It’s all about energy. We want to give people energy, delivering it every second, from the moment we open the gates at two o’clock until the last fan leaves at 11,” he added over the weekend, when the team played to a sellout crowd at Anaheim Stadium.

There’s definitely an audience appetite for the Savannah team: There are tickets available for games in August and September, but only through a lottery — and the wait list for the lottery is more than 3 million names long. Last season’s games drew a million fans total.

On Friday, the only way into the Anaheim game was through the resale market. Hours before the first pitch, the lowest price (fees and taxes included) for a pair of Bananas tickets on StubHub was $209.52, while it took a mere $171.72 to snag a pair of tickets to the Yankees-Dodgers series opener at Dodger Stadium the same night.

Who needs Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge anyway: Banana Ball has the Savannah team facing rival outfits the Texas Tailgaters, the Firefighters, the Party Animals and the Visitors.

And while Ohtani and Judge can be counted on for multiple home runs, only the Bananas deliver baby races, a dancing umpire and backflips before balls are caught in the outfield. Plus the games are limited to two hours max, something even the much-loved MLB pitch clock can’t deliver.

“The Savannah Bananas have taken the sports world by storm through their high-energy blend of baseball and entertainment that connects with viewers of all ages,” Mike Perman, senior vice president of CW Sports, said in a statement Tuesday.

“We are thrilled to partner with them for their broadcast television debut, and we cannot wait to bring our audience every unpredictable play in front of what promises to be an electric atmosphere in Philadelphia.”

“Banana Ball on The CW is a no-brainer,” Bananas owner Cole added in that news release. “After seeing their recent commitment to sports, we knew this could be a great partnership. With the speed and entertainment of Banana Ball, we look forward to creating new fans together in the years to come.”

Times staff writer David Wharton and Times fellow Anthony De Leon contributed to this report.

“Oh, Mary!” is poised to have a big night at the Tony Awards on Sunday. A campy melodrama by alt comic Cole Escola, the play conjures to the stage a vision of Mary Todd Lincoln as a harridan and drunk, who’s sick of the restraints being placed on her at the White House and desperate to return to her first love, cabaret.

As played by Escola, the First Lady is a tramp with a showbiz dream and an unslakable thirst for whiskey. Poor Mary has reason to be in a state of spiraling turmoil. Husband Abraham Lincoln (Conrad Ricamora), wary of Mary’s scandalous behavior, has placed her booze under lock and key.

The Civil War, which is jeopardizing his presidency, has turned him into an utter killjoy. Overcome with stress, he’s finding it harder than ever to resist his homosexual urges. He prays for willpower, but his assistant (Tony Macht) is all too willing to go above and beyond the call of duty.

The production, directed by Sam Pinkleton, plays this delirious situation to the comic hilt. Melodramatic tropes, from the striking of over-the-top poses to thunderous piano underscoring during moments of rising tension, situate “Oh, Mary!” in a bygone theatrical universe.

Escola’s Mary, dressed like a 19th century version of Wednesday Addams from “The Addams Family,” can’t contain herself. Don’t let the rouged cheeks and Shirley Temple curls fool you. That demonic glint in her eye isn’t a ruse.

Escola is part of a wave of comics, along with Megan Stalter, who built their fan bases by posting comic vignettes on social media during the pandemic. Both were crucial mental health resources during that dark time, and both found a wider embrace online for their niche comic sensibilities.

“Oh, Mary!,” which had its premiere off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre last year, has become the mascot production of the Broadway season. It’s the unexpected hit that proves that, while there are no sure bets anymore on Broadway, success is more likely when artists are allowed the courage of their crackpot convictions.

I’m elated for “Oh, Mary!,” but I think it would be a mistake to reward the show’s giddy Broadway triumph with the Tony for best play. The category is too rich to be treated as a popularity contest this year. Artistic discernment is called for when deciding among works as good as these.

The race includes two plays that received the Pulitzer Prize, the 2023 winner, Sanaz Toossi’s “English” and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ newly awarded “Purpose.” Jez Butterworth, who won the 2019 Tony for his play “The Ferryman,” has outdone himself with “The Hills of California,” the fall season’s best (and most intricately woven) drama, magisterially directed by Sam Mendes. And “John Proctor Is the Villain,” Kimberly Belflower’s reconsideration of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” thrillingly staged by Danya Taymor, is perhaps the feat of playwriting that surprised me most in this group.

“Oh, Mary!” ought to receive a special citation. Not only is it in a category of its own, but it doesn’t bear comparison with the other nominees. And this point of view has nothing to do with any bias against camp. In fact, it’s my deep affection for the genre that has compelled me to raise what I assume will be an unpopular opinion.

In her landmark 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’,” Susan Sontag observed that the “whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to ‘the serious.’ One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.”

The silliness of “Oh, Mary!” shouldn’t be held against it. Artistic worthiness isn’t measured by gravity of subject matter. But there’s something mainstream about Escola’s outrageous flamboyance — it’s camp for “The Carol Burnett Show” crowd.

Sontag noted that camp functions as “a private code, a badge of identity even.” I wasn’t sure who “Oh, Mary!” was pitched to, but it didn’t seem intended for someone whose camp sensibility was forged watching the plays of Charles Ludlam at the Ridiculous Theatrical Company in Greenwich Village or the drag headliners of East Village bars and clubs that made such an impression on me in the 1980s and 1990s.

That was a bleak period to be coming of age in New York. The AIDS crisis left the gay community in a state of mournful siege. Camp offered sanctuary, a mode of performance that didn’t suffer hypocritical fools gladly. There was something transgressive and liberating about an aesthetic that inverted not only good and bad taste but also conventional and unconventional morality.

“Oh, Mary!” is fearlessly raunchy but never is it truly dangerous. The show is both a novelty on Broadway and completely at home there. The audience members laughing the hardest on a recent visit to the Lyceum Theatre were the older married couples who found it risqué enough to enjoy but not so risqué that it might upend their thinking of right and wrong.

As a spoof of melodrama, it is sprightly, crisply executed and untaxingly entertaining. Part of the appeal of “Oh, Mary!” is that it just wants to give audiences a concentrated dose of hilarity. Escola recognizes the importance of not being earnest. But the mainstream success the show is enjoying is a sign of something more subversive being watered down.

The Tony nominating committee has demonstrated remarkable judgment this year. Let’s hope Tony voters follow suit and give one of the other four best play nominees the award. If forced to pick a winner, I would opt for “Purpose,” Jacobs-Jenkins’ engrossing family drama set in the household of a civil rights icon, whose personal and public morality haven’t always been aligned.

Any concise description of “Purpose” is bound to fail because the play is so multifarious and complex. Jacobs-Jenkins has written a domestic drama in the epic tradition of “Death of a Salesman,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “August: Osage County.”

The playwright has pursued this line before in “Appropriate,” which won the Tony for best revival last year. But here the focus is on a Black family grappling both with the burdens and privileges of a father’s unique legacy and the difficulty of adapting to changing times and new frontiers of political struggle.

Whenever you think you know which way “Purpose” is heading, it veers off in an unexpected direction. The play leaves the mundane world to engage in spiritual questions between an old-school father (Harry Lennix) and his independent-minded youngest son, Nazareth (Jon Michael Hill), who left divinity school to become a nature photographer.

“Naz,” as he’s known, serves as the play’s narrator. And as someone who identifies as asexual and is possibly on the spectrum, he brings a bracingly original perspective to the classic homecoming play, updating the genre for the 21st century.

“Purpose” deserves an extensive life after Broadway, and a Tony would help its producing prospects. The Steppenwolf Theatre production at the Helen Hayes Theater, directed by Phylicia Rashad and featuring one of the best ensemble casts of the season, is intimidatingly good. (LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Lennix, Hill, Glenn Davis and Kara Young were all nominated for their work, but the company really deserves a collective award.)

It’s a long play (nearly three hours), and one you might not care to see performed with second-tier performers. A Tony would create more incentive for regional theaters to rise to the challenge, though with a Pulitzer, New York Drama Critics’ Award and Drama Desk Award, “Purpose” is hardly lacking in accolades.

There was a time not so long ago when the future of the Broadway play was in serious doubt. The threat hasn’t gone away, and Tony voters shouldn’t pass up an opportunity to honor true playwriting excellence.

With its sale to Skydance Media still beyond its reach, Paramount Global has nominated three new directors to bolster its small board, which has been racked with drama and churn since early last year.

The debt-laden New York-based company currently has only five board members, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who serves as chairwoman. The Redstone family holds nearly 77% of Paramount’s voting shares, giving the heiress tremendous sway.

In a proxy filing Monday, Paramount asked shareholders to elect seven directors at its July 2 annual meeting. The slate includes Redstone and three recruits: attorney Mary Boies (a member of the firm led by her husband David Boies); Silicon Valley venture capital executive Charles E. Ryan ; and former Massachusetts trial court judge Roanne Sragow Licht.

In addition to Redstone, three longtime board members — Linda M. Griego, Susan Schuman and Barbara M. Byrne — will stand for reelection.

Board member Judith A. McHale has decided to step down.

The company has grappled with a series of setbacks since it announced its sale to tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media last July.

The company took a $6-billion write-down on its cable television networks business, in yet another sign that Hollywood is reckoning with the ongoing deterioration of the traditional television business.

Leading independent director Charles Phillips left the board in October. His exit came six months after three other directors — Rob Klieger, Nicole Seligman and Dawn Ostroff — abruptly departed as the panel was struggling over terms of Redstone’s planned Paramount sale.

In late October, President Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas over his dismay with edits of a “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the closing weeks of the election. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, opened an inquiry to determine whether the edits rose to the level of news distortion.

Trump doubled the amount of damages he was seeking to $20 billion.

Paramount has been defending against the lawsuit. In a court filing last week, Trump’s lawyers asserted the president suffered “mental anguish” due to the “60 Minutes” broadcast.

Redstone’s desire to settle Trump’s suit over the “60 Minutes” edits has carved deep divides within the company.

1st Amendment experts have called Trump’s lawsuit frivolous; CBS News executives and other journalists believe it is a shakedown to exploit the vulnerable company that is desperate to have the FCC approve the sale to Skydance.

The ruckus over the edits contributed to the departure of two top CBS News executives. Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, stepped down under pressure last month. In April, “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens departed.

Redstone has expressed her dissatisfaction with CBS News’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, three Democrat U.S. senators warned Redstone that the company could face allegations of bribery if they write a big check to mollify Trump in an effort to facilitate the FCC’s review of the Skydance takeover. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Paramount offered Trump $15 million to make the lawsuit go away, but he declined.

It’s been nearly 11 months since Paramount agreed to be sold to Skydance in an $8-billion deal that would inject $1.5 billion in capital into Paramount’s battered balance sheet.

Paramount has not revised its guidance on when it expects the deal to close — but the contractual deadline is early October.

As part of its proxy statement, the company again detailed the compensation packages — totaling $148 million to the top three executives and ousted Chief Executive Bob Bakish, who received compensation valued at $87 million. Co-CEO George Cheeks was paid $22.2 million. His counterparts Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy were paid $19.6 million and $19.5 million, respectively, according to the filing.

For Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, there is one electric guitar that stands above the rest in his arsenal for the metal band’s ongoing M72 world tour. He thinks of it as his Excalibur, he says.

It is a 1959 Gibson Les Paul once owned by the late Peter Green, founding guitarist of Fleetwood Mac, and a former member of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. It later passed from Green to Gary Moore, who played it on Hammett’s favorite Thin Lizzy album, “Black Rose.”

The golden instrument is now part of Hammett’s vast collection of vintage and custom-made guitars, and even in that company, the guitar nicknamed “Greeny” is special. The Metallica lead guitarist is often on YouTube searching for old videos of Green, Moore and others playing it live across the decades.

“That guitar’s been through so much, and it’s hurt so much and sang so much,” Hammett says. “I just gotta try and keep it going in my own personal way.”

The guitar now has a prominent place in a new book dedicated to the Metallica guitarist’s stockpile of instruments, “The Collection: Kirk Hammett,” a 400-page coffee-table book from Gibson Publishing. It includes interviews with the heavy metal player, histories of the guitars, with vivid photography by Ross Halfin.

The book isn’t a catalog of his entire collection, but goes deep on individual instruments. (The chapter devoted to “Greeny” is 40 pages alone.) Hammett says he doesn’t know how many guitars he owns, and he doesn’t really want to know.

Now on the road with Metallica in support of their “72 Seasons” album, Hammett plays several guitars a night, but his attention often remains on “Greeny.” It’s the one guitar he carries with him everywhere— to and from the shows, to the hotel room, onto the band’s plane.

“I carry it with me, so I’m directly responsible for anything that happens to it,” he says. “Where I’m sleeping, ‘Greeny’ is usually 10 feet away.”

He’s also made a point of handing the guitar to other players to try out. In the book are several portraits of guitar heroes posing with Greeny: Pete Townshend of the Who, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. Green’s former bandmate, drummer Mick Fleetwood, is also pictured cradling the guitar. So is Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler.

All were part of a 2020 tribute to the late Fleetwood Mac co-founder at the London Palladium, and during that night Hammett played the solo on Green’s “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown),” unfurling an elegant flow of blues melody very different from Metallica’s angular roar. Afterward, Fleetwood stood up and yelled, “Nailed it!”

Hammett once handed the guitar to Jack White, who then played it for several songs during a concert. Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne has also held it, and said in a podcast last year, “There’s so many other stupid things you could spend your money on, but that … is almost like finding the Holy Grail or the Arc of the Covenant.”

The new book is available on the Metallica website, at Gibson.com, and at stops on Hammett’s book tour, with upcoming appearances in Columbus, Ohio; Philadelphia; Tampa, Fla.; and Denver. It’s part of another busy period for his band, with a remastered box set of 1996’s “Load” album coming in June. Metallica is also set to join Black Sabbath for its final concert on July 5 in Birmingham, England.

In the book, one thing that is noticeable pretty quickly is that these are not museum pieces protected behind glass. They show the wear and tear of use in the studio and onstage, in many cases from generations of different players. Many are scuffed and scratched, chipped and stained. For Hammett, that’s how it should be.

“I can’t help but use them. I know people have to put on white gloves while you’re handling a [collectible] guitar: ‘Take off your belt, take off your leather jacket, no zippers.’ I’m like, ‘Huh?’” Hammett says, laughing.

“Literally, I take that guitar out of the case, I plug it in, I start playing it. I’m not precious with my guitars,” he adds, noting that an accidental nick to the surface of a pristine vintage instrument could instantly cost it thousands of dollars in value. “I have some serious issues with that kind of thinking. I just want to play the guitars, and if there’s a scratch or a bump, so what? I don’t go in for mint instruments because mint instruments don’t sound good. They have no soul, bro.”

Hammett was approached about doing a book by the Gibson guitar company, which had begun a publishing project, starting with a volume documenting the guitars of Slash. The author of the text for both books is Chris Vinnicombe, editor in chief at Gibson. For “Greeny” and other guitars, Hammett “sees himself as the custodian” of these rare instruments, he says.

“He loves the rarity and the romance behind them,” says Vinnicombe. “I don’t think he’s just trying to compile a kind of box-ticking collection of vintage classics just as an ownership project. He loves the chase and he loves the romance and the stories.”

Hammett had already published a book from his collection of horror movie posters, 2017’s “It’s Alive.” His devotion to collecting horror and sci-fi memorabilia and movie props is second only to guitars, and those interests sometimes overlap. He has several custom-made ESP guitars with horror themes, including the classic 1930s films “Bride of Frankenstein,” “The Mummy” and “White Zombie.” And now that he’s just purchased a Bela Lugosi cape used in 1948’s “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” he’s planning on a guitar with that theme as well.

Next will be a book of his vintage surfboard collection, he predicts. One of those boards dates back to 1970, and is decorated with drawings of ocean waves and flying saucers. Hammett was told it was made for Jimi Hendrix while the guitar icon was in Maui, though he can’t confirm it. “It’s still a cool story anyway,” he says with a laugh.

In “The Collection,” the metal guitarist goes deep into the history and sound of individual guitars. Sometimes the look of a guitar is as essential as the sound.

“The first time I saw an electric guitar as a teenager, it was love at first sight. I saw it from across the high school hallway,” Hammett recalls of his first in-person sighting of a guitar at about age 14. Some of the older kids at De Anza High School in Richmond, Calif., were holding a Fender Stratocaster, glowing with an orange sunburst design. “It looked like a hot rod to me. It looked like a rocket. It looked like you could get on it and just take off somewhere else.

“Guitars for me have always had a really uplifting quality to them just by the way they look. For me, guitars look so incredibly cool. Everything about the guitars — the wood, the shiny metal, the strings, the sound — I love it. For me, it’s the greatest American invention there ever was.”

He grew up in a Bay Area household where the soundtrack tended to be a mix of jazz and opera, salsa and show tunes. His older brother sometimes brought home a record by the Beatles or Hendrix. And Hammett was soon playing air guitar with his brother’s tennis racket.

Hammett finally got his first electric guitar, a low-budget Montgomery Ward model he traded in exchange for $10 and a Kiss album. He was inspired by the rock music of his adolescence: Kiss, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and UFO. “That’s what was fueling all of it,” he says, “and a total dysfunctional childhood, and not knowing where to turn, not having any safe places to go, especially in San Francisco growing up. Music was an emotional, mental relief from all the crap that was going on around me as a kid.”

In high school, he started a rock trio called Mesh, but Hammett and his friends could barely play. “Some of the funniest stories you ever hear are musicians when they first started out and how crappy they are and how bad their band names are,” he says with a laugh.

As his skills evolved, he formed a new band called Exodus, which would ultimately be an important player in the first wave of thrash metal in San Francisco. He eventually moved up to a Fender Stratocaster copy guitar. And as things got more serious, he saved money from his job at Burger King to buy a Gibson Flying V in 1979, a choice of weapon inspired by the example of guitarist Michael Schenker of UFO. The Scorpions and Accept also carried Flying V’s. Paul Stanley from Kiss played one.

“That was a game changer for me,” he says now of getting his first significant guitar, and the model remains important to him. He’s shown holding a Flying V on the front and back covers of his new book.

Hammett joined Metallica in 1983, just before the band recorded its debut album, “Kill ’Em All.” In hindsight, that was a wise and obvious career move, but at the time Exodus was as much of a viable young band with a following in the Bay Area. Even so, Exodus was at an impasse when Hammett got an unexpected call from Metallica. He packed up and drove east in time for the recording sessions in Rochester, N.Y.

“I can’t remember why we went on hiatus, but during that hiatus a kind of split happened,” Hammett recalls of his final days with Exodus. “I don’t know how else to put it, but we started doing different drugs. All of a sudden, I felt alienated from the rest of the guys.”

He points out that last month marked the 42nd anniversary of his first rehearsals as a member of Metallica. “When I first saw Metallica, I thought to myself, ‘Wow, these guys are great, but they’d be so much better with me in the band,’” Hammett says of his first time seeing the band. “That was a very conscious thought while I was sitting in the back of the room watching them.”

Together, Metallica led a thrash metal movement that began as an underground sensation but turned out to be more lasting than a lot of the more commercial metal then coming off the Sunset Strip. Decades later, and now one of the most successful rock bands ever, Metallica celebrated that revolutionary history with a series of “Big 4” festivals in 2010 and 2011, as one of four leading forces in that original movement, alongside Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax.

In “The Collection” is a group portrait of Hammett and Metallica frontman James Hetfield posing with other guitarists from that tour: Slayer’s Kerry King, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine and Anthrax’s Scott Ian.

“We all heard the same sound in our heads. All us guitar players gravitated to those same new wave of British heavy metal bands — gravitated to that hyper-aggressive, energetic sound, because that’s what our personalities kind of demanded,” Hammett explains of their shared movement, which collided the dual influences of U.K. heavy metal and punk rock. “You have to be a little bit ornery, a little bit passive-aggressive, a little bit dysfunctional, a little predatory, to write and record and perform this music. So it was a lot of the right personality types and the right personality disorders, when it was needed.”

In 2023, Metallica released “72 Seasons,” the third in a trilogy of albums that reached back to a modern take on that original sound. As they play the new songs in stadiums around the world, alongside career milestones like “Enter Sandman” and “Master of Puppets,” Hammett has many guitars at his disposal. And “Greeny” is always there.

“None of us thought this would be the sound of the future for decades to come,” he says of the thrash movement. “We thought we were all just outliers, having our little group of friends playing the music that we wanted to play and doing it because it was fun. We had no idea what it would become.”

When Domingo Hindoyan, the Venezuelan chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, made his debut with L.A. Opera last November with “Roméo et Juliette,” Times classical music critic Mark Swed called it “a coup for the company.” Swed also wondered if it was a “signal that he is a candidate to succeed Music Director James Conlon, who steps down in 2026?”

It turns out Swed was right.

On Friday, L.A. Opera announced that Hindoyan has been named the company’s Richard Seaver Music Director. He will succeed Conlon, the longtime music director who joined the company in 2006 and announced last year that he will step down at the end of the 2026 season. Conlon will take on the newly created role of conductor laureate.

In a statement, Hindoyan said he was deeply honored to become only the third music director in the company’s nearly 40-year history. “From the first rehearsal, I felt a strong connection to the extraordinary musicians, staff, and spirit of this company,” he said. “It is a privilege to follow Maestro James Conlon, whose legacy has shaped L.A. Opera into what it is today — a dynamic and ambitious institution.”

After considering “dozens” of candidates from around the world, L.A. Opera President and CEO Christopher Koelsch said he was “struck by the fluidity of his technique and the clarity and command of his musical ideas” after seeing Hindoyan at the Berlin State Opera in 2016. “His deeply collaborative nature and generous spirit in rehearsal make him a favorite among singers, who are inspired by the space he creates for musical risk-taking and expressive freedom.” Koelsch also praised Hindoyan’s “deep rapport with musicians and audiences alike.”

Hindoyan, 45, is originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and began his career as a violinist. Like departing Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, he attended Venezuela’s renowned public music education program known as El Sistema.

In addition to his role as chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, a role he has held since 2021, Hindoyan has served as principal guest conductor for the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra; he has conducted opera productions at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Berlin State Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, Dresden Semperoper, Madrid’s Teatro Real and Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu.

In a statement, Conlon said he was happy to pass the baton to someone who shares his passion for opera.

“Domingo is an artist of exceptional depth and imagination, and I know the company will welcome him warmly,” Conlon said.

Hindoyan’s five-year contract will begin July 1, 2026, and continue through the 2031 season. According to a Facebook post from Hindoyan, the new role in L.A. will run concurrently with his position with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hindoyan, son of Venezuelan violinist Domingo Garcia, a former president of the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, is married to the soprano Sonya Yoncheva, who’s singing at the Metropolitan Opera in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.” (Performances are scheduled on Wednesday and Saturday.) The couple has two children and lives in Switzerland.

In late April, the album “Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence & Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique,’” from Hindoyan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was released.

It was the early 1980s when residents of a Pasadena neighborhood noticed something amiss at the nearby crematorium. The facility was suddenly operating round the clock, smoke billowing from its chimney well after business hours.

Fellow morticians were also alarmed at the uptick in the number of bodies cremated by the Lamb Funeral Home, a respected, family-run establishment and pillar of the Southern California mortuary business for generations. It wasn’t long before allegations of organ harvesting, mass incineration of bodies and murder made the local and national news. A new L.A. crime noir story was born.

Premiering Sunday and airing weekly, HBO’s three-part docuseries “The Mortician” chronicles the ghoulish offenses of David Sconce, great-grandson of the mortuary‘s founder and son of owners Jerry W. Sconce and Laurieanne Lamb Sconce. He was the picture of Southern California affluence and privilege: a blond-haired, blue-eyed high school quarterback with professional football aspirations until his hopes were dashed by a torn ligament.

Sconce found his calling running the family’s crematorium, where he maximized profits by incinerating multiple bodies in the same chamber. Unsuspecting survivors of the deceased were none the wiser when they scattered the ashes of a loved one at sea, but in fact the cremains were of several different people.

And that’s just the tip of the macabre in this docuseries from director and producer Joshua Rofé (“Lorena”).

Sconce also harvested organs and body parts for profit, pulled teeth to extract the gold from fillings, and was investigated for allegedly contracting a hit on a rival and poisoning another competitor who was trying to expose the crimes at the Lamb funeral home.

Sconce eventually pleaded guilty to 21 criminal counts — including for mutilating corpses, holding mass cremations and hiring hit men — and was sentenced in 1989 to five years in prison. However, he was released in 1991 after serving two and a half years, then sentenced to 25 years to life in 2013 after violating probation. He was released on parole in 2023.

“The Mortician” reveals fresh angles into the decades-old case via a bevy of interviews with those who were there. But it’s Sconce himself who provides the most insight into his crimes when he alternately denies and then brags about his transgressions (he appears proud of his ability to stuff as many bodies as possible into a crematory chamber, sometimes by breaking bones or cutting off limbs). Now 68, he’s speaks at length in the documentary about the events that landed him in jail, appearing more aggrieved than remorseful.

“I don’t put any value on anybody after they’re gone and dead,” he said of mixing remains. “As they shouldn’t when I’m gone and dead. Love ‘em when they’re here.” He then justifies his actions as a practical business decision: “I could cremate one guy in two hours, or you could put 10 of them in there and take two and a half hours. So what would be the difference? There is none.”

Also interviewed are former funeral home employees, former L.A. Times journalist Ashley Dunn and former Pasadena Star-News reporter David Geary. Several victims who were duped by Sconce also offer testimonials about the deception. Former law enforcement officials who busted Sconce’s second crematory facility in Hesperia — an old ceramics factory replete with kilns — recall the canals installed below the repurposed kiln doors that were used to catch the human fat drippings coming from the packed chambers.

“The Mortician” is not the cable network’s first series about a family of undertakers operating a Pasadena funeral home. The dark dramedy “Six Feet Under” also revolved around a dysfunctional family generations in the embalming business. But all similarities stop there. There is nothing remotely funny about the twisted world of the Lambs, but in “The Jinx” fashion, Sconce’s own words at the end of this docuseries may come back to burn him.

PBS filed a federal lawsuit Friday asking a court to block the May 1 executive order by the Trump White House to cut off funding to public media, calling the move a violation of the 1st Amendment.

The suit from the service that airs “Sesame Street,” Ken Burns documentaries and the “PBS NewsHour” for free to millions of American homes, said that Congress has repeatedly protected PBS from political interference by filtering its funds through the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which is not a federal agency.

“The [executive order] makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech.”

NPR, which also receives CPB funding, filed a suit on similar grounds on Tuesday.

The White House alleges that PBS has “zero tolerance for non-leftist viewpoints.” Trump’s order called for an end to government dollars for CPB, the taxpayer-backed entity that has provided funding to NPR and PBS for decades through Congress.

Trump called the public media outlets “left wing propaganda.” The White House press release announcing the order — titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” — contained 19 bullet points citing news coverage and other content by NPR and PBS that prompted the action.

The PBS suit says the data the White House cited to support that view are inaccurate and misrepresent the balanced range of viewpoints presented on PBS programs.

The White House has also asserted that government funding of broadcast media is no longer necessary in an era when consumers have a vast array of platforms for information and entertainment. PBS was founded when most of the country only had access to the three commercial broadcast networks and a handful of other TV stations.

PBS’ suit also says that, regardless of any policy disagreements the administration may have over the role of public television, “our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”

Hailing from some of today’s funniest TV series, six actors gathered recently for an uninhibited conversation about what it takes to make people laugh at The Envelope’s Emmy Roundtable for comedy actors.

In Netflix’s “Running Point,” Kate Hudson plays Isla, a woman who becomes pro basketball’s first girl boss when she takes over the family franchise. In ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” Lisa Ann Walter portrays Melissa Schemmenti, a tough grade school teacher in Philly’s underfunded public education system. With Hulu’s “Mid-Century Modern,” Nathan Lane takes on the role of Bunny, an aging gay man who brings together a chosen family when he invites two friends to reside in his Palm Springs home. “Hacks” co-creator Paul W. Downs does double duty as Jimmy, the manager to legendary comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) in the Max series. Bridget Everett, creator of HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere,” plays Sam, a cabaret singer who moves back to her family’s sleepy Kansas town to take care of her dying sister. And David Alan Grier stars as Dr. Ron, a devoted physician and cranky veteran who’s seen it all in the overrun ER of a small-town hospital in NBC’s “St. Denis Medical.”

The talented group spoke with The Times about their respective shows, typecasting and the risks one takes to make great comedy. Read on for excerpts from our discussion — and watch video of the roundtable above.

The best comedy pushes boundaries, which means it can also skirt the edge of offensive. How do you know if you’ve gone too far, or haven’t pushed it enough?

Downs: In the “Hacks” pilot, Jean Smart’s character, Deborah Vance, says there is no line. I think there’s nothing off limits, because it’s really about execution and thoughtfulness. The thing that makes edgy comedy not funny is when it causes harm, when it’s something that’s punching down, when it’s not something that can bring people together. That, to me, isn’t worth it. But there’s nothing that’s too taboo, because that’s what comedy is for. It’s to examine things, explore things, get close to the edge.

Everett: I think that comedy is about making people feel good. I want to make people feel joy. So as long as I’m not hurting anybody’s feelings, I think everything’s on the table.

Grier: I don’t think you know the edge and that’s why it’s dangerous. I’ve done things where I thought, “This is too much,” and things where I thought, “We didn’t go far enough.” So you have to play that game. My intention is never to anger and offend, but you do have to put yourself in that position and take a chance, especially with comedy. You can prescreen it, but who are you prescreening it to? Sixty-year-old white women? High school kids? You have to take a chance.

Hudson: I’m not a stand-up [comedian], so it’s fun to watch people walk that line. It’s exciting. What are they going to say? Is it going to be offensive? Is it not? Is it going to be brilliant? That’s part of what’s fun about being an audience of adult comedy. But I don’t like mean comedy. It’s really hard for me to see. I’ve been asked to do roasts a million times, and I just can’t do it. It just doesn’t move me in any way.

Lane: I was asked. This was the biggest mistake of my life. … A Friars [Club] Roast that was going to happen. [Jerry Lewis] was going to be roasted. And Richard Belzer said to me, “Oh, Nathan, would you be a part of it? Would you do it? It would mean a lot to Jerry.” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, sure. I’ll do the roast.” And then I’m suddenly there and I’m sitting next to Paul Shaffer and Jeff Ross, who apologized in advance for what he might say. And I realized then that, “Oh, you’re not getting up and just roasting this person. You’re attacked. You’re on the dais.” So I thought, “Oh, what have I gotten into?” And I had asked them, “Please let me go first.” And I had worked out jokes. I had a couple of writers help me, and there was an initial joke, which was, “The only reason I agreed to do this was because I thought by the time it happened, Jerry would be dead.”

Walter: I’m on a show that’s got a lot of kids, and families can watch it together, which was Lorraine Ali Quinta Brunson’s intention. But there are things that the kids won’t get and that adults get. Melissa Schemmenti gets bleeped out regularly because she curses. She’s South Philly! As a comic, I only am interested in edge, that’s where I want to live … It’s easier to make a point and get ears when you’re making people laugh. And we do that on the show quite frequently. They’ll do a storyline about the school-to-prison pipeline, but it’s not ham-fisted, it’s not preachy. It’s edgy and it’s all within jokes. Anytime you’re making people laugh, I think you can say whatever you want.

What’s the strangest or most difficult skill you’ve had to learn for a role?

Hudson: In “Almost Famous,” [director] Cameron [Crowe] wanted me to learn how to roll cigarettes fast with one hand. And so I was learning how to roll, and I got really good at it really fast. And then when we were doing camera tests, I was doing it and I was smoking. And he was like, “No.” And I was like, “What? I just spent months trying to learn how to do that!” Then I started rolling my own cigarettes and got into a really bad habit and then spent years trying to quit.

Downs: On “Broad City,” I had to learn and do parkour. It’s high skill level and high risk. You know, when you jump off buildings and roll around … [leap] off chairs and over fire hydrants. I did it, but not a lot of it ended up onscreen. Just the most comedic moments. I jumped between buildings and they didn’t even put it in!

Lane: When I did “Only Murders in the Building,” they said, “So you have a deaf son and you’re going to have scenes with him in ASL [American Sign Language].” It was challenging. I had a coach and I would work with him. And the wonderful young actor, James Caverly, who is Deaf … he was very supportive. If I had to become fluent, it would’ve taken six months to a year to do it well. But I had an advantage; they said, “Oh, your character is embarrassed by having a deaf son, so he didn’t learn it until later in life. So he’s not that good at it.” But it was a great thing to learn. I loved it.

Grier: I did an episode of a sitcom in which it was assumed, unbeknownst to me, that I was very proficient playing an upright bass. This is not true. I played cello as a child. I had to play this upright bass and as a jazz musician. It was horrible. Your fingers swell and blister and bleed. Of course, I went along with it because that’s what we’re all supposed to do. But by Day 4, my fingers were in great pain. I never mastered it. But I did want to ask them, “Who told you I could play?”

Everett: I did a little trapeze work, but since the knee thing, I can’t anymore … [Laughs]

Lane: This was the independent film about the Wallendas, right?

Everett: The truth is I’ve never had to do anything. Really. I had to rollerblade once in a Moby video, but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to stack up against all this, so maybe we should just move on to the next person. I would do trapeze, though. I’ll do anything. Well, not anything. Can we just edit this part out in post?

Hudson: I’m in love with you.

Walter: In a movie I did where I started out as the nosy neighbor, I found out that I was going to be a cougar assassin and I had to stunt drive a Mustang and shoot a Glock. It was a surprise. Literally. When I got to set, I saw my wardrobe and went, “I think I’m playing a different character than what I auditioned for.” … They put the car on a chain and I got T-boned. I was terrified, but then I was like, “Let’s go again!” That was the most dangerous thing until I had to do a South Philly accent as Melissa, and do it good enough so that South Philly wouldn’t kill me. That was probably more dangerous.

Let’s talk about typecasting. What are the types of roles that frequently come to you, where you’re like “Oh, my God, not again!”

Lane: Oh, not another mysterious drifter.

Hudson: Rom-coms. If I can’t get a job doing anything else, I can get a job doing a romantic comedy. When you have major success in something, you realize the business is just so excited [that] they want you in them all the time. It really has nothing to do with anything other than that. It’s something that I’m very grateful for, but you’re constantly having to fight to do different things. I’d be bored if I was constantly doing the same thing over and over again. But it’s just how the business works. Once you’re in that machine, they just want to keep going until they go to somebody else.

Walter: I can’t tell you how bored I am with being the gorgeous object of men’s desire. I named my first production company Fat Funny Friend … But as a mother of four in Los Angeles, I didn’t really have the luxury of saying, “I want to branch out.” But I did say, “Can I play someone smart?” My father was a NASA physicist. My mother was brilliant. I was over doing things I could do in my sleep, always getting the part of the woman who sticks her head out of the trailer door and goes, “I didn’t kill him, but I ain’t sorry he’s dead!” … It’s like, “Can I play someone who has a college education?” And I did, finally, but it took Quinta to do it.

Grier: I’ve found that the older I’ve gotten, the roles I’m offered have broadened. And I’ve played a variety of really challenging great roles because I’m old now. That’s been a real joy because I didn’t really expect that. I just thought I’d be retired. I did. So it’s been awesome.

Lane: There was an article written about me, it was sort of a career-assessment article. It was a very nice piece, but it referred to me as the greatest stage entertainer of the last decade. And as flattering as it was, I can find a dark cloud in any silver lining. I felt, “Oh, that’s how they see me?” As an “entertainer” because of musicals and things [I did] like “The Birdcage” or “The Lion King.” I’d been an actor for 35 years and I thought, “I have more to offer.” So I wound up doing “The Iceman Cometh” in Chicago … and that would change everything. It was the beginning of a process where I lucked out and got some serious roles in television, and that led to other things. But it was a concerted effort over a period of 10, 15 years, and difficult because everybody wants to put you in a box.

Is it difficult in the industry to make the move between drama and comedy?

Walter: It’s a lifelong consternation to me that there is an idea that if you are known comedically, that’s what you do. We are quite capable of playing all of the things.

Grier: I remember seeing Jackie Gleason in “The Hustler.” I loved it. He was so great. Robin Williams also did serious. I think it’s actually harder when you see serious actors try to be comedians.

Downs: One of the things about making “Hacks” is we wanted to do something that was mixed tone, that it was funny and comedic but also let actors like myself, like Jean, all of these people, have moments. Because to us, the most funny things are right next to the most tragic things.

Hudson: And usually the most classic. When you think about the movies that people know generation after generation, they’re usually the ones that walk the line. And they’re the ones that you just want to go back and watch over and over and over again.

Everett: I haven’t had a lot of experience with being typecast because I’ve been in the clubs for a long time doing cabaret. But on my show, Tim Bagley, who plays Brad … he’s been doing the same characters for I don’t know for how long. So we wrote this part for him, and one of the most rewarding things for me on this show was sitting behind the monitor and watching him get to have the moment he deserved … It’s one of the greatest gifts to me as a creator to have been part of that. It’s a whole thing in my show. We’re all getting this break together. We’ve all struggled to pay our rent well into our 40s. I waited tables into my 40s, but you don’t give up because you love doing it.

I’m sure many of you are recognized in public, but what about being mistaken for somebody else who’s famous?

Grier: I went to a performance of a David Mamet show on Broadway. I went backstage, and this particular day, it was when Broadway was raising money to benefit AIDS. There was a Midwestern couple there with their young son and they saw me, and the house manager said, “This couple, they’re going to give us an extra $1,000 if you take a picture with them. Would you mind?” I’m like, “Yeah, cool.” So I’m posing and the dad goes, “It is our honor to take a picture with you, Mr. LeVar Burton.” Now in that moment, I thought if I say no, people will die. So I looked at them and I went, “You liked me in ‘Roots?’” He said, “We loved you.” Click, we took the picture. I’m not going to be like, “How dare you?!”

Walter: Peg Bundy I got a couple of times. But as soon as I open my mouth, they know who I am. I can hide my hair, but as soon as I talk, I’m made.

Hudson: I’ve had a lot of Drew Barrymore. And then every other Kate. Kate Winslet, Katie Holmes … I’ve gotten all of them.

Walter: Do you correct them?

Hudson: Never. I just say yes and sign it “Cate Blanchett.”

I’d love to know who everybody’s comedic inspiration was growing up.

Walter: My dad used to let me stay up and watch “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” and “Laugh-In.” I got to see Ruth Buzzi, rest in peace, and Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin. Jo Anne Worley. All these funny women. That’s what made me think, “You can get a job doing this, the thing that I get in trouble for at school?!”

Grier: My comedy hero was Richard Pryor. I was this Black little boy in Detroit, and George Jessel would come on “The Mike Douglas Show” and he might as well have been speaking Russian. I’m like, “How can this be comedy?” Then I saw Richard Pryor, and he was the first comic who I just went, “Well, this guy’s hilarious.”

Downs: I remember one of the first comedies that my dad showed me was “Young Frankenstein.” I remember Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman and Madeline Kahn. All of these women. I was always like, “They’re the funniest ones.”

Hudson: My era growing up was Steve Martin, Martin Short, Albert Brooks, Mel Brooks. But women were, for me, the classics. Lucille Ball.

Walter: There was a time when I was growing up where women really dominated comedy. They were your mom [nods at Hudson, Hawn’s daughter], Whoopi [Goldberg], Bette Midler. The biggest stars of the biggest comedies were women, and then that all went away for a really long time. I think it found its way back with Judd Apatow and then he made “Bridesmaids.”

Hudson: I tried really hard to make edgy comedy and studios wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t. It took Judd to convince the studio system that women are ready. That we can handle rated-R. In the ’70s and ’80s, there was a ton of rated-R comedy with women. But for some reason, it just all of a sudden became like, “Oh, there’s only 1½ demographics for women in comedy.” I always felt like it was an uphill battle trying to get them made. Then I remember when Jenji [Kohan] came in with “Orange Is the New Black.” That was really awesome.

Lane: Above all, it was always Jackie Gleason for me. He was such an influence. He was hilarious, and of course, very broadly funny, but then there was something so sad. It was such pathos with him. … He was this wonderful, serious actor, as well as being Ralph Kramden.

Everett: There’s nobody that taught me more about how to be funny than my mom. She just had this way of being that I have used in my live shows. It’s led to where I am now. She used to wet her pants [laughing] so she had to put towels down on all the chairs in the house. She just didn’t care. That shows you to not care, to go out there. I live in fear, but not when I feel like she’s with me.

Grier: That’s the edge. You’re either going to weep or you’re going to [laugh] until you urinate.

Loretta Swit, the Emmy-winning actor best known for her time as Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the TV version of “M*A*S*H,” died Friday in her New York City apartment, her representative confirmed to The Times. She was 87.

Swit was found by her housekeeper around 10 a.m., according to publicist Harlan Boll, who said he had been on the phone with her at 11 p.m. local time Thursday night — 2 a.m. Friday in New York. Her doorman saw her drop something in the mail at 4 a.m. Friday, New York time, Boll said, and six hours later, she was gone.

The actor — born Loretta Jane Szwed on Nov. 4, 1937, in Passaic, N.J. — loved playing Hot Lips so much that she was the only performer other than Alan Alda who stayed on the series from its pilot in 1972 through its much-watched finale in 1983. “M*A*S*H,” set during the Korean War, was a sitcom but also more than that to Swit.

“There is, I think, an intelligence behind the humor,” she told The Times in 1977. “The audience is huge, and they deserve to be entertained on the highest level we can achieve.”

Though her portrayal of the libido-driven blond in fatigues and Army boots catapulted Swit to household-name status, she had been in acting since before her 8th birthday in stage productions and musicals in New York. She left home at 17 to work in the theater, temping at secretarial jobs while studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

A confessed workaholic, Swit moved easily from comedy to drama, acting in “Same Time, Next Year,” “Mame” and “The Odd Couple” before moving to Los Angeles to star in “M*A*S*H.” She appeared in iconic series such as “Hawaii Five-O,” “Mission: Impossible” and “Mannix,” and had a productive television career until very recently.

Her most recent TV appearance was as herself in the 2024 Fox tribute special “M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television.”

Her theater work was plentiful, and in addition to Broadway, off-Broadway, regional and national work, included shows in Southern California. She joined Harry Hamlin in “One November Yankee” at the NoHo Arts Center in 2012, three years after doing a reading of the play with a different actor at the Pasadena Playhouse.

“M*A*S*H” filmed its outdoor scenes at Malibu Creek State Park, where the set was re-created for fans’ enjoyment in 2008.

“It’s thrilling to be honored in this way,” Swit told The Times that year. “I think if I had to sum it up, what we’re most proud of is that we made everybody come together. And I think this will also bring people together.”

Swit was nominated for 10 Emmys for her Hot Lips role and won for supporting actress in a comedy, variety or music series in 1980 and 1982. She garnered four Golden Globe nominations for her work on “M*A*S*H,” in the lead and supporting actress categories, but did not win.

She was given a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 1989, near what is now the home of Amoeba Music.

An animal lover, Swit set up the SwitHeart Animal Alliance to prevent cruelty and end animal suffering. The alliance worked with numerous nonprofit organizations and programs to protect, rescue, train and care for animals and preserve their habitat, while raising public awareness about issues that concern domestic, farm, exotic, wild and native animals.

She created an art book, “SwitHeart: The Watercolour Artistry & Animal Activism of Loretta Swit,” which includes 65 of her full-color paintings and drawings and 22 of her photographs. Proceeds went to animal causes, and the 2016 Betty White Award from the group Actors and Others for Animals was but one of the many honors she received for her philanthropic work.

Former freelance writer T.L. Stanley contributed to this report.

At the beginning of “Mountainhead,” written and directed by Jesse Armstrong of “Succession” fame and premiering Saturday on HBO, three multibillionaire tech bros make their way by private plane, helicopter and SUV caravan to join a fourth in a big modernist house on an isolated, snowy mountaintop for a weekend of poker and drugs — “no deals, no meals, no high heels.” One might wish for an avalanche, were there anything higher to fall on them.

Venis (Cory Michael Smith), the world’s richest man — imagine Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg put in a blender, as perhaps you have — commands a social media site with, wait for it, four billion subscribers, and has just released new “content tools” that allow for super high-res “unfalsifiable deep fakes.” As a result, the sectarian world is going up in flames. Jeff (Ramy Youssef), a rival who had poached members of Venis’ team, has an AI algorithm capable of filtering out the bad information which Venis, closing the digital barn door after the cow is out, wants to acquire; but Jeff, for reasons of profit, power and/or ego, is not going to let it go.

Randall (Steve Carell), their gray-haired guru — they call him “Papa Bear,” though Jeff also dubs him “Dark Money Gandalf” — controls a lot of international infrastructure, including military. Preoccupied with his mortality — told by his latest oncologist that his cancer is incurable, he responds, “You are not a very intelligent person” — he’s hoping to upload his consciousness to the grid, a possibility Venis assures him is only five years off as long as he can get his hands on Jeff’s AI. The relatively inoffensive Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), whose house it is, hopes to expand the meditation app he created, into a lifestyle super app — offering “posture correction, therapy and a brand new color” — with his friends’ investment of “a b-nut,” i.e., a billion dollars. They call him “Souper,” for “soup kitchen,” because he is worth only $521 million. He’s the runt of the litter, and the comedy relief.

For no given reason, they call themselves the Brewsters — perhaps just so they can crow “cock-a-doodle-brew.” They are full of themselves — “The great thing about me,” says Randall, “is that I know everyone and do everything” — and basically insecure.

They rewrite their fundamental nihilism into the belief that their business is good for mankind, whatever the actual human cost. “You’re always going to get some people dead,” Randall says. “Nothing means anything,” Venis says, “and everything’s funny and cool.” (But he does miss his mother and, in a particularly creepy interlude, his baby is brought up the mountain for an uncomfortable minute.) In the only scene to take them out of the house, the four travel to the crest of a mountain, where Hugo writes each man’s net worth in lipstick on his chest, they don hierarchical headgear and shout, “Mountain god accelerator legacy manifestation!” into the valley below, each adding a wish. It is, seemingly, something they have done before.

Randall name-checks philosophers — Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Plato, Marcus Aurelius — he misunderstands to his advantage and drops references to the Catiline Conspiracy and the Battle of Actium to make base actions sound important and dignified. He calls the president a “simpleton” — one assumes Armstrong is reflecting on the current one — but for all their power, money and influence, they all lack wisdom. And if recent years have taught us anything, it’s that these things are not mutually exclusive.

Venis thinks the violence engulfing the globe, which cannot touch him, may prove cathartic; Randall is “excited about these atrocities.” They discuss taking over “failing nations” to “show them how it’s done.” (In perhaps the film’s funniest line, Hugo, who has been working on his house, muses, “I don’t know if I want to run Argentina on my own — not on the back of a major construction project.”) They trade in gobbledygook phrases like “AI dooming and decelerationist alarmism,” “compound distillation effect” and “bootstrap to a corporate monarchy, cyber-state it to the singularity, eat the chaos,” which for all I know is just Armstrong quoting things people of this sort have actually said. It seems possible.

As the only one with a sense of humor and a semblance of perspective, Jeff is the most sympathetic of this toxic crew. He tracks the worsening world situation with some empathetic concern, but even though he holds the key to end the madness, he does not seem in a hurry to turn it. (Mostly he is concerned with his girlfriend, who is in Mexico, not so much because of the unrest, but because he fears she’s having sex.) Still, he stands a little apart, to his peril.

The first half of the film proceeds essentially as a play for four characters. Apart from Hugo’s asking for “help with the cold cuts” or inquiring whether everyone’s cool with reusing plates, there is a scarcely a line in which people talk like people; it is all theatrical declaration. To some extent it fits the coldness of the quartet — they hug and hoot and occasionally express a droplet of emotion, but the friendship on which they insist is competitive, transactional and illusory. They are not good company, but for those of us less than impressed by the whole “move fast and break things” thing, or not willing to bow down before ChatGPT and OpenAI or the actual tech billionaires deforming the world, there is some fun in watching them fall apart. In some ways, “Mountainhead” (rhymes with “Fountainhead”) feels as much a public service as an entertainment. So thanks for that, Jesse Armstrong.

When, in the farcical, action-oriented second half, some attempt to execute a … plot, they bumble and argue and push each other to the front. It is an old kind of movie comedy, and works pretty much as intended.

Renowned documentary filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, who, along with his family, fled Nazi Germany as a child and spent his formative years in Los Angeles before having a cinematic career which earned him both an Oscar as well as condemnation from some quarters, died Saturday in France, his adopted country. He was 97.

Ophuls’ death, first reported by news agencies, was confirmed by family members. He is survived by his wife, Regine, their three daughters and three grandchildren.

The director’s 1969 masterpiece, “The Sorrow and the Pity,” an intense, four-hour work that made Ophuls’ reputation, began as a project for a government-owned French broadcast network. Ultimately, though, it was banned and did not air on television until many years later, due to its searing indictment (or “explosion,” as Ophuls preferred to called it) of the myth of France’s heroic participation in the war — a false if popular version of events that ignored Vichy collaboration with the German occupiers.

Born in Frankfurt in 1927, Ophuls was the son of film director Max Ophüls (his father later dropped the umlaut) and Hildegard Wall, a theater actor. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Ophuls clan left Germany for Paris. Then, when France fell, they settled in Los Angeles in November 1941, where Max Ophuls would come to enjoy a significant moviemaking career (“Letter from an Unknown Woman”).

For young Marcel — German Jewish, a citizen of both France and the United States and fluent in three languages —the ethos and landscape of Southern California posed a very different and sometimes alienating experience.

After graduating from Hollywood High, he was drafted by the U.S. Army and later enrolled at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, but still found assimilation difficult, revealing to writer Studs Terkel in a 1981 interview that, even as a refugee, he was shocked by the prejudice he observed toward people of color in the divided communities of Los Angeles following Pearl Harbor.

“When I made movies,” he said, “one of the things that kept me from being too self-righteous is my memory of the Japanese kids who were in my class one day, then gone the next.”

While his father Max struggled at first to find work in Hollywood, Marcel felt destined, as he often said, for a career in the film industry. As he revealed in his 2013 documentary memoir “Ain’t Misbehavin,” he began his career as an actor, playing, ironically, a member of the Hitler Youth in Frank Capra’s 1942 War Department film “Prelude to War.”

Ultimately following his father to France in 1950, Ophuls turned to making nonfiction films for French television, after trying his hand in narrative cinema.

“My second film flopped, but it was a very bad film that deserved to flop,” he said frankly, speaking about his career in London in 2004.

His self-deprecating brand of humor, tinged with a touch of irony, was often apparent in the interviews he conducted for many of his films, confronting former Nazis and collaborators. Alternately, his tone was infused with contempt, sarcasm or genuine sympathy for his subjects who had been victims of brutality unleashed by the Gestapo or secret police of the Vichy regime.

Ophuls won the Academy Award for documentary feature in 1989 for “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie,” which depicted the crimes of the head of the Gestapo in Lyon who, after the war, escaped French prosecutors with the help of U.S. Army intelligence, evading justice and living in South America until he was extradited to France from Bolivia in 1983. Barbie died in prison in 1991.

Ophuls was also known for other documentaries, including 1976’s “The Memory of Justice,” about the legacy of the Nuremberg trials, and 1972’s “A Sense of Loss,” which dealt with the troubles of Northern Ireland.

About his famous confidence when seated face-to-face with intimidating subjects — one interview was with Albert Speer, Hitler’s chief architect and minister of armaments — Ophuls was characteristically candid and self-effacing.

“He was so fantastically cooperative,” he said of Speer. “He even offered to show me his home movies. It just seemed to me to be part of my job.”

“The Righteous Gemstones” turns back the clock to the Civil War in its final season premiere to reveal the origin story of the televangelist family, with Bradley Cooper guest starring as Elijah Gemstone, a drifter turned charlatan preacher. “I always had the idea that we would show a beginning of this connection to religion with this family,” says creator Danny McBride, who directed the episode. “Prepped to within an inch of its life” in order to capture the period setting convincingly, the episode owes much to an Oscar-winning referent, 1989’s “Glory,” and to production designer Richard A. Wright, says cinematographer Paul Daley. Catapulting Eli down a new path is a deadly church robbery. Its visual storytelling is near-monochromatic, juxtaposing light and darkness. “There’s this idea of this false sense of holiness and that this guy doesn’t belong here,” says McBride. “We came from the idea that instead of him emerging from the shadows, he rises from a pew.” After stealing the priest’s Bible and fabricating a letter to clear his name, Eli stands ominously over the dead body — an angelic glow bursting behind him. It’s a moment where fortune, or in this case fate, favors the bold.

Will Hoda Kotb replace Kelly Clarkson as a talk-show host, giving rise to “Hoda in the Afternoon”? The retired morning-show anchor quickly shut down that rumor Wednesday when she popped back up on “Today” for the first time since her January departure from the show.

“Do y’all think — I want to ask y’all a real question — do you think, if I ever came back to TV, do you know where the only place I would ever come back to is?” Kotb asked her former colleagues after replacement co-host Craig Melvin inquired about that rumor. “Right here. This is the spot.”

“Delete, not true,” she said of the Clarkson rumor.

Something that is true? Kotb revealed that she left “Today” in part to take care of 6-year-old daughter Hope, who was diagnosed about two years ago with Type 1 diabetes. Previously known as juvenile diabetes because it’s most often diagnosed in childhood, the autoimmune disorder can occur in adults as well.

Hope’s health issues arose more than two years ago, she said. Now the child has to use synthetic insulin regularly to stay well, since her condition prevents insulin production by her pancreas.

“As anyone with a child who has Type 1 [knows], especially a little kid, you’re constantly watching, you’re constantly monitoring, you’re constantly checking, which is what I did all the time when I was [at ‘Today’],” she told Melvin and Savannah Guthrie. “You’re distracted.”

Hope, however, is just like “every other kid” except for about five minute at breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes overnight, Kotb said.

But being there for her daughter had become nonnegotiable, she told People in a story published Wednesday, so “Today” had to become part of yesterday. No more alarms going off at 3:15 a.m. every morning.

Now she sleeps in until 4:30 a.m. She also just launched a new wellness venture, Joy 101. But her children remain her focus.

“I really wanted to and needed to be here to watch over [Hope]. So, whenever she needs anything, and it can happen at night, multiple times, I’m up — I’m up up up,” she said.

“But I would never, ever want Hope to one day grow up and say, ‘Oh, my mom left her job because [of me].’ It wasn’t that alone. But if you look at it cumulatively, it was a part of that decision.”

Kotb, 60, and ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman adopted Hope in 2019 and sister Haley in 2017. The couple split up in 2022 but remain friends and co-parents.

Hope, Kotb told People, “is a happy, healthy, rambunctious, amazing kid, and we have to watch her. Diabetes is a part of her, but not all of her. I hope it shapes her but never defines her.”

There has never been a shortage of TV series that take place in Los Angeles, the longtime hub of the American television industry and its players. But the 2025 Emmy season features such a wealth of shows set and shot in and around L.A. that we couldn’t resist spotlighting how several of them use the iconic locale we call home.

‘Shrinking’

The Apple TV+ comedy, which follows an interconnected group of co-workers, friends and neighbors, is set mainly in Pasadena and Altadena. Location manager David Flannery, a fifth-generation Pasadena native, notes, “So often [these cities] play for everywhere else in the world. But we want to show exactly where we are — which is just a little more specific than general L.A. — and that the characters are grounded in very real places.” These sites have included the Rose Bowl, Pasadena City Hall, Pasadena’s Central Park (featuring the landmark Castle Green building) and the South Pasadena train station. The Laird and Bishop family homes, with their adjoining backyards, may look like a set but are actually neighboring Altadena houses, both of which survived the Eaton fire.

‘Only Murders in the Building’

Although Hulu’s Emmy-winning comic mystery is the ultimate New York tale, its Season 4 opener sent its crime-solving lead trio to Tinseltown to pursue a movie adaptation of their popular podcast. Co-creator and showrunner John Hoffman, calling in during the show’s Season 5 shoot, says, “Last season had to start in L.A. It really kicks off a season that is specific to cinema, to moving images.” Filming took place on the classic Paramount Studios lot, at the historic Il Borghese condo building in Hancock Park and at an “ultra-glamorous, deeply L.A.” Hollywood Hills home, which served as studio exec Bev Melon’s party house.

‘Nobody Wants This’

Creator-showrunner Erin Foster can’t imagine her Netflix rom-com about a progressive rabbi and a gentile sex podcaster set anywhere but her native Los Angeles. “You have to write what you know, and that’s what I know,” she says by phone from her West Hollywood home. “In L.A., people are following their dreams, so it says a lot about who someone is. I think the same applies to locations in a TV show: They all signal where [the characters] are in their life and who they are.” Some of these illustrative locales have included Westwood’s Sinai Temple, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown, the Los Feliz 3 Theatre, Calamigos Ranch in Malibu and WeHo’s Pleasure Chest sex shop.

‘The Studio’

Seth Rogen and company’s raucous creation about a beleaguered movie studio chief is rooted in firsthand experience. “Seth knows this town very, very well,” says supervising location manager Stacey Brashear. “He and [co-creator] Evan Goldberg wrote in 90% of the locations, including the [John] Lautner-designed, Midcentury Modern houses that studio executives like to collect.” Among these eye-popping sites are the Silvertop house above the Silver Lake Reservoir and the Harvey House in the Hollywood Hills. Adds Brashear, “I feel like our locations are actual characters in the show.” Among the Apple TV+ series’ many other L.A. locations: the Warner Bros. studio lot, the Smoke House Restaurant in Burbank, Lake Hollywood Park and the Sunset Strip’s Chateau Marmont.

‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’

This Netflix limited series revisits the 1989 murder of wealthy Beverly Hills couple José and Kitty Menendez by sons Erik and Lyle, a crime notoriously connected to Los Angeles. “It was such a period of decadence and grandeur, and Beverly Hills was kind of the poster child for that,” says production designer Matthew Flood Ferguson. “I wanted to recapture the [town’s] glamour and celebrity culture.” He also notes, of L.A.’s diverse architecture, “You can get quite a few different looks all in the same place.” These “looks” included a grand Hancock Park-area home standing in for the Mendendez mansion, Koreatown’s Wilshire Colonnade office complex, a 1970s-built Encino bank building, Beverly Hills’ Will Rogers Memorial Park and the former Sunset Strip site of Spago, restored to look as it did in its heyday.

‘Hacks’

Unlike past seasons, in which L.A. often subbed for Las Vegas, Season 4 of “Hacks” is mostly shot and set in Los Angeles. Says Lucia Aniello, co-creator with Paul W. Downs and Jen Stasky, “Much of [the season] is getting back to the roots of L.A. comedy. It really is a love letter to Los Angeles — and to the comedy world.” Adds Downs, “The show is a lot about people outside of the industry looking in. By being in L.A., we got to really explore what that means.” Some key locations: CBS Television City, the Lenny Kravitz-designed Stanley House, the Americana at Brand and Echo Park’s Elysian Theater; the Altadena estate doubling for Deborah Vance’s Bel-Air mansion was lost in the Eaton fire.

‘Running Point’

Loosely based on the life of Lakers President Jeanie Buss, this Netflix comedy is “filled with a lot of L.A. DNA,” says co-creator and showrunner David Stassen. He adds that, like Buss, the show’s star, Kate Hudson, “is also part of a dynastic L.A. family. Plus, she knows Jeanie, she loves the Lakers and she grew up going to games.” Though much of the season was filmed downtown at Los Angeles Center Studios, location work included the Pacific Coast Highway south of Venice (where Cam, played by Justin Theroux, crashes his Porsche), downtown L.A.’s elegant Hotel Per La and homes in Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills. The L.A. skyline gets quite the workout here as well.

‘Forever’

Netflix’s reimagining of Judy Blume’s 1975 novel unfolds in 2018 Los Angeles, where it evocatively explores first love between teens Justin and Keisha. Showrunner and L.A. native Mara Brock Akil considers her adaptation “a love letter to Los Angeles and to the idyllic life we’re all trying to live in this city, where dreams are not isolated to one particular neighborhood.” Key parts of the story take place around Keisha’s home in the View Park-Windsor Hills area, with the show’s many other L.A. locations including Ladera Park, St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood, the Grove and the Original Farmers Market, Griffith Park and the Santa Monica Pier. Adds Akil, “A lot of people [in L.A.] are moving around on public transportation, which I wanted to shine a light on too.”

Mess with 50 Cent and he might come for your house — even if it takes him a few years to do it.

The rapper’s company Sire Spirits got the OK last week from a federal judge to seize the Connecticut home of former Sire executive Mitchell Green as partial payment toward a $7-million debt after a federal bankruptcy judge lifted an automatic stay that had prevented transfer of the property.

That took 50 Cent — real name Curtis Jackson III — and his legal team a little more than four years to accomplish, from when Green confessed to embezzling from his employer via a kickback scheme involving wholesalers until last week when the stay came off the house.

Branson Cognac and Chemin du Roi Champagne, both owned by Jackson, are managed through Sire Spirits. Green admitted in February 2020 that he had been raising prices and getting kickbacks from wholesalers that were labeled “agency fees,” the New York Post reported in 2022 and 2023.

Sire Spirits filed a request with the U.S. District Court, New York Southern, on Sept. 1, 2021, for confirmation of an arbitration agreement of a little less than $3.5 million in damages, according to court documents reviewed by The Times.

Green had been embezzling from 2018 into 2020, when someone attempted to blackmail him over the $2.2 million in kickbacks, according to AllHipHop. At that point, Green told his employer what he’d done. Sire Spirits fired him and went into arbitration, which was settled in Sire’s favor. With attorney fees and legal costs rolled in, the November 2022 final judgment totaled around $6.3 million.

In March 2023, the disgraced businessman filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, which was still going on when Sire Spirits’ legal team secured a judgment lien against Green’s home in Westport, Conn., according to the court documents.

Green’s legal team had been providing court-ordered updates on the status of the property, always stating that Green was still in bankruptcy proceedings and therefore still had that automatic stay protecting his home. But last week, Sire’s attorneys asked the bankruptcy judge to get rid of the stay, saying that Green had no equity in the home due to the size of the judgment against him and therefore the property didn’t need to be part of his liquidation.

The judge agreed and lifted the stay.

The Connecticut home was appraised in late April at $1 million. That value will ultimately be credited against the judgment plus pre- and post-judgment interest, which now totals around $7 million.

Although Jackson has mentioned Branson Cognac recently on social media, he hasn’t said anything about the legal victory. In the last week, the rapper has been enjoying himself by poking fun at Sean “Diddy” Combs, a.k.a. “Puffy,” who is mired in a federal sex trafficking and conspiracy trial, where prosecution witnesses have been testifying.

“Cut, CUT … Wait a minute PUFFY’s got a gun, I can’t believe this I don’t feel safe … LOL,” Jackson wrote Tuesday on social media, posting screen shots of new testimony from Combs’ former assistant Capricorn Clark. Clark told the court that Combs said something about guns that she took as him making a threat against Jackson.

“Oh my goodness itty bitty Diddy wants me Dead,” the entrepreneur and provocateur said in a follow-up post. “I have to lay low, I think I’m gonna hide out at the playoff game tonight LOL.” He posted a comical picture of himself looking completely freaked out.

The New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers should be tipping off right about now.

It’s 6 a.m. in Brisbane, Australia, and Kaitlyn Dever is thinking about going to the beach. Except it’s pouring rain outside, which is the only reason she had the option to check out the waves in the first place. The deluge has delayed her call time for “Godzilla x Kong: Supernova,” the monster movie she’s been shooting for the past couple of months.

Just how hard is it raining? Like a normal downpour? Or is it the kind of deluge we see in the final minutes of the season finale of “The Last of Us”?

“It’s actually pouring like the finale of ‘The Last of Us,’” Dever says, laughing.

With the beach off the menu, we have plenty of time to settle in and talk about the bruising (and possibly confusing) season finale of “The Last of Us.” Anyone thinking that the finale might feature a showdown between Dever’s character, Abby Anderson, the young woman who killed Joel (Pedro Pascal) to avenge her father’s death, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who has been hunting Abby to exact her own revenge, might be disappointed.

Abby doesn’t turn up until the episode’s last three minutes. When she does finally arrive, she ambushes Ellie. It’s not a tender reunion.

“I let you live,” Abby hisses. “And you wasted it!”

Then we hear the sound of a gunshot and the screen goes black. After a reset, we see Abby lying on a sofa in an entirely different environment, being beckoned from her respite to meet with militia leader Isaac (Jeffrey Wright). She strides to a balcony in Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, the stadium now being used as a base for the Washington Liberation Front. Her entrance is positively papal, and as Abby surveys the scene, a graphic lands on the screen: Seattle Day One, a time frame we’ve already lived from Ellie’s point of view.

What the hell just happened?

[Laughs] I don’t know. I have no idea.

It looks like the show just reset and we’ll be starting Season 3 following Abby for three days, leading up to her confrontation with Ellie.

One would think, yes. But [“The Last of Us” co-creator] Craig [Mazin] hasn’t talked to me about what he’s doing. All he said to me was, “Just get ready for what’s to come because it’s going to be crazier.” He always said he wanted to make Season 2 bigger than Season 1, and he said Season 3 is going to be even bigger. I’m like, “OK. I’ll be ready.”

How did he pitch you on doing the show in the first place?

At my first meeting with Craig and Neil [Druckmann, co-creator of “The Last of Us” game] they told me that their plan for Season 2 was Abby’s introduction to “The Last of Us” world. They told me the number of episodes, so I wasn’t super surprised about that, though I wasn’t thinking that the entire season was going to end on me. [Laughs]

So when you got the script and read that ending …

I was like, “We’re really doing this. Wow.” It’s a lot of pressure. I always think about the times in my past when I’ve done things and I’ve had one line in a scene, and it’s the most nerve-racking thing to do. Everyone else has dialogue, and you’re just thinking about your one line and how you’re going to say it and if you screw it up, the whole scene is screwed up because of your one line. It’s pretty terrifying — but thrilling too.

You’re talking about Abby telling Ellie, “You wasted it”? You really spit it out with some heat.

That’s good to know. I was going back and forth between Vancouver and L.A., so I constantly had to recalibrate and get back into the emotional intensity of Abby. That was actually the last scene I shot.

How did you find your way back into Abby’s anger?

Well, the very first scene I shot was the killing of Joel. The light one. [Laughs] So getting back into it, I’d always go back to that and Abby’s monologue, what she says to Joel before shooting him. Those words are so visceral and heartbreaking and really paint a picture. So I just kept bringing myself back to that place, how I’d been thinking about saying those words for five years.

Did you watch that Joel episode when it aired or had you already seen it?

I did watch it with my partner. But the first time I watched it, I was by myself. And before that, I had gone to do ADR [automated dialogue replacement] with Craig, and he asked, “Can I just show you a little bit of it?” And I was on the floor because I was so overwhelmed. That is the most intense episode of television I’ve ever seen. And then when I watched it later, I couldn’t believe it, even though I had experienced it myself.

You had experienced it, but you’ve said you don’t really remember filming it because it was four days after your mother’s funeral. [Dever’s mother, Kathy, died from breast cancer in February 2024.] In some ways, it must have been like you were watching it for the first time.

I had to fly out three days after her funeral. And the fourth day was that scene in the chalet with the Fireflies and Joel on the floor. So, yeah, it’s all a blur, and it felt like I got to experience it as a first-time viewer. I’d see things and go, “Oh, yeah.” Grief does a really interesting thing with your brain. It messes with your memory.

Filming the scene where you brutally kill one of the most beloved characters on television goes back to what you were saying about pressure. And to do it under those circumstances must have been overwhelming.

I was terrified. I had spent so much time contemplating my mom’s death before she died, thinking about how I wouldn’t be able to go on. I couldn’t imagine. And then it’s a heartbreaking thing to think about, how life moves on. And you have the choice to keep going or not go to Vancouver and do the show that she was so excited about me doing. And then after she passed, I realized there’s no part of me that couldn’t not do this. I had to do it for her.

How did you fight past the fear?

My dad really encouraged me. I really was terrified. And he was like, “You got this. Mom was so excited that you got to be in this show.” And luckily, the crew was so understanding and supportive. Everyone took care of me.

Then it’s 15 months later and the episode finally airs, which I’d imagine brings about a different set of worries. Did you go online to check out the reaction?

Of course I did! I kill everyone’s favorite character, the love of everyone’s life. I’d never been part of anything this massive before. Like, the whole world is watching this. I had no idea what to expect.

And what did you find?

It was more positive than I thought it would be.

I didn’t play the game, so one of my first thoughts after watching it was: Wow, gamers can keep a secret.

They can. I loved watching all those TikTok videos where people were filming their parents or partners watching and showing their reactions.

Having played the game, you’ve known about Abby and Joel for years.

My dad was playing the second game and handed me the controller and said, “Kaitlyn, you’ve got to see this.” In the game, it’s so jarring and shocking.

On TV too!

[Laughs] But with the game, after they kill Joel, all of a sudden you’re playing as a woman. And my first reaction was, “Is this Ellie? Am I playing as Ellie?” It is interesting how they take these two characters who are mirrors of each other in many ways.

I was thinking about how it’d be great if Season 3 would have an episode with Abby and her father that mirrored the one with Ellie and Joel.

That’s a really good idea. I hope we get to do something like that.

I have a feeling you might. Maybe you even know something about that. [Laughs]

Honestly, I can keep a secret too! I knew about Joel dying long before even Season 1 because I had met with Neil years ago when they were talking about making a movie from the game. And he was showing me the making of the second game and asked, “You want to know what happens?” And I’m like, “Oh, my God!” So I’ve been keeping this in a long time.

So you’re good at keeping a secret. Gamers know how Season 3 is likely to develop. You’ve played the game. Are you being coy?

[Laughs] We don’t know what Craig’s plans are. He has been playing with dynamics, even in that first episode of the season where we see Abby taking charge and being a leader.

She sure looks like she’s a leader in the finale’s last scene.

That scene plays at the idea that Abby is sitting in her power. And whatever that means, I will keep to myself for now. People who have played the game will have a few guesses.

When you went to work on “Godzilla x Kong: Supernova” the day after the Abby/Joel episode aired, did people treat you a little differently? Maybe keep their distance a bit? Hide the golf clubs?

It was pretty wild to go to work that day. Everyone wanted to talk about it. And all they could really get out was, “Oooooof, that episode.”

One thing I kept looking for all season was where they used CGI to remove a spider bite from your face. I couldn’t find it.

[Laughs] It’s in the first episode with the Fireflies. I had gone home for a few weeks and got a spider bite on my cheek. I thought it was a pimple. It was not a pimple. It was a huge spider bite and … I hate to use this word, but it was oozing. And the CGI is amazing. You can’t even tell it is there. I still have a scar on my face because they had to cut it out.

So, to summarize: a very eventful shoot for you.

For many reasons. I’ll never forget it.

This story is full of spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, especially the finale.

Season 2 of HBO’s “The Last of Us” ends with the ultimate cliffhanger (seriously, if you have not seen and do not want to know, please stop reading right now): An Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) vs. Ellie (Bella Ramsey) face-off in which only Abby has a weapon. As Ellie cries out, a gun goes off and … we are sent back in time to Day 1, Abby’s viewpoint.

So if any of y’all were looking for some kind of closure, emotional or narrative, well, you have got a bit of a wait.

The episode itself played out like a mini-epic. Picking up where last week’s mostly flashback episode ended, Ellie returns to the theater to find Jesse (Young Mazino) tending to Dina (Isabela Merced), who got an arrow through the leg, courtesy of the Seraphites, in Episode 5. When Dina refuses an anesthetic slug of alcohol during the proceedings, Jesse gets the wind up. As he and Ellie then set out to find Tommy (Gabriel Luna), he (kinda) tricks Ellie into revealing Dina’s pregnancy.

That admission only adds fuel to the tension between Ellie, with her obsessive need to make Abby pay for killing Joel, and Jesse, who is angry at Ellie for putting her personal desire for revenge above the needs of the community back in Jackson. High words are spoken before the two split up, with Jesse going to search for Tommy, Ellie to continue tracking Abby.

After a frankly weird hero’s journey in which she braves stormy seas and faces execution by the Seraphites, Ellie makes it to the abandoned aquarium to find Abby. There she surprises Mel (Ariela Barer) and Owen (Spencer Lord), two of the former Fireflies who were with Abby when she killed Joel (Pedro Pascal). When Owen reaches for a gun, Ellie fires, shooting him through the throat. The bullet also, alas, hits Mel, who reveals her advanced pregnancy and, as she bleeds out, begs Ellie to cut the baby out. Horrified, Ellie can do no such thing, and Mel dies even as Jesse and Tommy show up.

It’s a powerful and terrible scene. Upon their return to the safety of the theater, Ellie is, understandably, very shaken and appears to be rethinking the wisdom of her revenge tour when Abby shows up and kills Jesse (sob). As Ellie takes responsibility for Mel and Owen’s deaths and struggles to explain, we see her original fury reflected in Abby’s face. She points the gun at Ellie, a shot rings out and the story resets on Day 1 of the outbreak.

The Times’ Lorraine Ali, Tracy Brown and Mary McNamara discuss the finale and the season that came before it.

McNamara: As someone who has not played the game but has watched a lot of television, I am going to make the wild guess that Ellie is not dead. Not that I expect to discover this for quite a while, as the final scene indicates that Season 3 will be giving us Abby’s backstory before bringing us (one hopes) back to the theater and the series’ present.

This finale, like much of what preceded it, felt both rushed and oddly slow. This season has been very much (and at times too obviously) focused on Ellie’s growth, as a person and a main character. And with the exception of her love for Dina, I’m not sure how much is there. That Ellie is relentless has been made abundantly clear; ditto the fact that she is confused about her purpose in life. But I admit I was relieved when Jesse read her the riot act about how this mission of vengeance put so many people in danger, including and especially the woman Ellie claims to love.

The stakes in Season 1 were very clear — get Ellie to where she can be used to make a cure — even if they were subverted in the end. This season, the main tension appears to be more about Ellie becoming mature enough to accept that not all heroes have to make dramatic sacrifices or win a blood feud.

That’s a fine message, but it required a lot of attention on her emotional growth, which honestly seemed to occur mostly in the final few minutes, while offering only tantalizing slivers of the larger forces around her. How do you introduce a crazy cult and not offer any real explanation for it? How do you enlist Jeffrey Wright (or for that matter, Hettienne Park) as WLF commanders and then give them so little to do? Not to mention poor Mel and Owen, who are sacrificed, apparently, merely to broaden Ellie’s worldview.

I realize that some of this is about staying true(ish) to the game, which I understand offers different viewpoints, but even with the action-packed finale, it’s hard not to feel like Season 2 was simply a preamble to Season 3. What do you think, “Last of Us” player Tracy Brown?

Brown: I have to agree with you, Mary — the finale’s pacing felt a bit awkward as it barreled its way toward the perspective shift into Abby’s side of the story that will likely be the focus of Season 3, while also trying to pack in familiar moments from the game. I also think you’re feeling a version of the confusion and frustration that “The Last of Us: Part II” players felt when Ellie and Abby’s showdown at the theater abruptly cut to something completely different and you’re suddenly being forced to play as the character you’ve spent hours trying to hunt down.

In the game, up until that cliffhanger, you’ve primarily been playing as Ellie outside of a few sequences before Joel’s death. Players don’t learn much about the Washington Liberation Front or the Seraphites or their conflict until they get to Abby’s side of the story. And when you’re playing a game, you’re used to knowing only as much as the character you’re playing as and learning more about any enemies as you go. You’re also much more mission-oriented — as great as a game’s story is, you’re main focus is gathering as much information as you can to accomplish your goal. The mission and the themes are a bit more straightforward in the first “Last of Us” game.

In “The Last of Us: Part II,” there’s a bait and switch. You start the game’s main storyline playing as Ellie, with the assumption that your mission is to get revenge, only to find yourself suddenly playing as Abby. Because “Part II” is more about an exploration of trauma and cycles of violence, Abby and her story have to be more than something you learn about as Ellie. In the game, the perspective shift is essential and revelatory because, navigating any discomfort while playing as Abby is part of the experience. It’s something dependent on the unique way players become attached to characters they play as.

In television, stories can unfold differently. Because audiences are not playing as Ellie, they can be introduced to Abby’s ties to the events in Salt Lake City and characters like Isaac (Wright) much sooner than in the game because we’re not locked into one point of view. And that freedom brings its own challenges. I should also mention that as acclaimed as the franchise is, “Part II” was a bit more divisive among players too. Lorraine, what did you think about the finale?

Ali: You’ve both expressed many of the same feelings I have about the finale and about Season 2 in general. Does that mean I can have the night off? If I took my cues from Ellie, I’d do just that. Ellie predictably put her own interests above everyone and everything else, which didn’t leave much room for an interesting story twist or character growth in the Season 2 finale. To Mary’s point about pacing, Episode 7 spent precious time hammering away on what we already know: Ellie’s need for revenge put everyone who cares about her in danger. Poor Dina. The only way Jesse was getting that crossbow bolt out of her leg was pulling it straight through. The credits are nearly ready to roll by the time Ellie realizes her single-minded quest is as barbaric as Abby’s killing of Joel, but not before she gunned down a pregnant woman.

Tracy, I wonder if the trouble the show had picking out where to spend its time is partly a game-to-TV adaptation problem. You mentioned the shifting perspectives in the game, of players seeing the world through Ellie’s and then Abby’s eyes. But serieswatchers are a passive audience and that left the show with a lot of options to tackle and/or leave out. The finale’s hopscotching from scenario to scenario appeared like it was born out of duty rather than purpose. Ellie’s choppy boat ride, the rogue wave washing her ashore, her capture and release at the hands of the cult — all were colorful and dramatic but felt abrupt and even extraneous to the story. That said, the decaying Costco storefront was a nice touch even if it was totally random.

Lastly, I loved the Seattle-centric soundtrack and poster choices of grunge bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. But a lot of great female bands came out of the Pacific Northwest too, and I can’t help but feel the feral screams of 7 Year B— would have been a perfect soundtrack for Ellie’s rage. So what do we all think about the last moments of the finale, which set us up for Season 3?

McNamara: I love the granular music criticism, Lorraine! For the life of me, I could not figure out what to make of Ellie’s brief capture by the Seraphites, which felt a lot like finale padding — don’t forget the crazy cult in the woods about which we know nothing yet! — or even her “Twelfth Night”-like near-drowning. (“What country, friends, is this?”)

I can see how the switch from Ellie to Abby might work in the game — you’ll never understand your “enemy” until you walk a mile in her shoes — but for a series to flip viewpoints seasonally (as opposed to episodically) is a big ask for viewers, especially those not familiar with the game.

With the exception of Ellie and Dina’s burgeoning relationship, much of this season felt like a big teaser reel for Season 3. Ramsey is a talented actor, but the task of carrying the show by portraying a recognizable teen on a complicated existential journey in the middle of a life-or-death adventure tale is a formidable one, especially without the benefit of an older, wiser guide/co-star. But then no one said adapting a game to a series would be easy.

As for the final moments, well, as I said, I don’t think Ellie’s dead, though Jesse certainly is, which is tragic — he and Tommy were the real heroes of Season 2. I am intrigued by the “Day 1“-ness of the final scene. I always like when postapocalyptic tales take the time to explain how it all went down. So I will be counting the months to see what happens next, which I suppose is what every TV writer wants.

Brown: I’ll refrain from spoiling Ellie’s fate here, even though the game with the answer came out in 2020! But I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the cut to Abby’s “Seattle Day 1” signals the show is likely sticking to the structure of the game — meaning Season 3 will tell Abby’s story, following the former Firefly for the same three days that Ellie has spent in the Emerald City leading up to their violent reunion. If the show stays true to the game, we won’t be seeing what happens to Ellie following that cliffhanger gunshot until the story reaches that part of “Day 3” from Abby’s perspective. Sorry, Mary!

I was a bit surprised when I realized the show was going to follow this same route, especially after it introduced Abby’s backstory so early. One of the perks of television is that it’s possible to follow the multiple storylines of more than one character, so I thought the show might try weaving Ellie and Abby’s narratives a bit more. One benefit of following the game’s road map, though, is there are distinct breaks in the overall story to build seasons around. (I’m calling it now that the Season 3 finale will be around their clash at the theater again.)

Back to Lorraine’s point, I do think that some of the struggles of this season comes down to the choices around which game moments to give space to. Some game-to-TV moments were very successful, like Joel taking Ellie to the museum for her birthday in Episode 6. Others, like Ellie taking that boat to get to the aquarium, were a bit less successful. Ellie getting tossed around those waves was a great nod to that sequence in the game, but on the show, it wasn’t as clear why she even needed to hop on the boat to begin with.

We’ve all mentioned how Dina and Ellie’s relationship has been one of the highlights of this season. Without spoiling anything, what I am most curious about is how Ellie’s excitement around Dina’s pregnancy and becoming a dad is going to affect the story to come. How about you, Lorraine, is there hope for “The Last of Us” to win you back?

Ali: There is always hope, Tracy, even in the blighted, rotting, fungus-filled world of “The Last of Us.” My meager hope for the Season 3 opener? That Ellie emerges a survivor, and her comeback scene is set to Pearl Jam’s “Alive.”

Hannah Gutierrez, the weapons handler in the ill-fated Alec Baldwin western movie “Rust,” has been released from prison after serving 14 months for her conviction last year of involuntary manslaughter.

Gutierrez was released Friday from a New Mexico women’s prison after completing her sentence in the accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021.

Gutierrez was one of three people charged in Hutchins’ death on the movie set south of Santa Fe, N.M., but the only one who received a felony conviction. A jury found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death following a dramatic two-week trial last year in Santa Fe.

New Mexico prosecutors faulted the Arizona woman for reckless handling of firearms and ammunition in violation of gun safety rules.

The special prosecutor also argued that Gutierrez had unwittingly brought the live bullets with her to the popular western film location, Bonanza Creek Ranch, and mingled them with inert “dummy” bullets used on film sets.

Gutierrez has denied that allegation. There was no conclusive evidence presented about the origins of the live bullets.

Baldwin, who pointed the gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal, also was charged. He pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter for the shooting that killed the 42-year-old cinematographer, a rising star in the industry, and wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza.

The New Mexico judge overseeing the “Rust” criminal prosecutions, New Mexico 1st Judicial District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, dismissed the charge against Baldwin three days into his high-profile trial last July.

Marlowe Sommer found the prosecutor and Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies had concealed evidence from Baldwin’s legal team, which the judge said prejudiced the case against Baldwin. At the time, the actor-producer’s team was exploring whether prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies botched the investigation into how the bullets made their way onto the set.

Assistant director David Halls was also charged in the shooting.

Halls pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended six-month sentence, which ended in October 2023. Halls, who has since retired from the industry, agreed to pay a $500 fine, participate in a firearms safety class, refrain from taking drugs or alcohol and complete 24 hours of community service.

Gutierrez had received the maximum sentence for her role.

She was released on parole. She also is being supervised under terms of probation after pleading guilty to a separate charge of unlawfully carrying a gun into a Santa Fe bar that prohibited firearms a few days before the fatal shooting, according to the Associated Press.

Terms of her parole include mental health assessments and a ban on firearms possession.

Gutierrez, through her attorney, declined an interview request Sunday.

“When I took on ‘Rust,’ I was young and I was naive but I took my job as seriously as I knew how to,” Gutierrez told the judge during her April 2024 sentencing hearing.

Marlowe Sommer, who also presided over the armorer’s case, gave Gutierrez the maximum sentence, saying: “You were the armorer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. .. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon.”

With Gutierrez’s release, the criminal phase of the “Rust” saga has concluded.

Several civil lawsuits against Baldwin and the producers, including from Hutchins’ family members, remain unresolved.

Baldwin and other actors and crew members finished filming in Montana, 18 months after the fatal shooting in New Mexico. The movie was finally released in the U.S. this month on just a handful of screens.

The October 2021 shooting shined a harsh light on film set safety, particularly on low-budget productions.

“Rust” was racked with problems, including allegations of safety rules and hiring inexperienced crew members such as Gutierrez. “Rust” was just her second job as head armorer. She also was tasked with the job of prop assistant.

Hours before the fatal shooting, “Rust” camera crew members had walked off the job to protest safety concerns and a lack of housing near the film’s set. Crew members complained about earlier accidental gun discharges.

Gutierrez is the stepdaughter of well-known Hollywood armorer Thell Reed.

Marking an extraordinary reversal of fortune, including stints in prison and house arrest during years of clandestine work when he was forbidden by authorities from directing, Iran’s Jafar Panahi triumphed at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, winning the event’s top award, the Palme d’Or, for “It Was Just an Accident.”

Appearing to bask in the vindication, Panahi clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back seated in sunglasses, savoring the moment while those around him stood in an ovation.

“It Was Just an Accident,” a tense drama of retribution about a torturer’s abduction by his victims, will be released in 2025 on an as-yet-unannounced date by Neon, the distributor that can now claim an unprecedented six-Palme winning streak, after 2019’s “Parasite,” 2021’s “Titane,” 2022’s “Triangle of Sadness,” 2023’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and 2024’s “Anora” all prevailed. (There was no festival held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Through a translator, Panahi accepted his award humbly and spoke to the universal impulse to make art. “We don’t know why we do it,” he said. “It’s something I watch my small children do. They sing and dance before they can speak. But it’s another language. It could be a language of unification.”

This year’s Cannes jury was chaired by the veteran French star Juliette Binoche, who deliberated with a group sourced from several countries and disciplines. Jury members included the American actors Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong, India’s Payal Kapadia (director of “All We Imagine as Light”) and Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo.

Cannes’ runner-up award, the Grand Prix, went to “Sentimental Value,” a domestic drama about a family of artists directed by Norway’s Joachim Trier, who broke through in 2021 with “The Worst Person in the World,” which earned two Oscar nominations.

The festival’s Jury Prize — essentially third place — was shared by two movies: Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât” and Mascha Schilinski’s “Sound of Falling.” Ties are not unusual in this category; they’ve occurred as recently as 2022 and as far back as 1957, when Cannes honored both Ingmar Berman’s “The Seventh Seal” and Andrzej Wajda’s “Kanał.”

Taking both the directing prize and the award for best actor was Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent,” a Brazilian crime thriller set in 1977 starring Wagner Maura (“Civil War”). In the hotly contested category of best actress, where on-the-ground predictions varied between Jennifer Lawrence (“Die, My Love), Elle Fanning (“Sentimental Value”) and Zoey Deutch (“Nouvelle Vague”), Nadia Melliti pulled off an upset for her turn in “The Little Sister,” about a French Algerian teen living in Paris and coming out to her Muslim family.

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Leave it to Kelly Reichardt, who turned Michelle Williams into a seething sculptor with frenemy issues in “Showing Up,” to make the gentlest, most self-deprecating heist movie imaginable. As such, she’s invented a whole new genre. The year is 1970 but don’t expect anything Scorsesian to go down here. Rather, this one’s about a half-smart art thief (Josh O’Connor, leaning into loser vibes) who, after snatching canvases of a lesser-known modernist from an understaffed Massachusetts museum, suffers grievously as his plan unravels. Reichardt, herself the daughter of law enforcement, is more interested in the aftermath: hypnotically awkward kitchen conversations with disappointed family members who won’t lend him any more money and would rather he just clear out. (The exquisite period-perfect cast includes Alana Haim, Bill Camp, Hope Davis and John Magaro.) Danny Ocean types need not apply, but if you hear skittering jazz music as the soundtrack of desperation, your new favorite comedy is here. — JR

Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, who plays chain-smoking crisis manager Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan’s latest hit “Landman,” seems like a guy who can’t be intimidated. But get him in a room with Allison Janney and the truth comes out.

“I was afraid of you,” he tells her sheepishly on The Envelope’s Emmy Roundtable for drama actors.

“Really?” says Janney, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning performer who appears as cunning Vice President Grace Penn on the Netflix political thriller “The Diplomat.”

“The first time I met Allison, it was at another press function thing,” he says to the room. “And just seeing you, as an actor, and parts you play … But also, you have this very dignified quality about you.”

“It’s my height, I think.”

“No,” he continues. “You just have the face of someone who is powerful and really intelligent. So some idiot like me comes in, and I’m like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t talk to her.’”

This is what happens when you gather seven Emmy contenders whose performances so convincingly shape our perceptions of who they are in real life. This year’s group also included Sterling K. Brown, who plays Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent seeking the truth in Hulu’s “Paradise”; Britt Lower, who plays both wealthy heiress Helena Eagan and defiant data refiner Helly R. in Apple TV+’s “Severance”; Jason Isaacs, who plays Timothy Ratliff, an American financier desperately trying to keep a secret from his family in HBO’s “The White Lotus”; Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a senior attending physician at a Pittsburgh trauma center in Max’s “The Pitt”; and Kaitlin Olson, who plays the underestimated but brilliant police consultant Morgan Gillory in ABC’s “High Potential.”

Read on for excerpts from our discussion about how they tap into their layered performances, navigate the business and more — and watch video of the roundtable below.

Tell me about an “Oh, my God, did that just happen?” moment — good or bad — from your early years on a Hollywood set. Kaitlin, your first credit was “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” I can’t imagine what it’s like making Larry David laugh.

Olson: Oh, you just have to scream in his face and insult him, and then he thinks that’s really, really funny. But yeah, there were no marks and there were no lines. So I didn’t really have an “Oh, my God” moment. You just talk and shut up when you should shut up.

Isaacs: On my first day [on 1989’s “The Tall Guy”], I remember I arrived first thing in the morning. I was playing Surgeon No. 2 in a dream sequence that Jeff Goldblum was in. The director, who’s hassled and busy, he goes, “OK, we’re going to start with you. We’re coming in on the dolly. But because I’m on a very wide lens, if you could start the eyeline somewhere near the bottom of the jib and then just go to the corner of bottle, then take it to the edge of the matte box when we’re getting close.” And I went, “Right … What the f— did any of those words mean?” Jeff is just out of frame. And he’s in his underpants, and it’s a dream sequence for him. And we’re just about to go and roll the cameras, and Jeff goes, “Hold on a second.” And he stands up and he starts standing on a chair reciting Byron love poems even though he was not in the shot. I’m like, “I don’t understand what the hell is going on here.” Years later, I sat next to him at a wedding and I said, “Do you remember that night?” He went, “Yeah.”

Have there been moments where you fell out of love with acting or where you felt like, “This isn’t working out”?

Janney: My career didn’t start till I was 38 or something, because I’m so tall, and I was literally uncastable. I went to the Johnson O’Connor [Research Foundation]. And I did three days of testing to see what else I could possibly do.

Issacs: What is that?

Janney: It’s an aptitude testing place. They ask you to do all this stuff, and at the end of it they say, “This is what you should be.” And they told me I should be a systems analyst. I had no idea what that was. And the next day, I got cast understudying Faith Prince and Kate Nelligan in “Bad Habits,” a play at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Brown: I’ve never fallen out of love with it. I was an economics major in college who wound up switching to drama. When I got out of grad school and [was] hopping around through regional theater, I wound up booking a TV show, “Army Wives,” for six years, and a few years into the show, I was like, “I think I’ve done everything that I want to do with the character.” So when they came dangling the carrot for people to reup after Season 6, I was like, “I’m curious to see what else the universe has in store.” I was able to pay off student loans. We had our first child, I had a home and I was like, “Let’s take a gamble on Brown.” I did a pilot for AMC that didn’t get picked up; then had a recurring [role] on “Person of Interest” for six episodes. I was like, “Oh, man, I got a wife and a kid and a house. Did I mess up? Should I have stayed on the show or not?”

Then I auditioned for [“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”], and I didn’t hear anything for four months. I was down in New Mexico shooting this movie, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” and I was having this really sort of morbid moment of going through my IMDb Pro account and looking at everybody who had booked all of the things that I had auditioned for. I was like, “Oh, Bokeem Woodbine booked Season 2 of ‘Fargo.’ Good for him.” And I got a call from my manager saying, “They want you to screen test with Sarah Paulson for this thing.” I was the only person that they brought in to audition for it.

Your series are largely confronting or commenting on real-world anxieties or subjects that are changing in our world in real time. Noah, with Dr. Robbie and what he says about what’s going on in the healthcare system — we’re seeing him cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. We’re seeing stories that are very timely about vaccinations. Talk about what was important to you with this series and what you wanted to show through these characters.

Wyle: “ER” was very much a patient-centric show in a lot of ways. And this was more of an exercise to be practitioner- and physician-centric, to really show the toll that the last five years since COVID has taken on that community. The thesis being that it is as fragile as the mental health of the people that we have in those jobs and the quality’s what we received. Even though we had to peer into a crystal ball and try to figure out a year ago what would be the topical cases of today, we were really more interested in how everybody’s coping mechanisms have allowed them to practice what they’ve been doing for the last five years. How they’ve compartmentalized the toll it’s taken on them personally, and explore that in real time. Aggregate tension on a shift where you’re just embedded with them without release. The outset was more about identifying the mental health of the practitioner than identifying the ills in society … Can I just say how effing cool it is to sit at this table with you all and be the uncool one to say that I feel like my impostor syndrome is off the rails right now?

Olson: No way.

Hopefully you’ll all guest star on each other’s shows by the time this is over.

Janney: I would love that.

Britt, what really spoke to me about “Severance” was its exploration of grief, but within that too, there’s the corporate overreach and the work-life balance that I think all of us can appreciate. Did it show you anything about how you navigate your work-life balance or what you could do better?

Lower: The cast talks a lot about how the “Severance” procedure is kind of like what we do for a living. We go to work and put on a different outfit and assume a new identity. There were some moments where you’re walking down the corridors on the way to your job, and there’s kind of this meta quality of being inside of a show about compartmentalizing and switching into a different part of yourself. But I think it’s so relatable. I think we do that as humans. We show up differently in different spaces in our lives, whether it’s work or home or going home for the holidays, versus your baseball team. You just put on a different person really.

Isaacs: If I go away to do a job on location somewhere, I can actually — even at my ripe old age; I’m a father and I’m a husband — just park my life and forget that. Now I see that metaphor very clearly and it’s irresponsible. I’m so much more comfortable in the fictitious world than I am in the real world.

Do you feel like there’s a misconception that you guys are just all at the pool?

Isaacs: I’m not really an actor anymore; I just do “White Lotus” publicity for a job. And in the billions of interviews, people expect you to say, “It was a holiday. We were in this resort.” Well, we’re not really in the resort. So I’ve said a few times, “You make friends. You lose friends, romances or whatever; things happen between departments and all the backstage drama that we’re all used to.” Well, the online world went mad trying to deconstruct, trying to work out who knew who and who was [doing what]. Actually, I’m talking about all the crew and all the departments — not that it’s anyone’s business. But it’s trying to deconstruct what we all think of each other. And what happened there is so much less interesting than Mike White’s brilliant stories. You shouldn’t be interested in who went to dinner with who. I kind of wish I hadn’t opened my mouth about it, but I don’t want to pretend it was a holiday. Not just the way that the show blew up but also the level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking, and I’m quite glad that it’s abating now. I’d like to return to my normal life, but I don’t know how people who are uber-famous deal with it.

Billy Bob, how did you come to navigate it? You’ve experienced the extreme effects of that.

Thornton: You mean in the world of Hollywood and all that?

Isaacs: Do you go to the supermarket, take the subway … Do you do the stuff I do?

Thornton: It depends on what year it is. I’ve gone through times where I couldn’t go anywhere. Once my life got bigger, and that really happened with … I mean, I was a working actor doing OK, but “Sling Blade” is the one that, literally overnight, it was a crazy thing. From that point on, it’s been pretty steady. What I’ve done to not get involved in all that is I don’t really go anywhere. I’m either working or I’m at home with the family or in a recording studio or on the road. You don’t see me in the [tabloid] magazines, at the parties and all that kind of stuff.

I’ll put it this way. Right now, with “Landman,” we thought it was going to be successful. We had no idea that it was going to be like this. I mean, we’ve got fans in Iceland and stuff. I can’t go to a Walmart in Texas. It’s literally impossible. I tried it. I would walk three feet at a time. Texans, their personalities are also very big, and they don’t really come up and go, “Excuse me, mister.” It’s not like that. It’s like, “Hey man, what’s going on? Get in a picture with me.”

I’ve had a reputation — weirdo. Angelina and I were vampires. We drank each other’s blood. You look on the internet, and there’s some kind of thing you’re trying to look up and, inevitably, it’ll show something else. So you go, “I hate this. I hate the internet, but I got to see it.”

Isaacs: There’s no good version of you. You either look much better on the screen or much better in real life. I wanted to say [looks at Allison], because I was a huge “West Wing” fan, I did some “West Wing,” I couldn’t break out of thinking that Bradley [Whitford] and Janel [Moloney] were, in fact, Josh and Donna. Did people think you were that political? People assumed you were that character?

Janney: I’ve been such a disappointment for people who think that I am C. J. [Cregg, her character on “The West Wing”], because I couldn’t be less like her. I’m not that person who’s able to verbally cut someone down in the second that she needs to. It was so great to play her, but I remember when they had the Democratic National [Convention] in California and there were more people who came up to me and asked me, “After this is over, will you come work for us? Will you come to…” I’m like, “You don’t understand. I’m so not like that.” And now on “The Diplomat,” playing the president of the United States and the smartest person in the room, it’s so much fun for me to play those kind of women because I’m not [like that]. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but I know nothing about being in the world of politics or being manipulative.

Kaitlin, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is in its 17th season now. You’re on “Hacks.” When you’re signing on to something like “High Potential,” what factors do you consider when thinking about how long you want to commit to something?

Olson: I don’t ever want to play a character that starts to get old to me. “Sunny” doesn’t feel like that to me because it’s a satire and the world’s always providing us with new content. And we do eight to 10 episodes a season. So it’s 17 seasons, which is insane, but it’s not even 20 episodes. It’s so much fun, which is the reason I’m not sick of that character yet. But I feel the same way as you, [Allison], when I’m playing characters who are super-smart, and then I have to talk about it, I just go into panic mode.

How has it been getting into Morgan’s head?

Olson: I love the other characters that I play, but there’s heart to this, and she’s a good mom and she is very insecure but puts on a big show. I love that she’s scrappy and has to figure it out, and she trusts that she will and doesn’t rely on anybody else to help her figure it out. The most important thing are her kids. I think she’s just fascinating to play.

What’s the most impressive skill you picked up on the job? Noah, you know I’m going to start with you. You went to medical boot camp. You’ve done really well with sutures. You can intubate any one of us, I think.

Wyle: I’ve never performed one.

Isaacs: The night is young.

Wyle: I wish everybody an opportunity to slip into a role that you have such great muscle memory with from another aspect of your life when you play a musician or when you do circusing or whatever. When you do something you’ve done for so long, and then you get to do it again, it is just amazing how much it’s in your body and how you don’t have to worry about that stuff. There was a moment earlier where Sterling choked on the grape in the greenroom. I was so ready to intubate him, even if it wasn’t necessary.

Thornton: I went to air-traffic control school for “Pushing Tin,” so I can still say, “Delta 2376, turn left, 20-0-4-0” and “Clear the Alice approach one-four right, call the tower one-eight-three,” because you just don’t forget it. That’s not air-traffic control, that’s just a line. With Noah, he learns this skill that he has been doing over the years, and that kind of knowledge is invaluable. Anytime you have stuff to do, without just acting, like you’re doing busy work — you’re, like, here’s how you do an appendectomy — and you learn and when you’re picking up the right tools, you’re saying the right stuff, you’re making incisions — that stuff you’ve got to learn.

Isaacs: One of the great privileges of being an actor that maybe doesn’t show up onscreen is you get to walk in people’s shoes. I shadowed heart surgeons and plastic surgeons and politicians and criminals and soldiers, and it’s just an amazing privilege to be in people’s lives and talk about it. And there may be some tiny bit you pick up for the screen.

One may be the loneliest number, but No. 2 is what sent Shaquille O’Neal urgently mincing off the “Inside the NBA” stage last month while the cameras kept running.

O’Neal copped to the truth Thursday night during his 18th appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” giving what might be more detail than anyone needed about that sudden departure in April.

First, he clung to the fib, saying, “I was drinking a lot of water that day. So I know I had the No. 2 run, but it was really a No. 1. So let’s just get that out of the way.”

He explained he was drinking olive oil at the time “to be sexy,” because he’d seen on Instagram that if he drank olive oil daily for 14 days, he would clean out his system and have a flat stomach. “So I was trying that.”

A laughing Fallon held his face in his hands.

“You know what,” O’Neal said. “I just made a mistake. I lied to you on national TV. It wasn’t a No. 1 run. It was a No. 2 run. I had to go bad. Oh, I had to go so bad.”

Fallon begged him to keep telling the lie. O’Neal asked whether the host had seen him squeezing his butt cheeks as he scooted away from the “Inside the NBA” desk.

Then Fallon showed a photo of what the crew did to O’Neal the next day: It put a blue porta-potty in studio on his side of the table.

Blessedly, the conversation then moved in a different direction.

Things were a bit more serious but no less amusing back in April when O’Neal got up while a co-host was in the middle of talking and — in a big hurry — walked awkwardly in front of his fellow panelists and out the stage door. Ernie Johnson Jr., Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley weren’t sure what was going on.

“You all right, big fella?” Barkley asked with a look of concern on his face.

As the camera (cruelly) followed him, O’Neal blurted to his co-hosts to “go ahead, keep talking” while one reminded him, “Hey, we’re on TV.”

“It’s that olive oil you’ve been drinking,” Barkley said. “Hey, take some matches with you.”

As the remaining hosts broke into giggles, Kenny Smith said, “After 40, you can’t hold it no more.”

“That wasn’t something planned, was it?” Ernie Johnson Jr. wondered.

Smith also noted that O’Neal had been drinking olive oil to clean out his system, saying, “Oh, he’s cleaning out his gut all right!”

“I did not like his gait as he left!” Johnson said.

And Barkley simply couldn’t move past the idea of the smell.

“Please turn his mic off, that’s all,” Smith quipped. Then, as Smith tried to return to talking about L.A. Clippers forward Kawhai Leonard, the team in TNT’s Studio J came through with the instant replay of Shaq bailing out. Instant. Freaking. Replay.

IN SLO-MO.

The three very professional analysts immediately began very professional analysis of O’Neal’s shambolic gait.

The big man returned fairly soon after that, mumbling something about drinking too much water and about Barkley talking way too long when he really needed to cut to a break.

“Sorry about that, America,” he said.

Seriously Shaq, you have absolutely no reason to apologize. As long as you remember the matches.

The murder heard around the world marks its fifth anniversary Sunday.

On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin put his knee on the neck of George Floyd and held it there for nearly 90 seconds. The incident was filmed by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier and went viral. Chauvin was eventually found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

The killing ignited international outrage and massive protests during a pandemic that had already rocked the nation. Floyd’s death further galvanized the grassroots Black Lives Matter movement, pivoted on a racial reckoning calling for remedies to the troubled history of justice for Black people in America. National news outlets extensively reported on numerous large and small corporations as they frantically scrambled to express solidarity with protesters, pledging reforms to address past shortfalls and improve diversity and equity.

While other noteworthy anniversaries of momentous events that have shaped the nation have often inspired documentaries and prime-time specials hosted by top news personalities, many TV news outlets are treating the Floyd anniversary with a more subdued tone.

That approach is taking place during another kind of urgent reckoning, propelled by the Trump administration’s assault on civil rights, which has been targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs and policies established in the wake of Floyd’s murder.

Some examinations of the effect of Floyd’s death on the nation and the justice system have moved forward. PBS and NewsNation are among venues planning packages reflecting on Floyd’s legacy. KMSP Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul has produced “After George Floyd,” which examines “what’s changed — and what hasn’t.” The hourlong documentary hosted by KMSP’s Symone Woolridge will be streamed on the Fox LiveNOW platform and will be available for Fox-owned-and-operated stations around the country. The report will air locally Friday and Sunday on KTTV Fox 11.

Other prominent media are taking more measured tones. Representatives for CBS, NBC and CNN said the outlets were planning some coverage but did not offer specific plans indicating a deeper dive into the incident and its effects. MSNBC, which is shaking up its programming after criticism by Trump for its left-leaning commentaries, did not respond to inquiries about their plans.

The Floyd anniversary arrives at the same time that MAGA conservatives and the Trump administration have engaged in relentless attacks on mainstream media outlets that have been critical of the president and his agenda. Fiery debates surrounding so-called wokeness have highlighted programs on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and others.

Among the venues that have come under fire is CBS News and “60 Minutes.” CBS News and Stations President Wendy McMahon stepped down earlier this week, saying in a note to staff that it was “clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward.” It’s the latest chapter between the company and its journalists over CBS’ handling of Trump’s lawsuit against the flagship news program.

Trump has also taken aim at ABC News, which agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

Speculating on the media coverage of the anniversary, Selwyn Jones, who is Floyd’s uncle, said in an interview that there are many people who believe “old systemic things” have not changed since his nephew’s death.

“It’s the reason why we still have escalated cases of police brutality and escalated cases of domestic violence,” he said. “George’s case completely shook up the whole world. It was the most catastrophic thing that people have ever seen, and it woke a lot of people up.”

Jones, who co-founded the Justice 929 Organization, a charity devoted to promoting civil rights and social change in honor of Floyd, was critical of the media and the justice system. “What I can assure you is that there are more people engaged in the social movement than ever before. Has the media kept up the pace with that? Absolutely not,” he said. “Are we seeing drastic changes in the laws? Absolutely not. That’s the political climate.”

Phillip Atiba Solomon, a psychologist and chair of African American Studies at Yale University, said he’s skeptical of news coverage that would suggest there’s been dramatic change. “I am concerned that there will be a lot of stories making assumptions about what the effects of what happened with George Floyd’s death have been,” he said. “I would hope that we are a changed country, but I’m not sure what I would point to say that’s definitely true.”

Solomon is co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity, which is labeled as the nation’s leading organization focused on eliminating racism in public safety. The organization partnered with Time magazine in early May to produce a special issue featuring interviews and essays examining the continuing struggle for racial justice.

He feared some media stories about the anniversary might misrepresent the progress of the last five years: “It is not clear to me that there has been a wholesale change in public safety — for sure not nearly as much as the nation was asking for at that time.”

Much of the Floyd coverage will be locally based.

Emily Stone, vice president of digital content for Fox TV stations, called Floyd‘s death “a national, major and relevant story that was horrible. We know folks will be interested in seeing the coverage from Minneapolis that we are offering from Fox LiveNow. We have the ability to take that perspective from our local station and amplify that to a national audience.”

Kelly Bishop-Huffman, news director of Fox’s KMSP, was the station’s assistant news director when the story about Floyd‘s death broke.

“We all felt an overwhelming feeling from the get-go that we were facing an overdue moment on what was going on in our country,” Huffman said. “The second I saw that video, I knew this was a line-in-the-sand moment.”

As for analyzing the current perspective of the killing, Huffman said raising awareness about the country’s racial reckoning shouldn’t stop. “There is progress in many areas, but maybe not as much as others,” she said. “We are trying to remain hyper-focused. You obviously have to look back, but we are concentrated on looking at the now and in looking forward, and that’s the concentration of our stories.”

For Jones, there is no such thing as too little coverage when it comes to Floyd’s death.

“If I could control all elements, we would be talking about George Floyd every day in the mass media,” Jones said. “Unfortunately, that can’t happen. But some things have a three-week shelf life. My nephew is going to have one weekend every year where everybody remembers the day that George Floyd changed the world.”

Here are other planned reports that could appear on national broadcasts in the coming days:

• ABC News national correspondent Alex Perez, one of the first reporters on the scene after Floyd’s death, and who also covered the protests and the aftermath, will file a report from George Floyd Square in Minneapolis. ABC-owned television stations in Texas and North Carolina will sit down with Floyd’s loved ones as they reflect on his life and legacy.
• CBS Minnesota is checking in with the Black community and Minnesotans to see how they are doing and feeling about the anniversary. Reporters will also interview local police, community members and city officials about the stalled plans to create a monument at George Floyd Square.
• Fred de Sam Lazaro, special correspondent for the PBS News Hour, will report on the status of racial justice and police reforms in Minneapolis, conducting interviews with Floyd’s family members and Medaria Arradondo, the Minneapolis police chief at the time of the incident.
• NewsNation is set to cover a commemorative walk at George Floyd Square on Saturday, with additional reporting during the weekend. “On Balance” anchor Leland Vittert, who covered the 2020 protests, will also offer his perspectives.

Who knows if Kendrick Lamar will sit for a formal deposition in Drake’s ongoing defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group, after Lamar flambéed him on “Not Like Us.” But at SoFi Stadium on Wednesday, Lamar and his co-headliner SZA had a great recurring bit imagining what might happen.

In a fake video montage played between set changeovers, Lamar responded to mock-questioning like, “When you said you want the party to die, was that a metaphor or are you serious?” and “Don’t you think disappearing is a form of attention-seeking?” by blowing him off and phoning in a big order of takeout. SZA then lighted up an enormous joint in the lawyer’s office.

The pair’s Grand National Tour is a triumph of the unbothered. Wednesday’s set — the first of a three-night SoFi stand — was a bountiful, meticulous three-hour show that centered on the camaraderie between two of the most important acts in contemporary music. They had a wicked sense of humor about the performance too. At one point, SZA seduced a giant, slicked-up praying mantis dancer. If only we all had the same leeway when deposed.

Lamar, coming off a pair of Grammy wins for “Not Like Us” and a gleefully petty Super Bowl halftime show, is at perhaps the peak of his career. So it’s worth noting how inspiringly egalitarian this hometown show was — a hierarchy-free split with former TDE labelmate SZA, often fully meshing their sets together for their on-record collaborations. The format brought new energy and understanding into their catalogs, all while the pair gassed each other up as virtuoso live performers.

On Wednesday, SZA arguably made the most of the stadium-sized opportunity. SZA is a powerhouse vocalist and musical omnivore with a stoner’s comic timing (most recently seen in the charming comedy film “One of Them Days”). But she’s now honed her stagecraft to be on par with any pop royalty. Between “Snooze” and “Crybaby,” she was lifted on wires, revealing a gauze train in the shape of a chrysalis, to spellbinding effect. It took some real mettle to then perform her ballad “Nobody Gets Me” midair.

A surprise cameo from Lizzo paid alms to their long friendship, and a bawdy slice of her verse from Drake’s “Rich Baby Daddy” proved she can own even a nemesis’ material with her charisma. When she spun “Garden (Say It Like Dat)” into “Kitchen,” the dancers’ delightfully goopy, insectoid costumes and monolithic ant sculpture felt like H.R. Giger taking mushrooms on a warm afternoon in Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area.

When she and Lamar shared the stage, as on the Oscar-nominated “All the Stars,” “30 for 30” and their respective solo cuts “Doves in the Wind” and “LOVE.,” there was an alchemy between two superfans, their physical presence across the diamond-shaped catwalks reinvigorating this long-beloved music.

At this point, Lamar’s case for being the best rapper alive is fully closed. Of course he is. Even if you thought the title was a little wobbly after the knotty, skeptical “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” the acid-bath of “Not Like Us” and the L.A-embodying surprise release “GNX” slammed the debate shut as it spun off hit after hit. Who else could make a pitch-perfect indictment of the current American political climate onstage at the Super Bowl halftime show, while needling his most loathed enemy and spinning off memes with just a quick grin in bootcut jeans?

At SoFi, a few miles from his old Compton backyard, he drew from that monumental catalog and recontextualized it for this club-ready, venom-streaked era. The show’s format covered more than 50 songs between the two artists, so even when he only got to a verse or two, there was always something new or bracing. Here, “m.A.A.d. city,” one of his hardest and cruelest street cuts, became a meta-R&B number that made the song even more eerie. On “Humble.,” he was flanked by female dancers posing in vicious geometric forms, physically embodying the ego-check of the song’s chorus.

The Drake flame-war material was delicious fun, from the shots-fired kickoff verse on “Like That” to the relentless, merciless taunts on “Euphoria.” But the “GNX” segments, like the Tupac-conjuring “reincarnated” and the ice-cold “peekaboo” (and, obviously, the great Mustard-y howl of “tv off”) made the case for how this album will continue to reveal new textures and resonate in L.A. lore. There wasn’t room for a five-times-reprised “Not Like Us” like at his history-making 2024 “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends” set. But when he did play it, it was less about his archenemy than about L.A., a city with a new song in the canon, a definitive “Us” who were all alike in screaming it.

It felt poignant that Lamar and SZA reunited again for the set’s closers, the unexpectedly relentless Hot 100 fixture “luther” (now at 13 weeks at No. 1) and “gloria,” Lamar’s bait-and-switch about his complicated relationship to his own writing process. With SZA as his Greek chorus, he ended the night on a note about how all this relentless work was worth it to arrive at real self-understanding. An ally that will never fail, no matter who out there is deposing you.

If we had planned it better (and had the budget for it), this interview with Conan O’Brien would been better suited to happen in Vatican City rather than a Zoom room.

Our conversation coincided with the start of the papal conclave, the hush-hush assembly of cardinals who gathered to elect a successor to Pope Francis, and O’Brien can’t help but reference the event when explaining his slight delay: “Sorry, it took me a second to figure out there was a passcode to get into this secret room,” he says. “It felt like I was joining a conclave.”

“I think you and I should put our own vote in,” he continues. “Why can’t they listen to us? Are you paying attention? Are you rooting for somebody?”

“I’m not rooting for anyone except Stanley Tucci,” I tell him, referring to the actor’s turn as a shrewd and calculated cardinal in last year’s “Conclave.”

“I love that you want Tucci. I love that you blurred the line between reality and drama.” (As we know by now, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected as the first U.S.-born pontiff, taking the name Pope Leo XIV. Sorry, Tucci.)

Absorbing the scene outside St. Peter’s Basilica alongside thousands of visitors from around the world is the sort of thing O’Brien and his crew might revel in on his Max travel show “Conan O’Brien Must Go.” The series, which will conclude its three-episode second season on Thursday, plays like a video postcard of silly and enlightening adventures as O’Brien travels around the world to meet with fans and experience different cultures. It carries on the tradition from his talk show era of international getaways and blends it with his podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.”

After venturing to Norway, Ireland, Thailand and Argentina in the show’s debut season, the second landed him in Spain, where hijinx included cuddling with actor Javier Bardem and doing Spanish voice-overs, and New Zealand, where he got lessons from one of Aotearoa’s leading cultural advisors and attempted to break a haka world record with filmmaker and actor Taika Waititi. It culminates with this week’s finale, which was filmed in Austria.

At this moment, he’s not on the go. He is beaming in from his home in Pacific Palisades, which he recently returned to after months of living in a hotel while smoke remediation and other restorative measures took place in the wake of January’s wildfires.

“We were so lucky, crazy lucky,” he says. “We live far enough so that we don’t have that thing where you walk out your front door and it looks like you’re on the moon.”

It’s one reason why the season is truncated: “Initially we were going to do four [episodes], but between my parents passing away and the Oscars and the fires, we just were like, ‘We could do three.’ I hope it doesn’t feel too short to people, but this is what we could do this time around.”

O’ Brien discussed standout moments from this season of “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” which has been renewed for a third season, his plans for his Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and making his feature film debut.

You cuddled with Javier Bardem. You did Spanish voice–overs. You dressed as Freud. You went to the snow globe museum. What moment stood out for you from these trips?

You can’t cuddle with Javier Bardem and wipe it from your memory. Be you man, be you woman — I don’t care which. It doesn’t matter. He crosses over all gender barriers. It was really fun to be in these ridiculous pajamas. A highlight with him is, there’s a scene where we’re eating together in a restaurant and we’re doing improv together. I’ve done improv with all the best improvisers in entertainment, he’s as good as anybody.

I loved being on the hill where Julie Andrews did “The Sound of Music.” And one of our writers, Jose Arroyo, wrote — obviously, you can’t do that song — this song about how we can’t do the song, which I loved and it’s one of the things I love to do, is come close to the thing. Like on the Oscars, do a musical number called “I won’t waste your time” — I love doing the thing and making it about not doing the thing. I have to say, [dressing up as] Freud was a standout, because I think I went a little insane. Sometimes when you put me in makeup and dress me up, I become the thing that I’m pretending to be.

And doing the haka [a traditional dance form of the Māori people] in New Zealand with thousands and thousands of people. I thought we were just going to do it once. As we’re doing it, I’m finding out in real time — because, you know me, when I do something, I do it 110% whether it’s going on “Hot Ones” or dancing the haka, I will put all the dials to 11 — so when I start dancing, I’m going all out and I’ve got Taika and I’ve got this whole crowd with me. Then I realized they’re not stopping. They’re doing it over and over and over again and you can’t stop because you’re in a stadium. When that was done, I felt like I needed to go to the hospital.

When you come up that hilltop in the lederhosen, I just thought, “What would Martin Short have to say about these shorts?”

Oh my God, you’re right. Marty Short would have 1,000 jokes about my legs: spam, freckles, pale. He would just be an immediate encyclopedia. I have to make sure that that episode does not air in Toronto, because I think he goes to Toronto for the summer.

A moment that killed me was at the snow globe museum when you asked about that life-size doll on the shelf, and the woman said it’s her father. But that wasn’t the best part. When you asked what his best advice for her was, and she said, to “f— around as much as possible as long as you’re not married.”

What’s fun is it reminds me of that thing that I’ve learned over and over and over again, and it’s one of the things that the travel show takes advantage of, and remotes [on location segments] in general take advantage of: You’re always on the hunt for a mistake. You’re always on the hunt for someone to say something you don’t expect. I couldn’t in a million years script what she said. The doll is so creepy that’s peeking out the window. I think one of the things that I really love about the travel show is I’m curious about other cultures. I’m curious about other people. I’m kind of on a mission to show Americans as humble and willing to be laughed at. But the ultimate treasure is someone saying something awkward or weird that I wasn’t expecting to me; once I get one of those, I’m like Gollum with the ring. I’m like [imitates Gollum voice], “Yes, yes, I can go back to my cave now,” and just “my precious, my precious.”

“Conan O’Brien Must Go” is essentially work trips. But how would your family describe your traveling persona?

I would say my wife, Liza, is the one who wants to be at the airport while they’re still building the plane. If she could, she’d be there days in advance. She’s the one who takes the lead on, “Here’s where we’re staying; I got a guide for this, I got a guide for that.” She is very organized about those things, which is a luxury. On the flight, I don’t sleep that much. My goal is show up in a country and get on their sleep schedule immediately — that I’m religious about. If that means I have to get a coffee enema, I’m getting a coffee enema. I’m going to do whatever I have to do, to stay up and get on their time zone.

I love to just wander. This is where my wife and I disagree — and it will be, eventually, the thing that destroys our marriage — is that she wants to go to the place that has the very best food. “Oh, it’s been written up in all these food magazines.” I don’t care about that. I want to go to the place where you sit outside and you see everybody. I love a tourist trap.

The show has been renewed for a third season. Are you in the process of narrowing down the places you’ll visit?

Yes, we’re in the process of looking through [locations].

Are you worried about the Trump tariffs? What this will mean of how you’re received or what’s possible?

It’s possible. I went to Haiti during Trump’s first term, after he called them a “s—hole country.” We went there and, at one point, there was a group of men who seemed very hostile; our interpreter said, “They’re not happy. They know you’re American and they’re not happy about you being here.” My instinct is always to go toward the thing and not just, “Get in the van and let’s get out of here.” With my interpreter, we showed them clips of who I am and what I do. We looked at about three minutes of “Conan” clips, and they’re like, “OK, he’s harmless. He seems to have no dignity, so let’s leave him alone.” But it’s a changing world. We’re in a moment right now where we seem to have a leader or a government that’s terrified of the outside world and wants to say, “OK, let’s build a moat and America first.” My instinct is known. I mentioned it in the Twain award speech, but now more than ever, we need to be out there representing our country in a positive way and trying to spread positivity. I’m hoping that we won’t be affected by it, and if we are, if we encounter a hostility, if we encounter difficulty, that will be part of the show. And if it’s not particularly funny, the show can allow for me making an attempt to bridge a gap or make a friend.

Speaking of your speech for the Mark Twain Prize, have you found a spot for the award now that you’re back in your home?

I’m weird about awards. I tend to put them in a closet. This one’s a little strange because it’s Mark Twain and he’s bare-chested. It’s like, what? Why can’t he put on a shirt? I might buy a little shirt for him, a little white suit. I’ll do something. I’ll figure it out. I don’t like a bare-chested Mark Twain, I’m sorry. I think it stops right at the nipple.

You always look like you’re having fun. Does the work you do now gratify you any differently than it did when you were starting out?

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it’s not that I didn’t like what I did before, but you have to meet whatever age you are. You have to meet wherever you are in your life. When I started in 1993 behind a desk in that format, I loved it. It was terrifying at times and there were a lot of difficulties and we almost didn’t make it, but I loved going in there and living in Studio 6A; then I loved the different iterations of the show over the years, and even the brief time I was doing “The Tonight Show.” But then I got to a point where it became clear to me, “I’ve done this for 28 years. I need to go and explore these other things.” Because you can’t stay still. You have to, for lack of a better word, evolve. And there was a nice series of events — trying the podcast, which is now almost six years old, and realizing: Oh my God, I’ve talked to these people before for a total of seven minutes at a time and then I would have to throw to commercial, and the band would play. Now I’m talking to them for 45-50 minutes and it’s magical. That, of course, led to the travel show — also the previous travel shows had shown me that I had a real wanderlust. When you’re at a talk show desk, the idea of going to Geneva and getting into an altercation with somebody at a chocolate bunny factory just sounds amazing. I was doing that even before I had time to do it on the TBS show. And now being able to do it at Max affords us the ability to do it with drones. I love the open of our show because it’s sets just the right tone so solemn and self important and and also vicious towards me. All of that makes me really happy.

How about deciding to act in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”? Did it feel like you were pushing yourself out of your element?

I was definitely pushing myself out of my element. When I said yes to the Oscars, it was, “You get one life, try these things.” “Legs” happened because [the film’s writer and director] Mary Bronstein contacted me; she had a script and she said, “Please read the script. It’s an A24 script.” Adam Sandler also called me on behalf of the Safdies [Josh Safdie is a producer on the film] and said [launches into his Sandler impersonation], “Buddddy, buddddy … read the script.” I read the script and loved it. I have no aspirations to be an actor. I tried to talk to Mary Bronstein; I said, “You could get a real actor.” And she was like, “I’m telling you, I envision you doing this.” To her credit, she was tough. She said, “I’m going to come out to L.A. and I’m going to work with you.” And she trained me. It was like a “Rocky” montage. She would work with me. She would ask me, “Who is this character? Let’s dive deep on this character. Let’s rehearse these lines.” Then on set, she is such an impressive person, Mary. And I have to say, who isn’t in love with Rose Byrne? When I heard Rose was doing it, I was a little intimidated because I think she is a stellar actor. I realized all my scenes are with Rose, and they can get pretty intense. I don’t want to let her down. I have to be a good scene partner for Rose Byrne. I was scared. And there’s no audience. It’s not my show. It’s not me being me. I’m a very different person. I even look different. I saw the film and I think they did an amazing job. I’m so proud of Rose and Mary.

The night before your first day of shooting, could you sleep? Do you get stage fright?

I could sleep, but I will tell you … it was shot on a location in what might actually be a therapist’s office; very small room on the Upper West Side. There’s a lot of fussing around. Then everyone leaves the room and they shut the door, and it’s just me with Rose; and you hear way down the hall, “Action!” And the first time around, I was in my head. I knew it wasn’t good. But to her credit, Mary came back in and she was like, “Great, great, great.” And she said the subtlest thing. She didn’t say, “Conan, what the hell! I’ve made a mistake.” She just said, “On this next one, just a little more this way.” I realized, “Oh, you get a couple of chances.” She gave me a good note. By the second time, third time and the fourth time, I just wasn’t thinking about it. I was not in my head. I was just doing it.

You’re returning to host the Oscars; this time you have a little bit more runway. Do you have a sense of when you’ll start prep?

You really can’t get the room together and fully up until early January, just because that’s when you have the budget to really bring the writers in and everything. We need to wait to see what comes out — what’s the narrative? Who are the players? But I know me, I will start the process before we officially start the process. One idea is that I have radical facelifts now, so that people when I walk out in the next calendar year as the Oscar host, I want there to be an audible gasp from the audience, like, what has he done? I mean, I’ve got injections, fillers, things are pulled back, things are misaligned. Hairline is down, eyebrows are gone.

Or you can come out as Freud.

And psychoanalyze all the movies on a Freudian level. Hey, you’ve got good ideas. If you want in, I’ll get you in. You can give us some ideas.

Now we know what it takes for Jimmy Kimmel to skip a night of work: One of his babies has to have a baby.

Kimmel became a grandfather earlier this week when his oldest daughter gave birth to a girl. In his monologue Tuesday, he joked about his oldest daughter’s age.

“We were supposed to have a show last night, but we didn’t because my daughter had a baby last night. People don’t realize — people know I have two little kids,” he said. “I also have two older kids. My oldest daughter, she’s 83 years old, her name is Katie.”

He also praised Guillermo as a great doula, telling his sidekick, “You were reassuring, you were calm, your hands were so soft.” So you can tell how serious he was being.

Kimmel said it was only the second night, excluding planned vacations and the COVID-19 lockdowns, that he’d taken off in the show’s 22-year history.

Katie and Kevin Kimmel, 33 and 31, are Jimmy’s kids from his 14-year marriage to Gina Kimmel, which ended in 2002.

Kimmel’s kids from his marriage to writer Molly McNearney, whom he married in 2013, are Jane, 10, and Billy, 8. Billy was born with a heart condition that has been discussed regularly on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Katie wed Will Logsdon in 2021.

As for Katie Kimmel’s new baby, proud grandpa Jimmy said she’s “very healthy.” Then he went on to joke about her name, which he stated was Melania, then Melania Thee Stallion, then — in a phone call with his Aunt Chippy — Jo Mama, then Jo Mama Kevin Logsdon.

It was after that last one that Aunt Chippy said, “She didn’t name the baby that! You know, if you don’t stop busting my b—, I swear to God when I die I’m going to come back and haunt you!”

Kimmel then said the name was actually Brangelina, prompting Chippy to order him to hand the phone to his mother.

The baby’s actual name, though, is Patti Joan. “Joan” is in honor of Jimmy Kimmel’s mom, Katie’s paternal grandma.

The talk-show host also started riffing on things he’d learned from his grandfathers and brainstorming things he would have to teach little Patti Joan. Things like shoplifting, skipping traffic by impersonating law enforcement and shooting out one’s bottom dentures like a cash-register drawer.

“You know WD-40?” Kimmel asked the studio audience. “You have to teach them about that.”

Reigning champ and winner for each of “Hacks’” previous three seasons, Jean Smart is the favorite here, with Natasha Lyonne, star, executive producer and occasional writer and director of “Poker Face,” joining her as the only other performer named on every ballot in Round 1.

“I’d love to see if Natasha Lyonne can really compete this year with Smart and [Quinta] Brunson,” says Trey Mangum. “But also, Ayo Edebiri may continue to be an awards darling and stun them all.” Marveling at how Lyonne “makes it look effortless,” Glenn Whipp says the multiple threat “looks like she’s having the time of her life.”

Lorraine Ali says, “Bridget Everett, Natasha Lyonne and Uzo Aduba all deliver fantastic and nuanced performances as eccentric outsiders and in roles that capitalize on their unconventional appeal.” Tracy Brown writes that Kathryn Hahn’s selfish witch on “Agatha All Along” “is pretty much everything society tells you women aren’t supposed to be, but you can feel Hahn having a blast, playing her.”

Predicting it will again be Smart’s time to shine, Matt Roush declares, “In the spirit of ‘It’s an honor to be nominated,’ let’s hope Bridget Everett receives that honor for her poignant, soul-baring realism.”

And while Kristen Baldwin expects the final season of “What We Do in the Shadows” to get a series nom, “It still hurts that Natasia Demetriou [hasn’t been] nominated for her consistently batty (sorry) performance as the enterprising vampire Nadja of Antipaxos.”

More predictions: Comedy actor | Comedy series

1. Jean Smart, “Hacks”
2. Natasha Lyonne, “Poker Face”
3. Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”
4. Bridget Everett, “Somebody Somewhere”
5. Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”
6. Kristen Bell, “Nobody Wants This”
7. Kathryn Hahn, “Agatha All Along”
8. Poorna Jagannathan, “Deli Boys”
9. Kate Hudson, “Running Point”
10 Uzo Aduba, “The Residence”

Standing in Hollywood actors guild SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles headquarters alongside a cavalcade of film industry players, Mayor Karen Bass pledged Tuesday to make it easier for productions to shoot in Los Angeles.

The mayor signed an executive directive to support local film and TV jobs — an action that she said will lower costs and streamline city processes for on-location filming, as well as increase access to legendary L.A. locations including Griffith Observatory, Central Library and the Port of Los Angeles. The move was cheered by representatives from the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and other union leaders.

In the 115-odd years since D.W. Griffith shot the first film in the then-village of Hollywood, L.A. firmly established itself as the global capital of film production.

However, while the city remains internationally synonymous with movie magic, it has hemorrhaged production jobs to other states and countries that offer generous tax incentives, cheaper labor and more filming-friendly bureaucracies.

Now, amid a broader downturn in film and TV production, the local industry finds itself at an existential crossroads.

Will Los Angeles still be a place where middle class, below-the-line entertainment workers can make a living and new productions can pencil out, or has the city permanently ceded that ground?

The changes ordered by the mayor are relatively modest, but industry veterans are hopeful that they will ease some of the burdens faced by productions and smooth logistical issues.

“We’ve taken the industry for granted,” Bass said. “We know that the industry is a part of our DNA here. And sometimes, if you think it’s a part of your DNA, you can think it’s always going to be here.”

Bass, who said her own family had been involved in the film industry for three generations, also urged the state Legislature to pass legislation that would increase film and TV production tax credits to make the state more competitive. When he released his revised budget proposal last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom kept his pledge to double California’s film tax credit to $750 million next year.

Los Angeles’ signature industry has been battered by a series of compounding crises and headwinds in recent years, from the COVID-19 pandemic closures that shuttered then severely curtailed production to the twin Hollywood labor strikes in 2023 and protracted stagnation that followed.

The January 2025 fires were merely the latest blow. An estimated 30 film and television productions were briefly shut down due to the Palisades and Eaton fires, according to industry estimates.

In the first three months of this year, on-location production in the Greater Los Angeles area declined by nearly a quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier.

The pain has reverberated far beyond the studio backlots. Restaurants have struggled to keep their doors open and a stream of Hollywood workers have left the city.

Dwindling filming is having a broader “multiplier effect” on the local economy, said Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who represents the eastern San Fernando Valley and introduced an earlier City Council proposal to streamline the city’s film permitting process.

“A lot of the folks that are impacted live in the district. So it’s their mortgages. If mortgages aren’t being paid, people are losing homes, if people aren’t spending disposable income at restaurants or on the costs of living — raising their kids, raising their families — those retail tax dollars aren’t coming to the city,” Nazarian said.

The industry’s challenges go far beyond productions not being adequately supported in Los Angeles.

In the post-peak TV era, the film and TV industry has, at least for the time being, significantly contracted.

The recent heyday of the streaming wars, when competing subscription services unleashed a firehose of cash and a glut of content to try and chip away at Netflix’s market dominance, has ended.

Studios are greenlighting fewer shows and shedding jobs. Generous tax incentive programs in other states and abroad have also made it far more difficult for L.A. productions to be economically feasible.

All this means that even if the mayor were to wave a magic wand and make it infinitely easier for productions to shoot on L.A.’s iconic streets, the jobs still wouldn’t automatically follow.

But Bass’ directive will “help the immediate productions that are already here,” said Teamsters Local 399 head Lindsay Dougherty, who represents more than 6,000 movie Teamsters in Hollywood, including drivers and location managers.

“All these things matter,” Dougherty said, while also citing the need for more funding for the state tax credit program and possible federal legislation. “When a production company is looking at budgeting, this is part of it.”

The mayor’s executive directive has a number of components that aim to lower production costs, including reducing the number of city staff required to be on-site at a filming location to a single staff member.

Bass is also directing all city departments to report back on how their current fees “associated with on-site staff or inspections” can be lowered.

The order also aims to make it easier to shoot at a number of particularly illustrious city-owned properties. The city will lower fees for filming at the Griffith Observatory, which film advocates say has become prohibitively expensive to use as a location. Filming will still be limited to times when the observatory is not otherwise open to the public.

Bass also pledged to unsnarl the lengthy insurance review waiting period that has prevented some productions from being able to film at the Port of Los Angeles and said she would reopen downtown’s Central Library to filming.

Industry advocates have been raising these issues with the mayor’s office for the last couple of years and some had previously expressed frustration that Bass had not been more proactive on filming.

Staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

In “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” playwright Lucas Hnath cheekily proposes an answer to a question that has haunted the theater for more than a century: Whatever happened to Nora after she walked out on her marriage at the end of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 drama, “A Doll’s House”?

The door slam that concludes Ibsen’s play ushered in a revolution in modern drama. After Nora’s exit, anything was possible on the stages of respectable European playhouses. Conventional morality was no longer a choke hold on dramatic characters, who were allowed to set dangerous new precedents for audiences that may have been easily shocked but were by no means easily deterred.

“A Doll’s House, Part 2,” which opened Sunday at Pasadena Playhouse under the direction of Jennifer Chang, is a sequel with a puckish difference. Although ostensibly set 15 years after Nora stormed out on Torvald and her three children, the play takes place in a theatrical present that has one antique-looking shoe in the late 19^th century and one whimsical sneaker in the early 21^st.

The hybrid nature of “A Doll’s House, Part 2” isn’t just reflected in the costume design. The language of the play moves freely from the declamatory to the profane, with some of its funniest moments occurring when fury impels a character to unleash some naughty modern vernacular.

More crucially, comedy and tragedy are allowed to coexist as parallel realities. Hnath has constructed “A Doll’s House, Part 2” as a modern comedy of ideas, divided into a series of confrontations in which characters get to thrash out different perspectives on their shared history.

Chang stages the play like a courtroom drama, with a portion of the audience seated on the stage like a jury. The spare (if too dour) set by Wilson Chin, featuring the door that Nora made famous and a couple of rearranged chairs, allows for the brisk transit of testimony in a drama that lets all four characters have their say.

Nora (played with a touch too much comic affectation by Elizabeth Reaser) has become a successful author of controversial women’s books espousing radical ideas about the trap of conventional marriage. She has returned to the scene of her domestic crime out of necessity.

Torvald (portrayed with compelling inwardness by Jason Butler Harner), her stolid former husband, never filed the divorce papers. She’s now in legal jeopardy, having conducted business as an unmarried woman. And her militant feminist views have won her enemies who would like nothing more than to send her to prison.

Nora needs Torvald to do what he was supposed to have done years ago: officially end their marriage. But not knowing how he might react to her reemergence, she makes arrangements to strategize privately with Anne Marie (Kimberly Scott), the old nanny who raised Nora’s children in her absence and isn’t particularly inclined to do her any favors.

After Torvald and Anne Marie both refuse to cooperate with her, Nora has no choice but to turn to her daughter, Emmy (crisply played by Kahyun Kim). Recently engaged to a young banker, Emmy has chosen the road that her mother abandoned, a distressing realization for Nora, who had hoped that her example would have inaugurated a new era of possibility for women.

Hnath works out the puzzle of Nora’s dilemma as though it were a dramatic Rubik’s Cube. The play hasn’t any ax to grind. If there’s one prevailing truth, it’s that relationships are murkier and messier than ideological arguments.

Nora restates why she left her marriage and explains as best she can the reasons she stayed away from her children all these years. But her actions, however necessary, left behind a tonnage of human wreckage. “A Doll’s House, Part 2” offers a complex moral accounting. As each character’s forcefully held view is added to the ledger sheet, suspense builds over how the playwright will balance the books.

Each new production of “A Doll’s House, Part 2” works out the math in a slightly different way. The play had its world premiere at South Coast Repertory in 2017 in an elegant production that was somewhat more somber than the Broadway production that opened shortly after and earned Laurie Metcalf a well-deserved Tony for her performance.

The play found its voice through the Broadway developmental process, and Metcalf’s imprint is unmistakable in the rhythms of Nora’s whirligig monologues and bracing retorts. Metcalf is the rare actor who can lunge after comedy without sacrificing the raw poignancy of her character.

Reaser adopts a humorous mode but it feels forced. More damagingly, it doesn’t seem as if Hnath’s Nora has evolved all that much from the skittishly coquettish wife of Ibsen’s play. The intellectual arc of “A Doll’s House, Part 2” suffers from the mincing way Reaser introduces the character, with little conviction for Nora’s feminist principles and only a superficial sense of the long, exhausting road of being born before your time.

The early moments with Scott’s Anne Marie are unsteady. Reaser’s Nora comes off as a shallow woman oblivious of her privilege, which is true but only partly so. Scott has a wonderful earthy quality, but I missed the impeccable timing of Jayne Houdyshell’s Anne Marie, who could stop the show with an anachronistic F-bomb. Chang’s staging initially seems like a work-in-progress.

The production is galvanized by the excellent performances of Harner and Kim. Harner reveals a Torvald changed by time and self-doubt. Years of solitude, sharpened by intimations of mortality, have cracked the banker’s sense of certainty. He blames Nora for the hurt he’ll never get over, but he doesn’t want to go down as the paragon of bad husbands. He too would like a chance to redeem himself, even if (as Harner’s canny performance illustrates) character is not infinitely malleable. Bad habits endure.

Kim’s Emmy holds her own against Nora even as her proposed solution to her mother’s dilemma involves some questionable ethics. Nora may be disappointed that her daughter is making such conformist choices, but Emmy sees no reason why the mother she never knew should feel entitled to shape her life. The brusquely controlled way Kim’s Emmy speaks to Nora hints at the ocean of unresolved feelings between them.

The production is somewhat hampered by Anthony Tran’s cumbersome costumes and Chin’s grimly rational scenic design. Elizabeth Harper’s lighting enlivens the dull palette, but I missed the surreal notes of the South Coast Repertory and Broadway stagings. Hnath creates his own universe, and the design choices should reflect this wonderland quality to a jauntier degree.

But Chang realizes the play’s full power in the final scene between Nora and Torvald. Reaser poignantly plunges the depths of her character, as estranged husband and wife share what the last 15 years have been like for them.

“A Doll’s House” was considered in its time to be politically incendiary. Hnath’s sequel, without squelching the politics, picks up the forgotten human story of Ibsen’s indelible classic.

If you’re wondering why so many goths we’re wandering around Pasadena this weekend, look no further than Cruel World. The Goldenvoice celebration of all things postpunk, new wave and alternative landed at Brookside at the Rose Bowl on Saturday for its fourth installment, this time led by New Order and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

It ran smoothly, even when the overcast turned into a hard drizzle, creating a vibe reminiscent of England’s famed Glastonbury Festival. Gen Xers and fans of the era flocked to the converted golf course to hear their favorite artists take the stage once again, with many only appearing occasionally over the course of decades.

But, as is the case with all festivals, some acts had it together, bringing their best to fans and entrancing them in a nostalgia-ridden high. And some just showed up. Here’s a list of the performances we saw at the fest, from best to not-so-great.

1. New Order
In a recent chat with The Times, Bernard Sumner spoke lovingly about New Order’s revival and attributed it partially to the band’s newfound cohesion.

“In the early days, we used to get f— up quite a lot and that f— up the shows,” Sumner said. “We used to play a really good one, celebrate how great it was, and then the next one would be terrible because we celebrated too much.”

He was spot-on with this point, as the band’s performance at Cruel World illustrated. Across entire set, it seemed everything was in the right place for the new-wave icons, who delivered perfection to fans. From the get-go, “Age of Consent” had the entire crowd bouncing around — an impressive accomplishment considering that the band was the last to perform on a wet and muddy day.

But the sky seemingly opened for New Order, who looked all too cool and casual while shouting out, “This is a protest song, and it’s time for a protest song” before treating the audience to “State of the Nation.”

The set would have been incredible enough on its own, gracefully fitting “Sub-Culture,” “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “True Faith” and “Blue Monday” into a one-hour window, but the group brought more than that to the table. After Sumner bowed out to “Temptation,” a minute went by before the band was back out onstage to play Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

Emotions ran high in a celebratory and touching performance, as images of the late Ian Curtis and the words “Forever Joy Division” flashed on screens behind the band. Headliners are headliners for a reason, and there was no better group than New Order to lead festivalgoers on a victory lap during its stroll through the past.

2. Devo

Devo was incredibly close to topping this list, as the band brought its signature wacky and whimsical show to Pasadena. After being pelted by rain, fans gathered around the festival’s Sad Girls stage to welcome the new-wave quintet.

A tape rolled on the screens, featuring returning character “Rod Rooter,” played by Michael W. Schwartz. In the footage, Rooter meets with the group, pitching the idea of Devo dolls: “We even got your jumpsuits!”

This was followed by another video, once again featuring Schwartz as Rooter, only years later.

“That was me 40 years ago, dispensing invaluable advice to the band that couldn’t shoot straight,” he said, sitting on an indoor bike and wearing a boldly colored tracksuit. “Now here they are, my biggest career regret, Devo.”

All four then danced out onto the stage, wearing all-black suits for “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man).” It wasn’t long until the musicians donned their signature “devolution” caps, which were later thrown to the crowd as the band launched into “Whip It.” This was followed by a quick outfit change into those yellow jumpsuits, which frontman Mark Mothersbaugh tore off during “Uncontrollable Urge.”

Devo brought everything to the table and gave fans the show they deserved. It’s no wonder Goldenvoice invited the band back after it lighted up the Pasadena stage in 2022, and it likely won’t be the group’s last appearance on a Cruel World lineup.

3. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

It was always going to be a great performance from Nick Cave and his ensemble — it’s just their business. Over the entire course of the festival, no one was able to entice a crowd like they were. Throughout the entire set, it felt like gospel was ringing out across the Rose Bowl lawn, and Cave would extend a hand to his adoring worshippers at the stage’s front.

“You’re f— incredible,” he said. “Full of drugs and still able to clap.”

Throughout its one-hour set, the band played everything from lively, invigorating tracks like “Wild God” to mellow, meditative numbers like “Joy.” Of course, the group made sure to fit in “Red Right Hand,” which received an eruption of cheers. Cave would often make a mad dash between his piano and downstage, making a show of it as he danced his fingers across the keys.

But the perfomance’s peak likely came with a live debut of “Hollywood,” a 14-minute song (played in full) off 2019’s “Ghosteen.”

“We’re gonna try this song, we’ve never played it before,” Cave said. “It’s extremely long and it’s written for … Hollywood.”

The song, explained in a post to Cave’s 2018 project “The Red Hand Files,” is a tale referencing a series of images that came to him while sitting in the back seat of a car driving through Oslo, Texas. In it, a narrator finds himself on a beach, looking out at the sun.

Poetically and almost prophetically, the post said, “Malibu is on fire and the animals have been driven down from the hills to the shore.”

4. Garbage

Overlapping Garbage and Devo during Cruel World’s sets was a decision that left many attendees divided. It was no surprise that many larger groups split up around 7 p.m. and set off to either the Outsiders or Lost Boys stages.

Even lead singer Shirley Manson felt bummed about missing out on Devo and said she expected a much smaller crowd.

“I’m gonna be very honest with you … in rehearsal yesterday we were really freaking out because, of course, the great Devo!” Manson said. “We are so gutted that we’re playing at the same time as one of our hero bands.”

“We’re amazed that you’re here,” she continued, laughing. “Thank you so much.”

But Garbage put on an excellent performance — it was all smiles among those who had chosen the alt-rock group. A bonus was Manson’s outfit, which was undoubtedly the best of the day.

5. OMD

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was an unexpected favorite among the lineup. The group came out with high energy and maintained it throughout its entire set. This kept fans on the edge of their seats, as did just the right amount of commentary from the bandto engage them.

“Everybody put two hands up,” lead singer Andy McCluskey said before performing “Talking Loud and Clear.”

“You have to do it with two hands, otherwise you’ll look like Elon Musk!”

It was an expected yet hilarious quip from the band, which has never shied away from making a political statement. Years later, it still felt awkward dancing away to “Enola Gay,” and even more so after the group flashed images of the notorious aircraft and a mushroom cloud on screens.

During “If You Leave,” the screens showed images of Molly Ringwald as Andie Walsh in “Pretty in Pink,” which was a nice nod to the song’s inclusion in the film’s soundtrack.

6. Alison Moyet

A great performance from an incredible artist — it’s no wonder she received an MBE for music service in 2021. During the set, she floated back and forth between songs from her solo career and those she made with Yazoo alongside Vince Clarke, who had previously served as keyboardist for Depeche Mode.

Perhaps the most impressive part of her set was her vocals. It’s no secret that some of these singers’ voices have declined after 40 or so years. But Moyet, though not as crisp, still delivered on the main stage. In fact, the touch of grit to her voice only added to the songs, which she commanded with gravitas.

7. She Past Away

The Turkish postpunk duo took the stage around 2 p.m. and granted festivalgoers a pleasant peek of what was ahead of them. For a group that formed in 2006, it fit in comfortably in the lineup, entrancing listeners with sounds reminiscent of what its new-wave peers were creating in the ’80s. To put a cherry on top, bandmates Volkan Caner and İdris Akbulut adorned their classic black eye shadow and lipstick combo.

8. She Wants Revenge

Another postpunk outfit from the aughts, She Wants Revenge attracted quite the crowd. Lead singer Justin Warfield strutted around the stage in an all-black, all-leather outfit that featured a belt with golden ankhs hanging below it. As far as presence, the group had it down.

Its performance was solid, and fans applauded when the band whipped out a cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ “Sister Europe” mid-set. Hunter Burgan of AFI was brought out and introduced as not only “one of the raddest bass players ever ripping” but also “a mean sax player.” In a sentimental touch, the song was dedicated to the Furs’ late saxophonist Mars Williams.

9. Death Cult

This one was an odd one. As a preface, the Southern Death Cult was a Bradford, England-born band and a leader of the postpunk movement in the early ’80s. The group garnered a bit of attention, played about 20 shows, split after two years and released one album, titled “The Southern Death Cult.”

After the breakup, frontman Ian Astbury joined forces with guitarist Billy Duffy to form Death Cult in 1983. The band released one EP under this name, simply titled “Death Cult,” before becoming the Cult less than one year later. In 2023, Astbury and Duffy would revive Death Cult for a series of shows across the U.K. and a one-off performance at what was then the Theatre at Ace Hotel. For Cruel World, the pair followed suit and performed under the name Death Cult, while also celebrating the music of the Cult and the Southern Death Cult.

Going into the show, fans were confused about what they would possibly be hearing from the band, who walked out onstage to the theme from “A Clockwork Orange.” Needless to say, most attendees were fans of the Cult, the most well known of the three band iterations, and Astbury was seemingly frustrated that the crowd wasn’t more reactive to tunes from Death Cult and the Southern Death Cult.

It’s no surprise, then, that attendees rejoiced when they heard the Cult’s most popular song, “She Sells Sanctuary,” as well as others from the band.

It didn’t help that the sun had just gone down, leaving the small Lost Boys stage dimly lighted, and there were no visualizers to back the group. This meant fans could hardly make out the band unless they were close to the stage.

It’s not that Death Cult’s musicians were bad showmen. On the contrary, Astbury’s vocals were great, and everyone seemed to be on the same wave, except the crowd. Given all the factors at play, the set was just odd altogether.

10. The Go-Go’s

Fans arrived in droves, eager to hear their favorites from one of the biggest undercards on the lineup. I mean, it’s the Go-Go’s; you don’t want to miss “Our Lips Are Sealed” and “Vacation,” even if you’ve just spent hours in the rain, shelled out $20 on a cocktail and your soles are starting to scream at you.

It’s difficult to put a finger on what exactly went wrong for this performance; the hits were there and the crowd was packed. But every song felt uncoordinated, like the band could have spent a few more hours in rehearsal. The group was not only out of sync from the jump but the entire set was also plagued by feedback and sound mix issues.

“All right, I’m sitting back here motherf— … come on now, I’m working my f— a— off,” drummer Gina Schock said before diving into “Head Over Heels.” “I wanna see some movement out there, OK?”

But the crowd stood still. Even when the band finished off with “We Got The Beat,” the musicians’ attempt to lead a H-O-T-T-O-G-O chant — as they had done just weeks before at Coachella — fell flat on its face.

“You know that one,” Jane Wiedlin pleaded, to no avail.

In an era in which we’ve been told that mass data-mining and plagiarism will lead to a magical artificial intelligence that will solve all the great mysteries of life, “The Book of Records” is a reminder that human genius and the artistry of stunning prose are the antidote to AI’s codswallop. Madeleine Thien has penned an all-too-human novel that explores themes of collaboration and resistance, exile and community, and the banality of living in “interesting times.”

Physicists have long wrestled with a basic question: What are space and time? As human beings, we think of time as the span between the day we are born and the day we die. We understand intellectually that people have come before us and people will exist after us, but being able to grasp that time relies on empathy fostered by reading, viewing art or touching ancient buildings.

In “The Book of Records,” 7-year-old Lina and her computer scientist father are on board a 22nd-century ship carrying them into exile when he explains the basic structure of time and space to her. “He told me that everything would be obvious if I took a piece of string and folded it over and through itself to form a double-coin knot,” Lina recalls. “The string is time and the knot is space,” he concluded. “But they’re the same. See?”

Global climate change has caused the oceans to overwhelm the land, and the ship’s passengers are refugees in search of solid ground. The metaphor of the double-coin knot recurs throughout the novel; each passenger is on his or her journey through time and space.

Lina left her family library behind, except for three books about fellow voyagers: the Chinese poet Du Fu, Baruch Spinoza, the Portuguese Jewish philosopher exiled to the Netherlands, and Hannah Arendt, the German philosopher who, as as Jew, was forced to flee when the Nazis took power. Lina knows the contents of these books so intimately that when she encounters Jupiter, Bento and Blucher, who tell stories of that trio’s journeys, she becomes their wise companion.

And while Thien’s book is a novel of ideas, it’s much more visceral, tying together the sublime joys of being human and the horrors inflicted by those other humans who hate all of the things that make us imperfect but radiant beings. Du Fu, Baruch Spinoza and Hannah Arendt were all cast out of their communities by authorities who imposed narrow definitions of acceptable thought.

If we could stop thinking in such narrow definitions of time, Thien intimates, we would be capable of empathizing and understanding that even our most shattering experiences do not separate us from others. Instead, we would find meaningful community in the company of those who have been where we find ourselves now. Terence, a previously enslaved Roman playwright who wrote “I consider nothing human alien to me,” grasped that concept, as have the myriad artists and philosophers who have expanded on that thought. Human experience, even for those we may not have personal knowledge about, helps us understand our individual selves and form the empathetic communities so necessary during dark times.

Lina’s own exile begins with the loss of her mother and brother. Years later, when her father is dying, he finally reveals the secret that set them on their path: The massive project to link computers and humans to fix climate change failed, and now everyone faces extinction. What will happen to human time with no one there to record it?

Thien translates complex topics into art, making the esoteric deeply resonant. When Baruch gets his heart broken, she writes: “He closed his eyes, but it only made the world within him more vivid, so he tried to picture himself between the stars, unburdened of all sensory feeling,” time a whirlwind to him. “The world intervenes in everything we do,” she writes of his thinking, “and we turn and stumble in its innumerable fragments.”

We string together fragments to make sense of the senseless, Thien observes, “searching backwards for a cause.” She describes the “passionate indifference” that Arendt substitutes for love-making when her marriage becomes a broken clock that can’t be fixed. Reading Thien is to admire how she brush-strokes language to create beauty.

Exile is grief. And exile is set into motion by trauma, whether that be from a state set on genocide or climate change and the ravaging effects of colonialism that have stripped the land of all sustenance. Refugees from Central America, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, refugees cast out of their faith community for heresy, artists made refugee by the delusions of their patrons, and those left refugee on America’s streets because of economic disparity or domestic violence have all been torn away from what they love, all the things they’ve lost.

I’ve hesitated about giving away too much of the plot of “The Book of Records” for the same reason I don’t go on guided tours of a city I’m visiting. Thien’s book is full of unexpected moments of beauty and pleasure I don’t want to ruin for those about to enter its pages. Delight is in discovery.

In our own interesting times, it’s a great relief to be reminded that none of what is happening is alien. The individual insistence that “no one has ever faced this same moment” is the cause of so much pain, exacerbated by those governments that seek to erase the human history of betrayal and resistance and struggle, evoking a mythical, conflict-free path.

Destroying connections to time and community is the goal of authoritarianism. As one of the novel’s characters says, “Survival required disobedience, and each of them must become an outlaw. So be it.” Thien has written a brilliant outlaw novel.

Berry is a writer and critic living in Oregon.

CANNES, France — “The sun is my mortal enemy,” Ari Aster says, squinting as he sits on the sixth-floor rooftop terrace of Cannes’ Palais des Festivals, where most of the screenings happen. It’s an especially bright afternoon and we take refuge in the shade.

Aster, the 38-year-old filmmaker of “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” wears an olive-colored suit and baseball cap. He’s already a household name among horror fans and A24’s discerning audiences, but the director is competing at Cannes for the first time with “Eddington,” a paranoid thriller set in a New Mexican town riven by pandemic anxieties. Like a modern-day western, the sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) spars with the mayor (Pedro Pascal) in tense showdowns while protests over the murder of George Floyd flare on street corners. Too many people cough without their masks on. Conspiracy nuts, mysterious drones and jurisdictional tensions shift the film into something more Pynchonesque and surreal.

In advance of the movie’s July 18 release, “Eddington” has become a proper flash point at Cannes, dividing opinion starkly. Like Aster’s prior feature, 2023’s “Beau Is Afraid,” it continues his expansion into wider psychological territory, signaling a heretofore unexpressed political dimension spurred by recent events, as well as an impulse to explore a different kind of American fear. We sat down with him on Sunday to discuss the movie and its reception.

I remember what it was like in 2018 at Sundance with “Hereditary” and being a part of that first midnight audience where it felt like something special was happening. How does this time feel compared with that?

It feels the same. It’s just nerve-wracking and you feel totally vulnerable and exposed. But it’s exciting. It’s always been a dream to premiere a film in Cannes.

Have you ever been to Cannes before?

No.

So this must feel like living out that dream. How do you think it went on Friday?

I don’t know. How do you feel it went? [Laughs]

I knew you were going to turn it around.

That’s what everybody asks me. Everybody comes up saying [makes a pity face], “How are you feeling? How do you think it went?” And it’s like, I am the least objective person here. I made the film.

I know you’ve heard about those legendary Cannes premieres where audiences have extreme reactions and it feels like the debut of “The Rite of Spring.” Some people are loving it, some people are hating it. Those are the best ones, aren’t they?

Oh, yeah. But again, I don’t really have a picture of what the response is.

Do you read your reviews?

I’ve been staying away while I do press and talk to people. So I can speak to the film.

Makes sense. I felt great love in the room for Joaquin Phoenix, who was rubbing your shoulder during the ovation. Have you talked to the cast and how they think it went, or were they just having a good time?

I think that they’re all really proud of the film. That’s what I know and it’s been nice to be here with them.

In the context of your four features, “Hereditary,” “Midsommar,” “Beau Is Afraid” and now “Eddington,” how easy was “Eddington” to make?

They’re all hard. We’re always trying to stretch our resources as far as they can go, and so they’ve all been just about equally difficult, in different ways.

Is it fair to say that your films have changed since “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” and now they’re more accommodating of a larger swath of sociopolitical material?

I am just following my impulses so I’m not thinking in that way. There’s very little strategy going on. It’s just: What am I interested in? And when I started writing, because I was in a real state of fear and anxiety about what was happening in the country and what was happening in the world, and I wanted to make a film about what it was feeling like.

This was circa what, 2020?

It was in June 2020 that I started writing it. I wanted to make a film about what it feels like to live in a world where nobody agrees about what is happening.

You mean no one agrees what is happening in the sense that we can’t even agree on the facts?

Yes. There’s this social force that has been at the center of mass liberal democracies for a very long time, which is this agreed-upon version of what is real. And of course, we could all argue and have our own opinions, but we all fundamentally agreed about what we were arguing about. And that is something that has been going away. It’s been happening for the last 20-something years. But COVID, for me, felt like when the last link was cut, this old idea of democracy, that it could be sort of a countervailing force against power, tech, finance. That’s gone now completely.

And at that moment it felt like I was kind of in a panic about it. I’m sure that I am probably not alone. And so I wanted to make a film about the environment, not about me. The film is very much about the gulf between politics and policy. Politics is public relations. Policy is things that are actually happening. Real things are happening very quickly, moving very quickly.

I think of “Eddington” as very much a horror film. It’s the horror of free-floating political anxiety. That’s what’s scaring you right now. And we don’t have any kind of control over it.

We have no control and we feel totally powerless and we’re being led by people who do not believe in the future. So we’re living in an atmosphere of total despair.

During the lockdown, I was just sitting on my phone doom-scrolling. Is that what you were doing?

Of course. There was a lot of great energy behind the internet, this idea of: It’s going to bring people together, it’s going to connect them. But of course then finance got involved, as it always does, and whatever that was curdled and was put on another track. It used to be something we went to. You went to your computer at home, you would maybe go to your email. Everything took forever to load. And then with these phones, we began living in cyberspace, so we are living in the internet.

It’s owned us, it’s consumed us and we don’t see it. The really insidious thing about our culture and about this moment is that it’s scary and it’s dangerous and it’s catastrophic and it’s absurd and ridiculous and stupid and impossible to take seriously.

Did that “ridiculous and stupid” part lead you aesthetically to make something that was an extremely dark comedy? I think “Eddington” sometimes plays like a comedy.

Well, I mean there’s something farcical going on. I wanted to make a good western too, and westerns are about the country and the mythology of America and the romance of America. They’re very sentimental. I’m interested in the tension between the idealism of America and the reality of it.

You have your western elements in there, your Gunther’s Pistol Palace and a heavily armed endgame that often recalls “No Country for Old Men.”

You’ve got Joe, who’s a sheriff, who loves his wife and cares about his community. And he’s 50 years old, so he grew up with those ’90s action movies and, at the end, he gets to live through one.

Let’s step backward for a second about where you were and what you were doing around the time you started writing this. You were finishing up “Beau Is Afraid,” right? What was your life like then? You were freaking out and watching the news and starting to write a script. What was that process like for you?

I was in New Mexico at the time. I was living in New York in a tiny apartment, but then I had to come back to New Mexico. There was a COVID scare in my family and I wanted to be near family. I was there for a couple months and just wanted to make a film about what the world felt like, what the country felt like.

Were you worried about your own health and safety during that time?

Of course. I’m a hyper-neurotic Jew. I’m always worried about my health.

And also the breakdown of truth. What were the reactions when you first started sharing your script with the people who ended up in your cast? What was Joaquin’s reaction like?

I just remember that he really took to the character and loved Joe and wanted to play him, and that was exciting to me. I loved working with him on “Beau” and I gave him the script hoping that he would want to do it. They all responded really quickly and jumped on. There was just a general excitement and a feeling for the project. I had a friendship with Emily [Emma Stone, whom Aster calls by her birth name] already and now we’re all friends. I really love them as actors and as people. It was a pretty fluid, nice process.

I haven’t seen many significant movies expressly about the pandemic yet. Did it feel like you were breaking new ground?

I don’t think that way, but I was wanting to see some reflection on what was happening.

Even in the seven years since “Hereditary,” do you feel like the business has changed?

Yeah, it is changing. I mean, everything feels like it’s changing. I think about [Marshall] McLuhan and how we’re in a stage right now where we’re moving from one medium to another. The internet has been the prominent, prevailing, dominant medium, and that’s changed the landscape of everything, and we’re moving towards something new. We don’t know what’s coming with AI. It’s also why we’re so nostalgic now about film and 70mm presentations.

Do you ever feel like you got into this business at the last-possible minute?

Definitely. I feel very fortunate that I’m able to make the films I want to make and I feel lucky to have been able to make this film.

There’s a lot of room in “Eddington” for any kind of a viewer to find a mirror of themselves and also be challenged. It doesn’t preach to the converted. Was that an intent of yours?

[Long pause] Sorry, I’m just thinking. I’m just starting to talk about the film. I guess I’m trying to make a film about how we’re all actually in the same situation and how similar we are. Which may be hard to see and I’m not a sociologist. But it was important to me to make a film about the environment.

I was asked recently, Do you have any hope? And I think the answer to that is that I do have hope, but I don’t have confidence.

It’s easy to be cynical.

But I do see that if there is any hope, we have to reengage with each other. And for me, it was important to not judge any of these characters. I’m not judging them. I’m not trying to judge them.

I love that you have a partner in A24 that is basically letting you go where you need to go as an artist.

They’ve been very supportive. It’s great because I’ve been able to make these films without compromise.

Do you have an idea for your next one?

I’ve got a few ideas. I’m deciding between three.

You can’t give me a taste of anything?

Not yet, no. They’re all different genres and I’m trying to decide what’s right.

Let’s hope we survive to that point. How are you personally, apart from movies?

I’m very worried. I’m very worried and I am really sad about where things are. And otherwise there needs to be another idea. Something new has to happen.

You mean like a new political paradigm or something?

Yeah. The system we’re in is a response to the last system that failed. And the only answer, the only alternative I’m hearing is to go back to that old system. I’ll just say even just the idea of a collective is just a harder thing to imagine. How can that happen? How do we ever come together? Can there be any sort of countervailing force to power? I feel increasingly powerless and impotent. And despairing.

Ari, it’s a beautiful day. It’s hard to be completely cynical about the world when you’re at Cannes and it’s sunny. Even in just 24 hours, “Eddington” has become a conversation film, debated and discussed. Doesn’t it thrill you that you have one of those kind of movies?

That’s what this is supposed to be. And you want people to be talking about it and arguing about it. And I hope it is something that you have to wrestle with and think about.

The theme park rivalry in Orlando, Fla. is heating up.

This week, Universal will open its latest park, Epic Universe, a reportedly $7 billion bet for the Comcast-owned company and the newest salvo in its ongoing push to expand its tourism and entertainment empire.

That puts pressure on Walt Disney Co., whose Walt Disney World Resort has long dominated the Orlando vacation landscape, but is now seeing increased competition, particularly from Universal.

Sprawled across 750 acres, Epic Universe represents the biggest Universal theme park expansion since the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter 15 years ago.

It touts five different themed areas, four of which are tied to well-known franchises: “Harry Potter,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” Universal’s Dark Universe of classic movie monsters and Nintendo video game properties, in addition to a cosmic central Celestial Park hub.

The resort, which also includes three hotels, features technologically-advanced animatronics and detailed rides like Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, which showcases many of Universal’s monsters. Reviews of the park have been largely positive, with critics highlighting the immersive nature of the attractions.

“Comcast has come on so strong with what they’ve developed and brought forth in the Orlando market,” said Dennis Speigel, founder and chief executive of Cincinnati-based consulting firm International Theme Park Services Inc. “Over the last 15 years, they have brought that distance between Universal and Disney much closer, and it has really become a prize fight. It’s the most intense and competitive situation in the industry.”

Disney was the first of the two to the Orlando market back in 1971, when it opened the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. It wasn’t until 1990 that Universal opened its own Orlando park, giving Disney a nearly two-decade head start.

By then, Disney had already opened the Epcot and Disney-MGM Studios theme parks (which would later become known as Hollywood Studios). Also in the mix in the Sunshine State: SeaWorld Orlando, which opened in 1973, and what’s now known as Busch Gardens Tampa, which debuted in 1959.

Today, Disney World has four theme parks and two water parks, while Universal Orlando will have three, including Epic Universe and Islands of Adventure (opened in 1999), and a water park, Volcano Bay (2017).

Though Universal was late to market, its 2010 opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter land across Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure in Orlando pushed the theme park competition to new heights. Building a land solely around a specific intellectual property — instead of a general theme — was novel at the time, and the concept would later show up in Disney parks, such as Cars Land in Anaheim and later, “Star Wars”-themed lands in California and Florida.

Demand at the time for the “Harry Potter”-themed land pushed Universal’s attendance up 36% compared with the previous year, Speigel said.

“They realized after ‘Harry Potter’ that it was a new world order,” he said. “They’ve just kept the pedal to the metal on everything they’ve done in terms of growth and internal experience.”

There’s good reason for that.

Both Universal and Disney have honed in on theme parks as a profit-generating part of their business that is less volatile than the ever-changing media, television and film markets. Disney’s experiences division, which includes its theme parks and cruise lines, has long brought in the lion’s share of the company’s profit, particularly as pay TV shrinks.

“Disney has been pretty steady and consistent, but Universal is very rapidly expanding,” said Carissa Baker, an assistant professor of theme park and attraction management at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management. “They’re highly encouraging their theme park sector right now.”

Both companies have recently announced new properties — Disney in Abu Dhabi and Universal with a smaller kids resort in Texas, a theme park in Britain and a year-round Halloween Horror Nights-esque experience in Las Vegas.

“The plan is to keep driving growth in a business that we think we’re one of two players in a market that is, within media, not at all exposed to the shift in time on screens from one venue to another,” Comcast Corp. President Mike Cavanagh said during the company’s fiscal first quarter call with analysts last month. “Live experiences, parks experiences have been thrilling to people, and we think we lean into that and continue to do so.”

So far, he said, advance ticket sales and hotel bookings are “strong” for Epic Universe and the other Universal parks in Orlando. A one-day ticket starts at $139.

That’s why analysts have consistently flagged the upcoming park during earnings calls for rival Disney, querying executives about the potential pressure on Disney World and how the company plans to compete.

But if Disney is worried, it has shown little sign of it. Last week, Disney Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston said hotel bookings for the fiscal third quarter are up 4% compared with last year, with about 80% of available nights reserved. For the fourth quarter, bookings are up about 7%, with about 50% to 60% of capacity filled, he said.

That’s despite broader worries that concerns about a potential recession — spurred by President Trump’s tariffs on foreign goods — will dampen travel and consumer spending.

“Experiences is obviously a critical business for Disney and also an important growth platform,” company Chief Executive Bob Iger said on a recent earnings call. “Despite questions around any macro-economic uncertainty or the impact of competition, I’m encouraged by the strength and resilience of our business.”

The company has previously announced it is investing $30 billion into its parks in Florida and California, which will fund such additions as a “Monsters Inc.”-inspired land and a villains land in Disney World. The parks have also added attractions throughout the last 10 years, including the revamped Tiana’s Bayou Adventure ride (which replaced Splash Mountain).

Disney is betting that the influx of visitors coming to Florida for Epic Universe will still make a stop at its parks. Last year, Orlando tallied more than 75 million visitors, up 1.8% compared with 2023, according to the Visit Orlando trade association. Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences, said at an investor conference last week that Disney gets more tourists any time something new opens up in central Florida — even if it’s not a Disney property.

“If we just go back five or 10 years, and you think about what’s happened at Walt Disney World, we’ve always been on the offensive,” D’Amaro said. “If something is built new in Central Florida, like Epic Universe, and if it brings in additional tourists, I can almost guarantee you that new tourist coming into the market is going to have to visit the Magic Kingdom.”

For the second time in less than a year, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan played the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night, bringing together two legends of American song on one stage. The concert — actually Nelson’s third recent visit to the Bowl after his 90th-birthday bash in 2023 — was part of the annual traveling Outlaw Music Festival, which will keep Nelson, now 92, and Dylan, who’ll turn 84 next week, on the road through mid-September. Here are nine highlights from the show:

1. Last year’s Outlaw tour stopped at the Bowl in late July, which at that time meant Nelson didn’t have to ward off the chilly May gray that inevitably settles after dark over the Cahuenga Pass. Here, a day after reportedly suffering from a cold in Chula Vista, Nelson kept warm in a stylish black puffer jacket to go with his signature red bandanna.

2. John Stamos played percussion in Nelson’s six-man band Friday — a somewhat lower-key role than the prominent guitar-and-vocals spot he often holds down these days in Mike Love’s touring Beach Boys. Yet the TV star looked pleased as punch to be back there, shaking a shaker as Nelson opened his set, as always, with “Whiskey River.” Also on hand, filling in for Nelson’s son Lukas was singer-guitarist Waylon Payne, who sang lead in a moving version of Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” — the folk-soul masterpiece made a hit in 1970 by Payne’s mother, the late Sammi Smith.

3. My favorite of Nelson’s styles to hear him do at this point in his career, with a voice and a soloing hand as free as they’ve ever been, is the spectral country-jazz mode of “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” and “Always on My Mind,” which gave him a pair of No. 1 country hits between March 1981 and May 1982. On Friday, he nailed high notes you might not have expected him to in the former and used the latter to show off the rhythmic daring of his line readings. Both were achingly beautiful.

4. Nelson didn’t perform anything from his latest album, “Oh What a Beautiful World,” which came out last month and collects his interpretations of a dozen Rodney Crowell tunes. (By some counts, it’s Nelson’s 77th solo studio LP — and the 15th he’s dropped since 2015.) He did, however, do a cut from his second-most-recent effort: a stately rendition of Tom Waits’ “Last Leaf,” in which he rhymes “They say I got staying power” with “I’ve been here since Eisenhower.” In fact, Nelson’s been here since FDR.

5. The big event in Dylanology between last year’s Outlaw tour and this year’s was, of course, James Mangold’s Oscar-nominated biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” which inspired a widespread resurgence of interest in Dylan’s music — particularly the early stuff Timothée Chalamet performs in the movie. Perhaps that’s why Dylan is singing “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” on the road again for the first time in six years, including at the Bowl, where he gave the song a jaunty rockabilly vibe. (Anyone wondering why Chalamet wasn’t at Friday’s gig clearly hasn’t seen the TikToks of him wilding out after his beloved Knicks defeated the Celtics at New York’s Madison Square Garden.)

6. A rare-ish bit of stage banter from His Bobness, directed toward an audience member near the front row: “What are you eating down there? What is it?”

7. The whole point of going to see Dylan play is to be delighted — or to be outraged, or baffled — by his determination to reinvent songs so deeply etched into the history of rock music. Yet I was still thrilled by how radically he made over some of his classics here: “Desolation Row” was bright and frisky, while a sultry “All Along the Watchtower” sounded like Dire Straits doing ’80s R&B.

8. In addition to Nelson and Dylan, Outlaw’s West Coast leg also features two younger roots-music acts in Billy Strings and Sierra Hull. (Later in the summer, the tour will pick up the likes of Nathaniel Rateliff, Sheryl Crow, Waxahatchee and Wilco, depending on the city.) Strings, who’s been bringing bluegrass to arenas lately — and whose tattooed arms meshed seamlessly with the sleeves of his tie-dyed T-shirt — sang “California Sober,” which he recorded in 2023 as a duet with Nelson, and offered a haunting take on “Summertime” from “Porgy and Bess.”

9. A former child prodigy on the mandolin, Hull opened the evening flexing her Berklee-trained chops in a series of lickety-split bluegrass numbers that got early arrivers whistling with approval. But she also showed off a winsome pop sensibility in originals like “Muddy Water” and “Spitfire” — about “my spitfire granny back in Tennessee,” she said — and in a yearning cover of “Mad World” by Tears for Fears.

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s superbly reported “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” reads like a Shakespearean drama on steroids. During his latter years as No. 46, Biden is portrayed as a lion in winter — shockingly frail and forgetful with a ferocious pride that blinds him to the fact that it’s time to exit the stage. He was assisted in that delusion, the authors claim, by the mythology his family erected around him — that he was indestructible — and by his zealously protective inner circle, dubbed “the Politburo.”

Though Tapper and Thompson’s mostly anonymous sources (it’s jarring that so few went on the record) suggest that the first disturbing signs of Biden’s diminished capacities emerged as early as 2015, many around him chalked them up to the “Bidenness” of it all: “He was known on the Hill for being congenitally prone to long stories, gaffes, and inappropriate comments,” the authors observe. “Even in tightly choreographed Zoom calls with friendly audiences, Biden could step on a rake.”

That propensity appeared to morph into something more worrisome even before Biden was elected president. An unnamed Democrat who witnessed candidate Biden being prepped for a taping prior to the 2020 convention in Milwaukee was startled by his incoherence, commenting that it “was like watching Grandpa who shouldn’t be driving.” Once in office, the White House staff “treated him as very delicate,” and the pandemic gave aides an excuse to build “barriers” around him so few could gain access. The news media and public were kept at arm’s length, as were many members of the Cabinet and Congress, which led to a “uniquely small and loyal inner circle.” “I’ve never seen a situation like this before, with so few people having so much power,” said one unidentified top official.

That elite quintet consisted of domestic policy advisor Bruce Reed, chief strategist Mike Donilon, legislative affairs guru Steve Ricchetti and chief of staff Ron Klain, each of whom had deep ties to Biden. “Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board,” offered one person familiar with the dynamic. As time went on and more grew concerned about Biden’s behavior, those who inquired were routinely told that everything was okay. One staffer who didn’t have regular access to Biden during this period said that when they did see him in person, they were “shocked, but the other people around him didn’t seem to be, so I didn’t say anything.”

It wasn’t until around the time Biden broke his one-term pledge to be a “bridge” president and made clear he intended to run again that some began to feel a sense of alarm. For example, in 2023, Congressman Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) was with Biden when he visited Ireland. Biden seemed to gain strength from the crowds that greeted him, but then appeared “sapped and not quite there.” The authors write that Quigley “realized why this all felt so familiar to him … This was how his father, Bill, had been before he died.” Similarly, Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips was so disturbed by Biden’s reduced “speaking and walking skills” that he pressed Democratic officials as to whether the president was up to the job. Even those who admitted to having concerns offered the “yes, but,” as in, “Yes, Biden is in decline but can you imagine Trump winning?” Phillips could imagine such a scenario, “especially if Biden were the Democratic nominee.” Failing to get anyone to take his worries seriously, he declared his own candidacy. But “the whale who spouts gets harpooned,” Phillips later noted after the “Democratic machine” set out to quash his chances. He reluctantly pulled out of the race and “watched his party sleepwalk toward disaster.”

Though some top Democratic supporters such as Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel refused to support Biden’s bid for reelection — even shouting at Klain during a “power-player retreat” that, “Joe Biden cannot run for reelection! He needs to drop out!” — most remained in the president’s corner until his disastrous debate performance in late June 2024. Following that, the slow drip of Biden allies calling for him to withdraw became a downpour, with even loyalists like George Clooney remarking publicly in an op-ed that while he “loved” Joe Biden, “the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.”

Was there a conspiracy to conceal Biden’s symptoms from the press, public and top Democrats? The authors conclude there was. “The original sin of Election 2024,” they write, “was Biden’s decision to run for reelection — followed by aggressive efforts to hide his cognitive diminishment.” The course Biden’s family and inner circle chose was tantamount to “gaslighting the American people.” Many other key Democratic officials and donors simply felt that even a weakened Biden was the best bet against the “existential threat” posed by Trump, until the debate shattered that rationalization. In any case, Biden allies “who voiced fears were flicked away like lint.”

In the end, I’m not convinced there was a coordinated campaign to hide the truth about Biden’s “condition,” but maybe that doesn’t matter. In the book’s final chapter, the authors quote former Watergate special prosecutor and law professor Archibald Cox on what lessons Americans should take away from the Watergate scandal. He observes that “we should be reminded of the corrupt influence of great power. … Perhaps it is inescapable that modern government vests extraordinary power in the President and puts around him a large circle of men and women whose personal status and satisfaction depends entirely on pleasing one man.”

But Biden isn’t Nixon. He is a man who generated intense love and loyalty, whose life has been filled with tragedy as well as opportunity; who adeptly and passionately served his country for decades. “Original Sin” is not a compassionate account of Biden’s last campaign — at times it’s even a painful, if necessary, piece of journalism. A great takeaway from 2024, according to political strategist David Plouffe, is that “never again can we as a party suggest to people that what they’re seeing is not true.” We don’t know if Trump could have been defeated had Biden opted not to run. But in the future, we can’t afford to be in denial.

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.

After humans, and arguably before dogs and horses, there is no character more vital to the screen, and more vital onscreen, than the automobile.

Driven or driverless, the car is the most animated of inanimate objects, sometimes literally a cartoon, with a voice, a personality, a name. Even when not speaking, they purr, they roar. They are stars in their own right — the Batmobile, the Munster Koach, James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, K.I.T.T. (the modified 1982 Pontiac Trans Am from “Knight Rider”), the Ford Grand Torino (nicknamed the Striped Tomato) driven by Starsky and Hutch. They might represent freedom, power, delinquency or even the devil. Whole movies have been built about them and the amazing things they can do, but even when they aren’t jumping and flipping and crashing, they play an essential role in helping flesh-and-blood characters take care of business.

Perhaps in some sort of reaction to our enlightened view of the effects of our gas-guzzling ways, two new series fetishizing the internal combustion engine arrive, Max’s “Duster,” now streaming, and Prime Video’s “Motorheads,” premiering Tuesday.

Created by J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan and named for the supernaturally shiny cherry-red Plymouth the hero drives, “Duster” is stupid fun, a comic melodrama steeped in 1970s exploitation flicks, with a lot of loving homage to period clothes, knickknacks and interior design. The driver is Jim Ellis, played by Josh Holloway, in what reads like a turn on Sawyer, his charming, criminal character from Abrams’ “Lost,” topped with a shot of Matthew McConaughey.

Jim, a man who has never bothered to make a three-point turn, works out of Phoenix for Southwest crime boss Ezra Saxton (Keith David, monumental as always), picking up this, delivering that. The first delivery we see turns out to be a human heart, picked up from a fast-food drive-through window, destined for Saxton’s ailing son, Royce (Benjamin Charles Watson). Along for the ride is little Luna (Adriana Aluna Martinez), who calls Jim “uncle,” though you are free to speculate; her mother, Izzy (Camille Guaty), is a big-rig trucker — trucking being another fun feature of ’70s pop culture — who will find cause to become a labor leader.

The Ellises and the Saxtons, also including daughter Genesis (Sydney Elisabeth), have history — Jim’s father, Wade (Corbin Bernson), served with Ezra in World War II, and his late lamented brother had worked for him as well. Saxton is the sort of bad guy with whom you somehow sympathize in spite of the violence he employs; there’s genuine affection among the families, though one is never sure when or where a line will be drawn, only that one probably will be.

Into Jim’s low-rent but relatively settled, even happy world comes FBI agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson, sparky), fresh out of Quantico and ambitious to make a mark. As a Black woman, she’s told, “No one’s clamoring for an agent like you,” but she’s been assigned to Phoenix “because we have no other options.” She’s partnered there with cheerful Navajo agent Awan (Asivak Koostachin), as if to corral the minorities into a manageable corner, and assigned the Saxton case, regarded as “cursed” and so intractable as to be not worth touching.

Which is to say, agents deemed not worth taking seriously — along with underestimated “girl Friday” Jessica (Sofia Vassilieva) — have been thrown a case deemed not worth taking seriously. This is a classic premise for a procedural and strikes some notes about racism and sexism in the bargain, not out of tune with the times in which it’s set, or the times in which we’re watching.

Nina, who has managed to gather evidence of Jim crossing state lines to deliver the heart, which was stolen, and that Saxton may have been responsible for his brother’s death, bullies and tempts him into becoming a confidential informant. Thus begins an uneasy partnership, though their storylines run largely on separate tracks in separate scenes.

“Lost” was not a show that bothered much with sense in order to achieve its effects, and “Duster,” though it involves a far-reaching conspiracy whose payoff plays like the end of a shaggy-dog story, is a show of effects, of set pieces and sequences, of car chases and fistfights, of left-field notions and characters. These include Patrick Warburton as an Elvis-obsessed mobster named Sunglasses; Donal Logue as a corrupt, perverse, evangelical policeman; Gail O’Grady as Jim’s stepmother, a former showgirl who doesn’t much like him; LSD experiments; absurd puzzles (also see: “Lost”); an airheaded version of Adrienne Barbeau (Mikaela Hoover), with the actual Barbeau, a queen of genre films, making an appearance; Richard Nixon (in a few creepy seconds of AI); an oddly jolly Howard Hughes (Tom Nelis) in his Kleenex-box slippers; and a “Roadrunner” pastiche. Though not devoid of genuine feeling, it’s best experienced as a collection of attitudes and energies, noises and colors. Don’t take it any more seriously than it takes itself.

The opening titles are super cool.

“Motorheads” is a familiar sort of modern teenage soap opera but with cars. For reasons known only to series creator John A. Norris, the whole town is obsessed with them, and along with its human storylines, the series is a tour of automotive entertainments — drag racing, street racing, ATV racing, go-kart racing, classic car collecting. I have no idea whether this will resonate with the target demographic, but there is much I cannot tell you about kids these days.

As is common to the form, our young protagonists — Michael Cimino as Zac and Melissa Collazo as Caitlyn — are new to town, having been brought back from New York City by their mother, Samantha (Nathalie Kelly), to the oxymoronically named Rust Belt hamlet of Ironwood, where she was raised, and which is the last place anyone saw their father, Christian (Deacon Phillippe in flashbacks), 17 years earlier. He’s an infamous local legend, admired for his skill behind the wheel; aerial footage of Christian threading his way through a cordon of police cars as the getaway driver in a robbery keeps making its way into the show, though if you live in Los Angeles, you see this sort of thing on the news all the time. Marquee name Ryan Phillippe plays the kids’ Uncle Logan, who runs a garage that apparently does no business, but he has love and wisdom to spare.

Though at the center of the series, Zac’s storyline is a little shopworn, not just his wish to become, almost out of nowhere, Ironwood’s top speed racer, but his textbook interest in rich girl Alicia (Mia Healey), the girlfriend of rich boy Harris (Josh Macqueen), a Porsche-driving bully who is also hurting inside — so feel free to get a crush on him, if that’s your type. More interesting is sister Caitlyn, who prefers building cars to racing them and is perhaps the series’ most emotionally balanced character.

She becomes friends with shop classmate Curtis (Uriah Shelton), tall and good-looking, whose criminally inclined older brother, Ray (Drake Rodger), will become a sort of dark mentor to Zac. With the addition of Marcel (Nicolas Cantu), the archetypal “geek who becomes the hero’s best friend,” who works at the diner his father (grieving, drunk) used to own and dreams of designing cars, the four constitute the show’s outsider band of good guys.

They’ll have their not-always-happy business with each other — being teenagers, you know, things happen — and with their elders, as their elders will with one another. The past is not past in Ironwood; old feelings will resurface and old plots unravel. (And no one knows what happened to Christian.) Except for the cars sprinkled on top, it’s old stuff, not very deep, but produced with an engaging naturalism that rounds off the narrative extremes, enhances what’s commonplace and makes “Motorheads” easy to watch. (Colin Hoult is the sensitive director of photography, it’s worth mentioning.)

Drive on.

Adam Sandler has no crocodile tears for “Happy Gilmore” co-star Morris the alligator — he has fond jokes instead.

The “Punch-Drunk Love” actor and comedian on Wednesday shared a playful tribute honoring his reptilian co-star who died Sunday of old age at a gator farm in southern Colorado. In the tribute, shared to Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), Sandler remembered the alligator’s time on the set of his quirky 1996 golf comedy.

“We are all gonna miss you. You could be hard on directors, make-up artists, costumers — really anyone with arms or legs,” Sandler captioned a movie still featuring himself and Morris, “but I know you did it for the ultimate good of the film.”

Jay Young, the owner and operator of Colorado Gator Farm, announced Morris’s death in an emotional video shared to Facebook. “He started acting strange about a week ago. He wasn’t lunging at us and wasn’t taking food,” Young said, stroking the reptile’s head.

“I know it’s strange to people that we get so attached to an alligator, to all of our animals,” Young added. “He had a happy time here, and he died of old age.”

In “Happy Gilmore,” Sandler’s unlikely golf star confronts the feisty gator played by Morris after a golf ball lands in his toothy jaws. After an unsuccessful attempt, Happy dives into the golf course pond where he pummels the reptile and retrieves the ball.

Morris was best known for “Happy Gilmore,” but also appeared in numerous screen projects including “Interview with the Vampire,” “Dr. Dolittle 2” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” before he retired in 2006. He was found as an illegal pet in the backyard of a Los Angeles home and sent to the Colorado Gator Farm.

In his tribute, Sandler said he learned a “powerful lesson” from Morris on the set of their film after he refused to “come out of your trailer” without the bait of 40 heads of lettuce: “Never compromise your art.” The “Wedding Singer” and “50 First Dates” star also reminisced on totally real encounters with the gator including sharing a candy bar.

“You let me have the bigger half,” he joked. “But that’s who you were.”

According to Sandler, Morris was a Hollywood veteran with classy habits. The “Uncut Gems” star joked that the alligator, despite his character’s death in the first film, sent the “Happy Gilmore” team a “fruit basket and [a] hilarious note” ahead of the long-anticipated sequel, which premieres in July.

“I will miss the sound of your tail sliding through the tall grass, your cold, bumpy skin, but, most of all, I will miss your infectious laugh,” Sandler concluded his eulogy. “Thanks to Mr. Young for taking care of you all these years, and vaya con dios, old friend.”

Colorado Gator Farm announced on Monday that it decided to preserve Morris’ body via taxidermy “so that he can continue to scare children for years to come.”

“It’s what he would have wanted,” the farm said on Facebook.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

If there’s one thing that can be said about the first half of this year, it’s that we had great television. We’re talking memorable, going-down-in history TV. Whether it was the return of “Severance” and “The White Lotus,” or the arrival of new series like “The Pitt” and “Dying for Sex,” it felt like appointment television had returned, and there was something for everyone — and everyone seemed to be watching.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of great television to look forward to this summer as well. In the coming months, we’ll see returning favorites, documentaries about old favorites — prehistoric in one case, new action-packed series and shows that will simply make you laugh. And in these times, we could all use some laughter and a good distraction. So get ready to be transported to old worlds, new worlds and present ones — we’re looking forward to these escapes.

‘Pee-wee as Himself’

(HBO, May 23)

“It turns out that you’re not really supposed to direct your own documentary; you’re not supposed to control your own documentary,” says Paul Reubens, who would have liked to. Nevertheless, he sat for 40 hours of interviews for this properly admiring, though not sanitized, two-part posthumous documentary. Matters of ambition, artistry and anonymity are discussed, along with certain public events and misconceptions, but above all the film reminds you what a gift Pee-wee was to the culture, and, I am ready to say, the mental health of the nation. “Death is so final,” Reubens tells director Matt Wolf, who did not know that the actor had cancer, “that to be able to get your message in at the last minute, or at some point, is incredible.” — Robert Lloyd

‘And Just Like That …’

Season 3 (Max, May 29)

If you’re one of the many people who can’t help but wonder what a season of “And Just Like That …” will be like without Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), this is your summer. The revival may lack the charm, energy and cultural impact of “Sex and the City,” but, like Carrie chasing Big, many of us keep coming back for more of its deranged and addictive shenanigans. The third season promises something new and unexpected as we check in with the women during a New York City summer. After years of writing about her sex life and of those in her orbit, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is branching out to pursue fiction. She’s also settling into her three-floor Gramercy Park home, which includes a rat problem and a flirty next-door neighbor, while trying to figure out her complicated relationship with Aidan (John Corbett). Meanwhile, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is hitting the dating scene after her split with Che, and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is contending with her daughter Lily’s (Cathy Ang) new romance. I’m ready and seated like a supportive friend at a vent sesh trying not to judge questionable decisions. — Yvonne Villarreal

‘Walking With Dinosaurs’

(PBS, June 16)

I love dinosaurs. It’s a childhood affinity that started with “The Land Before Time” (1988), was solidified with “Jurassic Park” (1993) and had not at all waned by the time the original “Walking With Dinosaurs” series hit U.S. TVs in 2000. The original show gave the prehistoric reptiles the nature documentary treatment, offering glimpses of a world that was ruled by dinosaurs millions of years ago through the magic of CGI and animatronics. I still remember being wowed by a stegosaurus trying to fend off an allosaurus and being sad about a T. rex that died trying to protect her babies. All that is to say, I’m looking forward to more narrated adventures of how dinosaurs lived and died in this new reimagining with updated science and CG animation. Among the dinosaurs that have been teased to get a spotlight are triceratops, spinosaurus, Utahraptors, Albertosaurus, gorgosaurus and a Lusotitan. — Tracy Brown

‘Outrageous’

(Britbox, June 18)

The mixed-up antics of fictional British aristocrats are nothing compared with the real-life adventures and misadventures of England’s famous Mitford sisters — some celebrated, some notorious, some just getting on with things, relatively speaking — docu-dramatized in this six-part series, set between the world wars. Meet novelist Nancy (Bessie Carter, from “Bridgerton”); country girl Pamela (Isobel Jesper Jones); fascists Diana (Joanna Vanderham) and Unity (Shannon Watson), whose middle name was Valkyrie; progressive journalist Jessica (Zoe Brough) and Deborah (Orla Hill), a duchess. Plus clothes! Furniture! Cars! — R.L.

‘The Gilded Age’

Season 3 (HBO, June 22)

As our modern times continue to become ever so unprecedented, you can find me frothing at the mouth for a star-studded period piece with low stakes and high fashion. Please, whisk me away to the drawing rooms and dining halls of 1880s Manhattan to hang out with railroad tycoons, socially ambitious women and a new generation of rule breakers, especially when they’re played by Morgan Spector, Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald and Donna Murphy. And of course, the show — from “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes — continues its tradition of stacking its cast with brilliant stage actors, this time adding Phylicia Rashad, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Victoria Clark, Bill Camp and Leslie Uggams, to name just a few. My only complaint: Like the second season, the third is only eight episodes. I guess I’ll have to cope by simply restarting the entire series from the very beginning — again. — Ashley Lee

‘Ironheart’

(Disney+, June 24)

It’s been nearly five years since the “Ironheart” series was originally announced and I have been patiently waiting for Riri Williams to get her moment in the MCU spotlight since. In the comics, Riri is an engineering genius known for making her own Iron Man-inspired high tech suit of armor. Audiences got a glimpse of Riri (Dominique Thorne) in action in the 2022 film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” where she is introduced as the whiz kid MIT student that gets pulled into the events of the film for inventing a vibranium detector and later helps build armored suits for the Wakandans. Her upcoming solo series is set after the events of “Wakanda Forever” and will dive more into Riri’s backstory as she returns to Chicago, her hometown. Within Riri’s orbit is Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), described as a mysterious yet charming misfit who possesses a magical hood that lets him tap into the dark arts. We’ll just have to wait to see whether science or magic comes out on top. — T.B.

‘The Bear’

Season 4 (FX on Hulu, June 25)

Whether the third season of “The Bear” lost some of its mojo as one of TV’s most compelling series may be up for debate, but it hasn’t diminished our anticipation to catch up with Carmy and company in Season 4. Last season ended with several challenges: The new fine-dining restaurant receives a harsh review, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) considers leaving the restaurant, and the relationship between Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is on the outs. Those events seem to be setting up a season that can delve into the aftermath of how they’ll confront the good and the bad of restaurant life. And after making her directorial debut with last season’s stand-out episode “Napkins,” Edebiri has co-written an episode with co-star Lionel Boyce (Marcus) for Season 4. It’s a promising sign that we’ll be well-fed this summer. — Y.V.

‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’

Season 17 (FXX, July 9)

The gang from Paddy’s Pub is back for another season and this one is special for a couple of reasons: First, it’s the 20th anniversary of the series premiere — it’s the longest-running live-action comedy series — and second, we have another crossover episode on the horizon. Earlier this year, we got to see Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Charlie (Charlie Day), Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Frank (Danny DeVito) visit ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” where they put in some volunteer hours, thanks to a court order. Now, the “Abbott Elementary” bunch will be featured in “Sunny,” where we’ll get to see things from the gang’s point of view. But that’s not all. This season’s theme is “The Gang Embraces the Corporate Era,” a fitting one considering the times we’re living in, where money rules everything. I, for one, welcome them as corporate overlords. — Maira Garcia

‘Too Much’

(Netflix, July 10)

It’s been 13 years since the premiere of Lena Dunham’s HBO series “Girls,” an era-defining show that followed a group of messy 20-something New Yorkers. And in her latest project for Netflix, Dunham is focused on the next decade of life with “Too Much.” Co-created with her husband Luis Felber, this romantic comedy series aims to show that your 30s can be just as messy but also filled with joy. It stars Megan Stalter as Jessica, a workaholic who leaves New York for London after her life unravels when her boyfriend breaks up with her, and Will Sharpe as Felix, a Londoner who becomes Jessica’s love interest. Stalter has captivated viewers with her turn as Kayla in “Hacks,” the nepo baby assistant turned partner, and this series is likely to keep her star rising. — M.G.

‘Dexter: Resurrection’

(Paramount+ with Showtime, July 11)

You just can’t keep a beloved serial killer down. It certainly seemed that Dexter Morgan, the blood-splatter analyst and serial killer who headlined Showtime’s hugely popular “Dexter,” had finally run out of luck after being shot to death by his son Harrison in the 2022 reboot “Dexter: New Blood.” Michael C. Hall, who has portrayed the crafty killer with a code since 2006, clearly indicated in a Los Angeles Times interview that Dexter had met his maker, acknowledging that many fans would mourn his demise: “As upsetting as it might be, I hope audiences will appreciate the resonance of Dexter dying … at the hands of his son.” But it turns out that the end was not the end after all for Dexter, who has somehow survived the shooting by Harrison Morgan (Jack Alcott) and is returning for “Dexter: Resurrection,” a continuation of the “New Blood” sequel. The series finds Dexter awakening from a coma and discovering that Harrison has vanished. The cast includes Uma Thurman and David Zayas, reviving his portrayal of Det. Angel Batista from the original series. Also returning from “Dexter” is James Remar, who played Morgan’s father Harry Morgan. — Greg Braxton

‘Chief of War’

(Apple TV+, Aug. 1)

Films or series about Native Hawaiians and their history have been few and far between, but this new historical drama aims to rectify that. The nine-episode miniseries centers on the story of Ka‘iana, a warrior who tries to unify the Hawaiian islands before colonization in the late 18th century. Jason Momoa leads the largely Polynesian ensemble cast that includes Luciane Buchanan (“The Night Agent”) and Temuera Morrison (“The Mandalorian”). In addition to starring, Momoa co-wrote the series with Thomas Pa’a Sibbett (“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”) and executive produces. Undoubtedly, there will be comparisons to “Shogun” because of its historical roots and battle sequences, and that’s not a bad thing, given its success. It’s also another step for on-screen representation and more inclusive epics. — M.G.

‘Wednesday’

Season 2, Part 1 (Netflix, Aug. 6)

It’s been three years, but our favorite sleuthing goth teenager Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is finally back, as is the rest of her clan. In this season — which is split in two parts, the second arriving Sept. 3 — Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez), Wednesday’s little brother, is joining Nevermore Academy, and their parents, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán), will also have a presence on campus. While that development is enough to make any teenager want to die — metaphorically! — at least Wednesday will have Thing to keep her company, along with her sunny, polar opposite roommate Enid (Emma Myers) — they did embrace in the Season 1 finale, after all. Also returning is Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester and killer hyde Tyler, played by Hunter Doohan. We’ll meet some new faces too: Grandmama Hester Frump, played by “Absolutely Fabulous” star Joanna Lumley, and Steve Buscemi as Nevermore’s new principal Barry Dort. That’s plenty to keep me intrigued, and if the soundtrack is as good as last time — who can forget the dance scene with “Goo Goo Muck” — I can die happy. — M.G.

‘Outlander: Blood of My Blood’

(Starz, Aug. 8)

It’s hard to believe that “Outlander,” the time-traveling series that’s practically a Visit Scotland ad, premiered in 2014. In a world where many fine shows are lucky to make it to a fourth season, that is time travel indeed. Now, in anticipation of the series’ eighth and final season, which will premiere sometime this year or next, “Blood of My Blood” offers a prequel. Following the love stories of previous generations, namely the parents of “Outlander” mains, 20th-century born Claire (Caitriona Balfour) and 18th-century born Jamie (Sam Heughan), “Blood of My Blood” toggles between World War I and the zenith of the Highland culture, making it the ultimate period drama. “Outlander” fans will get to meet younger versions of the show’s supporting characters and, one hopes, gain some insight into how Claire came to be a time-traveler. More important, we all get to go back to Scotland. — Mary McNamara

‘Alien: Earth’

(FX on Hulu, Aug. 12)

More than four decades after it first crept onto movie screens, “Alien” remains one of the scariest films ever made, with scenes that continue to horrify and shock even after repeated viewings. With the exception of James Cameron’s “Aliens,” none of the numerous sequels have come close to matching the power of Ridley Scott’s original, though many fans admired 2024’s “Alien: Romulus.” The vicious extraterrestrial is now set to wreck havoc in “Alien: Earth,” which will premiere this summer. In the new series, a young woman (Sydney Chandler) and a group of tactical soldiers discover a mysterious vessel that crash-lands on Earth. The drama is created, written and directed by Noah Hawley, who has expanded the story of the 1996 film “Fargo,” transforming it into a popular and inventive anthology series. The cast includes Timothy Olyphant (“Justified”). — G.B.

‘Fixed’

(Netflix, Aug. 13)

In this “Lady and the Tramp” for our less innocent times, the great Genndy Tartakovsky (“Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Samurai Jack,” “Primal”) animates an R-rated comedy, written with Jon Vitti (“The Simpsons”), about a dog who learns he’ll be neutered the next morning and sets off to spend the day on an adventure. This streaming film features glorious 2D animation, the best of all cartoon formats, with nods to Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. Adam Devine stars as the voice behind the targeted pup with Kathryn Hahn, Idris Elba, Bobby Moynihan, Fred Armisen, Michelle Buteau and Beck Bennett filling out the back. — R.L.

Imagine you’re on a cruise ship for a four-day excursion to the Bahamas. You’ve got your swimsuit, an adult beverage, and you’re ready to relax. As you make your way to the pool deck, you’re hit with the sound of distorted guitars and in-your-face vocals as legendary L.A. punk band X rips through “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene.”

That was the scene on Little Steven’s Underground Garage Cruise, which set sail from Miami on May 9-13 on board Norwegian Cruise Lines’ Norwegian Gem, and the 1,800 or so passengers were in punk rock heaven.

The lineup featured an array of SoCal-based bands, including Social Distortion, L7, Rocket From the Crypt, the Lords of Altamont and the Dollyrots. They were joined by dozens of other performers across the rock ’n’ roll spectrum, from the hard-stomping Fleshtones to the incorrigible Supersuckers, to Tommy Stinson’s Bash & Pop, to the ageless Linda Gail Lewis — younger sister of music icon Jerry Lee Lewis.

As John Doe of X said, “bands you never thought you’d see on a boat.”

The festival-at-sea concept isn’t new. Sixthman, the company that ran the cruise, has been organizing festivals since 2001 and offers more than 25 curated cruise experiences. Upcoming sailings include Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea Alaska, Chef’s Making Waves Boston, Rock the Bells Cruise and Headbangers Boat.

In many ways, the first Little Steven’s Underground Garage Cruise is an offshoot of Sixthman’s Outlaw Country Cruise, which completed its ninth sailing earlier this year. It was a somewhat somber celebration because both its architect, SiriusXM’s Jeremy Tepper, and its ambassador, Mojo Nixon, died suddenly in 2024.

That cruise drew an eclectic mix of performers such as Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and Dave Alvin, who share musical DNA with many of the artists on the Underground Garage Cruise and vice versa. For example, Alvin’s former band the Blasters played alongside X during L.A.’s first wave of punk, and Social Distortion’s Mike Ness was often in the front row watching them play.

“Jeremy and Mojo were incredibly close,” Alvin said. “They were like soulmates in a weird way. Cultural, artistic soulmates.”

One surprise guest on the Outlaw Country Cruise was Jello Biafra, who released the album “Prairie Home Invasion” with Mojo Nixon in 1994. He played with Nixon’s backing band the Toadliquors during an emotional tribute to his late friend.

“It’s hard,” Biafra said, “because there is a little bit of a pall over this whole event, because Mojo isn’t here, and everybody’s got their memories bubbling up. I have plenty of that.”

Many of the performers, including some who’d never taken a cruise before, had reservations about what the Underground Garage Cruise would be like.

“I thought there was going to be a lot of crazy drunkenness,” said Donita Sparks of L7. “I was thinking it was a booze cruise, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of that. I haven’t seen a single fight. I’ve seen people laughing and hugging and rocking out to the music. I’ve just seen a lot of joyousness.”

John Reis, vocalist and guitarist of Rocket From the Crypt, was concerned about seasickness and feeling “trapped” but neither proved to be an issue, and he found it easy to “succumb to the vibe.”

“We don’t take certain things all that seriously,” Reis said of Rocket From the Crypt, “and festivals can be very regimented. There’s often a lot of stress involved, mainly with the people putting on the shows. The cruise isn’t like that at all. It’s way more casual.”

Even Ness of Social Distortion was seemingly won over by the cruising lifestyle. “Ease into the day, do what you want. No traffic, no hassles,” Ness said from the stage.

Punks of a certain age are all too familiar with the phenomenon of looking forward to a show but, once it’s time to actually leave the house, losing all enthusiasm to drive across town, find parking and wait for opening bands to wrap up their sets. On the Underground Garage Cruise, all shows are a short walk away and run from an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. No openers. No encores.

Although some shows overlap, unlike most festivals, the bands play several times throughout the course of the cruise. So if you missed a band’s performance on the spacious pool deck, you could catch them later at the 850-seat Stardust Theater or one of the more intimate lounges that provide a clublike setting.

That means you can choose where and when you want to see the band — even early in the afternoon.

“We’ve been doing this a long time,” Eddie Spaghetti of the Supersuckers told the crowd at the band’s 1:15 p.m. gig. “But never this early,” quipped bandmate “Metal” Marty Chandler.

Performers participated in events offstage as well: autograph signings, a wine tasting with the Dictators, a poker tournament with the Slim Jim Phantom Trio and interview sessions that will eventually make their way to the Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel on SiriusXM. An interview with Mike Ness ended with a surprise short set by Social Distortion, accompanied by keyboardist Ben Alleman on the accordion.

There are, of course, drawbacks to the cruise experience. If you’re not having a good time at a festival, you can always leave and go home. Obviously, you can’t do that on a cruise ship. There are also larger concerns with the cruise industry itself, from the impact these behemoth ships have on the environment to the low wages paid to foreign workers, who do the bulk of the cooking and cleaning.

John Doe said he was conflicted about the gig. “As you grow up, you do things for love or money, right? This is for money. But I love the band X.”

Then there’s the elephant in the room: the perception that cruises aren’t for kids; they’re for elderly people.

A lot of these old punks are, well, old. And if you were in the pit with bands like X, Social Distortion and L7 when they were first making waves, then so are you.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“Rock ’n’ roll is like jazz now,” said Eddie Spaghetti. “Essentially, it’s become a niche art form for older people because most kids don’t like rock ’n’ roll anymore.”

As fans age, their bodies may break down but their passion for the music of their youth remains the same. But a lot of music fans, this writer included, deal with disability, health and/or mobility issues that can put a damper on the typical festival experience. Sixthman, however, excelled at making sure every passenger felt welcome.

For instance, all of the venues on the Underground Garage Cruise had an abundance of ADA seating, with staff designated to assist those who requested it. One staff member I spoke with told me she scans the crowds during the shows and looks for people who might benefit from extra assistance.

That kind of personal attention goes a long way toward explaining why fans, performers and staff members alike think of these cruises as a community. There’s a camaraderie on these trips that you won’t find at your typical festival.

The people you meet at the show aren’t just festivalgoers; they’re your neighbors and sometimes your breakfast companions. The intimidating-looking punk rocker covered in tattoos is a lot more approachable when eating pancakes with his partner at the buffet.

This camaraderie isn’t what leads most fans to sail on a music cruise, but it’s one of the reasons they return year after year. During the Outlaw Country Cruise in February, passengers assembled for a group photo for those who’d sailed on all nine Outlaw Country Cruises.

That camaraderie is important to the musicians too. Everyone I talked to raved about the shows they’d seen. Jonny Two Bags of Social Distortion told me that when he received the schedule, he highlighted the bands he wanted to see — just like any fan. He was especially excited to see Bash & Pop, who he’d played with in the early ’90s.

Donita Sparks of L7 had fond memories of playing with the Supersuckers in the early ’90s. “We used to sleep on the Supersuckers’ floor in Seattle,” Sparks said, “and we would have a dance party every night.”

That excitement for what L7’s Jennifer Finch called “the buffet of bands” is infectious. It’s also why Little Steven’s Underground Garage Cruise will sail again next April, to Cozumel, Mexico.

“We’re all alive,” Sparks said. “We’re here and we’re still rocking.”

Jim Ruland is the L.A. Times bestselling author of “Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records” and of the novel “Make It Stop.”

Just north of Magic Mountain’s roller coasters, hidden within the vast, anonymous industrial parks of Valencia, lies the secret lab where the murderous doll M3GAN was born.

“Born” is putting it a touch dramatically — but only a touch. Though she’s taken on a prankish life of her own since the 2022 runaway horror hit made her dance moves iconic, M3GAN is a product of several teams, primarily the animatronic makeup and design company Morot FX Studio, but also a human actor, 15-year-old Amie Donald, several puppeteers and a swarm of technicians performing in concert like a group of modern dancers.

And while the nondescript row of beige offices I pull up to doesn’t scream “secret lab,” that’s not far off either. Just last night, Christian Bale was here, testing out some face-changing prosthetics for his forthcoming role in “Madden,” about the Oakland Raiders football legend. Nicolas Cage dropped in a day earlier. Both will be returning in the days ahead.

“You want a popcorn?” asks Adrien Morot, 54, the shop’s boyish proprietor in a baseball cap. It’s a Saturday in April — the only available time he has in a typically job-crammed week to show us some of the new work he’s done on “M3GAN 2.0,” due in theaters June 27.

There’s a noticeable pride Morot takes in touring me around his geek’s paradise: a two-level office crammed with shelves of scowling latex heads, furry creatures and a pair of giant gators overlooking it all. You see posters for horror movies like Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” as well as more elegant, perhaps unlikely gigs: Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” and the Bale-starring “Vice,” for which the actor was transformed into Dick Cheney. (Morot’s task: turning Steve Carell into Donald Rumsfeld.)

Scattered pizza boxes left on workbenches lend to the air of dorm-room fantasy but Morot is quick to open one up: no leftover slices, only delicate pieces of fabricated skin applications. Pizza boxes are perfect for those.

“I have to admit that, especially for somebody like me that grew up just doing this — this was my hobby, really — there’s never a day where you don’t come into the shop feeling: This is so cool,” Morot says.

Once upon a time, he was a kid in Montreal, horror-obsessed, making his own creations. “F/X,” the deliriously fun 1986 thriller about a special-effects man on the run, is one he watched as a “dumb 16-year-old, very cocky, like a teenager thinking that I was better than everything,” but also a movie he can recount beat for beat.

Also picking her way through the shop is Kathy Tse, Morot’s longtime creative partner and wife. Soft-spoken, with a mind for specifics that complements and protects Morot, her presence immediately makes the space feel more like a serious studio shared by two contemporary artists. She explains that Valencia was “family-friendly” and a better real-estate value.

“Because we have good chemistry — we have trust — we work well together,” Tse, 44, says. “That is so important when you are under duress, under stress. And because of that, they always end up calling us back.”

Hollywood has called back, noticing them in a big way. The Oscar they won for the fleshy organic work they did with Brendan Fraser on “The Whale” is nowhere to be seen. It’s in a closet somewhere, Morot admits, sheepishly.

“Winning an Oscar has never been in the list of accomplishments that I was seeking, truly ever,” he says. “My only goal that I was really dying for was to have one of our creations on the cover of Fangoria magazine. That’s the only thing.” (They line the shop’s business office.)

Tse steers us around to the notion of a certain intimacy they like to work at, a realist aesthetic that might be called the Morot house style.

“What was great about the Oscar that year was how Brendan and Adrien really bonded,” she adds. “They were like brothers, with the constant support and dirty jokes and texts going back and forth. I think that was such a nice, beautiful relationship. To this day, they still text.”

“That’s always how we saw our work,” Morot says. “We’re there to help the actor if we can with what we produce — to help them find the character.”

And with that, the pair take me up to the second level of their shop, followed by their border terrier, Jasper, and there she is, the girl of the hour.

“M3GAN 2.0” is exactly the sequel fans will be wanting. It embraces the essential ridiculousness of the concept — a vicious AI in the robotic body of a pissed-off tween — as well as the folly of tech bros who would move fast and break things before heeding some fairly obvious warnings.

It’s more of a comedy. The laughs are constant (yes, M3GAN sings another of her awkward songs). Also, reading the room, the filmmakers realize that we’ve come to love her and want to root for her. To that end, she’s been turned into something of a force for good, drafted into doing battle against a military-grade AI called Amelia, also built into the body of a young woman.

For the sake of our visit, Morot and Tse have set up two full-size M3GANs, one from the first movie, another from the upcoming film, the latter more muscular and a good several inches taller. That change was motivated by the realities of their human actor.

“Amie, she keeps growing so quickly and within a year grew over two inches,” Tse says. “The first one she was yay high and then six months later, she grew. We had to readjust all of our dolls.”

Says Morot, “She is such a joy to work with — a real trouper. And I think that everybody was enamored with her and it just made sense to bring her back in the second movie. So I think that the script was altered or adapted to make sure that she would fit within the story.”

When M3GAN is running or doing one of her viral swirly-arm dances, it’s performed by Donald, a young actor from New Zealand, wearing a mask designed by Team Morot. He shows me the mold. “That’s her face on the inside,” he says. “That’s a negative impression of her face. It’s quite heavy, actually.”

But when it’s a medium shot or close-up, you’re seeing an animatronic puppet operated by several people. Usually Morot is working the mechanisms in the eyes and lubricating them — he can speak excitedly at length about “eyeball pivot” — while Tse is manipulating arms and doing a fair amount of hand-acting.

“In my naiveté, I never quite understood just how much this was basically an elevated Muppet movie,” says “M3GAN” director Gerard Johnstone, calling from the editing suite at Blumhouse’s post-production facility in Koreatown, where he’s finalizing the sequel’s cut. He remembers learning about Morot and Tse’s skills in 2019 before the pandemic hit and being convinced by their commitment to lifelike illusion.

“I found that hugely inspiring,” the director says. “I thought, Why are we making something that looks like a toy when these guys can make things that look human? Wouldn’t that be really fun if we went further into the uncanny valley than we’ve ever gone before? And Adrien and Kathy were the perfect people to partner up with on that.”

Tse’s M3GAN designs, these days rendered by a phalanx of digital printers (a single head can take up to 50 hours), became proof of concept and helped green-light the first film, not an everyday occurrence.

In the room with us in Valencia, the dolls eyes’ are hypnotic, carrying a trace of malevolence. “There’s a presence,” Tse offers.

Watching them finesse each strand of M3GAN’s hair, every neck tilt and eye motion for our photo shoot, Morot and Tse look like nothing more than devoted stage parents, grooming a promising theater kid. It’s a natural thought that begs an obvious question.

“Oh, for sure,” Tse agrees, owning up to parental affection for her creations. “Look how we care about our dolls. There’s so much pride and you’re protective of making sure that they look good, that they’re well cared for.”

The pair have a 20-year relationship, tying the knot around the time they were working on the first “M3GAN,” a watershed moment for them.

“I was a young flower at the time when we first met,” Tse says without a trace of sarcasm. “He was doing a film and I was just graduating from university. I was working in banking and we met that way. So he was already working in film and he brought me into it, actually.”

“I could have went into banking,” Morot cracks.

In each other, they found kindred spirits of perfectionism, going on to corner the Montreal makeup market, which was then booming with Hollywood shoots. Years of work came without days off or vacations.

But they knew a relocation to Los Angeles was inevitable. In the 1990s, Morot had given the town a shot, apprenticing with other designers, learning his craft and drinking in the city until he needed to move back to Canada for family reasons.

“I was really bummed when I had to move back,” he says. “For me, L.A. always felt like home. When I landed here at 21, I was like, oh, my God, everything is here.”

It’s not lost on them that their specialty has come to represent something increasingly rare: an actual craft with an emphasis on real-world tactility in a moment when digital spurts of blood are becoming the norm. Prosthetic makeup effects have become a last stand, a bastion of the old ways.

“This is a massive extinction of the entire movie industry,” Morot says, alarmed. “We’re losing the human process behind it. That’s going to be a tragedy because we’re going to lose the communal experience of movies. We’re already there with all the streaming platforms and YouTube, where people are all on their own, silo-watching. There’s no longer the watercooler discussion about what show is in right now because everybody’s watching their own thing.”

Tse strikes a more pragmatic tone. “I think you have to in a way embrace it,” she says of AI. “Some parts of the industry will unfortunately lose work, but then you’ll have to find your way into another area.”

“M3GAN” and “M3GAN 2.0,” for all their enjoyable sci-fi nuttiness, are expressly about these questions of AI’s prominence. They may be horror movies with training wheels, but they’re also teaching PG-13 audiences to maintain a healthy skepticism about the future. Their lineage goes back to “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the prescient 1970 nightmare “Colossus: The Forbin Project,” about two AIs that take over the world’s nuclear arsenal, a plot that reemerges in the new “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.”

“The reason I did ‘M3GAN’ was out of frustration as a parent,” says Johnstone. “I was bringing my children up in this age of devices and trying to figure out where the balance lies and seeing everyone around me kind of accept it and thinking, Wait, there’s got to be a middle ground here. Why aren’t schools having a conversation?”

If Morot and Tse, both at the bleeding edge of their field, end up making AI palatable for a younger generation, with M3GAN as their mascot, they’re at least doing it the old-school way, with tools that inspired them from the start. They’ve brought out a mechanical head for me to see — it’s actually the first doll they ever built (just without the skin) and it has a rather large speaking cameo in the new movie: an unsettling scene about rebuilding in an underground bunker and saving the world before it’s too late.

“We were lucky,” Tse says — by which she means, lucky that they saved this prototype for the moment. The glistening jawline and lidless eyes are giving unmistakable Terminator vibes. Morot cradles the head, still that boy dreaming of Fangoria covers.

It’s the kind of thing you hold onto in a lab in Valencia.

Airbnb wants to do your hair, cook your dinner, massage your back and possibly photograph your honeymoon. All these services, and several more, are part of a new bid by the company to further expand beyond its roots as a lodging broker.

The company unveiled Airbnb Services — which includes 10 initial categories — while relaunching its experiences program and introducing a new app design at a media event in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Rather than heavily emphasizing lodging, the redesigned app more strongly integrates all of its offerings and encourages more interaction among guests and hosts.

This new approach opens new possibilities for the company and its customers, who could order services and experiences from home or on the road. But this step depends on a lot of behind-the-scenes work. The new services menu — which went live Tuesday with 10,500 offerings — will be offered in 260 cities, and Airbnb vows to protect consumers by carefully vetting those legions of service providers.

Airbnb, born in 2007, grew to challenge the hotel industry and became a giant in the world of hospitality. It first launched its Airbnb Experiences program in 2016, serving as a matchmaker between travelers and people offering their services as specialized tour guides and teachers. But that effort sputtered.

By 2022, many critics on Reddit and elsewhere were complaining that Airbnb experiences were unreliable, and industry website Skift reported that Airbnb had stopped adding new experiences and reduced emphasis on them on its homepage. With this relaunch, company representatives said, Airbnb is aiming to focus more narrowly on distinctive experiences that have been more closely vetted. The company also said it would include more experiences focused on meeting or spending time with celebrities.

To start, Airbnb would offer about 22,000 experiences in 650 cities in 22 categories. To announce the new moves, Airbnb co-founder and Chief Executive Brian Chesky convened hundreds of influencers, podcasters and media in a special-event space in Boyle Heights.

“What if you could Airbnb more than a place to stay?” Chesky asked the audience. “Today we are changing travel again.”

For instance, Chesky said, “Now you can book a professional chef to come right to your home.” The same goes for photographers, personal trainers, massage and spa treatments, hair-styling, makeup and nails. Moreover, “you don’t need to stay at an Airbnb to book these services. You can book them in your own city.”

Chesky said he expects to add thousands of more services over the course of 2025.

In the case of Airbnb Experiences, “we’ve learned a lot about how to make them better,” said Chesky, tacitly acknowledging the feature’s uneven history. As before, the goal is to give travelers an experience that reaches beyond the usual photo-op spots and bus-tour stops.

Stressing small groups, specific themes, Chesky said the new experiences will fall into five categories: history and culture; food and drink; nature and outdoors; art and design; and fitness and wellness. He encouraged anyone who is an expert in their city and has something to share to apply to be a host. Airbnb representatives said the vetting process, which can take up to two weeks, includes online scrutiny of a host’s work history, licensing, education and any awards — along with ongoing attention to guest reviews.

The renewed program also includes about 1,000 Airbnb Originals — adventures in the company of “the world’s most interesting people.” As examples, Chesky cited a mezcal-tasting session in Mexico City with an expert, a class with a ramen master in Tokyo, a dance with a K-pop performer in Seoul and a visit to Notre Dame with an architect who worked on the cathedral’s restoration.

Those offerings feature at least a few celebrity options, which include spending a Sunday with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, “learning to throw the perfect spiral” or an anime-intensive encounter called “Become an Otaku Hottie with Megan Thee Stallion.” Airbnb said those initial celebrity experiences are free, offered as a promotion, with guests chosen from applicants.

At a time when the federal government is conducting a radical erasure of Black history in the name of fighting diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and school libraries are banning books about race, Ibram X. Kendi is ready to introduce kids to Malcolm X.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Kendi, whose new book “Malcolm Lives!” is subtitled “The Official Biography of Malcolm X for Young Readers,” has made it his mission to promote antiracism. His previous books include “How to Be an Antiracist” (2019) and “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” (2016), which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. As an academic — most recently at Boston University and soon to be at Howard University — and as a writer, he lives to spotlight the very history that the current administration would like to bury, especially where it potentially influences young minds.

He is well aware of the timing of his new book. In fact, he savors it.

“When people are trying to attack history, trying to kill our awareness of history, those are the moments we should be creating it,” he said in a recent interview. “Those are the moments in which we should be making it even more legible for people, so that they can understand why other people are actually trying to prevent us from having an awareness of history.”

And in Malcolm X, the complex street hustler turned Black nationalist firebrand worshipped by everyone from Stokely Carmichael to Clarence Thomas, Kendi believes he has the perfect subject for the moment.

“Malcolm’s life and story, and the ideas that he personally wrestled with, are ideas that we’re wrestling with now,” he said. “I think he can help adults and young people to better understand what’s going on.”

Kendi — the “X” stands for his middle name, Xolani, a Xhosa and Zulu word for peace — pulls no punches in making such connections. This is how he analyzes the Lansing, Mich., fire department’s indifference after a white mob set fire to Malcolm’s family home in 1929: “Racism is worse in times of tragedy. If you are Black, the agencies designed to help you will ignore you or hurt you. Ask Black residents of New Orleans who survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Ask houseless Black people near you. Ask Black people who called the police when their loved one was having a mental health crisis — and the police came and killed them.”

As Malcolm X’s centenary approaches on May 19, books about his life have been flowing fast, furious and by any means necessary. Two — Manning Marable’s “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” (2011) and Les and Tamara Payne’s “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” (2020) — won Pulitzer Prizes. Mark Whitaker’s “The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon’s Enduring Impact on America” arrives Tuesday.

“Malcolm Lives!” is different from the above in one obvious way: It is intended for readers between the ages of 10 and 14. It is disarmingly blunt and direct. Perhaps to the dismay of the censorious, it is also instructional.

In other words, it is a school library book banner’s worst nightmare.

“Malcolm has the ability to teach every young reader that no matter the challenges that they’re facing, the adversity that they’re facing in this moment, they have the potential and the capacity to become a great historical figure like Malcolm X,” Kendi said. “To me, that’s one of the most interesting aspects of his story. With everything he endured as a young person, he still was able to navigate everything and become this pivotal and influential figure.”

Kendi hopes “Malcolm Lives!” might find its way into the hands of readers not unlike the young Malcolm. As Malcolm Little, he was a petty crook who didn’t fully discover the power of reading until he was incarcerated — at which point he began devouring books like food. He memorized the dictionary. He studied Islamic texts and Black history. He read H.G. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Nietzsche and Kant. “He was a young person in prison heading nowhere,” Kendi said. “And it was books that led him to become the person that we know of to this day.”

So when Kendi approached the task of introducing Malcolm to today’s young readers, he thought about the impact “Malcolm Lives!” might have on someone encountering not just Malcolm for the first time, but exploring books for the first time. He knows books can unlock new worlds, which is one reason so many books, including those written by Kendi, have been banned. After all, it’s not the physical book that poses a threat, it’s the ideas contained therein and their capacity to provoke someone to think differently — and perhaps to hope.

“When I think about putting this book in the world, I think about how this book can be the book that allows a Black child to realize that they are important, that they have potential, even if that child is incarcerated,” he said. “Or it could be the book that allows a white child to realize the problem isn’t Black people, which then prevents that white child from going down a path in which they end up harming a Black child and therefore harming their own sort of life chances.

“I mean, this is important work.”

Near the end of an evening ruled by queens, a king was keeping Chaka Khan waiting.

“Stevie Wonder’s in the house tonight,” Khan said late Sunday as she stood in the spotlight at Inglewood’s Kia Forum. “I don’t know where he is.” The veteran soul-music star wandered over to the edge of the stage, the black fringe of her bedazzled cape swaying with every step, and peered out into the crowd. “Steve, you over there?”

Khan was in the middle of her set to close Sunday’s installment of a traveling R&B revue called “The Queens” that launched last week in Las Vegas and has her on the road through the fall with three fellow lifers in Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Stephanie Mills. (One longs to have been in the room when they decided who plays last.) She’d come out singing “I Feel for You” — saucy, casual, effortlessly funky — then glided through “Do You Love What You Feel” and “What Cha’ Gonna Do for Me.” Now her would-be special guest was nowhere to be found.

“Stevie Wonder!” she said again, attempting to summon him to the stage. “We go back a long, long way. I remember once we did a tour, he and I — must have been back in the ’80s, the ’70s or something. It was that long ago. We were on tour for dang near two years. Two friggin’ frack years.” Khan went on for a minute about a vexing old record deal then seemed wisely to think better of that. “Call him,” she instructed the crowd, which started up a “Stevie” chant.

“What?” boomed a voice at last over the sound system. It was Wonder, shuffling out from the wings wearing his signature shades and beret to join his old friend for — well, for what? Khan had set up Wonder’s cameo by saying they should do “I Feel for You” again since Wonder played harmonica on the original record in 1984. But Wonder didn’t appear to have gotten that note: After clasping hands with Khan, he started telling the story of writing “Tell Me Something Good” a decade earlier for her group Rufus, which led Khan to cue her backing band on that number instead.

And what a number it was. That slinky up-and-down riff still a marvel of rhythmic ingenuity that inspired Khan and Wonder to go off in a volley of ad libs like the seasoned pros they are.

Signs of life such as that one are precisely the reason to go to a concert like “The Queens,” in which the vast experience of the performers — Mills was the youngest at 68, LaBelle the oldest at 80 — serves not as a safeguard against the unexpected but as a guarantee that whatever might happen is fully roll-with-able.

Mills got up there Sunday and discovered an unwelcome climate situation — “I wish they would cut that air off,” she said, “it’s blowing so cold on me” — but went ahead and sang the bejesus out of “Home,” from “The Wiz.” LaBelle put out a call for willing men from the audience — “Black, white, straight, gay,” she made clear — then presided over an impromptu talent show as each guy did a bit of “Lady Marmalade” for her. And then there was Knight’s handler, who seemed to show up a few beats early to guide her offstage after “Midnight Train to Georgia.” No biggie: He could just stand there holding her arm gently for a minute while she traded “I’ve got to go’s” with her background singers.

Another reason to go to “The Queens,” especially on Mother’s Day, was to behold the finery displayed onstage (and in the crowd). Knight wore a crisp red pantsuit with glittering figure-eight earrings, Mills an off-the-shoulder mermaid gown. LaBelle showed off two outfits, emerging in a silky blue suit before changing into a long tunic-style dress. During “On My Own,” she kicked off her heels, sending them hurtling across the stage; later, she spritzed herself from a bottle of fragrance then spritzed the front row for good measure.

As a three-hour program — Knight opened at 7 p.m. on the dot — Sunday’s show moved quickly, with a rotating stage that whirred to life after each woman’s set. And of course nobody stuck around long enough to offer up anything but hits. The musical pleasures were the ripples of detail in all those familiar tunes: a little ha-ha-ha Knight used to punctuate “That’s What Friends Are For”; LaBelle’s frisky vocal runs in “When You Talk About Love,” which she sang as a stagehand came out to help put her in-ear monitor back in; the way Khan toyed with her phrasing in “Through the Fire,” slowing down when you thought she’d speed up and vice versa. (Nobody wants to start a fight here, but Khan was undoubtedly the night’s best singer.)

After bringing the Mother’s Day audience to its feet with “I’m Every Woman” — somewhere out there was Khan’s own 91-year-old mom, she said — she started to make for the exit when her band revved up the throbbing synth lick from “Ain’t Nobody.”

“Oh, one more?” she said to no one in particular. “S—. One more!”

There are very few recorded interviews with Dame Agatha Christie, the world’s bestselling novelist and generally acknowledged doyenne of crime, for one simple reason: She hated speaking in public.

She often described herself as cripplingly shy — she agonized for days when a celebration for the 10th anniversary of her play “The Mousetrap” required her to give a speech — and she remained morbidly press-adverse after the media swarm that followed her famous 11-day disappearance. (Though in defense of the press, what could one expect when a notable crime writer goes missing for almost two weeks in the midst of a shattering divorce and then, when found, refuses to explain what had happened?)

In her autobiography, and through her literary avatar Ariadne Oliver, Christie often described taking great pains to avoid speaking in front of people and she (and Mrs. Oliver) particularly hated being asked questions about her writing. “I never know what to say,” Mrs. Oliver would wail, echoing sentiments expressed by Christie herself.

So when BBC Maestro announced, at the end of April, that it was launching a digital class in which an AI-resurrected Christie would offer lessons in writing, it was difficult not to be outraged. Never mind the whole “I see dead people”-ness of it all; here was a woman who was on record, multiple times and often at great length, about how much she loathed having to talk about how she did what she did in front of a bunch of people.

The creators of the series clearly anticipated such outrage. The prologue to the course features BBC Maestro Chief Executive Michael Levine and Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard, chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Ltd., explaining the care put into the series. The script, we are assured, is rigorously based on Christie’s own words; the actor (Vivien Keene) was chosen after a year-and-a-half search; and the set (a library that houses a model of Christie’s own typewriter), the costume (a tweed suit accented by pearls, a brooch and duplicates of Christie’s engagement and wedding rings) and the hair are models of authenticity.

More important, the course has the family’s full support. “At the heart of this project was my father who knew Agatha Christie better than any person living,” Prichard says. “At times he was astounded by how similar to his grandmother this version was. And my view,” he adds with a mildly challenging air, “is that if he can enjoy this project, we can all enjoy it.”

Challenge accepted.

Keeping in mind Christie’s fascination with disguise and advanced technology, as well as a passage in her autobiography in which she wishes a friend with more confidence could step in as a substitute during author interviews, I put my fears aside and ponied up $89 for the two-and-a-half-hour class.

Which is so respectful I found myself, at more than a few points in the 12 sections, wanting to scream.

We meet Keene’s Christie behind a desk, and there she stays, smiling and nodding as she walks us through her thoughts on her craft (including, in the introduction, her aversion to offering them).

Christie’s autobiography is a doorstop. Thoughts about writing, her characters and her career run through it, but they rarely take up more than two consecutive pages. Christie historian Mark Aldridge has done a remarkable job of mining it, as well as other writings, to create a genuine tutorial with an admirable script.

Yes, Christie offers the typical anodyne advice — write what you know and the type of book you enjoy reading — but she also gets very granular. A murder mystery is best at 50,000 words, the murderer and important clues must be introduced very early on, settings should be described thoroughly but economically (“sometimes a map works best”) and one must never give into an editor who spells cocoa as “coco.”

In portions that include “characters,” “plots,” “settings” and “clues,” Christie assesses some of her work. She came to think that her first book, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” was over-stuffed with plot, but remained irritated by those who claimed that the twist in “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” was a cheat. She wished she had introduced Hercule Poirot as a younger man, and was very happy to ditch Hastings for a while.

She discusses the importance of observation in everyday life, describing, among other things, how an encounter in front of a shop window led to one of her Parker Pyne stories, as well as the usefulness of isolated settings (“snow can also weigh down telephone wires”) and second (or third) murders.

In the opening minutes, it’s kind of neat to see what looks very much like a midlife Christie, smiling and talking in her very British way (the voice is not precise but close enough).

Still, there is no getting away from the fact that this is a two-and-a-half-hour lecture, delivered by a woman sitting behind a desk who, with the exception of a very few hand gestures, never moves. The camera moves, shooting her from this angle and that, and occasionally roving over various covers of Christie’s books. But Christie’s body remains as still as the late Queen Elizabeth II delivering her Christmas address.

I began to feel quite concerned for Keene — just how long were these takes? She delivers a vocally expressive performance and gives the digitally recreated face the necessary intelligence, wit and kindliness. The face itself looked fine — a bit glowy at times and immobile around the eyes — but its novelty quickly wore off. I would have happily traded what is essentially a parlor trick for a Christie who would get up and walk around a bit. Have a cup of tea, flip through a notebook.

I realize that it is a course, and one I did not have to go through in one sitting. But as the first hour slid into the second, I found myself longing for someone, Aldridge perhaps, to mine Christie’s exquisite autobiography more broadly and create an entire one-woman play. An evening with Agatha, free of AI, in which Christie could reminisce about her extraordinary life, from her glorious Victorian childhood to her later years as an archaeologist.

Though known as the creator of the manor-house murder story, Christie was, as her books indicate, a voracious world traveler, learning how to surf before surfing was a thing, and dealing with adventures and misadventures (including a 14-hour honeymoon trek by camel and a hideous case of bed bugs on the Orient Express) that would give even the most intrepid travel influencer pause.

She lived through two world wars, experienced wildly unexpected success and deep personal loss. She endured a heartbreaking divorce and a nervous breakdown, while raising a daughter and writing books, only to rally again and find love again in the most unexpected place.

She wasn’t a saint — her work occasionally includes the racist, antisemitic and classist tropes of its time — but she avowed fascism as often as her more political contemporaries and believed, as she says in the course, that she lived in contract with her readers for whom she had the utmost respect.

She was a celebrity who never behaved as a celebrity, an artist who never admitted to art (and wrote her books on any steady surface, including orange crates and washstands), a novelist like no other who also wrote the longest-running play in history and whose work continues to sell while being adapted in film and television. Her contribution to the culture is literally incalculable.

So surely she deserves more than a course that makes news mainly because of its use of dreaded AI. She’s Agatha-freaking-Christie. Give her a movie, a miniseries, a play. Give her an actor who worries less about the face and more about the words, and the life that inspired them.

“Can you believe,” Jenny Lewis asked, “this is our third show in 17 years?”

Wearing the same outfit she’d worn at the first two — polka-dot mini-dress, white ruffle socks, a glittering tiara perched atop her head — Lewis was onstage Saturday night with her band Rilo Kiley at the Just Like Heaven festival in Pasadena.

“It’s truly amazing to be here with you all,” she told the crowd of thousands spread across the leafy grounds surrounding the Rose Bowl. “But mostly,” she added, turning to her bandmates, “it’s amazing to be here with you all.”

One of the defining Los Angeles rock bands of the last quarter-century, Rilo Kiley formed in 1998 — both Lewis and the group’s other singer and songwriter, Blake Sennett, had been child actors — then spent the next decade steadily approaching the big time with clever if jaundiced songs about sex, bad decisions and the Hollywood dream machine. Yet just as the band was poised to blow up, Rilo Kiley split amid creative and personal tensions between Lewis and Sennett, who’d also been romantically involved. Now, for the first time since 2008, the group — rounded out by Pierre De Reeder and Jason Boesel — is on the road playing shows again; its reunion tour launched last week with gigs in San Luis Obispo and Ojai and is scheduled to run through the fall.

The timing makes sense, given that Lewis over the intervening years has become something of an older-sister figure for a subsequent generation or two of smart young musicians writing about all the ways the world can disappoint a woman in her 20s. (Think Phoebe Bridgers, think Haim, think Olivia Rodrigo.)

Then again, nostalgia is rarely required to justify itself, as Just Like Heaven made clear. A fixture of the Southern California festival landscape since 2019, this annual show brings together veterans of early-2000s indie rock to relive memories of an era before streaming and social media remade pop music; other acts high on the bill this year included Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, Bloc Party, the Drums and Toro y Moi.

Near the end of its headlining set on Saturday, Vampire Weekend offered up what frontman Ezra Koenig called “a salute to indie” — strung-together covers of period hits by Phoenix, Tame Impala, Beach House, Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio — in a slot the band typically dedicates to audience requests for oldies like “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” or “Dancing in the Dark.” That Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks” now qualifies as a classic was a fact nobody seemed to need convincing.

Indeed, Lewis has said that part of what led her to reconvene Rilo Kiley was the huge success of a recent reunion tour by the Postal Service, the electro-pop side project that she and Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard introduced in 2003 and which last year headlined Just Like Heaven after earlier selling out three nights at the Hollywood Bowl.

Yet if all that eagerness to reminisce made easy pickings of folks in Pasadena, Rilo Kiley played with more muscle and panache than it needed to on Saturday in an hour-long set that showcased the band’s impressive versatility.

“The Execution of All Things” and “With Arms Outstretched” were crisp and strummy, while “The Moneymaker” rode a raunchy soul-rock groove and “Dreamworld” evoked the glossy menace of mid-’70s Fleetwood Mac. Now as during the group’s heyday, what elevated the performance was Lewis’ skill as a storyteller: the torch-song melancholy she found in “I Never,” about a woman betting too much on a relationship, and the perfectly soapy romantic drama of “Does He Love You?” in which she plays two of the three parts in a doomed love triangle. For the latter, she grabbed a video camera and roamed the stage, sending footage of her bandmates to the giant screen behind her — not just the star of the Rilo Kiley show but its director too.

On Spotify, the band’s biggest song is the coolly self-assured “Silver Lining,” from its darkly funny final LP, “Under the Blacklight,” and here Lewis delivered it with a swaggy nonchalance. But the true heads know that Rilo Kiley’s real should’ve-been-a-hit was 2004’s sly yet ebullient “Portions for Foxes” — “The talking leads to touching / And the touching leads to sex,” goes one key line — which is why the group finished with the song at Just Like Heaven.

As she sauntered offstage, Lewis blew a kiss to the crowd, then jumped back to her microphone, grabbed a Modelo she’d left behind and took a sip through a straw.

MEXICO CITY — In a packed nightclub in Mexico City, hundreds of young people sang along as a band played a popular song narrating the life of a foot soldier for the Sinaloa drug cartel.

I like to work/ And if the order is to kill / You don’t question it.

And for those who misbehave/ There’s no chance to explain/ I throw them into the grave.

Narcocorridos — or drug ballads — are more popular than ever in Mexico, where a new generation that came of age during the ongoing drug war has embraced songs that recount and often glamorize both the spoils and perils of organized crime.

But the genre is increasingly under attack. About a third of Mexico’s states and many of its cities have enacted some kind of ban on the performance of songs about narcos in recent years, with violators subject to heavy fines and jail time.

Mexico City may be next. Mayor Clara Brugada said she plans to introduce a law that would bar the songs from being played at government events and on government property.

“We can’t be promoting violence through music,” she said.

The bans, which come amid President Trump’s hyper-focus on drug trafficking in Mexico, have sparked debates here about freedom of expression and state censorship and have raised provocative questions: Do narcocorridos merely reflect reality in a nation gripped by powerful drug gangs? Or do they somehow shape it?

Said Amaya, the organizer of Guitarrazos, the event at the nightclub in Mexico City where multiple singers performed narcocorridos last week, said government focus should be on improving security, not persecuting young musicians.

“If you change the reality, the music might change,” Amaya said. “But you’re not going to change the reality by censoring songs.”

Drug ballads belong to the genre of corridos, a musical tradition born in the 1800s that helped chronicle life at a time when many people couldn’t read or write.

Each song told a story. There were corridos about the exploits of bandits and outlaws, some of them Robin Hood-esque characters who outwitted oafish authorities and helped the poor. Others narrated chapters of the Mexican Revolution or the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1846.

In more recent years, as Mexico became a key gateway for the U.S. drug market, enriching some people and claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, musicians have described that, too.

“The entire social history of Mexico is narrated through corridos,” said José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, a sociologist in Tijuana. “It’s an intangible part of our cultural heritage.”

Valenzuela wrote a book about the newest version of drug ballads, known as corridos tumbados, which combine acoustic guitar, brassy horns and the aesthetic and lyrical content of U.S. gangster rap. Proponents of the music, like artist Peso Pluma, who performs in ballistic vests and sings of diamond-encrusted pistols and shipments of cocaine, have brought the genre to global audiences.

The 25-year-old musician, whose name translates to “Featherweight,” was the seventh most streamed artist in the world on Spotify last year. In 2023, former President Obama included in his top 10 songs of the year a Peso Pluma song that does not touch on drug trafficking.

Musicians dedicated to the genre have long faced backlash from the government, which since the 1980s has tried, at various times, to ban the music.

But the long-standing controversy exploded back into public life this year after a concert in Michoacan state by the band Los Alegres del Barranco, which displayed images of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, better known as El Mencho, who heads the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The band played at a venue not far from a gruesome cartel training camp that authorities had just discovered.

The concert outraged many Mexicans, and Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla soon announced a ban on public performances that glorify crime and violence. That was followed by similar measures in other states, including Aguascalientes, Queretaro and Mexico state.

Days later, the Trump administration announced it was revoking the U.S. visas of the members of Los Alegres del Barranco.

“The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said on X.

President Claudia Sheinbaum says she does not support the bans, but also doesn’t support the music. She recently announced a national song competition for compositions about subjects other than drug trafficking.

“More than banning, it’s about educating, guiding, and getting young people to stop listening to that music,” she said.

But the bans have momentum — a recent poll found that 62% of those surveyed support prohibitions on narcocorridos — and they have put the genre’s stars in a tricky position. Their fans demand they play their hits, but doing so is increasingly risky.

Performing in one of the states that had banned the songs last month, artist Luis R. Conríquez refused to play his ballads that romanticize drug traffickers.

Audience members were enraged, forcing him off stage as they flung insults, beer bottles and chairs, and later destroyed his band’s instruments.

Others musicians, such as corridos tumbados star Natanael Cano, have pressed on despite the bans.

The 24-year-old performed at an annual fair in Aguascalientes state this month just days after the local authorities warned musicians not to play narco songs.

He began his set with songs from his repertoire that touch on love and other subjects. But soon fans were pleading for popular songs such as “Cuerno azulado,” which talks about blue-tinted AK-47s and pacts between drug traffickers and the government.

Cano first told audience members they should press their leaders to roll back the bans.

“You have to ask your government,” Cano said. “Don’t come here asking me for it.”

But eventually he acquiesced, playing a song called “Pacas de Billete,” or “stacks of cash,” which alludes to “El Chapo,” the Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin Joaquín Guzmán. After the event’s organizers cut the sound, Cano’s team activated their own audio system. Eventually, though, the lights were turned out and the artist left the stage and headed directly to the airport. Local authorities have not pressed charges against him.

A few years ago, Cano was slapped with a $50,000 fine for performing narcocorridos in Chihuahua, one of the first states to enact a ban.

Los Alegres del Barranco, the band that flashed a picture of El Mencho in Michoacan, has tried to skirt the laws in recent days with karaoke events in which they play the music but project lyrics for the audience to sing.

For many stars, the bigger threat may be organized crime itself. Drug traffickers often pay to be featured in songs — Peso Pluma has acknowledged taking money from them — and dozens of the genre’s stars have been killed over the years, sometimes by rivals of the hit men and drug dealers they’ve portrayed. Peso Pluma canceled an appearance in Tijuana last year after he received death threats.

Those who support the bans say they are necessary to keep the next generation of young people from romanticizing violence, and to honor those who have lost loved ones to bloodshed.

“Will we tell the victims and their families that it is better to respect the freedom of expression of those who advocate violence than to take measures to safeguard the lives of Mexicans?” columnist Mauricio Farah Gebara wrote in Milenio newspaper.

But for the genre’s devotees, the bans smack of classicism.

It’s a double standard, said a musician named Rosul, who often performs narcocorridos and who attended the lively party in Mexico City last week.

“Netflix can release a series about drug traffickers and win awards and get applause,” she said. “But if somebody from the ‘hood sings about the same thing, it’s an apology for violence?”

Banning the genre, she said, is a losing battle. Young people, after all, hate being told what to do.

“This only makes it more appealing,” she said. “This will only make us stronger.”

Times special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.

Liev Schreiber has plenty of pride for his daughter Kai, who he said came out as transgender with a simple request.

“The most profound moment was her asking us to change her pronouns,” the “Ray Donovan” star told Variety in an interview published Thursday.

The Emmy-nominated actor, 57, spoke about his support for his daughter ahead of their joint attendance at Friday’s spring gala for the Ali Forney Center, which works to support and provide shelter to homeless LGBTQ+ youth. He shares 16-year-old Kai and 17-year-old son Sasha with “Mulholland Drive” star Naomi Watts.

Schreiber, who said “Kai was always who Kai is,” recalled that his daughter coming out as trans “didn’t feel like that big of a deal to me” because she “had been so feminine for so long.” He praised her as “such a fighter” but did not specify when his daughter came out.

Kai is a model, who recently made her professional debut in Valentino’s Fall Winter ’25 campaign, according to her IMG Models profile. Though Schreiber said Kai’s coming out was relatively understated, he told the trade outlet, “It’s important that she goes, ‘Hey, I am trans,’ and ‘Look at me.’”

Schreiber is the latest in a handful of celebrity dads — including former NBA star Dwyane Wade, and actors Marlon Wayans and Robert De Niro — who have publicly voiced support for their trans children. Last week, “Raging Bull” star De Niro said he “loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter,” after she went public with her transition in an April interview with Them.

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” added De Niro, who shares Airyn with actor Toukie Smith. “I love all my children.”

While some celebrities have detailed their experiences raising trans kids and offered advice to other parents, Schreiber steered clear from doing the same. “I don’t know the answer for your kid,” he told Variety, citing various factors including a parent’s upbringing or a family’s spirituality or religion. He did offer a kernel of wisdom for parents to consider: “Teenagers are a headache. They’re hard.

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re trans or not because you’ll come out of this,” he said. “But a trans teen is going to be a teen. They’re such a pain so much of the time, and Kai is as feisty and outspoken as they come.”

Schreiber and Watts were romantically linked from 2005 to 2016. Over the years, the exes have separately brought their children to movie premieres and hyped them up on social media.

“Ladies and gentlemen the one, the only, the indomitable @kaischreiberr,” Liev Schreiber captioned an Instagram post of his daughter during her runway debut in March.

Taylor Swift’s voice may make a cameo in “It Ends With Us” — the 2024 film now embroiled in legal drama — but a representative for the pop star says that’s where her involvement in the movie ends.

Swift was reportedly subpoenaed by the legal team of the film’s director and star, Justin Baldoni, in his lawsuit against his co-star and Swift’s friend, Blake Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and Lively’s publicist, according to TMZ and other outlets.

The legal saga erupted late last year when Lively accused Baldoni, along with his team, of orchestrating a smear campaign against her after she reported on-set sexual harassment. Baldoni filed a countersuit alleging that Lively’s accusations are baseless and have caused serious harm to his career, reputation and personal life, further escalating the high-interest legal brawl.

In a statement to The Times on Friday, a spokesperson for Swift denied that the singer had any level of involvement in the film beyond agreeing to license her song “My Tears Ricochet” to be used in the trailer and a scene.

“Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see ‘It Ends With Us’ until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history,” the spokesperson said, alluding to her record-breaking Eras Tour.

“Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this document subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case,” the statement continued.

Swift’s name became a part of the conversation when documents Baldoni’s team published online alluded to a “a famous, and famously close, friend of Reynolds and Lively.” Lively and Swift have been friends for more than a decade and have collaborated professionally in addition to making high-profile social appearances together, like at last year’s Super Bowl.

Baldoni’s team alleges that Reynolds and the unnamed “megacelebrity friend” “pressured” him to accept changes Lively made to the script.

Lively, according to the documents published online, allegedly sent a message to Baldoni referring to herself as the character “Khaleesi” from “Game of Thrones,” and Swift and Reynolds as her “dragons.”

“My dragons also protect those I fight for,” Lively allegedly texted Baldoni. “So really we all benefit from those gorgeous monsters of mine. You will too, I can promise you.”

The natural world is aswirl in “Life of Pi,” a marvelously inventive stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2002 Booker Prize-winning novel. This pageant of puppetry includes a flutter of butterflies, a goat with a plaintive bleat, a menagerie of wild animals and, at one point, a school of glowing fish.

Rather than try to compete with the technological thrills of the 2012 film that earned director Ang Lee an Academy Award, this national tour of “Life of Pi” succeeds through magical simplicity. My senses were dazzled when I first saw the show on Broadway in 2023, but my heart was completely won over at the Ahmanson Theatre, where this production opened on Wednesday.

The story revolves around the survival at sea of a 17-year-old boy named Pi Patel (a mesmerizing Taha Mandviwala) after the Japanese cargo ship transporting his family sinks en route to Canada. The souls lost on board include Pi’s zookeeper father’s fantastical collection of animals. In a lifeboat with barely any supplies for 227 days, Pi somehow manages to escape the fate that leaves his parents, sister and most (but not all) of his bestial companions at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

How did he pull off the miracle? That is the question posed at the start of Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation by two visitors to Pi’s hospital room: Mr. Okamoto (Alan Ariano) from the Japanese Ministry of Transport and Lulu Chen (Mi Kang), from the Canadian Embassy, both of whom have traveled to Mexico, where the boy was washed ashore.

Pi, whose mathematical name is derived from Piscine, the French word for swimming pool, is recovering from his near-death journey. Mr. Okamoto, charged with preparing an official report, is determined to find out the exact circumstances of the shipwreck. But Pi is only able to relate the fanciful version of events that allowed him to survive for so long at sea without food or drinkable water.

The staging transitions in dreamlike fashion from the hospital to Pondicherry, India, where Pi grew up in a happy, hectic ferment of adolescence. Chakrabarti turns Pi’s teasing older brother, Ravi, in the novel into an older sister named Rani (Sharayu Mahale), a math whiz, in the play. The institutional medical setting becomes the background for a tale that doesn’t finely distinguish between memory and imagination, one realm bleeding freely into the next.

Fortunately, the scenic design of Tim Hatley, who also did the costumes, isn’t bound by the traditional laws of physics. The perfectly adjudged video and animation design of Andrzej Goulding, the magnificent lighting of Tim Lutkin and Tim Deiling and the propulsive sound of Carolyn Downing puts time and space under the able command of director Max Webster.

Pi’s family is moving to escape an increasingly chaotic society. “This government shows us bad behavior has no consequences,” Pi’s father (Sorab Wadia) laments to his wife (Jessica Angleskhan), in a line that lands differently today than it did two years ago on Broadway.

When the opportunity to relocate to Canada arrives, the choice is obvious but no less painful for being so. The animals, having no one else to care for them, will have to emigrate too, transforming the cargo vessel into a modern-day Noah’s Ark.

An orangutan named Orange Juice, a hyena beyond the reach of human feeling and, crucially, a royal Bengal tiger with an imperious mien named Richard Parker have prominent roles in Pi’s recollection of his harrowing voyage after the shipwreck. These animals, the creation of inspired puppet designer Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, are fluidly deployed by a team of graceful puppeteers, who preserve the essential dignity of these creatures without effacing their ferocity.

The sight of Richard Parker, a growling behemoth of musculature and whiskers, is the most fearsome. Pi, who feels at one with the natural world, has to be taught to be afraid of a creature that could end his life with a single swipe of his claw. (The harsh lesson, administered by his father, reaffirms Lord Tennyson’s image of nature as “red in tooth and claw.”)

Although raised Hindu, Pi partakes of religious services from many sects. His mother is bemused to hear that her son attended mosque, temple and church on the same day. There’s a holy fool quality to the boy, who is the subject of teasing. But Pi is precociously enlightened, his innocence not a problem to be rectified but a quality to be reverenced.

In New York, Chakrabarti’s book struck me as clumsy in places, particularly in the first act. But I had no such misgiving at the Ahmanson, whether because of some slight editing or perhaps just a smoother handling of the setup moments.

Some might resist the work’s spiritual earnestness, but I’d say it’s an ideal time to consider more deeply our belief system. If “Life of Pi” has a moral to impart, it’s that what we choose to believe has as profound an effect on our experience of reality as what we rationally know to be true.

The play, following the novel’s lead, is a parable of overcoming. Pi confronts tragedy but refuses to lose what gives his life meaning. He makes sacrifices that he never thought he’d have to make. A devout vegetarian, he is forced to capture and kill a swimming turtle, then share the meat and blood with Richard Parker, a carnivore without conscience.

“Life of Pi” doesn’t dwell on the deaths of Pi’s loved ones. A cloak of magical realism is thrown over aspects of the story that might prove too disturbing. But the inexorable facts of mortality are glimpsed in the way the animals are depicted onstage.

As hunger overtakes Pi and Richard Parker, the tiger’s skeleton starts to call attention to itself. The turtle is devoured before our eyes in a way that, while cheekily theatricalized, doesn’t leave any doubt that the price of this meal is murder.

But the darkness of the tale helps us see the shimmering beauty of the universe that keeps Pi from succumbing to a watery grave. The stage transforms into a planetarium of wonder. Are the meerkats that appear near the end of the story real or a hallucination? What difference does it make when Pi sees them as clearly as he holds a conversation with Richard Parker?

When he finally offers Mr. Okamoto a starker account of what happened to him, a chronicle affirming his father’s long-held view that man is the most dangerous animal of all, the lesson of “Life of Pi” is thrown into stark relief: Truth is not necessarily the same thing as wisdom.

Mandviwala’s performance as Pi makes this adventure tale both exhilarating and emotionally profound. In circumnavigating distant seas, this majestic production recovers some lost treasure of childhood.

We keep hearing that we’re in a male-loneliness epidemic. The agonizing and hilarious “Friendship” makes it feel like the Black Death. Written and directed by debuting filmmaker Andrew DeYoung (TV’s “PEN15,” “Shrill”), this bromance trembles as guy meets man-child, guy dumps man-child and man-child burns everything down. It’s a reflection of the adult struggle to make new friends as seen through a spook-house mirror.

Tim Robinson plays Craig, a dad who is delighted to pal around with his new neighbor, Austin (Paul Rudd), until a boys’ night ends in a punch and, eventually, someone calling the cops. Craig’s grief over his lost BFF makes him fume with denial, anger, bargaining and depression. Acceptance is impossible. Spontaneous nose bleeds happen twice.

Elsewhere, Robinson has become the poster boy for male social anxiety: the pariah who is so flummoxed by the rules of polite chitchat that he crosses the line and bursts into tears. On his cult sketch show “I Think You Should Leave,” he’s won two consecutive Emmys for the way he layers vulnerability under anger, like the skit in which he gets himself kicked out of an adults-only ghost tour and blubbers, “I don’t know what is going on, but somehow our wires got crossed!” Robinson has never claimed that his characters are on the spectrum, but autistic viewers have made fan videos about how much they relate to his confusion.

Only 5’ 8”, Robinson can appear threateningly huge. Choices that would diminish other actors — oversized jackets, hunched shoulders, public mockery — only make him puff up bigger. When Craig senses humiliation on the horizon, he goes on the attack. He wants desperately to fit in, but he’d rather interrupt, challenge and correct than let the tension relax. “Friendship” looks and feels so much like a feature-length extension of “ITYSL” that it’s worth pointing out that DeYoung came up with the script idea in 2018 before that show existed. The movie would be a totally different animal if it starred, say, Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell. Perhaps working in television has trained DeYoung to adapt to other’s sensibilities before insisting on his own.

“Friendship” surrounds Robinson with normalcy: filler talk, obliging laughter and the kind of handsome lighting you’d see in a home-insurance commercial. Craig somehow has a lovely wife (Kate Mara) and believable son (the always engaging Jack Dylan Grazer). Mara’s sensible Tami sets up the tone in the opening scene, which takes place at a couples’ support group. She delivers the kind of halting, relatable monologue about sexual dysfunction and malaise that you could find in an earnest indie movie. Craig, naturally, quashes the mood. “I’m orgasming fine,” he blurts.

It’s impossible to imagine why Tami ever agreed to marry him in the first place, as she chooses to spend most of her time with her ex (Josh Segarra), a hunky and sensitive fireman. Meanwhile, Craig swoons over Austin, a local weatherman whose hang-out ideas — mushroom harvesting, urban spelunking, starting a punk rock garage band — give Craig genuine joy. No one’s ever wanted to be his friend before. (Craig is so tough to be around that we’re more likely to side with his bullies, like Eric Rahill, who has a great bit part as a nasty co-worker.) When Craig spots Austin cracking a corny one-liner on the nightly news, he smiles like Santa Claus is real.

Austin’s lush mustache and hammy Southern drawl aren’t quite in sync with the tone; Rudd seems stuck in the Ferrell version of the film. I’m fine with the idea that Austin is a bit of a phony who pretends he doesn’t own a cellphone. But when he admits to the lie, nothing happens. (At least the fib leads to several scenes at a phone store with Billy Bryk’s very funny clerk.) The film doesn’t really care about anyone else’s psychology; it wants to keep Craig marooned on Oddball Island. Empathy would be too easy.

Still, Rudd and Robinson’s scenes together are great. They get laughs even going through the ritual of ordering a sandwich at Subway. And Rudd’s made an inverted version of this movie before, 2009’s sweeter and raunchier “I Love You, Man,” where he played the wallflower with a buddy (Jason Segel) who teaches him to scream. There won’t be any learning here, although Craig tries and fails to mimic Austin in his absence.

Robinson didn’t invent this kind of cringe comedy. One of the most sublime examples of the form traces back to Anton Chekhov’s wordless short play, “The Sneeze,” a proto-“SNL” skit about a man who accidentally wheezes on the back of a government official’s neck and in his escalating desperation to normalize his oopsie suffers a breakdown and dies. But “Friendship” feels exactly right for exactly right now. Cultural norms are shifting just as in-person communities are breaking down. At any given second in public, you could go from invisible to starring in a viral video that puts you on blast.

It’s hard to be a human. No wonder Craig feels more like a bunch of possums in a skin suit. By everything I’ve seen of Robinson off-camera (he doesn’t seem to enjoy press), he’s a lovely man raising two teenagers with his high school sweetheart. He plays gauche on our behalf.

Although this is his first major movie role after his show’s breakout success, I can see him on that clown-to-thespian trajectory that ends with an Oscar to go with his Emmy. For now, however, I want to apologize to DeYoung. He won’t get the credit he deserves for this terrific comic torment because it just feels like another Tim Robinson masterclass in self-immolation. Maybe that’s an awkward thing to say. Maybe it’s fine.

A rape case against “Crash” Oscar winner Paul Haggis was dismissed Wednesday in Italy. On Thursday, his U.S. attorney suggested that the Italian allegations were planned to hurt his chances in a New York civil case that cost him $10 million.

A judge in the Italian city of Brindisi ruled that no sex acts took place without consent, Haggis’ lawyers told Reuters on Wednesday. The woman had accused the writer-director of raping her repeatedly over the course of two days in 2022 while they were both in town for Allora Fest, an entertainment-industry event.

“For Mr. Haggis, it is the end of a nightmare that has unfairly shattered the career of a film genius and 2006 Oscar winner,” lawyers Michele Laforgia and Daniele Romeo said in a statement to the wire service.

After the criminal allegations were made, Haggis was detained by police in June, then held under house arrest at his hotel until he was ordered released on July 4, 2022. He maintained he was innocent of the charges.

“Being accused of sexual violence, something that I did not do, was devastating and something I hope no innocent person will ever experience,” Haggis said in a translated interview with Italian news outlet La Repubblica in July 2022. An Englishwoman who was 30 at the time said he forced her to have sex with him over two days at a bed-and-breakfast in Puglia and then dropped her off at a nearby airport while she was in a state of confusion.

“As I told the judge, my first mistake was allowing someone who I hardly knew to come and visit me. It was foolish,” Haggis said in the July 12, 2022, interview. “The second mistake was on the last morning after an incident occurred that I personally found particularly unpleasant, I decided to end this situation; I took this person to the airport hours before her flight. I’m upset with myself for these errors in judgment but cannot comprehend that they resulted in false and damaging accusations against me.”

The “Million Dollar Baby” writer said in the interview that he lost at least two writing jobs because of his arrest. On Thursday, the attorney who represented him in the October 2022 New York civil case said the Italian case may have been aimed at sabotaging her client before that trial began.

“It was always obvious that Paul was completely innocent [in the Italian case] — and that this woman lied,” attorney Priya Chaudhry said in a statement to The Times. “The timing of the lie, and the inevitability that it would be exposed, strongly suggest her false accusation was planned to sabotage Paul’s other case on the eve of trial — deliberately engineered to inflict maximum damage and sway media and public opinion.

“Everyone should now question the credibility of a verdict delivered in the shadow of a false criminal allegation — one strategically timed to generate global headlines, inflame public opinion, and irreparably taint the course of justice.”

Haggis was found liable in the New York case and ordered to pay $10 million to Haleigh Breest, a former publicist who worked the red carpets at movie premieres in the early 2010s. Breest accepted a ride home from Haggis after a premiere in January 2013 and agreed to go to his apartment for a drink instead of her suggestion that they go to a bar. She accused him of making her perform oral sex and then raping her. Haggis maintains that the encounter was consensual. He was not criminally charged.

Chaudhry also told The Times in a statement in 2022 that a fair trial for Haggis was “impossible” once the judge admitted the statements of four additional women — three of whom didn’t appear in court — who didn’t go to the police with their complaints.

“I can’t live with lies like this. I will die clearing my name,” Haggis said as he left court after the verdict, the Associated Press reported at the time.

A civil suit filed by Haggis before Breest filed her claim alleged that she and her attorney had attempted to extort $9 million in “hush money” over what the director said was a false rape claim. An appeals court judge threw out Haggis’ case in July 2018, saying it had no specific allegation that Breest threatened to go public with her claim if she weren’t paid. The director abandoned his appeal of the decision in March 2019.

I ask my students: What would an essay be like if it were structured like a grid? What would it be like to structure it as a lopsided, organic shape?

I am teaching a class called “On Collage.” Every time I do, we make a new center of gravity for the course together. One or two students will explain collage each week, introducing a collage or an artist, but first I offer my own version: a slideshow I have no notes for. Depending on the way I’ve prepared for class that week, I’ll compose a narrative about the slides in a way that articulates what collage might offer us.

The slideshow begins with a black-and-white photograph of a man with light hair, a cap and glasses standing behind a tall rattan chair where an older woman is seated. She smiles broadly, her chest puffed out like a robin in early spring. His face is a bit more fluid, untraceable, tucked into itself, echoed by the arm he holds across his body, drawing his striped tie askew. His glasses hold a reflection that must include the photographer, but when I zoom in, the shadow and light become a bunch of shapes, and I get distracted by an unsettling look in the man’s eyes, which have an air of surprise or warning. His ears are quotation marks. His mouth is as close as a mouth can come to a sideways question mark, punctuated by a cautious smile line. I’ve watched enough documentaries to know that this is as likely a response to the photographer as it is to the woman whose shoulder he is grasping with his other hand. David Hockney and his mother.

In the 1980s, my father, Lester Sloan, was a photojournalist for Newsweek magazine assigned to photograph Hockney for a story about artists designing posters for the 1984 Olympics. Hockney made a poster of a swimmer underwater, captured through 12 Polaroid photographs arranged in a grid. Swimming figures ripple through Hockney’s early paintings as if swimming from one frame to another. When I read from an essay that I wrote on Hockney’s swimming pools once, two scholars wondered aloud about John Cheever’s “The Swimmer,” and I am often haunted by this moment, as if I should have known better than to write about swimming pools without reading more things great men had said about them. But what I notice now, looking literally over my shoulder as if I’ll see the memory, is that the essay as a genre favors the unique thread of one person’s associations. As Hockney puts it, “We always see with memory. Seeing each person’s memory is a bit different. We can’t be looking at the same things, can we?”

Art offers or asks us to sketch a thing that has moved through us too quickly to capture it completely. It should throw a shadow of chemical memory across our faces like the smell of chlorine.

On the day he took this photograph, my father went to Hockney’s California home, tucked into the Hollywood Hills. The artist wanted to show him the Polaroid collages — what he coined “joiners” — he had begun to make. My father has recalled Hockney’s sense of wonder at this new approach to artmaking so many times over the course of my life that I can see it — the sun-lit table on which Hockney laid those pieces. Hockney has said that he was so distracted by the joiners that he couldn’t sleep at night. “I used to get up in the middle of the night and sit and look at them to find out what I was doing,” he told Paul Joyce. He bought thousands of dollars’ worth of film and roamed his own house in search of compositions. “Time was appearing in the picture. And because of it, space, a bigger illusion of space.”

Some of the photographs are arranged in a grid, though the dissonance between them — one square depicting a table from inches away, another from across the room — creates an ethereality, a wind within the frame. Some of the photographs are arranged freely, as if to follow the line of sight as it traces figures in a space — wind-scattered. Overlapping, stuttering, arcing upward.

When I first asked my father about this day, he recalled the degree to which Hockney oriented toward his mother when he came to take this portrait. The painter was orbiting her, asking her thoughts on the conversation, nodding toward her with his body.

At this point in the slide show, I show some frames from the film “Blow-Up,” wherein a London photographer snaps some pictures of a couple kissing in the park. As he develops the film later, he tries to zoom in more and more on a particular frame. He realizes that there is a man with a gun in the bushes. There is, perhaps, at the heart of every composition, the door to a great mystery you might not even have realized you were bracketing.

The Hockney joiner that most haunts me is called “My Mother, Bolton Abbey.” This is not a grid but a scatter. The same woman my father met that afternoon is seated in a cemetery, and the Polaroids of her begin to spill downward, giving the whole frame a gravitational pull. Hockney’s sister describes their mother in the documentary “David Hockney: A Bigger Picture”: “She was a very great power. She had a very great emotional power that’s a bit hard to describe. That pulled you in.”

When I recently ask my father about the portrait he shot of Hockney and his mother, he begins to reminisce about his own late mother sitting on the porch of the house where he grew up. He recalls a man who would visit: “I asked him once, ‘What’s the deal with you coming around here, hanging around my mother?’ He said, ‘You know, when I was in jail, my mother died, and they wouldn’t let me out to come and see her. So I picked somebody to be a mother to me, and it was your mother.’” The image he took of Hockney has become a hall of mirrors, an entrance into the very notion of what a mother means. What it means to lose her.

The next slide is a quotation by Roland Barthes about his own mother in “Camera Lucida”: “I dream about her, I do not dream her. And confronted with the photograph, as in the dream, it is the same effort, the same Sisyphean labor: to reascend, straining toward the essence, to climb back down without having seen it, and to begin all over again.” In the first essay I wrote about collage, I talked about how they have an air of mistake. Like spilling something. Capturing the weird way that one moment is every moment, which is also death. Or as Hockney puts it in the “The Bigger Picture,” “It’s now that’s eternal, actually.”

I am writing this while visiting Santa Monica, which exists through the collage of memory since I left years ago. The first thing I do when I get here is drive through my old neighborhood, hungry to see the way time and distance have warped the familiar contours of buildings and trees and streets that served as the entirety of my early childhood world. I enter into my old neighborhood with a fluttering in my periphery where new construction or paint camouflages lines and angles and patches of scenery until the unmistakability of my childhood street reveals itself. I look for the jade plant in front of our apartment building, whose leaves I would press with my thumbnail while waiting for my parents to come downstairs. I look for the grate that would make a cha-choonk sound as the car passed over it on the way into the garage, signaling home when I was a child asleep in the backseat. I weep my ugliest, snottiest cry at an awkward intersection, looking for the place where Blockbuster used to be, happy that the library is still there. Parsing which businesses remain. Which left turns are the way I left them, framed by the corner of a blue-gray building I can only see when I’m dreaming.

Even though many of Hockney’s joiners were taken in his own California home, they blur with our own family photographs. They are the slippage of places and people, the grief you can feel for the way someone’s face was held by a particular slant of light only moments ago. If you tear yourself away from a place too quickly, the maw of memory will ask you to re-leave it over years and years.

My students and I end the semester by reading a book where poems and essays and operas arrange themselves across the page like children on a preschool floor. Some cup, some rove, some cascade.

Aisha Sabatini Sloan is an essayist and the author of four books, including “Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit” and “Captioning the Archives,” which she co-authored with her father, photographer Lester Sloan.

With Paramount Global’s sale stuck before federal regulators and a potential settlement looming with President Trump in a dispute over CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Paramount co-Chief Executive George Cheeks on Wednesday sought to project a sense of business as usual.

Cheeks and CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach unveiled the network’s new prime-time schedule for reporters at Paramount’s Hollywood offices, trumpeting CBS’ prime-time winning streak of 17 consecutive seasons.

For the season that ends this month, CBS boasts eight of the top 10 prime-time shows in network TV. The broadcaster’s schedule of originals towers over competitors ABC and NBC. This past year, ratings grew 3% — a rare feat in an era of shrinking linear TV audiences.

But that strength has been undermined by the company’s high-profile tangles with Trump, who brought a $20-billion lawsuit over edits of a “60 Minutes” interview last fall with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

First Amendment experts have described Trump’s lawsuit, which alleges the “60 Minutes” episode was fraudulent, as frivolous. But the president has remained defiant, saying CBS should be punished.

Representatives of Trump and Paramount met with a mediator last week, but there was no immediate resolution of the lawsuit. Controlling shareholder Shari Redstone’s desire to end the wrangling with a settlement remains a cloud hanging over the company and its sale.

Cheeks acknowledged the turmoil Wednesday.

“This is an unprecedented, challenging time for the industry and for our company in particular,” Cheeks told about a dozen reporters gathered in a CBS conference room. “For me, what’s most important as a leader is how you show up in a difficult time. …

“My biggest goal is to make sure that the team feels supported and that we recognize that we have to focus on what we can control,” Cheeks said. “We’re going to get through this.”

When asked whether CBS News and the group at “60 Minutes” would continue to enjoy his support, Cheeks said succinctly: “My entire team.”

The struggles with Trump have reverberated throughout the company and prompted internal protests. The executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, resigned last month, citing increased corporate pressure over news coverage.

Correspondent Scott Pelley told “60 Minutes” viewers about Owens’ resignation in late April, noting that journalists had been facing increased corporate oversight.

Since Trump’s suit was filed last fall, “60 Minutes” has remained dogged in its coverage of the Trump administration’s policies.

On Sunday, Pelley reported on how Trump has used executive orders to target law firms that he accuses of “weaponizing” the justice system against him.

Redstone has expressed frustration with “60 Minutes” for months. She was unhappy with the program’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war and its effects on Gaza. She reportedly has asked Cheeks whether there were more “60 Minutes” stories coming that could antagonize Trump.

A Redstone spokesperson declined to comment.

When asked how he would approach a potential uprising within CBS News should the company settle with Trump, Cheeks said, “I’m not going to answer that question.”

It’s been 10 months since Redstone agreed to sell Paramount, which includes the historic Melrose Avenue movie studio, Comedy Central, MTV and Paramount+, to David Ellison’s Skydance Media, a deal valued at $8 billion.

The deal would see the Redstone family vacating its perch in Hollywood after nearly 40 years. Ellison and executives with RedBird Capital Partners would take over control of the company. Cheeks is expected to stay on in a high-profile role, sources have said.

But the Federal Communications Commission has only begun preliminary steps to review the deal, which insiders had hoped would be finalized by early this spring.

The two sides face an early October deadline to gain approval and close the deal. Paramount needs the FCC to consent to the transfer of CBS station licenses to the Ellison family.

If the deal isn’t wrapped by mid-October, either side could back out. Paramount would owe a substantial breakup fee.

Early this year, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, opened a public inquiry into the “60 Minutes” Harris interview to gauge whether the edits rose to the level of news distortion.

The results of the inquiry are pending.

During the presentation, neither Cheeks or Reisenbach addressed Trump’s bombshell announcement Sunday that he planned to impose 100% tariffs on movies that are filmed in foreign countries, saying it was premature to speculate.

Questions swirl about the feasibility of his proposal, and Trump did not say whether television shows would be included. CBS films several shows in Canada.

Cheeks and Reisenbach told reporters their team was trying to block out the “noise” to focus on developing the new fall schedule, a sense of normalcy that was welcomed within CBS’ ranks. Next week begins the annual upfront sales season when advertisers place bets on the various network schedules.

“George really creates an environment where we almost feel like we have the space and room to operate in a noise bubble,” Reisenbach said.

CBS announced eight new series, including “Marshals,” a western drama from hitmaker Taylor Sheridan. Other new shows include “CIA,” “Sheriff Country,” a comedy called “DMV” and a country music talent search show, “The Road,” with Keith Urban and Blake Shelton.

Donnie Wahlberg, who will reprise his role from the CBS hit “Blue Bloods” in the new show “Boston Blue,” made a cameo appearance at the presentation, along with Sonequa Martin-Green, who will co-star as a detective.

The Wahlberg show picks up from the beloved Tom Selleck original. “No ‘Blue Bloods’ fans will be disappointed,” Wahlberg said.

Joining them will be a bake-off called “America’s Culinary Cup” with Padma Lakshmi and “Harlan Coben’s Final Twist.”

This story contains spoilers for “Andor” Season 2, Episode 9.

Senator Mon Mothma is finally, openly, part of the rebellion.

In the ninth episode of “Andor” Season 2, the senator from Chandrila, played by Genevieve O’Reilly, publicly denounces the Empire in a speech from her pod in the Imperial Senate.

“The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil,” says Mothma as she challenges the official narrative spun to cover up the “unprovoked genocide” on Ghorman. “When truth leaves us … when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to … whatever monsters scream the loudest.”

She then declares Emperor Palpatine is a monster and becomes the Empire’s most prominent public enemy.

In established “Star Wars” lore, this is a moment that will directly lead to the formal declaration of the Rebel Alliance. It’s also one, according to O’Reilly, that Mothma has always been ready for.

“That’s the fulcrum of who the woman is,” says O’Reilly while seated in a Beverly Hills hotel bar last month. With branches of flowers hanging from the ceiling, the room’s decor is almost reminiscent of that of the Chandrilan wedding seen in earlier “Andor” episodes this season. “Underneath everything, [Mothma is] a woman who was always ready to set fire to her life. To step out of the shadows and to risk it all on behalf of others, to stand up and use her voice against oppression.”

“This is a woman who doesn’t ever pick up a blaster,” she adds. “Her only weapon is her voice, and it’s really amazing to get an opportunity to see her use it and to be impactful.”

O’Reilly shares that when she first read the script for the episode — written by “Nightcrawler” filmmaker Dan Gilroy, who also wrote Episodes 7 and 8 — it only included bits and pieces of the speech. “Andor” is a show about ordinary people living through (and fighting against) an increasingly oppressive regime, and it’s not uncommon for sequences to jump between multiple storylines at the same time. Mothma’s speech was intended to be interwoven with other scenes, so the script just featured the key lines that would be highlighted.

But showrunner Tony Gilroy understood the actor and her process enough to know that O’Reilly would want to see more. Even before she had a chance to bring it up on her own, he asked her if she wanted the whole speech written out. He returned with the entirety of the speech within a day of her responding, “Yes, please.”

“That was everything for me because there is such a musicality to that speech,” O’Reilly says. “It starts off and talks about her history. It talks about this holy place that she has grown up in. What she believes the Senate to be. And then it ends with her calling him [out].”

And when the episode’s director, Janus Metz, one of the few who had also been given the full text of the speech, asked if she would want to film the whole thing, her response was “of course.”

“I went back and I worked on it,” O’Reilly says. “You carve it, and you create specific moments. As an actor, you’re part of the musicality of the piece. And then they used it, so that felt really special.”

For O’Reilly, the structure of “Andor’s” second season helped build toward Mothma’s moment with the speech. During the season’s first three-episode arc, audiences see Mothma, wife and mother, navigating deeply personal moments and the strains in her relationships at her daughter Leida’s (Bronte Carmichael) traditional, extravagant, marathon wedding in her homeland.

“The most unexpected, dramatic, sometimes messy things happen at weddings,” she says, pointing to the conversation Mothma has with Leida just before the wedding ceremony about her mother at her own wedding. “It felt deeply personal … Mon Mothma, in that very moment, she’s just opened herself completely and Leida just kind of sticks the knife in. So she has to button herself back up, figuratively put the mask back on, and go back outside … There’s no tricks. It’s really about relationship. It was really special.”

The next arc, which spans from Episodes 4 to 6, shows Senator Mothma in action as she tries to build a coalition to fight problematic policy as well as maintain her mask while unexpectedly having to interact with Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), a man who represents everything she is fighting against.

“I could certainly feel it in every fiber of my body that she really wants to take him down,” says O’Reilly of Mothma’s mindset during their exchange. “It’s all she wants, but she can’t. She must stand there and spar a tiny bit, but in the end, she has to swallow what he’s serving because of the power he wields. And if she is exposed there, it’s all for nothing.”

She explains that “there is great danger” for Mothma as she manages the many masks she has to live behind while in the public eye.

“She’s stuck, but I think what the speech reveals in Episode 9 was that all of that was worth it,” O’Reilly says. “You could see what she had been holding all that time. You can feel it fly from her body.”

Mothma is a character O’Reilly has been playing on and off in various “Star Wars” installments for 20 years. Originally cast to play the younger version of the Rebellion leader portrayed by Caroline Blakiston in the 1983 film “Return of the Jedi,” O’Reilly first stepped into the galaxy far, far away for 2005’s prequel film “Revenge of the Sith” — though most of her scenes landed on the cutting room floor. She was then brought back to reprise the character in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” the 2016 spinoff film that takes place directly after the events of “Andor.” She’s since portrayed the character in “Ahsoka” as well as the animated “Star Wars Rebels” (the latter of which is set during the same years as “Andor”).

“I could never have expected that 20 years later I would be here playing the most fleshed out, dexterous, rich, enriched version of this woman,” says O’Reilly.

In addition to Gilroy and his writing team, O’Reilly credits “Andor’s” hair and makeup designer Emma Scott and costume designer Michael Wilkinson for helping bring Mothma to life, especially this season. With Mothma being someone that is very deliberate in her wardrobe, O’Reilly says Wilkinson has “revealed character within the armor she chooses to wear each day.”

While Blakiston’s Mothma did not have much screen time, O’Reilly says what audiences do see is “a woman who has a weight, a gravitas, but also who has a deep empathy” and, just as significantly, was a female leader of a rebellion in a movie filmed in the 1980s. And she has always understood Mothma to be deeply socially conscious — whether that was what drove her to join the Galactic Senate or if it was her work representing people for so many years that awakened her social consciousness.

“I don’t know which way that happened, but I definitely feel that in her bones,” O’Reilly says. “I think the window into her history, into that orthodox culture that she has grown up in, probably helps you see what motivated that drive.”

And in the two seasons of “Andor,” O’Reilly — as well as the audience — has finally been able to see a fuller picture of Mothma and her backstory, as well as some of the pain the character endured to become the Rebel Alliance leader “Star Wars” fans know.

“To have had the opportunity to come back and to really play, discover, and put flesh and blood and sinew and heartbeat into this woman, to really fill her out,” O’Reilly says. “She feels so beautifully human and complicated, and it’s really a version of her that I could have only hoped for.”

Four former employees have sued Motown legend Smokey Robinson and his wife, alleging the singer sexually assaulted them on multiple occasions and failed to pay them properly for hours worked while claiming that Frances Robinson berated them.

According to the complaint filed May 6 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Robinsons are accused of negligence, sexual battery and sexual assault, false imprisonment, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, gender violence, and hostile work environment, in addition to a host of labor violations related to wages, breaks, meal periods, and holiday and overtime pay.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys did not immediately respond Tuesday to The Times’ requests for comment. A former publicist for the singer said she was not currently working for Smokey Robinson; his talent agent did not respond immediately to The Times’ request for comment.

The women are suing under the pseudonyms Jane Doe 1 through 4 due to the sexual misconduct allegations, including rape, that are leveled against the 85-year-old singer, the lawsuit says. Three are former housekeepers and one was the singer’s personal assistant, cook and hairdresser, per court documents reviewed by The Times.

All four women allege in the lawsuit that Robinson summoned them to various places at his homes in Chatsworth, Ventura County’s Bell Canyon and Las Vegas when his wife wasn’t around. Sometimes emerging naked from a shower, he forced them to have various types of sex with them — vaginal, oral and digital — over a number of years, the lawsuit says.

They accuse Frances Robinson of “regularly screaming … in a hostile manner, using ethnically pejorative words and language” toward them and say in the documents that she knew what her husband was doing and failed to rein him in.

One plaintiff was “unwilling to report … Smokey Robinson’s unlawful acts to the authorities due to her fear of losing her livelihood, familial reprisal, public embarrassment, shame and humiliation to her and her family, the possible adverse effect on her immigration status, as well as being threatened and intimidated by Defendant Smokey Robinson’s well-recognized celebrity status and his influential friends and associates,” the lawsuit says.

That sentiment, with or without the immigration issue, was echoed by the other plaintiffs.

All four plaintiffs say they worked 10 hours a day, six days a week for the Robinsons but were not paid minimum wage or overtime. They also worked holidays without receiving a holiday rate, the lawsuit says. The housekeepers made between $10 and $18 an hour while the assistant made $15 an hour before getting a raise to $20 an hour.

Jane Doe 1 worked for the Robinsons from January 2023 until February 2024. Jane Doe 2 worked from May 2014 to February 2020. Jane Doe 3 worked from February 2012 to April 2024. Jane Doe 4 worked from October 2006 to April 2024.

Minimum wage in California was $6.75 per hour in 2006 and increased gradually over the years. In 2024, it was $16 per hour for those not working for large fast-food chains.

The plaintiffs say in the lawsuit that they quit because of the alleged sexual misconduct and hostile work environment.

In addition to legal fees and court costs, the lawsuit seeks general damages of “not less than $50 million” on most of the charges plus punitive damages to be determined at trial.

A man was detained by Los Angeles police after crashing his car through the gates of Jennifer Aniston’s Bel-Air mansion Monday afternoon, according to the police and property records. Police said the homeowner was at home during the incident.

The Los Angeles Police Department received a call regarding a crash in the 900 block of Airole Way at 12:20 p.m., according to department spokesperson Officer Tony Im. When officers arrived, a security guard was holding the suspect at gunpoint; the individual was lying on the ground.

The suspect, described as an adult man, was taken into police custody, Im said. Information on any booking charges was not immediately available.

Aniston is the owner of the 3.4-acre lot in Bel-Air, according to property records.

The 56-year-old “Morning Show” actor purchased the midcentury mansion for just under $21 million in 2012, according to reporting by Architectural Digest. The property, built in 1965, was designed by prestigious architect A. Quincy Jones and renovated by architect Frederick Fisher shortly before Aniston bought it.

Set on a promontory, the parcel has unobstructed ocean and city views, The Times reported in 2012. When Aniston bought it the grounds included a guesthouse, swimming pool and vineyards.

In 2015, Aniston married actor Justin Theroux in an intimate ceremony at the home. The couple lived in the property together before divorcing in 2018, according to Architectural Digest.

Shailene Woodley and “Emily in Paris” heartthrob Lucas Bravo are Instagram official, even if it may not look like it upon first glance.

The pair of actors soft-launched their relationship in separate posts documenting their recent trips to multiple Southern California destinations. Woodley, 33, and Bravo, 37, first sparked romance rumors in March when they were spotted getting cozy with each other during a stroll in Paris.

On Wednesday, Bravo posted a carousel of photos and videos capturing his time at the Stagecoach festival in Indio and his views during a pit stop at the vibrant landmarks of Slab City. Bravo included photos of his hand holding Woodley’s, snaps of the “Fault in Our Stars” actor with friends at Stagecoach and pictures of the environmental activist sitting and standing among Salvation Mountain’s eclectic artworks.

Woodley on Sunday offered her take at a soft launch and added some “Star Wars” flare. The “Big Little Lies” actor shared her own Instagram carousel of photos of a recent trip to Disneyland, specifically the attractions in the park’s Galaxy’s Edge area. “May the 4th be…” she captioned her photos of the park’s large set pieces, intricate facades — and a picture of Bravo walking in front of the Millennium Falcon.

In true soft-launch fashion, neither of the actors tagged the other nor made their romance the focal point of their respective posts.

Woodley and Bravo have kept their romance low-key for the most part, but in an April interview with People, the latter said “I’m really happy” about the new relationship. “Divergent” star Woodley was previously engaged to NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers. That engagement broke off in February 2022.

This story contains spoilers for “Day One,” Episode 4 of “The Last of Us” Season 2.

One of the first places Ellie and Dina explore when they reach Seattle is Capitol Hill.

“What’s up with all the rainbows,” asks Dina, played by Isabela Merced, as the pair make their way through a desolate neighborhood decorated with tattered LGBTQ+ Pride flags on horseback.

“I don’t know, maybe they were all optimists,” responds Bella Ramsey’s Ellie as they pass by a mural of a rainbow heart.

It’s an early tease of how Ellie and Dina’s relationship will progress in Sunday’s episode of “The Last of Us.” The two of them have been dancing around each other — physically and emotionally — since sharing a kiss in the first episode that has constantly been played off as drunken antics. (Despite some viewers believing they were protesting a bit too much for it to not have meant anything.)

But after surviving harrowing encounters with an armed militia and a horde of infected — and revealing some personal secrets — the couple finally gets together and consummates their romance in “Day One,” the fourth episode of the HBO post-apocalyptic drama’s second season.

“We wanted the audience to be very worried at the beginning of that scene, right up until the kiss,” says Kate Herron, the episode’s director, during a recent video call. Before said kiss, Dina is holding Ellie at gunpoint, convinced she will have to kill her not-quite-girlfriend after being bitten by a fungal zombie. And while Herron wondered if audiences would be angry about all the changes around Ellie and Dina’s relationship from the game, “I love that [showrunner] Craig [Mazin] moved this [moment] to later in the series. I think it’s more impactful and more surprising because not everyone watching will know [they’re together] in the game,” she says.

Herron describes herself as “a massive fan” of “The Last of Us” games, which she played back-to-back after buying a PlayStation console during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

“It just blew my mind in terms of what a video game could be in terms of storytelling [and] how it commented on empathy,” she says. “I think it’s one of the best stories about empathy ever made. I was obsessed with it.”

The British filmmaker is no stranger to massive franchises. She’s familiar with bringing moments that recognize queer characters of these popular shows onscreen in different ways. Herron was the director and executive producer on Marvel Studios series “Loki” when the eponymous god of mischief confirmed his bisexuality during a conversation with Sylvie. She also co-wrote a 2024 episode British sci-fi staple “Doctor Who,” in which the show’s titular Time Lord falls in love with a bounty hunter.

“It’s a massive privilege to get to tell these stories,” says Herron. “It’s not lost on me that in general mainstream pop culture, we don’t see many stories like this. So there is definitely a sense of responsibility, but also massive gratefulness, in getting to tell these stories.”

While she had no clue which episode she would be directing when she landed “The Last of Us” job, she suspects how much she talked to co-creators Neil Druckmann and Mazin about Ellie and Dina contributed to the assignment.

“I didn’t ask for this episode, it was given to me,” says the queer filmmaker. “But I was so excited when I read it. The story was very meaningful, and I knew if it was meaningful for me, it would have to be meaningful for lots of other people.”

“ ‘The Last of Us’ story and the world is very harrowing,” she adds. “That’s why we really loved this episode because at least for this one hour, we get to see Ellie and Dina happy together.”

Herron, in a conversation edited for length and clarity, discusses Ellie and Dina’s relationship, filming the “Take on Me” scene and getting to tackle horror.

What were your thoughts on how Ellie and Dina‘s relationship had been progressing over the course of the season so far?

I haven’t been in an apocalypse like they have, but I found the situation very relatable. Is this person into me? Are they not into me? Are they queer? Are they not queer? Me and a lot of my friends have had similar experiences to this. But the thing I always came back to, beyond my own experience and what connected to me, is making sure it felt authentic and just making sure their love story felt earned. We wanted that moment in the theater to feel like a big moment. For me, it was just making sure to keep up the flirtation, but also the questioning around is it going to go in that direction, or is it not going to go in that direction. I think a lot of the time it can be like that when you’re first falling in love with someone and I was always trying to emotionally track it across the story.

I appreciate that even in a scary mushroom zombie apocalypse, young people still get to experience the queer rite of passage of questioning what kind of feelings you have for a friend.

I think that’s what’s so important in a good genre story anyway. If you take everything away from a good genre story, what is it really about? I was always thinking about that with the episode. Yes, they’re in this terrible situation and thrust into this kind of revenge mission, essentially, on Ellie’s part. But I always wanted to make sure that the love story was about these two young people realizing, “Oh, actually, I think I’m in love with my friend” and that meaning something a bit deeper. The stories I love watching when they’re genre related are relatable stories embedded in those fantastical worlds. That’s the stuff that really hooks me in.

Their relationship plays out differently on the show than in the game.

That’s the joy with the TV episode of it all. Getting to focus on their relationship here, we really get to take our time so it does feel really earned by the time they kiss in the theater. Obviously, they’ve kissed before and it was very romantic and it was lovely, but then you are thrown into thinking maybe Dina was just having fun or that it didn’t mean anything. I loved that in this one you see, no, it kind of meant everything. Look, I’m queer. I didn’t ask for this episode. It was given to me. But I was so excited when I read it. The story was very meaningful, and I knew that if it was meaningful for me, it would have to be meaningful for lots of other people.

Capitol Hill is a location from the game, but it was fun to see Ellie and Dina exploring the neighborhood and not recognizing symbols of an LGBTQ+ community.

To us, obviously, the symbolism of the rainbow flag, it means something very specific. But to these two young people in the apocalypse, they don’t necessarily know what that meant and what Seattle meant. And that was the knowing nod and fun from us in making this story. Yes, we’re going to give you a relatable, emotional story, but just a reminder that these are not characters that are in our current day. I love that they’re talking about that because it sets you up for where our story is going to take you. But you’re still wondering, is that all we’re going to talk about in relation to that or is it actually building up to something that’s more meaningful? Hopefully by the later scene, when she’s serenading her, you’re like, “Oh, OK, maybe this is gonna be romantic.”

Since you mention the serenading, can you talk a little bit about your approach to the “Take on Me” scene?

Because the scripts are so brilliantly written, it was about honoring the script. And I love that moment in the game. We did a lot of different takes of it — we got some where she was listening to it, and she was really into the song. Some where it was a little bit more tentative from Ellie. I remember we did a take where I spoke to Bella and was like, “Let’s do one where you just make no eye contact.” Obviously we don’t use that take for the entire scene, but it’s interesting to have levels and see what felt best to us. It starts off as a private moment, Ellie’s playing guitar and then is interrupted. But I just love that scene because when I watch it, I can see Dina is in love with Ellie. This is not just a crush or being drunk, this is a real emotional thing for them both.

It really important to remind the audience that these are young people, and despite everything, they still can find romance in this backdrop of horror. That was always the balancing act for us, making sure that the danger never felt too far away, but also giving enough space for them to fall in love.

It’s also a nice reminder that despite everything, creativity and music can endure.

Since the dawn of time, when you see someone you like, you’re going to find a way to impress them. Whether that’s drawing or music or — I know I wrote fanfics for people to try and impress them. When you see someone who has a really good creative skill and they’re doing it really well, what is not attractive about that?

I asked if we could get a caterpillar for the scene and I was so thrilled when Craig said yes. Because I remember in the game, it’s that beautiful backdrop behind Ellie, and I wanted to have this overgrown garden sense to it, like the Earth taking back over, which is across all the designs of “The Last of Us.” But I wanted them to feel for just a moment in their own private space and isolated, because I think they had to be for it to have that moment of connectivity, and for it to be as impactful as it is when she sings to her.

It’s a big contrast to their moment later in the theater.

I loved how it played out because you’re coming out of this big adrenaline ride of going through the subway with them and you’re kind of in the same space with them. You also know that Dina does not know that Ellie is immune, and I think that’s such a crucial thing. They go into the theater, and you have this breath of relief, and then the adrenaline is right back up again because now Ellie could be in serious danger. And it’s even worse, because you’re thinking that can’t be what happens, she can’t get killed by Dina. I remember talking to Bella about it. We wanted people to feel complete tension up to the point they kissed. That was really important.

For Dina, clearly, there’s something deeper than friendship going on there, which we established with “Take On Me.” But so much happens between that point and the theater that you are a little bit on the fence about whether these two characters are going to get together. So it was making sure that the tension and the drama felt high enough so the kiss was like a relief, but also enough of a surprise.

We also get Dina’s coming out story afterwards.

I came out in my 30s, so I found that speech very relatable and beautiful. Some people don’t come out until much, much later in life and I think the more we hear these stories, the better. I know for me, it would have made me feel brave if I’d seen a character who I thought was kick ass on TV and saw “Oh, she feels like I feel.”

I remember when I first came out, I worked on the show “Sex Education,” and that definitely helped me work out what was going on with me. Because I was getting to tell these stories, and I thought, “these feel sort of connected to me, but I have to work out why.” When I was growing up, I didn’t get stories like this very often. I do think if I’d seen something like that, I would have just felt less alone. For me, that’s so important as a director. If I can tell stories that help people feel a little bit less alone, why would I not do that?

And in this story, it’s not like this utopia where they kiss in the first episode and everyone thinks it’s great. They do meet someone who’s being homophobic. He does apologize, but still. It’s not creating a fantasy world. It still shows that people have these obstacles. But it’s even more meaningful for me because you imagine this world they’re living in and they can still find some kind of joy in that and love. That always is going to give me hope, even though “The Last of Us” story and the world is very harrowing. That’s why we really loved this episode. Because at least for this one hour, we get to see Ellie and Dina happy together.

One of my favorite moments is after Dina tells Ellie she’s pregnant, Ellie says, “I’m going to be a dad.”

That’s how it was in the script and I just love it. I love that Ellie finds out and then immediately is “I’m all in.” I just found it so moving. A lot’s happened to them both. They needed just an hour to sit down and be still for a second and catch up. But that’s exactly how Craig wrote it. I love that line. It’s so sweet.

You’ve also been involved in other big queer moments in big franchises, like “Loki” and “Doctor Who.”

For me, it’s just a massive privilege to be honest. It’s been different with everything I’ve worked on. “Loki” was already a love story, and I asked when I was in my interview if we were going to acknowledge Loki’s sexuality in any way. They wanted to, so then that became part of the conversation as we worked on scripts. It’s just a moment in “Loki.” Whereas with “Doctor Who,” I was just pitching ideas to [showrunner] Russell [T Davies], because he asked if I would like to come write an episode. Because me and Russell spoke to each other initially about queer representation and queer romance in TV, I asked to do a story like that because this is how we’d become friends. And I love romance. With “Last of Us,” I didn’t know that I was going to get this script. I think I did talk a lot about Ellie and Dina, so they probably were like “give her Episode 4.” But it’s a massive privilege to get to tell these stories.

What were the moments that excited you when you read the script for this episode?

The love story. “Take on Me.” But the other bit I was excited about was the subway because I love horror. I wanted to really scare people. Like the train carriage, the first one they land in is in a weird angle and I remember hanging around in that surrounded by all these skeletons and I was so happy. I just feel like a lot of women, particularly in TV, will go meet for stuff and they won’t give you those episodes.

I wanted to capture how I felt when I was playing the game. Our story is slightly different but just that feeling of panic. I remember when I was planning it, I asked Craig if I could add a jump scare with a clicker. He said, “Sure.” When I was building out that with a previs artist, we added the jump scare, and Craig was really into it. I know that’s not all that makes a horror piece. It’s so much about tension and lots of other things, but getting to dip my toe into that genre, I was thrilled.

Something that was really fun that wasn’t planned was we didn’t know we’d have Josh [Peck] in the opening. Josh was someone that came up in our conversations, and he read for the role. He was fantastic and the best person. But I was also excited to get to do like a Drew Barrymore in “Scream” by having him in the opening. And what an interesting opening with Jeffrey Wright as well. Jeffrey, for me, is one of the best actors working. What we were filming together was very heavy, but it was such a joy to work with him on those scenes and be a part of that. This isn’t his first time in “The Last of Us” world. It felt like a massive privilege to be a part of launching Isaac on TV, so to speak.

They may not be the Avengers, but the motley crew of Marvel Studios’ “Thunderbolts” punched their way to the top of the box office this weekend, continuing a strong season for theaters as Hollywood’s summer movie season gets underway.

The movie, which stars Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan as part of an antihero ensemble, opened in the U.S. and Canada to $76 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates. Globally, “Thunderbolts” debuted with $162 million, including $86 million from outside the U.S. and Canada.

Before its release, “Thunderbolts” was expected to bring in about $70 million in its opening weekend, though some projections had pegged $80 million as the high end of its earning potential, according to analyst estimates.

The film’s reported budget is $180 million.

The opening weekend performance for “Thunderbolts” is in line with Marvel films such as 2021’s “Eternals,” which brought in $71 million, and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” which made $75 million. The most recent Marvel film, “Captain America: Brave New World,” hauled in $89 million in its opening weekend in February.

Marvel’s past box office success raised the bar for the franchise, which has been difficult for every film to meet, especially given the pandemic and the dual writers and actors strikes in 2023, said Shawn Robbins, founder of film business analysis site Box Office Theory and director of analytics at Fandango.

After the 2019 blockbuster “Avengers: Endgame,” Walt Disney Co.-owned Marvel often seemed to struggle to find its footing, losing its consistency at the box office and with critics. “The Marvels” was a misfire, and movies including “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” appeared to signal a drop-off in quality.

But the largely positive reviews for “Thunderbolts” could provide momentum for Marvel’s summer release,”The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

“In any franchise, the next film performs as well as the previous film was treated by audiences,” Robbins said.

After a sluggish first quarter at the box office, theaters have seen a complete turnaround this spring. Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie” provided the first jolt in early April with a massive $157-million domestic opening weekend.

Then Ryan Coogler’s R-rated “Sinners” took a bite of the box office over the Easter weekend with a $48-million opening, and has continued to draw crowds.

“Sinners” came in second at the box office this weekend with $33 million domestically, down just 28% from the prior week. The acclaimed original period vampire movie has collected $180 million domestically so far, in a much-needed win for movie studio Warner Bros.

Video game-based blockbuster “A Minecraft Movie,” Ben Affleck’s “The Accountant 2” and Sony’s horror movie “Until Dawn” rounded out the top five.

The U.S.-Canada box office is now up 16% compared with the same time in 2024, a substantial improvement from earlier in the year when Hollywood fielded a number of flops.

This season’s diverse lineup, which includes family movies, R-rated horror films and now, a PG-13 superhero flick, gives audiences more reason to flock to theaters, Robbins said.

“It feels a little bit like the before times,” he said. “The fact that it’s been happening in April is a really encouraging sign going into the summer.”

When she appeared for the first time on “Saturday Night Live” a year ago, “Abbott Elementary” creator and star Quinta Brunson gave one of last year’s best hosting performances, bringing great comic timing and characters to the show.

It was no fluke. Returning to the show for her second outing, Brunson proved just as adept at bringing her comedic sensibilities to an episode that featured an overall strong lineup of new sketches. There was only one retread and even that one, a reprise of the standout “Traffic Altercation,” was worth revisiting.

It’s interesting to compare Brunson’s just-as-excellent second shot to two other comics who hosted in Season 49 and Season 50: Nate Bargatze and Shane Gillis. While Bartgatze’s return was good, it didn’t quite reach the peaks of the first appearance. And Gillis, inexplicably called back into service after a not-great debut as host, was much worse the second time around.

But Brunson didn’t lose a step since last year; she was funny playing a time-traveling Harriet Tubman who, along with Kenan Thompson as Frederick Douglass, didn’t want to go back to the past in a “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” parody; went daffy as one of several bad employees at a leadership summit; played a model in an ad for Forever 31’s sad, oversized clothing; and one of “Two B— vs. a Gorilla” (the other was Ego Nwodim), about trash-talking women facing off with a gorilla at the zoo.

If that wasn’t enough, she played a joke-spouting old-time boxer, Jerry “Jackrabbit” Tulane, who stops being so funny after getting beaten up multiple times in the ring, and one half of a feisty and unexpectedly sexy “OnlySeniors” couple in an insurance ad.

Bruson scored again and again and even sang in the monologue; she should have an open invitation to return next season.

Musical guest Benson Boone backflipped before performing, “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” and did not do a backflip before performing “Mystical Magical.” He briefly appeared on Weekend Update as an Applebee’s waiter, referencing his hit song “Beautiful Things,” which Boone didn’t perform.

Just as President Trump has dominated news cycle after news cycle this year, so has he commandeered the “SNL” cold open: once again, James Austin Johnson played the hard-charging POTUS, delivering a string of executive orders with creepy lord of darkness Stephen Miller (an increasingly vampiric Mikey Day). Trump signed orders to deport “Sesame Street” along with Elmo (“Brought to you by the letter L for El Salvador”), pardon J.K. Rowling for transphobic comments and bring back Columbus Day for Italian-Americans such as Tony Soprano, Benny Blanco (who is Jewish) and Childish Gambino (the stage name of Donald Glover, who is Black). Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernández) appeared for an order to keep Hispanic babies from getting their ears pierced, and Trump also made moves to make the New York Times Connections game easier, turn the word “Recession” into “Recess” and outlaw ghosts. “Every Christmas Eve, I get visited by three ghosts. I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about,” Trump said.

Brunson began her monologue with jokes about the time she worked for a phone sex line (“By the end of my first week, I had only made $1.38.”) before landing on the topic of her song and dance number: her height. The 4-foot-11 actress said, “They tried to cast me as a kid on ‘Abbott Elementary’ and I wrote that!” Eschewing a microphone that was too high, she sang about the great things about being small, such as being a cheap date with wine. She was soon joined by another diminutive star: pop singer Sabrina Carpenter, who compared notes with her, asking, “When you read short stories, do they feel like novels?” Former NBA star Dwyane Wade towered over the ladies, but insisted he’s still short compared to other basketball players at 6-foot-4. “I just really want to be in the song,” he said.

Best sketch of the night: Don’t ask your parents too many questions about ‘OnlySeniors’

Brunson and Thompson play elderly parents whose kids (Nwodim and Devon Walker) find out they’ve got life insurance through a service that requires them to have sex and spend a lot of time naked for online fans. “We set up our camera and do stuff to each other. And watch the money just start pouring in,” they’re told. When they’re not interacting with their “Filthy little chat babies,” they’re spending time with their also-naked neighbors and (checks notes) sitting on cakes? In these uncertain economic times, it’s a business model that seems very viable.

Also good: Now you now the traffic-altercation sign language for Iraq

Mikey Day and Brunson faced off again in separate cars (but didn’t seem to recognize each other from last time) to battle with a series of hand gestures and facial expressions over bad parking on a ferry. Day’s character can’t forgive the other driver for parking too close, saying he needs more than half an inch, which invites a devastating response from the woman in the other car. Day’s daughter Quinn (Chloe Fineman) participates with over-the-line sexual gestures, prompting Brunson’s character to make gestures for a gardening tool as she tells him who he raised. Sure, it’s a repeat, but again it’s executed perfectly on both ends, with the only disappointing note being an appearance by Colin Jost, who’s trying to sell the real-life ferry he bought with Pete Davidson. It’s not that Jost is bad, it’s just that it couldn’t possibly live up to Mellssa McCarthy’s appearance when they did a version of this sketch with Martin Short.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: And now a word from Michael Longfellow

Sarah Sherman and Bowen Yang played horny barflys at Applebee’s who are sad about chain restaurants closing down. But it was Michael Longfellow’s declaration of not getting a Real ID that won “Update” this week. Longfellow said, “You already gave me an ID. If it’s fake, you fix it. The Pope is dead, let me mourn.” It didn’t quite follow, but Longfellow went on to joke about his light work schedule of 12 hours a week at “SNL” (“I’m just not in that much stuff this season.”) before making up rules for air travel including, “If the TSA touches your crotch, they have to keep going until you climax.” It’s true, Longfellow has been a light presence this season, but in segments like this, it’s clear he’s got a great command of his delivery. It will be nice if he’s back for Season 51 and gets more screen time to show off his talents.

San Francisco — San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie had declared it Michael Tilson Thomas Day. City Hall glowed MTT’s trademark blue. Davies Symphony Hall, where Tilson Thomas presided over the San Francisco Symphony for an influential quarter century, was festooned with giant blue balloons.

For Tilson Thomas, it all was the culmination of what he declared in February: “We all get to say the old show business expression, ‘It’s a wrap.’”

Despite starting treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer in summer 2021, Tilson Thomas astonishingly continued to conduct throughout the U.S. and even in Europe for the next three and a half years. But in February he learned that the tumor had returned, and the conductor declared last Saturday night’s San Francisco Symphony gala, billed as an 80th tribute to this native Angeleno, would be his last public appearance.

He was led to the podium by his husband, Joshua Robison, who remained seated on stage, keeping a watchful eye. Tilson Thomas started with Benjamin Britten’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Purcell, better known as “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” After various tributes and performances in his honor, MTT, ever the great showman, went out with a bang, leading a triumphant and mystical and stunningly glorious performance of Respighi’s splashy “Roman Festivals.”

A song from Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Town” — including the line “Where has the time all gone to?” — followed as an encore, sung by guest singers and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, just before balloons joyfully fell from above.

For six decades, beginning with his undergraduate years at USC — where he attracted the attention of Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky and the odd rock ‘n’ roll musician about town — Tilson Thomas has been a joy-making key figure in American music.

To pin MTT down is an unreasonable task. He saw a bigger picture than any great American conductor before him — his mentor and champion, Bernstein, included. With a pioneering sense of eclecticism, he connected the dots between John Cage and James Brown, between Mahler and MTT’s famous grandfather, Boris Thomashefsky, a star of the New York Yiddish theater.

Tilson Thomas has nurtured generations of young musicians and given voice to outsiders greatly responsible for American music becoming what it is. He treated mavericks as icons — Meredith Monk and Lou Harrison among them.

The San Francisco concert could touch on little of this, but it did reveal something of what makes MTT tick. In “Young Person’s Guide,” for instance, Tilson Thomas demonstrated an undying love of every aspect of the orchestra as well as his lifelong devotion to education. As a 25-year-old Boston Symphony assistant conductor, he was speaking to audiences, sharing enthusiasm that not all uptight Bostonians were quite ready for.

Not long after, he succeeded Bernstein in the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts. He made television and radio documentaries. In 1987, he founded the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, training orchestra musicians. Alumni are now busy reinventing American orchestral life. In L.A., former New World violinist Shalini Vijayan curates the imaginative Koreatown new music series Tuesdays @ Monk Space.

With the young conductor Teddy Abrams at his side turning pages, Tilson Thomas treated “Young Person’s Guide” more as a seasoned player’s guide to the orchestra. A hallmark of Tilson Thomas’ tenure in San Francisco had been to encourage a degree of free expression typically stifled in ensemble playing. Britten’s score is a riot of solos, and this time around they all seemed to be saying, in so many notes: “This is for you Michael.”

This is for you, Michael, as was all else that followed. While Tilson Thomas sat in a chair at the front of the stage looking at the orchestra, Abrams — music director of the Louisville Orchestra and a Berkeley native who began studying at age 9 with Tilson Thomas — led the rousing overture to Joseph Rumshinsky’s Yiddish theater comedy, “Khantshe in Amerike.” Bessie Thomashefsky, Tilson Thomas’ grandmother, was the original Khantshe in 1915.

Throughout his career Tilson Thomas has been an active composer, but only in recent years had he finally began more actively releasing his pensive and wistful songs that served as informal entrees in a private journal. Mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke led off with “Immer Wieder” to a poem by Rilke. Frederica von Stade, still vibrant-sounding at 79, joined her for “Not Everyone Thinks I’m Beautiful.”

The two songs tenor Ben Jones turned to, “Drift Off to Sleep” and “Answered Prayers,” were moving odes to melancholy. The Broadway singer Jessica Vosk — whose career in show business was launched when Tilson Thomas picked her out of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus to be a soloist in “West Side Story” — lifted spirits with “Take Back Your Mink” from “Guys and Dolls,” but then reminded us why we were all there with Tilson Thomas’ “Sentimental Again.”

Cooke sang “Grace,” which Tilson Thomas wrote for Bernstein’s 70th birthday but which here took on a brave new meaning in its final stanza: “Make us grateful whatever comes next / In this life on earth we’re sharing / For the truth is / Life is good.”

Edwin Outwater, who got his start as an assistant conductor to Tilson Thomas in San Francisco, led the inspirational finale of Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” before Tilson Thomas returned to raise the roof with “Roman Festivals.”

Respighi’s evocations of gladiators at the Circus Maximus, of early Christian pilgrims and other scenes of ancient Roman life, seem a surprisingly odd epilogue to an all-American conductor’s storied career. But Tilson Thomas has always been an arresting programmer, even in his 20s when he served as music director of the Ojai festival. “Roman Festivals” has long been a Tilson Thomas favorite. He recorded it with the L.A. Phil in 1978, relishing the details of ancient Rome in all its intricate and realistic complexity.

This last time, Tilson Thomas offered an epic, yet longing, look back. Trumpets blared with startlingly loud majesty. Pilgrims were lost in stunning meditative refinement. In the last of the four festivals, “The Epiphany,” grace and grandeur merged as one, with final, firm orchestral punctuation massively powerful. It was as if Tilson Thomas was saying to the audience, “This one is for you. And I’m still here saying it.”

Tilson Thomas has made a practice of musing about what happens when the music stops. What is left? How long does the music stay with us, somewhere inside? Can it change us? Does it matter?

From the instant Tilson Thomas became music director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995, he treated the orchestra as an essential component of San Francisco life. His successor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, has taken that to heart with the kind of innovatory spirit that he had brought to the L.A. Phil. The orchestra’s management has not, however, provided needed support, and Salonen is leaving in June. Musicians stood outside Davies handing out fliers to the audience demanding that the orchestra pursue Tilson Thomas’ mission.

The San Francisco Symphony has reached a turning point. Respighi wrote of “The Epiphany” that he wanted frantic clamor and intoxicating noise, expressing the popular feeling “We are Romans, let us pass!” Tilson Thomas beat out those three emphatic staccato orchestral chords — Let! Us! Pass! — as though meant to ring and ring and ring, as lasting as centuries-old Roman monuments.

Beyoncé kicked off her highly anticipated “Cowboy Carter” tour this week in Los Angeles at the SoFi Stadium, where she’ll be gracing the stage five times through May 9.

As expected, the Beyhive (a.k.a. her most dedicated fans) showed out with their western-inspired outfits, which were heavily influenced by the Grammy Award-winning country album. Attendees wore bedazzled cowboy boots and hats; chaps; fringe and leather; red, white and blue; outfits inspired by Beyoncé’s past tours and video looks; and, of course, denim on denim on denim.

Before the second show on Thursday night, we caught up with some of Beyoncé’s fans to ask them about their outfit inspiration, why “Cowboy Carter” resonates with them and what cowboy culture means today. Here’s what they had to say.
Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Kylia and Kyana Harrison, 24, of Santa Barbara

Tell us about your outfits.

Kylia: She actually bought our tickets Monday night and surprised me while I was at work and was like, “Are you down?” I was like, “OK, I’m so down.” And then we kind of just put this together.

Kyana: She had everything already. We do Stagecoach and Coachella, so we already had those pieces. So then we kind of just put everything together.

What is your favorite part of your look?

Kylia: Mine is definitely my cowboy hat. I’ve had it for two-ish years. I go to NFR [National Finals Rodeo] every year, so I wore it. I feel like it’s just kind of my thing.

Kyana: My body chain.

What song are you most excited to hear tonight?

Kylia: I want to hear “I’m That Girl.” It’s very sensual and just like that moment.

Kyana: I want to hear “Tyrant.” I feel like it puts me in a “bad girl” energy, like real boss. I love that song.

Cowboy and western culture have evolved significantly over the years, and it feels like Beyoncé is showcasing what it means to her and it’s history. What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Kyana: Personally, I love it because … I know that cowboys first were African American, so I think that she’s taking control of that and putting her twang on it.

Hope Smith, 31, of Vancouver, Wash.

Tell us about your outfits.

I love DIYing and I never learned my lesson on taking too big of a project, so I redid her Dolce & Gabbana outfit [from] “Renaissance.” I went for the hardest option. This is my favorite outfit that Beyoncé wore during “Renaissance.” She had a blue and a red [version]. It was hours and hours of rhinestoning, multiple seasons of “Love Is Blind” and a lot of podcasts. I was rhinestoning last night, actually, and there is glue in my purse and rhinestones just in case. I’m hoping it holds it together. So, yes, I loved “Renaissance” and I am overjoyed to be here. I turned 30 with Beyoncé at “Renaissance,” and it was like my my coming of age. Hopefully, [my outfit] makes it to D.C. in a few weeks.

What is your favorite part of your look?

This fan came to two “Renaissance” shows with me. It’s really cheesy. She’s inspired me as an artist. I’m a teacher and I’ve been pursuing art outside of teaching, and it’s, like, brought me into the person that I am. So this is designed after her opening screen for “Renaissance,” and she later sold a version of it online, so Beyoncé has copied me. Thank you, Beyoncé. You can credit me later with tickets, and so, yes, it is being held together with tape because I was clacking it too much in Vegas and Seattle.

What song are you most excited to hear tonight?

I feel like “II Hands II Heaven” is going to just kill it live, but I’m going to cry the whole time. I had to buy tissues on the way over because I will sob.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

I feel like she’s tapping into the original cowboy culture. Like, as a white woman, I’ve learned a lot from this album, like Beyoncé has really tapped into the history. The origin of the word “cowboy” was used to be derogatory towards Black men and these are things that, like, we didn’t learn in school, especially growing up in Oklahoma, and I just have loved the history and the commentary through it. I have loved watching people’s responses and I’m really excited to see them respond more to this show certain parts of it on Monday were just amazing and I love her pushing against the norms and the white narrative that we tend to fall into. She’s forcing us to think — if you stop and think — but then a lot of people are coming to judgments without doing their research.

Johnathan Rojas, 34, and Oscar Saucedo, 32, of Orange County

Tell us about your outfits.

Rojas: My inspiration is like Amazon, but make it look like not Amazon. I love to sparkle. Cheap but not cheap. Expensive.

Saucedo: For me, I just went with the red, white and blue with the boots.

What is your favorite part of your look today?

Rojas: Definitely the shirt. Can’t get enough, and the pink Cubans on the wrist like get into it.

Saucedo: For me, definitely my hat with the rhinestones, and my boots have the American flag.

What song are you most excited to hear tonight?

Rojas: I love a good ol’ classic like “Diva.” You know, “female version of a hustler.” I love to hear the classics and then anything from “Renaissance.”

Saucedo: “Cozy.” That’s my song.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Rojas: It’s cool that Beyoncé, like, took it over, because it’s become more of like a mainstream and less conservative. We can all kind of can put our twist and our spin on it and really be creative with it.

Saucedo: Being Mexican, it comes from my culture. I’m glad that she’s making it part of it, that she’s making it more mainstream so everyone can see just other cultures and not just whatever is popular at the moment.

Ronny G., 28, of Salt Lake City

Tell us about your outfit.

I want to do a real country one, so I got the boots from Mexico, got the Levi bootcuts, fringe on the top and the back. I had to show off for Beyoncé. I love [her].

Which part of your outfit are you most proud of?

It took me 20 minutes to get these [bootcuts] on and I did it.

What song are you most excited to hear tonight?

All of them. I just don’t want her to point to me and say, “She ain’t no diva.” That’s all I am concerned about, honestly.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Just getting down and dirty.

Chris Golson, 32, of West Adams; Marquis Phifer, 36, of Houston; Jason Richardson, 39, of Los Angeles

Tell us about your outfits.

Richardson: As much of my personality is upbeat, I’m actually pretty severe with my look, so I love all black. [I have] an Ottolinger vest. I like a high, low [moment]. Cargos. The boots — I don’t know the actual brand, but I do know they hurt, so pray for me.

Golson: My look is giving “Renaissance” meets “Cowboy Carter.” I’m a little bit of cowboy on top, little bit of disco on the bottom, a little bit ghetto country on the bottom, on my feet.

Phifer: I’m giving rich plantation owner. I’m sorry, but in the terms of, like, “I’m from Texas,” so owning a farm, that’s kind of what you do. So it’s giving ownership.

Which part of your outfit are you most proud of?

Phifer: The jacket. It was flown in from Pakistan. I’m from Texas, so there’s like synergy, but I just wanted, like, a little bit of shimmy. [I planned my outfit] for only two weeks. I don’t think too much. Not too much thought. Just execution.

Richardson: My favorite part will probably be the cowboy hat. I mean, I know everybody’s going to have a cowboy hat, but, you know, sometimes you gotta lean into the theme. But I will say I’m a Texan as well. Born in Houston, then moved to Dallas, so we just need to let everybody know that Destiny’s Child has been wearing cowboy hats. They’ve been wearing the denim, been having the nod to country. So I will enjoy this tour because I am Black, I am country, I am from Texas, born and raised. So I’m super excited to enjoy the show.

Golson: My favorite part of my look is honestly the glow. It’s time for Beyoncé to shine. I’m here for it.

What song are you most excited to hear?

Richardson: It’s not even a full song but something about “Flamenco.” Ugh, [it] does something in my spirit. I love the the vocal acrobatics, you know, just reminding people that even though it’s a country genre, she could still skate on the track and get the vocals that she needs. If it’s a full song — let me stick to the theme — I’ma say “Texas Hold ’Em.”

Phifer: We would say “Desert Eagle.”

Golson: That’s our favorite song. It’s f— hot. It’s a moment.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Richardson: What I’ll say about cowboy culture is that she is democratizing the access to cowboys and that cowboy culture. More of a [reminder] that it has its roots across all the demographics, primarily in the South. And so for all those that have grown up in the South, that are fully acquainted with that cowboy culture, but don’t necessarily look the part of mainstream cowboy country music, we’re excited to lean into it. I’ve been called country for a large part of my life. I wish I didn’t lose some of the twang, but I’m super excited that she reminded people about the history of the genre, reminded of the roots and some of the complexions and different colors of country. So I’m excited to see the greatest artist of our living time do what she does best.

Phifer: I’m from Houston, Texas, and we still ride horses in the middle of the street, and that’s just the culture of Houston. I love that she’s able to take the culture and put it on a massive stage to be received. But we’ve been country. We’re gonna live country, die country, and that’s the country culture.

Golson: Honestly, as someone from Philly, I think, this tour, this album, and the magnitude that she’s been able to hit with this has spoken volumes to the amount that we have contributed to music in general, and there is no genre that could define us. It’s just music and it’s just love.

Camilo Aldrete, 21, of Pomona

Tell us about your outfit.

The inspiration was obviously “Cowboy Carter,” but I also pulled from “Renaissance.” I just wanted to be sparkly. I was like, “Silver, why not?” I still wanted to have that cowboy-ness and like a little belt buckle.

What is your favorite part of your look?

I think my shirt. I had to bedazzle it myself. It was fun. It was rewarding to see the outcome. It took me a few days, but I had help too, so it was easier.

What song are you most excited to hear today?

Probably “Bodyguard” and “ll Hands ll Heaven.”

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

I’m Mexican, so I view it from the Mexican point of view, and I think it’s about just being confident, being yourself, standing your ground, knowing what you want to do [and] living in your own vibe.

Maddison Walker, 9, of Carson

Tell us about your outfit.

My mom helped me pick it out, and I was able pick out my pants. I really like my heart pants, and they’re pretty.

What is your favorite part of your look?

I really like my purse. It’s the Marc Jacobs Tote Bag.

What song are you most excited to hear today?

“Texas Hold ’Em.”

Madalyn Young, 55, of Hawthorne

Tell us about your outfit.

My outfit is all about animal prints. I love zebras, so you can tell I have the coat, the boots with the fringe, all with the black skirt and the blouse. This is a western-style blouse as you can see with the fringe, the lace and the buttons. What I love about this blouse is the lace. It’s showing a little skin. It’s sexy but at the same time very classy.

What is your favorite part of your look?

I love my boots. These are authentic western boots. There’s zebra print with the fringe, and if you look around, you really won’t see anybody else with the boots on, so I like to be an original person.

What song are you most excited to hear?

“16 Carriages” and, most importantly, “Blackbiird.” It really resonates with me because it was written by the Beatles regarding the Little Rock Nine, and my parents are from Little Rock, Arkansas, and so they lived through that moment and they actually know some of the Little Rock Nine. So it’s very personal for me, and I’m very inspired by that song.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

When I think about cowboys, I even go back to the Lone Ranger. Bass Reeves was actually a Black man from Arkansas. As you can tell, that’s my roots. However, coming to Hollywood, it was kind of … he looked different. The Lone Ranger is actually a true story about Bass Reeves. When you think about the culture of cowboys, they were actually Black men, but they would not refer to them as men, so they called them “boys” — “cowboys.” However, it has just evolved into a culture that has always been a part of my family. I have relatives who were cowboys and actually worked with cattle in Texas, so it’s a culture that never left. It’s just coming back on the scene.

Josh Krantz, 40, of Long Beach

Tell us about your outfit.

What’s funny about the inspiration is that I had a whole ’nother outfit planned, and with the help of a friend, she’s stoning some things for me, but that didn’t come through today. So this is all random s— from my closet that I just pulled together for “Cowboy Carter.” I did not plan this months in advance. However, I did plan the other outfit months in advance, but it may happen on Sunday. I’m coming back for another show.

What is your favorite part of your look?

I did stone this sash myself. This is Beyoncé merch. I’m proud of that because that was a lot of hard work. It took a couple hours, maybe three. I love this fringy rhinestone madness. I love any kind of fringe, so I’m feeling it.

What song are you most excited to hear today?

I’m excited to hear “Why Don’t You Love Me.”

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

I love that. Beyoncé is bringing back that cowboy culture and really making all the white people in America realize it actually started with Black people, especially the house music too, with the “Renaissance” tour. She’s killing it. It’s so rad. I love that we’re all learning a whole new thing through her.

Anthony Pittman, 32, and Jose Mascorro, 32, of Compton

Tell us about your outfits.

Pittman: I painted this jacket when the album came out last year at the end of March. I painted another jacket for this tour as well, but I wore that to opening day, so I wore this one today. My look is basically vintage, mustard kind of vibes. I’ve been an artist for 15 years now. I started painting jackets for Beyoncé during the “On the Run” [tour] and then the Hive started commissioning me to paint jackets for them, so I’ve been doing that as well. I was featured in Vogue, Essence [and] USA Today last year for the “Renaissance” tour, so that’s why I’m back here at the “Cowboy Carter” tour to give you more looks.

Mascorro: For my look, I really just wanted to match with him, so I’m just wearing a Levi’s jacket and jeans, but I wanted to switch it up with the cream.

Pittman: My bandana. This was Grandma’s. It’s been around from like the 1970s, maybe, and it was in her drawer. She passed five years ago, so I’m wearing it just kind of as a token for my grandma.

Mascorro: My boots. I think is the first time I’ve ever really owned boots, so Beyoncé got us all buying boots. Kind of like how my family used to wear boots back in the day, so it’s kind of important to honor that.

What song are you most excited to hear?

Pittman: “Ameriican Requiem.” I love that that’s the opener. I was hoping it would be the opener, and it really sets the tone for the rest of the show. It’s just beautiful.

Mascorro: I think I’d have to agree with that. It’s a powerful song.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Pittman: I was born and raised in Compton, so we have the Compton farms. Not a lot of people know about it, but I basically grew up watching the cowboys ride down the block on their horses, and I still do every single day, so it reminds me of being home, and there’s also this ancestral memory that I have to it because my family is from the South, so I kind of feel more connected to my family’s background and where they came from.

Mascorro: My family is Mexican and a lot of them are from farms, and so it was really nice to kind of wear the same outfits that they wore back home but kind of make it my own vibe with my own twist on it.

Manny Bueno of West Hollywood and Quentin Smith, 30-something, San Diego

Smith: The inspiration for my outfit were the Compton Cowboys, so I wanted to do the flannel, I’ve got the cargos, the Margiela work boots and the cowboy hat.

Bueno: I was here opening night like a true fan [laughs]. I was giving trade the first night, but this is my distressed Y2K meets my version of rustic cowboy. It’s giving roadhouse.

What is your favorite part of your look?

Smith: I love this shirt. It drapes right, keeps me warm. And I love the hat. It’s by a [Latino] designer, René Mantilla. It’s my first time wearing this hat, so if not now, when?

Bueno: I love distressed leather.

What song are you most excited to hear today?

Bueno: I love “Diva.” It’s my favorite and “My House.”

Smith: I missed the “Renaissance” tour, so I’m kind of excited to hear those [songs] live, but of course “Texas Hold ’Em,” all the ones off “Cowboy Carter,” “Ameriican Requirem.” I love that one. Anything she wants to sing to me, I’m here to receive it.

What does cowboy culture means to you?

Bueno: Not to politicize, but [to] politicize, I think we need to take ownership of America and what truly is America. And it’s not Trump’s America. It’s not what’s being played out in the news.

Smith: To add on to that a little bit, a reclamation of not just America but, like, Black America and where our influence lies, and so many difference places that we don’t always think about. So I love see this subtle, quiet reclamation of not only what it means to be an American but what it means to be a Black American. So it’s interesting to see how she kind of plays around with that.

Peter Crawford, 54 and Pieter van Meeuwen, 52, of Santa Barbara

Tell us about your outfits.

Crawford: Obiviously, [the] “Lemonade” [album] inspired it, and I made this dress out of shower curtains, actually, and fishing line, which I made as a tribute to her. I also sewed two wigs together to make this.

Van Meeuwen: We saw the show on Monday, and this is a reference to one of the video looks that is on the background. I fell in love with it that night, and I knew I had to do it. Weirdly, I actually had the supplies ready to go. [laughs] We’ve been to every tour since “B’Day.” We met her at “B’Day” and got to do a meet-and-greet. We saw “Sasha Fierece,” we were in the second row, and she reached through and took my hand when she walked through the audience, so ever since that happened, I just can’t get enough Beyoncé.

What is your favorite part of your look?

Van Meeuwen: I love the sparkle [on my shirt]. I had it made by a young lady named Glittah Gal.

Crawford: The little fringe [on my dress] is made out of fishing line, and I wove every single one of them into the hem of this, so I’d have to say that’s my most special part of this outfit.

What song are you most excited to hear?

Crawford: Always “Ya Ya” for this album.

Van Meeuwen: I love when she does “Ameriican Requiem.” It’s great so I want to see it again.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Crawford: Chaps! Chaps! Chaps! Chaps are going to be everywhere. Chaps already are. There’s going to be short chaps. You’re going to see them on runways. That is what’s happening.

Van Meeuwen: I think cowboy culture is complicated. Whether it’s about Indigenous people and what they had to go through under cowboys, or reclaiming the cowboy spirit of what America was built on — this kind of rough-and-tumble existence. I think Beyoncé has done a beautiful job reclaiming it, making it her own and standing strong in the face of the current administration.

Crawford: And also reclaiming the American flag or reclaiming red, white and blue. Like it doesn’t below just Trumpers; it belongs to everybody. It belongs to the United States of America, and I love that she’s making it chic again.

Neil Torrefiel, 41, and Blake Keng, 38, of San Francisco

Tell us about your outfits.

Keng: I love denim on denim, so I wanted to do something that was flowy, and we love to complement looks with each other.

Torrefiel: Absolutely. And I love black on black, and I wanted to do a fulsome look that was really reminiscent of Beyoncé.

Keng: I’ve been planning [my outfit] for months, and I have a mood board [where] I put all these different outfits together. I come up with it kind of last minute, and then he will kind of vibe with whatever I have.

Torrefiel: I’m laughing cause it literally took me an hour.

Keng: We cannot be more opposite.

What song are you most excited to hear?

Torrefiel: I would really scream like a child if she did the Charlie’s Angels song [“Independent Women, Part 1”].

Keng: I’m ready for this album, “Sweet, Honey Buckin.”

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Keng: It’s like reclaiming what’s ours, and I think that’s what really drew me to her album was reclaiming what is [in] the communities and where it originated from. That spoke to me a lot.

Torrefiel: I think she’s doing a lot to redefine the genre and I deeply appreciate all the work that she’s doing around it. I’m just here to experience all of it.

Teauna Baker, 31, of San Diego and Jeanisha Rose, 34, of Houston

Tell us about your outfits.

Rose: It’s inspired by the song “My Rose” from the CD. It doesn’t say that on the digital version, but I like a rose and my favorite color is pink, so I adjusted it to my liking. It’s one of my favorite songs. It’s so tender. I [rhinestoned] my dress. This outfit was a b— to put together. It took forever.

Baker: I think my outfit is giving “America Has a Problem” … still has a problem. [laughs] I really liked the chaps. As soon as she dropped her picture with the plain white tee and the chaps, from there I was like I definitely need to have chaps. I just wanted to give “high fashion in a plain white tee.”

What is your favorite part of your look?

Baker: It’s the belt. I was a little bit chaotic trying to put this together, and I was on the internet last night looking up horse belts at like 11 p.m., and I was like, “I gotta find a belt to put this together,” and I found this [one] this morning at like 9 a.m. and it was the last one. There was this store in DTLA that had one, and I was like “We have to go first thing in the morning.”

Rose: My favorite part of my outfit are my boots. I got these Cavender’s [Boot City] in Texas. I’m from Texas. She got her boots from Texas too.

What song are you most excited to hear?

Baker: “Spaghettii,” “Ya Ya” or “Heated.” All of ’em to be honest. I’m ready to jam.

Rose: I’m ready to hear “Tyrant.” It’s my jam. I put that on repeat regularly — daily probably.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

Rose: For me, it represents home. I’m used to going on trail rides and things like that since I was a kid, and it’s just a real good time. It just feels like a connection.

Baker: We’ve been here. We do this. This is where we kind of came from, and I feel like she’s taking the time to share what was ours with other people. But really it’s just freedom. I feel a sense of pride. I feel freedom. I feel happiness inside, so it’s really about enjoying African American culture and being able to share it other people, but other people respect it and enjoy it.

Zuri McPhail, 37, of Stockton

Tell us about your outfit.

I love the color pink, so I was like I want to do a pink theme, but I also don’t want to be like everybody else. I pieced this outfit together, and it’s pretty in pink. I like the rodeo. I have a pink horse.

What is your favorite part of your outfit?

My horse.

What song are you most excited to hear?

I looked at the setlist beforehand, and I’m not going to lie, I’m excited to hear the older songs that she’s going to play. I’ve been a Beyoncé fan since I was 13 or 14 so I’m looking forward to the older s— because I’m nostalgic. That’s my s—.

What does cowboy culture mean to you?

You can’t reclaim what is already yours. We were doing the s— before the s— was the s—. I have family who were Black cowboys. We are always the trendsetters. Black women. Black people. We started the s— and it kept getting built on. And I’m just grateful to be here and to see a Black woman do the s— bigger than anybody has ever done it. You can hate on it as much as you want to, but if Beyoncé is doing your genre, you made it. And Beyoncé is from Texas, so if you’re ever going to question like, “She can’t do a country album?” She’s f— country. That is who she is. She is from Texas. She can’t be mad that a Texas woman is tapping into her roots and showing you who she is and who were are.

The combination of adolescence’s slippery hedonism and the French Riviera’s languid air spurred the explosive popularity of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel “Bonjour Tristesse,” written when the author was herself a teenager. Otto Preminger’s 1958 adaptation, pairing the then-scandalous story with a luminous Jean Seberg, Deborah Kerr and David Niven — plus an experimental use of both Technicolor and monochrome — only burnished its appeal, inspiring the French New Wave to boot. Jean Luc-Godard once said he could have dissolved from that movie’s final shot to the opening of his “Breathless” with a simple transitional text: “Three years later.”

Six decades on, though, can a new movie from Sagan’s summer tale capture that same breezy intrigue? In the case of Canadian writer-director Durga Chew-Bose’s confidently composed debut feature, the answer is both yes and not quite. Some backdrops and scenarios are sturdy enough to keep their hot-and-cool appeal and this “Bonjour Tristesse,” with its dreamy seaside luxuriance and attractive cast, makes good use of that familiarity as it mixes vintage glamour with modern details.

But in Chew-Bose’s passion to dig deeper into the circumstances underpinning a young girl’s life-altering cruelty, there’s an over-intellectualization of motive, a need to continually crack the sleek surface of Sagan’s bourgeois characters with self-reflection. It ultimately undercuts a narrative whose strongest suit has always been its briskness.

Under the bluest sky and against shimmering waters, Cécile (Lily McInerny) is having a golden summer, spending quality time with her charming, handsome dad, Raymond (Claes Bang), and his cool, younger dancer girlfriend Elsa (Naïlia Harzoune) at their secluded villa, while enjoying a fling with attentive, good-looking local boy Cyril (Aliocha Schneider).

That dynamic shifts with the unexpected arrival of Anne (Chloë Sevigny), a brittle fashion designer and dear friend of Cécile’s deceased mother. With her pulled-back hair, buttoned-up shirts and long skirts, and a tone with Cécile that’s friendly yet auntie-ish, Anne brings to the frolicsome vibe a cooling maturity, a kind of watchfulness. But also, in the rekindling of a dormant closeness between Anne and Raymond, there’s an imminent future that Cécile isn’t ready for. Could she prevent that from happening and keep her brat summer going?

The novel and Preminger’s film relied on the device that its protagonist was looking back on monumental events from the perspective of that title sadness, so Chew-Bose’s defiantly in-the-moment telling, kissed by Maximilian Pittner’s sun-drenched imagery, feels like a bonus at first. The director also leans nicely into interstitial shots that orient us without attitude, while her choice of music, led by Lesley Barber’s lilting score, is a real mood-setter of romance and melancholy.

But when Chew-Bose reaches for interiority with hyperaware dialogue (democratically applied to every character), something is lost. “She’s imagining what she looks like to us,” Elsa comments to Raymond early on as they observe his daughter like a specimen. Later on, Cécile says to her dad, “Your silence is different — I’m not in on it.” These aren’t lines, they sound like an actor’s notes on how to play something wordlessly.

It’s as if everyone’s a budding essayist on psychology, which makes a situation that trades on recklessness and delusion harder to swallow. Everyone sounds too smart to be prone to error, although Sevigny comes closest, embodying someone in a precarious state of emotional susceptibility, whose obvious intelligence hides unspoken wounds.

There are ways of exposing the vulnerabilities of the wise and/or precocious when navigating matters of the heart. (Éric Rohmer has many fine examples.) But Chew-Bose’s approach eventually feels more clinical than revelatory. One can appreciate the effort behind this well-made “Bonjour Tristesse” without necessarily feeling its turmoil.

This story contains spoilers for “Thunderbolts*” and is meant to be read after seeing the film.

Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” has been released into the world, which means it’s finally time for that other longstanding MCU tradition — discussing its post-credits scenes.

Directed by Jake Schreier, “Thunderbolts*” follows a group of villains-turned-antiheroes from disparate corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, led by Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), as they reluctantly join forces to help save the world.

The film is a return to familiar form for the ever-expanding superhero franchise. It’s a classic Marvel team-up featuring not-so-classic characters including John Walker (Wyatt Russell) from “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” Ava Starr a.k.a. Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) from “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) from “Black Widow,” Antonia Dreykov a.k.a. Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) from “Black Widow” and new character Bob (Lewis Pullman).

In another return to form, “Thunderbolts*” features two end credits scenes. The first, a mid-credits scene, offers a glimpse of how life has changed for the newly minted superhero squad now that they aren’t disgraced former heroes or mercenaries operating in the shadows. Alexei, also known as Red Guardian, stops a customer in the cereal aisle of a grocery store in order to call attention to a box featuring the New Avengers. Alexei’s American dream of being on a box of Wheaties has finally come true. Whether the team has been accepted by the world, though, is another question.

The second scene, which is shown after the full credits finish rolling, is the more significant of the two as it teases what’s to come for the superhero squad as well as the MCU.

Set 14 months after the events of the main story, the team formerly informally known as the Thunderbolts* has hit a bit of a roadblock with its branding. While they had been dubbed the New Avengers by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) by the end of the movie, Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, is not at all pleased that they have claimed the Avengers’ name.

In “Captain America: Brave New World,” Sam had been given the go-ahead to assemble his own new team of Avengers. According to Yelena, Sam is threatening legal action to keep her team from using the name. This potentially sets up a tension between the two Avengers squads that could come into play whenever audiences finally see them cross paths, likely in the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday.” The cast of the movie, slated for 2026, includes Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Anthony Mackie (Captain America), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Danny Ramirez (Joaquín Torres), Letitia Wright (Black Panther) and Tenoch Huerta (Namor). But it has not yet been revealed which of these characters are officially members of the Avengers.

This second “Thunderbolts*” post-credits scene concludes with the appearance of a mysterious extradimensional spaceship with the number “4” displayed on its hull. The logo on the ship is that of the Fantastic Four, who are set to be introduced in July’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

The upcoming “Fantastic Four” film, which will kick off Phase 6 of the MCU, stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm, respectively. Also known as Marvel’s First Family, the team in the comics gained superpowers while on a mission in space. “First Steps,” which will be set on an alternate 1960s-inspired retrofuturistic earth, will see the Fantastic Four take on a giant planet-eating cosmic entity called Galactus and his herald, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). The movie will also presumably show just how and why the Fantastic Four end up in the Avengers’ corner of the multiverse.

The Fantastic Four are also set to appear in “Doomsday,” which will mark former “Iron Man” actor Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the MCU as Doctor Doom. While “Thunderbolts*” is the last film of the MCU’s current phase, Phase 5, which started with 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” will officially wrap with the upcoming “Ironheart” series, premiering on Disney+ in June.

What does it take to break up a friendship? Perhaps a $5-million disagreement. Perhaps not.

Mary J. Blige is reportedly being sued by stylist Misa Hylton, her best friend for decades, over allegations that the singer undermined her business relationship with rapper Vado. The lawsuit alleges that Blige withheld Vado’s completed album to pressure him into leaving Hylton behind, according to AllHipHop.

Vado had an agreement with Hylton and her management company, M.I.S.A., entitling them to 20% of Vado’s income, the website said. Hylton is seeking $5 million.

But that dispute might be beside the point, depending on who you listen to.

According to Nicholas Ramcharitar, an attorney for Hylton who spoke Tuesday on “The Latest With Loren LoRosa” podcast, Misa wanted to handle the situation amicably with a settlement.

“It’s unbeknownst to us why Mary J. Blige and her camp completely cut off Miss Hylton,” he told LoRosa, who played the conversation Wednesday on the Breakfast Club. “And I can tell you, this Vado lawsuit isn’t why their friendship died.”

Publicists for Blige did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Though Ramcharitar didn’t get specific about the reason, he stated that “Misa is confused, and we’ve tried, Misa’s tried, to reach out to Mary. We did not want this in the media. Misa just thought that Mary may have been busy.”

However, he said, when calls and texts stopped and Hylton was “not being included in the normal things that they do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, her antennas went up and we tried to figure out what’s going on here. And that’s really when we started to figure out that the relationship wasn’t the same.”

“Why would Misa and Mary think that a Vado album would make them $5 million? I’m just asking respectfully from a business perspective,” Breakfast Club co-host Charlamagne tha God said on the show, suggesting that Vado — who signed with Blige’s label in 2024 — simply didn’t have that kind of drawing power. DJ Envy speculated that Team Hylton had “over-asked” because it was all part of a negotiation. LoRosa pointed out that court and attorney fees, plus emotional distress, might be rolled into the lawsuit.

“This is silly,” Charlamagne said. “I mean, for them to be such close friends, like it should never have gotten to this point.”

Hylton is “upset,” her attorney said “There’s a lot going on. I mean, at the end of the day, Sean Combs and what’s going on with him, it’s unfortunate but it affects everybody.”

Yup, there it is.

Combs, of course, is sitting behind bars for months now, awaiting trial on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges and more. Hylton is mother to Combs’ son Justin. Blige started off as a Combs protegé.

“Misa’s a wonderful woman … but she’s upset,” Ramcharitar said. “And again, she’s more upset [about] the relationship. It’s like all of a sudden you have a sister you’ve been with forever and 40 years later your sister stops talking to you and you have no reason why.”

Charlamagne noted that “you don’t escalate that with a lawsuit.” Later, he said, “This is obviously about something else.”

“She in her feelings,” co-host Jess Hilarious interjected. “She hurt her feelings.”

“All I do know,” DJ Envy said later, “is if Charlamagne’s not my friend anymore, I’m suing you.”

Come Thursday, Hilton herself got into the fray, in an interview — not recorded — that LoRosa talked about on “The Latest”: Hylton told LoRosa that the friendship wasn’t over because of the Vado album and the lawsuit wasn’t brought because they’re no longer friends. Rather, it was about a simple breach of contract with no communication for a year.

The $5-million figure appears to be based on work that Blige and Vado had collaborated on successfully, not work Vado released by himself, LoRosa relayed.

“‘Why won’t Mary J. Blige just resolve this and put this behind all of us?’” Hylton asked, per LoRosa. “‘That’s the bigger question. Judgment is too easy in this situation. It is shocking. However, this is screaming so many things on so many different levels. Just take a deeper look. God bless and thank you again.’”

Before the word “adult” attached to any form of media — books, movies, websites — became a synonym for “pornographic,” it meant a sort of entertainment that was made for people who had experienced a little bit of life. People who wanted to read or see things that reflected their experience in a grown-up way, in which they could recognize familiar challenges, rendered as comedy or tragedy. It was the opposite of “juvenile.”

There was definitely a market for such things, perhaps even a market dominated by them — films like “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “The Big Chill” and “An Unmarried Woman” pop to my aged mind. Even young(er) people, before they had the option of watching themselves exclusively, took an interest, if memory serves. (Maybe they still, do; let me know, young people.) The “49 and over” demographic may not be TV’s most prized, but it’s a fat slice of the population and many own televisions.

So there is something old-fashioned about “The Four Seasons,” a very watchable, breezy, bumpy new Netflix comedy from Tina Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, remaking a super-successful 1981 movie about no-longer-young marrieds. (Alan Alda, who wrote, directed and starred in the film makes a cameo appearance here, so we may infer his approval.)

The TV version adds original twists and new scenes — the series lasts twice as long as the film, after all — but generally follows the shape of the original story and the character of its characters, who share names with their prototypes (though Claudia has become Claude).

It’s an adult entertainment in the original sense, notwithstanding a character “only” in her early 30s, with jokes about aches and pains, flagging energy, earlier bedtimes, the stresses of long relationships in longer lives, and here and there a sense of nostalgia for the people they used to be. Many will relate.

The narrative gambit concerns three couples who meet for a holiday every three months, if you can imagine that. They are upper-middle class, upper-middle-age, and in such control of their lives that they can afford to take, like, a week off four times a year. Their vacation schedule brings them together in spring, summer, fall and winter — in that order, in the story — a plan that conveniently allows for Vivaldi’s well-known violin concerti to fill up the soundtrack.

Fey plays Kate, married to Jack (Will Forte), who is a history teacher; anyway, he is very hot on a biography of Napoleon. (It doesn’t really matter what anyone does for work; some of them have jobs, but all of them have money.) Jack briefly worked for hedge-fund guy Nick (Steve Carell), at whose upstate New York lake house, shared with wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), the first movement of this “Four Seasons” takes place. Danny (Colman Domingo), who was in college with Jack and Kate, is an interior designer, married to Claude (Marco Calvani), an emotional Italian, whose main (pre)occupation is worrying about Danny’s health. (Jack worries about his own health, but he is merely a hypochondriac.)

It begins a little slow — a little “why should we care about these people, with their abundant vacation time?” Perhaps it was just class resentment on my part. Soon enough, however, things start to percolate, with Nick’s announcement that he is leaving Anne; her replacement in their pod is his dental hygienist, Ginny (Erika Henningsen, from Fey’s “Mean Girls” musical), a lively young woman in her 30s. (Her age — that is to say, she’s an adult — will be pointed out.) No one speaks the words “midlife crisis” — maybe that’s not a thing anyone says anymore? (Research shows the term has been with us 60 years, long enough to have a midlife crisis of its own.) But both Nick and Ginny take pains to declare it’s not like that. And it’s true that Anne, currently addicted to playing some farm game on her iPad and not using the potting shed, complete with kiln, that Nick built her, has let joy leak from her life.

Nick’s energized romantic do-si-do destabilizes the group, and gives them something new to gossip about and compare their own lives with as they wobble through the ensuing year. Ginny comes into view in the third (summer) episode, set in the Bahamas, where, indulged by Nick, she has booked the six of them into an uncomfortable vegan eco-resort. (Naturally, the writers will have some fun at the expense of eco-veganism, and of the older characters’ reaction to it.)

Fall is set during parents weekend at the New England college where Kate and Jack, and Anne and Nick, each have a daughter enrolled (Ashlyn Maddox and Julia Lester, respectively) and where Kate, Jack and Danny were students. Winter finds them in a chalet up a snowy mountain, with a return to the lake house for circular closure.

Dramatically, Carell’s storyline is dominant, and he’s sympathetic in a part that doesn’t hesitate to make him look silly. But Fey, being Fey — “SNL” headwriter, winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, named the best comedian of the 21st century by the Guardian, twice listed on the Time 100, four times chosen one of People magazine’s most beautiful people, and the series’ designated Least Quirky character — comes across as its hub, its central intelligence. (Which puts Forte’s definitely quirky character at something of a disadvantage.)

If one is as aware of watching famous faces like Fey and Carell and Forte and Domingo at work as following the people they’re playing, of course it’s nice to see them, and knowing them as actors doesn’t relieve the tension their characters create as they scrape against each other. (Everybody’s got problems.)

Across the course of the show we will learn that marriage is work, that not everybody believes in soulmates, that people in a new relationship might have more and noisier sex than those who have been together for many years, and that humans have the capacity to drive one another crazy, perhaps especially on vacation — a sad irony. There will be tension within and between the couples; some of their annoyance may in turn annoy the viewer.

But that, I suppose, is the desired effect, and when the characters do wake up to one another, “The Four Seasons” can be quite moving.

Katy Perry knows online critics have much to say about her recent Blue Origin field trip to space and her new live tour. Despite this, the pop star wants fans to “please know I am OK.”

“I have done a lot [of] work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me,” the “Firework” and “California Gurls” singer said Tuesday on Instagram.

Perry, 40, wrote about how she moves past online scrutiny in a lengthy comment replying to a fan’s post on Instagram. Several fan accounts dedicated to the Grammy nominee shared a video of a Times Square billboard congratulating the singer on her Lifetimes tour, which launched on April 23 in Mexico City. In her comment, she thanked the fan groups for their support and addressed “the ‘online’ world” which she said “tries to make me a human piñata.”

The singer has faced heat on multiple fronts recently, notably for her participation in Blue Origin’s April space launch. On April 14, Blue Origin launched six women — including Perry, Lauren Sánchez and Gayle King — into space. The performer sang “What a Wonderful World” while in zero gravity, kissed the ground upon landing and said the launch made her feel “super connected to love.” Those moments quickly became fodder for internet memes — and backlash.

Critics, including model-actor Emily Ratajkowski, slammed the celebrity joyride as wasteful and performative. Fast food chain Wendy’s also shaded Perry, tweeting “Can we send her back” upon the pop star’s return to Earth. Singer Lily Allen said in an episode of her “Miss Me?” podcast that she found the flight “out of touch,” but she eventually walked back her criticism.

Scrutiny over Perry’s Blue Origin ride — which she did not directly reference in her comment — carried over to the launch of her Lifetimes tour the following week. Video featuring Perry’s stiff and low-energy “E.T.” choreography from the first night of her tour went viral on TikTok. “Should’ve spent less time in space and more in rehearsals,” one user commented.

On social media, the singer was also accused of using AI-generated background visuals on her tour. In his review of Perry’s “143” album, Times critic Mikael Wood raised a similar flag about her music: “‘143’ is an oddly cold dance-pop album with boring melodies, utilitarian grooves and vocal performances that feel vaguely AI-derived.”

Amid all the noise, the “Teenage Dream” singer on Tuesday explained that she takes backlash with “grace” and sends love to her critics. “I know so many people are hurting in so many ways and the internet is very much a dumping group for [the] unhinged and unhealed,” she wrote.

The “Woman’s World” performer continued: “What’s real is seeing your faces every night, singing in unison, reading your notes, feeling your warmth. I find people to lock eyes and sing with and I know we are healing each other in a small way.”

On her Instagram account, the former “American Idol” judge on Tuesday posted a video of a special moment she shared with a fan. “Never forgot this is the whole point,” reads text over the video.

Perry wrote in her comment that she is on a “human journey playing the game of life with an audience of many.” That journey, she said, can sometimes be imperfect, but “I get back up and go on and continue to play the game.”

“Somehow through my battered and bruised adventure I keep looking to the light,” she continued. “And in that light a new level UNLOCKS.”

Perry’s Lifetimes tour continues with three shows in Guadalajara before she comes stateside. She kicks off the U.S. leg of her tour with a show at Houston’s Toyota Center on May 7. Perry is set to perform at the Honda Center in Anaheim on July 13 and the Kia Forum in Inglewood on July 15.

As CBS-owner Paramount Global enters mediation this week to resolve President Trump’s $20-billion “60 Minutes” lawsuit, one question looms: How much should the company pay to settle a dispute that 1st Amendment experts have deemed frivolous?

Paramount’s board during an April 18 meeting agreed on parameters for a possible settlement with Trump, according to two people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to comment.

Mediation sessions begin Wednesday, multiple sources have said, and the company is eager to put the “60 Minutes” controversy behind so that it can move forward with its sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

The New York Times first reported Paramount’s board directors had agreed on settlement terms.

The knowledgeable people said board members acted to provide clear guidance to lawyers who will be representing them during the mediation process. A Paramount representative declined to comment.

Trump filed the lawsuit in Texas last October, alleging CBS deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in an effort to prop up her election chances.

Early this year, the president doubled the amount of damages he was seeking to $20 billion. His updated lawsuit attempted to steer the case away from 1st Amendment issues and instead claim “60 Minutes” was a fraudulent product that harmed viewers in Texas.

Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone has pushed for a settlement to facilitate Paramount’s sale to the family headed by billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison. Redstone’s apparent willingness to appease Trump has sparked sharp protests within the company.

Last week, Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” resigned, citing additional corporate pressure over coverage.

On Sunday, veteran CBS newsman Scott Pelley told “60 Minutes” viewers about Owens’ resignation. Pelley disclosed the show had been facing increased corporate oversight because of Paramount’s desire to win the Trump administration’s approval of the Skydance deal.

The Federal Communications Commission must approve the transfer of CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family.

“None of our stories has been blocked,” Pelley told viewers at the end of the broadcast. “But Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

Redstone, who serves as Paramount’s chairwoman, recused herself from discussions about the settlement, the sources said. She has refrained from voting on certain Paramount matters related to the company’s sale due to a conflict of interest. Her family is expecting $1.75 billion as its part of the proceeds from the sale to Skydance.

Paramount, however, could face legal blowback if it shells out a huge amount to mollify Trump.

Paramount’s lawyers have pushed back against Trump’s arguments and CBS journalists have maintained they did not distort the Harris interview. The raw footage shows she was quoted accurately, although CBS had edited her response by using her most cogent sentence.

CBS has said the edits were made to pare the then-vice president’s interview to a broadcast length.

Board members are cognizant that a huge settlement could be viewed as something of a payoff to the president to move the Skydance merger over the finish line, knowledgeable sources have said.

Amid the controversy, Trump’s dismay with CBS and “60 Minutes” has continued.

He grew angry over two segments that aired in April, stories on the war in Ukraine and Trump’s desire to annex Greenland. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform earlier this month that he wanted Brendan Carr, his appointee to head the FCC, to “ impose the maximum fines and punishment” on CBS.

Separately, after a long pause, the FCC reached out to Skydance in the last week to begin the merger review process.

Andrew Karpen, chief executive and founder of independent film distribution company Bleecker Street Media, died Monday of glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. He was 59.

Karpen founded the New York City-based Bleecker Street in 2014 with backing from 5-hour Energy founder Manoj Bhargava. In its first few years, Bleecker Street released such films as 2015’s “Trumbo,” starring Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren, and the Viggo Mortensen-led “Captain Fantastic” in 2016.

Since its founding, Bleecker Street has released more than 75 films, including the 2017 Steven Soderbergh comedy “Logan Lucky,” 2024’s Oscar-nominated “Golda,” comedy-drama “Hard Truths” and, most recently, “The Wedding Banquet,” a remake of the 1993 Ang Lee romantic comedy starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran.

“Our industry has lost a giant,” Kent Sanderson, Bleecker Street president and Karpen’s longtime friend, said in a statement. “Andrew taught us all so much, foremost of which is the value of kindness, honesty, and family above all else. His leadership and courage will inspire all of us at Bleecker Street for the rest of our lives, and we are dedicated to continuing his passion for and legacy of championing cinema.”

Karpen began his career at Miramax before moving to Oxygen Media as its senior vice president of finance and planning. He then spent more than a decade at Focus Features, the specialty film arm of NBCUniversal, starting as its chief operating officer responsible for finance, strategic planning and operations before rising to president and then co-chief executive.

He left Focus Features in 2013, after Universal Pictures named a new head of the specialty imprint and relocated its headquarters from New York to the studio lot in California. Universal said at the time that the company asked Karpen to remain with the studio but that he opted to stay in New York with his family.

He is survived by his wife, Pam; sons Josh and Zack; daughter Sloan; and Josh’s wife, Kristen, who is expecting their first child.

Beyoncé opened her Cowboy Carter world tour Monday night with the first of five shows at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium: a characteristically complicated pop spectacle that framed Black creativity as a wellspring — perhaps the wellspring — of American culture.

Kicking off a year and change after the release of Beyoncé’s country-inspired “Cowboy Carter” LP — which finally earned the singer a Grammy award for album of the year this past February after four previous losses — the new road show features virtually all of the music from “Cowboy Carter” yet also looks back over Beyoncé’s sizable catalog, in particular 2022’s clubby “Renaissance,” which spawned a blockbuster world tour of its own.

Monday’s show, which lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes, began as “Cowboy Carter” does, with renditions of Beyoncé’s churchy “Ameriican Requiem” and the Beatles’ “Blackbird”; then she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a giant video screen behind her flashed a message: “Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.” Beyoncé, dressed in fringed white cow-wrangler garb, did a bit of her song “Freedom” before segueing into “Ya Ya,” during which her 13-year-old daughter Blue Ivy was among her large crew of dancers. “Ya Ya” ended with the singer sitting in a throne as a giant robot arm poured her a drink.

After a costume change, the show’s second act began with “America Has a Problem,” which Beyoncé sang at a news podium festooned with microphones, then zoomed through “Spaghettii,” “Formation,” “My House” and “Diva.” Act III opened with relatively low-key versions of “Alliigator Tears” and “Just for Fun” before a tender reading of “Protector,” for which another of Beyoncé’s children — 7-year-old Rumi — appeared onstage and gave her mom a hug.

For “Desert Eagle,” Beyoncé wore a bedazzled bodysuit that she kept on for “Riiverdance,” “II Hands II Heaven” and “Sweet Honey Buckiin’” — a dance-heavy portion of the show that again prominently featured Blue Ivy. After a New Orleans-accented rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” the singer strapped onto an enormous neon horseshoe and sang “Daddy Lessons” as the horseshoe flew around the stadium. A funky “Bodyguard” and a snippet of “II Most Wanted” then gave way to an ecstatic “Cuff It,” which Beyoncé performed on a small secondary stage near the rear of the venue. She rode the horseshoe back to the main stage and did “Tyrant” astride a golden mechanical bull accompanied by two bull heads on swiveling robot arms.

At about the two-hour mark, Beyoncé said, “Welcome back to the Renaissance, y’all,” which led into versions of “I’m That Girl,” “Cozy” and “Alien Superstar,” as well as a western-tinged take on the ballroom battle that Beyoncé’s dancers undertook every night on the Renaissance tour.

The singer started the show’s home stretch performing “Texas Hold ’Em” on a prop big rig dressed in denim short-shorts and furry thigh-high boots; she stayed in that outfit for a chopped-and-screwed “Crazy in Love,” which she followed with “Heated” and her cover of the late Frankie Beverly’s “Before I Let Go.” The concert ended with “16 Carriages,” a bluesy ballad about her life in show business that she sang from inside a flying convertible, and “Cowboy Carter’s” closer, “Amen,” for which she wore a fluffy stars-and-stripes gown. As the lights went up, a masked replica of the Statue of Liberty’s head was at the center of the stage.

R&B singer Kehlani remains firm on their views about Israel’s war on Gaza after they recently cost them an opportunity to perform at Cornell University.

The Grammy nominee, who has been an outspoken supporter for Palestinians, got frank about their stance in an Instagram video responding to Cornell’s recent decision to pull the plug on their concert. Kehlani was scheduled to headline the Ivy League school’s annual Slope Day celebration on May 7, but university president Michael Kotlikoff announced last week that he rescinded the invitation, citing concerns that the event “would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos, and on social media.”

In a video posted Sunday, the “After Hours” performer said, “I’m being asked and called to clarify and make a statement yet again for the millionth time that I am not antisemitic nor anti-Jew.”

“I am anti-genocide, I am anti the actions of the Israeli government,” they declared, adding “I am anti an extermination of an entire people, I am anti the bombing of innocent children, men, women. That’s what I’m anti.”

In their video, Kehlani highlighted their previous work with the organization Jewish Voices for Peace and said that they continue to “learn from and work alongside really impactful Jewish organizers against this genocide” of Palestinians.

Kehlani, who has criticized Zionism and whose public support for Palestinians includes singing in front of a Palestinian flag in the music video for “Next 2 U”, is among a handful of entertainers who have faced backlash for their pro-Palestinian stance in recent years. Irish rap trio Kneecap and actors Rachel Zegler and Melissa Barrera have also come under fire. Hamdan Ballal, one of the two Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was brutally attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and detained by military and police forces last month, just weeks after the glitz and glamour of the awards show.

It’s currently unclear who will replace Kehlani as a headliner for Cornell’s Slope Day celebration, which is just a little more than a week away. In their video, Kehlani didn’t seem to sweat Cornell’s decision too much. “I want to be very clear in stating that I do believe God has plans for me,” they said.

“That’s not gonna stop nothing that I have going on, but I’m asked to clarify because this keeps coming up as a means to silence me, as a means to stop things that happen in my career,” Kehlani added. “As a means to change the course of my life, and I just don’t believe that.”

In their caption, the “Gangsta” and “Nights Like This” artist said they are facing additional attempts at other cancellations. The singer urged critics seeking to cancel performing opportunities to “stand on it being because of your Zionism” instead of linking support for Palestinians to antisemitism.

“All this because we want people to stop dying,” Kehlani said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This article contains spoilers for Episode 3 of Season 2 of “The Last of Us.”

“Give Sarah my love.”

Spoken in a voice inflected with exhaustion and grief, they’re the only words that Tommy, played by the actor Gabriel Luna, is able to muster to Joel (Pedro Pascal), whose lifeless body lies shrouded on a table in a makeshift morgue in Jackson.

As Tommy’s eyes well up and he runs a wet cloth against Joel’s skin, we get a close-up of Joel’s arm and the old, broken military watch on his wrist. It’s a poignant symbol that brings us back to the very beginning of “The Last of Us,” when we meet Joel, Tommy and Sarah. It was Sarah who repaired the watch as a birthday gift to her father, and her sudden death was central to Joel’s grief. And now that grief passes on to Tommy as he says goodbye to his brother.

For this scene that opens Episode 3 of the second season of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” Luna says he tapped into the grief that he’s experienced over the years after losing close family members, including his grandfather in 2013.

“I remember being the only one in that chapel, walking up to my grandfather’s coffin, and that’s what I had in my mind when I was shooting the scene … the young lady gives me the rag to wash [Joel’s] body, and she exits. Now I’m the only one in there,” he says. “But as I’m walking up to Joel’s body, that’s what I was thinking of — my grandpa and being the only one there.”

“I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life so it felt very familiar,” he adds.

If Episode 2 was the depiction of fire and uncontrollable rage — with Tommy flaming down an unrelenting monster known as a bloater, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) torturing and killing Joel — Episode 3 is the opposite. It’s pensive and introspective about what was and what will be, much like Luna in this moment of his career on one of TV’s biggest shows.

After appearing in small indie films and doing stage work, Luna was cast as the lead in the El Rey series “Matador.” Though “Matador” only lasted a season, the actor went on to join ABC’s lauded Marvel series “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” as Robbie Reyes, a.k.a. Ghost Rider. In 2019, he starred in “Terminator: Dark Fate” as Rev-9, where he went head to head with the original cybernetic assassin played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That led to a role in Netflix’s “FUBAR” with Schwarzenegger once again, and then “The Last of Us.” (Peacock’s “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy” and Season 2 of Prime Video’s “The Terminal List” are among his upcoming projects.)

Luna and I meet to talk about his role in the postapocalyptic series at Bludso’s BBQ on La Brea Avenue, a favorite restaurant of his for a simple reason: It reminds him of home. Luna was raised in Austin, Texas, and if you’ve ever been, smoked meats are practically a food group there. It’s two days after Episode 2 has aired, and he knows the shockwave it has sent to viewers. But he’s at ease, wearing a sharp outfit of dark Japanese denim and black leather boots that complement the Texas-themed dining room. He speaks softly but passionately about his work and the show as we converse before a meal of brisket, cornbread and an assortment of sides.

Here, in a conversation edited for length and clarity, Luna discusses the aftermath of Joel’s death, how the scene where he says goodbye evolved, and why as a Latino actor it matters that he avoids stereotypical roles.

There’s been a lot of reaction to Episode 2, where we see Tommy hold the fort and Joel die. Have you been following it?

It’s been a tornado of a couple of days. I was at WrestleMania when the episode aired. I left … a little early to catch a flight, and when I landed, my phone was absolutely lighting up like a Christmas tree, just everyone calling and saying, “Oh, that was amazing. Congratulations.” When you read the script, you knew that there was potential there for it to be something extraordinary. Then when you got there on the day — we spent almost two months shooting the second episode with Mark Mylod, our amazing director of [shows like] “Succession” and “Game of Thrones.” And then, of course, Craig Mazin and Neil [Druckmann], the geniuses behind the whole thing.

You start to see it come together. We might actually be doing something that’ll go down in history, not just the big battle sequence, but also just the iconography of that Joel scene at the end. All those things together were gonna make for a seismic reaction, or at least I hoped shooting this a year ago. I’m sitting here two days after that, and it all came to pass. Everybody reacted the way we thought they might, and people are still watching it. I’m sure if I check my phone there will be another dozen texts from folks.

[Later, Luna flashes his phone, which is filled with rows of notifications.]

For me, it’s unforgettable. I still think about those moments. Craig Mazin once said, “You know, this is the one that they’re going to remember us for.” I think he was right. And if this is one of the major things I’m remembered for — I couldn’t be more proud.

Did Craig and Neil talk to you about the divergence from the video-game storyline for your character? [In the game, Tommy is with Joel when he’s killed.]

Towards the end of the first season, I told them, “You know, it always rubbed me the wrong way that Tommy was knocked out, completely incapacitated during Joel’s murder. Is there a possibility that we shift things around?” Craig’s like, “You know what? I got an idea.”

Right before the strike in 2023, Craig sends me a big, long text, explaining how it all is going to go down, how Tommy is replaced with Dina at the scene of Joel’s murder, and is now in Jackson with his wife, Maria. The entire town is trying to survive this onslaught and originally, in the text, there’s like two or three bloaters. We shot it as if we were being attacked by two or three. We had to shave a lot of it down. I just got goosebumps reading it. My heart was beating just reading this text.

The fact that this change was made based off of input from me and talking to Craig and everybody else — maybe they had designs of doing that before, but I just love them so much for being so open to the possibilities.

I feel that closeness shows. On the press tour, you guys seem to really get along.

To love the people you work with, that’s an incredible blessing. There’s real love there, even among the people who are onscreen nemeses, mortal enemies.

Have you talked to Pedro or anyone else in the cast since?

Craig has a text thread called “The Crazy of Us,” and so we’re all just talking to each other. It’s exciting now for the second episode, but we got a lot more to come, we’re just getting started. But we thought we’d give them a nice little shock to the heart right at the beginning.

In Episode 3, you’re one of the first characters we see. What was going through your mind when you were filming?

We talked about my grandfather earlier in this interview. I remember when he passed away. Peter Hoar was the director for [this episode], and he did the Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett episode [“Long, Long Time”] last season. I just breathed and let it happen.

Pedro was not actually there, it was the body double. They asked me,”Would you like to have him in full makeup?” “I would. Just to see all the damage, right?” And they put him in full makeup, his eyes swollen and bloody, so when I lift the shroud, I could see and have a physical reaction.

I will say one more thing regarding that. We had a lot of dialogue there that I’m glad they cut. Because all you really need to say is, “Give Sarah my love.”

Was that in the script?

That was in the script. There was a whole other bit in the script [about Ellie]. She’s OK, she’s hurt bad, but she’s going to be all right. And me promising to take care of her. Which didn’t need to be said because I’m the only thing she has left.

But from this point, it’s now Bella [Ramsey] and Kaitlyn’s dance. Me, in a supporting capacity, a little bit more central moving forward, but … these are the characters that start moving the story forward. It was also this interesting double meaning, as I was saying these words, it’s not only will I take care of Ellie, but we will take care of the show moving forward.

This episode also shows the contrast between Tommy and Joel. You’re married, you have a kid, you’re the town leader. You’re trying to decide, do we go avenge him?

I love how much more torn Tommy has to be to make the choices he’s about to make. My responsibilities to my wife [Maria, played by Rutina Wesley], to my son, to this city, end up superseding my desire to go and help with my brother. You can see this different side of Tommy that you don’t see in the game, where he is a little bit more untethered, impulsive.

I got to have this really wonderful scene with Catherine O’Hara [who plays Gail, a psychotherapist] about what it means to inherit her [Ellie]. To have to understand what she’s going through and to love her, but also love my brother, but also, when does it stop? Could we choose right now to turn the other cheek [and] save a lot of people’s futures and a lot of people’s heartache? Sometimes you can’t. That’s the whole lesson of the story. It’s about forgiveness. But how much will you suffer along the way, until you learn that lesson?

Why do you think people connect with the series so much? There are some parallels to the real world, like the pandemic. There’s a lot of division in our country.

I think that those are great entry points for people. The diversity of the cast, not only in the show, but also in the game, gives people access points as well.

Everybody in “The Last of Us” is on the same plane because we’re all fighting this looming threat above us [and] we’re all contending with it in different ways, reaching to love and community, military force, religion — all these various ways of coping. There’s something to the diversity of it all but also to the sameness of everyone and that we’re all in this together. But also I think people like stories [that] put themselves in our boots … how would I deal with limited resources and no longer abide by the laws of man and laws of nature?

As someone who is Latino, do you feel like your upbringing helped shape your career or have a hand in the roles that you’ve chosen?

The pride and the support and the love of a Mexican American family fortified me. The culture enriched my experience. On the other side of that coin, the representation within media and how they look at us was the opposite of that in a lot of ways. So it was something where I carried the culture and I carried my pride in my background … and it was that pride that won’t let me just take whatever they [the industry] wanted to give. You know, I wasn’t going to play a narcotraficante. I wasn’t going to play gangster, and even though I love our language, I wasn’t going to play characters that only have to speak Spanish because of the way we look.

I wanted to be everyone’s hero. I wanted Black, Asian, white, all of those kids to look to me and see them see themselves in me. I said no to a lot of things that were more traditional, which was what the industry was offering and it ended up being a good thing because I was available when the parts that subverted that came along, like Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider, the “Terminator” film and this one, “The Last of Us.”

You have done quite a bit of genre work. Is it something that interested you?

I’m a child who grew up with all of that in ‘80s culture, comic books, Ninja Turtles, “Batman ‘89,” “Jurassic Park,” all that stuff … the precursors to all the Marvels and the video game adaptations.

Because of my physical ability, I’ve been able to go into these kind of roles that require a lot of action elements, which are a big staple of these genre pictures. I think that’s what I love. I’m lucky. I’m glad that I get to do these types of things that have these great followings and really passionate fans. I’ve always said it’s in good hands. I tried to ease their concerns by letting them know, maybe not directly before we ever committed to the screen, but certainly after the fact that I love this same way you do. And I love “The Last of Us.” I love the Ghost Rider. I love the 40-year history of the Terminator. I don’t want to mess it up just as much as you don’t want me to mess it up. I really hope that people can see that it is in the nurturing hands of somebody who really loves this type of storytelling.

NEW YORK — “Dead Outlaw,” the offbeat musical from the team behind the Tony-winning musical “The Band’s Visit,” isn’t mincing words with the title. The show, which had its official opening Sunday at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre, tells the story of the unsuccessful career of a real-life bandit, who achieved more fame as a corpse than as a man.

Born in 1880, Elmer McCurdy, a crook whose ambition exceeded his criminal skill, died in a shoot-out with the police after another botched train robbery in 1911. But his story didn’t end there. His preserved body had an eventful afterlife all its own.

“Dead Outlaw,” a critics’ darling when it premiered last year at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, may be the only musical to make the disposition of a body an occasion for singing and dancing.

David Yazbek, who conceived the idea of turning this stranger-than-fiction tale into a musical, wrote the score with Erik Della Penna. Itamar Moses, no stranger to unlikely dramatic subjects, compressed the epic saga into a compact yet labyrinthine book. Director David Cromer, whose sensibility gravitates between stark and dark, endows the staging with macabre elegance.

Yet Yazbek, Moses and Cromer aren’t repeating themselves. If anything, they’ve set themselves a steeper challenge. “Dead Outlaw” is more unyielding as a musical subject than “The Band’s Visit,” which is to say it’s less emotionally accessible.

It’s not easy to make a musical about a crook with a volatile temper, an unslakable thirst for booze and a record of fumbled heists. It’s even harder to make one out of a dead body that went on exhibition at traveling carnivals and freak shows before ending up on display in a Long Beach fun house, where the mummified remains were accidentally discovered by a prop man while working on an episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man” in 1976.

Stephen Sondheim might have enjoyed the challenge of creating a musical from such an outlandish premise. “Dead Outlaw” evokes at moments the droll perversity of “Sweeney Todd,” the cold-hearted glee of “Assassins” and the Brechtian skewering of “Road Show” — Sondheim musicals that fly in the face of conventional musical theater wisdom.

As tight as a well thought-out jam-session,”Dead Outlaw” also recalls “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” the Michael Friedman-Alex Timbers musical that created a satiric historical rock show around a most problematic president. And the show’s unabashed quirkiness had my theater companion drawing comparisons with “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

Andrew Durand, who plays Elmer, has just the right bad-boy frontman vibe. The hard-driving presence of bandleader and narrator Jeb Brown suffuses the production with Americana authenticity, vibrantly maintained by music director Rebekah Bruce and music supervisor Dean Sharenow.

Elmer moves through the world like an open razor, as the title character of Georg Büchner’s “Woyzeck” is aptly described in that play. A précis of Elmer’s early life in Maine is run through by members of the eight-person cast in the bouncy, no-nonsense manner of a graphic novel.

The character’s criminal path is tracked with similar briskness — a fateful series of colorful encounters and escapades as Elmer, a turbulent young man on the move, looks for his big opportunity in Kansas and Oklahoma. Destined for trouble, he finds it unfailingly wherever he goes.

Elmer routinely overestimates himself. Having acquired some training with nitroglycerin in the Army, he wrongly convinces himself that he has the know-how to effectively blow up a safe. He’s like a broke gambler who believes his next risky bet will bring him that long-awaited jackpot. One advantage of dying young is that he never has to confront his abject ineptitude.

Arnulfo Maldonado’s scenic design turns the production into a fun-house exhibit. The band is prominently arrayed on the box-like set, pounding out country-rock numbers that know a thing or two about hard living. The music can sneak up on you, especially when a character gives voice to feelings that they can’t quite get a handle on.

Durand can’t communicate emotions that Elmer doesn’t possess, but he’s able to sharply convey the disquiet rumbling through the character’s short life. There’s a gruff lyricism to the performance that’s entrancing even when Elmer is standing up in a coffin. But I wish there were more intriguing depth to the character.

Elmer is a historical curiosity, to be sure. And he reveals something about the American moneymaking ethos, which holds not even a dead body sacred. But as a man he’s flat and a bit of a bore. And the creators are perhaps too enthralled by the oddity of his tale. The show is an eccentric wallow through the morgue of history. It’s exhilarating stylistically, less so as a critique of the dark side of the American dream.

Julia Knitel has a voice that breaks up the monochromatic maleness of the score. As Maggie, Elmer’s love interest for a brief moment, she returns later in the show to reflect on the stranger with the “broken disposition” who left her life with the same defiant mystery that he entered it. I wish Knitel had more opportunity to interweave Maggie’s ruminations. The unassuming beauty of her singing adds much needed tonal variety.

The musical takes an amusing leap into Vegas parody when coroner Thomas Noguchi (an electric Thom Sesma) is allowed to strut his medical examiner stuff. Ani Taj’s choreography, like every element of the production, makes the most of its minimalist means.

Wanderingly weird, “Dead Outlaw” retains its off-Broadway cred at the Longacre. It’s a small show that creeps up on you, like a bizarre dream that’s hard to shake.

Playing a gangster suits Pierce Brosnan. The actor, 71, is often best remembered for heroic characters like James Bond, but ruthless crime boss Conrad Harrigan on “MobLand” is quickly becoming a fan-favorite role. The series, created by Ronan Bennett and written with Jez Butterworth, follows Conrad and his fixer Harry Da Souza (Tom Hardy) as the Harrigan family becomes embroiled in a violent feud with the rival Stevensons. The first two episodes were directed by Guy Ritchie, who set the irreverent, fast-paced tone for the series.

“I read the first five episodes and just enjoyed it,” Brosnan says, speaking over Zoom from his home in Malibu. “I basically said, ‘I’m in.’ It was that easy.”

In the most recent episode, the clans form a temporary détente at the funeral of Tommy Stevenson (Felix Edwards), with Conrad’s devious wife Maeve (Helen Mirren) scheming to draw blood behind his back. Brosnan describes the tense scenes at the wake as “beautifully done,” both in the writing and the staging.

“The whole piece has a theatricality — it was like doing a play,” he says. “Helen made the choice of channeling Lady Macbeth, which was very appropriate. It has those Shakespearean undertones. But we had no idea where it was really going because the scripts were coming in at the 11th hour.”

Brosnan is already anticipating a second season of “MobLand” (it has yet to be greenlit) and finds it miraculous that he’s been given such a memorable part this late in his career.

“It’s been remarkable to see the impact it’s had on the audience,” he says. “People know me as James Bond and that will never go away, which is fine. But now it’s ‘MobLand.’ A long time ago, Sydney Pollack greeted me after a screening of ‘The Thomas Crown Affair.’ He said, ‘Congratulations. Enjoy it. They don’t come around that often.’ I’ve had a career and I’ve always managed to work and to enjoy the work. But every now and then you get a gift of gold dust like Conrad.”

Here, in a conversation edited for length and clarity, Brosnan discusses developing Conrad, returning to the spy genre in the Steven Soderbergh film “Black Bag” and why acting still thrills him.

What did you initially find attractive about Conrad as a character?

I love gangster movies. When I read [the script,] it wasn’t the Conrad we now see. But I enjoyed the writing and I enjoyed the family aspect of it, and it had meat on the bone. Then when Jez Butterworth came onboard, it transformed even into something more spectacular and it had a cohesion of characters that was very exciting. Conrad became more fleshed out when Jez began writing this outrageous character.

Was he written as Irish?

The Irish aspect of him happened on the day. I was going for a North London or South London accent. But on the very first day of shooting with Tom and myself, Guy said, “Go Irish.” I called up my dialect coach, Brendan Gunn, who I’ve worked with many, many times. I said, “Brendan, I’ve got 15 minutes. Give me a Kerry accent.” Brendan gave me a man who I based the voice on — he’s from Kerry and he’s a politician — and I jumped in with both feet. My own Irish accent is so diminished as an Englishman and a Californian. I wanted something that had a bite to it. I wanted something where you could take someone’s head off with the words.

Were you familiar with Guy Ritchie’s improvisational style before this show?

I’d heard about his style of working and it is very impromptu. You have to come prepared on any show. My teachers taught me you will never be directed, so you better come prepared knowing what to do and play it. Guy’s style is very loose, but he knows what he wants and he gives you great freedom. He gave me great freedom in finding Conrad in that he trusted me enormously with just my finding the character.

Did you know the complete arc of your character going in?

No, I was flying blind. Jez and I only had one conversation, really. I never spoke with Guy about the character — he just said, “Go Irish.” But I found it very exhilarating. It gave me freedom. And it was really fast. On that first day, it was a three-page scene outside my [character’s] country home, somewhat expositional, but also with great character nuance. We rehearsed it once and we shot it maybe two or three times. That’s how it started and that’s how it continued.

What did you discover about Conrad as you went along?

There’s a vulnerability to the character that I like. And there’s a great sense of humor to Conrad. He’s so brash and so bold and what he does is so audacious and he is quite terrifying and unhinged. He comes from a mangled life and he’s very cunning and very brutish. And he knows what’s going on. He knows what Maeve is doing and he loves her. She is his lifeline to some kind of sanity, but she is so damaged as well and he knows he’s been manipulated by her. That’s where the humor comes in for me because he doesn’t show all his cards. But after 10 episodes, I’m still finding out this man.

When you’re playing someone who does such bad things do you still need to find a way to humanize him?

That’s a really hard one to define when you’re playing someone this corrupt. You have to let the audience in. You have to do so in such a way that allows the audience to come in to you, to beguile them, to charm them. Then you pull out the stiletto. But that’s the joy of it.

You played another ambiguous character in “Black Bag.” What appealed to you about that role?

The play within the play — me being the head of the [spy] agency having been a former James Bond. The sheer delight of playing within that theatrical arena, just like when I was James Bond doing “The Tailor of Panama,” another film in the world of espionage. But it was tough because I was already on another movie called “Giant,” which is about the boxer Prince Naseem Hamed. I was five weeks into that movie, and I’d already said yes to Steven Soderbergh, so I had to do it. It was overwhelming because I had another week left on the boxer movie and the Soderbergh movie came in.

I got on the train down from Leeds on a Friday night and went to work with Steven Soderbergh on Monday morning, straight into a seven-page scene. It was a real shot in the arm and that week went by really fast, and I went back through Leeds and I finished off my boxing movie, and then went into “The Thursday Murder Club.” I finished that and went off to Munich for a remake of “Cliffhanger” with Lily James and then did “MobLand.”

That’s a lot.

It’s a lot of work, but it’s good. It’s exhilarating, especially when you have been on the other end, looking at a horizon which is rather flat and wondering what’s going to happen next. But I’ve always worked. I don’t like sitting around. I like to work. Once you commit to a project, you give it 100% and you honor the work no matter what.

Were you ever worried that if you returned to the espionage genre, you’d start getting a lot similar roles offered to you?

Oh no. That would be wonderful. I haven’t turned my back on that genre of work. There’s some classical piece I’d like to do. I’m not sure what shape or color that is, but something classical would be rather good to put in there at this point in the career.

Do you still feel a rush of excitement when you start a new project at this point in your career?

Yes. I love not knowing what’s going to happen next and then materializing something. Like with “MobLand,” it had all of the ingredients and then how do you do it? It gives you something to work on and you get away from yourself.

Are you trying to get away from yourself?

Not necessarily, but it is a great contentment to have a character to work on, a script under your arm or script by the bed, sleeping with a great character, trying to figure [out how to] play him. Especially when you’re in the company of actors like Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren and Paddy Considine, and all the directors that we worked with. It was quite magical every day to see the work and to see the characters develop. That still excites me at 72. It still enthralls me and activates me. But there will be a time when I know enough is enough.

Are you someone who always wants to take big risks in your career?

“MobLand” definitely had its own strong sense of danger and required making choices that were shooting from the hip. But every job is always the same. There’s that wonderful exhilaration of being invited into a movie with a great director, great cast, great script and the euphoria of being asked to play in the company as an artist. And then the realization that you have do it. Then it becomes a very silent room of expectation within yourself: Can you do it? What form will it take?

How do you feel when a project is done?

I used to hold on. I now let go and I let go fast and I move on. However, with Conrad, having played him for five months and felt the resonance that it’s created, it makes me excited for more.

Is there anything you can tease about the rest of the season?

There’s a fair bit of blood. Not everyone is who they say they are. And there’s a particular rat in the pack. There’s quite a few surprises. All the scripts were consistent with what you’ve already seen. If anything, the writing gets stronger. And there’s an introduction of a particular character who alters the landscape. But don’t trust any of them.

Less than a week after Coachella concluded, the Stagecoach country-music festival has drawn another crowd in the tens of thousands to the now mostly grassless Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. The three-day event kicked off Friday and will run through Sunday night with headliners Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll and Luke Combs. I’ll be here all weekend to bring you the highs and the lows as they happen. Here’s what went down on Day 1:

Big stage, big show

Three years after he made his Stagecoach debut in 2022, Zach Bryan returned to headline the festival’s first night with a jumbo-sized performance in which he and a band of more than a dozen players ran through roughly 30 songs (and in the process blew way past his scheduled curfew ). The music was ragged but soulful, and as at every Bryan gig, it inspired folks in the crowd to scream his lyrics into each other’s faces.

Wearing what he said was the same sleeveless Indian Motorcycles T-shirt he wore last time at Stagecoach — “I thought it was cute,” he said — Bryan thanked the audience profusely, which felt inevitably like a bit of damage control after his ex-girlfriend, podcaster Brianna Chickenfry, went public last year with accusations that he had been emotionally abusive. (Bryan didn’t directly respond but wrote on Instagram that he was “unphased by the fake s— people say about me online.”)

But if his career seemed in danger just a few months ago, nothing about his reception here suggested that the enthusiasm about him has cooled. He even got away with doing a rollicking version of Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” which he called his favorite song of all time — and which hardly anybody on the field seemed to know.

An unexpected revelation

The headline out of Lana Del Rey’s set — which came as she’s been teasing the release of a purported country album that may or may not drop next month — is that she once made out with Morgan Wallen, at least if the lyrics of one of her rootsy new songs are to believed.

“I kissed Morgan Wallen / I guess kissing me kind of went to his head,” she sang over strummy acoustic guitar (after telling the audience that this would be the last time she’d ever sing the lines), “If you want my secret to success / I suggest don’t go ATVing with him when you’re out west.”

OK!

Let’s not let that bombshell keep us from savoring some of the other peculiarities of this song, which evidently is called “57.5” after the number of monthly Spotify listeners Del Rey once had — “I got 57.5 million listeners on Spotify,” she sang — and which also had her revealing that she talks to Jesus, hates everybody and still flies commercial. “You need an autograph?” she sang with a little shrug. “S—, I don’t mind.”

Performing on a set made up to look like the porch of a backwoods country cabin, Del Rey debuted a couple of other new tunes, including one that appears to be about her alligator-boat captain of a husband, and one that fans online are calling “Quiet in the South.” She covered Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man” and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and she brought out the up-and-coming country hunk George Birge to do his “Cowboy Songs.”

She also sang lightly countrified versions of “Video Games” and “Summertime Sadness” that made you think about how durable Del Rey’s fame has been over the past decade and change even as she’s taken every available opportunity to test its bounds.

Maybe that’s why.

Five minutes backstage with Brothers Osborne

How often do you shampoo your hair?

T.J. Osborne: Never.

John Osborne: Never?

T.J.: Never.

John: Wow. I’m once a week.

How many unread text messages do you have?

John: Six. And two unread emails. I try to keep it below 10.

Does anyone besides you know the passcode to your phone?

John: My wife. I don’t know the passcode to hers, though.

T.J.: Anybody that’s partied at my house and they’re like, “What’s the passcode? Gotta change the music.” I’m like, “OK, here you go.”

You don’t have to say with whom, but are you currently involved in a beef with anyone in music?

T.J.: Oh, always.

Would you rather be 10% more talented or 10% better looking?

John: I’ve got plenty of talent.

Name a country song you wish you could sing but you know you can’t.

John: Pretty much any Chris Stapleton song.

T.J.: Or Vince Gill. “Go Rest High on That Mountain” — it just needs that high tenor.

What’s an adult beverage you’ve sworn off?

T.J.: No cinnamon drinks. Fireball, Goldschläger, any cinnamon schnapps — won’t do it.

What’s the last thing you used ChatGPT for?

John: If you come in last in our fantasy football league, you have to do open-mic stand-up comedy. And I was nearly in last place, so I used it to help write jokes. It was so bad. ChatGPT is amazing — but a horrible comedian.

Did you come in last?

John: Fortunately, I didn’t have to use the jokes.

T.J.: The guy who did lose, one of our friends got on a Facebook group for the area we live in and told everyone that Nate Bargatze was gonna do a pop-up to get more strangers to come watch him.

The art(?) of the mix

Wearing bedazzled headphones to match the rest of her super-sparkly outfit, Paris Hilton took all of about eight seconds to bludgeon the crowd inside Diplo’s HonkyTonk with “We Found Love” by Rihanna and Calvin Harris, which she mixed into Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” to open an almost charmingly obvious DJ set. Later, Hilton brought out Lizzo and the two shouted along to Icona Pop’s “I Love It.”

Best introduction of a song so far

Carter Faith, teeing up her feisty new single, “Grudge”: “This song’s about a stupid bitch that pissed me off.”

Cringiest product placement so far

Tucker Wetmore performed on the main stage in front of a digital mock-up of an old-timey saloon complete with a mounted deer head, several American flags — and a sign advertising the canned vodka seltzer sponsoring his summer tour. Womp-womp.

Three for three

No one has been more visible on the polo grounds this month than T-Pain, who after playing both weekends of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival capped Stagecoach Day 1 with a late-night set in the Palomino tent. The veteran R&B star said he initially had his doubts that he’d be welcomed by a country crowd when Jelly Roll brought him out for a surprise appearance at last year’s Stagecoach: “These people don’t wanna hear my s—,” he said he told Jelly Roll. Yet here, as at Coachella, his hits went over like the classics they are. Paying forward Jelly’s favor, as he put it, T-Pain brought out another country outsider in Kesha, who joined him to do their new single, “Yippee-Ki-Yay,” which unfortunately is very bad.

Still stomp-and-clapping

Just days after Winston Marshall published an essay in the Free Press about abandoning what he views as an immoral music industry, Marshall’s old bandmates in Mumford & Sons put in a last-minute appearance at Stagecoach that drew a gargantuan crowd to the Palomino. Did everybody but me know that Mumford & Sons was still this big?

Five minutes backstage with Carly Pearce

Would you rather drive or be driven?

Drive. I get very car sick.

What’s the last thing you cooked?

Spaghetti squash.

How often do you shampoo your hair?

Every day. I’m that person — I know it’s wrong.

Would you rather be 10% more talented or 10% better looking?

Ten percent better looking, for sure.

Name a country song you wish you could sing but you know you can’t.

Martina McBride, “Independence Day.” She just belts on a level I don’t belt.

What’s an adult beverage you’ve sworn off?

Beer.

A go-to indulgence?

Designer handbags.

You have a tattoo you regret?

I have a rainbow butterfly on my foot that I got to match all the colors in my outfits when I was 16. Now it’s a little trashy.

It was a night of literary excellence at the 45th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony Friday night at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.

As winners in 12 competitive categories and three special prizes took the stage, many addressed the fraught political climate in the U.S. as well as L.A. rebuilding after January’s devastating firestorms.

Writers also addressed the dire need to use their voice to reflect the present moment — from poetry winner Remica Bingham-Risher contemplating the abuse her grandmothers endured (in another time and place, their narrative would have been hers, she said), to current interest winner Jesse Katz urging the audience to recognize the individuality of often-stigmatized MacArthur Park residents.

Pico Iyer — who has written 15 books translated into 23 languages — accepted the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, which honors a writer with a substantial connection to the American West. The author’s latest novel, “Aflame: Learning From Silence,” recounts his mother’s home in Santa Monica burning during a wildfire in 1990. The book was published on Jan. 14, in the immediate aftermath of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

“I know that many people in this room have been through tremendous losses in the last few months,” he said sharing that he lost handwritten drafts for three books in progress in the 1990 fire. “What initially presented itself mostly as loss began to open doors … and make possible many things that might have never happened otherwise. I really hope that might be the case for some of you.”

“Writing still seems the deepest way of inhabiting another soul and the very best way, therefore, of rescuing us from black and white,” he added.

Investigative journalist Emily Witt accepted the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose for her memoir “Health and Safety: A Breakdown,” about her exploration of New York’s nightlife scene.

In her acceptance speech, Witt cited Isherwood’s writing about pre-WWII Berlin as a major influence. Like his milieu, she said the characters of her memoir, which takes place in Brooklyn from 2016 to 2020, lived in acute awareness of the “ideological bankruptcy” of their time.

Celebrated L.A.-born poet Amanda Gorman accepted the Innovator’s Award for bringing “books, publishing and storytelling into the future.”

“Love is no silent harbor, no haven,” Gorman recited. “Still, it is the roaring thing that tugs away from the very shores we clutch. There is no better compass than this compassion.”

Iyer and Gorman will speak Saturday at the Festival of Books about their respective books.

The biography prize went to Laura Beers for “Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century.” The book, written on the 75th anniversary of “1984,” explores George Orwell’s prescient and radical teachings. Beers, who was surprised by the win, said the world “seems to become slightly more Orwellian with each passing day.”

Journalist Rebecca Boyle won the science and technology award for “Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are,” which traces the moon’s role in our biological and cultural evolution.

“The moon, my subject, does remind us that there are cycles,” she said while accepting the prize. “Inherent in the meaning of a cycle or a phase is a return. Things go away and they come back. Fascism went away and now is back. Authoritarianism went away, we thought, and now it is back. But there’s a flip side to that. Every phase that leaves brings something new. There’s also hope and renewal. And I think part of our job — the most important job we have as writers — is to remind us of the positive phases, the return of good, the return of new cycles and hope.”

In her closing remarks, she quoted Pope Francis, whose funeral is tomorrow: “Hope is a gift and a task.”

Kim Johnson, whose “The Color of a Lie” won the award for young-adult literature, said she set her book, about a white-passing Black teen, in 1955 Levittown, Penn., after her first novel was banned in Bucks County, where Levittown is located.

“Writers write in a lot of spaces where we’re doing resistance,” she said. “I’m thinking about reckoning, trying to untangle the roots of racism and systemic factors in this country that are so embedded and baked in our society.”

Achievement in audiobook production went to Dominic Hoffman (narrator) and Linda Korn (producer) for “James: A Novel.” Presented in collaboration with Audible, the award — the ceremony’s newest — honors performance, production and innovation in storytelling.

Jiaming Tang took home the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction for “Cinema Love.” The decades-spanning epic follows gay Chinese immigrants. The novel also has won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ+ Fiction.

Jesse Katz’s “The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant L.A.” won the award for current interest. The book explores the exploitation of undocumented Angelenos by both gang overlords and local law enforcement.

The fiction award went to Jennine Capó Crucet for “Say Hello to My Little Friend.” Brimming with dark humor, the novel follows a failed Pitbull impersonator’s encounter with a captive orca at the Miami Seaquarium.

Danielle Trussoni’s “The Puzzle Box” received the award for mystery/thriller. The second of Trussoni’s Mike Brink series, the book follows a puzzle master invited to Tokyo to try his hand opening the legendary Dragon Box, which contains a priceless Imperial secret.

The ceremony, which opened with remarks by Times Executive Editor Terry Tang and was emceed by Times columnist LZ Granderson (who also provided updates from the Lakers playoff game), serves as a kickoff to this weekend’s Festival of Books.

“In a world that is now feeling so confusing and distressed, this weekend gives all of us a chance to find a sense of unity, purpose and support,” Tang said.

The 30th annual celebration brings more than 550 storytellers to the USC campus across seven outdoor stages and 15 indoor venues. While some panels are ticketed, general admission to the festival is free.

Saturday’s events include conversations and panels with Amor Towles, Jay Ellis, Claire Hoffman, Stacey Abrams, Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, Griffin Dunne, E.A. Hanks, Rebecca Yarros, Amanda Knox, Rachel Kushner, Krysten Ritter, Max Greenfield and “Giggly Squad” podcast hosts Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, as well as a cooking demo from Roy Choi, a reading by Alison C. Rollins and a performance by singer Aspen Jacobsen.

Sunday’s authors and entertainers include Percival Everett, Jenny Slate, Steve Wasserman, Maureen Dowd, Wilmer Valderrama, Jon M. Chu, Rachel Lindsay, Chelsea Handler, Jennifer Haigh, Gretchen Whitmer, Attica Locke, Janelle Brown, Kristen Ciccarelli and Mike Campbell. A special screening of PBS series “Miss Austen” and an appearance by children’s entertainer Blippi are also among the highlights.

Here’s the full list of finalists and winners for the Book Prizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Pico Iyer, “Aflame: Learning From Silence”

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Emily Witt, “Health and Safety: A Breakdown”

Innovator’s Award

Amanda Gorman

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Jiaming Tang, “Cinema Love: A Novel”

Pemi Aguda, “Ghostroots: Stories”

Joseph Earl Thomas, “God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer: A Novel”

Jessica Elisheva Emerson, “Olive Days: A Novel”

Julian Zabalbeascoa, “What We Tried to Bury Grows Here”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Matt Bomer (narrator), Kelly Gildea (director, co-producer), Lauren Klein (producer); “Giovanni’s Room: A Novel”

Narrators: Clare Brown, Ayanna Dookie, Korey Jackson, Andrea Jones-Sojola, Brittany Pressley, Emana Rachelle, Malika Samuel, Heather Alicia Simms, Diana Bustelo, Tyla Collier, Alejandra Reynoso, David Sadzin, André Santana, Shaun Taylor-Corbett; Producer: Allison Light; “New Nigeria County”

Narrators: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, Tom Hardy, Chukwudi Iwuji, Romesh Ranganathan, Natasia Demetriou, Francesca Mills, Alex Lawther, Katie Leung; Producers: Chris Jones, Mariele Runacre-Temple, Robin Morgan-Bentley, Nathan Freeman; “George Orwell’s 1984: An Audible Original adaptation”

Dominic Hoffman (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “James: A Novel”

Michele Norris With a Full Cast (narrator), Mike Noble (producer); “Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity”

Biography

Laura Beers, “Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century”

Cynthia Carr, “Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar”

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde”

Pamela D. Toler, “The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany”

Jessica Goudeau, “We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family’s Mythmaking and Migration”

Current Interest

Jonathan Blitzer, “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Message”

Jesse Katz, “The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant L.A.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World”

Wright Thompson, “The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi”

Fiction

Rita Bullwinkel, “Headshot: A Novel”

Jennine Capó Crucet, “Say Hello to My Little Friend: A Novel”

Percival Everett, “James: A Novel”

Yuri Herrera translated by Lisa Dillman, “Season of the Swamp: A Novel”

Miranda July, “All Fours: A Novel”

Graphic Novel/Comics

Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes, “Hobtown Mystery Stories Vol. 2: The Cursed Hermit”

Taiyo Matsumoto, “Tokyo These Days, Vol. 1”

Bhanu Pratap, “Cutting Season”

Miroslav Sekulic-Struja, translated by Jenna Allen, “Petar & Liza”

Ram V and Filipe Andrade, “Rare Flavours”

History

Andrea Freeman, “Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, From the Trail of Tears to School Lunch”

Andrew W. Kahrl, “The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America”

Aaron Robertson, “The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America”

Joseph M. Thompson, “Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism”

Michael Waters, “The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports”

Mystery/Thriller

Christopher Bollen, “Havoc: A Novel”

Michael Connelly, “The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel”

Attica Locke, “Guide Me Home: A Highway 59 Novel”

Liz Moore, “The God of the Woods: A Novel”

Danielle Trussoni, “The Puzzle Box: A Novel”

Poetry

Remica Bingham-Risher, “Room Swept Home”

Andrea Cohen, “The Sorrow Apartments”

Cindy Juyoung Ok, “Ward Toward”

Pam Rehm, “Inner Verses”

Alison C. Rollins, “Black Bell”

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Jedediah Berry, “The Naming Song”

Lev Grossman, “The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur”

Kelly Link, “The Book of Love”

Jeff VanderMeer, “Absolution: A Southern Reach Novel”

Nghi Vo, “The City in Glass”

Science & Technology

Rebecca Boyle, “Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are”

Ferris Jabr, “Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life”

Daniel Lewis, “Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future”

Kyne Santos, “Math in Drag”

Zoë Schlanger, “The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth”

Young-Adult Literature

Traci Chee, “Kindling”

K.A. Cobell, “Looking for Smoke”

Safia Elhillo, “Bright Red Fruit”

Carolina Ixta, “Shut Up, This Is Serious”

Kim Johnson, “The Color of a Lie”

Lar Park Lincoln, the actor known for her work in “Knots Landing” and “Friday the 13th Part VII” and establishing a studio to support upcoming talent, has died.

Lincoln died Tuesday, her Actors Audition Studios announced Thursday in a Facebook statement. Additional details, including where the actor died and a cause of death, were not revealed. She was 63.

“Over her 45-year career, Lar left an unforgettable mark on Hollywood through her dynamic performances and dedication to mentoring aspiring actors,” the statement said.

The Dallas-born actor was best known for her “Knots Landing” tenure from 1987 to 1991 where she starred as Linda Fairgate. Linda, who earned a reputation among fans for her scheming ways, was the daughter-in-law of star Michele Lee’s Karen Fairgate and was brutally murdered in Season 13. During her time on the CBS drama, Lincoln also portrayed several minor characters and shared the screen with series stars William Devane and Kevin Dobson.

In addition to “Knots Landing,” Lincoln was known for her portrayal of Tina Shepard, the teenager whose special powers awaken Jason from his grave at the bottom of the lake, in the 1988 film “Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.” She would later reprise the role in the fan film “Rose Blood” released in 2021, one of her final roles.

Lincoln’s acting credits also include TV series “Outlaws,” “Highway to Heaven,” “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Murder, She Wrote.” She also appeared in films “The Princess Academy,” “From the Dark,” “Autumn Road” and the 2022 movie “Ghost Party,” her final acting credit.

Offscreen, Lincoln also sold her clothing line on QVC and returned to her home state to launch her Actors Audition Studios and raise a family. She published her book “Get Started, Not Scammed,” a guide for prospective actors and models, in 2008.

Under her leadership, Actors Audition Studios mentored several actors who would take their talents to the CW, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Disney, NBC and Disney, according to its website.

“It’s my passion to work with actors, speakers, coaches, and authors to create their best work and soar to success,” Lincoln said on her website. “As a person who understands just how rewarding it is to live out your wildest dreams, it’s equally rewarding for me to help others reach theirs.”

Laurie Park Lincoln was born May 12, 1961 and was married to husband Michael Martin Lincoln until his death in 1995. She is survived by her daughter Piper, her son Trevor, and her siblings Karen and Michael and four grandchildren.

The family asks that donations be made to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation or the Entertainment Community Fund.

Drag queen Jiggly Caliente, a fierce performer who competed on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” will take time away from the spotlight to focus on her health after a portion of her right leg was recently amputated.

The “Pose” actor and “Drag Race Philippines” judge was hospitalized for a “severe” infection and lost “most of her right leg,” a family statement said Thursday on her Instagram page. The notice said the 44-year-old entertainer was “heartbroken” to share the health issue but did not provide additional details about the infection.

Jiggly Caliente (real name Bianca Castro) gained popularity for her time on the fourth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in 2012. Though she placed eighth, the performer — who came out as trans in 2016 — earned a reputation for her humor and energetic dance moves. She later returned to showcase her drag chops in the sixth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” in 2021.

One of the most popular Filipino “Drag Race” stars, Jiggly Caliente has served as a judge for the spinoff series “Drag Race Philippines” since its premiere in 2022. However, she will leave that seat vacant for Season 4 due her health, her family announced.

She also will not move forward with any public engagements for the foreseeable future, her family said. “Her recovery will be extensive.”

“At this time, we kindly ask for privacy for Bianca and her family as they navigate this difficult journey together,” the statement said, adding that her fans and community are encouraged “to uplift her with messages of hope and love.”

In the comments, Jiggly got just that from fellow “Drag Race” alumni including Bob the Drag Queen, Manila Luzon, Sasha Velour, Jujubee and Raja. “Drag Race Philippines” stars Marina Summers and Eva Le Queen also voiced their support.

“Jiggly I love you so much. You always keep it so real,” Bob the Drag Queen wrote. “A true diva. Heal up sis.”

“We love you so much my sweet jiggles and we are praying with all we’ve got,” “Drag Race” staple Michelle Visage commented.

Broadway star Lea Salonga, “Loot” and “Pose” star Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and “Drag Race” production house World of Wonder also sent well wishes.

This article contains spoilers for the finale of Netflix’s “You.”

He has been Joe Goldberg, the well-read manager of a New York City bookstore. He’s been Will Bettelheim, a worker at a trendy Los Angeles health food market. He’s been Jonathan Moore, a literature professor at a London university. And he’s been Joe Goldberg — again — but as a married man, a father and a budding philanthropist. No matter the name, he was the seemingly perfect significant other whose charming and considerate exterior hid a delusional, disturbed and dangerous sociopath who goes to extreme lengths — like killing nearly two dozen people — to insert himself into the lives of the women who became his obsession.

Now, Penn Badgley has shed all of those identities. His journey on the Lifetime-turned-Netflix series “You” reached its conclusion Thursday with the release of the drama’s fifth and final season. Joe has been found guilty of the murders of Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). And in the last minutes of the final episode, we see Joe with a buzz cut and in a red jumpsuit, sitting in a prison cell, skimming a copy of Norman Mailer’s 1979 novel “The Executioner’s Song.” The last words of the series, fittingly, come in the form of Joe’s inner monologue. And they take aim at the viewer.

“Can you say them?” says Badgley, asking for a gentle reminder when we meet a few days before the episodes are released.

Still sporting the buzz cut, he is sitting in a holding room at Netflix’s offices on Vine Street, and as he’s about to reflect on his character’s parting thoughts, the piercing tone of an emergency alert notification begins blaring through his phone‘s speakers. “Earthquake detected,” he says, reading the message before showing his screen. “Drop, cover, hold on. Protect yourself.” It’s that sort of startling distraction, just as the tension has intensified, that’s helped Joe escape detection. Badgely, though, isn’t looking for an out.

With no imminent danger within our radius, he returns to Joe’s final words. (Narrating for the show’s unreliable narrator is a daunting assignment, by the way.)

“So in the end, my punishment is even worse than I imagined. The loneliness, oh my God, the loneliness. No hope of being held, knowing this is forever. It’s unfair putting all this on me. Aren’t we all just products of our environment? Hurt people, hurt people. I never stood a chance.” [An officer appears and slides a letter from an admirer through the bars of his cell. And Joe continues:] “Why am I in a cage when all these crazies write me all the depraved things they want me to do to them? Maybe we have a problem as a society. Maybe the problem isn’t me. Maybe it’s you.”

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What are your thoughts on those final words? What he says is something you’ve talked a lot about over the run of the show.

Michael [Foley] and Justin [Lo, who took over as showrunners for the final season] had an incredibly difficult task for themselves to end this thing that is like, is it end-able? Is it really? I think it’s a satisfying ending. I think it’s the right ending. Thematically, that was where it had to go: him alone and alive. What I suppose you can’t see, what there isn’t time for, is to show him contending in real time with it. But I think he also shows us that he’s avoiding it. He’s like, “Well, it’s not me.”

We gave as much justice as the whole concept could take without breaking it. The show ends in a place where it’s like, what do you do with this? What do we do with with male violence? It’s a really serious question. It’s not at all simple to even approach an answer, if we’re really trying to consider the humanity of everybody and true justice. I think it ends in a place that we veer toward responsibility rather than away from it.

Right. That’s what got me thinking, is he getting what he deserves, given what he says? Would death have been justice?

Honestly, what would [be justice]? There’s prison, there’s death, there’s torture and death or torture then prison; there’s not getting caught at all. There aren’t that many things that could happen. You go through the list. If he was to be murdered, well, that brings up a lot of questions — namely, is that fair to the person who has to kill him? That’s marring them, that’s leaving them, even if it’s totally justified, with an enormous burden to saddle on a woman’s shoulders, because it would presumably have been a woman [killing him]. That’s not right. There’s prison; we did that. The thing that makes it [work] — people think of the box as his weapon. That’s the thing he’s associated with. But if you think about it, he’s a romantic, seductive figure. And actually, where he does his most damage is really more in the bedroom, the proverbial bedroom. And that’s where he’s actually removed from the world.

It’s not torture, it’s not vengeance. She [Bronte, Joe’s new quasi-love interest played by Madeline Brewer] didn’t even technically mean to do it. That is the thing that makes it satisfying. I don’t even know if it’s satisfying ideologically. In the most practical sense, it’s satisfying. He’s not murdered and saved from misery. Somebody doesn’t have to do something to him that makes him think that he has a moral high ground above them. He’s just put in prison and that part of him is taken away so he literally can never do it again. There can never be a sixth or seventh or however many seasons.

Had you given much thought to what your protagonist deserved?

For years. The real ending is everything leading up to that. It’s the latter half of this last season and, in particular, the last episode. The box is the obvious thing. And, sure, how visually iconic and possibly satisfying would it be to have him killed in the box? He got stopped nearly naked and, for the first time in our eyes, he was becoming a sexual predator. That was what he was from the beginning and, whether right or wrong, what the show chose to do was withhold the viewer from being able to see that, make the visual connection. And if it was responsible, it was because it was making sure you do the work to realize: What do you need to see? Do you need to see a rape? Is that what you need to see in order to realize this man in a sexual predator? I don’t think we should need to see that. It was the one time in my life where I was adamant about being like, “No, I need to be in the least clothing possible.” The audience needs to feel that he is dangerously close to crossing a line, for us to see that moment. And to catch him there, for her to catch him there. For us to see it, to witness his deconstruction in that way — that’s what the ending is, not so much about the prison.

I think people will like it. But there’s gonna be so many people who are going to be like [rolls eyes and moans with disapproval]. OK, fair, fair. You might even have a point. But do you understand how much work a writers’ room has to [do] … you have to try and turn over every stone. What they did, I think, is remarkable.

What was it like shooting that sequence in the woods? It was difficult to watch for all the reasons you say. Joe turned into an animal.

To be honest, I loved it. First of all, hats off to all of our producers. They made sure that we had saved time and money by the time we got to the last episode so we could shoot that thing like a little movie. We had time to make it right. By the time we got there, I’d invested enough that I didn’t have to do a lot more work that I was really consciously aware of. I had some of the most fun I’ve had throughout the entire series. I spent a lot of time in my underwear and nothing else. At the beginning of every take, for a period of about two weeks or so, I had to be covered in some degree of blood, sweat, exhaustion. I was doing a lot of burpees, so it was just physically super demanding. But I got into a place where it was two weeks of this incredible endurance exercise. It was a beautiful way to end the show. We could take care. I should give Madeline [Brewer, who plays Bronte, Joe’s latest conquest], her flowers. She was an incredible creative partner to do that with. There was nothing that felt difficult for the wrong reasons. I spent a week and a half in my underwear in the woods at night — I didn’t get one bug bite!

You’re lying.

I’m not. I wouldn’t say that. That would be crazy! I’m not even exaggerating. Not one.

How much distance have you had from Joe at this point?

We wrapped in August.

Did you still have the voiceover stuff after that?

Yes, I had enough that my job was not over. In fact, probably two months later or something, I had to go in. On the last day, I didn’t know it was my last day. And by the way, it’s almost always been remote, except for the first season. So, I’m alone. It’s just two post-producers in my ear and the engineer. It’s emblematic of what the experience is for me. It’s like, “I’m here alone.” Of course, there’s so many people supporting but, somehow, Joe is like a man alone in a box. We were doing something kind of unremarkable for voiceover that [last] day. Because of what it was, I said, “Is this it?” That was the highly anticlimactic ending for me.

So, it wasn’t the narration with Joe’s parting thoughts?

No. The final words you hear were the first take that I did months prior to it. My delivery, I think, was not emphatic as some might imagine it would be. The last word is “you.” So, I could really draw that out, and I was just like, “I’m literally not going to give you another one, because if I do, you will use it. I’m sorry, it’s very important to me. Fire me.” That was the one hill maybe I chose to die on.

The last thing [I filmed] was in prison. Actually, that was the same day I shot that “demure” TikTok. The funny thing is, Netflix is asking me to do something for it. I threw that together so fast because the first thing I had to do [for the show] was go in and shave my head. They were like, “Oh, you can do it after rehearsals.” I was like, “I can’t, guys. That’s a huge spoiler.”

That night [after wrapping] I drove all the way out to to Long Island [to spend two weeks at the beach with family]. I think I sat in a long silence. It was certainly surreal. It was a better part of my 30s — in a few months, I’ll be 39; it defines an era for me.

You started this journey with Sera Gamble. She stepped down from showrunning duties for the final season but remained a producer. Were you checking in with her?

Only in the beginning. She trusted Michael and Justin, and I trusted them. There wasn’t even a symbolic hand-holding. It was no longer her duty. Everybody was doing what they needed to do. I think we probably texted right towards the end. She probably had the closest experience to what I experienced but never in the same time and place.

There’s a three–year time jump at the start of the season. Joe returns to New York with Kate [Charlotte Ritchie], he gets his son back, and he’s been living a somewhat normal life, making a pact with Kate to abstain from his sociopathic tendencies.

I liked that there was a version of them trying to do this together. In the version where everything takes twice as long, that would have been cool to explore more. But we got two to three episodes where you do get to see [it]. Some of my most satisfying scene work is with her; he [Joe] was probably the closest to recognizing himself with her [Kate]. Her character bring these qualities that almost threaten to disrupt the entire charade. But then, of course, I suppose she’s also like him, all that stuff, blah, blah, blah. If I had, like a fantasy, like, [I’d like to] explore this more, it would be maybe that. Just a bit.

The show was in the works for a while, but it arrived at the height of the #MeToo movement.

Technically, right before. When we were shooting, all the [Harvey] Weinstein allegations were coming out — then, they were allegations.

It felt, at least then, like there was a reckoning and a shift in trying to holding men accountable.

And we did it! [he says sarcastically] Didn’t we?

Exactly. There’s been reflection on where we stand today, the cultural progression or regression. So, “You” is leaving at an interesting time. How do you make sense of that?

Let me preface any answer by saying, I suppose I’m trying to make sense of it like anybody. But to me, there’s forces of disintegration and integration at all times. I think, culturally, we have this knee-jerk habit where everything is either-or. It’s such a binary. We’ve been needing to transcend that for a very long time. We’re actually getting there because so many people are recognizing that and wanting a different paradigm that includes a lot more complexity and, therefore, truth. When it comes to this show, I’m really glad we’re ending and not starting now. It’s a very different moment. It seems [that] probably people are more disillusioned now than they were at the outset. At least when it comes to gender inequality, in particular, women’s rights. I suppose that must mean we, as countless others, were on to something. The exercise of Joe as a protagonist wouldn’t have resonated if all of these really difficult truths weren’t difficult and true. Nobody thought this show would solve it and, guess what? It hasn’t.

I guess that speaks to the point of his final words.

Yes, which is true. What I love is that he breaks the fourth wall and it’s like, “I’m not real. OK? I’m not real. So, it’s you. It actually can’t be me because I don’t exist.” I love that. I think the show leaves one feeling strangely good. I think? I could be wrong.

Tell me why.

I don’t know that I have good reasons, but I know that when I watch it, the last 20 minutes feel good to me. Here’s the main reason: because, by the end, we’ve deconstructed him and made him less interesting. It’s like, do you want more of this man? Do you really want more? I’m sure there’s a way we can cook something up, but do you really? And so it passes the narrative voice to her [Bronte]. What a great device too. Again, it’s not about the box. It’s about the voice and the bedroom. Those are the tools he uses more than anything else. He seduces. And those are the things we gave to somebody else. Well, one of them we took away and the other one we gave to her. Also, by his last scene with her, where she got him at gunpoint, I found the muscles in my neck, which is where all of the rage has always come out, were giving out in ways I’ve never experienced in my life. I couldn’t speak or do anything other than force up my lines using my diaphragm alone. It was exceedingly difficult to say anything audibly above the rain. In those last moments, he’s uninteresting. He’s like a lizard. He has nothing to offer. I could only “say my lines like this” [he speaks in forced breaths]. I was tired. At that point, I was just like, ‘I can’t do this man anymore.” She has everything to say and all the dimension and complexity. She has all the bars to drop. Let’s just usher this man away, please.

Were there moments where you saw something in Joe, or comments that he made, and thought, “I’ve been that guy before” or “I’ve done something like that…” How was he a mirror for you?

Absolutely. That was my job as an actor, just to simply permit myself to make the connections and to understand how I am like him. Of course, I have similarities. Because someone like Joe is made — I suppose there’s aspects to predisposition, genetics, all this stuff — but really, a person like that is made, which is made more complex by the fact that they make choices. What I’ve always been doing with him is understanding how my own experiences of anything that I could perceive as traumatic [and] ultimately grappling with my own sadness. We all have losses and grief that is unacknowledged and unexpressed. I think just understanding where is the violence and rage in me? That’s a more intellectual way of saying what I think I was doing intuitively all along. And that was why at the end, I couldn’t do it anymore because I was like, this is just exhausting. Because I’m not thinking about it, I’m doing it. And, so, all the time I was connecting. He was me. I’m not him, but he’s me, in a way. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Sophie Nyweide, a former child actor whose brief career in the late aughts to early 2010s included roles in films “Mammoth,” “Noah” and “Bella,” has died.

Nyweide died April 14 in her home state of Vermont, her family announced in a Legacy.com obituary published last week. “Creative, athletic and wise beyond her years, Sophie accomplished so much in the time she danced upon earth,” her loved ones wrote. She was 24.

The obituary described Nyweide as a welcoming person who saw people other than relatives as family. “Her death has left a hole in all,” the obituary continued. “Sadness, loss, heartbreak and even anger is present for those who loved her and now will have to continue on with her laughter, infectious passion and zest — without those amazing blue eyes that could look directly into one’s soul.”

The family’s announcement did not disclose additional details about the actor’s death, including a cause, but her loved ones implied that the actor had been taken advantage of, refused professional help and self-medicated to cope with undisclosed “trauma and shame,” which led to her death. The Bennington Police Department said in a statement shared with The Times that it is investigating Nyweide’s death as a “possible unintentional overdose” and will conduct an investigation, including final autopsy and toxicology reports.

Police and rescue personnel responded to a 911 call about an unresponsive female early April 14, according to the statement. Officials arrived to a “wooded area along the banks of the Roaring Branch River” where first responders “attempted life saving measures” on Nyweide, who was pronounced dead at the scene less than an hour later. The person who called 911 was present with Nyweide at the time of her death and is cooperating with investigators, the statement said. Investigators will reportedly consider a range of possible causes, including foul play.

Nyweide was reportedly in the early stages of pregnancy when she died, according to several outlets citing her death certificate.

Nyweide was born July 8, 2000, in Burlington, Vt., and enjoyed a varied career that spanned from her screen debut in the 2006 film “Bella” to a 2015 episode of ABC’s beloved social experiment series “What Would You Do?” Nyweide was inspired by her mother, actor Shelly Gibson (“All My Children,” “Blood & Oil”), to pursue a career in Hollywood.

By the time she was 11, Nyweide appeared in a handful of films including the 2009 multilingual and country-hopping film “Mammoth.” In the film, directed by Lukas Moodysson, Nyweide appeared as the onsceen 8-year-old daughter of Michelle Williams and Gael García Bernal. Nyweide also shared the screen with James Franco and Julianne Nicholson in the 2010 feature “Shadows & Lies,” and appeared alongside Jessica Alba and Chris Messina as an elementary school student in “An Invisible Sign.”

Nyweide’s credits also include films “And Then Came Love,” “Noah” and “Margot at the Wedding,” TV series “Law & Order” and shorts “Mistakes Were Made” and “Born Again.”

“She seemed happiest on a movie set, becoming someone else,” her family said in the obituary, adding productions were a “safe place for her.”

The obituary continued: “She was an eager adventurer and picked up the customs and even languages of any place she visited. She made friends easily at her schools and saw the good in everyone.”

Before she became an actor, Nyweide took inspiration from her older brother and found a knack for snowboarding. She started competing in the sport at age 5, according to her obituary.

“A life ended too soon. May it not be in vain,” the obituary said. “May we all learn from her brief life on earth and do better. Yes, we must all protect our children and do better.”

The family asks that donations be made in Nyweide’s name to RAINN, an organization dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual violence.

Near the start of the fifth episode of “Étoile,” a highly enjoyable series premiering Thursday on Prime Video, Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby), executive director of the Metropolitan Ballet Theater, stands outside New York’s Film Forum, waiting for Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), general director of Le Ballet National in Paris. The marquee reads “Frederick Wiseman’s Ballet & La Danse,” two real-world documentaries on the dance world by our greatest documentarian; the first, from 1995, looks at the American Ballet Theater and the second, from 2009, the Paris Opera Ballet, actual institutions whose shadows are cast on the wall of this comedy — with a dramatic turn or two — from Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino.

The Wiseman reference betokens a certain seriousness on the part of the creators, an awareness that people might be watching who know a thing or two about the subject. (And documentary film.) Sherman-Palladino, who studied dance from a young age, is already well known to fans as the woman behind “Gilmore Girls,” “Bunheads” — which also had a dance theme — and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” which share with “Étoile” an innate theatricality; an interest in performance (apart from “Gilmore”); and the verbal rhythms of prewar screwball comedy.

There are scenes whose dialogue, with a little adjustment, could have served Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, or Carole Lombard and John Barrymore; it’s the world as once scripted by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur or Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, if not quite to that level, and the combination of theatrical speech and location shooting — in and around New York’s Lincoln Center and the Palais Garnier and Salle Favart in Paris — makes for something interesting. Artificial in a way that paradoxically allows for something real and relatable, it’s also, for all its air of sophistication, corny, sentimental, sweet and sexual without being exactly sexy — all these people really care about is their work.

Setting the series in motion is a proposal from Geneviève that, in order to combat their mutual afflictions — aging audiences, slow ticket sales post-pandemic and creeping cultural irrelevancy — her company and Jack’s would agree to swap some top talent, generating publicity and excitement on both sides of the Atlantic. The bill for whatever this costs will be picked up by Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow), a wealthy balletomane whom Jack regards as “the devil” and whose exaggerated posh delivery belies the fact that he’s an arms manufacturer (and delivered the eulogy at Rush Limbaugh’s funeral); friend and/or foe, he will come in and out of the action as an unaccountable comical wild card.

Swapped to Paris is Mishi Duplessis (Taïs Vinolo), the daughter of the French cultural minister; having been cut from the French troupe’s ballet school, she’s become a featured soloist in New York and is now being repatriated, much to her displeasure — and that of the jumped-over ballerinas who regard her as a “nepo baby,” even if they can’t properly pronounce it. Also traded is Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick, a “Maisel” vet), a choreographer we are asked to accept as a groundbreaking genius, and whose thorough eccentricity Glick plays quietly and quizzically, as if the world around him, to the limited degree he understands it, is out of joint. Also appearing are a sort of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are not the only characters to quickly disappear once a minor point has been made.

Heading west to Manhattan is Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge), the Paris company’s star ballerina — its “étoile” — who earlier had made a splash as a guest artist in New York. (She, like Geneviève, has some old sub-romantic business with Jack.) We first meet her in a stormy sea as an ecowarrior, attacking a ship fishing illegally, then getting arrested herself. Cheyenne’s intensity, often indistinguishable from rage, can border on the comic, but de Laâge delivers an all-in, all-out performance; she sits and stands and walks like a dancer (though she also has a double for the dances) and makes you believe she’s who the show says she is. Whether actual star ballerinas are this serious and demanding and socially brutal, I don’t know, but this is a television show.

“Étoile” is not long on plot, in the sense that it is heading toward some obvious, definable goal — it has rivulets of plot, rather, involving different characters in different situations and settings, working out problems that have nothing necessarily to do with the series’ Big Idea, as the show moves toward its first-season irresolution. (New plotlines spark up near the end, making a second season a given.)

In an eight-episode series, such sidetracks can hardly be avoided, but it’s a show in any case more enjoyable in its details and performances than in the fate of the companies, or the future of dance. These plots and subplots and miniplots involving dancers and assistants, technicians and politicians, are not all equally rewarding — best of all is the relationship between Mishi and Cheyenne’s intimidating mother, Bruna (Marie Berto), who hammers on things, and with whom Mishi finds herself lodged — but together they create an attractive tapestry.

Kirby, whom I first noticed in the great Canadian series “Slings & Arrows,” a Shakespeare-themed backstage comedy not unlike “Étoile,” and who played a convincing Lenny Bruce in “Maisel,” rockets between nervous energy and being a nervous wreck as Jack; his flying up and down stairs is a motif here. Gainsbourg, in simply accessorized ninja black, is the picture of a woman who knows and means business.

David Haig claims a fair share of the show’s comedy lines as Jack’s closest friend, Nicholas Leutwylek, a former choreographer and dancer who now gets around on an electric scooter, though he remembers the good old days of cocaine and Quaaludes and when, as a guest artist at Stuttgart, hard-partying Germans “gave me so many petrochemicals I was technically a car for most of that season.” (Sleep aids seem to be the drug of choice for young and old here.)

Kelly Bishop, from “Gilmore” and “Bunheads,” plays Jack’s mother. David Byrne makes a funny appearance as David Byrne; choreographer Mark Morris and no doubt other real-world dance world figures I couldn’t identify lend authenticity. The dancers are good, naturally, even if the dances can sometimes feel less exciting than we’re meant to find them. More interesting is the placing of bodies in space when nobody’s dancing, lending a choreographic energy to ordinary conversations.

Those Wiseman films are streaming on Kanopy, by the way, accessible to anyone with a library card (they’re free, and you should have one). They’ll take you right into that rarefied world, without the extra comedy but with plenty of inherent drama. I can’t recommend them enough.

New York — An eerie, overpowering force has taken over the Marquis Theatre, home of “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” which had its official Broadway opening on Tuesday.

This supernatural power is from a dimension even more intimidating than the Upside Down. The occult realm of Netflix, the streaming service that ensnares viewers in a maze of maybes, has joined forces with Sonia Friedman Productions to convert a piece of prime theatrical real estate into a zone of franchise extension.

Broadway denizens, beware: A portal into a fantasy universe has been established in the heart of the Theater District, unleashing a breed of supernatural creatures that makes the “Harry Potter” lot seem mild and mainstream by comparison. Disney musicals have been accused of turning Broadway into a theme park. “Stranger Things” hurls the art form into Dungeons & Dragons territory.

The good news is that a younger demographic is making the pilgrimage to the temple of their grandparents’ favorite show tunes. There were so many young faces at the Marquis, I had to remind myself that I was attending an evening press preview and not a student matinee.

The production, directed by Tony-winning veteran Stephen Daldry with co-director Justin Martin, is spectacular in the way that it combines the fluidity of the screen with the dynamism of the stage. The theater proves that it can do nearly anything the cinema can do with the right design team, directorial imagination and technological know-how.

Unfortunately, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” written by Kate Trefry from an original story she collaborated on with the Duffer Brothers (the series’ creators) and Jack Thorne, also shows that the theater can be just as careless as any hyperactive action movie when it comes to plot. While seemingly unlimited resources are lavished on visual effects, the drama is allowed to tie itself into impossible knots. (Thorne, who won a Tony for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” and obloquy for the Broadway bomb “King Kong,” achieves a Hegelian synthesis with this potential blockbuster of dubious artistic purpose.)

The problem with “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” is that it’s as if an entire new season of the series had been squeezed into a 2-hour, 45-minute stage play — roughly the length of three episodes. This is binge viewing on an expedited, don’t-worry-about-the-math timeline.

I barely made it through two seasons of the Netflix series, so I’m hardly an expert on “Stranger Things.” But I did notice that the Duffer Brothers didn’t worry all that much about leaving storytelling holes even when they had eight episodes to lay out their vision. Here, the gaps in narrative logic are so vast that it would take the most committed fans to fill in all the missing pieces from the realm of online mythology the series has accrued since its premiere in 2016.

The main character of “The First Shadow” is Henry Creel, an adolescent dweeb who looks like Pee-wee Herman but has a malevolent side that could give Carrie a run for her prom night money. Devoted fans will know Henry from Season 4 of the series, but anyone with an ounce of sense will pick up on his sociopath tendencies from the way he buttons the top button of his shirt and stares numbly into the middle distance.

The play is a prequel to the series, set in the same town but taking place in 1959, a generation before the 1980s hairstyles and New Wave mix tapes that made Season 1 such a Gen X trip. We meet Joyce Maldonado (Alison Jaye) and James Hopper Jr. (Burke Swanson) when they’re in high school, having clocked in Netflix hours with them already as adults played by Winona Ryder and David Harbour.

Louis McCartney (who also starred in the Olivier Award-winning West End production) plays Henry, a forlorn misfit whose only real friend is the radio he clutches like a transistor security blanket. Wiry and dangerous, the character is also strangely endearing. McCartney’s shattered portrayal, blurring the line between victim and violator, elicits our sympathy without ever asking for it.

Henry’s parents are hoping for a fresh start after moving the family to Hawkins after some trouble in Nevada. Henry, who has psychokinetic powers and an unpredictable temper, apparently blinded a neighbor kid in a fit of pique, forcing the Creels to skedaddle to Indiana. They want to insulate their son, but it’s the community that really needs protection.

At Hawkins High, the other students sense Henry’s oddity the way sharks scent blood in the water. One of the rich ironies of “Stranger Things” is the way the cruelty of ordinary teenagers is made to seem as depraved as anything in the Upside Down, the alternate dimension in which humans occasionally get trapped and hunted by diabolical forces.

Patty Newby (Gabrielle Nevaeh), the principal’s daughter who feels like an outsider at home and at school, strikes up a friendship with Henry. They wind up getting cast, under strained dramatic circumstances, in the school musical, and a romance of sensitive oddballs blossoms. While Henry tries to resist the dark forces running riot inside him, Patty obsesses about finding the mother who abandoned her, or so she’s been led to believe.

Through his radio, Henry can eavesdrop on people in a way that’s not bound by time or space. He agrees to help Patty find her mother, but sinister things are happening in Hawkins. A rash of brutal pet murders raises fears that a sadistic maniac is on the loose. Henry’s classmates start their own investigation, which inevitably brings them to Henry’s front door.

As the Hawkins High musical gets underway and Patty’s long-lost Vegas showgirl mother zooms into paranormal view, Dr. Brenner (Alex Breaux) and his lab henchmen are vying to take control of Henry in what seems like a secret government plot but is part of an oceanic backstory that grows ever more convoluted. (The play opens with a naval ship under mysterious attack that may have something to do with the origin story of the Upside Down, but it would take a PhD in “Stranger Things” studies to unpack.)

Daldry and his crack production team move from one scenario to the other with breathtaking ease. There was a time when theater artists were encouraged to dig deeper into what made the stage unique as a form — most notably the palpable connection between actors and spectators.

“Stranger Things: The First Shadow” demonstrates that theater doesn’t have to hold itself back from competing with film, television and video games. A play can move not only from place to place but also from medium to medium. But just because the theater can doesn’t mean that it should. All credit to Miriam Buether’s incredibly agile scenic design, Jon Clark’s dynamic lighting and, most especially, Paul Arditti’s spine-tingling sound design and DJ Walde’s ethereally commanding music for turning the Marquis into a mind-blowing funhouse. But what the production really needs is a script doctor capable of a miracle cure.

As Henry’s bad behavior goes from subliminal to gore-fest, the shifts from the blood-splattered lab to the Hawkins boppy musical seem beyond ludicrous. One of Henry’s powers is to prey on the traumatic fears of his perceived enemies, and “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” is able to summon a theater critic’s horrific vision of a Broadway age in which sense is utterly disregarded for violent sensation.

Perhaps the Hawkins drama club is the creative team’s hope that culture will somehow survive the tech apocalypse. The talented cast and inexhaustibly inventive design team make it hard to bet against the future of theater. But the campy Netflix branding reminders, from the series’ unmistakable musical theme to the Gothic scroll of the title to the jokey “next episode” or “watch credits” option that flashes at the show’s end, suggest that there really is an unstoppable force out there ready to make zombies of us all.

Ye, formerly Kanye West, was ranting early Tuesday on social media, continuing what he started Monday with a revelation of childhood sex acts allegedly performed on an unnamed male cousin.

The rapper rolled from that sentiment into pleas for more access to his children, claiming he hasn’t seen his son Saint “this year.” In the process, he accused A-list celebrities of “get[ting] the popcorn” and watching the show.

“Why are you all watching and letting Kim take my kids from me in real time,” he tweeted in the wee hours Tuesday morning. “Yall wanna say I’m acting out cause of things in my childhood. But I don’t get to be a dad.”

Ye was referring to ex-wife Kim Kardashian, who reportedly took steps toward gaining full custody of their four children, North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm in March. The status of that effort is unclear.

“You guys can make a difference,” Ye wrote Tuesday. “I’m f— shaking typing this I’ve had my rights stripped because I wore a f— red [MAGA] hat That’s when I had a breakdown and was put in the hospital.”

“I need a plan to exercise my rights with my kids,” he wrote in a separate tweet. “I figured out a lot of things but I haven’t figured this out.”

Ye gave an example of why he needed to be around to parent his children. On the day Kobe Bryant died, the family went to Kylie Jenner’s house where, he said, vintage Playboy magazines were “strategically placed within arms reach of every child in that house which was every half black baby.”

He suggested that people would know “who was behind that” and said that as a father, he had “wanted to change that for my kids.” He later tweeted that Kris Jenner didn’t hand out the magazines to the kids, as one X account had asserted, but said “they were just in reach like candy.”

He also went all-caps critical on Jewish attorneys, praised two allegedly “AMAZING BRILLIANT AND HONEST” Jewish employees, then tweeted, “I LOVE SOME JEWS AND I LOVE HITLER.”

Initially, Ye shook things up Monday with the release of a new song and apparent revelation that he and his younger male cousin had “acted out” what they saw in pornographic magazines.

“This song is called COUSINS about my cousin that’s locked in jail for life for killing a pregnant lady a few years after I told him we wouldn’t ‘look at dirty magazines together’ anymore,” Ye tweeted. “Perhaps in my self centered mess I felt it was my fault that I showed him those dirty magazines when he was 6 and then we acted out what we saw.”

He said his dad had Playboys, but his mother’s magazines were “different.” (This from the same performer who tweeted and deleted this month that his late mother Donda was a lesbian whom he’d caught hooking up with his babysitter.) Then he announced he had performed oral sex on his younger male cousin until he turned 14.

But on Tuesday, it was about the children. “I don’t need to just ‘SEE’ my kids,” Ye tweeted. “I need to raise them I’m a good dad I’m a great father to have.”

The rapper, who has been treated for bipolar disorder in the past, announced earlier this year that he had been misdiagnosed and was instead on the autism spectrum.

It seems Billy Ray Cyrus doesn’t have an achy breaky heart with his new flame: British actor-model Elizabeth Hurley.

The country music artist, 63, and the “Austin Powers” alum, 59, hard-launched their relationship over the weekend in a joint Instagram post. “Happy Easter,” Hurley captioned the Sunday photo. In the picture, Cyrus dons a pair of green bunny ears and gives Hurley a kiss on the cheek as they lean against a wooden fence in a lush pasture.

Hurley’s 23-year-old son Damian, whom she shares with late film financier-philanthropist Steve Bing, commented on the Instagram post with celebratory and heart emojis. It seems Cyrus is the latest star to give love a go with Hurley, whose romantic history also includes ex-husband Arun Nayar (they divorced in 2011), Bing, NBA athlete Steve Nash and Hugh Grant.

Before Hurley, Cyrus was recently romantically linked to Australian singer Firerose. Cyrus, father of “Flowers” singer and “Hannah Montana” actor Miley Cyrus, met Firerose on the set of the Disney Channel show in the early 2000s and married his “Plans” collaborator in October 2023.

That marriage lasted less than a year.

Cyrus filed to divorce Firerose in June 2024. They settled their divorce two months later after trading scathing allegations of fraud and abuse. At the time, a representative for Cyrus said the singer was “relieved to put this nightmare behind him.”

Cyrus shared a look into his love life months after his adopted son Trace, one of the five children he shares with ex-wife Tish Cyrus-Purcell, voiced concern over his father’s health.

“You’re not healthy Dad & everyone is noticing it,” Trace wrote in a January Instagram post, days after his dad delivered a shaky performance at an Inauguration Day event.

Despite Trace’s public plea and accusation that Cyrus has “pushed all of us away,” the country singer said in a YouTube video that he was “praying for my family” affected by the January wildfires. Since then, Cyrus has also publicly praised daughters Miley and Noah Cyrus for their various achievements and projects.

Cyrus and Hurley’s seemingly unexpected relationship sparked some confusion in the Instagram comments (“Little House on the Prairie” star Melissa Gilbert commented, “Wait….what?”), but the romance can reportedly be traced back to 2022. That’s when Hurley and Cyrus met on the set of the holiday film “Christmas in Paradise,” according to Page Six.

The former co-stars have “been friends for a long time and both found themselves single at the same time,” a source told the outlet. “The romantic side started only a few weeks ago.”

The outspoken Northern Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap is well-known for scathing criticism of Israel’s attacks on Gaza during its live sets. But the band says a few pointed moments from its two Coachella sets were cut from the fest’s official livestream, and wonders if its messaging played a role.

The band’s performance at the fest’s second weekend featured projections of text reading “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is being enabled by the U.S. government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes. F— Israel Free Palestine.”

The band said on social media that those messages were supposed to have appeared during their Weekend 1 set as well, but “our messaging on the US-backed genocide in Gaza somehow never appeared on screens either.”

Representatives for Goldenvoice, the fest’s promoter, did not immediately return a request for comment.

During its first weekend set, the band reportedly led a boisterous chant celebrating the 2013 death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, which they said was cut from the livestream as well.

No sets from Coachella’s Sonora Tent — the indoor venue reserved for the punk-inspired acts that made Goldenvoice’s early reputation — were filmed for the livestream during the second weekend. There, the group reportedly said onstage that “the Irish are not so longer persecuted under the Brits, but we were never bombed under the f— skies with nowhere to go.”

“Some uncensored messaging to Coachella,” the band wrote after its Weekend 2 set, posting images of its projections.

Kneecap was far from alone in criticizing Israel’s attacks on Gaza during Coachella. Headliners Green Day altered the lyrics of “Jesus of Suburbia” to sing, “Runnin’ away from pain, like the kids from Palestine.” Other acts like Blonde Redhead and Bob Vylan displayed Palestinian flags during their sets.

Music manager and executive Scooter Braun, who organized a museum exhibition on the Nova festival massacre in Israel, said on Instagram that Coachella founder Paul Tollett “is a good man and has been an outspoken advocate on behalf of survivors of the Nova Music Festival.”

Not all heroes wear capes. This one is an impeccably dressed lawyer who is often armed with a tumbler of whiskey. And the new “Suits” spin-off has called him back for duty.

When NBC announced that it was capitalizing on the success of the glossy legal drama — which concluded its USA Network run nearly six years ago but became the most streamed show of 2023 with its arrival on Netflix — with “Suits LA,” a Los Angeles-set spin-off revolving around a new group of ambitious lawyers and their dealings within the entertainment industry, creator and showrunnner Aaron Korsh kept any plans for appearances by characters from the original series more tightly under wraps than the logistics of the mysterious can opener ritual.

Rather than play the odds, he played the man and got Gabriel Macht to play Harvey Specter again.

Across nine seasons and 134 episodes, Macht took viewers on the smug but charming corporate attorney’s journey of emotional and personal maturation as he teamed up with — for more most of the show’s run — wayward genius Mike (Patrick J. Adams), whom he hired to be his associate even though the young man had never attended law school. Between cases, Harvey confronted his demons and by the series’ 2019 finale was a married man headed to Seattle to reunite with his sidekick to do some legal good for the little guys. (Macht, meanwhile, intentionally stepped away from acting to focus on his family once the series wrapped.)

Now, it’s early March and Macht’s on the set of “Suits LA” on the NBCUniversal lot putting the finishing touches on his three-episode arc, which was crammed into roughly a week of filming: “I really thought I was shutting the door on this character at the end of the original,” says Macht, with a set of dark-framed glasses the only thing distinguishing him from his character during a break.

Harvey’s arc primarily occurs in flashbacks circa 2010, establishing his friendship with “Suits LA” frontman Ted Black (Stephen Amell) around the time the latter was wrapped up in a case involving notorious mobster John Pellegrini (Anthony Azizi) that ultimately triggered his move to the West Coast. Ted was prosecuting federal cases for the U.S. attorney’s office in New York City and on a mission to put the mafioso — who used various intimidation tactics on Ted, including extorting Ted’s corrupt father (Matt Letscher) and inadvertently having Ted’s brother (Carson A. Egan) killed — behind bars; Harvey worked in the district attorney’s office. Later, when the murder case fell apart, Harvey, who by this time was working in the corporate sector, clandestinely helped Ted convict Pellegrini on racketeering charges. But with the criminal set to be released from prison in the present day, Harvey makes a trip to L.A. to rally Ted so they can get Pellegrini back behind bars. The arc concluded with Sunday’s episode, titled “Bat Signal,” which finds the dynamic duo in New York City to (successfully) execute their plan.

But is this the last viewers will see of Harvey Specter? Macht has learned not to say no to anything.

“Look, if everything fails in my life, I think I can go to Times Square, put on the suit and just pose for pictures, maybe?” he says with a wide smile as he ambles his way back to shoot a scene in the present-day timeline.

Like the Naked Cowboy?

“Yeah, I’ll be right next to him.”

The Times checked in with Macht a few weeks later over a video call to discuss the reprising of his character. Here are excerpts from the conversation.

Since the resurgence of “Suits,” you’ve been asked about reprising your role for a revival or even a movie of the OG series. You’ve largely had some playful responses quashing the likelihood of that happening. What was the initial reluctance and how did this way become appealing for you?

When I was finished with “Suits,” I was ready to be done. I feel like we told those stories and we really stuck the landing. We left with integrity. At that time in my personal life, I was ready to be done and move on and focus on different things. I wanted to travel the world, and I wanted to fill up the daddy well, and, you know, really spend time with my kids and make up for lost time. That was really the focus. That’s where maybe those responses [came from]. Jump a few years, when Netflix picked it up, it dominated the viewership in so many ways that it just felt like it was sort of bigger than anyone could really understand and imagine. I’m seeing that there’s a new generation. Who knows, there might be a “Suits: The Musical” on Broadway in 20 years. It created a bunch of opportunities for a lot of the players from the original show. And when Aaron [Korsh, the creator and showrunner of both series] came to me and said [mimics Korsh’s pitchy voice], “Hey, I know you haven’t wanted to get back in this … ,” I said, “What is it? What’s the story?” All I was interested in was how he was doing and how’s the show going and support the show. He said, “Look, there’s a character that might have been friends with Ted, and I can make his name in the script Harvey, if you’d be willing to consider …”

And over the next days, I started to think about the fans and how much the fans are really so committed to this show. That was my first instinct … if they can make it happen, I want to do it for the fans.

Did it take some time for you to feel like you were locked in? We don’t see Harvey in a suit right away and I would imagine that’s what helps you get there.

It kind of was like riding a bike, especially when you put the suit on. Aaron has this way of writing where he’s got a lot of double negatives. They gave me one or two speeches where I had to get into that dynamic and I was like, “Oh, my God, I’m gonna have a panic attack. This is not why I came back.”

On set you mentioned that the baseball scenes were shot at Rancho Park, which is where you used to practice for your high school baseball team. That must have felt like a surreal, full-circle moment to be coming back to this seminal character in your career while returning to a place that had meaning in real life.

It was nostalgic in so many ways. I played up until my freshman year of high school. They put me on the bench. I didn’t really play that much. I loved baseball and I still love baseball, but I was like, “Oh, God, I should really be thinking about my future. Maybe I should go into the drama class or something.” They happened at the same time, so I can either do baseball every day or do drama and acting.

Going back to Rancho Park and being in a uniform, playing shortstop, and actually seeing my dad [actor Stephen Macht, who had a recurring role in “Suits”] come out was nice. I said, “Dad, I’m shooting at Rancho, if you want to come and visit.” He comes out and he’s sitting in the stands; apparently he asked them, “Where’s Gabriel?” And someone was like, “Who are you?” And he’s like, “I’m his father!” It brought him right back to when I was in high school or little league. And they’re like, “Oh, he’s playing shortstop.” He’s been in the business 50 years. And he was like, “Well, when’s the game starting?” It was a real moment for me to see him in the stands. During one of the takes, I was like, “Dad, you’re sitting with background, you’re like an extra right now. Go behind video village! You can watch the scene there.” It was a full-circle moment for us.

When it was announced that you were returning, it quickly became clear that one of the key cameos fans were anticipating with your return is Harvey’s wedding band. The Darvey shippers, myself included, wanted some assurance that Aaron did not mess with their favorite TV couple. Did you see some of that? And were you curious where Harvey would be at in life?

Yes, I was curious to see what it was and what was going to happen and what the storyline is; it could have gone in so many different directions. There’s no reference that they’re married and still together, but there is a reference that there’s a child. I was moved by that moment. I was moved when I read it, I was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” I said “Guys, in the flashbacks, obviously I don’t have a ring, but I think I should have a ring for the present time.” And they were like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” So, that’s how we basically said that this [Harvey-Donna] relationship is still continuing. It was a nice moment. It was a really nice moment. Now why we never mentioned anyone with the name Ted in 134 episodes [of “Suits”], but these guys are really great friends and he names his son after him …

Wait. Do you think he really named their son after him? I thought he was just teasing.

I think he [Harvey] was just playing with him [Ted]. But you never know with Harvey; he keeps so many things close to the chest. He could have really connected with him years ago. With television, with characters, you don’t know.

I have to say, I always thought Harvey would be a girl dad. Maybe they have a daughter who just can’t text yet. My niece loves doing the voice to text on other people’s devices.

That’s very possible. Maybe he has a girl who’s of the age of texting but doesn’t have a phone? We don’t give our daughter a phone.

Fans on the show know that Harvey lost both his parents. With his appearance on “Suits LA,” we learn his only sibling, Marcus, has passed in the time since. [Actor Billy Miller, who portrayed Marcus, died in 2023.]Have you asked Aaron why he has made Harvey endure so much pain and loss? Can we have some assurance that Harvey is at least going to the doctor and getting himself checked out?

That’s a good question. How do I answer this? The human in me says, look, there’s tons of loss in in our lives and humans go through loss every day. There’s always been a real sense of abandonment issues that Harvey has had throughout his life, and I think that that has been a dramatic tool that has been helped by writing for that. I don’t think Harvey really plays a victim, but I think it’s a way to feel for him. If you look at any Disney movie, the parents die within five seconds and that’s to get you on the hook of feeling like you gotta feel for this character.

Gabriel Macht, left, as Harvey Specter and Stephen Amell as Ted Black in “Suits LA.”

(Nicole Weingart / NBC)

I know it was brief and we don’t get too much of present-day Harvey, but what was it like playing Harvey at this stage of his life and this stage in your life?

It was fun. He’s a little bit more settled. He’s a little bit more in touch with himself. He likes to still take the piss out of his friends and the people that are close to him. But what we love about Harvey is his sense of what’s right and making things right and his loyalty and his heart. There’s plenty of times he’s playing with the system. I think he’s doing what’s best. That was nice to play and just to be in in touch with that.

It’s interesting because there’s many versions of Harvey that I’m not a fan of and that I’m not crazy about and that I don’t like to engage in or support. I don’t like supporting the narcissistic elements of him. I don’t like supporting the aggressive, toxic masculinity that Harvey has in his toolbox. In these last six years, I have done a lot of work on myself and just seeing, what are the behaviors of Harvey that do align with me? There’s elements of behavior where, as the actor and as the character, you’re having to beat people down and manipulate and use so many negative behaviors that don’t align with me, or more so, align with the child in me, that I have been keenly aware that I need tend to.

What worked well for Harvey was my [inner] child. So, to be able to dismantle that or observe all the behaviors of the child — digging his heels in and saying, “This is what I need! This is how to do it!” — that selfish, sort of narcissistic coping mechanisms that you make as a kid, that’s the work to be done [on myself] to move away from him. I’d love to see a documentary where somebody takes characters where the actors have really lived in their shoes for so long that they become them in different ways, and how do they shake them at the end of the day and come back to themselves? I think it’d be really interesting

Could you see a day when you consider doing another TV series or returning to the screen?

I’m way more interested right now in this partnership that I’m doing with Bear Fight Whiskey. The small narrative stories where I can be creative are where my heart is right now. A television show is a big commitment. You’re basically owned by the show and the network and the stories and you really have to give up so much of your life. Maybe when my kids go to college or whatever, and there’s more time in my life that I can devote to that.

Your friends and “Suits” co-stars, Sarah Rafferty and Patrick J. Adams, recently wrapped re-watching the first season on their podcast. They’re on hiatus now, but do you think you’ll ever stop by as a guest? I need you on this podcast.

At some point, yeah. I don’t know when. The stars have to align. I think they’re doing great and I think they’re really enjoying it. I don’t know how I would go on there and talk — I have a bad memory as it is. I do not know if I would come in with much substance. I’ve seen clips [of “Suits”] here and there and I’m like, “I said that? I have no idea! I have no recollection of that!”

I do feel like Harvey has some explaining to do with Mike for using the whole Batman thing with Ted.

I think you’re right. You have to go after Aaron. He thought it was a little too meta and too much of a wink to the audience, but I’ll tell you, we said “Green Arrow” and “The Spirit.” [Amell played Oliver Queen in the CW’s “Arrow” and Macht portrayed the title character in Frank Miller’s 2008 film adaptation of Will Eisner’s “The Spirit.”] There’s a version of that that would have been gold, but [Aaron’s] a Batman guy, so you got to just say what’s on the page sometimes.

You grew up here. What’s the L.A. spot Gabriel would tell Harvey to visit?

Marty’s. I’m telling you, Marty’s burgers — it’s right near Rancho Park. It’s a greasy spoon. It’s the home of the combo. It’s where I used to eat all the time. I’m a vegetarian now, so I can’t go back there and eat there, but Harvey could.

Moviegoes embraced “sin” over the Easter weekend.

“Sinners,” the highly anticipated period drama delivering a mashup of horror, music and vampires, scored a solid opening, topping the holiday box office with $45.6 million. The R-rated film starring Michael B. Jordan delighted critics and audiences who rewarded it with an “A” ranking on CinemaScore.

Coming in second was “A Minecraft Movie,” which continued its strong performance in earning $41.3 million a three-week total of $344.6 million.

The one-two punch of “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners” contributed 64% of the overall weekend box office, which was great news for Warner Bros., the studio behind both films.

“As we continue to strive to bring an array of films to moviegoers, we are thrilled to see how [director] Ryan Coogler’s original movie ‘Sinners’ and a movie based on the fan favorite Minecraft game, have resonated with audiences in such a stellar way,” Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group’s Mike De Luca & Pam Abdy said in a statement.

“Sinners” also marks the latest triumph for the partnership of Jordan and Coogler. The two first teamed up in 2013 for “Fruitvale Station” and reunited for 2015’s “Rocky” reboot “Creed” and the blockbuster Marvel epic “Black Panther.”

The film marks Coogler’s first directorial turn since 2022’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

In “Sinners,” Jordan portrays twin brothers named Smoke and Stack, who return to their home in 1930s Mississippi to run a juke joint, encountering a variety of outrageous situations and adventures.

Days before its release, “Sinners” was already making headlines with reports of the film scoring 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (its latest score is 98%). Its success is already sparking awards buzz.

It’s also the first film to be shot with IMAX cameras since Christopher Nolan’s 2023 Oscar winner “Oppenheimer.” Coogler had heavily promoted the format, encouraging moviegoers to see “Sinners” in IMAX venues.

Precious few bands can fill a stadium 52 years into their career — let alone play to an audience heavily populated by parents and their children, both generations sporting red devil horn headbands and cheering for 77-year-old singer Brian Johnson and white-haired guitar icon Angus Young, 70.

But AC/DC did just that, playing 21 instantly recognizable sing-along tunes of considerable heaviness — the majority of them classic rock radio staples and cultural touchstones — rendered with a power and passion that belies their many decades of service. Kicking off with 1978’s “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It),” Young, in his trademark schoolboy outfit (red velvet for this show) with the recognizable black and white Gibson SG, took the stage to thunderous appreciation.

Next was “Back in Black,” the song and album that marked Johnson’s 1980 entrée to the lineup. The frontman proved expressive and animated despite serious hearing issues that sidelined him for a few scary years, and a voice that, understandably, doesn’t always have the sustain and power of earlier days. The quintet played a few tracks from their latest, 2020’s “Power Up,” but as expected and appreciated, the hits ruled, from “Shot Down to Flames” to “Hells Bells” to latter-day crowd favorite “Thunderstruck.”

The band’s set, despite the relentless, strident perfection and power of the rhythm section, wasn’t a quick flow, with fairly frequent darkened-stage breaks between songs. The second half of the two-hour-plus performance proved the stronger — Johnson’s energy seemingly renewed on this third show of 13 for this leg of the Power Up tour.

The band’s hardcore devotees may wonder if AC/DC may be slightly callous or merely driven, as their career suggests. Other fans don’t know or care about the lineup’s backstory, which took its first devastating turn in February 1980 with the death of singer Bon Scott, 33. In less than six months, with new frontman Johnson, previously of Brit band Geordie, AC/DC released what would become one of the best-selling albums in history, “Back in Black,” their first of 11 LPs (to date) with Johnson.

Like a Dickensian Andy Capp, Johnson is an uber-charming rogue, an everyman bluesy belter whose winking humor with a hint of the scoundrel are not entirely unlike Scott’s demeanor, though each man’s vocals, inflection and stage presence are/were clearly their own. And beloved as such.

However, on Feb. 28, 2016, in the midst of AC/DC’s Rock or Bust tour, doctors told Johnson that if he didn’t stop performing immediately, he risked total hearing loss. By May 17, 2016, Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose joined AC/DC as a fill-in vocalist for two dozen shows, a move that shocked many and thrilled others. Seemingly nothing will stop the juggernaut that is AC/DC. They’re at once a band of brothers, literally — founded by Angus and late brother Malcolm Young — but also not. As the middle-aged concertgoer next to me noted: “Angus is all about the money and he and his brother [Malcom] own the band.” That said, it was the fan’s 10^th show across several continents, though he purposely avoided seeing the Rose-fronted version of AC/DC.

Johnson, his hearing issues managed, was back in the fold by 2019, and post-pandemic, playing live with AC/DC by October 2023. Interestingly, one of the other bands still filling stadiums is indeed Guns N’ Roses. Even more titillating: Rose and guitarist Slash, the Johnson and Young of American rock, were in attendance at the Rose Bowl — their walk through the crowd inciting thousands to gasp and crane their necks for a look at the duo.

But all eyes were onstage for the two-hour-plus show. AC/DC have written winking songs about sexually transmitted diseases (“The Jack”); large women (“Whole Lotta Rosie”); voracious encounters (“You Shook Me All Night Long,” “She’s Got Balls”); and of course, Hell (in the abstract). The tunes are all exuberant, and even with a new era of political correctness, never offensive.

Despite any challenges of health and member attrition, AC/DC remain unstoppable and undeniable — Young’s own version of Chuck Berry’s duckwalk proved his preternatural energy, as did his expected and always lengthy (10 minutes? 15?) solo during “Let There Be Rock.”

At least six songs in the set were made infamous by Scott, including “Sin City,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “Riff Raff,” “Let There Be Rock” and “Highway to Hell,” but they’re so much a part of the band’s oeuvre it matters not that Johnson has been singing them longer than Scott did. Another constant: AC/DC song titles are frequently convivial lowbrow bon mots — “Have a Drink on Me,” “Hells Bells,” “Stiff Upper Lip” — now so common in the vernacular that AC/DC might have invented the phrases. At this point, who knows; maybe they did.

One valid complaint leveled at the band, is also the (not-so) secret to AC/DC’s strength and continued, deserved worldwide success: they make the same record every time. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And when things do “break,” they’re quickly fixed. Instead of hoped-for drummer Phil Rudd, rounding out the live lineup are drummer Matt Laug, with the band for two years; and skilled journeyman bassist Chris Chaney of Jane’s Addiction infamy. He replaced Cliff Williams, who first joined AC/DC in 1977. And there are two “Young people” on guitar; Angus and his nephew, Stevie, 68, who replaced his uncle Malcolm in the band in 2014.

So, will AC/DC keep going? Clearly, for as long as they can. It’s what they do. Will audiences, fans young and old, keep showing up? They will. It’s what they do. The world circa 2025 could use two hours of an ear-splitting sing-along with 70,000 like-minded denizens, celebrating the working-class joys of booze, broads and rock ‘n’ roll. AC/DC remain the band to deliver that joyful, bipartisan escapism. As Scott sang (and Johnson never has) on the bagpipe-belter “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll),” AC/DC indeed hit that top, and remain ensconced there.

AC/DC did their audience a great service in having the Pretty Reckless as openers. Singer Taylor Momsen had a big presence on the massive stage, looking like the Runways’ Cherie Currie circa ’70s, her voice sultry pitch perfect, her commanding voice as genuine as her positively magnetic stage presence. Overheard from a nearby seat: “I was thoroughly blown away.”

Like AC/DC, the band is guitar-driven and write great songs, their approach the perfect blend between accessible rock with the danger, volume and power of metal. It’s a shame AC/DC are so by-the-book onstage, because a Momsen-Johnson duet would be a pairing for the ages.

Inside the club-like Sonora tent on the grounds of the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Gary Tovar is inching closer to the stage. As ever, he’s snapping pictures on his phone, and shooting bits of video, to be shared online later.

Onstage on this opening weekend of the festival is the Los Angeles indie rock act Together Pangea, but for some astute music-lovers in the crowd, Tovar is as recognizable as anyone who will be on this stage. He’s the founder of Goldenvoice Productions, which launched Coachella in 1999, and was a crucial supporter of L.A.’s original punk rock concert scene in the 1980s.

Dressed in his usual plain white T-shirt, dark khaki shorts, with a blue bandana tied close to his throat, Tovar can barely get a few steps across the air-conditioned room before he’s greeted by another admirer. While Tovar no longer owns the company he founded in 1981, he remains its No. 1 fan, attending multiple concerts and club shows every week, sometimes two or three a night.

At Coachella, he is an especially active consumer of music, starting his day with breakfast in catering, and spending a full day going from stage to stage. He often travels in his own golf cart, but says he still gets 25,000 steps in a day. The heat, reaching above 100 degrees on opening weekend, does not slow him down.

“A lot of people stay in their era,” Tovar says of his ongoing music consumption. “There’s a lot of people complaining — they came here in 2009 — they still want MGMT, they want Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and they want time to stop. You have to be eternal. I don’t mean you’re gonna live forever. I mean, when the music moves, you move with it. You can’t pine for yesterday.”

That said, he maintains a lot of affection for the punk era that launched Goldenvoice in the early 1980s. While other local punk rock promoters came and went, Goldenvoice became an essential champion of punk, metal, goth, industrial and other revolutionary sounds of the time. Tovar also flew in acts from overseas for their first L.A. area shows.

Tovar saw himself as a patron of the arts, putting the likes of Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Jane’s Addiction onstage at the Olympic Auditorium, Santa Monica Civic, John Anson Ford Amphitheatre and Fender’s Ballroom.

He survived where many others failed because he had the resources to follow his musical passions, even if the shows weren’t always profitable. The reason: Tovar was a marijuana smuggler, bringing contraband in from Colombia and then Thailand. He made millions, until a prison sentence took him away for seven years, and he handed the company over to his successors: Paul Tollett and the late Rick Van Santen.

While Coachella emerged during his time in prison for marijuana trafficking, the world-renowned festival is a lasting legacy of his nascent shows of the 1980s.

“This wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Gary,” says Circle Jerks singer Keith Morris, sitting in the band’s Coachella dressing room right after the band’s set. “It was more about him being a fan than it was about the business. He’s a total music freak.”

He was also a rock fan going back to the 1960s, as a teenager once seeing Jimi Hendrix perform in Maui. Tovar got his first taste of punk rock at the final Sex Pistols performance at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in January 1978. While intrigued, Tovar didn’t imagine a place for himself in that world until his sister, an early fan of punk, mentioned that bands from the then-controversial genre were having trouble finding gigs to play.

Beginning with a TSOL show in Santa Barbara on Dec. 4, 1981, Tovar dove in, eventually focusing on Los Angeles.

He named the company after a favorite strain of Thai marijuana. “They said when you smoked it, it was like the angels sang to you in a golden voice,” Tovar recalls with a smile.

For a logo, he turned to Black Flag bassist and SST Records co-founder Chuck Dukowski, who spelled out the Goldenvoice name in “Chinese”-style lettering left over from the cover art for the Minutemen’s “Paranoid Time” EP. (That same font is now used in the Coachella logo.)

By 1983, things took off quickly for Goldenvoice, but soon went off the rails with a riot at a TSOL and Social Distortion concert at the original SIR Studios on Sunset Boulevard. There was another riot at an Exploited show in Huntington Park. Tovar had another concert lined up for Wilmington headlined by the aggressively radical Dead Kennedys that he was calling “Storming the Docks,” if he could get police to sign off. Tovar met with the San Pedro Police, and he was asked, “What type of band is the Dead Kennedys?” Tovar says he looked up and saw an official portrait of President Reagan on the wall. “My mind clicked in. I said, ‘The Dead Kennedys are a tribute band to John and Robert Kennedy. Where do we sign?’”

That show also ended as a riot. “Oh, they got so mad,” Tovar says now. “I had to go in there with a little trickery, man.”

After his third consecutive riot, Tovar turned to the Olympic Auditorium, the impenetrable concrete bunker in downtown Los Angeles where he’d hosted Black Flag a year before. The venue, with a 5,000-person capacity just on the ground floor, was large enough to absorb any number of punks and others who wanted to attend, without leaving anyone outside to loiter or get in trouble.

Tovar fully expected that initial wave of punk rock euphoria to fade within a couple of years, and it did. “Punk rock is like a shooting star. I knew it wasn’t going to last,” he says. “At the end of ‘85, it was showing cracks. Too much violence. Girls didn’t want to come.”

After two years at the Olympic, and as punk crowds began to diminish, he moved many of his shows to the smaller Fender’s in Long Beach, expanding to other venues in Southern California as needed.

As a leading proselytizer of punk and other alternative sounds, Tovar often partnered with promoters in other cities. It rarely meant a windfall for him. At one concert in Sacramento with the Ramones, he barely broke even. “I found a $20 bill in the parking lot,” he remembers. “That was my profit.”

His money was largely made elsewhere. “One of my hands was in punk rock, championing underground music that was on the fringe,” he says. “And my other hand was smuggling quality marijuana. We went for the quality.”

If anything, the pot business was accelerating. His role was to sail the marijuana from Colombia and Thailand to the U.S. When the drug trade in Colombia shifted away from marijuana to cocaine, Tovar turned toward Thailand.

“I did not believe in cocaine because marijuana is done with a handshake, and cocaine is done with a gun. I’m not a violent person,” Tovar recalls. “All the smuggling I did was done with diversionary tactics. I’ve still never shot a gun. I’m trying to go all the way.”

When one of his associates was arrested, Tovar knew it was only a matter of time before federal drug agents came to him. It turned out to be years, giving Tovar time to train his proteges Tollett and Van Santen. On March 8, 1991, the feds arrived at his home and arrested him, and he remained in custody until after his trial and the end of his sentence.

Ironically, by the end of 1991, music had shifted in his direction. “Eight months after I went in, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Chili Peppers broke,” he says. “I remember being in prison and saying, ‘Wow, I almost made it.’ It took a long time for enough people to come around.”

He shows no bitterness about spending years in prison for selling something that is now widely and openly available across the state. While in prison in Nevada, he heard about the new festival Goldenvoice was going to host in the desert. Once he returned, he hasn’t missed a single edition of Coachella.

Tovar is now a consultant to Goldenvoice. (The company was eventually sold to AEG in 2001.) He was especially active in last year’s No Values festival, which celebrated generations of punk rock, with the Misfits, Social Distortion, Iggy Pop and dozens more. As an extremely active concertgoer, he has a more informed opinion than most.

Backstage before the Circle Jerks set on Coachella’s opening weekend, a lot of old friends and admirers greet Tovar warmly. Among them is booking agent Andy Somers, who frequently had bands playing Goldenvoice shows in the ‘80s, with a roster that included the Circle Jerks, GBH, Megadeth, the Exploited and Testament.

Somers still has fond memories of Goldenvoice during that early chaotic period. “It was so DIY and so disorganized, with heart in the right place,” Somers says. “That’s what made it work.”

As he gets into a conversation with Tovar, the Goldenvoice founder reminds him that just securing a venue could be difficult at a time when punk was seen by many as the latest threat to society.

“We had to try to look for places to put these bands on,” Tovar says to Somers. “The Circle Jerks had a rowdy crowd. I mean, not anything abnormal. But punk rock back then, it had its exuberance.”

Somers smiles in agreement, and adds, “It was shocking. It scared the mainstream a little bit. You see a mosh pit and you watch it and go, ‘Is that supposed to be fun?’”

Also backstage is Rene Contreras, who books the Sonora stage (which was named by Tovar) and came into the Goldenvoice fold as a next-generation promoter who grew up a SoCal music fanatic. He was in his early 20s when he first met Tovar about 15 years ago, and knew him mainly as another fan he saw at shows everywhere.

“When I didn’t have a car, he used to give me rides to shows,” Contreras says. “It took me a while to unravel his history and legacy that he had in music. He’s out every night. He’ll call me at least three times a week and we talk about shows that are happening, or sometimes he even fills me in: ‘Have you heard of this band?’”

During a seemingly normal school day, Basem (Saleh Bakri), a dedicated West Bank educator with hypnotizing eyes, encourages his student Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri) to get back on track with his studies and to “regain control of his life.” But whatever autonomy the young man can re-assert seems futile in the face of the Israeli occupation that hinders any sense of normalcy. Yacoub’s aspirations for a future have been replaced by anger, all-consuming and warranted after spending two years in prison.

That conflicting, burning sentiment of wishing to move forward despite constantly being reminded that your existence is devalued propels Farah Nabulsi’s feature debut “The Teacher,” even as it occasionally stumbles through its more melodramatic aspects. Nabulsi’s Oscar-nominated 2020 short film “The Present” chronicled a Palestinian father’s negotiation through a dehumanizing Israeli checkpoint along with his young daughter. (Bakri also played the protagonist in that bite-size indictment.)

Within the first few minutes of “The Teacher,” Yacoub winds up dead at the hands of an Israeli settler, leaving his younger teenage brother Adam (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) behind. Yacoub’s defiance seems to transfer directly into Adam, whose worldview has been upended. “The Teacher” was shot on location in the West Bank and the arid landscapes and homes captured by cinematographer Gilles Porte feel true to Palestinian life, making for an arresting visual statement.

Nabulsi, unfortunately, muddles the story with multiple subplots, some inelegant acting and contrived English-language dialogue. There’s Lisa (Imogen Poots), a well meaning NGO worker who becomes romantically involved with Basem, and the Cohens, a Jewish couple whose American-born IDF soldier son has been kidnapped in pursuit of liberating imprisoned Palestinians. Basem is secretly part of this operation.

These add-ons make “The Teacher” unfocused on its way to a larger geopolitical picture. What remains consistent through all the tangents, though, is Bakri’s performance as Basem, radiating a sturdy tranquility, not the kind that comes naturally but an inner peace he forces himself to exude in order to save lives, his own and those of young men like Adam. If he surrenders to the fury that undoubtedly courses through him, then his personal suffering (revealed in flashbacks) would be in vain. The core of “The Teacher” is Basem’s relationship with his pupil, a surrogate child he must protect.

Halfway through the film, Basem and Adam share a grief-stricken embrace after the boy threatens to hurt his brother’s killer. From a wide shot, Nabulsi and editor Mike Pike cut to Adam’s desperate hands on Basem’s back. The intensity with which the teen hugs his teacher, a father figure, helps a viewer comprehend the depth of the sorrow, imbuing “The Teacher” with a moving potency.

But what can you teach someone when their daily reality is so painful? When they must stand simmering in rage as their home is demolished? What purpose can a teacher serve in the face of these agonizing circumstances? Plenty.

That spirit-crushing feeling of powerlessness is what director Nabulsi aims to fend off, admittedly through not always effective narrative means, but with emotional sincerity nonetheless. Basem’s concern is not whether these boys learn a single word of English, but his presence — the everyday reliability that he will be there regardless of how little strength they may have left — is resistance incarnate. Among the ruins, the most important school assignment left is to live despite it all.

Stewart Copeland is best known as one-third of the Police, the chart-topping trio that called it quits after five acclaimed albums released between 1978-1983 and launched Sting to solo stardom.

With the Police, which also included guitarist Andy Summers, out of the picture, the drummer-percussionist changed course and became an in-demand film and TV score composer, working on such notable films as “Rumble Fish” and “Wall Street” as well as TV’s “The Equalizer,” “Dead Like Me” and more.

After a worldwide Police reunion tour, which was the highest-grossing trek in 2007, Copeland again pivoted, scoring live orchestra music for the classic film “Ben-Hur” in 2014.

He later also reimagined the Police catalog with a pair of releases, 2023’s “Police Deranged for Orchestra” and the world music exploration “Police Beyond Borders” with collaborator Ricky Kej, whom he also worked with on the 2021 album “Divine Tides,” which won a Grammy for new age album.

Our chat with Copeland, 72, was originally tied to his speaking tour, “Have I Said Too Much? The Police, Hollywood and Other Adventures,” but the Los Angeles date was scrapped in wake of the Palisades and Altadena wildfires. Ever the raconteur, Copeland is taking the speaking tour to Europe this spring and fall.

He also has a new album, “Wild Concerto,” which is out April 18. We spoke to Copeland, first via Zoom and then a follow-up phone call, about his new project and his busy creative life outside of the Police.

Tell me about your new album. This isn’t the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” or Pink Floyd’s “Animals” with just a few random animal sounds sprinkled in. You seem to be more committed.

Stewart Copeland: Well, yeah, the animals get a much bigger dressing room on this. It’s not just called animal sounds. It is animal sounds.

How did it come about?

Incoming phone call. Platoon Records, which is owned by Apple. They acquired this library from a naturalist, Martyn Stewart, who is like the [British biologist and TV host] David Attenborough of sound. That’s how he’s been described. He spent his life on his hands and knees out in the jungles and in the mountains recording mostly bird sounds, but all these other animals as well. He has this huge library of these sounds and they’re wondering what to do with it. They said, “How about we do some music?” So they called me and said, “Can you work with this?” And I said, “Why yes, I can. Perhaps the reason they called me was because I have been using found sound, beginning with “Rumble Fish,” where Francis [Ford Coppola]’s ears pricked up when I started talking about doing loops with machines, billiard ball breaks, with dogs barking, all kinds of sounds in 1984.”

So how did you compose music using the recordings of animal sounds?

The folders that Martyn would send me were from different locales where the birds might have stopped, ecospheres of these different zones. I’d start with the background sounds, which are just a forest-scape or a wind-scape, and then I would look for the rhythmic elements, certain birds, which are rhythmic, and I’d build rhythms out of that. I didn’t alter any of the sounds. I didn’t change the pitch. I didn’t change the rhythm, but I placed them all very carefully so I build up a rhythm with these rhythm animals, the rhythm section. And then I looked for the long lines, mostly birds, the wolves also have some very long soloistic melodic lines, which are on pitch. But I put a trombone next to those bad boys. And now we’ve got your [John] Coltrane wolves.

Interesting. So, you didn’t autotune any of the animal sounds?

No autotune. No time stretching.

You mentioned “Rumble Fish.” When I put on the album for the first time, I definitely felt those “Rumble Fish” vibes.

Well, that’s all the percussion that I did all by myself here in the studio.

After doing two albums of reinterpretations of music by the Police was back to nature the only place to go from there?

I forgive myself for looking backwards and doing Police stuff because I’m confident in my forward motion. Right now, I’m running a gigantic opera I wrote and this album about animals, so I’m moving forward doing cool stuff, which makes me more relaxed about looking over my shoulder.

It seems like this is sort of a natural progression from your film composing and orchestrated work.

Yes, absolutely. The other love of my life is the orchestra and all the amazing things it can do. The orchestra has such a huge vocabulary. In my short lifespan, I probably won’t do more than scratch the surface of what an orchestra can do, but I’m working on it.

This album was produced by Ricky Kej, who you’ve worked with in the past. What did he bring to the project?

He’s an incredible musician and a great producer and he works way over there in Bangalore. He came to Abbey Road [in London], which is where we recorded the orchestra and produced a session. Having a producer is a very new thing for me. I went through my whole career never having a producer. The Police never had a producer. We just had recording engineers. And so recently I had an experience with a producer and, man, what took me so long? This is great. Somebody else to lean on, to carry the load and to hit me upside the head when I need to be hit upside the head.

But didn’t the Police have producers listed along with the band, like Hugh Padham on “Synchronicity”?

 He was used to producing Genesis and other civilized, well-behaved, respectful musicians not to be stuck on an island with three a— going at it. He did know where to put the microphones while dodging pizza. He did actually get a good recording.  If there was a [more] active producer, he could have helped sort of break up those fights or keep things civil, but maybe not.

Are you still playing polo? [Copeland’s logo on his website is a polo player riding a horse]

 No. I traded all the horses in for children, and they turned out to be even more expensive. I’ve got seven kids, which is more expensive than 12 horses.

Wow. What’s the age spread of your kids?

[Starts to say 50 but slurs his words to make it undecipherable] down to 25. And then I’ve got five grandchildren. When you start lying about your kids’ age you know you’re getting up there.

What was the oldest? I didn’t quite make that out?

[Once again starts saying 50 but slurs his words].

Fifty-something?

Yeah, 50-something. We’ll go with that.

But you still seem young and spry.

 My kids became middle-aged before I became decrepit. I could always outrun, out-climb, out-sport all of my kids. And then I started to get creaky around age 70.

Are any of your kids involved in music or showbiz?

Just one. He’s in London. He’s actually a filmmaker but he has the gift of music. He picks up any instrument and the music just falls out of his fingers. And one of my grandchildren, who is 8. Young Arthur hasn’t got any musical chops, but whenever they come over he goes straight to the grand piano and he’s looking for cool stuff on there. You can see that it’s just there in his DNA.

Demi Moore expected Mikey Madison to win the Academy Award for lead actress, she recently told Time magazine.

“I don’t know why I knew, but I did,” Moore said in the interview. “I was so centered and calm. I didn’t feel gutted. I didn’t feel any of those kinds of things. I just trusted, and am in trust of, whatever is going to unfold.”

An industry veteran, Moore had an impressive awards season run, winning the acting prize at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards for her performance as Elisabeth Sparkle in “The Substance,” a film about an actor filled with so much self-loathing that she takes a drug called “the substance” to create a younger version of herself.

She revealed in her emotional Golden Globe acceptance speech that a producer once called her a “popcorn actress,” which “corroded me over time to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it.”

Despite being the favorite to win (and despite the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ love for a redemption arc), Moore lost to newcomer Madison.

Moore acknowledged she was disappointed, but not hurt, by the loss. In fact, she said that during the commercial break before the award was announced, she whispered to her manager, “I think it’s going to Mikey.”

After the awards show, Moore wrote on Instagram, “As this awards season comes to a close, I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude for this journey. It’s been the ride of a lifetime and we’re just getting started! So grateful for my team, my fellow nominees, and everyone who has made this experience so full of joy and light. … And a huge congratulations to #MikeyMadison — can’t wait to see what you do next ♥️”

For her part, Madison told the Hollywood Reporter that after the awards show, “I texted with Demi, who I adore. She’s one of the sweetest, kindest women I’ve ever met, and I’m so grateful that I was able to meet her and witness her brilliance and talent in person.”

Despite the Oscars snub, Moore told Time that the success of “The Substance” ultimately increased her profile.

“To go from the beginning of this last year feeling like I was never part of the conversation to being acknowledged in a critical way for my work has just allowed me to open up my belief in greater possibilities,” she said.

At the moment, Moore is filming Season 2 of the Paramount+ drama series “Landman.” Her next feature will be Boots Riley’s “I Love Boosters,” also starring Keke Palmer and LaKeith Stanfield.

Gay marriage was illegal when Ang Lee released 1993’s “The Wedding Banquet,” a New York-set romantic dramedy about a queer Taiwanese man, his white male partner and the female Chinese immigrant he marries to placate his conservative parents. But Lee, wise to how the heart stutters, didn’t pander to audiences with bromides like love is love. That small, assured masterpiece (only Lee’s second film) insisted that love is also selfish, hurtful, short-sighted and confusing, and that many of its wounds come from worrying about what outsiders think.

Today, the cultural battle lines have been redrawn, so the director Andrew Ahn (“Spa Night,” “Fire Island”) has rebooted “The Wedding Banquet” with more characters and higher stakes. Teaming up with Lee’s longtime co-writer James Schamus, he’s concocted an out-there plot that’s all complications and little soul.

Instead of one couple, we now have two: boyfriends Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan), and girlfriends Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Lily Gladstone). The foursome lives at Lee’s home in Seattle, with the women in the main house and the lads in a barn-like bunker in the yard. Over the course of the film they’ll fight, kiss and crack jokes, and ultimately walk down the aisle with the wrong person.

Chris and Angela have been codependent chums since college. They hooked up briefly as teenagers, presumably as part of freshman (dis)orientation, although their sexual fluidity is blurry. What’s clear is they’re twin souls, two flip and emotionally risk-adverse forever-children afraid of adulting, as the dialogue’s millennial parlance might put it. Today, each one can legally marry their significant others. They just don’t want to. The blame has shifted from society to personal inertia.

Their respective partners, however, want to settle down. Min, a fabric arts student, already has an engagement ring in his pocket. The scion of a billionaire Korean fashion conglomerate, Min cashes checks from his grandmother, Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-Jung), while dodging her request to take over as its creative director. “You are not working for the company — you are the company,” she insists.

Meanwhile, Lee is an earthy bohemian goddess who spends much of her screen time gardening. (Gladstone’s flowery knitted outfits are a fun contrast to Tran’s Metallica roadie duds — great work across the board by costumer Matthew Simonelli.) An aid-worker for LGBTQ+ youth on a ticking-clock quest to bear children of her own, Lee has endured two wrenching rounds of in vitro fertilization and, just as painfully, her partner’s ambivalence about having kids at all. Angela’s strained relationship with her own mother, May (Joan Chen, diva-fabulous), a showy ally who is closer to her PFLAG buddies, has made her unrehearsed in maternal warmth. The most credibly-written character, Angela is terrified to play mom herself; it’s improv without a net. (One great comic beat comes when May consoles her daughter by cooing that Angela might not be as awful of a mom — she could be worse.)

Min needs a green card. Lee needs cash for a third shot at IVF. Chris and Angela need more runway for their inertia. So Min and Lee brainstorm an unusual proposal: a partner swap that will solve one set of problems while creating a pile-up of others. For reasons too eye-rolling to explain, Min and Angela must marry and commit to the ruse when Ja-Young arrives to investigate whether her grandson’s fiancée is a gold-digger. The four leads are yanked not by their heart strings but by the machinations of a plot that steers them from one contrived scene to another, just so it can point to the skid marks and call them a sketch of the new American family.

In 2025, unlike 1993, Ahn and Schamus don’t take it for granted that foreigners like Min want to live in America at all. “Your trains are so slow!” he groans. Rich, charming and pop star-pretty (his skincare regimen is a playful runner), Min only wants to stay in the states for Chris, which is too much pressure to put on Yang’s callow and underwritten role. Despite those limits, this is one of Yang’s best parts. Now that he’s established himself as larger than life on “Saturday Night Live,” he has the confidence to play a human being.

Han knows he must exaggerate Min’s daffy naivete to get us to buy into his zeal to live in a small shack with noncommittal Chris. He and Chen give the film’s least naturalistic and most delightful performances. (“My own daughter, marrying a man!” Chen’s preening progressive wails despondently.) They’re the only actors who’ve internalized that this is screwball stuff, despite the realistic cinematography that throws wet burlap on the nonsense.

The cast is strong enough to sell us on the movie’s idea of love, even when it bends conventionality into a balloon animal. But its conception of mega-wealth is truly phony. Min’s lack of ego would be unusual if he was merely upper-middle class, but as the sole heir of a lineage that makes headline news, it’s preposterous. I’m not saying that Min has to be a privileged twit. But if he can impulse-buy IVF as casually as a round of beers, then the film has to respect the viewer enough to answer the obvious follow-up questions: How unbalanced is this marriage-for-medical-treatment proposition? If Min is this desperate to escape his grandmother’s fashion business, why does he sew her an impressive jacket for her hanbok? And, at minimum, why can’t the guys rent their own house next door?

The overall tone feels like Ahn asking us to trust him to make this modern romance work. But he hardly includes any of the genuinely true stuff like tough conversations about mistakes and forgiveness. There are no bonding scenes between Min and Angela. These longterm friends suddenly act like the other has cooties. Odder still, Ahn has a too-clever tic of cutting away from big confrontations. It’s as though we’ve been invited into this home only to be ordered to butt out.

When the drama is at its most compelling, the camera instead chooses to focus on Youn’s grandmother staring at the youngsters from a window. The goings-on affect her Ja-Young least of all, but we’re stuck watching her and whatever thoughts she’s too reserved to express. I get that Youn, who won a supporting actress Oscar five years ago for “Minari,” is a lucky talisman. However, the way the film forces her into moments she doesn’t belong in makes her feel like an albatross — especially when it forgets that Gladstone’s Lee exists for an insultingly long stretch and never gives that more central character a chance to speak her peace.

There’s something about the homespun aesthetics, in the gravity of Gladstone and Youn’s expressions — trapped within scenes where the dead air is filled by the sound of birds — that make this good-hearted movie seem embarrassed that it’s a comedy. When the gags arrive, they’re clumsy and desperate: a discordant vomit explosion, some shenanigans at a court house. The humor comes off like a wallflower at a party who is racing with so many awkward thoughts that when it’s finally time to speak, they blurt out something rude.

How strange that everyone involved here loves the 1993 film so much that they’ve remade it — or in Schamus’s case, rewritten it — without much of its cultural and character-driven wit. Ahn gets a couple giggles in his depiction of a hasty, half-baked Korean marriage ceremony with Chris promenading around with a wooden duck and the unlucky couple getting pelted with chestnuts and dates, symbology that no one in attendance totally understands. It’s a neat way to make the point that traditions must be reexamined.

But I still prefer a punchline Ang Lee delivered personally in his original “The Wedding Banquet.” Playing a reception guest surrounded by drunken hijinks, he quips, “You’re witnessing 5,000 years of sexual repression.” Come to think of it, this redo doesn’t even have a banquet. There’s just leftovers.

Amanda Bynes just wants to talk with her fans — at least with the ones willing to pay. The former child actor has joined OnlyFans.

“I’m on onlyfans now!” Bynes wrote in an Instagram story Tuesday. “Disclaimer: I’m doing onlyfans to chat with my fans through dm’s. I won’t be posting any sleazy content. Excited to join.” (Though it has created seven-figure income for some creators, OnlyFans does have a reputation for NSFW content.)

She has set her subscription rate at $50 a month and has yet to post anything on her account.

The 39-year-old, who did Nickelodeon’s “All That” sketch show from 1996 to 2002, has been trying to settle on a future path for a while now after announcing she was retiring from acting in June 2010 and then unannouncing it a week later.

“Being an actress isn’t as fun as it may seem,” said Bynes, then 24, in her retirement announcement. “If I don’t love something anymore, I stop doing it. I don’t love acting anymore, so I’ve stopped doing it.” Upon her return, she said simply, “I’m unretired.”

Soon after that, life began to spiral for the “She’s the Man” star.

Bynes went under conservatorship late in fall 2013, while she was undergoing court-ordered psychiatric care after reportedly starting a small fire in July in the driveway of a Thousand Oaks home.

Prior to that, Bynes had engaged in a range of erratic behavior — including incidents involving alleged hit-and-run and DUI — before she was possibly diagnosed with mental illness in 2014. Her parents said in mid-2013 that she was paranoid, using drugs and had spent $1.2 million in only a few months. Bynes’ attorney denied that the former actor had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

She accused her father of sexual and verbal abuse in October 2014, then recanted her allegations. At the time, mom Lynn Bynes told E! News through her attorney, “It saddens me beyond belief that my husband’s character could be slandered in such a way.”

“My clients are very concerned about their daughter,” Tamar Arminak, Lynn Bynes’ attorney, told ABC News in a statement at the time. “Despite what is being reported, they are doing everything they can to help Amanda.”

Amanda Bynes was soon released from a psychiatric facility where she’d been on involuntary hold and a month later said in a series of tweets, “I’m so mad at my parents. They are with holding my belongings and money from me so I don’t have new clothes or enough money to rent an apartment. We aren’t speaking. So until I get a different conservator ill look terrible because I don’t have enough to get new clothes or anything I need.”

A few weeks later, she apologized through her attorney for saying in leaked recordings that she wanted to kill her parents and burn down her mom’s house.

She has since gotten sober. In 2019, Bynes graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising with an associate’s degree in product management. She got engaged in 2020 to Paul Michael, whom she met in the context of rehab, though they broke up about two years later.

In 2022, she successfully removed herself from that conservatorship, which had control of her estate and her person — i.e. her money and her body — for almost nine years. “In the last several years, I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can live and work independently,” Bynes said in a statement to People, “and I will continue to prioritize my well-being in this next chapter.” She also thanked her attorney and her parents for their help.

However, in 2023 she came into contact with authorities twice. The first time, she was found roaming naked near downtown L.A. and placed on a psychiatric hold. The second time, police responded to a call from a woman in distress who TMZ said was later determined to be Bynes. She was taken in for a mental health evaluation.

Bynes launched a podcast with friend Paul Sieminski later that year, but that ground to a halt after only one episode. A promised reboot never manifested. Then in 2024 she told fans via social media that she had been struggling with depression. A few months later, in October, People reported that she had collaborated with a fashion designer, providing the original art that went on shirts and shorts. The capsule collection sold out.

Now to see if Bynes’ OnlyFans effort is as successful.

“Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s newest film, supposes that music has the power to conjure spirits past, present and evil.

It’s a compelling hook, one that leads the story’s heroes, including Michael B. Jordan (playing twins), Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo and revelatory newcomer Miles Caton, into conflict with bloodsucking creatures of the night but also on a time-tripping tour of American musical history. This is a movie that features legendary bluesman Buddy Guy and, on the soundtrack, banjo evangelist Rhiannon Giddens and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. It’s a movie where music sizzles and wails out of every pore.

In one knockout set piece, Caton — baby-faced but with the time-stained voice of a 60-year-old railroad man — sings a new blues song (“I Lied to You”) at the film’s central juke joint. Positioned behind a gigantic Imax camera (Coogler literally had his hands on the operator’s hips), the director rips a time portal open and whirls through the crowded room where, suddenly, ancient African drummers and dancers share the floor with 1930s plantation workers, a rock guitarist, modern twerkers and DJs alike. The camera, airborne, rushes up through the roof, which bursts into flames.

“We actually lit the s— on fire, bro,” says Coogler, 38, proudly. His cast and crew gathered at the end of principal photography to watch the central building set ablaze for the shot. “It was almost, like, ritualistic.”

In theaters Friday, “Sinners” is the latest lovechild between the writer-director and his longtime music man, Ludwig Göransson, the Oscar-winning composer who previously fused the nostalgic brass heroism of “Rocky” to modern hip-hop in “Creed” and who adapted traditional West African idioms to Marvel-sized blockbuster dimensions in Coogler’s “Black Panther” films. “Sinners” is a culmination of their unique creative partnership, a deeply personal celebration of their shared love of music and of each others’ families.

“Everybody had this sense of urgency,” says Coogler via Zoom from New York, “where we all knew that this might be the last time in our lives where we could make something like this, that requires this much of ourselves.”

The ex-footballer likened it to returning a kickoff and taking advantage of a fleeting hole in the defense. “I felt like that every day on this movie, like there might not ever be a time when Ludwig can just move to another town and uproot his whole family.”

Göransson, 40, is on the Zoom call too, albeit in a different box onscreen. He’s busy finishing up the “Sinners” soundtrack album at Electric Lady Studios. And even though Göransson is a white Swede with Samson locks and Coogler hails from Oakland and has cornrows, they talk with the easy fraternity of two guys who bonded over a mutual love of hip-hop at a pool table in USC’s student housing. Göransson has scored every Coogler picture since his 2009 student film “Locks,” and he never merely varnishes them with music in postproduction — he is truly Coogler’s co-author.

He also is a partner in Coogler’s new production company, Proximity Media. And despite his background — growing up in Linköping, Sweden, in the 1980s — Göransson was practically baptized in American blues music. His father worshipped guitarists from the Delta and even wanted to name his son after the Mississippian Albert King but was outvoted by his wife, who named him after Beethoven.

“I grew up with [my dad] always listening to those guitar heroes, having those records at home,” says Göransson. “He filmed those concerts from the ’70s that he wanted me to watch, with Albert King playing guitar and smoking a pipe onstage in rainy Stockholm.”

Göransson absorbed his dad’s passions and mutated them into a personal obsession with Metallica, an electric descendant of the blues, in the process becoming a guitar player proficient in everything from thrash metal to jazz.

For “Sinners,” Coogler, per usual, started sending Göransson drafts of his ambitious script about two brothers (Jordan, seamlessly doubled) who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi and accidentally attract a trio of vampires. The story was first sparked by his uncle James, a blues-loving man from Mississippi who died when Coogler was in post on “Creed.” Listening to the blues became a way of “conjuring” his uncle, the director says.

After he made “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Coogler was washing dishes one night and listening to “Wang Dang Doodle,” a 1960 blues song about a crazy all-night party with a colorful cast of characters, and lightning struck. Fueled by a lifetime love of horror, the filmmaker developed a plot that resurrected the life force of the early blues scene and merged it with the intriguing possibilities inherent in a vampire’s eternal lifespan.

He was excited that the guitar-shredding Göransson (who has played onstage at Coachella) could finally write a guitar score, and the director even took up the instrument himself while writing his script, receiving riff lessons from his friend.

“If you’ve got the right type environment with the right type of people, you feel immortal,” says Coogler, awed by Göransson’s chops. “I’ve seen Ludwig on guitar, I’ve seen him shred, and I’m like: I don’t know that person.”

There was obviously going to be much source music in the film: blues tunes, Irish folk songs, church music, all of it performed onscreen. It seemed a fairly straightforward task, at first.

They asked Serena Göransson — Ludwig’s wife and a studio violinist whose playing had a starring role in his score for “Oppenheimer” — to produce all of the songs. She took one read of the script and had some direct advice.

“She was like, there’s no way you do this and just go down to New Orleans on weekends,” recalls the composer. “So, yeah, we rented a house, and it turned out that we stayed for three months, and the scope of the project was way bigger than I thought it was going to be.”

The Göranssons set up camp in the heat of a Louisiana summer with their two young children last year. Serena, a classically trained performer who “was taught that all music came from Bach,” says on a separate Zoom call from New York that she recognized that this uniquely southern Black music had to be handled with care and expert consultation.

“I feel like a steward of this project,” she says, “especially with the music. I just feel like it has a life of its own and the right artists are coming in to collaborate with us at the right time.”

They interviewed blues legends and ethnomusicologists, as well as the top singer of traditional Sean-nós vocal music in Ireland. Ludwig Göransson even got to take his father on the blues trail in Memphis as part of a research trip. He co-wrote original songs with Brittany Howard, onetime lead singer of the Alabama Shakes, and Raphael Saadiq, the R&B maestro from Oakland, which became key moments in the plot. He gave Lindo — who plays a scene-stealing old soak nicknamed Delta Slim — piano lessons.

The Göranssons rented a studio (converted from a church) in New Orleans and worked tirelessly with the supporting cast — Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke and Peter Dreimanis as folk-singing vampires, Jayme Lawson as a seductive torch songstress — rehearsing their numbers again and again to the point where, as Serena Göransson says, “you could have woken them up in the middle of the night and they knew these songs like the back of their hands.”

After writing multiple songs and helping with the shoot (including the complex musical choreography of that space-time-shattering set piece), Göransson was now faced with the daunting task of writing a score. Weaving around the many period-rich diegetic songs, he took a 1932 Dobro resonator guitar — the same one that Caton’s character, Sammy, plays in the film — and channeled his father’s blues-loving DNA. Joined by a lyrical harmonica and Caton’s vocals, it’s music that almost lets the audience smell the cotton fields and country roads and smoke-filled hoodoo huts.

Reflecting the historical continuum explored in the story, he then plugged into his Metallica love and wrote gleefully fun, neon power chords for Remmick (O’Connell) and his fanged companions, with drums authentically supplied by Ulrich. The score also cleverly exploits the pipe organ’s dual connotations with religion (Sammy is the son of a pastor) and gothic horror. When the blood really starts hitting the fan, Göransson asked his wife and a string orchestra to help escalate the drama, and he had violins bend notes just like his slide guitar.

“When I hear that last section,” Coogler says, “that’s the one where I’m just like: This is really good, but I don’t know if anybody outside of like me and maybe [my wife] Zinzi know how good this is.”

“I’m Ludwig’s biggest fan who’s, like, not married to him,” Coogler adds, his face beaming while Göransson blushes. The director, whose kids also hung out on set, has known Ludwig and Serena since they met cute at a scoring session in 2008; he officiated their wedding 10 years later. “I love this score because I think it’s infused with his love for music, his love for his dad, his love for his wife, his love for his kids. I can literally feel it in the music.”

The final scene in the film, technically a post-credits scene, was actually the first one shot chronologically. Coogler wanted to show a more recent link to the story’s century-old events, and he really wanted his uncle’s favorite blues musician, Buddy Guy, to be involved. But he quickly learned that Guy, now in his late 80s, hadn’t been to a theater since the “fish movie,” a.k.a. “Jaws,” and he despaired of his chances.

Still, he arranged to go see Guy play in Chicago.

“I get to the show,” says Coogler, “and his whole family is in the backstage room — his grandkids. And they’re like, ‘Oh, cool, we’re going to bring you to see our grandpa.’ And me and Zinzi go in there and sit down, and he’s like, ‘Yo, man.’”

“I’m not a movie guy,” the bluesman said, in Coogler’s retelling of this momentous meeting, “but my kids love your movies and they tell me that I gotta meet with you. So I’m here — whatever you need. You want me to sing? I’ll sing. You want me to act? I’m on for the work. But I got you.”

“I pitched him what the movie was,” Coogler continues, “and he told me his life story about being a sharecropper as a kid and going up to Chicago and trying to learn how to play. I broke down crying, because everything I had just written in the script, this dude lived.”

“Outside of the supernatural stuff,” Coogler clarifies.