EW - January 2022

Return of The Matrix KEANU REEVES & CARRIE-ANNE M O S S reunite for version 4.0 of the blockbuster franchise BY_NICK ROMANO

2022 Preview EXCLUSIVE L OOK S AT

AVATA R 2 HALO JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION AND MORE

B E ST & W O R ST of 2 0 2 1 The

STRONG SEXUAL CONTENT AND LANGUAGE, AND DRUG USE.

Contents

01.22 Keanu Reeves says The Matrix’s impact on his life has been “as big as puberty.”

The Matrix Resurrections

42

Keanu Reeves and CarrieAnne Moss step back into the simulation for the first time in nearly two decades.

BY N I C K R O M A N O

22 Reasons to Get Excited for 2022

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The Outsiders Oral History

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Exclusive looks at Avatar 2, a fresh prince of Bel-Air, Julia Roberts’ new series, Daniel Craig’s Broadway return, Disney World’s new Star Wars experience, and 17 other projects.

BY LY N E T T E R I C E

Ming-Na Wen

O N T H E C OV E R

Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss photographed exclusively for EW by Dan Winters on Nov. 14, 2021, in Los Angeles

SOUND BITES

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REEVES’ STYLING: JEANNE YANG/THE WALL GROUP; HAIR: NINA PASKOWITZ; MAKEUP: GERI OPPENHEIM; SUIT: HERMES; SHIRT: JAMES PERSE; BOOTS: GRENSON; MOSS’ STYLING: SYDNEY LOPEZ/TWO MANAGEMENT; HAIR: SUNNIE BROOK/FORWARD ARTISTS; MAKEUP: PATTI DUBROFF/FORWARD ARTISTS; BLOUSE: ALBERTA FERRETTI; BODYSUIT: WOLFORD; JEANS: LAGENCE; BOOTS: MIISTA; EARRINGS: NOUVEL HERITAGE

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/ W H AT T O WAT C H

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/ BULLSEYE

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/ INTERMISSION

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/ END CREDITS

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The Disney legend shines bright on the Star Wars spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett.

BY D E VA N C O G G A N

Best + Worst of 2021

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From Netflix’s Squid Game to Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, we break down the major gems (and a few clunkers) of the year.

REEVES: JACKET HERMES; SHIRT: JAMES PERSE; MOSS: DRESS: JONATHAN SIMKHAI; EARRINGS: NOUVEL HERITAGE

Director Francis Ford Coppola and stars Ralph Macchio, Leif Garrett, Diane Lane, and others take us inside the making of the ’80s coming-ofage classic.

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2 0 2 1 ’s S H A R P E S T L I N E S

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Sound Bites

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“I doubt the god from space has to take an ibuprofen after a fight.”

—Yelena (Florence Pugh), comparing Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) with her Avengers colleagues, in Black Widow

—Wickie (Renée Elise Goldsberry), confirming her reputation, on Girls5eva

“If you could have a dinner party with anyone, living or dead…”

—Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), giving Greg (Nicholas Braun) the opposite of a pep talk, on Succession

“MOM, THIS IS NOT THE MIDDLE EAST. THINGS ARE COMPLICATED HERE IN AMERICA!” —Chad (Nasim Pedrad), expressing outrage over not getting the new LeBrons, on Chad

2 02 1 ’S S O U N D B I T E S CHAMPION

Ted Lasso With four appearances, you better believe the Emmywinning comedy scored the title of this page’s most quoted series.

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“…Batman and Batman’s parents, just because I feel like Batman would really appreciate that.”

—Arpi (Holly Hunter), playing a game with Jayden (Bobby Moynihan), on Mr. Mayor

“I mean, a murderer probably lives in the building, but I guess old white guys are only afraid of colon cancer and societal change.”

—Mabel (Selena Gomez), learning that her neighbor never locks his door, on Only Murders in the Building

“What have you got to be sad about? Did one of the Paw Patrol dogs die?”

—Roy (Brett Goldstein), attempting to comfort his niece

SUCCESSION: MACALL B. POLAY/HBO; GIRLS5EVA: HEIDI GUTMAN/PEACOCK; BLACK WIDOW: JAY MAIDMENT/MARVEL STUDIOS; MR. MAYOR: NBC (2); CHAD: LIANE HENTSCHER; ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING: CRAIG BLANKENHORN/HULU; TED LASSO: COLIN HUTTON/APPLE (2)

“She’s way out of your league, man.... It’s like a haunted scarecrow asking out Jackie Onassis.”

“THE LABEL DECIDED I WAS DIFFICULT JUST BECAUSE I WOULDN’T LET MY BACKUP SINGERS WEAR MAKEUP AND REFUSED TO PLAY VENUES THAT ALSO DID SPORTS.”

F O R

“THE

Y O U R

C O N S I D E R A T I O N

BEST FILM OF THE YEAR.” AWARDS DAILY

“★★★★★

What Jane Campion and Benedict Cumberbatch have done here is

NOTHING SHORT OF EXTRAORDINARY. Every shot is laden with meaning in a way that is thrillingly uncommon in today’s filmmaking environment.”

THE TIMES

VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

WINNER

BEST DIRECTOR

JANE CAMPION

ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

KIRSTEN DUNST

JESSE PLEMONS

KODI SMIT-MCPHEE

A FILM BY ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER JANE CAMPION

FILM.NETFLIXAWARDS.COM

for your consideration in all categories including

“OLIVIA COLMAN’S MOST COMPLEX and HEARTBREAKING performance in a decade.”

ACADEMY AWARD ® WINNER

OLIVIA COLMAN

DAKOTA JOHNSON

A FILM BY

winner VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL

best screenplay

JESSIE BUCKLE Y

MAGGIE GYLLENHA AL

winner MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL

2021

best ensemble

“A TRIUMPHANT DEBUT for WRITER-DIRECTOR MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL. A masterwork in perception and all that society places upon mothers and motherhood.”

BEST PICTURE

“A MESMERIZINGLY CINEMATIC PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA. A MUST-SEE.”

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Cold Open

Less Than Golden

With the Golden Globes still embroiled in controversy, how will the 2022 honorees handle the unwanted shine?

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JOEY NOLFI

It’s hard to imagine an agent bemoaning the thought of adding a piece of hardware to a client’s mantel in the run-up to the Oscars. But as uncertainty over the Golden Globes’ future interrupts the usual flow of awards season, will the industry—or the audience at home—care if the Globes are permanently knocked from their gilded perch?

“Any nomination from that organization this year is tainted,” a prominent publicity head working with a major studio contender tells EW of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group of mostly international journalists that puts on the Globes, currently mired in an ongoing I L LU ST R ATI ON BY >

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The COLD OPEN

1. Quentin Tarantino, Margot Robbie, and the team from Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood celebrate their 2020 Globes victory 2. Josh Brolin and Timothée Chalamet in Oscar hopeful Dune 3. Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, starring Lady Gaga, is the kind of starry, not-quite-prestige project that normally would benefit from a Globes bounce—but this year, that association could be detrimental

racial-exclusion scandal. In a normal year, the HFPA would bestow its honors at an annual televised ceremony that celebrates boozy spectacle as much as it stokes Oscar buzz. But as another campaign mastermind—whose track record includes hundreds of Academy Award nominations— tells us, this year is different: “You focus on laurels that give pedigree and bring attention in a positive way. Given the conversation right now, [the Globes don’t] feel positive.

[They don’t] feel like forward momentum.”

Rewind to February 2021 when, seven days before NBC’s 78th Golden Globes broadcast, the Los Angeles Times published an exposé revealing that, amid a Best Picture snub for Judas and the Black Messiah, there were no Black members among the HFPA’s 87-member votership. Backlash was swift: A week later, the bicoastal telecast registered record-low ratings (see above right) and a spate of celebrity callouts, from Ava DuVernay and Scarlett Johansson to Tom Cruise, who returned his three Globe statuettes in protest. The network declared it wouldn’t air the Globes in 2022, while a coalition of 102 publicity firms (collectively representing an overwhelming majority of Hollywood talent) pledged to stop working with the HFPA until it took action for equity.

Despite the HFPA’s monthslong work behind the scenes—including the creation of an oversight committee and a partnership with the NAACP—the stain of scandal has yet to fade. Still without a TV partner, the group was set to announce nominees on Dec. 13 and present the awards on Jan. 9, a move our sources call a “hideous” and “poor-form” attempt to dominate the date already occupied by the Critics’ Choice Awards. (In response to EW’s inquiry about the date, HFPA president Helen Hoehne said in a statement: “January 9th was always the intended date of the Golden Globe Awards and the HFPA always planned to recognize the best in film and television this year, as we’ve done for the last 78 years.”)

While no films or actors actually have to be officially submitted for Globes consideration this year due to the HFPA’s decision to lift the entry requirements previously in place, some 8

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DIMINISHING RETURNS

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PAUL DRINKWATER/NBCUNIVERSAL MEDIA, LLC VIA GETTY IMAGES; DUNE: CHIABELLA JAMES/WARNER BROS.; HOUSE OF GUCCI: FABIO LOVINO/METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER PICTURES

With no televised ceremony this year, the Golden Globes’ ratings crash is complete

*MILLIONS OF VIEWERS

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18.3

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studios are going even further and not providing screening links. A top campaign firm also indicated it won’t promote multiple high-profile clients (spanning several studios) to the HFPA over the same period.

“I don’t think anyone would use that kind of nomination in an outward-facing way to promote clients,” says one talent representative currently heading an Oscar bid for a noted actress. “It could have a negative effect.” Our campaign mastermind cited earlier (now coordinating several campaigns) speculates that stars could push back, too.

“Let’s say they give it to a certain actress and she says, ‘Uh, I don’t want it,’ ” the strategist says. Potential nominees could be shamed by the public if they embrace an honor from a group that hasn’t enacted tangible change, which is why any sort of in-person appearance by an honoree seems out of the question: “A celebrity-led event is not the direction we are heading for this year’s program,” says Hoehne.

However, the HFPA’s hunger for maintaining its position as the first major televised awards show of the season is clear. “There’s something about being able to say you’re first, because they can say they’re tastemakers,” continues the mastermind about the Globes’ broadcast in early January, which lands before the Academy unveils its Oscar nominations.

“I don’t think anyone would use that kind of nomination in an outward-facing way to promote clients. It could have a negative effect.”

—A Hollywood talent rep working on a current awards campaign

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2020

2021

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“The power came solely from the broadcast,” says Mary Murphy, a veteran Hollywood journalist and media associate professor at the University of Southern California. “It wasn’t the impact of [the HFPA’s influence in] journalism, it was the impact of the show,” she adds, in that prospective Oscar contenders had a chance to go on stage and accept an award in front of millions of viewers—and voters. It also didn’t hurt that, whether it was host Ricky Gervais roasting attendees with a drink in hand, or Christine Lahti missing her own victory while in the bathroom—the telecast became a mustwatch event for its loosey-goosey nature.

“There were moments in every show that became funny media legends,” says Murphy, “[but] I’m not sure it had any real impact on who won an Oscar.” Still, the Globes telecast traditionally gave a publicity boost to any given campaign—a lift that pulpier, celebrity-driven titles like Lady Gaga’s House of Gucci or the star-studded blockbuster Dune could use on the circuit this year.

That disconnect Murphy cites is clear on the civilian level as well. Brian Kirn, 33, an NYC-based internship and alumni relations manager and movie buff, says he watches the Globes because they’re a “fun part of awards season” and an opportunity for stars to let “their guard down” versus the stuffier Oscars. Alexandria Gonzalez, a 32-year-old lawyer from Austin, agrees, noting that “they need the spectacle” to stay relevant.

As one awards show falls, another rises: Murphy points to the Critics’ Choice Awards—and its more reputable base of more than 500 journalists—as a likely heir to the Globes’ ecosystem, with an upcoming broadcast on The CW and TBS. This, according to the publicity head, is the nail in the HFPA’s coffin: “[The Globes are] a total, absolute nonfactor [this year]. Let’s all draw attention to unsung voices and perspectives [in film and journalism], and not the people who voted The Martian as best comedy.”

Whatever the HFPA ends up doing, the result could be something even worse than industry ire: “I don’t even know if it’s a controversy anymore,” the talent rep says. “It’s just apathy.”

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The COLD OPEN

BY T H E N U M B E RS

THE MOST DRAMATIC BACHELOR STATS YOU WILL READ THIS MONTH

New year, new dude handing out roses! Television’s most successful dating franchise returns to ABC on Jan. 3 with season 26 of The Bachelor. Before beefy Bachelorette reject Clayton Echard greets the first limo full of potential wives, let’s take a moment to swoon over the numerical legacy of The Bachelor’s first 25 seasons. By Kristen Baldwin

My Wildest Day on Set KAITLIN OLSON HAD A SINKING FEELING WHILE FILMING A MONSTER GAG FOR IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA

We shot an episode this season where Dee sinks in a bog, which I was very excited about, because it sounds hilarious. I also knew it was going to be miserable, which most of my hilarious things are.

They built a bog in a swampy area at the Disney ranch and filled it with some material that was supposedly safe. I kept going, ‘What is this made of?’ and they’re like, ‘Don’t worry, it’s organic!’ Great. So, whatever got in every single orifice of my body was organic. It’s the middle of the night, freezing cold, and I have to come out looking like a crazy swamp creature and run off into the woods. I go under, come up, open my eyes, and they fill up.

I can’t see anything, I could barely walk, I half scream my lines. All I’m thinking is, ‘I’m not doing this again, so don’t trip and ruin it.’ Of course I nailed it on that first shot, thank you very much.”

ROSES HANDED OUT DURING S E AS O N S 1 – 25 O F T H E B AC H E LO R

Bachelor couples who got married

673 C O N T E STA N T S

Spinoffs KIDS BORN TO B AC H E LO R COUPLES

Women named OLSON: AMY SUSSMAN/GETTY IMAGES; RUTH: WEINSTEIN COMPANY/EVERETT COLLECTION;

who have appeared on The Bachelor Drinks per hour that contestants are allowed to have

Maximum number of days that you can be in a “monogamous dating relationship” and still apply to be a contestant

AS TOLD TO DEREK LAWRENCE. KAITLIN OLSON STARS ON FXX’S IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA (WHICH IS CURRENTLY AIRING SEASON 15) AND HBO MAX’S HACKS.

T I M E S A WO M A N G OT S O D R U N K S H E H A N D E D H E R PA N T I E S TO T H E B AC H E LO R

P O P C U LT U R E ’S TO P 7 M U STAC H E S

1.

Isaac Washington

THE LOVE BOAT

2.

John Ruth

THE HATEFUL EIGHT

3.

Ron Swanson

PARKS AND RECREATION

4.

Cliff Clavin

CHEERS

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S A M I S L A N D

Ghostface-off The Scream franchise reinvented the horror genre by making audiences jump, laugh, and, well, scream. Ahead of the confusingly titled fifth film, Scream (out Jan. 14), we share our killer rankings. By Derek Lawrence

STA F F POLL

As 2022 nudges 2021 out of the way, we ask ourselves: What’s the best New Year’s Eve/ New Year’s Day-themed song?

5.

Thomas Magnum

MAGNUM, P.I.

6.

CAT E G O RY

“If anyone is listening to Death Cab for Cutie and not crying, I need them to stay far away from me.”

Alexis Wilson, Social Media Editor 18%

SCREAM 2 ( 1 997 )

1 ST P L AC E

SCREAM 3 ( 2 00 0)

2ND P L AC E

SCREAM 4 ( 2 01 1 )

3RD P L AC E

4TH P L AC E

Best Opening Scene Props to Jada for saying, “I read my Entertainment Weekly, okay? I know my s---.”

Coolest Supporting Victims The real hero is whoever cast Hayden Panettiere.

Most Meta Moment

11% 9%

More troubled production: Scream 3 or Stab 3?

Splashiest Slash

“NEW YEAR’S DAY”—TAYLOR SWIFT

Killing off Randy was the real Jamie Kennedy experiment.

“NEW YEAR’S DAY”—U2

A: This sounds like a desperate cry for help from someone who has been personally inundated by streaming services oddly insistent on adding a + sign to the end of their name. But no need to institute a Squid Game-like tournament in which all the streamers face off to the death with your consumer dollars hovering over them in a giant piggy bank, for you can easily watch everything on Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+—all for a total of only $15 or less a month! Just not in the same month. Given that all these content providers allow you to join and quit on a whim, simply institute a rotation and subscribe to one at a time, one month at a time.

That way you can taste-test all the myriad offerings—allowing you to binge every flavor of watercooler content you desire…while having absolutely no idea what anyone at your next cocktail party is talking about because you have two more months until your next hit of Disney+. It’s all a matter of what you crave more: social currency or actual, you know, currency.

SCREAM ( 1 99 6 )

31% 31%

“AULD LANG SYNE”—MARIAH CAREY

DIMENSION FILMS/EVERETT COLLECTION (2); MIRAMAX/EVERETT COLLECTION (2); WASHINGTON: AARON SPELLING PRODUCTIONS/EVERETT COLLECTION

Q: With so many enticing streamingservice options out there, how do I watch all these buzzworthy shows without going broke?

“THE NEW YEAR”—DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE

EW EDITOR DALTON ROSS SOLVES YOUR BIGGEST POP CULTURE DILEMMAS

“THIS WILL BE OUR YEAR”—THE ZOMBIES

ASK DALTON

Lando Calrissian

Killer Twist

Boyfriend, brother, cousin. We’re starting to think Sidney is the problem.

OV E R A L L SCORE

We’re making the call: The original Scream is the bloody best!

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

7.

Snidely Whiplash

THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE AND FRIENDS

The COLD OPEN

First Take ↓ Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal face off

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The Ego Has Landed

Showing off his good humor and sense of self-deprecation, Nicolas Cage goes meta for a role close to his heart in THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT. By Clark Collis

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(Pedro Pascal). “Javi has a wax statue of Nic and you think, Oh, it might be awkward between a film star and a fan,” says Cage.

“But they’re both cinephiles, so they’re having wonderful conversations about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Paddington 2.” The cast also includes Neil Patrick Harris playing Cage’s agent; Sharon Horgan and newcomer Lily Sheen as the actor’s ex-wife and daughter, respectively; and Tiffany Haddish as a CIA agent.

“Tiffany factors into the story

S T U D I O LIONSGATE D A T E APRIL 22, 2022

KATALIN VERMES/LIONSGATE

In the comedy-thriller The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage. Sort of. “It’s an invented version of Nic Cage,” says the Oscar winner, 58. “The character is feeling unfulfilled and contending with the rejection that can happen so often in the small town that is Hollywood. It’s not me.

I’m feeling pretty good about things.” The film’s Nic Cage accepts a million dollars to attend the birthday party of a crime boss and Cage superfan named Javi

once Nic has gotten to Mallorca, where the birthday party takes place,” explains director and cowriter Tom Gormican. “She ropes Nic into a CIA operation and the plot [proceeds] from there.” As he did in 2002’s Adaptation, the real Cage pulls double duty, playing both “Nic” and “Nicky,” a younger, Wild at Heart-era version of the actor and figment of his imagination. “He’s got the lanky long hair, he’s just constantly riding Nic about his career choices,” says Cage. “I wasn’t too excited about the idea of playing myself, but when Tom sent me this script, Nicky reminded me a little of Jerry Lewis’ Buddy Love in The Nutty Professor. I always admired what he did with that movie. For me, Nicky steals the show.”

The COLD OPEN

The Scene

SUCCESSION

THE FASCINATINGLY BIZARRE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOM AND COUSIN GREG WAS TAKEN TO DESTRUCTIVE NEW HEIGHTS COURTESY OF A MANIC CELEBRATION.

BY C L A R K C O L L I S

(2021)

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director did not confer much with Macfadyen prior to the first take.

“It was like not wanting to talk to your pitcher during a no-hitter,” she explains. According to Macfadyen, “Our camera guys followed me a bit, and we worked something out, and then we just went for it.” Scafaria wanted the scene to start quietly, with Tom asking Greg to “scooch over” before suddenly lifting up the desk and sending it crashing to the floor. “It was so fun to turn it up to a 10 in one second,” she says. Macfadyen’s dramatic feat is doubly impressive given that that the actor handled a real—and hefty—piece of furniture time and time again. “We had four

or five takes,” says the actor. “It was very therapeutic.” For Braun, it was pure joy watching his costar jump up on a filing cabinet and beat his chest. “I’m obviously ‘in Greg,’ but it was exciting to see, “Oh, that’s what he’s doing? And I get to respond to this?’ ” he says.

Then there’s the kiss. Scafaria describes Tom smooching Greg as reminiscent of something from The Godfather. “That felt like a big moment for both of them,” she says.

Of course, while Braun’s character may end the scene happy because he is avoiding jail, he is left with a trashed office. “That’s Greg, right?” says Scafaria. “There’s always a little bit of punishment!”

HBO (2)

Waystar Royco executive Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) and his much put-upon subordinate Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun) spent the first half of Succession’s third season terrified by the prospect of going to jail as the result of corporate crimes. When Tom learns in episode 7 that they likely won’t be incarcerated, he celebrates by erupting in the office of “Cousin Greg,” upturning his terrified corporate underling’s desk and shouting with foulmouthed joy before telling his colleague the good news and tenderly kissing him on the forehead.

Director Lorene Scafaria recalls reading the script and feeling “spoiled rotten” that she got to oversee this latest unforgettable chapter in the twisted tale of Tom and Greg.

The sequence was a subject of discussion for days before filming. “We were all probably talking about it too much,” shares Scafaria. “Like, ‘Hey, that scene next week! Can’t wait!’ ” But on the big day, the

The COLD OPEN

The Location

DINNER IN THE VALLEY Studio City’s legendary, long-shuttered Tail o’ the Cock fed celebrities and families from Hollywood’s golden age through the 1970s and ’80s. Director Paul Thomas Anderson and production designer Florencia Martin discuss their pitch-perfect re-creation of the restaurant for LICORICE PIZZA (Dec. 25).

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S E C R ET M E N U “You had prime rib, mashed potatoes, theYorkshire pudding with gravy,” Anderson recalls, “Shirley Temples for the kids.” But for the Licorice Pizza shoot, the vegan director had a food artist fake it: the healthiest food ever served at the Cock. “They had this amazing pork chop that was all vegan but looked exactly like a steak,” Martin remembers.

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DA R K ’ N ’ C O Z Y The original space long gone, Anderson found a similar Valley eatery (also closed) where Martin could go to town, adding carpet, barrel chairs, and real stained glass. “We talked about how in these restaurants, you never knew what time of day it was,” she says. “Paul would tell me stories of him and his sister always falling asleep by the end of the meal.”

T I M E M AC H I N E What was it like for the director being back? “I remember not being as experienced a filmmaker on Boogie Nights and a booth was something that was challenging to shoot in,” Anderson says. “And now it’s like an old friend. I know just what to do with it.

And the answer is yes, before you even ask: At the end of each day, would we have cocktails? Yes.”

LICORICE PIZZA: FLORENCIA MARTIN; PENN AND HAIM: FOCUS FEATURES

FA M I LY N I G H T “It looms very large in my memories,” says Anderson of the classic redbooth restaurant with “incredible atmosphere” where he would sometimes be taken as a child. “A lot of the animators from Hanna-Barbera would spend time at Tail o’ the Cock, people who did voice-overs. My dad did voice-overs— that was what he did for a living.”

Licorice Pizza

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STRENGTH MEDICINE

DAILY SUPPLEMENT

TO ENERGIZE & REPLENISH*

NIGHTLY SUPPLEMENT

TO REST & REPLENISH* *

MAX

STRENGTH MEDICINE

THESE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT BEEN EVALUATED BY THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. THIS PRODUCT IS NOT INTENDED TO DIAGNOSE, TREAT, CURE OR PREVENT ANY DISEASE. READ EACH LABEL. USE AS DIRECTED. SUPER C IS NOT INTENDED TO TREAT COLD OR FLU.

The COLD OPEN

BY > MARY SOLLOSI

The Look

Something Wicked

I N J O E L C O E N ’S T H E T R AG E DY O F M AC B E T H (OUT DEC. 25 AND ON APPLE TV+ JAN. 14), DENZEL WASHINGTON AND FRANCES M C D O R M A N D A R E R U T H L E S S LY S T Y L I S H A S S H A K E S P E A R E ’S S C O T T I S H L O R D A N D L A DY

THE SHAPE OF THINGS

S E E I N G STA R S

Designing for black and white meant costume designer and regular Coen collaborator Mary Zophres relied on texture rather than color to create depth.

As Macbeth ascends, “we move into [materials] that are more reflective and have a sheen,” she explains.

This kingly cape, dotted with stars, was made in a fabric from Valentino (whose creative director, Pierpaolo Piccioli, is a friend of McDormand’s) and chosen in part to mirror one of the film’s shots of the night sky.

In their early discussions about the look of the film, Coen showed Zophres a collection of photos, primarily of architecture. “There were archways and colonnades and stairwells and steps,” she remembers. “It was all very linear, graphic, architectural, geometric.”

She created the costumes with that sensibility in mind. This cloak of Lady Macbeth’s, masterfully draped and tailored to McDormand in a textured wool, was designed to “encase her in her clothing, almost constrain her in some way.”

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KNIGHT LIFE

Not limited by strict historical accuracy in Coen’s slightly surreal world, Zophres reimagined medieval armor for soldiers like Corey Hawkins’ Macduff. “The ‘knight in shining armor’ didn’t feel right,” so Zophres used leather for its “organic feel.” Weaving and aging strips of the material created a new texture, for which she was inspired by images of China’s Terracotta Army.

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH/APPLE (3)

“Joel wanted Fran to look more beautiful than she’s ever looked in a movie before,” Zophres says. So she designed one silhouette to suit McDormand—a fitted bodice atop an A-line skirt—then used it for all of the female characters. Lady Macbeth’s style evolves not in shape but in textiles; for her increasingly elaborate embellishments, like the featherprint trim on this formal gown, “we chose motifs that were historically relevant in Scotland.”

Explore. Discover. Adorn.

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Pop Culture of My Life

WIEST: SERGE NIVELLE; THE HONEYMOONERS: EVERETT COLLECTION; HANNAH AND HER SISTERS: ORION PICTURES/PHOTOFEST; THE CHAIR: ELIZA MORSE/NETFLIX; DOG: COURTESY OF DIANNE WIEST

DIANNE WIEST

The two-time Oscar winner plays a prison teacher on the Paramount+ drama Mayor of Kingstown. So we asked her to instruct us on her pop culture inspirations. BY LY N E T T E R I C E Favorite childhood movie I cried my way through Bambi so they had to take me out of the theater. All the great Disney movies. And Dumbo!

They are heartbreaking, but they are so brilliant. The first one I could actually sit through was Cinderella.

Favorite prison movie 13th [the 2016 doc from Ava DuVernay]. When I was working in L.A., I got involved with the women’s prison system with a wonderful woman, Romarilyn Ralston, who had been in prison for 23 years.

That’s one of the things that attracted me to this series. It takes place [around] prisons.

Her defining movie role Hannah and Her Sisters (2).

After that, I could get work. Before that, it was a lot of waitressing.

The moment she knew she could act Well, I still don’t. I’m being serious. I’m not 100 percent sure I could act to this day.

It’s really touch and go with me. Talk to anybody. They will tell you that. “Sometimes she can act,” they’d say.

REFERENCES

The COLD OPEN

1

The first actor who inspired her When I was little, we had a black-and-white TV. It was a new thing, man. We would sit around and on would come Jackie Gleason (1).

When you talk about entertainment, he’s just timeless.

2

A classic TV show or book she’s embarrassed to admit that she never watched or read I just saw House of Cards a month ago. My dear friends who tolerate me would say, “Where were you?” But a lot of things get in the way. Like, I don’t know how to operate the TV really well. Now I’m

3

getting really good at the computer. This is where I’m doing all my binging. And the book I’m ashamed I’ve never read is Moby-Dick. I don’t know what my problem was.

It’s so incredibly wonderful.

And no, she hasn’t seen the Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode (3) when Detective Boyle says he caught a Wiest infection One of my daughters keeps saying, “Watch it! Watch it!’’ I can’t tell you how many memories it brings back of people making fun of my last name, like “Go Wiest, young man” and “What you do to me, you do to the Wiest of men.” It got really bad.

TV show she wishes she was a part of The Chair (4) on Netflix. Oh my gosh, it’s so wonderful.

I really would have loved to be a part of that. It’s got to come back for a second season, doesn’t it?

What keeps her sane My dear dog Milo (5). He’s a rescue from Alabama. I also have a cockatiel named Henrietta and they have races in the house. That wakes me up in the morning.

4

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CONTENTS >

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C U LT U R E

C LOS E U P ↓ The Lost Daughter / Cobra Kai / Snail Mail / Jami Attenberg and Bernardine Evaristo

↑ All the Lost Daughter ladies (clockwise from top left): Maggie Gyllenhaal, Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Dagmara Domińczyk, and Jessie Buckley

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAI LENNARD

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↑ Back in black: the cast of The Lost Daughter

BY >

LEAH GREENBL AT T

Maggie, is it true that you first wanted to adapt a different Elena Ferrante book?

Maggie Gyllenhaal I had read the Neapol-

itan novels, which were already being made into an HBO series. And I had 28

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THE LOST DAUGHTER: YANNIS DRAKOULIDIS/NETFLIX

The Lost Daughter Sex, motherhood, identity: It’s all in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s powerhouse directing debut, a tricky psychological stunner set on a remote Greek island

“Oh, I love my women,” Maggie Gyllenhaal sighs on a blindingly bright September day in a hotel suite high above Central Park, throwing her arms around her Lost Daughter cast.

The film, led by Oscar winner Olivia Colman as a middle-aged academic reckoning with a buried past and messy present while vacationing alone in the Mediterranean, doesn’t land on Netflix until Dec. 31, but its female stars were more than ready to sound off on self-love, finding paradise mid-pandemic, and livin’ on a prayer.

reached out to the publishers about The Days of Abandonment, which is brilliant.

They said it had already been made into a film in Italy, but would I consider this one? I read The Lost Daughter in a weekend and I thought, “Yes, I would consider this one.” [Laughs] And Elena—of course I don’t know her, she’s anonymous, so we’ve only communicated over email— she said, “If you don’t direct it, this contract is void.” Which was really a vote of confidence that I think I needed.

And when you started dream-casting, was this group here already on your list?

Gyllenhaal Um. [Pause] Hmmm.

Olivia Colman Well this is awkward, isn’t

it? [Everyone laughs.]

Dakota Johnson “I have to say yes now.”

Gyllenhaal It’s funny, actually. I always had Dagmara [Domińczyk] in mind, we’d worked together before. And Olivia, I was like, “What’s the worst that could happen? I’ll ask, and if she says no I’ll just be disappointed.” But I had this feeling....

Colman I just remember you and I got pissed in New York. I knew it would be fine when in the middle of the day I said, “Shall we have a glass of something?” and you went “Yeah!” And then we were both drunk for the rest of the day.

Gyllenhaal But you said yes, so I didn’t care! And we talked about Jessie [Buckley]. And then Dakota and I had lunch, and two seconds in we were talking about the very deepest, darkest things.

Johnson I was in London directing a music video when I got the [offer] from Maggie, and I just started crying.

Gyllenhaal I don’t know if you can tell, but we’re actually all in love with each other.

↓ Hat trick: Colman and Johnson

It’s pretty powerful, the way Lost looks at the conflicts and complications of motherhood. Did it make you reframe the way you think about your own moms at all?

Jessie Buckley I think it made me reframe

more what being a woman is. You’re going to change and have different needs, and this is really giving permission for us to have a life with all of it, not just the image of what it means to be a mother or a daughter or a wife or a dreamer or somebody who wants something.... I genuinely feel, because of Maggie and this story, that I grew into my being as a woman in this. That sounds stupid, but it has.

Dagmara Domińczyk The idea of a “bad mom” I feel is so passé. There is no singular path to motherhood. We are made of ugly, nasty stuff sometimes because we’re human. As a mother you carry around a knot, a pit in your stomach knowing that something could go wrong, and if it does, you’re going to fix it. And sometimes you just want to [mimes screaming].

But then there’s this joy and beauty and magic and life is a miracle. That’s what I love about the way Maggie adapted the novel and what it’s saying.

Gyllenhaal Yes, we love [these characters], even with aspects of them being ugly and perverse and broken.

And shooting it all on this tiny Greek island was a last-minute pandemic pivot, right?

Gyllenhaal Yeah, originally it was an

American woman in an unnamed Eastern Seaboard town, a cotton-candy-andlobster-rolls-type vibe. We wanted to shoot in New Jersey—impossible during the pandemic. Then we thought Nova Scotia. They didn’t want us. And then one day, “Oh, how about Greece?”

Greece! What a hardship.

Colman Yes, a horrible time. Horrible.

[Laughs] The whole island was a bubble, and all the islanders were our [extras].

So when we weren’t filming, you’d go to any shop and they would be like, “Hi, I was in your film! Hi!” It was amazing.

Buckley And swimming after we’d wrap!

Gyllenhaal Me and Jessie just kept finding each other after work in the ocean.

Johnson I had the worst time afterward.

Like Jessie said, I think for me as well there was an ascension that happened in

my feminine consciousness, like a discovery of new pathways for me. It was just so special. And when I got home I was like, “Wait, hold on. What is this life?

I have to do what? Traffic? What is that?”

I love the movie’s take on how women tend to crush out on each other, platonically.

Colman Big time.

Domińczyk Maggie was like the great note

whisperer—she’d come up right before a shot and be like, “Okay, Dag, you’re in this scene. You want to prove that you want to be friends with [Olivia’s character] and you want to charm her. Also, you had great sex last night but you didn’t eat and you’re constipated. Go.” [Laughs] Johnson She’d say amazing things in your ear and you’re just, like, tripping out. I got “starving, thirsty” a lot.

Buckley Such a good note! “Ravished.”

You have some great men on board too: Ed Harris, Normal People’s Paul Mescal, Maggie’s husband, Peter Sarsgaard. Were they all cool with the fact that they’re definitely not the center of the story?

Gyllenhaal Well, I don’t think any of the

actors I wanted would have wanted to come be a cardboard cutout—like Peter doesn’t have a huge part, but I think it’s a pretty compelling one. Or it would be to me. So yeah, I hope that they felt like they had a meal when they were there.

Domińczyk You’re hungry.

Buckley It’s always about food! [Laughs] There’s also a great Bon Jovi moment.

Was it hard to get those song rights?

Gyllenhaal I mean, we had no money. It

was like a gift. I basically said, “Olivia Colman is going to dance and sing to ‘Livin’ on a Prayer.’ Wouldn’t you like to see that?” And he said yes.

So, how about a reunion project then?

Colman We could just do this every year.

On an island where we can swim.

Gyllenhaal No, no. I think we should come up with something new.

Johnson The Lost Daughter in space!

Shooting space stuff is tricky. You might have to ask Elon Musk to borrow a rocket.

Colman Well, I’m available for that.

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↑ Jon Bernthal’s Rick Macci (left) makes a point

looking for. I don’t think they saw much of the Punisher in Rick Macci.

But Rei [director Reinaldo Marcus Green] and I immediately connected.

You’ve got a very distinctive look in the film. We’re being kind. Every time

I walked out of my trailer with my short-shorts and my bowl cut and my mustache, the girls [Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton, who play Venus and Serena] just doubled over laughing.

They weren’t laughing with me, they were laughing at me.

Did you have to learn to play tennis?

I trained [as a coach] at the Tennis Academy in Ojai for three or four hours a day, six days a week. It wasn’t just learning the game—I got to coach nationally ranked young women and go through the whole process of tournaments.

BY >

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CLARK COLLIS

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Former Walking Dead star Jon Bernthal, 45, has played a host of tough guys in films like Baby Driver, as well as Netflix’s Punisher series. But he’s ready to show a softer side—if a demanding tennis coach can be called soft—as the real-life Rick Macci, famous mentor of Venus and Serena Williams, in King Richard. The fall MVP can also be seen in the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark and opposite Sandra Bullock in The Unforgivable (on Netflix Dec. 10).

Why did you want to play Rick Macci?

I’m a dad and an ex-athlete. I felt this was a meditation on parenthood and both the beauty and toxicity of sports. I don’t think I was what they were

dent in New York, The Sopranos was everything to me. I begged my agents to be a background actor. I never got my chance. My biggest takeaway from the movie is my relationship with Michael Gandolfini [James’ son, who played the young Tony]. He’s got a friend for life now.

You’re well-known for deeply researching your roles. So did you work in a fish factory for your part in The Unforgivable?

I spent a number of days [there]. My character drives a forklift, so I had to go get a forklift license. Really all I do in the movie is drive back and forth, but I can do a lot with a forklift now!

BERNTHAL: AUSTIN HARGRAVE/AUGUST; KING RICHARD: CHIABELLA JAMES/WARNER BROS.

Bern Notice After going mano a mano with zombies and supervillains, Jon Bernthal is ready to shake up his own reputation with a season of deeper dramas

You played Tony Soprano’s father, Johnny, in The Many Saints of Newark.

What was that like? As an acting stu-

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T H E C LOS E U P

The Silver Fox Returns The Cobra Kai team and actor Thomas Ian Griffith preview how Karate Kid Part III villain Terry Silver will bring the pain—and the ponytail—in season 4.

BY >

KRISTEN BALDWIN

↑ The way of the fist: Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith, right) offers his old buddy John Kreese (Martin Kove) a knuckle sandwich

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place for his over-the-top ’80s villain in the modern-day sequel series.

Even when the call came from Cobra Kai creators/executive producers Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, Griffith was so busy with his day job—writing scripts with his wife, Mary Page Keller—that he didn’t think much of it. “We had a deadline at Warner Bros., and we were under pressure,” he recalls. “It was like, ‘Okay, I’ll take this

call and we’ll think about it [later].’ ” But by the end of that hour-long conversation, Griffith knew it was time for Terry Silver to bring the pain in season 4 (Dec. 31 on Netflix). “They answered the question that I had: What has this guy been up to for the last 30 years?” he says.

As a lifelong student of martial arts, Griffith was able to jump back into Silver’s karate gi with relative ease. And thanks to the pandemic, his hair was

NETFLIX

Thomas Ian Griffith hadn’t thought much about Terry Silver—the maniacally giddy, ponytailed toxic-waste magnate who spent a ridiculous amount of time terrorizing young Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) in 1989’s The Karate Kid Part III—for quite a while. Then came the premiere of Cobra Kai in 2018, and while Griffith found the show “charming and smart,” he figured there was no

The Ends of the Earth On HBO Max’s Station Eleven, Gael García Bernal and Danielle Deadwyler find love in a hopeless place

COBRA KAI: NETFLIX; STATION ELEVEN: SANDY MORRIS/HBO MAX

↑ Here comes the son: Anthony LaRusso (Griffin Santopietro) visits Miyagi-Do with dad Daniel (Ralph Macchio)

already long enough to pull into a ponytail when production began in Atlanta in early 2021. Well, almost long enough.

“Hayden was obsessed: ‘Make sure that ponytail is as long [as it was in the film],’ ” says Griffith. “So they had to add a little [hair extension] piece to make sure.”

Season 3 of the Emmy-nominated Netflix comedy ended exactly as fans hoped it would, with sinister Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove) calling in Silver to help win the All Valley Karate Tournament. What viewers may not expect is how Silver—who pledged fealty to Kreese after he saved his life in Vietnam—initially reacts to that call from his former Army captain when season 4 begins. “Everyone’s expectation when they see that call is like, ‘Holy s---, Terry Silver’s back and he’s about to cause mayhem!’ ” says Hurwitz. “We took a different approach.” Griffith teases that the onetime CEO of DynaTox Industries “has been living a very full life” since we last saw him.

Silver’s arrival is one of many challenges facing Daniel and his new ally Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) this season. The former rivals have joined forces to defeat Cobra Kai, but their very different teaching styles—as well as their divergent ideas about masculinity—will not mesh easily. “They are opposites, and we take full advantage of that,” says Schlossberg. “We play it for

goose bumps, for laughs, and for tension.” Both men are plagued by parental issues: Johnny’s son, Robby (Tanner Buchanan), is in thrall to Kreese, while Daniel’s son, Anthony (Griffin Santopietro)—who was MIA for most of season 3—finally gets a story line of his own. “He’s the entitled, spoiled Encino brat, whereas Daniel was always the underdog,” says Hurwitz. Daniel and his wife, Amanda (Courtney Henggeler), will grapple with “the challenges of raising children with an element of privilege that they didn’t have [growing up].”

Anthony will cross paths with Kenny (Dallas Dupree Young), one of several new characters joining the Cobra Kai universe. “Dallas and Oona O’Brien, who plays Devon, are two of our significant additions,” says Heald. “They start off innocent to the karate war that’s been building for three seasons, and they have distinct journeys that take them into the heart of what makes this show so tense, so exciting, so hilarious.”

Tense, exciting, hilarious—with an unhinged sadist like Terry Silver back in the Valley, things are bound to be all three. “[Something] we’ve kept alive with Terry is that glee he has. He actually enjoys this,” says Griffith. “He’s this billionaire who will have all this [other stuff ] going on, and he’ll go back to the little world of a karate tournament in the Valley. It’s so absurd that it’s fantastic.”

Station Eleven is a creation story inside of a creation story. The new streaming drama follows an attempt to rebuild society after a deadly flu destroys the world as we know it. And, through flashbacks, it also traces the romantic backstory of Arthur Leander (Gael García Bernal), an actor starring in a production of King Lear when the sickness descends, and Miranda Carroll (Danielle Deadwyler), who writes a graphic novel that proves pivotal to the after-times.

“There’s a mythological feeling to their relationship,” Bernal tells EW on the set of the 10-episode limited series. “They’re together for a higher reason that even they don’t know about.” Though the actors didn’t meet until they signed on to the adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, Deadwyler says their bond helped bring levity to the ominous material: “We’re telling a love story in the middle of the apocalypse—there has to be some comfort.” — S E I J A R A N K I N REPORTING BY > DAVID CANFIELD

↓ Danielle Deadwyler and Gael García Bernal in Station Eleven

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Play It by Ear Fortnite concerts, TikTok routines, virtual merch— videogames are influencing the world of music more than ever. But is that really a good thing for fans?

BY >

EMMA MADDEN

Joel Zimmerman lives his life as an avatar—known to millions as the masked electronic musician and producer deadmau5. But after becoming a playable figure in DJ Hero 2, a Family Guy videogame, and even something called Goat Simulator, he wanted to break the rope line between fan and artist even further. In the early 2010s, the former programmer and 3-D animator began livestreaming to his fan base, encouraging them to co-create alongside him. “The music and videogame industries have been progressing in their lanes in parallel,” he says. “But now we’re starting to see these intersecting points, which has been exciting for me.”

While compelling for artists looking to connect with fans, that intersection is also a crossroads, transforming what used to be solely labors of love—fan art, or a dance routine inspired by your favorite song—into a lucrative revenue stream that many now consider imperative to the success of an artist’s product.

Travis Scott spearheaded the mainstream adoption of immersive digital experiences when he was joined by an audience of 27.7 million for his virtual concert on the gaming platform Fortnite in April 2020. A year and a half later, deadmau5 went several steps further and unveiled Oberhasli, his own constantly evolving virtual world, filled with Easter-egg-laden games, music, and interactive content he curated himself. Hosted on a game development platform named Core, Oberhasli is an example of what’s buzzily referred to as a “metaverse,” an immersive digital environment that largely relies on usergenerated content. In a trajectory no doubt fueled by a global pandemic that 34

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I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y R U N E F I S K E R

↑ Top Producer

LIL NAS X: ROBLOX; SNAIL MAIL: GRAYSON VAUGHAN

deadmau5 soars through Oberhasli, a platform dedicated to his music and art

Bottom New Town Road: Lil Nas X(’s avatar) stomps his way through a Roblox concert

left much of the population wary of gathering in groups larger than their own household, Core and its ilk are fast becoming the primary engine for the convergence of the music and gaming industries.

In July, deadmau5 asked Core’s users to create worlds inside the platform that could be included in the music video for his new single “When the Summer Dies,” incentivizing them with cash prizes and merch. “Typically, it takes months and hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of dollars to make a music video,” the musician said in a press release when releasing the final product in September.

“In this case, we were able to pull

together a video with stunning 3-D worlds in just a couple of months.”

Asked now if he considers it ethical to request free labor from fans in order to save time and money on production, he likens the dynamic to an unpaid internship. “I’ve spent years not getting paid f--- all and honing my craft, learning my tools,” he says, “which then put me in a position where someone noticed and said, ‘You should get paid for this.’ I wouldn’t just hire someone off the street.”

And if you aren’t looking for an internship, maybe you want a T-shirt... not for you, but for your online avatar.

Lil Nas X has sold around $10 million in digital merch after a 2020 performance on Roblox, a metaverse that’s become a kind of virtual after-school club with around 40 to 50 million daily active users—all familiar with the idea of executing what’s known in gaming as a “micro transaction.”

Paying for a shirt in pixel form may seem absurd to some, but a recent Deloitte survey found that 87 percent of Gen-Z identify as weekly gamers.

There’s a whole new generation for whom virtual socialization has become as important as real-life experiences, and metaverses provide them with the chance to align themselves with their favorite artists. “Young people have such a community and rich social lives online, and I wanted to be a part of that,” says Swedish pop singer Zara Larsson, who hosted her album launch party on Roblox last May. “It was a totally new experience and a different way to connect with people.”

Industry insiders believe metaverses— followed by whatever innovation is around the corner—will soon be more popular than TikTok and Instagram.

And with artists as big as Justin Bieber performing on platforms like Wave, they may be right. But will in-person concerts truly become a thing of the past?

While fans likely felt parasocially closer to Larsson as they ambled toward her enormous avatar, the singer admits she left her virtual event feeling removed from the typical fan-artist relationship: “I can imagine it’s amazing for them, but there is nothing like seeing your fans in front of you at a concert.”

3

QUESTIONS WITH

SNAIL MAIL

We’ve fallen hard for the 22-year-old indie wunderkind’s new album, Valentine.

By Jason Lamphier 1. You’ve definitely expanded your palette on Valentine. It must be exciting to present it to the world. Totally. I took a lot of time to step away from the record and really think about what I was doing—to sit with my intuition. I didn’t put anything into the mix until I was like, “This is really good.”

2. What song on it do you think most shows your growth as a musician? “Forever (Sailing).” I was really stretching my brain to figure out how to make yacht rock. I’ve never tried anything like that. I wanted to make a song out of this sample from “You and I” by Madleen Kane, a Swedish disco star. I eventually did, but not before I ran out of studio time. So I recorded most of it—the vocals, the layering and harmonies, the guitar—in my apartment by myself. I was just freestyling. I was like, What the f--- is going on?

3. Oh God, you ran out of studio time? Yeah. I could’ve gotten more, but I just wanted to get the record done. It was about to get pushed to February, and I just couldn’t have that. I was like, “I’m bored. I’ve got to finish this right now.”

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T H E C LOS E U P

The Conversation Authors Jami Attenberg and Bernardine Evaristo, both of whom have penned memoirs chronicling the grit behind their seemingly glamorous careers, discuss success and shame BY >

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Bernardine, we’ll start with you since Manifesto: On Never Giving Up is already out in the U.K. What is it like to promote such a personal work?

Bernardine Evaristo I’ve written a lot of

nonfiction, but it’s never been work that I revisited, so this is all new territory for me. When I won the Booker Prize two years ago, I found that it freed me from caring what people thought, and I began talking about myself a lot more. Then I decided to write this book, and I find it all to be easier than discussing my fiction; it’s my life, and my choice to tell it.

Jami Attenberg I thought I would feel that exact same way. I just turned 50 and I felt ready to accept myself, put [I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home] out there, and not care what happens. But I’m feeling a little vulnerable right now. I’m trying to focus on my intention, which from the beginning was to tell a story about being a writer I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y N A D Z E YA M A K E Y E V A

and being a woman, and to do it while being inventive and playful with form.

Bernardine, you sound so much more confident than I do. It’s so exhilarating.

Evaristo I was a very private person for most of my life, and I quite liked that.

But in the writing, I tried to avoid the mistake, which can be easy in a memoir, of presenting myself as an angelic person. I had to take responsibility for my choices. I see a lot of parallels in our stories: both of us struggling for a long time and not coming from privilege.

As you reflect on your success in the memoirs, how do you define it? What markers are important to you?

Attenberg I felt successful once I didn’t

have to have a day job anymore. That took up until my fourth book [The Middlesteins]; the month before it came out [in 2012] I was still working for an advertising agency. I had this really mean boss who would comment on whether I was smiling when he would walk by my desk. I was like, please let this book be the one. I’m 40 years old, I can’t have someone comment on my facial expression for the rest of my life.

Evaristo For me, the writing itself is a reward, but you also need a readership.

I became really ambitious about my writing in my 30s, and it was my goal to sell millions of copies of my books. I wanted to win the Booker Prize. Everything changed for me after I won, and I’m so grateful for it, but now the question is, how do you sustain it?

Attenberg You write a best-selling memoir. Ride that rocket, baby.

to it and say, “See, we knew you were writing about yourself.” This false equivalency has always bothered me. It can feel as if they’re saying I don’t have a good imagination.

Attenberg We work so hard to make our art, and it’s supposed to be taken as art.

I want people to appreciate that more.

Evaristo The impetus to write about our own lives is also about reshaping our public image, isn’t it? I think the impulse comes after we have a degree of this thing we call success. I never wanted to write a memoir until the Booker, and then I wanted people to know about the journey I’d taken to reach this point. I also wanted my story, as a Black British woman, specifically, to be out there.

Attenberg When I read your book, I thought, “Oh, she should definitely write a memoir.”

Is there anything in your books that makes you nervous?

Attenberg I’ve been told by my female

memoirist friends that the criticism is different for women than for men, and if there’s any sex or unconventional life choices in it, then you’re opening yourself up to even more judgment.

Evaristo You wrote about—I can’t

remember how you phrased it—but [it was about] having lots of lovers. And until I was married, I did too. I am a bit of a contradiction, because I knew I was going to acknowledge that in the book, but I also didn’t want people to start saying I’d slept around. I don’t like when things become part of the context of who I am. Male rock stars are celebrated for things like that, but we don’t have that liberty as women, do we?

Attenberg No, we don’t. But I couldn’t pretend to be anything other than what I am. My sexuality is a part of me. I wish I still had as much fun as I used to. I was writing this book and thinking, “Damn it, I used to have a good time.”

Has examining your own lives changed what you want to write in the future?

Attenberg I usually write stories that

take place in one setting, but I really enjoyed spanning time and location, and I didn’t want to lose that. My next book takes place over five decades.

Evaristo I’m always going to be exploring the African diaspora, but what I’d really like to do is write into the future.

It would be new territory for me, and I think it sounds really exciting.

A lot of times readers, or critics, can project authors onto their characters; does that happen to you, and do you think your memoirs will correct that narrative?

Evaristo The only book I’ve written

that is even partly autobiographical is my second, Lara, which is a fictionalized version of my family history. With my last, Girl, Woman, Other, there’s a character loosely based on my younger self—but the other 12 protagonists and all the sub-characters are creations.

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Broccoli?

What broccoli?

© 2021 Kraft Foods

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Entertainment-inspired eats & treats

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Yum’s the Word 2021’s entertainment slate was a feast for the eyes—and the palette. Here, our favorite pop culture culinary moments of the year.

1. F9 Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) believes in five things above all else: family, fast cars, saying the word “family,” Coronas, and film-ending barbecues. F9 continued those traditions, concluding with a highly emotional scene— namely a Han (Sung Kang) reunion and the empty seat left for Brian (the late Paul Walker), whose car pulls up in the final moment. If only tuna was on the menu! — D E R E K L AW R E N C E 2. Hacks While Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) is elbow-deep in a Pyro Pizza crust, she

manages to impart essential wisdom to her overly skeptical assistant Ava (Hannah Einbinder): “A gig’s a gig, honey.” But the $100K and some stock don’t hurt, either. — S E I J A R A N K I N 3. Only Murders in the Building Dimas Deli dips for dinner! On the Hulu show, Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) confesses that he hasn’t had a “regular entrée” for years, and it shows—in his receding hairline, that is—but we love him all the same. — S R 4. Malcolm & Marie After a triumphant movie premiere,

up-and-coming filmmaker Malcolm (John David Washington) and his girlfriend Marie (Zendaya) launch into an exhausting, pretentious all-night argument. One thing they can agree on? The unrelenting need for some midnight mac and cheese—boxed, of course. — M A RY S O L LO S I 5. In the Heights Abuela Claudia’s (Olga Merediz, reprising her role from the stage musical) authentic—and eye-popping— Cuban feast of ensalada de papa, arroz con pollo, ropa vieja, pernil, and a glistening flan gets just 10 seconds of screen time, but each frame makes you salivate. — R U T H K I N A N E 6. Luca When two Vespa-obsessed young sea monsters posing as human boys taste pasta for the first time, they are immediately infatuated (who wouldn’t be?). It may be computer-animated, but we wouldn’t say no to a bowl of that trenette al pesto, either. — M S

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In Pedro Almodóvar’s new film (out Dec. 24), Penélope Cruz’s cooking is almost as captivating as her acting—especially in a pivotal kitchen scene in which she makes a classic Spanish tortilla. Here’s how you can re-create the dish at home.

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shaking the skillet often to prevent sticking, until the bottom begins to brown.

8. Slide the omelet onto a

add salt. Add the potatoes and onions and press down until completely covered by the egg mixture. Let sit for 15 minutes.

plate, cover with a second plate, and turn over. Heat the remaining 1 tsp. of oil in the same skillet over high heat to the smoking point.

Reduce heat to medium and slide the omelet back into the skillet. Cook, shaking constantly, until the bottom is browned, using the back of a spatula to neatly tuck in the edges.

Continue cooking until set in the center but still slightly juicy within.

6. Heat 3 tsp. of the

9. Serve hot or at room

Ingredients 1 cup olive oil, for frying 4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into ⅛-inch slices 1 large onion, thinly sliced 4 large eggs Kosher or sea salt

↑ Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit in Parallel Mothers

of potatoes and onions.

Season with salt.

Tortilla de Patata a la Española 1. Heat the oil in an 8- or

2. Add the potatoes and

onions one slice at a time to prevent them from sticking, alternating layers

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ally, until the potatoes are tender but not browned, about 20 minutes.

4. Using a slotted spoon,

transfer the potatoes and onions to a colander and let them drain. Reserve 4 tsp. of oil and wipe out the skillet.

5. In a large bowl, beat the

eggs lightly with a fork and

reserved oil in the same skillet over high heat until it reaches the smoking point. Quickly pour in the potato-and-egg mixture and distribute evenly.

7. Reduce the heat to

medium high and cook,

temperature. If serving as a tapa, cut into 1-inch squares that can be picked up with a toothpick. r e c i p e e x c e r p t e d f r o m 1,000 spanish

recipes by penelope casas. © 2014

by penelope casas. reprinted by permission of mariner books, an imprint of harpercollins llc. all rights reserved.

IGLESIAS MÁS/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

9-inch skillet over medium heat; drop in a potato slice, and if it sizzles, it’s hot enough.

3. Cook, turning occasion-

BREW UP SOME PASSION Want to brew better tea? Start with TAZO Passion. This caffeine-free blend combines crisp, delicious flavors of hibiscus, orange peel and lemongrass for a flavor so good, just one sip will have you head over heels. (Don’t say we didn’t warn you.)

DECADES AFTER THE MATRIX CHANGED MOVIES FOREVER, KEANU REEVES AND CARRIE-ANNE MOSS JACK IN FOR THE YEAR’S MOST TIMELY SEQUEL BY_ _NICK ROMANO @NickARomano PHOTOGRAPHS BY_ _DAN WINTERS

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Profound personal change has always been central to the Matrix universe. The Wachowskis came out as trans and underwent gender reassignment surgery in the years since the first two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both hit theaters in 2003. This awakening may have been an unspoken part of The Matrix since the beginning; Reeves remembers an early draft of the original script that featured a character who entered the Matrix world as a different sex. “I think the studio wasn’t ready for that,” he says.

__ “TECHNOLOGY HAS paradoxically brought us closer together while also isolating or inculcating us from each other,” Lana Wachowski, 56, writes to EW. (In a very Matrix-like move, the director did not sit for an interview, preferring to communicate via email.) “The power of technology to trap or limit our subjective reality was an important part of the new narrative for Matrix Resurrections.” She explains that “the story [for Resurrections] exploded rather fully formed” from her mind. Neo and Trinity are seemingly alive and well, but their minds are locked away inside the Matrix, which has become more dangerous. They have no apparent memory of their past, yet Neo is haunted by it. He sees flashes of what transpired in the previous films in his dreams, in what he thinks is everyday life.

That life now includes Bugs (Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Jessica Henwick), a blue-haired gunslinger with a white rabbit tattoo. When she crosses Neo’s path, we get more clues about just why Lana felt so compelled to return to The Matrix. (There’s also a quite meta treatment of that very question in the film.)

“Art is a mirror,” Wachowski writes. “Most will prefer to gaze at the surface but there will be people like me who enjoy what lies behind the looking glass. I made this movie for them.”

Henwick, 29, promises “a new tone” and “a new look” that makes

(PHOTO SHOOT) REEVES STYLING: JEANNE YANG/ THE WALL GROUP; HAIR: NINA PASKOWITZ; MAKEUP: GERI OPPENHEIM; JACKET: HERMES; SHIRT: JAMES PERSE; MOSS STYLING: SYDNEY LOPEZ/ TWO MANAGEMENT; HAIR: SUNNIE BROOK/FORWARD ARTISTS; MAKEUP: PATTI DUBROFF/FORWARD ARTISTS; DRESS: JONATHAN SIMKHAI; EARRINGS: NOUVEL HERITAGE; SET DESIGN: ED MURPHY

KEANU REEVES is jet-lagged. The 57-year-old Hollywood lifer has just arrived in Los Angeles after a flight from Jordan, where he was filming the fourth John Wick, a punishing franchise not exactly known for its leisurely pace. He hasn’t been home in eight months, but instead of sleeping it off, he’s at a photo shoot. Fatigue sets in. He buries his eyes in his palms, trying to rub life back into his strained pupils after the continuous pop, pop, pop of the camera’s flash.

Getting his picture taken doesn’t rank high on Reeves’ list of favorite things. It never has. But he looks up and smiles when a pair of comforting hands rest on his shoulders: They belong to Carrie-Anne Moss, his longtime costar from the Matrix movies, positioning herself behind him for the shot. There’s an ease between them that comes from 20-plus years of friendship—a friendship that began in the late ’90s when the pair met on the genre-redefining sci-fi film that turned out to be so influential, it single-handedly introduced phrases like “glitch in the Matrix” and “red-pilling” to the pop culture lexicon.

Moss calls their connection effortless. “We’ve been through this experience together as partners,” says the actress, 54. “The only way I can describe it is like a soul friendship.” Their unique bond made 1999’s The Matrix what it is today, and The Matrix, in turn, changed the course of moviemaking on the eve of a new millennium.

That first film, inspired by then-geekier genres like cyberpunk and anime, envisioned a grim future in which our world, unbeknownst to us, had been taken over by machines: Using a simulated reality, artificial intelligence keeps humans docile enough to harvest for energy. At the center of this brainy high concept was Reeves’ Neo, a bored office worker moonlighting as a computer hacker who escapes the simulation, and Moss’ Trinity, a woman from the real world with the ability to jack into the Matrix— not to mention a talent for executing gravity-defying combat moves while clad in slick black leather.

After all these years, neither star would’ve guessed that they’d be back together talking about yet another sequel, The Matrix Resurrections, which lands in theaters and on HBO Max Dec. 22.

How could they? Sibling directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski, the architects of the franchise, were firm in their resolve that the first three installments would serve as a complete trilogy, definitively ending in 2003 with The Matrix Revolutions...and (two-decadeold spoiler alert!) with both Neo and Trinity dying at the end.

When asked why he agreed to return to the series after a nearly two-decade hiatus, Reeves offers a very simple explanation: “We had filmmakers who you wanted to say yes to,” he says. Plus, he adds, “[we had] material that you wanted to commit to, to give everything that you could to.”

The actual journey to Resurrections, however, was a little more complicated than that. At a Berlin screenwriting panel back in September, Lana said that every year, Warner Bros. would ask her and Lilly to make another Matrix movie, but they always declined. In 2017, screenwriter Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand, The Avengers) revealed that he was working on undisclosed Matrix projects without the involvement of the Wachowskis, who had stepped away from feature filmmaking after the disastrous reception to 2015’s Jupiter Ascending. Lilly told The Hollywood Reporter in 2020 that corporate interference on her films pushed her to a “breaking point.” Instead of continuing her collaboration with Lana, she said that she needed to “reconnect” with herself as an artist by going back to school and working on other projects.

For Lana, it was a series of tragic, life-altering events that eventually changed her mind: the death of her parents and a close friend. “I didn’t really know how to process that kind of grief,” she said at the Berlin panel. “I hadn’t experienced it that closely.” The Matrix’s characters gave her comfort: “I couldn’t have my mom and dad, yet suddenly I had Neo and Trinity, arguably the two most important characters in my life.”

STUNT COORDINATOR SCOTT ROGERS RESTAGES A CLASSIC TRINITY MOMENT FOR MATRIX RESURRECTIONS

RECALLING THE SHOTS ––

TRINITY 2.0 ––

Partly a meditation on nostalgia and memory, Matrix Resurrections deploys classic scenes with a twist. For one, Rogers re-created Trinity’s iconic opening chase from the first film. “We already had the blueprint,” he says.

“It had to be similar [enough to recognize] but a little bit different.”

Actress Ellen Hollman (Spartacus) transformed herself into an alternate Trinity for this sequence, even executing the classic wall-running and midair karate kicks clad in a similar black jumpsuit. “She was really gung ho,” Rogers says.

“She put on that outfit and you’re like, ‘Oh s---!’ ”

Resurrections more vibrant and “joyous.” Reeves, too, was “struck by how much humor is in it”—but that doesn’t mean Neo will be cracking quips like Tony Stark. “It’s throwing down the Matrix gauntlet again; it’s super smart, clever, entertaining, suspenseful, and funny,” he says. Adds Watchmen and Candyman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, 35, who plays Morpheus, a different version of Neo’s mentor originated by Laurence Fishburne: “Out of all of the sci-fi things that I’ve done, Matrix is the one that is the most grounded in reality, ironically. There are all of the high concepts surrounding The Matrix within our story, but really there’s so much heart and humanity that’s driving this narrative.”

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METHOD TO THE MADNESS ––

Yes, the film’s stunts have “all this craziness,” Rogers explains, but it’s all in service of the story. Director Lana Wachowski “is very definitive in what she wants,” he says, including how this Trinity remix plays into the narrative.

“How you get there,” though, “might be an interesting journey.”

Emphasis on heart. “Not that it needed it,” says Reeves, “but certainly the depth of why this film got made is the sense of it being a love story between Trinity and Neo.” It was Lana’s deep connection to the characters that resonated with her stars. Reeves remembers the conversation when Lana first told him about her idea for another sequel. “It was one of those phone calls where even though you’re at home, you stand up,” he says.

For her part, Moss saw the new movie as a rare “opportunity to embody” Lana’s love. “I’ve never felt that way before, where I could see that I am an extension of her heart in playing this role,” she says. Adds Jonathan Groff (Frozen, Hamilton), 36, who plays a suit who might be more than he appears to be: “When I read the script for this movie I cried, because the idea of watching these two iconic actors in these two iconic parts coming back and fighting to have their love again just wrecked me.”

__ IN THE 22 YEARS since The Matrix first hit theaters, audie n c e s h a v e n e v e r st o p p e d wrestling with its themes— about breaking free from oppressive systems and opening one’s mind to hidden truths.

(See sidebar on page 48.) Still, one thing that everyone can agree on is the revolutionary influence the series has had on sci-fi tropes, particularly when it comes to action scenes, and Resurrections doesn’t disappoint.

Filming began in February 2020, and the various cloak-anddagger attempts to keep one of the most anticipated productions in years a secret didn’t quite work out: Bystanders

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS: MURRAY CLOSE/WARNER BROS. (4)

leaked on social media a scene that was shot in San Francisco in which Reeves and Moss stand at the edge of a building more than 40 floors high, swarmed by missile-launching helicopters, with no choice but to jump. According to stunt coordinator Scott Rogers, who also worked with Reeves on the third and fourth installments of John Wick, Lana saw this sequence as a metaphor for the whole movie. “For her, the studio, the actors, everybody,” he says, “you’re taking this leap of faith.” Counters Reeves: “We have an incredible filmmaker, a visionary, these amazing roles with the kind of storytelling and ideas and promotion of thought.

A leap of faith? We have a lot of faith in that leap.”

Moss says she had “a lot of obstacles to overcome” before she was able to do the scene. She sat down at a table with her husband before the shoot to discuss it. “He’s like, ‘You really gonna do this?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know how I’m going to get there, but I know I’m going to get there.’ ” “If we’re there, it’s not a stunt,” jokes Reeves, meaning the stunt pros are the ones who actually do the dangerous stuff. “But Scott set up a situation where we could do it. So, we did.” Moss acknowledges how her physical capabilities have changed from 20 years ago when she was filming close-quarter combat scenes with more ease. It was about “respecting that time has passed, that my body’s had three children,” she says. “But I also enjoyed that challenge.”

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1_ _ Keanu Reeves (right) goes aerial against Jonathan Groff in an epic (and epically dusty) fight scene

2_ _ From left, a tech-clad Toby Onwumere, Eréndira Ibarra, Yahya AbdulMateen II, and Jessica Henwick crew up

3_ _ AbdulMateen becomes a new iteration of Morpheus to reintroduce the red-pill/bluepill conundrum

4_ _ Director Lana Wachowski goes back inside The Matrix: “Making art, for me, is always a delicate balance of courage and vulnerability.”

THERE ARE AS MANY INTERPRETATIONS AS THERE ARE CLONES OF SMITH. HERE ARE JUST A FEW.

Henwick had her own leap of faith to take. Best known for playing Nymeria Sand on Game of Thrones and Colleen Wing on Iron Fist, she was up for a role in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings at the same time she was up for the role of Bugs. Both Disney and Warner Bros. knew about the other offer and gave her an ultimatum: She could audition for their movie only if she forfeited the competing project. Neither role was guaranteed. “It was a red-pill/blue-pill moment for me,” she says.

Henwick sees Bugs as “the audience’s eyes” into Resurrections, which is how one might look at all of the actors new to The Matrix. Abdul-Mateen credits Reeves for “pushing us and setting the standard” for the work. Groff concurs. “[Keanu] taught me so much about the agreement of two people to hit each other, but not hurt each other,” the Broadway-trained actor says. “When our fight was over, I felt deeply connected to him in a physical way.” It’s not lost on Groff, who came out publicly as gay in

CHAD EDUCATION -Chad Stahelski has cemented a place for himself in Matrix lore: Best known for directing Keanu Reeves in the John Wick movies, the filmmaker got his start as a stunt performer, including gigs as Reeves’ double in the original Matrix trilogy. “He’s a legendary stuntman,” the star says. Now Stahelski has a small but notable role in Resurrections. Full circle? “A beautiful road,” says Reeves.

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS: MURRAY CLOSE/WARNER BROS.; REEVES: JACKET: DRIES VAN NOTEN; SHIRT: ETON; MOSS: BOTTEGA VENETA SWEATER, PANTS AND EARRINGS

-Ever since The Matrix first dazzled crowds in March 1999, audiences, critics, and even doctoral candidates have interpreted the meaning of the film in wildly differing ways. Trans people responded to the movie’s allegory about coming to terms with one’s true identity through a gendered lens—a reading that Lilly Wachowski, who came out as trans in 2016, said was always the intent.

Meanwhile, conservatives coopted the iconic red-pill-vs.-blue-pill scene as a metaphor for political truth. Republican talking head Candace Owens has a Red Pill Black YouTube channel, while a Fox News op-ed on Kanye West’s endorsement of Donald Trump asked: “What happens when a hip-hop icon takes the red pill and dares to challenge liberals?”

Still others dove into the film as an existential treatise on selfhood and overreliance on technology.

Says Resurrections director Lana Wachowski: “I’m not interested in controlling people’s experiences or interpretations. I’m grateful that people have taken the work seriously enough to engage in philosophical dialogue with the film and each other.”

For Resurrections actress Jessica Henwick, it’s always been about choice. “We’re in a place where every single news outlet is going to fall [onto] one side of the political spectrum. You are actively making a choice when you go to that site.

Nothing is impartial anymore.”

Star Carrie-Anne Moss says her experience on The Matrix made her examine the very concept of reality. “Who are we, if we’re not all the labels that we put on ourselves at a soul level?” she asks.

As Neo would say: “Whoa.”

↑_ _ Trinity (Moss) and Neo (Reeves) ride again, thanks to Wachowski (far left)

2009, that he’s involved in such an action-heavy movie when queer people have not largely been welcomed into that space. That’s another testament to Wachowski, who brought back many crew members from Sense8, a series that prominently featured LGBTQ stories, while welcoming new faces into her creative family.

To the two actors who know her best, Lana felt like a different director in some ways. Reeves remembers that on the original trilogy, she was “more behind the monitor” but “still hands-on.” With Resurrections, “she was participating more with the movement of the camera, and more interested in doing than rehearsing.” It was less about prep and more about everyone’s readiness to find the unexpected in the moment.

Reeves confesses they “ barely rehearsed, if at all.”

In other ways, working on Resurrections was like reuniting with an old friend. Once Lana called “Action!” Moss says she went right back to where she was with Reeves in the original movie. “Most of my scenes are with Keanu, and it was just a pleasure to sit across from him and do that again,” she says, as she and Reeves sit side by side in matching director’s chairs. “He has a masterful understanding of action.

I’ve watched him grow in the last 20 years. I’m in awe of it.”

Reeves shakes his head back and forth as she speaks, silently protesting. “But you’ve got a flavor,” he responds. “It’s Trinity! It’s CarrieAnne Moss, Trinity flavor. All the fierceness and mind, focus, commitment is there in the gestures.

Untamed and wild and controlled.”

After all these years, it’s still a flavor we can’t get enough of.

Before Moss and Reeves change into their next outfits for the photo shoot, they slip away, catching up on each other’s lives since making Resurrections. They push through the studio’s back exit, flooding the darkened room with afternoon sunshine. Fans of the films might immediately think of the door of light, a portal Neo would use to slip into the digital “backdoor” of the Matrix. But that’s not quite it.

“They’re taking a cigarette break,” a crew member says. In this universe, even the most casual of exits looks cool.

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Reasons to Get Excited for

From Avatar to Zeta-Jones, we’ve got exclusive looks at some of the biggest entertainment coming this year—including a fresh prince of Bel-Air, Julia Roberts back on TV, and a new Star Wars experience.

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20TH CENTURY STUDIOS

James Cameron returns to Pandora with the long-awaited (and awaited and awaited) Avatar sequel, combining innovative performancecapture and his lifelong love for the ocean. By Devan Coggan

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What do you do after making the world’s highestgrossing movie of all time, shattering the record you yourself had set more than a decade earlier? If you’re James Cameron, you take a breath and then dive headfirst into the deep end—literally. After topping the box office with 2009’s Avatar, his

fantastic tropical saga of blue-skinned aliens and environmental messaging, the director vowed to return with not one but four planned sequels. He decided the first of these (in theaters Dec. 16) would be set primarily underwater, requiring years of technological research and months of training actors to hold their breath for lengths that would impress even a Navy SEAL. Now Cameron is finally ready to welcome

audiences back to Pandora with an ambitious aquatic marvel that’s been a literal decade in the making.

“It sounds kind of nuts, the process,” Cameron, 67, admits with a laugh. “I mean, if Avatar hadn’t made so much damn money, we’d never do this— because it’s kind of crazy.”

Listening to the filmmaker describe Avatar 2’s journey makes “kind of crazy” sound like an understatement. Cameron began planning the sequel by himself in 2012, bringing in a writ↑ ing team in 2013 who This Avatar 2 helped outline four stoconcept art introduces ries that would stretch the Metkayina reef people across Pandora’s diverse EW. C O M

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geography and continue the first film’s tale of man versus nature. Filming on Avatar 2 (official title has yet to be announced) started in 2017, with a story set about 14 years after the original: Former human soldier Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have settled down and started a family, and much of the film centers on their preteen offspring.

“Ultimately, the sequels are a story about family, and the lengths parents will go through to keep that family together and keep them safe,” producer Jon Landau explains. “I always say that Jim’s movies have universal themes—and really, there’s no more universal theme than family.”

Both Avatar 2 and 3 are mostly set in and around the ocean, introducing a new clan of reefdwelling Na’vi called the Metkayina. Landau describes the new tropical beaches and shores of Pandora as a seaside paradise: “Bora Bora on steroids.” If the first film was all about the rain forest, with its cautionary tale about deforestation, the new entries are a love letter to Cameron’s first fascination, the sea. The Titanic director has long advocated for ocean conservation, and he completed a record-breaking journey to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 2012. “I do the ocean thing when I’m not making movies,” he says. “So if I could combine my two greatest loves—one of which is ocean exploration; the other, feature filmmaking—why wouldn’t I?” But setting a story below sea level presents more than a few challenges. The innovative performancecapture process designed for the first Avatar wasn’t intended to work underwater, so Cameron and his team had to engineer a way to accurately record the actors’ tiniest movements and expressions while submerged. That footage was then animated by artists at the multi-Oscar-winning visual-effects company Weta Digital. Much of the performancecapture filming took place in a 900,000-gallon tank (built specifically for the sequels), which could mimic the ocean’s swirling currents and crashing waves. “My colleagues within the production really lobbied heavily for us to do it ‘dry for wet,’ hanging people on wires,” Cameron notes. “I said, ‘It’s not going to work. It’s not going to look real.’ I even let them run a test, where we captured dry for wet, and then we captured in water, a crude level of our inwater capture. And it wasn’t even close.”

Many of the cast members prepared for the plunge by getting scuba-certified, culminating in a field trip to dive with manta rays in Hawaii. But when it came to filming, air bubbles and scuba technology would have interfered with the performance-capture process—so each actor had to train with professional divers until they could free dive, holding their breath for minutes at a time. Cameron says 72-year-old Sigourney Weaver, who’s returning in a top secret new role after dying in the first film, could easily hold her breath for six and a half minutes, while new cast member Kate Winslet “blew everybody away when she did a seven-and-a-half-minute breath hold.” Avatar 2 marks a reunion between Cameron and his Titanic

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1. For the complicated performance-capture scenes, James Cameron hired experts in underwater dance and gymnastics.

“Scuba bubbles would create too much noise in our performancecapture system,” the director says.

“So no matter how long the scene took, if it took two, three, four [minutes] to shoot, everybody was holding their breath.”

2. Cameron (right) chats with young actor Jack Champion (center), who plays Spider, a human teenager born on Pandora. “Here you’ve got a 14-year-old kid that we taught not only to scuba dive but to dive in a full-face breathing mask—and to act in it,” Cameron says. “He did a spectacular job.”

3. Emmy winner Edie Falco joins the cast as General Ardmore, a highranking member of the human military organization RDA (which clashed with the native Na’vi in the first movie).

“It looks like we’re in a sub, but it’s really the flight deck of a dragon gunship, which is an aircraft we saw in the first movie,” Cameron says.

Working with water is always a challenge. It’s all insanely complicated to do something that looks obvious.”

JAMES CAMERON

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star Winslet; here, the 46-year-old Oscar and Emmy winner plays one of the Metkayina, a mysterious character named Ronal.

“One of my favorite memories was we had this circular tank, maybe 40 feet wide, with a big glass portal in it. I walked by one day and I see Kate Winslet walking on the bottom of the tank,” Landau recalls. “She’s walking towards me and sees me in the window, and she just waves, gets to the end of the wall, turns around, and walks all the way back.”

The first film was no small task, taking more than a decade to make it to the screen after Cameron first dreamed up the idea. But Cameron and Landau say their goal for the sequels was to aim higher—and dive deeper. Principal photography has already wrapped on Avatar 3 (due in 2024), and Weta has begun early postproduction on some scenes. The fourth and fifth movies are currently set for 2026 and 2028. “What we are doing now, from a story standpoint and a world standpoint, is on a much larger scale,” Landau says. “That’s both exciting and challenging. We are putting much more detail, first and foremost, into the performances of the cast, but we’re [also] putting much more detail and diversity into the world that we are creating.”

Still, while a series of big-budget sequels to the highest-grossing movie ever made may seem like a slam dunk, Cameron notes that the theatrical landscape has shifted wildly since the first Avatar hit theaters. In 2009, Netflix streaming was just starting to gain popularity, Blockbuster hadn’t yet declared bankruptcy, and original Avatar studio 20th Century Fox was still years away from being absorbed by Disney. In a new era of superheroes and streamers, Cameron hopes—13 years later—that audiences will still connect with his vision of distant planets and adventure. After all, in 2019 Avengers: Endgame surpassed Avatar as the biggest movie of all time—but Avatar snatched its crown back after a China rerelease in early 2021, setting a new record with an all-time haul of $2.847 billion worldwide (besting Endgame by almost $50 million).

“The big issue is: Are we going to make any damn money?” Cameron says of his planned sequels. “Big, expensive films have got to make a lot of money.

We’re in a new world post-COVID, post-streaming.

Maybe those [box office] numbers will never be seen again. Who knows? It’s all a big roll of the dice.”

But hey, if you want to make a big splash, you can’t be afraid to get your feet wet.

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year ago. I didn’t have a label or managers at the time, so I got together with a bunch of my friends from the scene and just started writing. I didn’t have a plan. The album just came together—and because it was so organic and fun, that energy really comes across in the body of work.

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POP-PUNK’S PRINCESS RECLAIMS HER CROWN Two decades after getting “Complicated,” Avril Lavigne says she will release her (currently untitled) seventh album “at the top of the year.” By Sydney Bucksbaum

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crazy. [Laughs] How did that happen?

I’m really stoked about the new music.

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last album [2019’s Head Above Water] was deep and heavy. I was just like, “Let’s make a pop-punk record.” We didn’t hold back, and I got to do exactly what I’d wanted to do for a long time. I was just like, “F--- this.” It’s fast. It’s fun. It’s just pure rock & roll from front to back. There’s a lot of reflecting upon different relationships that I have gone through, and I’m in such a good place in my life, so it’s feisty and light. I’m kind of poking fun at myself—that I’ve gone through a lot in love. It’s about valuing yourself and knowing you’re enough.

It’s really a love letter to women.

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You were a big part of the early-2000s pop-punk explosion. Why do you think we’re seeing the genre’s resurgence now? It’s like a soundtrack to our

youth. On my record, I’m working with bands that have been around for a while, and then also artists that are having their big moment now. There’s so many cool, different collaborations that bridge the gap from then to now.

At 37, you somehow still look and sound the same as you did 20 years ago… [Laughs] Thank you! It’s

really funny, people say that. I don’t know if there's a secret. I mean, I’ve always been an organic eater.

But on the other hand, I’m a beer drinker. [Laughs] I just keep a really good balance in my life. But that’s also because I’m a Libra.

More for the Music Lover Mitski, Laurel Hell

Charli XCX, Crash

For her sixth album, the singer-songwriter adds some synth-pop but keeps the gut-wrenching lyricism. (2/4)

If “New Shapes,” the slinky latest offering from Crash, is any indication, expect this album to be on our Best of 2022 list. (3/18)

Dua Lipa, Future Nostalgia Tour

Jack White, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive

The pop star finally gets to take her acclaimed 2020 disco-revival record on the road. (2/9–4/1)

Two Jack White albums in one year? We’re shakin’.

(Dawn, 4/8; Alive, 7/22)

Don’t Worry Darling (9/23) “Olivia Wilde directing Harry Styles, Florence Pugh, and Chris Pine? Not worried.” — S H A N A N AO M I K R O C H M A L

When did you first start working on this album? A

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that. The people I worked with really understood me and that genre—John Feldmann is the lead singer of Goldfinger, and Travis Barker is from Blink. Sometimes you get put with these professional songwriters and they’re not even cool—and these are the people that are cool. They’re authentic, they come from the punk scene. I felt like I was back in high school hanging out with people I grew up with. It was effortless.

Bel-Air’s Fresh Prince

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Yo, holmes, back to Bel-Air! Inspired by a viral video, original Fresh Prince star Will Smith executive-produces a new Peacock drama series (Feb. 13) that crowns a new star. By Derek Lawrence

BEL-AIR: PEACOCK (2)

Now this is a story all about how The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air got flipped, turned upside down. In 2019, Kansas City filmmaker Morgan Cooper set YouTube ablaze with “Bel-Air,” a fourminute trailer imagining what the ’90s sitcom would be like set in the present.

The gritty, realistic take immediately caught the eye of the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith. Just one day after the video dropped, Smith summoned Cooper for a meeting that eventually led to a new streaming series, simply titled Bel-Air. “They’re two different takes on these characters,” Cooper says of how his Peacock reimagining varies from the NBC series that

inspired it. “You can’t make Fresh Prince again. What they did is beyond words.”

Bel-Air will be a different take, perhaps, but the one-hour drama does keep the original premise: Troubled Philadelphia teen Will is sent to California to live with his wealthy relatives, the Banks family. (No word yet on this Carlton’s affinity for Tom Jones). After struggling through a few iterations in search of the right tone, the creative team—including co-showrunners T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson—landed on “showing the full spectrum of the Black experience in America, and not saying one is more authentic than the other,” explains Brady. Adds Newson:

“You can have this Black family that has struggles, but you never doubt that they love each other—and that there can be conflict that’s organic without being too sensational or dark.”

Though there was debate over the tone, everyone agrees that the most crucial element was finding the new Will. And somehow they found him in the perfect place, and with the perfect last name. “I remember watching The Fresh Prince and realizing what TV was for the first time. Like, ‘Oh, this is entertainment!’ ” recalls Philadelphia native Jabari Banks, who says he repeatedly watched—and often fall asleep to—last year’s Fresh Prince reunion during the casting process, which included 10 auditions.

Like Smith before him, Banks comes in with minimal professional acting experience, having booked the role fresh out of theater school. That initially prompted conversations about whether such a high-profile project should be put on the shoulders of a newcomer—but Banks couldn’t be denied. “His charisma and his spark just ↑ Jabari Banks as Will and radiated off of him,” Jordan L. Jones Brady says. “Upon as Jazz viewing the first cut of ← “People the pilot, every single always told me I resembled Will person has said, ‘You and his energy,” guys found a star.’ ” says Banks

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CHIWETEL EJIOFOR FALLS TO EARTH Here are three questions we have about the new TV adaptation of The Man Who Fell to Earth (landing on Showtime this spring). By Tyler Aquilina

How do you follow David Bowie?

Based on Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel, The Man Who Fell to Earth first beamed onto screens as a 1976 movie starring the music legend.

His uncanny performance “wasn’t something to play around with lightly. The hubris of even choosing to do that could take you down,” says Alex Kurtzman, who serves as co-showrunner with Jenny Lumet and John Hlavin on this series, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as “an entirely different character with an entirely different story.”

What happens when this guy falls to Earth?

Ejiofor’s solitary alien arrives looking specifically for a human scientist played

by Naomie Harris. “She has such extraordinary ability inside of her,” says Kurtzman, “but is afraid to engage with the part of herself that can make the world better.”

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After binging HBO Max’s adaptation of her novel Station Eleven, Mandelheads won’t wait long for the author’s next project. Here, an excerpt from her timetraveling Sea of Tranquility (April 5). By Seija Rankin

The first stop on the book tour was New York City, where Olive did signing events at two bookstores and then found an hour to walk in Central Park before the bookseller dinner. The Sheep Meadow at twilight: silvery light, wet leaves on the grass. The sky was crowded with low-altitude airships, and in the distance the falling-star lights of commuter aircraft streaked upward toward the colonies. Olive paused for a moment to orient herself, then walked toward the ancient double silhouette of the Dakota. Hundred-story towers rose up behind it.

A book tour paradox: Olive missed her husband and daughter with a desperate passion, but also she liked very much being alone in the streets of New York at dusk, and then a day later alone in Salt Lake City at eight thirty in the morning on a Saturday in the bright autumn air, birds wheeling in white light. There’s something to be said for looking up at a clear blue sky and knowing that it isn’t a dome.

Did Olive wish she could live on Earth? She vacillated on the question. She’d lived all her life in the hundred and fifty

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“The film is about a particular moment in time, and I didn’t want to retell that story,” says Kurtzman. So while writing season 1, the team pondered some timely questions (“How did we get to this moment?” “Why are we so fundamentally disconnected from each other?”), which they say led them to a more optimistic vision than that of the Bowie film. “I believe in human beings,” Lumet ↑ says, “and I wanted Hey, Chiwetel Ejiofor and to write about human Naomie Harris, beings pulling it out.” whatcha watchin’?

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What makes this version different?

05 Emily St. John Mandel’s New Novel

square kilometres of the second moon colony, the imaginatively named Colony Two. She found it beautiful—Colony Two was a city of white stone, spired towers, tree-lined streets and small parks, alternating neighborhoods of tall buildings and little houses with miniature lawns, a river running under pedestrian archways—but there’s something to be said for unplanned cities. Colony Two was soothing in its symmetry and its order. Sometimes order can be relentless.

“I’m trying not to be pessimistic,” Olive said, on the phone to her husband, “but I’ve barely slept in three days and I doubt I’ll be terribly impressive in my lecture tonight.” This was in Red Deer, four days into the tour. Outside the hotel room window, the lights of residential towers glimmered in the dark.

“Don’t be pessimistic,” Dion said. “Think of that quote I’ve got pinned up in my office.” “ ‘It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,’ ” Olive said.

“How’s work going, speaking of your office?”

He sighed. “I got assigned to the new project.”

Dion was an architect.

“The new university?”

“Yeah, kind of. A centre for the study of physics, but also… I signed an ironclad confidentiality agreement, so don’t tell anyone?”

“Of course. I won’t tell a soul. But what’s so secret about the architecture of a university?”

“It’s not quite… I’m not sure it’s exactly a university.” Dion sounded troubled. “There’s some serious weirdness in the blueprints.”

“What kind of weirdness?”

“Well, for starters, there’s a tunnel under the street connecting the building to Security Headquarters,” he said.

“Why would a university need a tunnel to the police?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. And the building backs up on the government building,” Dion said, “which, I mean, at first I thought nothing of it.

That’s prime downtown real estate, so you know, why shouldn’t the university build next to the government building, but the two buildings aren’t separate. There are so many passageways between them that it’s functionally the same building.”

“You’re right,” Olive said, “that seems weird.”

“Well, it’s a good project for my portfolio, I guess.”

Olive understood from his tone that he wanted to change the subject.

She was on an airship over the Atlantic when the answer to the puzzle came to her. Research teams had been working on time travel for decades, both on Earth and in the colonies. In that context, a university for the study of physics, with an underground passageway to the police headquarters and countless literal backdoors into government, made perfect sense. What is time travel if not a security problem?

EXCERPTED FROM SEA OF TRANQUILITY BY EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL, TO BE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 5, 2022, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, AN IMPRINT OF THE KNOPF DOUBLEDAY GROUP, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC. COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL

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After three long years, it’s finally time to reconnect with Hazel and her family. By Christian Holub

Following a long hiatus that was extended by the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the best sci-fi comics around is finally returning to stands. The long-awaited issue #55 of Saga arrives on Jan. 26, ushering the comic epic (co-created by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples) into its second half. The first page of the new issue (seen above) recalls the first page of issue #1, which depicted the birth of protagonist Hazel, the child of star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of a galactic war. “Hazel is growing and changing,” Staples says. “Now she’s 10 years old, she has a complex inner life, and she’s making a lot of her own creative style choices.”

The heart of Saga is Hazel’s relationship with her parents— a bond informed by its creators’ real-life parental experiences. But as much as she’s a loving daughter blossoming into her own person, Hazel is also an idea. “It’s a story about how hard it is to create new things in a world that doesn’t always appreciate new things,” Vaughan says. “Our lives have changed and the book has changed, but that’s still very much what Saga remains about.”

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DANIEL CRAIG AND RUTH NEGGA GET BLOODY ON BROADWAY

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Something wickedly exciting opens April 28 at the Lyceum Theatre: a revival of Macbeth starring Daniel Craig, fresh off his final bow as James Bond, and Oscar nominee Ruth Negga, in her Broadway debut. Here, Tony-winning director Sam Gold (Fun Home)—who also staged Craig in Othello and Oscar Isaac in Hamlet—shares a snapshot of his table, bestrewn with items that provide insight into his take on the Scottish play’s toil and trouble. By Jessica Derschowitz

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“I have a pre-dinner beer, I’ve dropped my silverware, and I'm about to eat,” Gold says of the shot

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More for the Theater Lover The Music Man

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Tony winners Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster star in a new production of Meredith Willson’s 1957 hit musical. (2/10, Winter Garden Theatre)

Plaza Suite

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B. Taking Note “There’s no play, to me, as clear in its image systems as this one,” the director says of writing down words like “storms” and “wind” (the black bar hides something more distressing).

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C. Sleep No More Gold, who suffers from insomnia, thinks “the torture of not sleeping” offers important insight into Macbeth’s behavior. “More than anything, I’m looking for clues to contextualize the experience so I can best help Daniel tackle one of the hardest roles in dramatic literature— and to me ‘NO SLEEP’ is the key.”

D. The Hurly-burly “Hallucinogens and Shamanism is a book I’ve been looking at as I explore witchcraft and think about the ways that people enter altered mental states for spiritual reasons,” Gold says.

“It’s a way into the witches.”

Take Me Out

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jesse Williams, and Patrick J. Adams revive this baseball locker-room drama.

(4/4, Hayes Theater)

Funny Girl

Beanie Feldstein steps into the role made famous by Barbra Streisand in 1964. (4/24, August Wilson Theatre)

CRAIG AND NEGGA: GREG WILLIAMS; DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS: WARNER BROS. (2)

A. Dinner and a Show “I took this photo while getting ready for dinner,” explains Gold. “That’s sort of the right way to encounter the play.” So it makes sense that “sauce” is one of the notes he jotted down during a Macbeth reading he and Craig did about four years ago, as they began to conceive their version.

“It’s a very visceral play,” Gold says. “Lots of food, lots of viscera, lots of animal and human sauce.”

Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker headline this Neil Simon revival, a series of three one-act comedies set in the same hotel suite. (3/28, Hudson Theatre)

Bullet Train (4/8) “A Brad Pitt assassin movie from Atomic Blonde’s David Leitch? Book my ticket!” — D E R E K L A W R E N C E A N OT H E R T H I N G W E CA N ’ T WA I T FO R …

Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart’s Dog Days In DC League of Super-Pets, Superman’s equally powerful dog Krypto (Dwayne Johnson) and his canine colleague Ace (Kevin Hart) try to save the day. By Chancellor Agard

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You know Superman, but now it’s time to meet the Man of Steel’s best friend. In DC League of Super-Pets (May 20), Dwayne Johnson voices Krypto, the Last Son of Krypton’s loyal and swaggering dog. The pooch shares all of his owner’s powers and lives a pretty easy life, but doesn’t know how to play with other pets.

That changes, though, when he’s forced to lead a team of newly powered animals to save the day.

“I wanted there to be a real threat that you felt lived up to a real, serious superhero threat—but

↑ also one that uniquely can only be solved by From top a group of pets,” teases spoiler-averse direcAce (Kevin Hart) and Superman’s tor and co-screenwriter Jared Stern (The dog Krypto Lego Batman Movie). “I really wanted people (Dwayne Johnson) to come away from this movie feeling like The dogs with animation is a technique and not a genre. I Merton the turtle wanted them to feel like, ‘That was a really (NatashaPBLyonne), the pig (Vanessa Bayer), great superhero movie and it had everything and Chip the I love in a superhero movie: It had great squirrel (Diego Luna) action, was really fun.’ ” Super animals aren’t a new concept for the DC Universe: Featuring Krypto, Streaky the Supercat, and several others, the Legion of Super-Pets debuted in DC comics in the early 1960s. But Krypto’s team in the movie consists of rescue animals, which is a twist on the material. Stern came up with the idea for DC League of Super-Pets after volunteering with his wife at a shelter where he encountered a group of unadopted pets who had been there for a long time.

“They seemed so powerless,” Stern recalls. “I don’t know why, but I thought, ‘What if those pets had powers?’ ” The resulting squad of avenging animals includes Merton the turtle (Natasha Lyonne), PB the pig (Vanessa Bayer), Chip the squirrel (Diego Luna), and Ace, a pup voiced by Kevin Hart.

While Krypto learns a lot from leading the league, his relationship with Ace is at the heart of the movie. “It’s a buddy story about those two guys,” says Stern. “[Krypto] flies above the streets, Ace is from the streets—he’s a shelter pet and so he knows a little bit more about being a regular dog. Their dynamic is figuring that out and butting heads in that way.”

Seems like some necessary ruff-ness.

The Dark Star 09 Trilogy Continues When Marlon James set out to write the sequel book Moon Witch, Spider King (Feb. 15), he quickly found he needed a visual aid. “You don’t get very far into a fantasy novel before you realize you don’t know what the hell you’re writing about—so you better get to maps,” he says of creating the South Kingdom. “Once I drew an early version of this map, it started to influence the story.” Below, the author offers a look inside his world-building process. By Seija Rankin

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A. The Scale Once James sketched out the landscape, he began tweaking the plot to fit—the distance between key cities Wakadishu and Marabanga grew from one week’s journey to half a year, adding 200 pages of narrative. “Turns out that a lot can happen in six months,” he says.

“Like your entire family forgetting who you are.”

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D. The Sea James mirrored one of Sogolon’s pivotal voyages (from Lish to Omororo) on the journey around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope: “It was the closest I got to writing a sea yarn, and I was all about it.”

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B. The Symbols “Four of these cities sport a monument that’s just some sort of pole. It’s not lost on the dirty minds of the residents of each city.”

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C. The Sunk City The jungle is where Moon Witch’s heroine Sogolon lives for 100 years. “It’s a city that sunk, and that’s all we know about it, since the records sunk with it,” says James. “But now it's a wild jungle.”

E. The Names Some are based on actual places (Mogadishu to Wakadishu).

Some are tonguein-cheek tributes to fantasy icons (Ororo, a.k.a.

X-Men’s Storm, is Omororo). “Some just sound good when said aloud,” James says.

HALO: PARAMOUNT+; TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE: MACALL POLAY/HBO

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No man left behind? Well, technically no man was left behind when the pandemic shut down production on the Budapest set of Halo. A dog, on the other hand...

Pablo Schreiber—who stars as the Master Chief on the live-action adaptation of the popular videogames—was forced to leave his pup in Hungary in March 2020. “We were just gonna stop for two weeks and come back immediately,” the actor says of those early days dealing with COVID-19. “Luckily she had an amazing dog-sitter, but she was there for seven months. She [got] about 10 pounds heavier.”

Schreiber, meanwhile, had no choice but to maintain his physique during quarantine. Halo marks the first leading role for the Canadian-born star of American Gods and Orange Is the New Black—and it’s one that required some muscle, if only to carry the hefty mech armor adorning the Chief, Earth’s most advanced soldier in a 26th-century war against aliens known as the Covenant. Schreiber calls it “a herculean task,” and not just because of bulking up. “It’s a huge job, from setting the tone on set down to the grueling task of waking up at the crack of dawn to work out, then go to shoot, and go home to work out some more.

Nothing about it is easy, and I wouldn’t want it to be.”

The Paramount+ drama (premiering later this year) is a “classic hero’s journey”—one that promises to “crack the veneer” of this popular game character, says Schreiber. “We get to expand ↑ that universe and create stories Pablo Schreiber in it.” Hopefully fans will be as excited shows Halo fans the man underto see Halo as the actor’s dog was to neath the Master see her owner.

Chief ’s helmet

The 355 (1/7) “Chastain! Nyong’o! Cruz! Real life inspires reel life in this badass, female-led spy thriller.” — B R I T TA N Y K A P L A N

Pablo Schreiber suits up as a genetically altered super-soldier on Halo, a new series coming to Paramount+ based on the smashhit videogames. By Nick Romano

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HALO HEADS TO TV

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Executive producer Steven Moffat digs into the timey-wimey stuff of Audrey Niffenegger’s novel The Time Traveler’s Wife for HBO. By Maureen Lee Lenker

You loved Niffenegger’s 2003 novel so much you wrote a Doctor Who episode, “The Girl in the Fireplace,” inspired by it. Why did it capture your imagination? It uses the prism

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Henry (Theo James) and Clare (Rose Leslie) wed in a “joyous” episode

of time travel to rearrange the details of an ordinary, yet very successful, love story. We often do tragic love stories, divorces, and how people first got together. The thing that we never write about is one of the most common phenomena in human history—the perfectly happy marriage—because they’re not very dramatic.

The time travel functions very differently from Doctor Who. How did you work out the parameters for it for the series? Doctor Who loves time traveling—

but it’s mainly just the bus seat they get on to arrive at their next adventure. Here, Audrey is saying to her reader, “Keep up. This is the story of a man living his life in the wrong order.” The story of our lives in our head is in a jumble of the wrong order.

I went with the Audrey principles. We’re not making it easy for you. You’re going to pay attention.

How closely will your series (premiering later this year) hew to the novel? There are places where

we’ve altered things, where we’ve extrapolated a bit, but it tells the same story. Sometimes you see an adaptation of a book and it feels as though you chopped up the book into six hours and fed it through. I don’t think that honors the original.

You’ve got to really make it a beast that survives in its new environment. You’re not correcting it; you’re not fixing what was once wrong. You are adapting it to a new landscape. Hopefully the television show feels the same as reading the book.

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WEDNESDAY ADDAMS TAKES ON HIGH SCHOOL She’s creepy and she’s kooky...she’s Wednesday Addams! Netflix’s upcoming series, appropriately titled Wednesday, follows the beloved character through one of her biggest challenges yet: puberty. By Samantha Highfill

Wednesday Addams isn’t scared of much. Insects? Nope.

Knives? Definitely not. Electric chair? Are you kidding, she loves it! But feelings? Well, that’s a different story—one that Wednesday co-creators Al Gough and Miles Millar were eager to tell. “She’s the smartest person in the room, but she doesn’t like emotion,” Gough says of the goth at the center of their new

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Netflix series coming later this year. Gough and Millar (also Smallville’s creators) can distill the series down to six words: teenage Wednesday Addams in boarding school. But it’s not that simple. “There’s a supernatural murder mystery,” Millar teases. “There’s the teen relationships. There’s the adult relationships. And all under the prism of Tim Burton.”

A. Time to Transfer Wednesday Addams won’t be at Nancy Reagan High School for long. Soon, the campus where her parents met, Nevermore Academy, will be her new home. “She has to go to boarding school and, in a sense, create a new family,” says Gough.

B. Terrible Teens For the first time in the character’s history, Wednesday will experience life as a teenager. “In every previous iteration, Wednesday has been younger,” says Gough.

“We loved the idea of aging her up to 15.”

C. Family Rules Wednesday loves torturing her younger brother, Pugsley...but that doesn’t mean anyone else is allowed to do the same. “She’s really a defender of the innocent,” says Millar.

D. The Burton Touch Tim Burton will bring his signature style to TV, as both a director and executive producer on Wednesday season 1. “It’s an eight-hour Tim Burton movie,” Gough says. Adds Millar: “It was very important to Tim—and to us—that this isn’t a remake. It’s something new.”

The YOU actress stars as Wednesday (yes, with pigtails).

Catherine Zeta-Jones

GASLIT: STARZ; ORTEGA: RODIN ECKENROTH/WIREIMAGE; ZETA-JONES: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN/FILMMAGIC; GUZMAN: JOHN WOLFSOHN/ GETTY IMAGES; ORDONEZ: CLAIRE THAIS; CHRISTIE: MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE; BIRCH: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE

Morticia Addams will never be the same.

Luis Guzmán

Because you can’t have Morticia without Gomez.

Isaac Ordonez

The actor plays Wednesday’s brother, Pugsley.

Gwendoline Christie

Meet the principal of Nevermore.

Thora Birch

Birch’s Ms. Novak is Wednesday’s dorm mother.

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House of the Dragon (HBO) “This prequel’s full of what made Game of Thrones so addictive—plus the ending is already written!” — L A U R E N M O R G A N

Jenna Ortega

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Julia Roberts Gets Gaslit The Homecoming star headlines Gaslit, a Starz anthology series that tells the little-known story of how Martha Mitchell—the wife of NixonÕs attorney general—attempted to expose the Watergate scandal. By Lynette Rice

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Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein don’t deserve all the credit. Long before the Washington Post reporters became synonymous with the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, Arkansas socialite Martha Mitchell (wife of Attorney General John Mitchell) raised the red flag about President Nixon’s involvement in the crime. Her desperate attempt—and the White House’s ruthless campaign to discredit her—is the subject of Gaslit season 1, which stars Julia Roberts as the “complicated and impetuous" crusader, says creator Robbie Pickering (Mr. Robot).

“Most of the stories about this era, and particularly with this scandal, predictably focus on either the heroes or the villains of the era—who are coincidentally always white men,” says Pickering, who adapted his upcoming anthology series from the Slate podcast Slow Burn as part of Starz’s #TakeTheLead mission to tell more stories about women. “Martha was one of the most famous political celebrities in the country

at the time. She was like every Fox News personality all rolled into one. She was also the wife of Nixon’s best friend and the first person to publicly tell the truth about the president’s involvement in Watergate and call for his resignation,” he says. “Because of the sin of whistleblowing, she was publicly crucified in the press and her life was destroyed. It’s a really gripping and sad story.”

Sean Penn plays Martha’s husband, a man who was so torn by his loyalty to the president that he actually participated in the smear campaign against the woman he adored. The Mitchells separated in 1973, two years before the former attorney general was convicted for his involvement in the Watergate break-in.

They reportedly never saw each other again before Martha died in 1976.

“It’s really a story about a marriage,” Pickering explains of Gaslit (premiering later this year). “I mean, the two of them really loved each other. Everybody just called Martha crazy. She was a hurricane of a person and an easy target for the men in power of the era.”

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Jared Leto (with a fake nose) and Anne Hathaway as WeWork’s king and queen

More for the True-Story Lover Pam & Tommy

Lily James (Cinderella) and Sebastian Stan (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) portray ’90s icons Anderson and Lee in this limited series.

(2/2, Hulu)

Elvis

Baz Luhrmann’s take on the King of Rock & Roll features Austin Butler as Presley and Tom Hanks as his manager. (6/24)

I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Master of None’s Naomi Ackie stars as Whitney Houston, with Stanley Tucci as Clive Davis. (12/23)

Scream (1/14) “I love that Ghostface is hacking smart homes now, but can’t wait to see the OG cast.” — M I C H E L L E STA R K

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WeCrashed showrunners Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevello say they didn’t speak to Jared Leto all summer while filming their new Apple TV+ limited series. “ We only spoke to ‘Adam Neumann,’ ” Crevello clarifies, referring to the enigmatic WeWork cofounder portrayed by the chameleonic actor in their eight-episode drama.

“Jared does this complete transformation, with prosthetics and an Israeli accent,” adds Eisenberg.

“My father’s Israeli, and he had no notes on the accent. I was like, ‘Okay, we’re good. We’re good.’ ” WeCrashed—based on the podcast of the same name—chronicles the meteoric rise of sharedworkspace company WeWork, and Neumann’s fall from grace that led to him stepping down as CEO

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Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway star as Adam and Rebekah Neumann in WeCrashed, on Apple TV+ this spring. By Patrick Gomez

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in 2019 amid scathing reports alleging shameful treatment of staff and questionable financial practices. But the heart of the series is Neumann’s relationship with his wife Rebekah (who faced similar allegations of eyebrowraising behavior as a WeWork exec).

“What separated [WeCrashed] from other things we’d seen in this genre is that we watch the story through the prism of this couple,” says Eisenberg.

“We see this cult of personality within the business story, and then come home with them at night.” To play the deepvoiced, deep-feeling Rebekah, the showrunners immediately thought of Anne Hathaway. “We became even more fascinated with Rebekah than we were with Adam, which says quite a bit,” says Crevello. “There are such complexities to the character—it required an actor of unsurpassed skill to capture all of the shades.”

A unicorn motif runs through the series, a nod to the mythical nature of too-good-to-be-true companies like WeWork, which at one point was valued at $47 billion. “I think it’s a little bit of a cautionary tale,” Eisenberg says. “We as a society get swept up in unicorns and this idea that you can get rich quick. I mean, Adam Neumann unironically said that he wanted to be a trillionaire.

That’s just wild.”

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Kristen Bell’s Rear Window Remix 15 Kristen Bell and Tom Riley star in The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, a satire of all things thriller that follows a lonely woman who (maybe?) witnessed a murder. By Lauren Huff

WECRASHED: APPLE; THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE…: COLLEEN E. HAYES/NETFLIX (2)

“The balls on these writers.”

That’s what Kristen Bell says went through her mind when creators and showrunners Rachel Ramras, Hugh Davidson, and Larry Dorf pitched her to star in Netflix’s—deep breath—The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window.

Consisting of eight half-hour episodes, the limited series (launching Jan. 28) is an easily bingable, darkly comedic, wine-filled thriller satire starring Bell as Anna, a heartbroken woman who likes to watch her neighbors and drinks too much. Things take a turn when a hot widower, Neil (Tom Riley), and

his daughter (Samsara Yett) move in across the street and Anna witnesses a murder in their home…or does she?

“It was like nothing I’d ever heard before, and it made me laugh,” Bell (also an executive producer) says of the Woman in the House pitch, which outlined a shocking moment involving her character’s daughter that is sure to have jaws dropping. “It was so outside the box and absurd that I knew I had to be involved.”

All this might sound like a spoof of another Netflix property, the Amy Adams psychothriller The Woman in the Window, but the creators insist the series is more of a loving play on the genre. “I don’t think we are making fun of any of these books, or the movie version of these books,” says Ramras.

“We are having fun with the genre, as opposed to making fun of the genre.”

Striking that balance was imperative to the team, all true fans of Woman in the… stories. “We were constantly tinkering with it,” says Dorf. “And we think we found a good tone that is not very common.” The end result captures “the best bad acting I’ve ever wanted to accomplish in my career,” says Bell. “It was quite fun.”

Laughs aside, “I hope people are very uncomfortable when they watch,” the star says of the series, which is still very much a thriller, with appropriately bonkers twists. “If you’re not invested in the mystery and dying to figure out who did it, it really doesn’t matter how funny it is,” adds Ramras.

“You’d probably tune out after a few episodes. So the most important thing is that we get people ↑ to the end, and it Suspicious neighbor Neil (Tom builds in absurdity as Riley) has his eye the episodes go on.” on something… or someone Sounds like we’d better pour ourselves ← Kristen Bell's a bottle of wine and Anna tries to get cozy. unlock a mystery

The Goon Squad Revisited Jennifer Egan resurrects key characters from her 2010 modern classic for its sibling The Candy House (April 5), another multi-narrator masterpiece about searching for meaning in a crazy world. Here, an excerpt about Sasha.

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My cousin Sasha had lived in the desert for twenty years before I discovered she had become an artist. I was looking at her kids’ social media stories, as I often did with people I used to know, to see how they’d aged and try to gauge their happiness, when I saw a post from her son: “Proud of my Mom,” with a link to an article about Sasha in ARTnews. The picture showed dozens of hot-air balloons suspended above rambling, colorful sculptures stretched out across the California desert. According to the article, Sasha made these forms out of discarded plastic. Later she melted the sculptures down to create compressed bricks that had been displayed and sold, along with aerial photos of that same plastic in sculptural form, at art galleries.

Sasha! What the hell!

If anyone had required proof that life’s outcomes are impossible to predict, this development would have supplied it. Sasha had been a f---up all the way into her thirties: a kleptomaniac who’d managed to pilfer countless items from countless people over countless years. How did I know?

Because right before she married Drew, in 2008, she started returning things.

Everyone in the family received an item or two, sometimes of so little value that it was amazing Sasha remembered what belonged to whom. My dad got a Bic pen, the kind they sold in bags of twenty at Staples. I, too, received a pen, but mine was a Montblanc worth several hundred dollars. I’d nearly had a brain hemorrhage when it vanished after a family dinner at a Korean restaurant while I was visiting New York.

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EXCERPTED FROM THE CANDY HOUSE BY JENNIFER EGAN. COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY JENNIFER EGAN. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF SCRIBNER, A DIVISION OF SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC.

More for the Book Lover Anonymous Sex

by Hillary Jordan and Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

Cover Story

by Susan Rigetti

An anthology of erotica short stories from such lit stars as Téa Obreht and Jason Reynolds. (2/1)

It’s Catch Me if You Can meets Sweetbitter, from the woman who blew the whistle on Uber’s software engineering team. (4/5)

Booth

by Karen Joy Fowler

The Last White Man

by Mohsin Hamid

The family of the infamous Booth—John Wilkes, that is—gets novelized. (3/8)

The Exit West author’s first novel since his 2017 stunner spices up summer. (8/2)

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As We See It (1/21, Amazon Prime Video) “I’d watch anything from Friday Night Lights’ Jason Katims.” — PAT R I C K G O M E Z

intensified the pressure I felt personally, which meant that I wasn’t home with our kids enough (three in five years, in keeping with our plan) or much of a partner for Trudy—who had suspended her law career to enable our childrearing—sexually or in any other way. All of which made me more irritable, because I sensed that I was failing when all I’d ever done, my whole life, was try to succeed.

To the naked eye, things still looked fine at that point. I was bringing in business and seeing it through, albeit at the cost of some popularity at my firm. At home, everyone seemed happy, as I reminded myself daily by checking Trudy’s Facebook—later, her Instagram feed. She was a genius at capturing offhand moments and making them look iconic. Scrolling through her trips to the beach, the park, the zoo (often with our neighbor Janna and her four kids)—ice cream dribbling from chins; a video of crayoned pinwheels twirling in the breeze—I could actually feel my heartbeat slow, my blood calm. Any fragment of time I’d managed to wrest from work and spend with them was always front and center, and I gorged on Trudy’s shots of Polly hugging me; of Michael, our older son, throwing me a ball; of me spooning mashed bananas into the mouth of Timothy, our baby. Everything was fine, I told myself, drawing deep breaths at my cherrywood desk in my towering, glassy office. They were still there, still happy—we were happy, all five of us in our beautiful home by the lake, exactly as Trudy and I had fantasized after making love between law school classes—just waiting for me to come back.

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Doing the right thing— being right—gets you nothing in this world. It’s the sinners everyone loves.”

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authority, the MTA; I’d retraced my steps through Koreatown, bent at the waist to scrutinize gutters. When that very same pen showed up in my mailbox a couple of years later with a handwritten note that began, “Since my teenage years I have struggled with a compulsion to steal, which has been a source of great anguish to me, and of loss and frustration to many others,” I called my dad.

“I know,” he said. “I got a Bic. I’m not even sure it’s mine, it might have belonged to the restaurant.”

“Can we please be done with her, Dad?” I asked. “Once and for all? She’s incorrigible.”

“She’s the opposite of incorrigible. She’s making amends.”

“I don’t want her amends. I want her to disappear.”

“What makes you say things like that, Miles?”

I remember exactly where I was standing when we had that conversation: on the deck of the lakeside Winnetka home Trudy and I had overleveraged ourselves to buy (she was pregnant with Polly, our first) and painstakingly decorated together: the site of a planned domestic idyll of children, holidays, and family reunions that we’d rapturously envisioned since meeting in law school at the University of Chicago.

Holding my phone, looking out at twinkling Lake Michigan, I understood with sudden clarity that doing the right thing— being right—gets you nothing in this world. It’s the sinners everyone loves: the flailers, the scramblers, the bumblers.

There was nothing sexy about getting it right the first time.

F--- Sasha, I thought.

I’m fully aware that Sasha emerges from these descriptions as sympathetic, whereas I come off as a moralizing prig. I was a moralizing prig, and not just toward my cousin. My father, who treated Sasha as a daughter and whom I saw as her enabler; my mother, whose romantic adventures since my parents’ divorce I found sickening; my younger brothers, Ames and Alfred, both of whom I’d deemed “lost” before they turned twenty-five—no one escaped the roving, lacerating beam of my judgment. I can access that beam even now, decades later: a font of outraged impatience with other people’s flaws. How had the human species managed to survive for millennia? How had we built civilizations and invented antibiotics when practically no one, other than Trudy and me, seemed capable of sucking it up and just getting things done?

If anything can be said in defense of the person I was in 2008, the year Sasha made amends and Polly was born—the year I turned thirty—it can be only that I was least forgiving of myself. Every move I made was aimed at harrying myself toward greater excellence. But certain things, like sleep, resist rigid control. In high school, my insomnia had made it possible to excel academically while also playing three varsity sports, working for a tree pruning company, and pleasing a finicky girlfriend. I bridged the gaps with peanut butter, which I ate by the jar, and teenage energy. But Polly was colicky, and by then I was the youngest partner in my law firm’s history, and the workload was crushing. I started taking sleeping pills at night and Adderall in the morning to get me going—and eventually throughout the day to keep me sharp.

When the Adderall made me jangly, I’d calm down with Xanax or Percocet in the afternoon before knocking myself out with more sleeping pills at bedtime. I saw this metabolic tinkering as nothing more than taking care of business, and the ease with which I chemically managed my deficits, coupled with a slight drug nausea I often felt, made me doubly impatient with everyone else. I became, as they say, “irritable”—hard to work for and harder to live with. My high standards

Disney Takes Us to the Stars 17 The Walt Disney World Resort is preparing two major additions for blastoff. The minds behind the interstellar attractions preview Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy experiences docking in Florida in 2022. By Joey Nolfi

If you thought Galactic Starcruiser would be a mere Star Wars-themed resort, your expectations are light-years off. “This is not a hotel,” stresses Imagineering executive Scott Trowbridge, clarifying that the two-night interstellar affair (opening March 3—at nearly $5,000 a stay!) is “part videogame, liveaction role-play, immersive theater, and luxury experience all rolled into one.”

Unlike a traditional hotel where weary parkgoers retire to relax and sleep, Trowbridge says Starcruiser is a place to “live a Star Wars adventure” alongside characters and locales lifted from the beloved franchise’s movies, books, comics, videogames, and TV 70

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shows—with some new faces in the mix, including ship leader Captain Keevan (above). “We’ll learn a lot more about her and her role in some pretty iconic moments in Star Wars history,” he teases, adding that she runs the ship with “capability and professionalism second to none.” But, just like the experience around her, “there may be more to her than meets the eye.”

Starcruiser guests will book “departure times” and sync up with a fleet of others, but you’ll navigate the narrative differently “depending on the choices you make” along a “multi-threaded set of interlocking and interweaving stories,” Trowbridge says. “You may choose to affiliate with a certain group of

scoundrel-type folks, so the story will play out differently for you than it would for somebody who’s decided to become an undercover Resistance operative.”

You’ll be permitted to visit Disney’s parks, but you probably won’t want to, as your performance in things like lightsaber combat practice and crew-style bridge training can impact where you land when the ship docks.

The number of possible outcomes for your voyage? “I suspect we could calculate that, but it hasn’t been important to me to know what that number is, because it’s a lot,” he says. “What I hope is that our guests don’t come to this with a feeling of there being a number of options.”

Like the universe, it should feel infinite.

GALAXY: COSMIC REWIND: DISNEY/MARVEL; GALACTIC STARCRUISER: DAVID ROARK/DISNEY

Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser

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After 40 long years—and thanks to some blockbuster movies—Epcot is finally getting up to speed with its first roller coaster, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Kicking off with a backward launch, the fast-paced attraction will rocket riders through time and space and into the largest “show building” on the property, complete with animatronics, digital media, and Guardians’ signature soundtrack of hits. Starting later this year, riders will traverse aboard revolutionary vehicles that rotate toward the action while the coaster track travels in another direction. (Think of it as akin to Disney’s Omnimover-style staples like the Haunted Mansion, but with a kick.) You’ll experience “[slower] speeds to take it all in, along with highspeed coaster experiences,” explains senior Imagineer Wyatt Winter, noting that the overall thrill factor lies somewhere between that of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster. He adds that Cosmic Rewind’s “stand-alone” narrative is inspired by the planet Xandar from the Guardians films, though ↑ this version is on a unique A rendering of timeline—and has some Epcot’s Guardians of the surprises in store. “Fans Galaxy roller of both the films and Discoaster ney parks are going to ↖ find Easter eggs,” Winter A cast member as Galactic promises. “There are fun Starcruiser’s Captain Keevan ones for both!”

Mission: Impossible 7 (9/30) “Can’t wait to see M:I up the ante for stunts again, this time with trains!” —T Y L E R AQ U I L I N A

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The Friends star has fought plenty of knife-wielding killers in the Scream franchise, but she’s battling different demons on Starz’s Shining Vale (March 6). By Gerrad Hall

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It didn’t take much to sell showrunner Jeff Astrof on a series idea from Catastrophe creator Sharon Horgan: The Shining, but as a comedy. Or, to put it another way: “Sharon said, ‘I want to do a sitcom that makes people s--- their pants,’ ” recalls Astrof (Trial & Error, The New Adventures of Old Christine). “So I said, ‘A s---com!’ And I wanted to do that too because I was just so bored.

I’ve been writing comedy for 28 years. I needed fresh snow.”

When it came time to find the show’s leading lady, though, Astrof admits he never thought of Courteney Cox—even though he worked as a writer on the first two seasons of Friends. Luckily, Lisa Kudrow had the script and passed it along to her former costar. “Courteney called me and said, ‘This script is the only thing that’s ever been written for me,’ ” says Astrof. “ ‘I want to do it. I have to do it.’ ” At the center of Shining Vale is Cox’s Pat Phelps, a creatively suppressed “lady porn” author who—along with her husband, Terry (Greg Kinnear), and their two teenage kids—ditches Brooklyn for a 200-year-old Victorian mansion in Shining Vale, Conn., in an attempt to save her marriage after she cheats with the handyman. But once there, Pat (a 17-years-sober alcoholic battling depression) starts worrying she may have schizophrenia like her mom—or, the house is haunted by a woman named Rosemary, played by Mira Sorvino. “Pat can only see Rosemary in a heightened state,” like when Pat is on medications, or when stressed or anxious, says Astrof. “Rosemary is either a figment of Pat’s imagination, or her alter ego, or her muse...

Or she’s a ghost or a demon trying to possess her.”

Astrof promises all will be explained in “the last ↑ frame” of the season, which is also full of nods The one to The Shining, of course, but also Rosemary’s Baby, where Courteney The Changeling, and more: “It’s painstaking, but it Cox gets spooked really is a love letter to the genre.”

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J. Lo Revives the Rom-Com

Downton Abbey: A New Era

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After 10 years apart, Jennifer Lopez is returning to romantic comedies, a floundering bigscreen genre that has missed her sorely (no, Second Act isn’t a rom-com). But her new film, Marry Me, also sees the star rekindling another storied romance—not with a man (though there’s plenty of that, too), but with her love of music.

“There’s a scene where she sits at a piano and just plays,” director Kat Coiro says of an intimate moment that strips the glitz from Lopez’s jilted pop star, Kat, and lets the real-life pop star shine in ways we haven’t seen on film since 1997’s Selena. “That’s her playing, her singing, without any production—just Jennifer, in a room. [Marry Me] showcases how she can go from an audience of thousands at Madison Square Garden, to really letting you in.”

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The film thrives on that superstar energy: We meet Kat as her heavily publicized engagement to a Casanova singer (played by Maluma) culminates in their wedding at a massive concert. That’s where Kat discovers he’s having an affair. Distraught, she plucks an unsuspecting teacher (Owen Wilson) from the audience to marry instead.

Coiro calls the setup “classic” (translation: adorably bonkers) in ways that’ll satisfy fans of Lopez’s The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan, with tinges of Singin’ in the Rain-era musicals mixed in as the couple clashes. Lopez even weaved in personal experience to add a final layer to the film’s meta dressings. “Having relationships under the microscope is something she obviously knows all about,” says Coiro. “She brings that to the movie in a way we’ve never looked at before: what it means to have your life dissected in front of the cameras.”

Talk about taking control of your narrative.

This sequel picks up right where the 2019 movie left off, with the Crawleys moving (begrudgingly) toward the 1930s. (3/18)

The Lost City

This is an actionadventure, but with Sandra Bullock as a romance novelist and Channing Tatum as her cover model, we hope for sparks! (3/25)

Bros

Between Joel Kim Booster’s Fire Island and this Billy Eichner movie, rom-com fans are in for a gay ol’ time this year. (8/12)

MARRY ME: BARRY WETCHER/UNIVERSAL PICTURES; JACK REACHER: SHANE MAHOOD/AMAZON PRIME VIDEO (2)

Jennifer Lopez returns to the genre she spent a decade dominating, starring opposite Owen Wilson in director Kat Coiro’s Marry Me (Feb. 11). By Joey Nolfi

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J. Lo pulls a stunt—and Owen Wilson’s heartstrings

Lee Child believes “Reacher is special; Reacher needs something that is large and substantial and impactful.” And now, after 26 books and two movies, the author says his iconic character has finally gotten that with Reacher—a new Amazon Prime Video series starring Titans alum Alan Ritchson as the towering, roaming veteran military police investigator Jack Reacher.

It’s a very different feeling from what Child had after the 2012 and 2016 Tom Cruise films. “When I picture Reacher, the door opens and the temperature in the room drops, because people think, ‘What the hell is this?’ ” says Child, who agrees with fans who felt Cruise didn’t live up to the “6-foot-5, 250 pounds of muscle” from the novels. “Even if there’s not an immediate threat, there’s an impact. That’s what I wanted.” → While watching audition tapes of possible “He’s a bit of a superhero,” Reacher leads, Child (an executive producer on Alan Ritchson the series) thought the right person would be says of his Jack Reacher evident within the first two seconds—which is exactly what happened when he clicked play on ↓ “It’s burning,” Ritchson’s video. “This guy stepped on the Lee Child screen and had this stillness and blend of menteases of Willa Fitzgerald ace and goodwill that is always confusing about and Ritchson’s chemistry Reacher,” Child says of the 6' 3" star. “If he’s

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Move over, Tom Cruise, there’s a new Jack Reacher in town. Author Lee Child and star Alan Ritchson size up the hero on Reacher (Feb. 4). By Derek Lawrence

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Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+) “To paraphrase the Jedi Master, this is the Star Wars series I’m looking for.” — DA LT O N R O S S

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going to be your friend, you’re very lucky. If he’s not going to be your friend, you’re very unlucky. All of that had to be transmitted just through stance, mood, look—and Ritchson had it right away.”

It didn’t hurt that the actor did his homework: The star says he read 24 books (the latest two weren’t out yet) in an eight-month span to prepare, becoming a superfan. “Spending time with Lee on set was the first time I was ever starstruck,” says Ritchson, who has also played Aquaman on Smallville, a Career Tribute in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and Raphael in Michael Bay’s Ninja Turtles films. “I’d become so invested at that point into who Reacher was, there weren’t a lot of questions for me.”

Technically, Ritchson could’ve stopped after one book, since season 1 is based on the first Reacher novel, 1997’s Killing Floor. “It’s the foundational story in the Reacher myth,” says Child. “He’s learning how to be Jack Reacher.” Fresh out of the military, Reacher arrives in a small Georgia town, which is grappling with its first homicide in decades.

He’s immediately arrested for the crime, before two local cops (Willa Fitzgerald and Malcolm Goodwin) help him investigate a deep-rooted conspiracy to prove his innocence. “If you’ve loved Reacher, then this is as close as you will ever get to him on the screen,” Child promises. “Trust me: It’s perfect.”

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More for the Superhero Lover The Batman

In his second year of fighting crime, the Caped Crusader (Robert Pattinson) faces the Penguin (Colin Farrell), Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), the Riddler (Paul Dano), and a lot of eyeliner. (3/4)

Spider-Man: Into the SpiderVerse sequel

Your friendly neighborhood animated superhero explores the multiverse. (10/7)

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

After the shocking death of Chadwick Boseman, Shuri (Letitia Wright) takes center stage. (11/11)

COGGAN

“As Bilbo says, ‘I think I’m quite ready for another adventure.’ ” — D E VA N

↓ Alexander Wraith as the winged alien Dee

(Prime Video, 9/2)

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It took eight years for Smallville’s Clark Kent to receive anything remotely resembling a superhero costume because of the WB/CW drama’s “no tights, no flights” policy. Flash forward a few years, and The CW was broadcasting an entire shared universe of superhero shows, including Arrow and The Flash, that threw their valiant protagonists into colorful leather outfits by the end of their pilots. But, as always, the pendulum eventually swings, as is the case with the network’s newest offering, Naomi, a coming-of-age tale about a young woman destined to become a great hero— just maybe not a supersuited one...at least not yet.

(Kaci Walfall) is a comic-book geek with a hidden destiny

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series

TV’s newest superhero is a teen who discovers that her love of Superman is connected to her cosmic destiny. Get ready for Naomi (Jan. 11). By Chancellor Agard

← Naomi McDuffie

A N OT H E R T H I N G W E CA N ’ T WA I T FO R . . .

A NEW HERO ON THE CW

“We’re telling these grounded high school stories in the midst of this epic cosmic struggle,” says showrunner Jill Blankenship (Arrow), who executiveproduces alongside Ava DuVernay.

“We’re balancing equally these two parts of Naomi’s life.”

Based on the DC character created in 2019 by Brian Michael Bendis, David F. Walker, and Jamal Campbell, the series follows Naomi (Kaci Walfall, 17), a cool, down-to-earth teenager who runs a popular fansite about Superman. Soon after we meet Naomi, her life is forever changed when a mysterious incident involving the Man of Steel rocks her small Pacific Northwest hometown. In the fallout, Naomi makes the shocking discovery that she has special abilities and may not be from Earth. “It’s about Naomi’s journey to fully become herself,” Blankenship says of the series. “She starts to realize this affection and affinity she has for Superman is actually rooted in something much deeper than she thought. We get to watch as she discovers in real time [that] Superman is really part of her story, and she’s part of his.”

Helping Naomi on this voyage of selfdiscovery is Dee (Alexander Wraith), a tattoo-parlor owner who happens to be a winged alien from the planet Thanagar. “He believes in her more than she can believe in herself,” says Walfall.

“Though he doesn’t have all the answers, he teaches her more and more about how to control herself.”

But Dee is just one of many otherworldly beings Naomi will encounter.

“I’m confident DC fans will be pleasantly surprised with our cosmic cameos,” teases Blankenship. “Over the season, Naomi’s world expands in such a huge way.” Up, up, and away she goes.

A Dino-mite Threequel

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Chris Pratt finds a way to almost lose his hand in Jurassic World Dominion

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NAOMI: FERNANDO DECILLIS/ THE CW (2); JURASSIC WORLD: UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Jurassic Park goes global with Jurassic World Dominion, where Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are joined by the original movie’s biggest (human) stars—Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. By Clark Collis

This sixth entry in the Jurassic Park franchise takes place four years after 2018’s Fallen Kingdom—enough time for dinosaurs to have found a way to spread around the globe. “They have been multiplying and living amongst us and clashing with us,” says director and co-writer Colin Trevorrow. The other Jurassic Park movies “pretty much have the same story,” he says.

“But Dominion is set all over the world, through many different environments: wilderness, urban, desert, snow. It’s exciting to see these creatures navigate environments that they weren’t built to survive in. They grew up in a theme park and now they’re here!”

At the start of the film (out June 10), Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing and Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady are still

attempting to save the big beasts, with the latter rounding up parasaurs in the Sierra Nevadas. “He’s not too far from where the dinosaurs got out in the last film,” says Trevorrow. “The parasaurs are in danger of being poached. There’s a lot of shady types out there who want to get their hands on dinosaurs, so he’s working to protect them.” Trevorrow is cagier about where we find Claire.

“I don’t want to say just yet,” he explains.

“But she’s at a point where she’s questioning her methods, and whether she can stay safe and fulfill the responsibility that she has to the other people in her life that care about her.”

Arguably even bigger news than widespread dinosaur dissemination?

The return of Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, reunited on screen for

the first time since Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park debuted way back in 1993. And these won’t be cameo appearances like the one Goldblum made in Fallen Kingdom. “They have equal screen time to Chris and Bryce,” Trevorrow reveals of the scientist trio. “They’re major characters from start to finish.”

The director describes Dominion as more of a “science thriller” than the horror-flavored Fallen Kingdom, and strongly hints that the movie’s big bad will be Campbell Scott’s Lewis Dodgson.

“He is the main villain throughout both of [Crichton’s] novels, and I think what Campbell’s done with the character is just amazing,” he says. “I can’t wait for people to see it.”

The gang’s all here.

Long live the Greasers, played by (clockwise from front center) C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Tom Cruise.

ORAL H I ST O RY

THE OUTSIDERS The boys are back in town, thanks to a 4K restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 classic, now on HBO Max. We checked in with the director and his cast to see how it all went down.

By LYNETTE RICE @lynetterice

consultant) I wrote the book when I was

16 so I thought, “Oh boy, I get to fix everything that needs to be fixed!” I’d rewrite some dialogue and Francis would say, “Susie, is this in the book?”

I’d say, “No, Francis, but it’s better.” He said, “No, we’re doing this for the kids who love the book.” That was my big problem working with him—he wanted to make it just like the book.

Coppola, a huge proponent of open casting calls (that’s how he discovered Abe Vigoda for The Godfather), welcomed just about every young Hollywood upand-comer to audition. Some of the actors who eventually joined the cast, including Patrick Swayze (Darry Curtis), Matt Dillon (Dallas Winston), Rob Lowe (Sodapop Curtis), Tom Cruise (Steve Randle), and Emilio Estevez (Two-Bit Matthews), would later be described

by New York magazine as founding members of the infamous Hollywood Brat Pack.

RALPH MACCHIO (Johnny Cade) Timo-

C. THOMAS HOWELL (Ponyboy Curtis)

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA (director) I

got this big fat letter from a library-class teacher saying that these children had read a book they adored, which was S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. They had chosen me to direct it. The reason the letter was so fat was because it had pages and pages of kids’ signatures. I read the book and was very touched by the sentiments—it said something that I believe to this day: Young people are more than qualified if you give them the opportunity to collaborate with us on a work of art. They more than come through.

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My father was a stuntman, so I was raised on sets and there was no anxiousness. I mean, I was wearing a fricking Sesame Street shirt in my audition. I’ve got to be honest—I never felt there was even somebody else up for Ponyboy.

DIANE LANE (Cherry Valance) I think I couldn’t come to audition because I was filming a film with Kenny Rogers in Atlanta. Then I was going to Oklahoma to bring this amazing novel to the screen for a director of a caliber that I couldn’t appreciate. I was 17.

COPPOLA Diane Lane pretty much had the role from day one because of her beautiful work in A Little Romance.

I knew she was the right one before we even met her.

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(PREVIOUS SPREAD) WARNER BROS. (THIS SPREAD) COPPOLA WITH ACTORS, HINTON: WARNER BROS. (2); DILLON, LANE, AND MEYRINK: WARNER BROS./EVERETT COLLECTION; THE OUTSIDERS: WARNER BROS./PHOTOFEST (2)

Francis Ford Coppola was feeling depressed. After enjoying great success with The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now, the Oscar-winning director found himself facing financial ruin in 1982 after his romantic drama One From the Heart sputtered at the box office.

A much-needed distraction came by way of librarian Jo Ellen Misakian and her young students from Fresno, Calif., who had cooked up Coppola’s next project for him: a big-screen adaptation of The Outsiders, the 1967 novel about rival teenage gangs, the poor Greasers and the wealthy Socs, who came from opposite sides of their Oklahoma town.

thy Hutton, Sean Penn, Dennis Quaid, Mickey Rourke…it was a movie everybody wanted to be in. Leif Garrett was probably the most famous guy who walked in. Scott Baio came in one day.

COPPOLA We had them all sit around in front of me, and I’d say, “Okay, you come down and read Sodapop.” No one loves acting and actors more than actors. It was competitive. But it only spurred them on.

LEIF GARRETT (Bob Sheldon) It was all day long, and it was process of elimination. I really wanted to be Ponyboy, because that’s the role. But I wasn’t right for it. I’m not that greasy. I was a cocky teen idol at the time, going through crazy emotional stuff with my girlfriend, Nicollette Sheridan.

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4

1. The triumphant Greasers, after rumbling with the Socs. 2. Francis Ford Coppola confers with Howell, Macchio, and Dillon.

3. The book’s author, S.E. Hinton, had a cameo as a nurse. 4. Leif Garrett’s Soc character raises a late-’60 ruckus.

5. Dillon, who quite literally fell for Diane Lane, seated next to Michelle Meyrink.

MICHELLE MEYRINK (Marcia, Cherry’s friend) When I was 11, we were in the

Dominican Republic for three years and I hung around the hotel when they filmed The Godfather Part II. I was into Paper Moon so I reenacted it for Francis. When I was 18, I wrote to Francis.

I auditioned for the role of Cherry and got Marcia.

Filming took place on location in Tulsa.

To help deepen the rift between the two gangs, Coppola gave the actors playing Socs better rooms, better transportation, and even higher per diems than the working-class Greasers. But the young cast—with the exception of Macchio, who preferred to keep to himself so he could focus on his role— still liked to hang together off screen.

MACCHIO I worked very hard and was

3

5

maybe a little too serious.

LANE I just remember there were lots of pranks going on. You know, like flaming dog poop. I mean, it’s like wrangling kittens, trying to get a bunch of teenagers to be in a movie together.

GARRETT We used to have rumbles in the lobby.

MEYRINK I remember Rob Lowe braiding my hair. It was just so unusual. I never had a guy braid my hair before.

Everyone would gather in Patrick Swayze’s room and talk about their roles.

I remember going out to a nightclub and suddenly people realized that Matt Dillon was there, and the room went crazy.

Guys wanted to beat him up because all the girls liked him. Tom Cruise was very serious, very focused. I remember that right after he had gotten Risky Business, I had an audition and I was nervous. I told him I didn’t know whether [she should mention her small role in The Outsiders]. He said, “Just lie. Tell them you had this major role. If you get the part, it doesn’t matter. They won’t care.”

Coppola strove for realism, so Howell and Macchio—whose characters go on the lam after Johnny fatally stabs a Soc—really did cut each other’s hair with a knife in a memorable scene. Even spur-of-the-moment accidents on set ended up making it into the movie.

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Howell was a young teen when he was cast opposite Macchio, who was 21. “He’d go back and order a beer, and I’d go play videogames or whatever,” Howell recalls.

MACCHIO Tommy could not wait for his

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HINTON I was horrified. Francis got so

many letters from kids saying, “Why did you leave out this part?” Poor Rob Lowe must have thought [his performance] was horrible. It depressed him for a long time.

MACCHIO A big part of his third-act monologue was cut.

LANE I think [Warner Bros.] was concerned about not having one extra showing of the movie in theaters.

COPPOLA In those days, I was a little bit leery myself of such a beautiful boy like Sodapop in bed, hugging his brother. It was only later when I took the film to be shown to my granddaughter’s class that I realized the kids

A new 4K restoration of The Outsiders: The Complete Novel was released in theaters in September and is streaming now on HBO Max. MACCHIO It’s great for the fans. You

just get more footage of all these actors who had such great trajectories in their careers over the next 30-something years.

GARRETT There are two things that I’m very proud of in my life. One is being inducted into the cowboy hall of fame for a movie-of-the-week I did for NBC called Peter Lundy and the Medicine Hat Stallion. The other is The Outsiders.

HINTON This is one of the rare cases of the book selling a movie, because teachers teach it every year. There’s a new audience every year, because at the end of the class, a lot of times they show the movie.

HOWELL I see so many Stay Gold tattoos. It’s the most beautiful fan moment for me when I meet women who are in their 40s and I watch them turn into their 13-year-old selves when they talk about The Outsiders. It’s still a very important part of my life.

HOWELL AND MACCHIO: WARNER BROS./PHOTOFEST

chance to get back at me for cutting his hair. It hurt. Even though the knife was sharp, it’s still not scissors. There’s a reason why when you get a haircut, they don’t pull out a switchblade.

HOWELL There’s a moment at the beginning of the movie when we’re at the drive-in theater and Matt Dillon leans back in his chair and falls. I turn and laugh right into the camera. I thought they would cut, right? Well, of course Francis doesn’t, because those are the moments that he searches for.

LANE We were lucky nobody broke character.

HOWELL There’s another beautiful moment when we’re in the church and we’re hiding for the first time. On the second or third take, they’re pushing a dolly across this decrepit church and the grip falls through the floor and makes a noise. I turn and stare right at him. And in that moment, I turned back to Johnny and [said], “Are you awake?

I think there’s a monster outside,” because I don’t know how to ad-lib.

I’m 14! And [Johnny] goes, “It’s okay,” and puts my coat around me or something. Well, Coppola uses that take and cuts to a little raccoon that’s breaking off a piece of wood at the church. That’s what I learned from Francis at a young age—to hunt for those accidents.

Released on March 25, 1983, The Outsiders ultimately grossed $25 million at the box office, a decent return on a modest budget. It clocked in at just 90 minutes. Coppola says several pivotal scenes were left on the cutting room floor due to “time restraints” imposed by the studio. Fans immediately noticed the absence of one of the novel’s more intimate moments, when Sodapop (Rob Lowe) embraces his brother Ponyboy in their shared bed.

That’s what compelled Coppola to restore 22 more minutes and release The Outsiders: The Complete Novel in 2005. (Lowe declined to comment for this article.)

knew the book better than the film expressed. Where is the scene with Sodapop in bed with Ponyboy where they talk about what it’s like to be in love? All those scenes that I was a little frightened of? I understood that I was naive in my views. The subject that we’re speaking of is more complicated but beautiful, more human. So I happily put back some of the scenes. I, as well as everybody else in the world, had a lot to learn about the beauty and complexity of the human heart.

MACCHIO My brother and I are a couple of years apart. There was some form of affectionate comfort. I did not find that scene out of the realm of reality.

HOWELL I don’t know what this stuff means, but I get kids all the time asking, “Do you ship Ponyboy and Johnny? Are they gay?” How do you answer that?

And why does it even matter? These kids are hurting. They’re trying to figure out who they are.

COPPOLA I continue to listen to young people and their opinions, so the complete version of the novel is for them.

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There’s a bright new star in a galaxy far, far away: Disney legend MING-NA WEN talks about suiting up for the Star Wars spin-off series THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT. by___Devan Coggan @devancoggan

illustration by___Hsiao-Ron Cheng

MING-NA WEN IS THE ONLY PERSON

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THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT: LUCASFILM LTD.

in history to complete the Disney trifecta: The 58-yearold actress has voiced a Disney princess (Mulan in the 1998 animated film), kicked butt as a Marvel hero (Melinda May on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and crisscrossed the galaxy as a Star Wars mercenary (Fennec Shand on The Mandalorian). So when the studio reached out about bringing Fennec back, this time as a series regular, Wen naturally said yes. She had assumed they wanted her for The Mandalorian season 3. It wasn’t until well after she’d signed the contract that she discovered it was for something much bigger…and better. She would be headlining The Book of Boba Fett—a spin-off series that debuts Dec. 29 on Disney+ and follows Fennec and her infamous bounty-hunter boss as they infiltrate the galactic underworld. “It’s just blind trust with Disney and everyone at this point,” the actress says with a laugh.

“I’ve been with them for so long that I just figure I’m being taken care of.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Wen has learned to trust the process. After all, she initially joined The Mandalorian for just a single episode. The ER alum brought a grit and gravitas to Fennec, a smirking assassin with a deadly eye and a deadlier background. But her character was killed off before the credits rolled. So when she learned on set that she and Mandalorian showrunner Dave Filoni attended the same Pittsburgh high school, she began campaigning hard for her resurrection. “I kept joking, ‘You can’t kill an alum, dude!’ ” she says. “ ‘C’mon, we’ve got to figure out something here. There’s gotta be nepotism. We’re both Yinzers!’ ” Eventually, Filoni agreed. He revived Fennec by explaining that she’d been rescued by Temuera Morrison’s gravel-voiced Boba Fett (a character, as you’ll recall, who knows all about returning from the dead, having been swallowed by a Sarlacc pit in 1983’s Return of the Jedi). Now the very-much-alive pair are setting off on their own adventure. Like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett picks up after the original film trilogy, as various rogues and rascals scramble to fill the power vacuum left by the fall of the Empire and the death of

Jabba the Hutt. But if The Mandalorian is a planethopping, gunslinging Western, Wen describes Boba Fett as “more like a take on gangster movies”—less The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, more The Godfather. “I feel like [Fennec and Boba] are bonded because both of them had near-death experiences,” she explains. “They’re both bounty hunters, and they do adhere to a certain level of respect and honor. He saved her, and there’s a debt to be paid, and bounty hunters honor that debt.”

Wen speaks of the Star Wars universe with the kind of nerdy reverence that can only come from a lifelong fan.

Born on Macau off the southern coast of China and raised in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon, Wen spent much of her childhood living upstairs from her family’s restaurant. She still remembers seeing 1977’s A New Hope and identifying with Luke Skywalker’s journey. “Those were my two worlds,” she says. “And when you’re a young kid, you really don’t fit in either— especially being Chinese in a very white, suburban neighborhood. So when my friends and I went to see Star Wars, I was so immersed into this incredible folklore and sense of hope and being the hero of your own story.”

Wen studied theater at Carnegie Mellon—her very first TV gig was a bit part on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood—and went on to star in The Joy Luck Club and on ER. But she always remembered the sense of wonder she felt encountering that galaxy far, far away for the first time. “There was just something really magical about that particular experience of seeing that film, to the point where the Force was my religion,” she says. “I would pray to God, Buddha, and the Force. I still do when I get on a plane.”

With The Book of Boba Fett, Wen has relished the opportunity to dive deeper into who Fennec is, from her

MCGREGOR: © 20THCENTFOX/EVERETT COLLECTION; LUNA: JONATHAN OLLEY/LUCASFILM; JENKINS: JC OLIVERA /GETTY IMAGES; ASHOKA: LUCASFILM/DISNEY+; GLOVER: © WALT DISNEY CO./EVERETT COLLECTION; WAITITI: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE

dogged loyalty to Boba to the way she moves, foxlike, through the deserts of Tatooine. “Ming-Na brings such an incredible swagger,” says executive producer Robert Rodriguez, who directed Wen on The Mandalorian and returns for Boba Fett. “[We had] something we called the ‘Fennec look,’ where sometimes I’d design scenes just to end on her giving Boba a look that spoke volumes. She’s so great at that: her looks and glares and smirks.”

Playing an elite assassin also involved extensive stunt work. After seven seasons on S.H.I.E.L.D., Wen was no stranger to complicated action scenes, but Boba Fett presented new challenges. Rodriguez remembers filming one sequence that required Wen to repeatedly stab a tiny control panel with a knife—all while wearing a helmet that limited her visibility. “I told her, ‘It’s such a small target, I’ll need to edit to a tighter shot [anyway], so don’t feel bad if you miss,’ ” the director recalls. “We were all amazed when, take after take, she’d stab at it and hit the mark every time. She’s the real deal.”

Bulky helmets and complicated stunts aside, Wen says she approached each day on the Boba Fett set with a kind of geeky glee. Growing up, she remembers drawing versions of herself as Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. Now those doodles have become reality. “That dream and hope that I had when I was younger and wanting to be in a Star Wars project—that weird, fantastical nerd dream— it happened,” she says. “That’s the message I think [Star Wars] gets across: It can happen to anyone. It can happen to a farm boy on Tatooine, feeling like he has no hope whatsoever of getting off that planet. With Mulan, it’s the same thing: She felt like she would never amount to anything except disappointment, and in the end she becomes the hero and saves China. It’s those stories that I really believe in.”

THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE CONTINUES TO GROW WITH THESE UPCOMING PROJECTS

O B I -WA N K E N O B I

Ewan McGregor’s Jedi Master returns ( joined by Hayden Christensen’s Darth Vader) in this Disney+ limited series, which takes place on Tatooine between 2005’s Revenge of the Sith and 1977’s A New Hope.

ANDOR

Diego Luna’s brave rebel died at the end of 2016’s Rogue One, but Cassian Andor is stepping into the spotlight again with his own prequel show, set several years before the Battle of Scarif.

AHSOKA

Anakin’s former Padawan became a fan favorite on the animated Clone Wars series.

Now, Rosario Dawson is tackling the live-action role, wielding Ahsoka’s twin lightsabers in this spin-off.

LANDO

Dear White People’s Justin Simien is creating a show about everyone’s favorite smooth-talking scoundrel. (No word yet on when it’ll be set— or whether Billy Dee Williams or Donald Glover will return.)

ROGUE SQUADRON

Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins is taking flight at the helm of a Star Wars movie about “a new generation of Starfighter pilots,” expected to start production in 2022 but delayed due to her busy schedule.

U N T I T L E D TA I K A WA I T I T I P R OJ ECT

After helming an episode of The Mandalorian (and voicing deadpan droid IG-11), the Thor: Ragnarok director is developing a film set in the burgeoning Star Wars universe. ↑ Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) are on a mission for power and notoriety

Must List THE

PAT R I C K G O M E Z

@ PAT R I C KG O M E Z L A

MOVIES

I L LU ST R AT I O N BY >

TIM MCDONAGH

EDITED BY >

TEN THINGS WE’RE OBSESSED WITH THIS MONTH

1

MUSIC

BOOKS

“Hey now, some of us heart him.”

—Mary Margaret

86

Listening to Kenny G

Trust me, it’ll help if you hate him: Penny Lane’s brilliantly subversive HBO Max documentary weaponizes the infamous sax Fraggle’s charm, leaving frustrated cultural gatekeepers to twist in the wind on screen. By the end of this profile, you’ll be asking yourself deep questions like “Who owns jazz?” and “What is taste?” (Dec. 2) —J O S H U A R OT H KO P F

2

Not All Diamonds and Rosé By Dave Quinn

3

Keys Alicia Keys

JANUARY 2022

This authorized oral history (written by a former EW contributor) is a must-read for any Real Housewives fan. To quote New York alum Bethenny Frankel, I used to think “maybe I do know it all” about the Bravo franchise— but Quinn’s thorough tell-all proved otherwise. — DAV I A N - LY N N H O P K I N S

Two decades into her career, the R&B icon brings forth an experimental double album that pushes her record-producing prowess into focus. On the “Originals” half, Keys offers back-to-basics tracks, with her voice and piano as the foundation. On “Unlocked,” she teams up with prolific rap producer Mike Will Made It to give many “Originals” tracks an uptempo overhaul, providing listeners with an overall edifying aural experience. — M A R C U S J O N E S EW. C O M

MOVIES TV BOOKS MOVIES YOUTUBE TV MUSIC

MACBETH: APPLE; WITH LOVE: KEVIN ESTRADA /AMAZON PRIME VIDEO; HOLIDAY AFFAIR: EVERETT COLLECTION; ELSA CHARRETIER; COBRA KAI: NETFLIX

4

The Tragedy of Macbeth

5

With Love

6

The School for Good Mothers By Jessamine Chan

7

Holiday Affair

8

Elsa Charretier’s Case Study

9

Cobra Kai’s prom showdown

10

Night Call Years & Years

The Bard’s been turned inside out for centuries—recast in the realm of samurais and Lion Kings, Bollywood musicals and American high schools— but he hadn’t met a Coen brother, until now. Joel Coen’s stark, sumptuous retelling is faithful to the text, but titanic stars (Denzel! Frances!), hyperstylized sets, and lush costumes strip all that sound and fury down and make it new. (Out Dec. 25; Jan. 14 on Apple TV+) — L E A H G R E E N B L AT T

It’s the most wonderful time(s) of the year on this Amazon Prime Video rom-com. Over five episodes spanning a year, creator Gloria Calderón Kellett’s With Love hits most major holidays as the Diaz siblings (Mark Indelicato and Emeraude Toubia) navigate love, life, and family. Equal parts sweet and devastating (and steamy), this feel-good series is the perfect antidote to the postholiday blues. — SY D N E Y B U C KS B A U M

In this debut novel about the launch of a government program meant to correct “bad” mothering, Chan collects the judgments and pressures that society places on women who deign to be multifaceted and translates them into a propulsive, perceptive story. (Jan. 4) — S E I J A R A N K I N

Tired of Elf or the umpteenth version of A Christmas Carol and looking for a new holiday classic? Try this 1949 delight (available on HBO Max) about a war widow (Janet Leigh) and the roguishly charming departmentstore clerk (Robert Mitchum at his most romantic) she brings home for Christmas after accidentally getting him fired. It’s a touching picture of postwar grief and a sprightly NYC love story. — M A U R E E N L E E L E N K E R

HIDDEN GEM

You may know that Disney+’s Hawkeye is based on one of the best comics of the past 10 years. But do you know why the comic is so good? Allow Elsa Charretier to break it down for you. In her pandemic-launched YouTube series, the veteran cartoonist (November, Star Wars Adventures) uses incredible production values to expertly explain the invisible art that goes into actually making great comics great. —T I M L E O N G

This season 4 face-off between Tory (Peyton List) and Sam (Mary Mouser)—with an assist from their respective exes (Xolo Maridueña and Tanner Buchanan)—delivers 74 seconds of tightly choreographed martialarts madness. If the Emmys don’t have a category for “Outstanding Execution of a Flying Roundhouse Kick While Wearing a Satin LeopardPrint Wrap Dress,” they should. (Dec. 31 on Netflix) — K R I ST E N B A L D W I N

It’s a shame this album isn’t coming out a week earlier, given how much its top-to-bottom effervescence would make for the perfect New Year’s Eve soundtrack. Keeping with new beginnings, this is the first project since electro-pop outfit Years & Years became a solo endeavor for singer Olly Alexander, whose magnetic energy and panache shine on vibrant tracks like lead single “Starstruck.” (Jan. 7) — M J EW. C O M

JANUARY 2022

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What to Watch YOUR GUIDE to JANUARY’S ESSENTIAL VIEWING

BY >

DAN SNIERSON

@DANSNIERSON

MUST W AT C H

Crews, Nathan Lane, Lena Waithe, and Mario Lopez do the opposite.

SERIES DEBUT

Women of the Movement (ABC) Emmett Till’s mother seeks justice for her murdered son in this historical drama.

REBOOT PREMIERE

1

THIS IS US

NBC’s all-the-feels-and-then-some family drama kicks off its final season, promising the answers to questions burning across several eras: How exactly does Randall (Sterling K. Brown) become a “rising star”? How will Kate (Chrissy Metz) end things with Toby (Chris Sullivan) and begin anew with Phillip (Chris Geere)? And who’ll get out of that white car? Gear up to tear up.

TUESDAY 1.4 NBC

SATURDAY 1.1 Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts (HBO Max) Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and more (minus J.K. Rowling) try to recapture magic in this reunion special.

BINGE IT!

K EY >

M OV I ES

SUNDAY 1.2

MONDAY 1.3

SERIES DEBUT

SEASON PREMIERE The Bachelor (ABC)

Next Level Chef (Fox) Got room in your stomach for another Gordon Ramsay culinary competition? Here, chefs complete challenges in kitchens of all kinds.

TUESDAY 1.4 SEASON PREMIERE Finding Your Roots (PBS)

While you hide from your family, Regina King, Terry

Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer (Fox) It’s 2003 again, but instead of duping women into thinking they’ll marry a multimillionaire, Fox reveals that only one of the two Joes is rich. Or maybe all of these folks have no idea they’re on a reboot of The Swan.

FRIDAY 1.7 A Hero From Oscar-winning writer-director Asghar Farhadi, a haunting tale of when bad things happen to good people in an O. Henry way.

GORDON THE GREAT Heated British chef/restaurateur Gordon Ramsay has conquered America with a buff et of hospitality reality series.

Before he fires up Next Level Chef, let’s survey his Fox empire.

Hell’s Kitchen (2005–present) Kitchen Nightmares (2007–2014) MasterChef (2010–present) Hotel Hell (2012–16) MasterChef Junior (2013–present) The F Word (2017) Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back (2018–present)

SEASON PREMIERE Search Party (HBO Max)

Alia Shawkat’s cult comedy goes full cult in its final season.

JANUARY GEMS While the first month of the year is considered a dumping ground for

TV

Dr. Strangelove (1964, HBO MAX)

Scanners (1981, HBO MAX)

The world already felt like it had ended when Stanley Kubrick’s nuke-grade satire approached its scheduled release date: soon after JFK’s assassination. Distributors paused until audiences could rediscover irony. —J O S H U A R OT H KO P F

David Cronenberg’s literally mindblowing thriller boasts a pair of telepaths (Stephen Lack and Michael Ironside) staring each other down, popping veins, and busting craniums.

The film’s got the messiest headache outside a Real Housewives finale. —J R

THIS IS US: RON BATZDORFF/NBC; RAMSAY: ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES FOR VEGAS UNCORK’D BY BON APPÉTIT; DR. STRANGELOVE, SCANNERS: EVERETT COLLECTION (2)

THURSDAY 1.6

1. From left: Lyric Ross, Susan Kelechi Watson, Sterling K. Brown, Faithe Herman, and Eris Baker on NBC’s This Is Us 2. Jason Bateman and Laura Linney on Netflix’s Ozark

The 355 We spy Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, Bingbing Fan, and Diane Kruger on a mission to kick global ass.

SUNDAY 1.9

SERIES DEBUT

Promised Land (ABC) Grape expectations.

Morbius Does Leto bite as this Spider-Man antihero?

TUESDAY 1.18

FRIDAY 1.28

SUNDAY 1.30

SERIES DEBUT

SERIES DEBUT

SERIES DEBUT Monarch (Fox)

How I Met Your Father (Hulu)

THURSDAY 1.13

Oh, you waited for it. Now, in this Hilary Duff-led HIMYM sequel, you get the father of all stories.

SERIES DEBUT Peacemaker (HBO Max)

THURSDAY 1.20

SEASON PREMIERE Euphoria (HBO)

John Cena’s Christopher Smith should be in prison for “superhero stuff.” Instead, he’s running around, killing (mostly) bad guys.

OZARK: NETFLIX; BEFORE SUNRISE: GABRIELA BRANDESTEIN; PADDINGTON: STUDIO CANAL

who has songs to sing but feels out of tune with her hometown.

FRIDAY 1.14 Ray Donovan: The Movie (Showtime) Scream “Do you like scary movies?”

I do, but when you give the fifth installment of a franchise the same name as the first, it makes me want to…

SUNDAY 1.16

SERIES DEBUT

Check out more TV and movie recommendations at ew.com/wtw or on our What to Watch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts

Single Drunk Female

The Afterparty (Apple TV+)

Picture a streaming murder-mystery comedy.

Now sub Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoë Chao for Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short.

Picture a music-industry soap on a broadcast net.

Now sub Susan Sarandon for Taraji P. Henson.

MONDAY 1.31 Grammy Awards (CBS)

(Freeform)

To avoid jail time, a twentysomething alcoholic (Sofia BlackD’Elia) moves home to sober up and live with her oppressive mother (Ally Sheedy), as one does.

FRIDAY 1.21 SERIES DEBUT

As We See It (Amazon Prime Video)

In other twentysomething news, three friends/roommates on the autism spectrum live, love, and learn.

SERIES DEBUT

Somebody Somewhere (HBO) You’re in Kansas for an offbeat comedy: Bridget Everett is a woman

LISTEN UP!

MONDAY 1.24 SERIES DEBUT

The Gilded Age (HBO) It’s like 1883. Except in NYC. (And it’s 1882.)

2

Ozark (Friday 1.21, Netflix)

Is it possible for Ozark to get any darker? That’s probably a bet worth making on the Byrdes’ casino boat. The first half of the killer money-laundering drama’s final season picks up in the bloody aftermath of last year’s shocking conclusion, with Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) thrust to the top of the Navarro drug empire. But temperamental cartel players won’t be their only worry, as past sins and new alliances threaten the family’s happy ending. — D E R E K L AW R E N C E

less-than-promising movies, behold these buried treasures that rose above.

Before Sunrise (1995, SHOWTIME)

Paddington (2015, YOUTUBE)

Uncountable Eurail passes were sold thanks to Richard Linklater’s indie swoon about two strangers on a train (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) who disembark in Vienna to talk and talk (and talk), tumbling into romance. — L E A H G R E E N B L AT T

He’s just a bear, standing in front of the world, asking it to love him: Paddington, the little cub with the black-button eyes, red bucket hat, and a “worrying marmalade habit.”

Apex predators have never looked so squeezable in a peacoat. — LG

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W AT C H : T V

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READ

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P L AY

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R E V I E W S

TYPOGRAPHY BY >

DUSK STUDIO

R A V E S

&

W AT C H : M O V I E S

↑ The EW team breaks down the top pop culture of the year—and a few disappointments, too

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The Year’s

BEST FILMS

BY LEAH G R E E N B L AT T

1

Licorice Pizza

DIRECTED BY PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON

Youth might be wasted on the young, but it is not lost on filmmakers. In a year that saw them getting back to their roots via 1960s Ireland (Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast), ’80s Italy (Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God), and ’90s London (Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Part II), Anderson’s vision stood apart: a sunny, skewering Nixon-era dream of latchkey kids on the loose in the San Fernando Valley, starring Cooper Hoffman (son of late PTA regular Philip Seymour Hoffman) as Gary Valentine, a teen actor with an enduring crush on an older woman (Alana Haim).

Gary’s a hustler—he’ll sell you on waterbeds or pinball, depending on the day—but a sweetheart, too. And Anderson’s tender, funny ramble captures the hope and absurdity of adolescence, one wild polyblend rumpus at a time.

T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Worst Beach Old

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Best Bitch Rosamund Pike in I Care a Lot

Good Optometry The Eyes of

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y M AT T TA L B O T

3

Flee

DIRECTED BY JANE CAMPION

D I R ECT E D BY J O N AS P O H E R RAS M U S S E N

Could an animated documentary ever win Best Picture? It might be a pipe dream, but Flee is the kind of movie that makes you think it should. Rasmussen’s kaleidoscopic study of a high school friend’s harrowing journey from Kabul to the Danish suburbs as a teenage refugee is as funny, sad, and intimate as any scripted drama.

4

The Lost Daughter DIRECTED BY MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL

5

Drive My Car DIRECTED BY RYŪSUKE HAMAGUCHI

6

A radio journalist (Joaquin Phoenix) trades bachelorhood for proxy parenting when his harried sister (Transparent’s Gaby Hoffmann) asks him to care for her 8-year-old son (Woody Norman). Mills (Beginners) quietly shapes his shaggy tale—shot in intimate black and white— into a bittersweet beauty: a sort of minorkey Auntie Mame for melancholy uncles.

9

Parallel Mothers D I R E C T E D B Y P E D R O A L M O D Ó VA R

At this point, coming into an Almodóvar film feels like reuniting with a favorite European friend. While the outlines of his latest—with its maternity-ward mix-ups and romantic roundelays—tilt toward melodrama, knockout turns from Penélope Cruz and newcomer Milena Smit anchor a story filled with tenderness, empathy, and Pedro’s trademark Technicolor joy.

10

DIRECTED BY SEAN BAKER

9

D I R E C T E D B Y PA B L O L A R R A Í N

Bad Optometry Snake Eyes

Red Rocket

Never trust a man over 35 who calls himself Mikey. That’s the first if not the least of many life lessons in Rocket, The Florida Project director Sean Baker’s sunnily profane portrait of a washed-up porn star (a squirrelly, dazzling Simon Rex) returning to his Texas roots. Mikey’s going nowhere fast and neither is the script, but it’s a ramshackle pleasure just to ride along.

Spencer

Casting California cool girl Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana sounded like a stunt; instead, it’s a left-field stroke of genius in Larraín’s woozy trip of a biopic. Though the Chilean director’s dreamlike drama covers just a few short days in the life of Di, the movie manages to capture the whole imperfect essence of his elusive muse— and breathe real, surreal life into an icon.

Tammy Faye

DIRECTED BY MIKE MILLS

2

7

Least Promising Colon Space Jam: A New Legacy

WORST

Most Unfortunate “Teen” DEAR EVAN HANSEN ↑ Because nothing says “high school heart-warmer” like an uncanny-valley Ben Platt—already a decade past his choir-club sell date at 28— playing a warbly, morally corrupt teenager.

Most Unfortunate Tom CHERRY/ CHAOS WALKING He’s funny and charming and can soft-shoe like a tiny Gene Kelly. So why does Tom Holland keep spending his Spider-Man breaks on overbaked, self-serious bummers?

Silliest Inception Redux REMINISCENCE Just imagine if Leo was a postapocalypse Hugh Jackman, the spinning top was a holographic memory machine, and everything that happened on screen got explained to you seven more times in a voice-over.

Poorest Anger-Management Training Video WRATH OF MAN With Guy Ritchie, you can usually at least count on some jazzy, crime-y style.

But Jason Statham looks so rightfully bored in this bone-tired heist thriller that even killing Post Malone can’t cheer him up.

PLAY

If you told us a three-hour Japanese arthouse drama would fly by, we’d call you a damn liar. And yet it’s impossible not to fall under the spell of Drive. Spun from the Haruki Murakami story of the same name, the film follows a laconic Tokyo actor (Hidetoshi Nishijima) through a gauntlet of despair, desire, and control so hauntingly lovely and immersive, it’s almost spiritual.

Imagine a Suicide Squad without the bleary CG battles and sharks that inexplicably wear pants. Denmark export Riders, starring Mads Mikkelsen as a gruff military vet out to avenge his murdered wife with a surly teenage daughter and assorted weirdos in tow, is a tiny masterpiece of absurdist action comedy, with a pure wellspring of loopy Scandinavian soul.

The Year’s

READ

Come on in, the water’s fine: Olivia Colman stars as a fortysomething academic whose solo Greek-isle getaway becomes a reckoning with a fellow traveler (Dakota Johnson) and her own memories of young motherhood in Gyllenhaal’s coolly unsettling debut— a sublime acting showcase that never shorts on substance or subtext.

8

C’mon C’mon

DIRECTED BY ANDERS THOMAS JENSEN

LISTEN

THE POWER OF THE DOG: KIRSTY GRIFFIN/NETFLIX; RIDER OF JUSTICE: ROLF KONOW/MAGNOLIA; PARALLEL MOTHERS: IGLESIAS MÁS/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS; DEAR EVAN HANSEN: SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Twelve years after her last film, Campion (The Piano) returns with a vengeance in Power, a Western noir so fraught it should come with its own Xanax. Benedict Cumberbatch is frankly terrifying as Phil, a Montana rancher whose toxic dance with his fragile new sister-in-law (Kirsten Dunst) and her teenage son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) shimmers with strange electricity.

7

Riders of Justice

WATCH

2

The Power of the Dog

The Bad-Idea Bell That Can’t Be Unrung MUSIC Music does not make the people come together.

But it does make the people wonder why Sia (yes, the pop singer) thought to herself, “Let me put Leslie Odom Jr. and Kate Hudson in a kicky little autism fandango and let them fly!” — LG Most Promising Colon Dune: Part One

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The Year’s

BEST SCENES

BY LEAH G R E E N B L AT T

Bus Fight Club

SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS

There’s a Cat in the Hat sameness to most superhero brawls—they will punch you in the face! They will laser you in space!—that Shang-Chi cuts right through with one early kinetic showdown.

As best friends Shaun (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) head to their valet day jobs, an altercation with a crew of burly bionic henchmen on a city bus becomes a battle royale so balletic and clever, sparks (and brake pads, and a few dozen extras) literally fly.

3 House of Pain

After more than a year of indoor-cat ennui, was there anything sweeter than witnessing the explosion of pure summertime joy and buoyant poolside choreo that anchors Jon M. Chu’s sunny screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s celebrated musical?

The phrase “What’s in the box?” hasn’t hung this heavy since Brad Pitt got gifted Gwyneth’s head in Seven. To test Arrakis’ princeling-savior Paul (Timothée Chalamet), Charlotte Rampling’s Reverend Mother sends him to the limits of physical distress.

4.

Double Feature

5 Twinsies

Edgar Wright’s stylish thriller falls off in the back half, but his dazzling setup—in which Thomasin McKenzie’s modern-day London student tumbles into the nocturnal wonderland of a mod-’60s mystery blonde played by Anya Taylor-Joy—is a mirror-image marvel.

If you haven’t seen James Wan’s horror hit, stop reading. If you have, oh my God: The big reveal that the scalp tingle a Seattle nurse (Annabelle Wallis) can’t shake was not an itch but a murderous parasitic twin truly gives new meaning to the phrase wigging out.

IN THE HEIGHTS

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

DUNE

MALIGNANT

T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Luckiest Gal Caitríona Balfe, serenaded by Jamie Dornan in Belfast

For the full list of our top scenes of the year, visit ew.com/2021moviescenes

Luckiest Seagull The bird

SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS: MARVEL STUDIOS; DUNE: CHIABELLA JAMES/WARNER BROS.

1

2 Too Pool for School

If 2021 dashed our dreams of a Hot Girl Summer (thanks a lot, Delta variant), at least it didn’t short us on Chalamets.

Follow the arrows to find your Timmy destinée. By Leah Greenblatt

Is your hair a whole story?

YES

YES

Want to save the world?

NO

Is that world Earth, or the spice planet Arrakis?

EARTH

3

ARRAKIS

SKATEBOARD

YOU ARE

YOU ARE

YOU ARE

Zeffirelli The French Dispatch

Yule Don’t Look Up

Paul Atreides Dune

Your student radicalism is a bust, but you do bed Frances McDormand.

The bad news: deadly comet.

The good: Jennifer Lawrence likes your bangs.

Congratulations, you are the chosen one! If Zendaya sees it, it must be so.

BLACK-AND-WHITE MADE A BIG COMEBACK IN 2021, BUT IN A WAY THAT WAS NEVER COLORLESS.

By Joshua Rothkopf

With Schindler’s List, you expect black-and-white. (My rabbi almost demanded it.) But shooting in monochrome doesn’t always signify Holocaust-level seriousness. Once the industry’s standard, black-and-white was able to breathe vibrant life into the zaniest screwball comedies and most nightmarish noirs.

This year’s batch of films certainly put the format to the test, evoking modern emotions in different contexts. The exquisite Passing (1), Rebecca Hall’s ambitious directorial debut (shot by Edu Grau), tells a story set in 1920s Jazz Age Harlem about light-skinned Black

PLAY

MOPED

Fifty Shades of Gray

women secretly stepping into a forbidden world. Blown-out lighting and high-contrast images emphasize the microscopic scrutiny they’re under, as well as the risks being taken.

Elsewhere, Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon (2), captured by Robbie Ryan, emphasizes the intimacy that grows between an uncle and his nephew (played by Joaquin Phoenix and promising newcomer Woody Norman) by using subtle irising.

Outside of Manhattan’s urbanity—like in the haunted Scotland of The Tragedy of Macbeth (3)— cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel’s hard-edged gray scale establishes a vivid sense of hierarchy, power, and fate.

And there was room for nostalgia, too: Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (4), a tale inspired by his own boyhood as a movie-mad kid growing up during Ireland’s late-’60s Troubles, went for sweetness. Expertly lensed by Haris Zambarloukos, Branagh’s memoir—sometimes tense like a newsreel—is mainly an oasis for his characters, who maintain a dignity through the violence.

READ

Choose: moped or skateboard?

4

LISTEN

NO

You are not a Timothée Chalamet character.

YES

2

NO

Wait, are you Timmy’s Italian doppelgänger?

Scusi!

You’re The Hand of God star Filippo Scotti.

1

WATCH

THE FRENCH DISPATCH: SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES; DON'T LOOK UP: NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX; DUNE: WARNER BROS.; PASSING: NETFLIX; C'MON C'MON: A24; BELFAST: ROB YOUNGSON/FOCUS FEATURES; THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH: APPLE TV+

WHICH TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET CHARACTER ARE YOU?

W E AS K E D, YO U A N SW E R E D

What was the best biopic of 2021? serenaded by Jamie Dornan in Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar

SPENCER THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE

Best Snack Licorice Pizza

RESPECT

46% 19% 18% 17%

Worst Snack Gunpowder Milkshake

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↓

Two-hour run times are for quitters.

This year, movies went more supersize than ever—with at least one Oscarbait exception.

3.5 HRS.

PATTI HARRISON

The Last Duel

Together Together

In a year full of stellar turns—Benedict Cumberbatch, please report to the podium—some are bound to fall through the cracks. Like Affleck in Duel; his take on a libertine count was marred by poor box office and unfortunate boyband hair. But it’s a low-key revelation: funny, layered, and surprisingly soulful.

Guy meets girl, guy hires girl to become his baby-mama surrogate: so far, so modern rom-com. But as the twenty something barista who agrees to be Ed Helms’ womb for hire, Patti Harrison (Shrill) finds the finer shades of a fiercely guarded character who would sooner offer up her uterus than her heart.

By Leah Greenblatt

3 HRS.

LISTEN

2.5 HRS. Tectonic plates were formed in less time than it takes to find out what didnÕt make the Snyder Cut. 2 HRS.

NICOLAS CAGE

Pig

Sometimes it seems like casts don’t even do chemistry reads anymore.

But there’s a whole periodic table sizzling between Keough and Paige as strippers whose initial spark of friendship in a diner leads them down a road-trip rabbit hole so depraved it makes Fear and Loathing feel like Pixar.

It’s easy to forget that Cage, whose IMDb page has tilted more toward quantity than quality in the last decade or two, is capable of small, wonderful surprises like Pig, in which he plays an exiled Portland, Ore., chef forced to join the world again when his beloved truffle pig is stolen by poachers. Chops? He’s still got ’em.

1.5 HRS.

For Sopranos fans, creator David Chase’s return to the bada-bing well after nearly 15 years was a little bit like methadone: not the same rush as the original, but still a pretty good fix. As Tony’s cherished Uncle Dickie, Nivola taps a deeper vein than mere moral murkiness: an uneasy mobster with cracks in his soul.

As a dapper AI cyborg custom-built to romance a reluctant Berlin academic (Maren Eggert), the onetime Downton Abbey star displays an unexpected fluency in German—and a flair for turning a (literally) robotic role into something charming, disarming, and gratifyingly human. — L EA H G R E E N B L AT T

T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Cars That Go to Space F9: The Fast Saga

ETERNALS

I’m Your Man

HOUSE OF GUCCI

The Many Saints of Newark

NO TIME TO DIE

DAN STEVENS

DRIVE MY CAR

ALESSANDRO NIVOLA

ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE

1 HR.

PLAY

Half an Irish childhood plus the Troubles, without even a pause for a pee break? Well done, sir.

BELFAST

Zola

DUNE

RILEY KEOUGH AND TAYLOUR PAIGE

READ

THE LAST DUEL: JESSICA FORDE; I'M YOUR MAN, TOGETHER, TOGETHER: BLEECKER ST (2); ZOLA: ANNA KOORIS/A24; PIG: NEON; MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK: BARRY WETCHER/WARNER BROS.

BEN AFFLECK

WATCH

HERE TO ETERNITY

LONG MOVIES OF 2021

Cars That Have Sex Titane

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The Year’s

BEST SHOWS

BY KRISTEN BALDWIN

1

Reservation Dogs FX ON HULU

Four teenagers—Elora (Devery Jacobs), Bear (D’Pharaoh WoonA-Tai), Cheese (Lane Factor), and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis)— bum around their Oklahoma reservation, dreaming of a better life in California. Their friend Daniel (Dalton Cramer) is dead.

“This place killed him,” fumes Elora. “I’m not letting it kill me.”

Co-created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, Reservation Dogs immerses us in a fully realized world from the outset, a place where hangout humor and magic realism nod hello on the street. As Elora and her buds try to scrape together cash, they learn lessons— sometimes under duress—from their elders, including Officer Big (played with mesmerizing equanimity by Zahn McClarnon).

Frequently heartbreaking and always funny, Reservation Dogs is the coming-of-age comedy I never saw coming.

↑ Clockwise from left D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Paulina Alexis, Lane Factor, Zahn McClarnon, and Devery Jacobs

T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Best Heel Turn Agnes/Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) on WandaVision

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Worst Heel Turn Nate (Nick

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y K A G A N M C L E O D

2

The Year’s

The Good Fight

Hacks HBO MAX

4

Succession HBO

HBO MAX

Savage and sweet, this family comedy parodies the inanity of celebrity culture with blithe brilliance. Season 2 launched the Dubek clan (Molly Shannon, Drew Tarver, Heléne Yorke, and Case Walker) to new heights of fame, only to cut them down via sublimely ridiculous mishaps (an awkward nude selfie goes viral; a loose-lipped Lyft ride leads to a lawsuit).

6

Midnight Mass NETFLIX

A small-town priest (Hamish Linklater) and a drunk driver fresh out of prison (Zach Gilford) receive an awesome power.

What follows is a little masterpiece of grief and guilt—a rumination on faith, addiction, and free will filtered through a genre lens. Doubters called it “talky,” but Midnight Mass made two men talking in a church rec room feel like a minor miracle.

Mohammed) on Ted Lasso

7

Chad TBS

Did you hate Chad? I get it. This cringe comedy—starring Nasim Pedrad as a 14-year-old Persian boy—can be very uncomfortable. It’s about an adolescent trying to fit in, always a painful (exhilarating, strange, hilarious) struggle. Give Chad another shot. To quote the heroically devoted Uncle Hamid (Paul Chahidi), “We’re screaming because we’re happy! Join us!”

8

Squid Game NETFLIX

A bleak allegory about the systemic exploitation of the global working class. A pulpy survival thriller set against a candycolored deathscape. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk took the “Why not both?” approach, transforming kids’ games into terrifying instruments of torture, and a debt-ridden dad (Lee Jung-jae, endlessly endearing) into an unlikely hero.

9

Dopesick HULU

With his adaptation of Beth Macy’s opioidcrisis best-seller, Danny Strong lured us in with acutely human characters—a kind Appalachian doctor (Michael Keaton), an injured coal miner (Kaitlyn Dever)— then crushed our hearts like pills under a pestle. Purdue Pharma is no more, but Dopesick remains a damning testament to the Sackler family’s legacy of pain.

10

Dr. Death PEACOCK

Worst Franchise Extension (Part 2) AMERICAN HORROR STORIES FX ON HULU The Dick Wolf-ization of TV continues with this slapdash, self-referential spin-off—a lazy pastiche of gore and titillation.

Most Exhausting Enthusiasm JAMES CORDEN ON FRIENDS: THE REUNION HBO MAX The host was just doing his job, sure. But his Flavor Flav hopped up on a case of Red Bull energy served as a grating contrast to the reunion’s genuinely moving moments with the cast reminiscing on their own.

The Blursts (a.k.a. Stuff We Love, Even if It Isn’t Technically “Good”) BIG SKY ABC This soapy potboiler— with its sex-trafficking psychos, an impressively high per-episode abduction rate, and the hottest ’ship on TV (all hail #Jindor!)— is the perfect antidote to all those dutifully bleak prestige crime dramas.

THE MORNING SHOW APPLE TV+ In season 2, Jesus took the wheel and drove this multi-million-dollar media saga straight off the sanity cliff. Never stop, you beautiful weirdos. — K B

PLAY

SUCCESSION: PETER KRAMER/HBO; CHAD: SCOTT PATRICK GREEN/ TBS; SQUID GAME: NETFLIX

5

The Other Two

8

READ

Season 3 exposed the Roy family scions for who they really are: profoundly damaged kids playacting at adulthood. A coup is derailed by well-timed doughnuts; a family photo becomes a father-daughter power struggle; a lavish birthday party ends with a tearful meltdown. It seems the more these brokenhearted billionaires act out, the harder it is to look away.

7

Worst Franchise Extension (Part 1) CLARICE CBS ↓ It places Thomas Harris’ indelible character into a lifeless, grim-gray CBS crime procedural.

It adds low-rent Silence of the Lambs “flashbacks” whenever it’s told.

LISTEN

Two comedy writers on the brink of losing everything—Las Vegas legend Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and millennial malcontent Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder)— reluctantly team up to save themselves. As the comedians chip away at each other’s defenses with weaponized one-liners, the two stars reveal the fragile hearts of the gifted, deeply flawed women underneath.

4

WATCH

The law may belong to the people—but what if we the people can’t be trusted? In the insidiously quirky fifth season of Robert and Michelle King’s legal drama, an eclectic “judge” (Mandy Patinkin) opens a “court” in the back of a copy shop, and it doesn’t take long for the dangerously delicate guardrails between democracy and mob rule to start crumbling.

3

WORST

PA R A M O U N T +

Joshua Jackson gives a career-best performance as Christopher Duntsch, a Texas neurosurgeon whose cocksure charisma hides deadly ineptitude. An arresting blend of body horror and agonizing suspense—with a dash of buddy-comedy banter from Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater as docs who help take Duntsch down—Dr. Death is a true-crime triumph.

Worst Mess Jeopardy! host transition

Best (Pretty) Mess The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Erika Girardi

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Hello, Dolly

SQUID GAME’S KILLER ROBOT DOLL WAS ONE OF THE HIT SERIES' BREAKOUT STARS.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

1 “S Is for Silence” EVIL PA R A M O U N T +

In the paranormal drama’s eerie midseason premiere, the show’s core trio investigated a potential miracle at a silent monastery, resulting in an impressive, near-dialogue-free installment that effectively balanced horror and suspense with titillating introspection and drunken physical comedy.

2 “The Grey”

FOR ALL MANKIND A P P L E

TV+

The personal and global intertwined in the alternate-history drama’s season 2 closer, bringing every story line to a head and pushing the U.S. and Soviet Union to the brink of war—on earth, in space, and on the moon. Add heartbreaking, heroic deaths and a thrilling season 3 tease, and you have the Platonic ideal of a finale.

the competitors’ signature green tracksuits (modeled after the ones Korean kids wear for PE class).

“Throughout production we would talk about how, if the show did well, maybe people would want to play Red Light, Green Light, or we might have to sell some dalgona,” Hwang recalls, referring to the honeycomb from episode 3. “We really hoped people would love what we created rather than expecting what would happen.” The actual reaction, he says, is “truly inexplicable.”

3 “Feel the Night”

COBRA KAI N E T F L I X

Bringing back Elisabeth Shue’s Karate Kid character, Ali, to revisit her love triangle with Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny (William Zabka) in season 3’s penultimate episode wasn’t a cheap piece of fan service; it was earned and critical to setting up the show’s future. This was nostalgia done well.

W E AS K E D, YO U A N SW E R E D

What was your favorite TV-reboot revival of 2021?

DEXTER: NEW BLOOD THE EQUALIZER

24%

GOSSIP GIRL IN TREATMENT

T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Worst Wig Nicole Kidman on Nine Perfect Strangers

For the full list of our top episodes of the year, visit ew.com/2021episodes

45% 23% 8%

Fiercest Wardrobe Uzo Aduba on In Treatment

EVIL: CBS; FOR ALL MANKIND: APPLE TV+; SQUID GAME, COBRA KAI: NETFLIX (2)

Netflix’s Squid Game starts with 456 down-on-their-luck people trying to win millions of dollars in a life-or-death competition of six playground games. But about half of the players die during the first one, a five-minute round of Red Light, Green Light monitored by a giant killer robot. Based on the popular Korean textbook character Younghee, the four-meter-tall doll detects anyone who even flinches after stopping, and they’re shot dead on the spot.

It’s the stuff of nightmares— though an earlier version of the game was even more traumatizing. “In the first draft of my script, I envisioned about 10 smaller robots about one meter tall in a line,” says series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, who believes the end result was ultimately “more symbolic and powerful.”

Viewers agreed. Not long after Squid Game’s Sept. 17 debut, obsessed fans flocked to giant replicas of Younghee in cities around the world; danced to remixes of the Red Light, Green Light melody at music festivals; and celebrated Halloween in the doll’s yellow and orange dress or

GREAT PERFORMANCES ↓

! ↑ Have exclamation points always been this phallic?

JENNIFER COOLIDGE

The White Lotus H B O

Perhaps it’s disingenuous to single out Burnham’s performance, given he also wrote, scored, directed, and edited this musical masterpiece.

What starts as an exercise in pandemic creativity soon reveals itself as the most innovative comedy special of 2021. — D EVA N C O G G A N

The White Lotus’ eccentric grande dame,Tanya, could’ve been a caricature. In Coolidge’s hands, she’s a fully realized (if ridiculous) person who you almost want to sympathize with—even as she’s subjecting other vacationers to the most uncomfortable eulogy ever given on TV. — L A U R E N H U F F

SELENA GOMEZ, STEVE MARTIN, AND MARTIN SHORT

OMAR SY

Only Murders in the Building HULU

The biggest twist of this murdermystery comedy was the delightful chemistry between longtime costars Steve Martin and Martin Short and their unexpected third amigo, Selena Gomez. — D E R E K L A W R E N C E

Sy’s charming French thief made off with our attention spans in this relentlessly entertaining two-part crime thriller, deftly balancing cunning heists with the show’s examinations of class, race, and power. What ransom do we need to pay to get part 3 ASAP? —J E S S I C A D E R S C H O W I TZ

OMG! Honorable Mention

THE COOKOUT

Maid N E T F L I X

Big Brother C B S

As Alex, a young mom working as a cleaner while trying to escape an abusive relationship, Qualley delivers a grounded, no-nonsense performance. You could even say Qualley Maid this show shine as brightly as one of Alex’s freshly polished surfaces. — R U T H K I N A N E

Kyland Young, Derek Frazier, Xavier Prather, Tiffany Mitchell, Azah Awasum, and Hannah Chaddha formed the most dominant alliance in reality TV history, giving Big Brother its first noncelebrity Black champion— and one of its most entertaining seasons in years. — DA LTO N R O S S

Best Twist Cruel Summer

Forget rick-rolling—this summer was all about schlong-bombing, as friends, siblings, co-workers, and even grandmas were all texted a simple-yet-mysterious prompt: “Go to Netflix Sex/Life episode 3 @ 19:50.”

Those who followed the directive scrolled through the steamy drama to the exact moment when a man (Mike Vogel) stalks his wife’s ex (Adam Demos) into a gym shower and gets more than an eyeful when he sees exactly how, ahem, well-endowed his romantic rival is. And the camera shows everything.

Sex/Life instantly rose to the top of TV’s full-frontal hall of fame as viewers questioned whether Demos employed a body double (he didn’t) or used a prosthetic pecker (the actors and showrunner Stacy Rukeyser will neither confirm nor deny the titillating rumor).

Blind reaction videos to that shocking shaft shot went viral. Even celebrities got in on the phallic fun, like when Today cohost Jenna Bush Hager revealed the scene to Hoda Kotb on camera to jawdropping results.

This will go down in history as the year we got hung up on a well-hung man... which feels refreshingly normal, given the past 22 months.

Worst Use of Debris Debris

Best Fake EW Cover Hacks

PLAY

MARGARET QUALLEY

Lupin N E T F L I X

By Sydney Bucksbaum

READ

Bo Burnham: Inside N E T F L I X

There’s a reason we didn’t call this scene from Netflix’s Sex/Life the Smallest OMG! Moment of the year.

LISTEN

INSIDE, LUPIN: NETFLIX (2); THE WHITE LOTUS, HACKS: HBO (2); ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING: HULU; MAID: RICARDO HUBBS/NETFLIX; BIG BROTHER: CBS

BO BURNHAM

WATCH

BIGGEST OMG! MOMENT

Get her some eye drops! Emmywinning Hacks star Jean Smart played her own wax figure on the HBO Max comedy.

Worst Fake EW Cover The Morning Show

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The Year’s

BEST ALBUMS

1

Heaux Tales

JAZMINE SULLIVAN

At the outset of 2021, Philadelphia belter Jazmine Sullivan released Heaux Tales, an unflinchingly honest and defiantly complex manifesto on 21st-century femininity. Across 14 songs and interludes, Sullivan and some choice guests grapple with sex, love, self-worth, and respect. Sullivan has been one of R&B’s most compelling truth-tellers since she broke through in the ’00s with the unapologetic “Bust Your Windows.” On the compact Heaux Tales, she continues to distill deeply felt emotions into spirited, profane, yet nuanced songs.

The lived experience vibrating through each track, whether it’s a showcase for Sullivan’s pointed songwriting or a first-person recollection of Black womanhood, made Heaux Tales worth digging into over and over as the year dragged on. — M AU RA J O H N STO N T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Favorite Child (Pop) The Kid LAROI

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JANUARY 2022

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Favorite Child (Rap) Lil Baby

Most Defensive Album

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y N ATA L I A A G AT T E

3

Jubilee

THE WAR ON DRUGS

No record in 2021 captured the growing pains of modern adulthood like the War on Drugs’ fifth album. If frontman Adam Granduciel’s powerful imagery reflects an existential reckoning, the band’s soaring melodies and layered production tell another story: Shed the past, let the present wash over you, and the answers may just reveal themselves. —J A S O N L A M P H I E R

J A PA N E S E B R E A K FA S T

8

Montero

The Year’s

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM

Going eponymous for his first solo album in a decade might have been Buckingham’s sly eff-you to his former band Fleetwood Mac, who dropped him in 2018. Yet rather than totally go his own way, he only dug his heels deeper into the sound the group perfected 45 years ago: crisp, effortlessly gorgeous, crystalline pop chronicling love and all its messiness. —J L

LIL NAS X

Despite an audacious marketing approach and a proven ability to generate canny, subversive arena jams like “Industry Baby,” the young phenom’s debut album turned out to be a vulnerable coming-of-age story. Standout track “Tales of Dominica” exemplifies how the chameleonic Nas articulates his lows just as well as his highs. — M A R C U S J O N ES

WORST

Cringiest Pop Album ED SHEERAN =

The paint-by-numbers melodies, the cloying lyrics, the (continued) weaponization of our mathematics system. For Ed, bad habits = bad music.

Worst Impression of an Allergy Medicine Ad LORDE

LISTEN

The third album from Michelle Zauner’s Japanese Breakfast is bursting with flavor—an exhilarating exposition on a life filled with love, loss, and (occasional) lucidity. Zauner, whose memoir Crying in H Mart also makes EW’s Best of 2021 list, injects each tale with her brand of elegant lyricism—along with a few hair-raising horn riffs (“Paprika”). — A L EX S U S K I N D

7

Lindsey Buckingham

WATCH

2

I Don’t Live Here Anymore

“SOLAR POWER” VIDEO

T Y L E R , T H E C R E AT O R

When his Igor won Best Rap Album in 2020, Tyler rightly called out the Grammys for limiting artists like him to “urban” categories. He’s always been a gifted lyricist with a liquid rasp, but Call Me spills over with so much gonzo greatness—sunny soul throwbacks, Zappa-esque instrumental freak-outs—that the word genre sounds like an inside joke. — L EAH G R E E NB LAT T

5

30 ADELE

6

MAXO KREAM

On his reflective third album, the Houston rapper surpasses standard “mo’ money, mo’ problems” accounts, setting the tone with the stoic opener “Cripstian” by summarizing how he truly feels: “…my wins low/’Cause I’ve been dealin’ with these family matters.” What follows is a pivotal listen that conveys trauma in an assured yet disarming way. — M J

10

Sour OLIVIA RODRIGO

The dear-diary bombshell of “Drivers License” put an entire nation in their feelings—and saturated pop culture so heavily it became an SNL sketch months before Rodrigo herself was even a musical guest.

The surprise on Sour wasn’t just that the L.A. teenager had more volcanic ballads where that came from, but a rowdier streak, too: a pop princess with teeth. — LG

Valentine

7

SNAIL MAIL

Pulling herself from the wreckage of addiction and a breakup, Lindsey Jordan offers up her triumphant sophomore album like a bleeding heart. Her wounds are still fresh (“So why’d you wanna erase me?” she wails on the title track), but she betrays a hard-won wisdom well beyond her years on midtempo rockers like “Madonna.” Her catharsis is ours. —J L

Rollout Lana Del Rey, Chemtrails Over the Country Club

4

5

Barefoot beach-frolicking, group yoga, a young woman stopping to smell roses—it’s never good when the clip for your long-awaited single can be easily confused with Claritin sponcon.

Crassest PosthumousRelease Cash-in POP SMOKE FA I T H

The late drill star deserved better than this cobbledtogether LP overstuffed with questionable features (Dua Lipa, anyone?) and bad production.

Most Pathetic Classic-Rock Icons VAN MORRISON AND ERIC CLAPTON The two rock curmudgeons released another tedious duet bemoaning today’s lack of “rebels,” then spent the year spouting anti-vaccine rhetoric. I’m begging, darling, please stop talking.

PLAY

In a world so divided that most citizens can’t agree on a shared version of reality, there is Adele: the one human capable of uniting lovers and fighters, cynics and romantics, wine moms and man-cave dads.

30 finds the singer in a postdivorce mood, vacillating between sky-high gospel, bossa nova soul, and silky piano balladry in a voice that still shines like the Hope diamond. — LG

9

Weight of the World

READ

TYLER, THE CREATOR: AMY SUSSMAN/FILMMAGIC; ADELE: CLIFF LIPSON/CBS VIA GETTY IMAGES; SHEERAN: DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGES FOR HUGO BOSS UK

4

Call Me if You Get Lost

Most Lifeless Rap Beef KANYE VS. DRAKE After allegedly patching things up, Ye and Dreezy continued their yearslong grudge by trading home addresses, diss tracks, and schoolyard taunts. They couldn’t have just dropped good albums instead? –A S

Splashiest Guitar Splash Phoebe Bridgers on SNL

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BEST SONGS

1

2 “Like I Used To”

SHARON VAN ETTEN, ANGEL OLSEN

With enough electricity to power its own citywide grid, this commanding duet from the two songwriting titans is all about rediscovering independence and finding comfort in old habits.

— A L EX S U S K I N D

“Brutal”

3 “Montero (Call Me

by Your Name)”

OLIVIA RODRIGO

To anyone with sentient memories of the ’90s, “Brutal” was like stepping through a Lollapalooza looking glass, the alt-nation swagger and blown-out guitar fuzz of the Breeders and Elastica reborn in one dimpled Gen-Z teen. If “Drivers License” was Rodrigo’s mournful calling card, the salvo of Sour’s pounding opener served as a corrective to all those delicate feelings: “I’m so sick of 17/Where’s my f---ing teenage dream?” she snarled, fury churning behind a Disney-star smile.

And we (not remotely 17) shouted it right back. —L EA H G R E E N B L AT T

LIL NAS X

Blood-drop Nikes! Lap dances for Satan! It was easy to get caught up in the wild theater of LNX, but the singles genuinely slap—like “Montero,” a sinuous ode to queer Black romance with a dusty-vinyl backbeat. — LG

4 “Leave the Door Open”

8 “Right on Time”

When onetime tourmates Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak opened the strobe-lit “Door,” it was more like a Narnia portal to a sweeter, simpler time: a groovy Soul Train dream of satin lounge robes and rose petals scattered in bathtubs. — LG

“I never held my breath for quite this long,” Carlile sings on this towering ballad about regret and a relationship on the rocks. As it reaches its showstopping chorus, you might realize you’ve been holding yours, too. —J A S O N L A M P H I E R

6 “The Tradition"

9 “Happier Than Ever”

SILK SONIC

HALSEY

Who knew that 2021 was just waiting for a highbrow feminist gloss on Phantom of the Opera piano goth, curated by dark-lord production gods Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross? “Ask for forgiveness/Not for permission,” indeed. — LG

5 “Thot S---”

7 “Wild Side”

When you claim GOAT status, you better bring receipts.

And they get brought on “Thot,” a casually ferocious clapback to all the petty haters and undercard players trying to stand in Megan’s light while she celebrates herself in the mirror. — LG

If lush, carnal R&B like “Wild Side” is what we can expect from Normani, then her current slow-burn approach to releasing new music has all been worth it.

Letting Cardi be as nasty as she wants to be is an apt touch. — M A R C U S J O N E S

MEGAN THEE STALLION

NORMANI, CARDI B

BRANDI CARLILE

BILLIE EILISH

Billie always works best when she has a bad-guy adversary, and the thankless narcissist in “Happier” provides the highlight of her sophomore LP: a ry acoustic lullaby that breaks open into crashing rock-opera catharsis. — LG 10 “Get Into It (Yuh)” DOJA CAT

Once pop’s problem child, the irrepressible Doja sprints through this pithy track with vocal dexterity, otherworldly intonation, and campy lyrics—proving she has the talent to drop both blistering rap verses and breezy pop melodies. — M J

T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Best “Best Song of 2012” of 2021 Taylor Swift, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”

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RODRIGO: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES FOR IHEARTMEDIA; CARDI B: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE RECORDING ACADEMY; LIL NAS X: JEFF KRAVITZ/MTV VMAS 2021/GETTY IMAGE; NORMANI: THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES FOR MTV/VIACOMCBS

↑ From left Cardi B, Normani, Olivia Rodrigo, Brandi Carlile, Lil Nas X

Oddest Irish

The Great Pop Star Retreat

1

Hell of Presidents

2

The Plot Thickens: Lucy B E N M A N K I E W I C Z

3

Marvel’s Wastelanders: Old Man Star-Lord

MATT CHRISTMAN, CHRIS WADE

American history as you’ve never heard it before! Wade and Christman give listeners a tour of the U.S. presidents; you learn a lot more about obscure ones (Martin Van Buren) and see the likes of Lincoln and Nixon in a new light. — C H R I S T I A N H O L U B

READ

Bursting with new interviews, archival recordings, and unprecedented insight, season 3 of Turner Classic Movies’ flagship podcast ’splains the life of American icon Lucille Ball with a passion and vigor as fiery as her hair. — M A U R E E N L E E L E N K E R

PLAY

EILISH: KELIA ANNE MACCLUSKEY

↓ Eyes wide shut: Eilish pulls back from full-court fame

BEST PODCASTS

LISTEN

Hello, it’s her. When Adele returned with her first new album in six years this past November, she didn’t exactly creep in through the side door: Two Vogue covers, an Oprah sit-down, and a televised concert special filmed at L.A.’s historic Griffith Observatory in front of a veritable Hollywood Mad Libs of celebrity (Lizzo!

Leo! A sobbing Melissa McCarthy?) seemed only fitting. 30’s lead single, the woeful postdivorce lament “Easy on Me,” quickly cracked Spotify streaming records and topped the charts in 25 countries.

In the context of all that, it sounds a little bit crazy to call the reception that greeted

The Year’s

WATCH

LOOKING FOR THE 2021 HITS FROM MUSIC’S FEMALE MVPS? THEY’RE STILL BIG; IT’S THE SINGLES THAT GOT SMALL.

By Leah Greenblatt

“Easy” almost…mellow. But in 2021, the idea of pop stars purposefully knocking themselves down to life-size seemed to come up again and again. In one of those Vogue interviews, Adele insisted she’d never make another song as “bombastic” as 2015’s “Hello,” calling the crush of notoriety it invited “another level that I don’t want to happen again.”

Lorde also distanced herself from the idea of replicating “Royals,” her own monster smash from 2013. “What a lost cause,” she told The New York Times in August. “Can you imagine? I’m under no illusion. That was a moon shot.” Instead, the New Zealand native quietly pivoted to Solar Power, a breezy minor-key collection better suited to candle making and canyon walks than the Hot 100. And Billie Eilish, who racked up seven charting singles on her 2019 debut, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, before her 18th birthday, released an almost defiantly uncommercial follow-up, Happier Than Ever, in July—including an audacious, genre-jumping title track whose unhurried runtime well exceeded the rigid standards of pop radio.

On some level, it all felt plainly disappointing. Where were the hits? But after spending their young womanhood at the unforgiving center of the fame matrix, it also seemed like a necessary self-preservation. Let BTS, the Weeknd, and Cardi B carry the pop torch and run the charts. Or just try it Taylor Swift’s way; her rerecorded Red included a 10-minute edit of “All Too Well” that cleverly transposed the grown Taylor of 2021 over the girl of 2012: an artist finding fresh release, and a new kind of freedom, in taking the scenic route.

STA R R I N G T I M OT H Y B U S F I E L D

W E AS K E D, YO U A N SW E R E D

Which of these 2021 songs has the best bridge?

“DRIVERS LICENSE” Olivia Rodrigo

47%

“EASY ON ME” Adele

34%

“NEED TO KNOW” Doja Cat “STONED AT THE NAIL SALON” Lorde

Ad-Lib Kendrick on Baby Keem’s “Range Brothers”

11% 8%

Explore a Guardian’s twilight years in this star-studded, humorous, surprisingly poetic audio play—part of an anthology series with more aged Avengers to come. — PAT R I C K G O M E Z

Catchiest Song That Makes You Question Your Marriage Kacey Musgraves, “Breadwinner”

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The Year’s

BEST BOOKS

1

Infinite Country

BY PATRICIA ENGEL

Infinite Country feels, frankly, like everything 2020’s favorite literary lightning rod–slash– punching bag American Dirt was supposed to be: a raw, richly detailed immigration tale rooted in the beautiful speci­ ficities of real life. Their heads full of American dreams, a young couple from Bogotá heads for the border but finds mostly hard truths and frac­ tured family on the other side—a scattered diaspora of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters “bound to the phantom pain of a lost home­ land.” Born in America to Colombian parents, Engel (The Veins of the Ocean) infuses her slim, propulsive narrative with both the deeper legacies of personal history and the sharp kick of a novelist’s keenly penetrating eye; her gaze misses nothing. — L E A H G R E E N B L AT T T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Best Use of New York City as a Character Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

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Hottest Sex

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y H O KY O U N G K I M

2

Great Circle

Crying in H Mart

BY MICHELLE ZAUNER

4

The Prophets

BY ROBERT JONES JR.

6

Milk Fed

BY ANTHONY DOERR

ZAUNER: TONJE THILESEN

A Pulitzer Prize winner for his last sweeping novel, 2014’s All the Light We Cannot See, Doerr proves himself also a scholar of literary world-building with his latest epic. Cuckoo weaves through ancient Constantinople, modern Idaho, and near-futuristic outer space in three interconnected stories that remind readers of society’s greatest beauty. — S R

BY MELISSA BRODER

Beleaguered L.A. assistant and aspiring comedian Rachel is used to finding her selfloathing at the bottom of a fat-free fro-yo cup. But when she meets Miriam, a yogurtshop employee who seems to embrace every ample fold and curve—just call her the emancipation dairy queen—it sets her free in this comic-erotic treat, a novel as sticky-sweet as it is outrageous. — LG

Scenes in a Nunnery Matrix by Lauren Groff

7

Intimacies B Y K AT I E K I T U M A R A

An unnamed woman takes a job at the Hague in Kitamura’s beguiling lucid dream of a novel. A fraught romance with a local Dutchman and a much darker dynamic with an African warlord whose testimony she’s assigned to translate quickly follow, but the book is less about linear plot than the fluid state of being a stranger in a strange land, wherever you go. — LG

8

Detransition, Baby

BY TORREY PETERS

The comma in the title of Peters’ immensely readable debut works both ways: It is indeed about detransition, baby—as in the reversal of gender identification—and also, you know, an actual infant. When an unintended pregnancy forces three New Yorkers of varying persuasions to confront their new reality, it also tweaks the very idea of what a 21st-century family can be. — LG

9

No One Is Talking About This B Y PAT R I C I A L O C KW O O D

Novel, memoir, primal scream: It’s almost impossible to label the streamof-consciousness latest from Lockwood (Priestdaddy), except to say that the way the Booker Prize finalist plays with language and memory and the mirrortricks of personal experience from one page to the next feels both intimately familiar and radically new. — LG

10

The author of W.W. Norton’s marquee nonfiction title was hit with multiple sexual-assault allegations, which he denied. The publisher then removed the book from print, prompting backlash from free speech groups—which leads us to ask: It’s 2021—isn’t someone in charge of checking the skeletons in the closet?

Least Successful Straddling of the Partisan Divide THE TYRANNY OF BIG TECH

BY JOSH HAWLEY

Simon & Schuster has long had a mission to publish authors across the political spectrum; sometimes that agnostic attitude puts you in bed with an insurrectionist.

(After social media outrage, S&S canceled the contract, and Tyranny was released through conservative publisher Regnery.)

Most Blundered Book Award AT LOVE’S COMMAND

BY KAREN WITEMEYER

To launch the (supposedly) more inclusive Vivian Awards, the Romance Writers of America honored (then rescinded) this romance novel that casts a perpetrator of the Wounded Knee Massacre as its hero. What’s the opposite of swoon?

PLAY

5

Cloud Cuckoo Land

8

BY BLAKE BAILEY

READ

In his debut novel, Jones—creator of the social justice community Son of Baldwin—uses lyrical prose and a hint of narrative mysticism to deliver a love story about two young men enslaved in the antebellum South. The plot is biblical in proportion, and the plight of Samuel and Isaiah severe, but their bond instills an unforgettable sweetness. — S R

4

Most Botched Background Check PHILIP ROTH: THE BIOGRAPHY ↓

LISTEN

Equal parts blisteringly honest and generously vulnerable, Zauner’s chronicle of the ways in which Korean food—and her family heritage—pulled her back from the brink of despair after her mother’s untimely cancer death became the year’s must-read memoir for very good reason.

A sad story has never been so impossible to put down. — S E I J A R A N K I N

WORST

WATCH

To all the Robinson Crusoes and Counts of Monte Cristo add Marian Graves, a towheaded tomboy who lives as many lives as any great swashbuckler: teenage rumrunner in Prohibition-era Montana, pilot behind enemy lines in WWII Europe— even muse to modern-day Hollywood.

Her Circle isn’t just a passport, it’s a gorgeous time machine. — LG

3

The Year’s

3

BY MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD

Empire of Pain B Y PAT R I C K R A D D E N K E E F E

This extensive takedown of the Sacklers— the family behind the invention of OxyContin and the current opioid crisis—may not present as accessible, but Keefe has an aptitude for spinning complex investigations into page-turning thrillers. Empire lives out the promises inherent in the word exposé; it’s not a book so much as a rallying cry for the reading masses. — S R

Most Arresting First Chapter I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins

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GREAT PERFORMANCES ↓

TAYLOR JENKINS REID

Malibu Rising

Having conquered Hollywood’s Golden Age and the ’70s rock scene, Jenkins Reid surfed her way into a literal beach read with this Malibu-set tale of family intrigue, wave riders, wildfire, and ’80s excess. Addictively engrossing, Malibu Rising affirmed the author can hang (ten) in any decade. —MAUREEN LEE LENKER

JASON MOTT

Hell of a Book After writing three novels—on such topics as miracles, faith, and the end of the world—Mott delivered his best work yet with this dazzling, devastating tale about an author on a book tour and a young victim of police violence.

His voice is satirical, yet as serious as his subject matter. — S E I J A R A N K I N

Sex Education LOOKING FOR SMART, PIERCING FICTION ON THE STATE OF MODERN ROMANCE? IN 2021, SALLY ROONEY WASN'T THE ONLY QUEEN OF HEARTS.

By Leah Greenblatt

GABRIELLE UNION

You Got Anything Stronger?

The actress’ follow-up to 2017’s heart-wrenching essay collection We’re Going to Need More Wine was a conversation-starter, but not because of any celebrity gossip. Union opened up about her journey to surrogacy and experience as a stepmother, encouraging vulnerability in all who read. — S R

W E AS K E D, YO U A N SW E R E D

What was your favorite celebrity memoir of 2021?

UNFINISHED by Priyanka Chopra Jonas TASTE: MY LIFE THROUGH FOOD by Stanley Tucci

JANUARY 2022

EW. C O M

29%

YEARBOOK by Seth Rogen JUST AS I AM by Cicely Tyson

T H E R E O U G H T A B E A N A W A R D F O R → Biggest LOLs The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson

108

38% 20% 13%

MOTT: MICHAEL BECKER; UNION: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN/FILMMAGIC

She came, seemingly from nowhere (though actually it was Castlebar, Ireland), and she conquered: two books in two years, both not just best-sellers but cultural touchstones so ubiquitous they spawned their own walking tours and tote bags. If 2017’s Conversations With Friends and 2018’s Normal People made Sally Rooney one of the defining voices of a generation still taking the measure of itself, that fame boomerang came back around with the release this year of her third novel, Beautiful World,Where Are You. For the first time, Rooney seemed to lose a little of her shine.

World still has all the Sally signatures: sex, unsparing prose, a cast of attractive millennials too smart and self-reflective for their own good. But the plot was also baggier and less focused, with characters— including a young Irish novelist whipsawed by success—who often read like mouthpieces for the author’s own highly personal

misgivings and bugaboos. (If you want to know how Rooney feels about fame, the answer is: not great, Bob.) But what about readers still longing for clever ladies with sharp accents to hold up a mirror to their twentysomething lives— or older ones who haven’t forgotten how it was to be that young and restless? It turned out they didn’t have to look far: Dolly Alderton’s Ghosts, about a London food writer facing down a family crisis and a series of men so elusive and hard to read they might as well be magic eight balls, covered those same subjects with warm wit and empathy.

So did Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation, in which a Dublin party girl gives it all up for obsessive love with a half-Danish enigma named Ciaran whose casual cruelty and low-key gaslighting takes her whole self out from under her. Unlike World though, both resist reaching for the false tidiness of happily-everafters. Instead, their final pages cleave much closer to what we know in real life: that being alone is better than coupled misery, and that sometimes love is a story that just hasn’t been written yet.

Juiciest Dinner Party Scene Filthy

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OFFICE DARLINGS

A crop of favorite titles used the workplace as the setting for juicy—and often harrowing—plot twists. By Seija

Rankin

WATCH

BLACK BUCK

By Mateo Askaripour A barista is promoted from a ground-floor Starbucks to a high-stakes (and high-floor) sales team in this dark comedy.

WHO IS MAUD DIXON?

By Zakiya Dalila Harris Something really is in the water at Wagner Books, where workplace privilege and microaggressions are only the beginning of the story.

LISTEN

By Alexandra Andrews A famous author’s assistant will stop at nothing—quite literally—for a taste of her boss’ literary success.

THE OTHER BLACK GIRL

ASSEMBLY

By Natasha Brown A London investment bank serves as a stand-in for the unnamed narrator’s dissatisfaction with modern society and life itself.

WHILE JUSTICE SLEEPS

IMPOSTOR SYNDROME

By Kathy Wang A low-level Silicon Valley staffer discovers a security blip that hints at her COO’s link to Russian intelligence.

READ

By Stacey Abrams Avery Keene, just a law clerk trying to get by, learns her boss has slipped into a coma—and left her clues to a deadly conspiracy.

EDGE CASE

By YZ Chin The only thing scarier than being the sole female employee of a tech startup is coming home to the news that your husband has left you.

THE SCAPEGOAT

Animals by Brandon Taylor

PLAY

By Sara Davis At a prestigious university, a lonely professor slowly spirals— and alienates his colleagues—over the death of his estranged father.

Best Books You Can Read in a Day Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson and Immediate Family by Ashley Nelson Levy

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y KY L E H I LT O N

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EDITED BY >

TIM LEONG

BES

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@TIMLEONG

The Year’s

BEST + WORST

LISTEN

Best Use of Fancy Controller Features RETURNAL Feeling the pitter-patter of rain via haptic feedback takes the sting out of dying for the 10,000th time.

READ

↑ Lady Dimitrescu brings claw and order to Resident Evil Village

The Year’s

BEST VIDEOGAMES

1

Resident Evil Village M U LT I P L AT F O R M

PLAY

4 Monster Hunter Rise

P L AY S TAT I O N , P C

N I N T E N D O SW I TC H , P C

A coloring-book world waiting to be painted is a fun hook, but it never becomes a gimmick.

Old-school Zelda-style puzzles highlight a sweet story of overcoming self-doubt and avoiding burnout. — E L

The first full Monster Hunter title since 2018 keeps the franchise’s tradition of masking an incredibly rewarding gear grind behind a steep learning curve— though the addition of rideable dogs helps. — E L

3 Scarlet Nexus

5 Lost in Random

M U LT I P L AT F O R M

M U LT I P L AT F O R M

An action RPG with an addictive story and compelling characters (all with varying psychic abilities) traversing a massive sci-fi world with macabre monsters? The audacity of a game to be that interesting. — N I C K R O M A N O

The Nightmare Before Christmas meets Alice in Wonderland in this delightful but mildly horrifying story of a young girl, Even, trying to save her sister, Odd, in a twisted dice world.

I bet Tim Burton can’t wait to adapt this. — N R

Best Choose Your Own Adventure WILDERMYTH Managing the activities and legacies of a roster of heroes leads to highly individualized storytelling.

Best Arsenal RATCHET & CLANK: RIFT APART The classic duo’s taste for silly weaponry continues— like a blaster that turns enemies into topiaries.

Worst Guilt Trip ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS ↓ I’m sorry I haven’t visited the island since June 2020. I’m back now, okay?

— E VA N L E W I S

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (ISSN 1049-0434) (JANUARY 2022) (#1623/1624) IS PUBLISHED 12 TIMES A YEAR, WITH 10 DOUBLE ISSUES AND SINGLES IN APRIL, JULY, AND AUGUST, BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY INC., A SUBSIDIARY OF MEREDITH OPERATIONS CORPORATION, PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 225 LIBERTY ST., NEW YORK, NY 10281-1008. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT NEW YORK, NY, AND ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICES. POSTMASTER: SEND ALL UAA TO CFS. (SEE DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: SEND ADDRESS CORRECTIONS TO ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY MAGAZINE, PO BOX 37508, BOONE, IA 50037-0508. CANADA POST PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #40069223. BN #888381621RT0001. © 2022 ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUBSCRIPTIONS: FOR 24/7 SERVICE, PLEASE USE OUR WEBSITE: WWW.ENTERTAINMENTWEEKLY.COM/MYACCOUNT. YOU CAN ALSO CALL 800-828-6882 OR WRITE ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, PO BOX 37508, BOONE, IA 50037-0508. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. YOUR BANK MAY PROVIDE UPDATES TO THE CARD INFORMATION WE HAVE ON FILE. YOU MAY OPT OUT OF THIS SERVICE AT ANY TIME. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

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RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE: CAPCOM USA

Village has much more going for it than just a 9' 6" sexy vampire lady (above). There are also werewolves, mutant fish, a baby monster, haunted dolls, and a Nicolas Cage soundalike magnet man. Shockingly, these disparate absurdities create just the right balance of camp and stomach-tightening suspense. RE7 ’s first-person perspective carries over to Village, immersing players in the ghastly things that happen to Ethan Winters’ poor hands as he quests through the European countryside. — EVA N L E W I S

2 Chicory: A Colorful Tale

Best Use of Vintage Copyright Avoidance THE GREAT ACE ATTORNEY CHRONICLES Herlock Sholmes is totally legally distinct from Sherlock Holmes. Just ask Arsène Lupin.

Hot Vax Summer really could’ve used a booster.

BEST AND WORST OF 2021

Maybe the real story of 2021 is all the Bad Art Friends we made along the way.

Bullseye

BY >

OLIVER GETTELL, MARCUS JONES,

NFTs, crypto, GameStop stonks: lucrative year for things Bullseye doesn’t understand

KIDNEY, BOOSTER: ISTOCKPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES (2); BOOK: GETTY IMAGES; PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE: JOE PUGLIESE/CBS; OLIVIA RODRIGO: JMENTERNATIONAL FOR BRIT AWARDS/GETTY IMAGES; BIG BROTHER 23: FRANCIS SPECKER/CBS; BOWEN YANG: WILL HEATH/NBC; BEN PLATT: SONY PICTURES; OLGA MEREDIZ: WARNER BROS/EVERETT COLLECTION; CHICKEN NUGGETS: GERALD MATZKA /PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES; BTS: BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT; NICKI MINAJ, SARAH JESSICA PARKER: GC IMAGES (2); BERNIE SANDERS: BRENDAN SMIALOWISKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; LADY GAGA: ALEX WONG/ GETTY IMAGES; MICHELLE OBAMA: WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES; SHAWN MENDES, CAMILA CABELLO: JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC; AUNJANUE ELLIS: WARNER BROS.; TONY LEUNG: MARVEL STUDIOS

RUTH KINANE, AND MARY SOLLOSI

After previewing the outfits from And Just Like That..., we couldn’t help but wonder: Was our grief over the absence of Kim Cattrall misplaced, when all along the true loss was Patricia Field?

Squid Game got so big that Netflix just cast the Red Light, Green Light doll in the next season of The Circle.

We refuse to accept that the eternally hot Wife Guy is the villain here.

Despite The Crown’s hiatus, the royal family still made a solid bid for our Entertainers of the Year.

An Aunjanue becomes an (Ora)cenestealer.

this year was still pretty brutal. good 4 u, reader, to have made it through.

If Bennifer’s any indication, we look forward to the reboot in 2038.

It was probably not a good year to get medical advice from your cousin’s sketchy friend.

Michelle’s plum attire, Gaga’s Hunger Games brooch, Bernie’s mittens: 2021’s true Lexicon of American fashion

Having artists like BTS present us these meals makes the heartburn a little brighter.

Even Delta couldn’t stop Big Brother from hosting a Cookout that we’ll be talking about for years to come.

!

With such a huge, uh, talent displayed, we had to include him twice this issue.

The pros and cons of age-blind casting

Tom’s house was broken into and he confronted the burglar, and then had to go have eye surgery, and then my son had to go over and help—and then, my son, he rolled his car five times on the way home... Yeah, huge year for The Real Housewives.

Just gonna say, points were made.

End Credits

PRIORITIZING TRUTH OVER ACCURACY

SCREENWRITER AND DIRECTOR AARON SORKIN ON HIS NEW BIOPIC BEING THE RICARDOS (STARRING NICOLE KIDMAN AND JAVIER BARDEM AS LUCILLE BALL AND DESI ARNAZ) AND THE TRICKY BALANCE OF TELLING REAL PEOPLE’S STORIES

BY A A R O N S O R K I N

I L LU ST R ATI ON BY >

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wasn’t just that making a screwdriver was more visually interesting (because who’s going to argue with David Fincher about visual interest?), it was that Mark was—as he said at the time—drinking to get drunk that night, and popping a beer might read as just a college kid who was thirsty on a Tuesday. In other words, by being accurate we might be obscuring the truth. And that’s the tug-of-war a screenwriter goes through when they’re writing nonfiction. Accuracy versus truth. A photograph or a painting. I lost the argument with David.

When I’m writing nonfiction and I mess with accuracy, I ask myself two questions: First, am I defaming anyone? Would I have been okay having Mark snort a line of coke or smoke meth? Of course not. But I didn’t think that having Mark drink vodka

and orange juice would unfairly do damage to his reputation—and it was closer to the truth, which was that he was drinking to get drunk. Second, is this perverting history? Reasonable people can disagree, but I came down on the side of “Nah.” Which brings us to Being the Ricardos. I took three events that happened during the first few seasons of I Love Lucy and made them happen in the same week. I wanted to put as many obstacles in front of the protagonists as possible, because drama is intention versus obstacle. It didn’t matter to me that Lucille Ball was accused of being a communist during a different week from the week Desi showed up on the cover of Confidential with another woman. For the purposes of the story I was telling, it only mattered that those things happened. I wouldn’t be defaming anyone and, as for perverting history, again, not really.

My friend and teacher, the late William Goldman, said of his Academy Award-winning screenplay for All the President’s Men, “If I’m telling the true story of the fall of the President of the United States, the last thing I’m going to do is make anything up.” I understand what he meant in context, but the fact is, as soon as he wrote “FADE IN,” he’d committed to making things up. People don’t speak in dialogue and their lives don’t play out in a series of scenes that form a narrative. Dramatists do that.

They prioritize truth over accuracy.

Paintings over photographs.

PHOTO REFERENCE: ART STREIBER

David Fincher and I had a disagreement during prep for The Social Network. I’d written “vodka” and David, our director, wanted beer. “Beck’s,” to be specific.

We knew that Mark Zuckerberg was drinking and drunk at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday in October in 2003. He’d just had an unhappy experience with a young Boston University student and he was back in his dorm room at Harvard, hacking into the student directories for all of Harvard’s dormitories—or houses—to get pictures of women so he could create a hot-or-not website.

These student directories were called facebooks. We knew all this because Zuckerberg told us. He was liveblogging the whole night.

So, after an opening scene where I imagined a date with a BU student that would get Mark angry enough to do what he was about to do, I wrote the second scene, based entirely on Mark’s blog posts. We started tight on a computer screen. Under voice-over, Mark would walk in and out of the frame, powering up his computer, setting down a glass, dropping ice into the glass, pouring vodka over the ice, pouring orange juice over the vodka, and then sitting down and typing.

Then, two weeks before the start of production, we found out Mark was drinking beer that night. Beck’s. So David told me we’d need to change it to Beck’s. I made the case for why Mark shouldn’t be drinking beer even though we knew that Mark was drinking beer. It

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