#1463/1464 / April 28/May 5, 2017 / 7
SPECIAL DOUBLE ISSUE
Summer Movie Exclusive! On the set of
Preview
SCOOP ON THE
New Villains! New Planets! A New Dad! and awwww…
Baby Groot!
110 BIGGEST FILMS WONDER WOMAN BAYWATCH TRANSFORMERS KING ARTHUR PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN ALIEN: COVENANT ATOMIC BLONDE
and more!
THE TOP 10 THINGS W E LOV E THIS WEEK
U2, Kendrick Lamar, and Rihanna
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MUSIC
DAMN., Kendrick Lamar
• The Compton MC’s fourth album is another vividly detailed depiction of race and society in modern America. Rihanna and U2 provide support to Lamar, who reaffirms himself as one of contemporary music’s foremost poets. 2 E W.C O M
T H E AT E R
B O O KS
MUSIC
GROUNDHOG DAY
STARTUP, by Doree Shafrir
“NIGHTS WITH YOU,” MØ
• The beloved 1993 Bill Murray rom-com heads to Broadway, with Tony nominee Andy Karl as the grouchy weatherman stuck in a time loop. It’s a catchy, darkly funny musical you’ll want to see again and again and again and again…
• BuzzFeed writer Shafrir satirizes New York’s start-up scene in this smart, breezy novel about a young, hungry reporter at a tech-world gossip blog who stumbles onto a career-defining scoop. A beach read for Silicon Valley fans.
• The voice behind Major Lazer’s dance hit “Lean On” plays your Manic Pixie BFF on this skronky, bassheavy pep talk: “I will dye my hair in crazy colors just to make you smile.” It’s as addicting as her name is unpronounceable.
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M OV I E S
A DARK SONG
• Terrifying things
start to happen when Catherine Walker’s grieving mother and Steve Oram’s occultist spend months performing an ancient rite in this Wales-set horror movie. But are they really contacting supernatural forces or just going insane? (PG-13)
I L L U ST R AT I O N BY B R A D D U N L E V Y
GROUNDHOG DAY: JOAN MARCUS; MØ: BUR AK CINGI/REDFERNS/GET T Y IMAGES; A DARK SONG: SAMSON FILMS/IFC FILMS
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FROM EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS MIKE JUDGE AND ALEC BERG
CHANGING THE WAY THINGS CHANGE. ®
SEASON PREMIERE
APRIL 23 10PM OR STREAM IT ON
The Must List
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FREE FIRE
• Brie Larson wields
deadly weapons (and her Oscar-winning acting chops) alongside Armie Hammer and Cillian Murphy in this bullet-riddled thriller about a bloody shoot-out between rival gangs in ’70s Boston. (R)
TV
THE HANDMAID’S TALE
• Margaret Atwood’s
chilling novel becomes a masterful 10-part series starring Elisabeth Moss as a woman conscripted to bear children in a near-future dystopia. Joseph Fiennes, Alexis Bledel, and Samira Wiley round out the stellar cast. (Debuts April 26, Hulu)
B O O KS
THIS IS JUST MY FACE, by Gabourey Sidibe
• Sidibe’s hilarious Twitter account is no fluke— the Empire actress’ memoir about growing up in New York City and finding unexpected fame in Hollywood is sharp, witty, and wonderfully substantive. MUSIC
HUMANZ, Gorillaz
• For the first Gorillaz
album since 2011, Damon Albarn offers cosmic electro-rock beats—and all-star guests, including Grace Jones, Mavis Staples, Pusha T, D.R.A.M., and De La Soul.
TV
AMERICAN GODS
• This gorgeous adapta-
tion of Neil Gaiman’s epic tale of a war between gods old and new stuns with its timely exploration of racism, immigration, and faith. (Debuts April 30, 9 p.m., Starz)
FREE FIRE: KERRY BROWN/A 24; THE HANDMAID’S TALE: GEORGE KR AYCHYK /HULU; GORILL A Z: MARK ALL AN/INVISION/AP IMAGES; AMERICAN GODS: JAN THIJS/STAR Z
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EW 04.28
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The Minions get fresh—and floral!— this summer in Despicable Me 3
FEATURES
23
Summer Movie Preview
They play women who are equally charming and infuriating on their respective U.K. hits– turned–U.S. darlings, Catastrophe and Fleabag. And in real life, the writer-actresses are just as obsessed with each other as we are with them.
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Confessions of a Reality TV Felon On April 27, 2008, Adam Jasinski won Big Brother and the $500,000 that went along with it. What he did with some of the CBS prize money landed him— and a castmate— behind bars.
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Movies
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The Must List Sound Bites News & Notes The Bullseye
BY LYNETTE RICE
88 91 92
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ON THE COVER Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Rocket, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Baby Groot, and Dave Bautista as Drax. Photographed by Robert Maxwell on May 23, 2016. © Marvel.
Books Cover lettering by Alessandro Strickner.
BY SARA VILKOMERSON
FOR THE LATEST POP CULTURE NEWS, FOLLOW US ON:
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REVIEWS
@EntertainmentWeekly
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ILLUMINATION/UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Summer is all about family fun. Usually. But the Guardians of the Galaxy are bickering, and Tom Cruise discovers that the Mummy has some serious daddy issues. Take heart, though: Charlie Hunnam will claim the crown as King Arthur, and Wonder Woman will— at last—rule our world.
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Sharon Horgan and Phoebe Waller-Bridge
NEWS AND COLUMNS
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THE WEEK’S ’S BEST B S
“I was the first female president of the United States and I will not work for less than 87 cents on the dollar.”
TW TWEET WE OF TTHE WEEK WE EE I had ha no problem pr prob drinkingg the t four cups of wine at tonight’s Seder. It’s not Passover until I Passout! @BetteMidler
—Former president Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), unhappy unhapp unh appyy with with her her sspe speaki aking ng ffee fees, s, onn VVee Veepp
“Coocious? Sounds like a damn STD.” —Cookie (Taraji P. Henson), dismissing the name fans created to ship her and Lucious (Terrence Howard), on Empire
“ m here. “I’m “I’ here. I win. win.. I’m you yourr best best frie friend. nd. I’m the bes bestt at being bei ng your fri friend end.. I love love g your you the mos most.” t.”
“Rest in peace, e, hy. Charlie Murphy e lov love We love you, we e we your comedy,, we es,, and es and love your storie piri irit.” t.” we love your sp
“Hello... goat dude?” —Dean (Jensen Ackles), entering a creepy basement while hunting a man who reportedly has a goat head, on Supernatural
“I didn’t want to be, like, the trans Survivor player. I wanted to be Zeke the Survivor player.” —Zeke Smith, after Jeff Varner outed him as transgender, on Survivor: Game Changers
—Dave Chappelle,, payi paying ngg tribute to his feel w ellow low comedian and Chaappe ll ’s ppelle lle’s Show alum aat a John Mayer coonc oncert ert
“Sometimes I feel like I’m cursed. A lot of people die around me.” —Meredith (Ellen Pompeo), explaining the aftermath of the plane crash to Riggs (Martin Henderson), on Grey’s Anatomy
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MIDLER: TR AE PAT TON/NBC/NBCU PHOTO BANK VIA GET T Y IMAGES; LOUIS-DRE YFUS: JUSTIN M.LUBIN/HBO; HENSON: CHUCK HODES/FOX; WILLIAMS: CR AIG BL ANKENHORN/HBO; CHAPPELLE: ARNOLD TURNER /INVISION/AP; SMITH: CBS; ACKLES: DE AN BUSCHER / THE CW; POMPEO: ABC
—Marniee (All — —Marni (Alliso isonn Will William iams), s),, on her ffr frien iendsh dship ip sta status tus ( na Dun )), withh Hann wit Hannah ah (Le (Lena Dunham ham), iin the h Gir Girls ls se serie riess ffina inale le
EW 04.28
05.05 2017
( Clockwise from bottom left ) Supernatural, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Riverdale, Grey’s’s Anatomy, y, NC NCIS, and Empire
The minds behind your favorite shows tease the death, destruction, and dogs(!) you can expect to see in their season-capping episodes 10 E W.C O M
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ABC
Thursday, May 18, 8 p.m.
In true Shondaland fashion, Grey’s Anatomy is prepping for a heart-pounding he conclusion to season 13. “There are actually two events going on at a the e nity,” says sa same time that are pretty big and affect the entire hospital community, EP Debbie Allen, hinting that many relationships will be either troubled or solidified as a result—and lives could be at stake. “You should be worried,” Allen cautions. “There’s an amazing cliff-hanger that will have everybody thinking, ‘Wow, where is this going?!’ ” Don’t freak out (or do!), but there will actually be several question marks, which will “fuel the fire for what is going to happen next,” Allen says. Probably best to watch with tissues and tequila!
I L L U ST R AT I O N S BY C A R LY K L A I R E
BROOKLYN NINE-NINE: JORDIN ALTHAUS/FOX; EMPIRE: CHUCK HODES/FOX; RIVERDALE: DIYAH PERA/THE CW; GREY’S ANATOMY: RICHARD CARTWRIGHT/ ABC; NCIS: BILL INOSHITA/CBS; SUPERNATUR AL: ROBERT FALCONER/THE CW
GOING OUT WITH A BANG
GREY’S ANATOMY
Madelaine Petsch
CHICAGO MED NBC
RIVERDALE Thursday, May 11, 9 p.m. The season ender also puts focus on the core four and their romantic pairings—one couple goes all the way, with another’s fate left in question. “There’s a huge twist ending that sets up the second season,” the Riverdale boss
After the identity of Jason Blossom’s killer is revealed in the penultimate hour, “the entire town is reeling,” says EP Roberto AguirreSacasa, adding that the action will come full circle back to Sweetwater River.
explains. “One main characc ter’s life hangs in the balance.” Plus: Archie (K.J. Apa) will finally perform with Josie and the Pussycats, while Jughead (Cole Sprouse) adopts trusty pet Hot Dog— oh, and eats a hamburger!
With the mental health of epidemiologist Robyn (Mekia Cox) worsening, her boyfriend Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell), father Dr. Daniel Charles (Oliver Platt), and doctor Sarah Reese (Rachel DiPillo) are about to butt heads in a major way. The debate over her treatment “w come to a kind of resolution “will in the finale, but not entirely,” says showrunner Andrew Schneider. “It will have repercussions that will bleed over into the next season.” Though NBC has yet to announce Chicago Med’s renewal, Schneider is optimistic. “We end, in fact, on a cliff-hanger,” he reveals, hinting, “It involves Dr. Charles.”
ARROW THE CW
Sean Murray, Pauley Perrette, and Wilmer Valderrama
NCIS CBS
Tuesday, May 16, 8 p.m.
Road trip! For the episode dubbed “Rendezvous,” Gibbs (Mark Harmon), McGee (Sean Murray), and Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) hop a flight to an isolated area in Paraguay in h hopes of locating a missing Navy SEAL who opped off the grid during an unsanctioned dro trip.. Trouble is, their subtropical destination
MORE TO WATCH
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is controlled by a serious band of rebel baddies. “As the team searches for the missing Navy SEAL, the mission takes a drastic turn,” teases executive producer George Schenck. Adds fellow EP Frank Cardea, “Gibbs is forced to make a shocking and life-changing decision.”
y May M ay 24, 24 8 p.m. pm Wednesday,
The ultimate showdown between the Emerald Archer (Stephen Amell) and Prometheus (Josh Segarra) will bring to light the consequences of Oliver’s crime-fighting actions. The episode also welcomes back a number of familiar faces, including Black Siren (Katie Cassidy), Nyssa al Ghul (Katrina Law), and Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett), and revisits the island where it all started—both in flashback and present day. “Chase [Segarra] has been trying to prove to the world and to Oliver that he’s not a hero, he’s a killer, and he’s going to pull out one final whammo at the end that’s going to leave Oliver reeling,” EP Wendy Mericle says, promising that the action-packed hour will be explosive. “We might lose some people.”
The Big Bang Theory ( C BS ) May 11, 8 p.m. | Scandal (A B C ) May 18, 9 p.m. | Jane the Virgin ( T H E C W ) May 22, 9 p.m.
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RIVERDALE: K ATIE YU/ THE CW; CHICAGO MED: ELIZABETH SISSON/NBC; ARROW: K ATIE YU/ THE CW; SE AN MURR AY: SONJA FLEMMING/CBS; PAULEY PERRET TE: BILL INOSHITA/CBS; WILMER VALDERR AMA: PATRICK MCELHENNEY/CBS
THE CW
Thursday, May 11, 9 p.m.
“AMERICAN GODS WILL BE YOUR
NEW OBSESSION” – Laura Prudom, Mashable
“GORGEOUS, UNSETTLING, IRREVERENTLY FUNNY” – The Daily Beast
“ALREADY PUTTING
THE REST OF TV TO SHAME” – Inverse
Christine Baranski and Dylan Baker
EMPIRE FOX
Wednesday, May 24, 9 p.m.
“This is probably the biggest fina ale we’ve ever done,” says executive producer Ilene Chaiken of all lly lly the season 3 closer. “We end with virtua every one of our main characterss poised on the edge of a different cliff.” Aside from the Lyon family drama, a mysterious new character, played by Demi Moore, will emerge in the final hour. Moore is a nurse who treats Lucious (Terrence Howard) and, naturally, creates big drama. “Her entrance into our story is momentous,” says Chaiken. “It doesn’t happen until the finale, and when you see it, you’ll know it portends a huge and consequential story in our next season.”
SUPERNATURAL THE CW
Thursday, May 18, 8 p.m.
The long-running drama has explored just about every option when it comes to season-ending suspense for its characters. Facing the apocalypse? Done. Being dragged to hell? Check. Killing death itself? Yep. (Try to wrap your head around that one.) But the season 12 capper will find Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) surrounded by enemies—and, thankfully, a few friends—as they deal with Lucifer and the British Men of Letters. “We’re going for a more traditional Supernatural season finale, where people will die, people will live, and people will be in danger,” showrunner Andrew Dabb says. “[The episode] leaves everyone in an extremely precarious position. We are very conscious about this whole idea of opening new worlds.”
Packing Even More Punch Into The Good Fight The CBS All Access series will return with a bigger season 2 in 2018. B Y LY N E T T E R I C E
FOX
Tuesday, May 23, 8 p.m.
“The finale involves our heroes bending the ru uless until they break, dabbling in illegal drugs, and spending some disturbing time on a farm surrounded by horny pigs,” teases co-creator Dan Goor. Amorous swine aside, the stakes are sky-high in the cop comedy’s hour-long outing, which sends Jake (Andy Samberg) and Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) undercover with the badass head of an elite task force (Gina Gershon) to try to crack a massive bank-robbery case. “Jake’s and Rosa’s entire worlds come crumbling down,” hints Goor. “They could lose everything.” Also: Boyle (Joe Lo Truglia) will lose it when he finds out who Gina (Chelsea Peretti) is dating. Written by Natalie Abrams, Breanne L. Heldman, Samantha Highfill, Lynette Rice, Dan Snierson, and Tim Stack
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Get ready for The Good Fight to reenter the ring for a few extra rounds. CBS All Access is expected to expand the second season of the Good Wife spin-off to 13 episodes, up from the 10 that streamed during season 1. And though fans will have to wait until early 2018 to see Christine Baranski reprise her role as resilient lawyer Diane Lockhart, the action will pick up just seconds after the April 16 season finale, in which Ponzi schemer Henry Rindell (Paul Guilfoyle) went on the lam to avoid prison. His attorney daughter Maia (Rose Leslie) could also face jail time
when season 2 starts up. “We don’t love when movies or TV shows use time cuts to get around sticky situations. Instead, it’s fun to dive right in,” explains co-creator Robert King, who also promises that most of the core cast— including Leslie, Cush Jumbo’s Lucca Quinn, and Delroy Lindo’s Adrian Boseman—will return next season. Now if only he could say how many subscribers The Good Fight lured to CBS All Access: Like Netflix, the streaming service keeps mum on viewership. “We only get generalities of things looking good,” says co-creator Michelle King. “We just take that with a smile and start the next episode.”
MOORE: DONATO SARDELL A/GET T Y IMAGES; THE GOOD FIGHT: ELIZABETH FISHER /CBS
B R O O K LY N N I N E - N I N E
CELEBRATE THE POWER OF STORYTELLING FILM TV TALKS MUSIC VR DOWNLOAD THE APP #tribeca2017
( Clockwise l k e from far left l ) Daisy Ridley , C ie Carrie h , and d Fisher, Markk Hamilll
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
After captivating online audiences, April the Giraffe finally welcomed a son, who joins the ranks of other highly anticipated infants. BY C H A N C E L LO R AGA R D
BORN
STAR WARS CELEBRATION RECAP
THE LAST JEDI: LUKE BREAKS HIS SILENCE
Skywalker’s first utterances in more than three decades, courtesy of the upcoming Star Wars film’s new trailer, had the fan fest buzzing, as did intel that Carrie Fisher’s death led to a total overhaul of Episode IX. B Y A N T H O N Y B R E Z N I C A N The Last Jedi may not refer to a person—it’s more of a promise. That was the bittersweet revelation out of the Star Wars Celebration fan gathering in Orlando, where the trailer for the Dec. 15 film featured Luke Skywalker speaking for the first time in 34 years. “I only know one truth,” Mark Hamill’s character intones. “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Of course, that’s not what Daisy Ridley’s Rey wants to hear. The Force has just awakened in her, but for Luke, the Jedi order has brought nothing but agony to him and the galaxy— especially after his nephew, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), turned dark and destroyed his fellow students. Writer-director Rian Johnson (Looper) says that disillusionment is what he needed to explain why Luke retreated into exile. “Figuring out where his head was at was the very first thing I had to do when I started writing,” the filmmaker tells EW.
“It had to be something that made sense: Why would Luke Skywalker go off to this island?” Among the other reveals: Newcomer Kelly Marie Tran, previously known for a series of digital comedy shorts, will play...a nobody, one who, like Luke and Rey before her, answers the call to action. “Her name is Rose. She’s part of the Resistance, and she works in maintenance, behind pipes, fixing things,” Tran says. Expect to see her partner with John Boyega’s Finn as he recovers from lightsaber injuries sustained in the previous film. We also got word from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy that the unexpected death of Carrie Fisher in December won’t alter the story of The Last Jedi, but director Colin Trevorrow’s untitled Episode IX, set for 2019, had to be rewritten to remove Leia Organa. No digital trickery will be used to insert Fisher into the film. “Obviously, with Carrie
having passed away, it shook everybody,” Kennedy tells EW. “We pretty much started over.” Fans also learned that Disney XD’s animated Star Wars Rebels series would be concluding after the upcoming fourth season. “As with The Last Jedi, the show will end by exploring other paths to the Force besides the Jedi order. Symmetry is good,” says EP Dave Filoni, who’s developing a new animation project— but that’s still hush-hush. That wasn’t the only secret left under wraps at Celebration: Benicio Del Toro and Laura Dern have major roles in The Last Jedi, but those characters weren’t shown in footage. And while Harrison Ford attended the convention with George Lucas and other castmates to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Star Wars universe, there was no preview of 2018’s young Han Solo movie, which is currently shooting. As the Emperor once said: “Patience, my friend.”
For more talk of Hollywood’s biggest movies, tune in to EW Radio’s BEHIND THE SCENES WITH ANTHONY BREZNICAN every Wednesday at 6 p.m. (SiriusXM 105)
April 15, 2017
More than 1 million people tuned in to watch April give birth at Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, N.Y. During its two-month run, the livestream received more than 232 million views. That’s a lot of neck craning!
B LU E I V Y BORN
Jan. 7, 2012
The crowd went wild at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards when Beyoncé revealed her baby bump after performing “Love on Top.” The now 5-year-old continues to be one of the best things about awards ceremonies (hello, Grammys).
E7 AND E8 BORN
Jan. 26/27, 2017
A Florida real estate company has been live-streaming the hatching of Harriet the Eagle’s eaglets ever since 16 million people logged on to watch back in 2013. This year, she and her mate, M15, welcomed two little birds, E7 and E8.
P R I N C E G EO RG E BORN
July 22, 2013
A large crowd gathered outside St. Mary’s Hospital in London to welcome Duchess Kate and Prince William’s first child, Prince George, born after 11 hours of labor.
YA LU N A N D X I LU N BORN
Sept. 3, 2016
Zoo Atlanta placed the giant panda Lun Lun on “round-the-clock birthwatch” two weeks before she delivered her second set of twins, Ya Lun and Xi Lun, born 47 minutes apart.
P E B B L E S F L I N TSTO N E BORN
Unknown date, B.C.
Wilma Flintstone, one of the first pregnant cartoon characters, told husband Fred the news in the season 3 episode “The Surprise,” then gave birth a month later in 1963’s “The Blessed Event” (presumably without an epidural).
RIDLEY: INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC/LUCASFILM © 2017 LUCASFILM LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; FISHER: © LUCASFILM LFL 2016; GIR AFFE: ANIMAL ADVENTURE PARK /AP IMAGES; BLUE IV Y: KEVIN MA ZUR /WIREIMAGE; E AGLE: GET T Y IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO; PRINCE GEORGE: THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE/PA WIRE/GET T Y IMAGES; PANDA: BARCROF T MEDIA VIA GET T Y IMAGES; PEBBLES: EVERET T COLLECTION
B A BY G I R A F F E
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FIRST LOOK
Netflix’s acclaimed political drama returns on May 30 amid a contentious election—and a few more story lines that may hit close to home. EW has your exclusive sneak peek at season 5. B Y T I M S TA C K
Truth is supposed to be stranger than fiction…except when it comes to House of Cards. When we last saw Frank (Kevin Spacey) and Claire Underwood (Robin Wright), the morally corrupt president and First Lady were plotting to declare war on ICO (the major terrorist group on the series) in an effort to distract from an article revealing their deep, dark secrets. A president at odds with the media and a ramped-up war on terror may sound familiar, but executive producer Melissa James Gibson is careful not to make too many comparisons to our current president. “Sure, the resonance sometimes feels eerie. But Trump is an outsider who’s trying to blow up the system, and Francis is the opposite.” Season 5 was written well before the results of the 2016 election, yet producers admit some through-lines may hit a nerve. “The battlefield for season 5 is the American psyche,” says Gibson, who took over as showrunner with executive producer Frank Pugliese when creator Beau Willimon left at the end of last season. “That may be one parallel with our real world.”
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Frank decided to run with Claire as his VP at the end of season 4, and the 2016 election is still a priority for the campaigning couple. Says Gibson, “That’s something the show has been building towards for quite some time now. Francis wasn’t elected president, so this is the real test: What is the will of the people, and can he work his Machiavellian magic on them?”
Returning this season are Frank’s occasionally murderous chief of staff Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) as well as Claire’s own ethically murky adviser Leann Harvey (Neve Campbell). The duo aren’t exactly besties. “They’re frenemies,” explains Gibson. “They’re jockeying for that number-two spot, which is always a dance.” Adds Pugliese, “That’s the fun part of the inner circle—it’s constantly shifting.”
Frank and Claire present a united front in the White House‌at least in this moment. “They are a couple of survivors, and power is the Underwoods’ religion,â€? says Gibson. “They need each other as much as ever and are constantly navigating the other’s character.â€? Adds Pugliese, “The fun of the show is seeing how they negotiate their relationship.â€? Speaking of their rather, uh, liberal marriage, Tom Yates (Paul Sparks), who had an affair with Claire in season 4, will be back. But will he continue to add sexual tension to the mix? Says Gibson with a laugh: “I think that energy cannot be denied. This season does not resist it.â€?
Zeke Smith and Jeff Varner
Survivor: an Outing and an Ousting
After revealing that fellow contestant Zeke Smith is transgender, Jeff Varner faces consequences back home. B Y N I V E A S E R R A O
•••
HOUSE OF CARDS: DAVID GIESBRECHT/NETFLIX (4); SURVIVOR: GAME CHANGERS: JEFFREY NEIR A/CBS
Still battling the Underwoods for control of the White House are similarly ruthless couple Will (Joel Kinnaman) and Hannah Conway (Dominique McElligott). “This season delves into the cost of ambition and the repercussions for their relationship,� teases Gibson. Will we see the actual outcome of the election this season? Pugliese is coy: “Possibly.�
Real life rarely intrudes on Survivor gameplay, in which competitors are focused on outwitting and outlasting in order to win the $1 million prize. But the CBS series took a very real turn during the April 12 episode when contestant Jeff Varner publicly outed Zeke Smith as transgender in front of their tribe and the entire country. Varner, who’d been next on the chopping block, had hoped to paint Smith as engaged in a “deception� for withholding his gender identity, only to discover he’d crossed a line when the rest of the tribe members came to Smith’s defense and voted Varner out. “I thought CBS has been promoting Zeke as the first transgender contestant. It took me a minute to realize, ‘What did I do wrong?’ � Varner later said during an interview on Entertainment Weekly Radio (SiriusXM 105). “Let me just clarify: I make zero
excuses. There are no excuses for what I did. I’m not looking to garner any sympathy from anybody.â€? Now Varner is experiencing a backlash for his actions: Following the episode’s airing, the former news anchor was fired from his job as a real estate agent. For his part, Smith—who worked with GLAAD’s Transgender Media Program and CBS in preparation for the broadcast—hopes there’s an upside to his ordeal, telling EW’s sister publication People, “I didn’t want to be the ‘first transgender Survivor star.’ I didn’t want that to be my story.‌ But maybe there’s someone who’s a Survivor fan and me being out on the show helps him or helps her or helps someone else. So maybe this will lead to a greater good.â€? Additional reporting by Patrick Gomez and D alton Ross
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SUMMER
2017
P R E V I E W SUMMER IS ALL ABOUT FAMILY FUN. USUALLY. BUT THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY ARE BICKERING, STEVE CARELL IS GRAPPLING WITH HIS TWIN IN DESPICABLE ME 3, AND TOM CRUISE DISCOVERS THAT THE MUMMY HAS SOME SERIOUS DADDY ISSUES. BUT TAKE HEART: CHARLIE HUNNAM WILL CLAIM THE CROWN AS KING ARTHUR, AND WONDER WOMAN WILL—AT LONG LAST—RULE OUR WORLD. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL.2 P
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M AY P
30
JUNE P
44
J U LY P
60
CALENDAR P
74
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Michael Rooker, Rocket, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Pratt, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, and Baby Groot photographed on May 23, 2016, in Atlanta
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel
James Gunn
BY CLARK COLLIS @CLARKCOLLIS
RELEASE DATE
5•5
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT MAXWELL
H, DEAR. AT PINEWOOD ATLANTA STUDIOS, DIRECTOR JAMES GUNN IS OVERSEEING A SCENE FOR GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2, AND
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SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2017
(PREVIOUS SPRE AD AND THIS SPRE AD) © MARVEL STUDIOS 2017 (4)
things are not going well for Marvel’s team of misfit superheroes. In one corner of the soundstage sits the Guardians’ spaceship, the Milano, which has crash-landed on a forest planet named Berhart and is in need of repair. Much the same could be said of the group’s dynamic, as Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and Drax (Dave Bautista) depart their downed transport to meet Quill’s mysterious father (more on him later). The quartet leave behind Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Rocket is none too happy about it. “Hope Daddy isn’t as much of a d--- as you are, orphan boy,” he snaps, courtesy of an off-camera line reading from Gunn’s brother Sean. (Cooper’s voice will be added later.) “What is your goal here?” Quill fires back. “Trying to get everybody to hate you? ’Cause it’s working!” The emotionally turbulent vibe is reinforced by the scene’s soundtrack: Fleetwood Mac’s rock classic about tortured love, “The Chain.” “The first Guardians movie is about becoming a family, and this one is about being a family,” says director Gunn, who also wrote Vol. 2. “And being a family’s a lot harder than becoming a family. That song, for me, means the Guardians can never break the chain—and also maybe it’s about, they’re gonna break it. Who knows?” Vol. 2 picks up just months after the end of its 2014 predecessor, an irresistible blockbuster that grossed more than $773 million worldwide and expanded the boundaries of the Marvel universe in all sorts of ways. That’s true for the characters on screen, too. Thanks to saving the planet
( Clockwise from far left ) Saldana; Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper); Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel)
Xandar from the genocidal clutches of Ronan in the first film, the Guardians are now a big deal. “They’re heroes,” Pratt says. “People hire them to save them.” Among the folks in need of the Guardians’ mercenary services are the Sovereign, a race of gold-skinned beings who are obsessed with genetically improving themselves and are led by the High Priestess Ayesha (The Night Manager’s Elizabeth Debicki). She recruits Quill and the rest of the team to face off against an interdimensional space octopus called the Abilisk, and in return she agrees to hand over the dangerous Nebula (Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan), who is a prisoner on the Sovereign planet. “She’s a very extreme figure,” Debicki says of Ayesha. “She’s very black-and-white. If you get on the wrong side of her, she will unleash a wrath that you don’t really want to have to face.” Her wrath is unleashed after Rocket betrays the Sovereign’s trust. “They’re supposed to be protecting these batteries, and the very batteries that they’re hired to protect, Rocket ends up stealing,” Gunn says. “That leads to all the madness.” Ayesha sends a fleet of remote-controlled ships after the Guardians, which results
THE FIRST GUARDIANS IS ABOUT BECOMING A FAMILY, AND THIS IS ABOUT BEING A FAMILY. AND BEING A FAMILY’S A LOT HARDER.”
—JAMES GUNN
in a space battle and, ultimately, the Milano crash-landing on Berhart. There, Quill finally comes face-to-face with his father, Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell), an astral body that also takes human form and has spent decades searching for his son. “What we realize is that the Guardians have been rescued from the Sovereign by a character who reveals himself as Quill’s father,” executive producer Jonathan Schwartz says. Russell admits he was unfamiliar with the first film when he began to hear rumors about him playing Quill’s father. “I said, ‘What the hell? I don’t know what the f--- it is!’ ” he recalls. To get Russell up to speed, Gunn sent the actor a Guardians DVD, which instantly struck a chord with the star of such previous genre adventures as Escape From New York and Stargate. “I went, ‘Yeah, oh, I know that world,’ ” Russell says, laughing. “I started making that world possible a long time ago.” Ego’s companion-servant is an antennaed alien named Mantis, played by French actress Pom Klementieff (2013’s Old Boy). “Ego sort of saved her as a young child and brought her to his planet,” Gunn says. “She’s very socially awkward and she gravitates toward Drax, who’s even more socially awkward than she is. They strike up a strange and beautiful friendship.” Something else that is strange and beautiful? Rocket’s former “muscle,” Groot, has been reduced to the size of a twig, with an
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STAR SEARCH FOUR CHARACTERS JOIN THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE — C L A R K C O L L I S
AYESHA
ELIZABETH DEBICKI
D E B U T Fantastic Four #11 (1998)
Director James Gunn with Rooker on set
appropriately childlike demeanor and high-pitched speaking tones—not the sounds we associate with Vin Diesel. But yep, that’s really him. “There’s a tiny amount of processing, but it’s mostly Vin,” Gunn says. “He’s able to, you know, speak in a much higher register than he normally does.” (Honestly, we did not know that.) Diesel says he was totally game for the challenge: “Groot is such a fascinating character on so many levels. For this installment, I needed to not only pitch up the performance, I needed to embed even more wonder than he usually possesses— and he always has a wonder about him already.” HE GUARDIANS, THOUGH, HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS THAN BABY GROOT’S LACK
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EGO THE LIVING PLANET
KURT RUSSELL
D E B U T The Mighty Thor #132 (1966)
Russell’s character is indeed both person and planet, thanks to his ability to control molecules. He’s also a dad. “Ego went off in the galaxy in search of love, and found Peter Quill’s mother,” Gunn says. “And that’s where people come from!”
MANTIS
POM KLEMENTIEFF
D E B U T The Avengers #112 ( 1973 )
Mantis is Ego’s pet and has the power to alter people’s emotions. “She doesn’t necessarily know their thoughts, but she feels what they are feeling,” Gunn says. “She’s able to turn stubbornness into compliance or sadness to calm.”
TASERFACE
C H R I S S U L L I VA N
D E B U T Guardians of the Galaxy #1 (1990)
One of Yondu’s pirates, Taserface has a mug only a mother could love—and an attitude to match. “He’s like the defensive lineman on your high school football team,” Sullivan says. “He’s a loud individual who enjoys pushing people around.”
GUARDIANS OF THE GAL A X Y VOL. 2: © MARVEL STUDIOS 2017 (5); COMIC BOOK CHAR ACTERS: © MARVEL COMICS (4)
of stature. Quill’s crooked mentor, Yondu (Michael Rooker), and his gang of Ravagers are hired by the Sovereign to eliminate the Guardians after Rocket’s treachery. “Yondu constantly going soft on Quill is generating dissension in the ranks of the Ravagers,” Schwartz says. “Ayesha comes to Yondu and says, ‘I want you to get the Guardians for me.’ He’s really not in a position to say no.” Yondu’s chief rival is another new villain, Taserface, who ultimately leads a mutiny against the Ravager leader, played under prosthetic makeup by This Is Us star Chris Sullivan. “Talk about a swing in character type,” the cherubic actor says. But the biggest difference between Taserface and Toby, the role he plays on the hit NBC show, is external. “On This Is Us, I have a much better complexion,” he says. Should Ego be trusted? Can the Guardians escape both Ayesha and Taserface? And what is the name of the character played by Russell’s Tango & Cash costar Sylvester Stallone, whose involvement in the film was confirmed at last year’s San Diego ComicCon? Gunn is staying quiet on all these subjects, although he does tease the nature of Sly’s part. “He plays an important role in Yondu’s life,” the director says. “[Stallone] had to come in on his first day and do this incredibly dramatic, intense scene. He completely went for it, and he and Michael Rooker [were] just screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. It was really one of my greatest moments on the set.” Chances are the chain that binds the Guardians won’t be irrevocably broken this time around, given that the crew will also appear in the next Marvel all-star movie, Avengers: Infinity War (due May 4, 2018), where the big bad is Thanos, the adoptive father of both Gamora and Nebula. “Because Thanos is the villain, his daughters are involved in that whole situation,” Saldana says. “It was so much fun.” As for another Guardians movie, Gunn confirmed earlier this month that he will direct a third adventure. Pratt is happy to match that commitment, and go one better. “I’d be more than happy to do a 10th movie,” he says. “I love my character, and I love this world. There’s a lot more stories to tell.” They’re going to need a longer chain. X
Ayesha is the leader of the Sovereign, a race of aliens obsessed with genetic modification. “They’re born in these birthing pods,” director James Gunn says. “Elizabeth’s character is sort of the Sovereign 5.0. She’s more powerful than the people that came before her.”
1
Pre-Collision with Pedestrian Detection standard. 2
Pedestrians can come out of nowhere. So Pre-Collision with Pedestrian Detection can help spot them and brake for you. It’s just one of the standard Toyota Safety Sense™ P (TSS-P)3 features that give you more peace of mind. Options shown. Dramatization. 1. The TSS Pre-Collision System is designed to help avoid or reduce the crash speed and damage in certain frontal collisions only. It is not a substitute for safe and attentive driving. System effectiveness is dependent on road, weather and vehicle conditions. See Owner’s Manual for additional limitations and details. 2. The Pedestrian Detection system is designed to detect a pedestrian ahead of the vehicle, determine if impact is imminent and help reduce impact speed. It is not a substitute for safe and attentive driving. System effectiveness depends on many factors, such as speed, size and position of pedestrians, and weather, light and road conditions. See Owner’s Manual for additional limitations and details. 3. Drivers are responsible for their own safe driving. Always pay attention to your surroundings and drive safely. Depending on the conditions of roads, weather and the vehicle, the system(s) may not work as intended. See Owner’s Manual for additional limitations and details. ©2017 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
IN THIS MONTH • The Dinner
P. 34
• War Machine
P. 34
• Everything, Everything
P. 34
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales P. 36 • Snatched
P. 37
• 3 Generations
P. 37
• Lowriders
P. 38
• The Lovers
P. 38
• King Arthur: Legend of
the Sword P. 40
• Alien: Covenant
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P. 42
BAYWATCH STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra
Seth Gordon
RELEASE DATE
5 • 25
Kelly Rohrbach, Alexandra Daddario, Ilfenesh Hadera, Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, and Jon Bass
Daddario, Johnson, and Efron ZAC C EF EFRON RON O HA HAS S THE T HE PER PERFEC FECT C T WAY W AY TO O DES DESCRI SC CRIBE BE HIS S
c people had a vague familiarity with and give it new life.” And new blood. Johnson reports for duty as Mitch Buchannon, the beefcake leader of the lifeguards, and Efron plays Matt Brody, a former Olympian brought in to rehabilitate the beach’s PR image. “This is definitely one of the cockier guys I’ve ever played,” Efron says, adding that, no, he didn’t base Brody on any recent gold medalists who nearly served some, uh, jeah-time in Rio. “Any similarities to any swimmers are completely coincidental.” Efron’s Brody has a love interest in fellow recruit Summer (Alexandra Daddario), but it was Efron’s chemistry with Johnson that mattered most, Gordon says. Luckily, the two actors hit it off from day one. “It became clear immediately that they were, like, big dog and little dog,” Gordon says. So…was Johnson an intimidating rottweiler and Efron an overconfident Chihuahua? Something like that. “It was fun to get in and really juke and jive with a guy who’s
IT BECAME CLEAR IMMEDIATELY THAT DWAYNE AND ZAC WERE, LIKE, BIG DOG AND LITTLE DOG.” —SETH GORDON
twice my size,” Efron says. “Like, you can never fight this guy in real life, but Brody just could not give a f---.” The two men are forced to work together to take down Victoria, a wealthy and ambitious entrepreneur using the beach to smuggle in drugs. “She’s a woman in a man’s world,” Chopra says. “This is not just drugs and money for her, it’s power.” But she shouldn’t underestimate her scantily clad foes, especially Mitch. “This is his bay, his zone,” Efron says of Johnson’s alpha. “He loves it more than life itself, and he’s not going to let anybody spoil that.” Case in point: When Victoria has Mitch on the ropes in one scene, he fires back with the line that he’s “Baywatch, motherf---er!” “The first time he did it, I was trying so hard to be serious, because I have a gun pointed at him,” Chopra says. “And he just says all of those things, and I think I started laughing and then he started laughing and then Zac started laughing and it was just…” She cracks up again. “It was very hard to keep a straight face.” “You can’t help but enjoy yourself,” she continues, pointing out that filming Baywatch meant occasionally being in Miami instead of frigid Montreal, where she had been shooting the first season of Quantico. “I remember Dwayne would joke to me all the time, ‘Oh, you’re just coming to us for vacation.’ ” Then again, a vacation never hurts—nor does a high five from the summer. — S H I R L E Y L I
S U M M E R S P L A S H B A C K • The biggest film adaptation of a TV show (nonsequel) was 1993’s The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford.
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(PREVIOUS SPRE AD AND THIS PAGE) FR ANK MASI/PAR AMOUNT (2)
Baywat Bayw atch ch ccos osta tarr Dw Dway ayne ne JJoh ohns nson on ((“H “Hee ju just st l ke k a fflo fllowe hat gets ge ts b bet ette terr as h hee go goes es,, li like werr th that at he pe fect ct neve ne verr st stop opss bl bloo oomi ming ng”) ”),, th the perf rfec ct way w to d scri b w lkking h els ls fo f r a sc scene (“I was desc de ribe be wal alki ng iin n he heel for he iins dee”) cryi cr ying ng o on n th the nsid ide ”),, an and d the perfect way d scri to de desc ribe be Ba Bayw ywat atch ch itself (“It’s like a high fi e ffr five fiv from om tthe he summer!”). He also has the fect perf pe rfec ecctt abs ab to play an elite lifeguard—but he won’t describe those. That’s a task for Priyanka Chopra (ABC’s Quantico), who plays the film’s villain Victoria Leeds. “I didn’t think they were real,” she marvels. “I was looking at them like, ‘How is that even scientifically possible?’ But these guys trained for four hours a day.” She laughs. “I mean, they were doing a film called Baywatch.” But this adaptation of the gratuitous ’90s slo-mo spectacle starring David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson won’t be all about chiseled cores, jiggly babes, and suspicious drownings. According to director Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), this version will pair tongue-in-cheek, self-aware comedy with explosive big-screen action. “I wanted to make a fun escape for people,” he says. “I thought it was a great way to take something
BREAKING BIG Rebecca Hall and Laura Linney
AMANDLA STENBERG EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING
THE DINNER STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Steve Coogan, Richard Gere, Laura Linney
Oren Moverman
RELEASE DATE
5 •5
Based on a 2009 Herman Koch novel, The Dinner is a psychodrama about two brothers (Richard Gere and Steve Coogan) and their wives (Rebecca Hall and Laura Linney) who meet to eat, drink, and dredge up the past. “It’s an exciting story because of the mountains of metaphors erupting out of it,” says writer-director Oren Moverman (The Messenger). Added bonus: In Coogan’s 2010 comedy The Trip, he revealed his perfect Richard Gere imitation. So “to play Richard Gere’s brother,” Moverman says, “how could it be anyone else?” —J O E M C G O V E R N
DIRECTED BY
Brad Pitt
David Michôd
RELEASE DATE
5 • 26
War Machine may sound like a violent military drama in the vein of Zero Dark Thirty, but it’s actually a pitch-black satire about the war in Afghanistan, led by a broadly comedic performance from Brad Pitt as a decorated general brought in to salvage the operation. Director David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) admits Machine is “tonally schizophrenic,” and that’s the point. “There was something so wildly crazy-bordering-on-absurd about the machinations of that world,” he says. “I was immediately attracted to making a movie not just about a general who’s kind of detached from the world but also making a movie that was kind of bats--- crazy.” Smells like victory. —T I M S TA C K
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THE DINNER: THE ORCHARD; WAR MACHINE: FR ANCOIS DUHAMEL /NETFLIX; STENBERG: MARK MANN/AUGUST; EVERY THING, EVERY THING: DOANE GREGORY/WARNER BROS; THE HUNGER GAMES: MURR AY CLOSE/LIONSGATE
WAR MACHINE
DIRECTED BY
Stella Meghie
RELEASE DATE
5 • 19
“GROWING UP IS WEIRD, AND THEN IN THE
Brad Pitt
STARRING
STARRING
Amandla Stenberg, Nick Robinson, Anika Noni Rose
context of acting and movies and being in the public eye, it gets weirder.” That’s why you haven’t seen much of Amandla Stenberg since she appeared as Rue, that cute District 11 kid in 2012’s The Hunger Games. Since then, Stenberg, now 18, has spent her high school years mostly in high school, keeping busy with her website and making videos like her YouTube sensation “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows.” Now that she’s got her diploma, she’s hitting the big screen. In Everything, Everything, based on Nicola Yoon’s best-selling YA novel, Stenberg stars as Maddy, an isolated teenager with a frail immune system who falls in love with her new neighbor (Jurassic World’s Nick Robinson). The catch? She can’t set foot outside her doorstep. Her doctor mother (Anika Noni Rose) is stiflingly protective, even when it comes to this long-distance love for the boy next door. “Maddy’s in this terrible situation, but she makes the best of it and has a center that’s strong,” Yoon says. Which is why Stenberg felt like the perfect choice to play her. “Amandla has a
With Nick Robinson in Everything, Everything;
( right ) in The Hunger Games
real strength, but she’s optimistic and positive.” Stenberg, whose father is from Denmark and mother is from the Bronx, hopes the story strikes a nerve with anyone who has felt trapped—by parents, by the
things that make them different, even by the things that make them feel the same. “It’s about that creepy feeling when you feel really isolated, or you’re surrounded by people and wanting to escape,” she says. “Sometimes [escape] can be risky. Sometimes you learn the most beautiful lessons.” Speaking of lessons, Stenberg was accepted to New York University’s film school, and she intends to enroll...eventually. Later this year she’ll appear in Where Hands Touch, about a
mixed-race girl living in Hitler’s Germany, and she has already begun a new YA adaptation, The Darkest Minds, about teens who survive a plague and emerge with superpowers. After that, she’ll star in The Hate U Give, about a girl who witnesses the police shooting of an unarmed black friend. “Since I graduated I’ve pretty much been working nonstop,” she says. “It felt like jumping into the deep end of the pool when it comes to adulthood.” Luckily, she’s a strong swimmer. — A N T H O N Y B R E Z N I C A N
SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2017
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PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES DIRECTED BY
Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites
Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg
E W.C O M
RELEASE DATE
5 • 26
comedy with great heart, and that structure was something I wanted to try and reinvent,” says Joachim Rønning (Kon-Tiki), one of the film’s directors. “It’s a period piece about real people falling in love, [with] Jack Sparrow coming in now and then and crashing the party.” Certainly, some things haven’t changed. Jack’s once again on the hunt for a lost treasure (the trident of Poseidon) while
a terrifying villain— Javier Bardem’s Salazar, burned by a younger Sparrow and out for revenge—is on the hunt for him. But new to the franchise is Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), the inquisitive son of Orlando Bloom’s blacksmith-turnedbuccaneer. For Thwaites, 27, Jack PETER MOUNTAIN/DISNEY
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STARRING
FOURTEEN YEARS HAVE
elapsed since Johnny Depp’s rum-soaked Capt. Jack Sparrow first boarded the big screen, but if the fifth film in the franchise has its way, audiences won’t know a day has passed. “The first Pirates was my biggest inspiration because it’s a
Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn
SNATCHED
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn
Jonathan Levine
RELEASE DATE
5 • 12
T H E R E ’S P L E N T Y O F B AW DY L AU G H S , H I G H J I N KS ,
SNATCHED: JUSTINA MINTZ/FOX; 3 GENER ATIONS: GEORGE NICHOLIS/WEINSTEIN CO.
Brenton Thwaites and Johnny Depp
Sparrow is no average scene partner: “My first scene was Henry trying to convince Jack to team up, and I remember being terrified, thinking, ‘How am I going to talk to Johnny Depp for three minutes opposite a character I’d grown up with? It’s not going to be possible.’ ” Aye, but we all must take the plunge sometimes. —MARC SNETIKER
and pratfalls in this comedy about a recently dumped woman (Amy Schumer) whose vacation to South America with her scaredy-cat mother (Goldie Hawn) turns into a zany kidnapping adventure. Think prison breaks, outrunning bad guys through a jungle, and a particularly lethal dance move. But at its core, it’s a tender relationship study of the often complicated bonds between mothers and daughters. “As a
new parent, it’s what got me excited to make this movie,” says Jonathan Levine (The Night Before). “It’s what I gravitate towards—real character stuff in the midst of funny.” The script and its subject similarly held appeal for Hawn, who hadn’t been in a film since 2002’s The Banger Sisters, but the real lure was her costar, whom she’d come to admire after seeing Trainwreck. “I loved it,” Hawn says. “I saw Amy’s range and her brilliance. She’s a funny, smart person who can also make you cry. I didn’t care about doing something that doesn’t stimulate me. But this is Amy. To be matched with someone so deeply instinctive, naturally funny, and incredibly brilliant? It’s a great coup.” For the audience, too. — S A R A V I L KO M E R S O N
3 GENERATIONS STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Naomi Watts, Elle Fanning, Susan Sarandon
Gaby Dellal
RELEASE DATE
5 •5
Naomi Watts connected with the protective mother she plays in 3 Generations, one who cautiously endorses hormone treatments for her transgender son, Ray (Elle Fanning), amid reservations from his pushy lesbian grandma (Susan Sarandon). After the film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015, director Gaby Dellal (Angels Crest) spent two months reediting it, eventually finding each character’s voice while still tapping into Ray’s feelings of pre-op isolation. “It’s about how we’re all transitioning into this new world,” Watts says, “and how we’re struggling with how we do this comfortably and stick together as a family.” —J O E Y N O L F I
Elle Fanning, Naomi Watts, and Susan Sarandon
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THE LOVERS STARRING
Debra Winger, Tracy Letts DIRECTED BY
Azazel Jacobs
Demian Bichir and Eva Longoria
RELEASE DATE
5 •5
LIKE A FLOWER THAT
LOWRIDERS STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Demian Bichir, Gabriel Chavarria, Eva Longoria
Ricardo de Montreuil
RELEASE DATE
5 • 12
In this intergenerational drama set in East L.A., a gifted teenage street artist, Danny (Gabriel Chavarria), is torn between his father, Miguel (Demian Bichir), and ex-con brother Ghost (Theo Rossi) as they square off in a lowrider competition. Melissa Benoist (Supergirl) stars as Danny’s love interest, and Eva Longoria plays Miguel’s wife. “I hope that the film shows a different side of who Latinos are in the States,” Peruvian director Ricardo de Montreuil (Máncora) says, “and that people understand that lowriders should be considered part of American folklore, such as jazz or rock.” — C . M O L LY S M I T H
—J O E M C G O V E R N
DEBRA WINGER SUMMER SPLASHBACK
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• In
LOWRIDERS: TONY RIVET TI JR./BH TILT; WINGER: BRIGIT TE L ACOMBE; THE LOVERS: ROBB ROSENFELD/A 24
blooms once every few years, Debra Winger has returned. The legendary actress, 61, earned three Oscar nominations in the ’80s and ’90s (for An Officer and a Gentleman, Terms of Endearment, and Shadowlands) and last won raves as Anne Hathaway’s mom in 2008’s Rachel Getting Married. Now, in The Lovers, Winger and Tracy Letts star as an unhappy, adulterous married couple who embark on an affair…with each other. During a lively conversation, Winger—in between talking about Kendrick Lamar, Colson Whitehead, Rilke, Kristen Stewart, O.J.: Made in America, and James Baldwin— discussed the new movie and her carefully pruned career.
1982, Debra Winger and Richard Gere scored with An Officer and a Gentleman, the
In this film, you’re half asleep in bed and you kiss your husband. And it feels awkward. Is that a metaphor for your relationship with the film business?
Well, I’ve always wanted to do movies for the process, not the business. The business has gone so kerflooey. But yeah, I guess. This movie is sort of all about: How do you make love last? How do you stay in love when you’re kinda sick of it?
It’s interesting to do research on you. Costars like Anthony Hopkins praise you, but then you also read these stories about you being difficult to work with.
Oh, I don’t really care about all that. That made for great ink. And shhh, the
And the movie explores those strains that are felt in long relationships.
Exactly. This past Thanksgiving I had my husband [Arliss Howard] and my stepson’s mother and my oldest son’s father [Timothy Hutton], all of us all together at the house. That was a first. And it was great. I think after the election a lot of people felt, whatever side you were on, just wow, who can I feel close to?
secret is you don’t really want people saying nice things about you. As Jack Nicholson so richly told me years ago, “Bucky, don’t deny anything because then the first thing you don’t deny is automatically true.”
Speaking of Nicholson, Terms of Endearment is still regarded as a very special movie today, even among people in their 20s.
Oh, really? I wish they would wait on me when I’ve forgotten my wallet at the market. How do they even come across it?
I’m sure they can stream it.
With Tracy Letts in The Lovers
Right. And there was a while there when it was on cable TV like a screensaver. It’s one of those films where all the elements, the set design and cinematography and costumes and music and acting, all come together for this perfect tone. I was just along for the ride. Have you heard that Oprah and Lee Daniels are planning a remake?
Absolutely. I’m all for it and think it’s a fascinating idea. Clearly, look, it’s a timeless story. I’d be really interested to see what comes of it.
summer’s second-biggest movie behind E .T. The Extra-Terrestrial. E W.C O M
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ALSO PLAYING M AY 5
Liev Schreiber stars as boxer Chuck Wepner, who inspired Sylvester Stallone to make Rocky after fighting Muhammad Ali in 1975. TAKE ME M AY 5
Taylor Schilling and actor-director Pat Healy spend a mysterious weekend filled with simulated abductions and hidden agendas in this indie comedy.
( From top ) The beasts of battle; Astrid BergèsFrisbey and Charlie Hunnam
MANIFESTO M AY 1 0
Cate Blanchett stars as 13 different characters— from a nuclear scientist to a puppeteer—in director Julian Rosefeldt’s Sundance indie that celebrates revolutionary 20th-century art movements like Dadaism and Dogme 95.
KING ARTHUR:
PARIS CAN WAIT M AY 1 2
At 80, Eleanor Coppola (wife of Francis) directs her freshman feature, starring Diane Lane as a Hollywood producer’s wife who reconnects the dots of her fragmented heart during a French road trip. THE WALL M AY 1 2
A crumbling barrier is the only thing that shields two soldiers (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Cena) from the deadly aim of an Iraqi sniper. Directed by Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow).
LEGEND OF THE SWORD STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law
Guy Ritchie
RELEASE DATE
5 • 12
GUY RITCHIE ISN’T NEW TO THE CINEMATIC REBOOT
game. Having already updated Sherlock Holmes into a Robert Downey Jr. franchise, taking a crack at pulling Excalibur from the stone with King Arthur may seem like a logical fit. But according to the director, the jobs are only similar in that they’re just like any other movie. “You just sort of commit with a couple hundred million of someone else’s money and hope you find
your way,” Ritchie says. (So easy, right?) For King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, finding his way meant balancing giant attack elephants and Arthur’s well-worn Round Table legend. “It was challenging to begin with because there was an uncertainty about the tone,” says Charlie Hunnam, whose hero battles Jude Law’s warlord. “Guy’s [initial] intention was to make something that was outside of his wheelhouse, and make a more classic, straightforward, and somewhat somber film—which is obviously not what we ended up with.” What they ended up with is full-blast swords and sorcery told with a Cockney accent. Or as Hunnam puts it, “Arthur and his pals, the tone of those interactions is very much the way Guy is. We were just doing our best Guy Ritchie impersonations.” — K E V I N P. S U L L I VA N
MANIFESTO: © JULIAN ROSEFELDT AND VG BILD -KUNST 2016 _ 2015 _ 20/FILMRISE; PARIS CAN WAIT: ROGER ARPA JOU/SONY PICTURES CL ASSICS; KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD: WARNER BROS. PICTURES; BERGES-FRISBEY AND HUNNAM: DANIEL SMITH/WARNER BROS
CHUCK
You’re right. I should be getting commission for s
THE SHOT
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender
Ridley Scott
SUMMER SPLASHBACK
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W I T H T H I S L AT E S T C H A P T E R O F H I S D E E P - S PAC E F R A N C H I S E , A
• Ridley
RELEASE DATE
5 • 19
sequel to the 2012 Alien prequel Prometheus, Ridley Scott continues to do what he likes most—giving terrified audiences chest palpitations. But Alien: Covenant is much more than a mere frightfest. Its central mystery is a cerebral puzzle, toying with the ideas of creation and human nature. “This is Ridley at his best,” Michael Fassbender says. “[On top of ] action and humor and characters you become invested in, there’s these very real questions about life and the origins of life and what happens in the afterlife—if there is an afterlife.” Fassbender reprises the role of David, the android ruled by such human-seeming emotions as vanity and ambition (and by Lawrence of Arabia). In this scene, he’s peering over the edge of the Engineer’s ship we last saw Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) pilot in the final moments of Prometheus. The events of Covenant take place a decade later (and 20 years before Ripley’s first Alien encounter), and the whats and wheres and whys of David’s actions are a twist we don’t dare spoil. What we can reveal is that Fassbender also plays a newer, updated model of the android, named Walter, who is a crew member on the titular colony ship. “I wanted Walter to
Scott’s original 1979 sci-fi horror film shocked and awed summer audiences whose most recent concept of terror in space
ALSO PLAYING
be more Spock-like—devoid of human characteristics or emotional contents that are programmed into David,” Fassbender says. “I want him more like a blank canvas one can project things upon.” Costar Katherine Waterston, who continues the Alien tradition of strong heroines, says of the Fass-bots: “It was genuinely fascinating. He’s so convincing! It felt like time-traveling into the future.” Ridley Scott promises this film will help solidify the franchise timeline that will presumably link up to the 1979 original. “Prometheus opened that door and now we’re into the corridor,” Scott says. But even Fassbender hasn’t gotten all the answers. “I don’t really press Ridley too much,” the actor says. “He’ll reveal all at the right time.” Like the Creator himself. — S A R A V I L KO M E R S O N
THE WEDDING PLAN M AY 1 2
An Israeli woman trusts God to land her a new groom after her fiancé flees one month before the ceremony. THE COMMUNE M AY 1 9
Denmark’s Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) takes on this ensemble drama about a peculiar 1970s Copenhagen collective. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE LONG HAUL
( From top ) Michael Fassbender as Walter; David (also Fassbender) looks down at an advanced civilization
M AY 1 9
ALIEN: COVENANT: T WENTIETH CENTURY FOX (2); WAKEFIELD: GILLES MINGASSON/IFC FILMS; LONG STR ANGE TRIP: BOB MARKS/AMA ZON
The beloved book series comes back to life as Greg (Jason Ian Drucker) decides he wants to be famous, and his scheme hilariously reroutes his family’s road trip to Meemaw’s 90th-birthday party.
WAKEFIELD M AY 1 9
Bryan Cranston abandons his wife (Jennifer Garner), daughters, and suburban existence but secretly hides in his garage attic apartment to spy on his family in Robin Swicord’s reimagining of E.L. Doctorow’s short story.
LONG STRANGE TRIP M AY 2 6
Candid interviews, a rollicking soundtrack, and countercultural flair chart the 30-year voyage of the Grateful Dead in a powerful documentary from executive producer Martin Scorsese. — JOEY NOLFI
was Darth Vader.
IN THIS MONTH • The Mummy
P. 48
• The House
P. 49
• Cars 3
P. 50
• All Eyez on Me
P. 50
• Wonder Woman
P. 50
• Transformers: The Last Knight P. 52 • Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie P. 53
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• Rough Night
P. 54
• The Big Sick
P. 54
• The Beguiled
P. 56
• 47 Meters D own
P. 57
• The Book of Henry
P. 57
• It Comes at Night
P. 58
DESPICABLE ME 3 STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker
Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin
RELEASE DATE
6 •30
Dru and Gru, both voiced by Steve Carell
Clive (Andy Nyman) and Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker)
I F YO U L I K E ST E V E CA R E L L , YO U’R E G O I N G TO LOV E
hazardous mission unto itself. “Whereas Gru is pretty cynical, dark, and more sarcastic, Dru is ebullient and earnest and happy, so they needed familial similarities in their accents but to be distinctive enough that they clearly had different upbringings,” Carell says. “Since Gru doesn’t come from any country specifically, I wanted his brother’s voice to be from maybe a country a couple countries over.” Codirector and character designer Eric Guillon also faced a juxtaposition challenge for the brothers, who are identical in all ways but follicles: “The most difficult part was the shape of Dru’s head—how can we create a haircut on a person that doesn’t have a forehead?” But Dru is no sequel gimmick. As Gru settles into domestic life, his wealthy brother’s success forces the middle-aged miscreant to question what it really means to have it all. “Gru is dealing with this identity crisis after having lost everything in terms of his job, and now going through this sibling rivalry, and what’s just great about these films is how we can keep tracking him
WHEREAS GRU IS PRETTY CYNICAL, DARK, AND MORE SARCASTIC, DRU IS EBULLIENT AND EARNEST AND HAPPY.” —STEVE CARELL
through these very critical parts of the adult experience,” says Illumination CEO and Despicable producer Chris Meledandri. “I’m always amazed watching Steve continue to find places to evolve this character, even against the backdrop of all this silliness.” Oh, and we haven’t even addressed the silliness yet. Where there are Minions, there is madness, and this time it’s shared by Gru’s primary antagonist, Balthazar Bratt. Voiced by Trey Parker, Bratt is a former ’80s child star who lost his fan base after puberty and has since devoted his entire adult life to getting revenge on the fans who deserted him. “Gru’s such a formidable character himself that it puts a pretty heavy burden on defining who his new adversary is going to be, but the crowning moment was the idea that we should ask Trey Parker to voice him,” says Meledandri, who calls the South Park pioneer “one of the strongest vocal performers of our time.” Parker helped inspire the physical absurdity of Bratt, whose time-frozen ’80s aesthetic includes everything from shoulder pads and exploding Rubik’s Cubes to a cute little robot sidekick named Clive. “There’s a lot of ’80s texture that’s fun to sit back and look for, whether it’s a yo-yo or a throwback to specific dance moves,” Meledandri says. “And without question, the association of Michael Jackson with the 1980s was important for us and a great gateway through which to enter the movie.” Indeed, watch out: Gru’s new foe is, quite literally, a smooth criminal. — M A R C S N E T I K E R
S U M M E R S P L A S H B A C K • With Minions, no animated threequel has grossed more worldwide than the Despicable franchise ($2.7 billion).
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(PREVIOUS SPRE AD AND THIS PAGE) ILLUMINATION/UNIVERSAL PICTURES (4)
Steve Carell’s new Despicable Me 3 costar, Steve Carell. The actor pulls double duty, voicing dastardly dad Gru and his long-lost twin brother, Dru, in the latest installment of Universal’s wickedly popular series. “I’m always excited to see what they have in store for the next step of Gru’s life, but finding out he has a twin brother and playing opposite the character I’d already established was really, really fun,” Carell says. “I admire how we touch on sibling rivalries and what you find out about yourself through your own biological connections with people.” To that end, reformed supervillain Gru is as biologically connected as ever when Despicable Me 3 picks up. He’s nestling into newlywed life with his three daughters and secret-agent wife, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), who’s stepping into stepmotherhood with slightly different struggles than the ones her husband navigated in the original 2010 movie. But Gru’s life is uprooted when a botched mission leads to his unceremonious firing from the Anti-Villain League— and a subsequent chance encounter with his well-coiffed twin, Dru, who tempts Gru with a return to his erstwhile criminal ways. Separating brother from brother was a
Sometimes the Simplest Things are the Yummiest.
No artificial preservatives or flavors. Always made with milk.
THE SHOT
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe
Alex Kurtzman
M E E T T H E H E R O A N D T H E V I L L A I N O F T H E M U M M Y . F U N T W I S T:
SUMMER SPLASHBACK
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Long ago, Ahmanet’s father reneged on his promise to make her pharaoh after he sired a son. That betrayal led her toward becoming the shuffling terror first embodied by Boris Karloff in the 1932 Mummy, but the gender flipping of this reboot offers a radical new perspective. Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service) researched Egyptian myth and history to give Ahmanet a particular air of royalty. “These people never shouted,” she says. “They
CHIABELL A JAMES/UNIVERSAL
They’re both already dead! Well, dead-ish: By the time Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) meets Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), he’s woken up in a body bag after a plane crash, and she’s been in a coffin for a few millennia. “They’re finally face-to-face,” says director Alex Kurtzman (People Like Us). “He’s realizing that he’s deeply, and desperately, cursed.”
RELEASE DATE
• Universal’s last Mummy reboot, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, grossed $155.4 million in 1999 and yielded two successful
Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, and Jason Mantzoukas
THE HOUSE
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Amy Poehler, Will Ferrell
Andrew Jay Cohen
RELEASE DATE
6 • 30
THE HOUSE: GLEN WILSON/WARNER BROS.
W H AT M I D D L E -AG E D S U B U R B A N DA D W I T H A LOV E F O R
were the most powerful people, but they were just calm.” Things don’t stay calm around Ahmanet for long. And while Morton confronts her in modern-day London, Russell Crowe appears as Dr. Henry Jekyll, teasing a classic-monster cinematic universe. But don’t expect The Monster Avengers right away. “The movie’s called The Mummy, not The Mummy Meets 12 Other Monsters,” Kurtzman says. “If we create a world that feels interesting and scary, then we will have succeeded in setting up the larger universe.” And this Mummy is more than a pile of decomposing fury. She’s “a woman who wasn’t content to be put in her place and wanted something more,” Kurtzman says. Who can’t relate to that? — D A R R E N F R A N I C H
Sofia Boutella and Tom Cruise
gambling hasn’t dreamed of opening his own casino? In Will Ferrell’s mind, the premise for The House isn’t that far from real life, considering he and Amy Poehler’s characters need some quick cash to send their daughter to college. “It’s only five steps away from being short of reality,” Ferrell jokes. “Any parent faced with that circumstance would take desperate measures to achieve things for their kids. We just take it to a very exaggerated place.” That place is a debaucherous basement casino hiding behind a leafy suburban enclave, complete with strip club, extravagant poolside scene, and MMA fight night. Lording over his operation with comic ruthlessness, Ferrell’s financial nitwit Scott quickly grows comfortable with his new power, channeling Robert De Niro in Casino. Poehler’s Kate is complicit in the action—and the humor. It helped that the two were synced from the first “Action.” “We had no rehearsals. We just started filming,” Ferrell says. “And we were beautifully in the pocket with each other. It didn’t surprise me, but that is so rare.” That left first-time feature director Andrew Jay Cohen, who co-wrote Neighbors, with the task of pulling the best bits from hours of improv’d footage. “The constant question was: ‘Is it too stupid?’ ” he recalls. Sometimes, you have to roll the dice. — N I C O L E S P E R L I N G
sequels (and a Scorpion King spin-off that helped make Dwayne Johnson a star). E W.C O M
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Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and Sterling (Nathan Fillion)
CARS 3 STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Owen Wilson, Nathan Fillion
Brian Fee
RELEASE DATE
6 • 16
Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) has his best days behind him, but salvation has a name: Sterling (Nathan Fillion), a savvy businesscar who helps McQueen embrace modern racing in Pixar’s third Cars flick. “The world has been changing, and Sterling’s been at the forefront of that change,” Fillion says. “He’s charming, as in someone who can gain your trust. He’s not ‘Hey there, I’m great.’ He’s ‘Hey there, you’re great.’” As first-time director Brian Fee puts it, “Sterling’s the kind of car that just makes you think, ‘Hey, I could have a pint of oil with that guy.’” In other words, he’s slick. — M A R C S N E T I K E R
Demetrius Shipp Jr. and Annie Ilonzeh
BEHIND THE DESIGN
ALL EYEZ ON ME STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Demetrius Shipp Jr., Jamal Woolard
Benny Boom
RELEASE DATE
6 • 16
STARRING
Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Danny Huston
DIRECTED BY
The new music biopic aims to give viewers a comprehensive understanding of Tupac Shakur’s life, from his childhood to his time in jail to his rivalry with the Notorious B.I.G. (Jamal Woolard, reprising his role from the 2009 biopic Notorious). It also seeks to shed light on why Tupac remains such a cultural icon almost 21 years after his murder. “He was real, he had a message, and he spoke for the people—impoverished people of all classes,” says newcomer Demetrius Shipp Jr., whose resemblance to Shakur is startling. “He questioned what was going on.” — C H R I S T I A N H O L U B
Patty Jenkins
RELEASE DATE
6 •2
SUMMER SPLASHBACK
50
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• The
biggest opening weekend for a summer movie led by a female star is
CARS 3: PIX AR /DISNEY; ALL EYE Z ON ME: QUANTRELL COLBERT; WONDER WOMAN: WARNER BROS. PICTURES (2)
BECOMING A SUPERHERO IS NO EASY
feat. It takes patience, a bit of circumstance, and more than a dash of wisdom. Such is the case with Princess Diana (Gal Gadot), who must first leave her idyllic homeland of Themyscira, gain an understanding of mankind in war-torn 1918 Europe, and discover her true power before she can become Wonder Woman. But that sequence, which occurs about halfway through director Patty Jenkins’ highly anticipated DC Comics stand-alone, happens here, in the grim no-man’s-land between English and German battlefield trenches. Though Diana has been told she can’t cross it and must
play by man’s rules, she takes it upon herself to save women and children threatened by the Germans. “It’s a very powerful moment,” Gadot says. “We have a character committing to her true self, doing what she believes needs to be done.” Diana is thrust toward her destiny after American intelligence officer Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes near her island, pursued by the German army. Trevor has discovered that German general Erich Ludendorff (Danny Huston) has plans to release a chemical superweapon, potentially killing millions. Diana escorts Trevor to England, where she initially has to conform
to the era’s antiquated social and gender norms. This battlefield scene marks the first time Diana reveals her iconic garb—a moment that Jenkins (Monster) equates to Superman ripping apart his dress shirt to unveil the S across his chest: “It’s when she says, ‘Enough is enough.’ ” Executive producer and chief creative officer of DC Entertainment Geoff Johns goes a step further with the Superman analogy. “[This scene] reminds me of when Superman caught Lois and caught the helicopter [in the 1978 movie],” he says. “But this one is even more visceral.” And more beautiful. —NICOLE SPERLING
( From top ) Concept art of the battlefield sequence; Gal Gadot
Maleficent ( 2014); the Angelina Jolie film scored $69.4 million. SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2017
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TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT DIRECTED BY
Mark Wahlberg, Laura Haddock, Anthony Hopkins
Michael Bay
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RELEASE DATE
6 • 23
Wembly (Laura Haddock), a fellow scholar who has no idea she harbors a genetic secret that could destroy (or save) the world. “[The humans] are empowered in a way that is very different than we’ve experienced before, and honestly, it’s not easy figuring out how to empower the six-foot human versus the 35- or 45-foot robot,” producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says. Wembly comes face-to-face with a
friend she didn’t even know she had—the Autobot Hot Rod (a nod to the 1986 animated movie), who has been serving as her protector in the form of her father’s vintage Citroën DS. “It’s a rickety old thing, but she can’t part with it because she adores it,” says Haddock, whose character connects
with Mark Wahlberg’s salt-of-theearth mechanic. “This car has actually been put there to watch her and feed back information to Anthony Hopkins’s character about what she’s up to and her life. So she gets [surprised] in a really funny, dramatic way by this Hot Rod.” With director Michael Bay in charge, her life is about to blow up. —ANTHONY BREZNICAN
PAR AMOUNT PICTURES/BAY FILMS
STARRING
T H E T R A N S FO R M E RS
are about to go medieval on moviegoers. It turns out the war between Hasbro shapeshifting robots extends all the way back to Arthurian legend. In this fifth movie, an astronomer (Anthony Hopkins) tracks these connections to Oxford’s Viviane
ALSO PLAYING BAND AID JUNE 2
For one couple (Zoe Lister-Jones and Adam Pally), the emotional scars of a souring marriage translate into sweet music as they form a band that specializes in “fight songs.” CHURCHILL JUNE 2
Brian Cox plays the British PM who, after leading a nation back from the brink, is haunted by doubts in the hours leading up to D-Day. I, DANIEL BLAKE JUNE 2
Ken Loach’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner follows an aging widower (Dave Johns) who bonds with a single mother in pursuit of compassion and government welfare.
BEATRIZ AT DINNER
CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS:
CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS MAY NOT
be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he is making the leap to the big screen. In this adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s DIRECTED BY RELEASE DATE STARRING beloved kids’ books, Kevin David Soren Ed Helms, Kevin • 6 2 Hart, Thomas Hart and Thomas MiddleMiddleditch ditch lend their voices to George and Harold, two fourth graders who invent a cheerful comic-book hero clad only in a cape and tighty-whities. Their creation comes to life when they hypnotize their strict school principal into stripping down, declaring himself Captain Underpants, and attempting to battle villains like the evil Professor Poopypants (Nick Kroll)—all despite a complete lack ck of superpowers. The result is a madcap tale about the world rld’s dumbest superhero, and director David Soren says it has a Saturd urdaymorning-cartoon energy unlike anything DreamWorks Animati ation h has ever done before. “We’ve made a lot of comedies,” he says. “B “But ffrom a pure sense of the word, this is really our first cartoon.” Ed l starss dH Helms as both Principal Krupp and his underdressed alter ego, and h l h d he relished the chance to voice such a hilariously misguided hero. “I’ h “I’m pretty much the go-to guy for anything underpants-related,” Helm d to o ms says. “It used be Mark Wahlberg and the Calvin Klein ads, but now d Helms.” l ll ow it’s Ed All hail Helms and his new funky bunch. — D E VA N C O G G A N
THE FIRST EPIC MOVIE
Captain Underpants (Ed Helms)
JUNE 9
BE ATRIZ AT DINNER: L ACEY TERRELL /ROADSIDE; CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS: THE FIRST EPIC MOVIE: DRE AMWORKS ANIMATION
Hot Rod and Laura Haddock
Salma Hayek plays an immigrant living the American dream who butts heads with a snooty, ruthless billionaire (John Lithgow) at a dinner party. THE HERO JUNE 9
A has-been actor (Sam Elliott) bonds with a comic (Laura Prepon) en route to reconnecting with his daughter (Krysten Ritter) after his health scare. MY COUSIN RACHEL JUNE 9
Suspicions threaten to break the spell an enchanting woman (Rachel Weisz) casts on her smitten cousin (Sam Claflin) in this adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s period novel. SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2017
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ON THE SET WITH
Ilana Glazer, Jillian Bell, Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, and Zoë Kravitz
KUMAIL NANJIANI THE BIG SICK STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter
Michael Showalter
RELEASE DATE
IT’S LATE SPRING 2016, AND CAMERAS
ROUGH NIGHT STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Zoë Kravitz
Lucia Aniello
RELEASE DATE
6 • 16
Lucia Aniello is no stranger to raunchy female comedy, having directed multiple episodes of Broad City, but her film debut would make even Abbi and Ilana blush. Scarlett Johansson, Zoë Kravitz, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, and Ilana Glazer play old friends whose bachelorette party goes off the rails, resulting in a dead male stripper. Also starring? Aniello’s partner Paul W. Downs, who co-wrote the script with her and plays the fiancé of Johansson’s character. “It is kind of a unique experience to direct your boyfriend, who you have made the choice to cast as Scarlett Johansson’s love interest,” Aniello says. At least he’s not the dead stripper. — D E VA N C O G G A N 54
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are rolling in a nightclub in Brooklyn. Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley) steps on stage to perform stand-up. But instead of telling jokes, he melts down as he confides to a stunned audience that it’s hard to do comedy when your girlfriend is in a coma. Director Michael Showalter (Hello, My Name Is Doris) yells “Cut!” Several feet away, Emily V. Gordon—who was the actual comatose girlfriend who inspired the story, and who co-wrote the script with Nanjiani, now her husband of 10 years—wipes tears from her eyes while sitting next to Zoe Kazan, who portrays her in the film. “That day was definitely the hardest for me,” Nanjiani, 39, says. “There were certain scenes we wrote that I cried when we wrote them, I cried when we rewrote them, I cried when I read them, I cried when we rehearsed them, and I cried when I acted them.” He laughs. “It sounds so serious on paper: A Pakistani guy whose parents want him to have an arranged marriage has his white girlfriend go into a coma. But it is a comedy!” Festival audiences cried tears of
6 • 23
laughter at The Big Sick, which got snatched up by Amazon at Sundance for a reported $12 million and won the Audience Award at SXSW. “It’s a unique kind of love story,” says Judd Apatow, who produced and helped develop the project over five years. “It is tricky because there’s elements about culture clashes and how to handle situations when people get sick, and it needed to be really funny in an organic, truthful way.” Much of the humor arises when Nanjiani must navigate his vigil at Emily’s bedside alongside her chilly parents (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano) and also keep his relationship secret from his traditional Pakistani Muslim parents (Zenobia Shroff and Anupam Kher). But in the end, it’s Gordon and Nanjiani’s love story that is the heart of the film. “We were not consciously trying to make a political statement, but we live in a time now where a brown man falling in love with a white girl is inherently a political statement,” says Nanjiani, whose intent was completely different. “One of my favorite comedies is Shaun of the Dead. That’s not so dissimilar from our movie— they’re both about a guy dealing with a crazy situation he’s not equipped for to win back the girl.” — S A R A V I L KO M E R S O N
With Zoe Kazan in The Big Sick
ROUGH NIGHT: MACALL POLLEY/SONY; NANJIANI: ART STREIBER /AUGUST; THE BIG SICK: SAR AH SHATZ/AMA ZON
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E L L E F A N N I N G M AY L O O K L I K E T H E P I C T U R E O F S O U T H E R N
BEHIND THE SCENE
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Elle Fanning, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst
Sofia Coppola
RELEASE DATE
6 • 23
gentility in this lavish gothic thriller, but there’s some wickedness lurking under those blond curls and pink ruffles. And no one is more thrilled about Fanning’s dark turn than writer-director Sofia Coppola. “She’s always wanted to make me the bad girl,” says Fanning, who starred in Coppola’s Somewhere at age 12. “She was so excited, like, ‘You get to be the naughty one!’ ” Fanning’s bad girl is Alicia, one of five young students at the Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies. It’s 1864 in Virginia, and as the Civil War rages, the girls and their two teachers (Kirsten Dunst and Nicole Kidman) have holed up in their stately but dilapidated school. Their isolation is interrupted by the arrival of a wounded Union soldier named John (Colin Farrell), sparking a twisty tale of jealousy, lust, and dread. “It
Claire Holt and Mandy Moore
47 METERS DOWN 4 Colin Farrell and Elle Fanning
THE BEGUILED: BEN ROTHSTEIN/FOCUS FE ATURES; 47 METERS DOWN: ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES; THE BOOK OF HENRY: JOJO WHILDEN/FOCUS FE ATURES
feels like this eerie pressure cooker that could explode at any moment,” Dunst says. The women welcome John with real country hospitality, throwing a dinner party as elegant as they can muster and trading faded floral day dresses for their best silk gowns. “There’s something very feminine about this world, and you have this man penetrating the enclosure,” says cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd (The Grandmaster). “So [the look of that scene] was trying to get that dramatic effect between something very dark and something very soft and very feminine.” After dinner, John and Alicia find themselves alone in the candlelit parlor. “She plays the innocent, but she’s really not,” Fanning says. “She’s a little coy, but in the script that scene was described as ‘He looks at her like a wolf.’ ” Beware, John: She’s no sheep. — D E VA N C O G G A N
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Mandy Moore, Claire Holt
Johannes Roberts
RELEASE DATE
6 • 16
When it comes to summer terror, aliens and monsters can’t compete with the jaws of circling sharks, and sisters Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt) find themselves surrounded after a cagediving accident strands them below the surface. “The majority of the movie is us completely freaking out,” Moore says. “It’s the most terrifying nightmare on the planet. Most of the time I was shooting, I would be going through my [oxygen] tank in two seconds because I was hyperventilating.” Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies... — C H R I S T I A N H O L U B
Jaeden Lieberher
THE BOOK OF HENRY STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Jaeden Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay
Colin Trevorrow
RELEASE DATE
6 • 16
Eleven-year-old genius Henry (Midnight Special’s Jaeden Lieberher) concocts a plan to right the wrongs that have befallen the troubled girl next door (Maddie Ziegler). “It’s about how our reactions to life’s worst parts define us,” says director Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World). Part thriller, part emotional whirlwind, the movie walks a tightrope of tone. Placing cute kids (Jacob Tremblay also stars) in peril keeps audiences on edge. It’s a smaller story than Trevorrow’s dino epic but still feels like summer entertainment. “Not all mythic stories have to span kingdoms and galaxies,” he says. “They can happen in your own backyard.” — R U T H K I N A N E
SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2017
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ALSO G PLAYING
THE SHOT
MAUDIE JUNE 16
Maudie captures the real-life passion shared between the Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis (Sally Hawkins) and a crotchety recluse (Ethan Hawke) in the 1930s.
THE BAD BATCH JUNE 23
Cannibals, carnage, and Keanu Reeves collide in Ana Lily Amirpour’s dystopian horror thriller, which costars Suki Waterhouse and Jason Momoa.
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, Christopher Abbott
Trey Edward Shults
RELEASE DATE
6 •9
BABY DRIVER JUNE 28
A getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) with savantlike skills agrees to one last heist with Kevin Spacey and Jon Hamm in Edgar Wright’s soundtrackfueled action thriller.
OKJA JUNE 28
AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING JUNE 30
The terrifying legacy continues as a teen (Bella Thorne) encounters nefarious spirits possessing her twin’s body after moving into the iconic horror house.
A FATHER (JOEL EDGERTON), MOTHER
(Selma’s Carmen Ejogo), and their teenage son (The Birth of a Nation’s Kelvin Harrison Jr.) are attempting to survive a civilization-destroying pandemic in a remote house in the woods. So when an intruder (Christopher Abbott) arrives, pleading for help, they are forced to choose between kindness and potential infection. And this is one killer sickness. In an early scene (above), the family is faced with the deteriorating condition of Ejogo’s character’s father, who
has fallen victim to the virus. To depict the grotesque physical effect of the contagion, writer-director Trey Edward Shults (Krisha) suggested that makeup department head Sasha Grossman and special-effects makeup artist Jessie Eden use real-life illnesses as references. “We looked at whatever photos we could find that related to the bubonic plague, related to Ebola virus,” Eden says. “We took a little bit of every gnarly disease.” The pair created a look that featured boils and blackened veins. And for the coup de grâce? “To
THE BAD BATCH: DARREN MICHAELS/NEON; OK JA: KIMBERLY FRENCH/NETFLIX
A girl protects a mountain-dwelling beast from greedy corporate monsters (e.g.,Tilda Swinton) in the latest from Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer).
( Right ) David Pendleton; ( below right ) Joel Edgerton, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Carmen Ejogo
—J O E Y N O L F I SUMMER SPLASHBACK
• The
Sixth Sense, which grossed $ 294 million in 1999, holds the summer box office
IT COMES AT NIGHT: ERIC MCNAT T/A 24 (2)
be even scarier, we added solid black demonlike eyes,” Grossman says. The film’s inspiration, though, comes from an emotional place: the cancer-related death of Shults’ father, who had addiction issues and had reunited with his son only shortly before passing away. “It was a hugely traumatic, life-changing moment in my life,” Shults says. “I started writing the opening scene and then this whole fictional story burst out of that.” Edgerton considers It Comes at Night one of a new breed of horror
films that engages brains as well as raises hairs. “Let’s be honest, horror movies have a bad rap,” says the Australian actor, whose own directorial debut, 2015’s The Gift, won high marks as an unsettling thriller. “It’s up to movies like Get Out and It Follows—and this movie, I hope— to [remove] the stigma of what I refer to as the ‘blood porn’ nature of horror. Horror films can be incredibly intelligent.” In other words, don’t expect his movie to give the genre a black eye. — C L A R K C O L L I S
record for a horror film. Though when adjusted for inflation, Jaws ($1.1 billion) is still the scary movie with the most bite. E W.C O M
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IN THIS MONTH • An Inconvenient Sequel:
Truth to Power P. 64
• Spider-Man: Homecoming P. 65 • D unkirk
P. 66
• A Ghost Story
P. 68
• Girls Trip
P. 68
• The Emoji Movie
P. 70
• Patti Cake$
P. 70
• War for the Planet
of the Apes P. 70
• Lady Macbeth
P. 71
• Valerian and the City of
a Thousand Planets P. 72
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ATOMIC BLONDE STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella
David Leitch
RELEASE DATE
7 • 28
Charlize Theron
BACK IN 2012, CHARLIZE THERON AND HER PRODUC-
( From top ) Theron; James McAvoy
functional, allowing the 5' 9" former ballet dancer to toss goons down flights of stairs and use her fishnet-clad thighs as a vise. Her wardrobe contrasts with that of her Berlin contact David Percival (James McAvoy), who has clearly been in the fraught city for too long. He has a fondness for his ratty fur coat and a penchant for mesh tank tops. “I was keen to be slightly underdressed at all times,” McAvoy says. “I wanted there to be that strange thing of it being really cold all the time and yet there is flesh on show. To me that speaks to a lack of self-care.” While Broughton unwraps the riddle of Percival, she finds her own self-care in the arms of French agent Sandrine (Star Trek Beyond’s Sofia Boutella). Their steamy love scenes will surely be a topic of conversa-
WHY IS IT THAT ONLY JAMES BOND CAN SLEEP WITH EVERY GIRL? AM I THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAD A ONE-NIGHT STAND?” —CHARLIZE THERON
tion, which was the point. “Everybody says you can’t do that—which is such bulls---,” Theron says. “Why is it that James Bond can sleep with every girl in every movie and nobody says, ‘Wow, he’s not in love with them’? Am I the only person who had a onenight stand with somebody from a club?” Theron and Leitch’s interest in testing the limits extended to the fight scenes, notably a 12-minute pièce de résistance that plays as one long brutal sequence where Theron battles multiple foes in a stairwell. Leitch doesn’t want to give away his tricks on how he made it click, but according to Theron, the crew worked on the scene for four days with an editor on site, cutting it as they shot it. “We were shooting it continuously, and every day the cut kept working,” she says. “The whole set was so alive.” McAvoy attributes Leitch’s talent to the vast experience he’s had on film sets, directing and coordinating stunts on movies like The Mechanic and Captain America: Civil War. “David’s grown up on movie sets, and he likes standing among a group of 100 people making an impossible image real,” McAvoy says. “And for that, he was a joy to work with.” Atomic Blonde debuted in March at the SXSW film festival to a raucous response. During the post-screening Q&A, Theron choked up, moved by the audience’s reaction. “I’m 41 and I’m in an action movie that people really responded to,” she says. “That’s a lot, especially for someone who was told throughout her career that she wouldn’t work after 40.” We dare them to say it to her face now. — N I C O L E S P E R L I N G
S U M M E R S P L A S H B A C K • Berlin and the C old War were riveting Hollywood fodder in July 1966 with Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Torn Curtain.
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(PREVIOUS SPRE AD AND THIS PAGE) JONATHAN PRIME/FOCUS FE ATURES (3)
ing partner Beth Kono were sent a couple of pages from an upcoming graphic novel, The Coldest City, by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart. They sparked to it immediately, specifically the film’s unapologetic protagonist, British secret agent Lorraine Broughton, who’s dropped into 1989 Berlin just as the wall is poised to crumble. It’s no longer clear who is friend or foe. “You threw me into a hornets’ nest,” Broughton says to her superiors. As Theron and Kono developed the script over the years, that line stuck in Theron’s head. “How would a woman respond in such a situation?” Theron wondered. “And how do you make it real?” The Oscar winner found her answers with stunt choreographer-turned-director David Leitch (John Wick), who’d once been a stunt double for both Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme. He put Theron through her paces during an intensive three-month boot camp where she trained four to five hours a day to tackle stunts she initially thought were impossible. “We worked our balls off on this movie,” says Theron, who simultaneously worked with screenwriter Kurt Johnstad (300) to turn The Coldest City into what Leitch calls “punk-rock noir.” This is a spy with serious edge. “I didn’t want to just play some straightforward agent,” Theron says, “because how boring to watch is that?” Nothing about Atomic Blonde is boring. The creative team took the graphic novel’s original conceit—a rather rule-bound spy is sent behind the Iron Curtain to retrieve a dossier of agents’ identities before the Soviets get it—and amped it up to 11 with a synthesizer-driven ’80s soundtrack, a collection of dangerous characters, and a cool period wardrobe. “If you want to blend in in Berlin 1989, you probably don’t want to dress like a stuffy Cold War spy,” Leitch says. “You’re going to have a bit more of a rock & roll lifestyle.” Theron’s look—think Debbie Harry meets Brigitte Nielsen—is as fashionable as it is
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TOUR THE GALAXY From lightsabers and beasts to food and clothing, Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia is a virtual museum in a book.
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A WORLD OF IDEAS: SEE ALL THERE IS TO KNOW
www.dk.com
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Al Gore
Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk
FORMER VICE PRESI-
dent Al Gore has faced dilemmas much greater than whether to make a sequel to his Oscarwinning 2006 documentary on the growing dangers of climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. “But I was reluctant,” Gore says from his home in Nashville, “because we’d already presented the basic science.” Directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk proposed following Gore around the world for two years—and the idea clicked. The result is a film that’s slim on slide shows but more challenging than its predecessor, especially in its complex portrait of Gore as a savvy ambassador. —J O E M C G O V E R N
AL GORE SUMMER SPLASHBACK
This film opens with shots of melting icebergs matched to the voices of commentators calling you everything from a con man to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. A L G O R E Goebbels, yeah. Gosh, I’d forgotten about that.
Do you read all your critics?
Well, I’m aware of
RELEASE DATE
7 • 28
the deniers. My staff puts together a daily summary of all the climate news stories around the world. People with even one ear paying attention to the media over the last decade have certainly heard a lot of fire trained on me. The [archconservative billionaire] Koch brothers paid to fly a hot-air balloon over my house. And I’ve developed a thick skin, for sure.
to imagine. Honestly, I was astonished when I saw that in the film. It sounds incredible, but I wasn’t aware of the camera’s presence. That’s the power of a more cinema vérité movie—you forget they’re there. You have a warm meeting in the film with the right-wing Republican mayor of Georgetown, Tex. His city is at the forefront of alternative energy. What was that like?
Oh, that was fun. And he makes me optimistic. There are now 30 Republican representatives who have changed positions on this issue,
In this film you mention that your most ridiculed claim in Truth was regarding a computer simulation depicting the flooding of lower Manhattan.
Absolutely, the 9/11 Memorial site. And since then we’ve seen Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when it did flood. Every night on the television news now is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation. And some of these carbon polluters say, “Oh, there’s no problem.” Ridiculous. We also see you comforting a man who survived the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines. It’s a very candid, raw moment.
I’ve met so many people with burdens on their hearts that are just impossible
• Election-year politics fueled Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 to $119.2 million in the summer of 2004, making it the highest-grossing documentary ever.
Al Gore ( center ) in the Philippines Tom Holland
up from 17 last year. We’re not that far from having a working majority in the House and the Senate—if not before the 2018 elections, then right after. Could you see President Trump changing his position?
the Paris Agreement and eliminating EPA programs. It’s a shame. But we’re still in a moment that’s pregnant with the possibility for great change. And I’m completely convinced we’re going to win this.
I don’t know. The current administration seems hell-bent on pulling out of
STARRING
Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr.
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING DIRECTED BY
RELEASE DATE
7 •7
Jon Watts
AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER: JENSEN WALKER /PAR AMOUNT (2); SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING: CHUCK ZLOTNICK /COLUMBIA
I N 2 0 0 2 , D I R E C T O R J O N WAT T S ( C O P C A R ) WA S A
sophomore at NYU and could look out the window of his dorm room to see the bright lights on the Brooklyn Bridge, where scenes from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man were being filmed. “We went down and shot one of our projects nearby,” Watts says. “It looked pretty well-lit for a student film.” He laughs. “To now be on the other side and be the one making a Spider-Man movie feels pretty surreal.” His movie about our friendly neighborhood webslinger sees a tonal shift—more wisecracks, more high school— that harks back to the ’60s-era comics. “We’ve seen the Marvel Universe from the very dramatic penthouse perspective of Tony Stark; now we see what it looks like on the ground through the eyes of a 15-yearold,” Watts says. Holland (The Impossible), 20, says that his time on Captain America: Civil War was great training. “I was able to see how professional Chris Evans behaves, how Robert Downey Jr. is always on time and always prepared—it gave me a blueprint of what to do and how to act.” With that kind of responsibility comes great power. — S A R A V I L KO M E R S O N
E W.C O M
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ALSO PLAYING
Fionn Whitehead and Aneurin Barnard
CITY OF GHOSTS J U LY 7
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land) directs a Sundanceaward-winning documentary about citizen journalists who expose Islamic State abuses in Syria.
TO THE BONE J U LY 1 4
Lily Collins plays an anorexic whose recurring bouts of frail health land her in a treatment program led by an unconventional therapist (Keanu Reeves).
WISH UPON J U LY 1 4
A bullied teen (Joey King) whose mother committed suicide discovers a mysterious music box that grants her seven wishes— which come at a deadly price.
FIRST KILL J U LY 2 1
After a vacationing New Yorker (Hayden Christensen) witnesses a murder, bank robbers take his son hostage and demand the return of their stolen cash. THE SHOT
J U LY 2 1
Jenny Slate and Abby Quinn play Manhattan sisters, bonding while investigating whether their father (John Turturro) is cheating on their mother (Edie Falco).
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Fio nn Fionn Whiteh Whi tehead ead,, Tom Ha Hardy rdy
Chr istoph C Christ opher err Nolan Nol ann
SUMMER SPLASHBACK
• Steven
RELEASE DATE
7 • 211
WISH UPON: STEVE WILKIE/BROAD GREEN; L ANDLINE: JOJO WHILDEN/AMA ZON
LANDLINE
Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan opened in July 1998 to critical acclaim
DUNKIRK: MELINDA SUE GORDON/WARNER BROS.
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN DOESN’T DO
things halfway. When Heath Ledger’s Joker blows up a hospital in The Dark Knight, the filmmaker found an actual building his crew could demolish in Chicago. So for Nolan’s movie about the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk, France— a crucial moment in World War II when more than 300,000 cornered Allied soldiers retreated safely across the English Channel—the typical war-story treatment wasn’t going to do. Nolan set out to tell a survival story, one where the danger and immense
scale of the evacuation were baked into the filmmaking. “I kept coming back to the firsthand accounts, with people describing the sights and sounds of being on that beach, or being up in a plane above that beach, or being on a boat coming across to help the situation,” Nolan says. “I think the confusion, not knowing what’s really going on, was one of the most frightening and disturbing things for people.” Beyond hiring thousands of extras to stand on the actual Dunkirk beaches, Nolan and his
director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema used unwieldy 54-pound IMAX cameras in ways that had never been done on a feature film. “Hoyte hand-held the [IMAX] camera for a few sections of Interstellar very effectively, and then on this I had to break the news to him that he was going to be doing it for a massive amount of the film,” Nolan says. “We definitely bought him a lot of massages along the way.” The large-format cameras were able to follow the cast wherever they went—whether it was newcomer
Fionn Whitehead lugging a wounded comrade on a stretcher across the beach, as in the scene shown here, or Tom Hardy inside the cockpit of an actual Spitfire fighter plane. The shooting style allowed for an intimacy not typically associated with IMAX. “We could get on a small boat with a number of characters and just shoot IMAX as if we were shooting with a GoPro camera,” Nolan says. It sounds beyond intense, and for a Christopher Nolan film, that’s saying something. — K E V I N P. S U L L I VA N
and went on to be that year’s biggest blockbuster, with $216.5 million. SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2017
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A GHOST STORY STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara
David Lowery
RELEASE DATE
7 •7
QUEEN LATIFAH &
JADA PINKETT SMITH SUMMER SPLASHBACK
68
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• The
A GHOST STORY: A 24 FILMS; LATIFAH AND PINKET T SMITH: KWAKU ALSTON/UNIVERSAL; GIRLS TRIP: MICHELE K. SHORT/UNIVERSAL
For the spirit at the center of A Ghost Story—the Sundance standout about a couple (Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara) coping with life, death, and the afterlife—writerdirector David Lowery (Pete’s Dragon) sought an iconic image. “I knew that I wanted to make a film about a ghost that was in a sheet,” he says. And while the design was meant to be straightforward, making the apparition a reality was far from simple, requiring undergarments, a headshaping helmet, and some puppeteering. “Annell Brodeur was our costume designer,” Lowery says, “and she spent a lot of time figuring out how to not make it look stupid.” So no, your DIY Halloween costume won’t look as cool. — K E V I N P. S U L L I VA N
Hangover set records for an R-rated comedy when it dominated the summer of
GIRLS TRIP STARRING
Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish
DIRECTED BY
Malcolm D. Lee
RELEASE DATE
7 • 21
GIRLS JUST WANNA
have fun…especially at Essence Fest in New Orleans. That’s the basic gist of this hard-R-rated comedy about a group of old friends—Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, and Tiffany Haddish— who attempt to rekindle their friendship at the epic summer festival and find a bit of trouble. “It’s The Hangover meets Sex and the City,” explains director Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man Holiday). “Women are just as lascivious and sexual as men, and they want to let loose and have fun.” The film also reunites Latifah and Pinkett Smith, who haven’t been together on screen since the 1996 cult hit Set It Off. EW (which shares a parent company with Essence) spoke to the pair about shooting in New Orleans and the fruits of sex.
You shot on location last summer at Essence Fest. What was that like? Q U E E N L AT I FA H There were a lot of logistics involved in figuring out how to get us in, get the shots, and get us to a secure place quickly. The difficulty in shooting at Essence Fest, for me, was you want to see all these performances! Lalah Hathaway, Mariah, Puff Daddy, New Edition. It’s hard to be an actor when you’re a fan!
Did y’all get to have any wild nights out in New Orleans? JA DA P I N K E T T S M I T H
We would go to Latifah’s house and have pool parties and have good food. L AT I FA H We needed to be able to have some quality time without being out there in the world. We worked really hard, and it was hot!
Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tiffany Haddish, and Regina Hall
P I N K E T T S M I T H Tiffany took me on a swamp tour on a Groupon. L AT I FA H That’s hilarious. P I N K E T T S M I T H I didn’t know what a Groupon was, but I learned very quickly and I actually had a really fantastic time. The only problem was that I had my husband [Will Smith] with me as well, so that creates hysteria. But we’re here and alive to tell the story, and we saw some gators.
One of the big set pieces of the film is a sexual act that Tiffany’s character demonstrates with a grapefruit. Were you aware of this trick? P I N K E T T S M I T H Oh, yeah. That’s been around for years. You gotta have a lot of balls to put that into a movie. L AT I FA H You literally have to have a lot of balls. P I N K E T T S M I T H Will told me about that, like, three years ago. Like, “You should see this grapefruit!” I was like, “Are you trying to tell me something?”
—T I M S TA C K
2009, making $277 million. Bridesmaids set the mark for an R-rated female ensemble with $169 million in 2011. E W.C O M
69
Fried Shrimp and Gene (T.J. Miller)
THE EMOJI MOVIE STARRING
DIRECTED BY
T.J. Miller, James Corden, Patrick Stewart
Tony Leondis
RELEASE DATE
7 • 28
What happens when a meh emoji believes he is a malfunction because he can’t stop feeling other emotions? Gene (voiced by T.J. Miller) journeys through various apps to try to fix his code so that he can fit in with the other one-note ideograms. Spoiler alert: Conformity isn’t a good idea. “We’re trying to tell people, ‘Express yourself—don’t hide how you’re feeling,’ ” says Miller. The cast includes James Corden as Hi-5 and Patrick Stewart as…the poop emoji? ”Let’s be honest, the poop emoji is everyone’s favorite,” Miller says. ”And we happened to get one of the most distinguished actors in the world to take that job.” — D A N S N I E R S O N
Danielle Macdonald and Siddharth Dhananjay
DIRECTED BY
Danielle Macdonald
Geremy Jasper
RELEASE DATE
7 •7
Newcomer Danielle Macdonald wowed Sundance audiences with her self-assured portrayal of Patricia Dombrowski, an aspiring rapper from a dilapidated New Jersey town. However, that swagger took time, because the role required the Australian actress to learn not only how to rap in a Jersey accent but also how to perform. “I really understood [the character], but I didn’t know how to physically be her,” says Macdonald, who studied rap with Brooklyn-based performer Skyzoo. “He just got me out of my head and helped me find how I move to the rhythm of it. A lot of it was just finding the confidence.” Jersey Strong forever. — C H A N C E L L O R A G A R D
70
E W.C O M
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn
Matt Reeves
RELEASE DATE
7 • 14
WHEN ANDY SERKIS STARTED PLAYING CAESAR IN 2011’S RISE OF THE PLANET OF
the Apes, the ape was essentially a rebellious teenager. Two films later, Caesar’s aged into a family man—and the commander in chief of a society of evolved apes. “It’s very rare that an actor can get to play the whole life of a character,” says Serkis, who again donned a performance-capture suit. “It’s Boyhood, but for apes. It’s my Apehood!” War picks up two years after 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, with a brutal conflict raging between Caesar’s apes and soldiers led by Woody Harrelson’s mysterious Colonel. “It finally cracks Caesar,” returning director Matt Reeves says.
THE EMOJI MOVIE: SONY PICTURES ANIMATION; PAT TI CAKE$: JEONG PARK /FOX SE ARCHLIGHT
PATTI CAKE$ STARRING
WAR FOR THE PL ANET OF THE APES: T WENTIETH CENTURY FOX (2); L ADY MACBETH: ROADSIDE AT TR ACTIONS
LLADY MACBETH
( From top) Apes riding into battle; Woody Harrelson with a gorilla who has betrayed his fellow apes
STARRING
DIRECTED BY
Florence Pugh
William Oldroyd
RELEASE DATE
7 • 14
Sold into a loveless marriage in 19th-century England, Katherine (Florence Pugh) begins an affair to quell her boredom in this tale based on Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 novella Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The film refreshingly forgoes the trappings of period dramas, opting for austerity in design and tone. With no music for emotional signposting, it’s still full of sound and fury (and madness and murder). “We amplified sounds: the brushing of hair, the slamming of doors, the shutters, the clock,” says first-time director William Oldroyd. “That stillness compounds Katherine’s isolation and drives her newfound freedom.” As in Shakespeare’s play, the men don’t stand a chance. — R U T H K I N A N E
“It sets him on a revenge mission. The movie goes from being this grand war movie to an almost Josey Wales-like Western.” Caesar even has a posse, complete with a human girl, Nova (Amiah Miller), and Bad Ape, a talking chimp (Steve Zahn). The film opens with a stunning ape-versus-human battle through the forest, and Caesar’s journey carries him to the snowy Sierras, but War’s war is ultimately an intimate battle of wills. “The Colonel comes across as someone who’s psychotic,” Serkis teases. “But he is fighting for the survival of humanity, as Caesar is fighting for the apes.” Expect one loser, but no winners. — D A R R E N F R A N I C H
Florence Pugh
SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2017
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A S S PA C E C O P S S O LV I N G A N I N T E R G A L A C T I C M Y S T E R Y, D A N E
BEHIND THE DESIGN
E W.C O M
DIRECTED BY
Luc Besson
RELEASE DATE
7 • 21
VALERIAN AND THE CIT Y OF A THOUSAND PL ANETS: STX ENTERTAINMENT
72
STARRING
Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne
DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are the headliners of this neon sci-fi extravaganza from director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element). But the film’s biggest star is right there in its title: the bulbous and beautiful City of a Thousand Planets, named Alpha, which sparked into creation in 1975. “That was when the U.S. and Russian spacecrafts first docked together,” Besson says. “We see that in the opening credits of Valerian. Then we see the International Space Station today, and it’s getting bigger in 2100 and 2200, all the way up to the 28th century.” Thus, the “thousand planets” refer to all the extraterrestrials that have linked up with Alpha. “It is definitely a next-level melting pot,” DeHaan says. “Everybody is so different, but they’re all riding it out there together for the greater good.” Those include human affiliates in the west, robots in the east, Gasland (for methane-partial aliens) in the north, and Aqualand (for marine Martians) in the south. The tall cylindrical buildings, shown here in the concept art of a neighborhood on the way to Gasland, are offices and residences, and the large silver spheres are air locks filled with various atmospheric makeups for the different species. Besson points to a gas bubble. “Oh, that’s just like Tribeca in lower Manhattan. Or
DEHA AN AND DELEVINGNE: DANIEL SMITH/STX; BRIGSBY BE AR: SONY PICTURES CL ASSICS; THE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES: NETFLIX
ALSO PLAYING
Wall Street. It’s just a little area where aliens live.” The director enlisted multiple graphic artists (a symbolic consortium from places such as Singapore, France, and the U.S.) to jump down rabbit holes and funnel him concepts for Alpha. “They were all insane and I loved them,” he says, laughing. “Sometimes I’d see their ideas and I’d want to call the police to say, ‘Um, keep an eye on that guy.’ ” Concept designer Ben Mauro, who’s worked on Valerian for eight years, says, “There’s nothing on Earth that looks like this. It’s cohesive but all meshed together, and Luc always preferred the most fascinating and most cool.” And the most square footage. Alpha, according to Besson, is approximately 18 miles from end to end, but Mauro adds, “Actually, it’s as big as Luc wants it to be.” Savvy. Never contradict the boss—whether he be director or president—about his real estate claims. —J O E M C G O V E R N
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A ballerina gives up her chance to join the Bolshoi after she discovers contemporary dance, moving to France to train with a famous choreographer (Juliette Binoche).
( From top ) Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne; concept art of Alpha, designed by Feng Zhu
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SNL’s Kyle Mooney embraces his inner child as a man determined to film the conclusion of a children’s TV show he grew up watching.
FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON J U LY 2 8
A headstrong French woman (Marion Cotillard) bucks convention and incites scandal by falling for a war veteran (Louis Garrel) after her arranged marriage to a Spanish farmer.
THE INCREDIBLE JESSICA JAMES J U LY 2 8
Jessica Williams portrays a playwright, unlucky in love, who connects with a recent divorcé (Chris O’Dowd) in this modern New York romance.
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A Hasidic grocery clerk fights for custody of his son following his wife’s death, challenging traditions that require children to be raised by women. —J O E Y N O L F I
Thee Emojiji M i Movie
MAY
The Wedding Plan Noa Kooler
Drone Sean Bean
Take Me Taylor Schilling
M AY • 1 9
Long Strange Trip Documentary
M AY • 3
A Woman’s Life Judith Chemla
Last Men in Aleppo Documentary
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Documentary
M AY • 1 0
Alien: Covenant Michael Fassbender
M AY • 5 3 Generations Elle Fanning Angkor Awakens: A Portrait of Cambodia Documentary Black Site Delta Cam Gigandet Burden Documentary Chuck Liev Schreiber The Dinner Richard Gere Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Chris Pratt Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie Jeff Garlin The Lovers Debra Winger
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Band Aid Adam Pally
Beatriz at Dinner Salma Hayek
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography Documentary
Camera Obscura Christopher Denham
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie Kevin Hart Risk Documentary
The Drowning Julia Stiles Manifesto Cate Blanchett
M AY • 1 2 Folk Hero & Funny Guy Wyatt Russell King Arthur: Legend of the Sword Charlie Hunnam The Last Shaman Documentary Lowriders Gabriel Chavarria Paris Can Wait Diane Lane Snatched Amy Schumer The Wall Aaron Taylor-Johnson
The Commune Trine Dyrholm Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul Jason Ian Drucker
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Javier Bardem Spirit Game: Pride of a Nation Documentary War Machine Brad Pitt
The Hero Sam Elliott I Love You Both Kristin Archibald
Churchill Brian Cox
It Comes at Night Joel Edgerton
Dark Signal Siwan Morris
Megan Leavey Kate Mara
Dean Demetri Martin
Miles Stephen Root
Handsome Devil Fionn O’Shea
The Mummy Tom Cruise
I, Daniel Blake Dave Johns
My Cousin Rachel Rachel Weisz
Letters From Baghdad Documentary
Shimmer Lake Benjamin Walker
Everything, Everything Amandla Stenberg Paint It Black Alia Shawkat The Survivalist Martin McCann Wakefield Bryan Cranston
M AY • 25 Baywatch Zac Efron
M AY • 2 6 Black Butterfly Antonio Banderas
Wonder Woman Gal Gadot
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
THE EMOJI MOVIE: SONY PICTURES ANIMATION; VALERIAN AND THE CIT Y OF A THOUSAND PL ANETS: STX ENTERTAINMENT; KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD: DANIEL SMITH/WARNER BROS.
JUNE
Past Life Nelly Tagar
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
THE FINAL WEEKS OF SUMMER ALWAYS YIELD A FEW CINEMATIC DELIGHTS Logan Lucky
All Eyez on Me
ALL EYE Z ON ME: QUANTRELL COLBERT; LOGAN LUCK Y: MICHAEL TACKET/FINGERPRINT RELE ASING/ BLEECKER STREET; BABY DRIVER: WILSON WEBB/SONY; THE HOUSE: GLEN WILSON/WARNER BROS.
Wish Upon Joey King
J U LY • 21 Amnesia Marthe Keller Dunkirk Tom Hardy
Baby Driver
First Kill Hayden Christensen Girls Trip Queen Latifah Landline Jenny Slate
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47 Meters Down Mandy Moore
The Bad Batch Keanu Reeves
All Eyez on Me Demetrius Shipp Jr.
The Beguiled Nicole Kidman
Inconceivable Nicolas Cage
Polina Juliette Binoche
The Little Hours Dave Franco
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Cara Delevingne
JULY
Who the F**k Is That Guy? Documentary
Transformers: The Last Knight Mark Wahlberg
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Atomic Blonde Charlize Theron
City of Ghosts Documentary
Brigsby Bear Kyle Mooney
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A Ghost Story Casey Affleck
The Emoji Movie T.J. Miller
Baby Driver Ansel Elgort
Patti Cake$ Danielle Macdonald
Okja Tilda Swinton
Spider-Man: Homecoming Tom Holland
From the Land of the Moon Marion Cotillard
The Book of Henry Naomi Watts
The Big Sick Kumail Nanjiani
Cars 3 Owen Wilson
Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press Documentary
Hare Krishna! Documentary The Journey Timothy Spall Maudie Sally Hawkins Once Upon a Time in Venice Bruce Willis Rough Night Scarlett Scarle Sca rlett tt Joh Johans Johansson ansson son
J U N E • 30 113 Minutes Christian Friedel C Amityville: The A Awakening A Bella Thorne B Despicable Me 3 D SSteve Carell The House T Will Ferrell W
The House
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J U LY • 28
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power Documentary
THE DARK TOWER AU G. 4
Stephen King’s Gunslinger chronicle arrives, with Idris Elba’s hero staring down Matthew McConaughey’s Man in Black. DETROIT AU G. 4
John Boyega and Will Poulter star in Kathryn Bigelow’s explosive account of the violence that erupted in the Motor City in 1967. WIND RIVER AU G. 5
Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner investigate a murder on a Native American reservation in a film directed by Hell or High Water scribe Taylor Sheridan. THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD AU G. 1 8
Ryan Reynolds is the bodyguard, Samuel L. Jackson is the hitman, and Gary Oldman is the dictator who wants the assassin dead. LOGAN LUCKY AU G. 1 8
Channing Tatum, Riley Keough, and Adam Driver ( above ) plot a heist during a NASCAR race in Steven Soderbergh’s high-speed thriller.
Lady Macbeth Florence Pugh
The Incredible Jessica James Jessica Williams
To the Bone Lily Collins
The Last Face Charlize Theron
DEATH NOTE
War for the Planet of the Apes Andy Serkis
Menashe Menashe Lustig
Adam Wingard (You’re Next) brings this Japanese manga to the screen, with Nat Wolff playing a teen who discovers a notebook with mystical powers.
All dates subject to change
AU G. 2 5
SHARON HORGAN
S SHARON O HORGAN O G AND
PHOEBE O WALLER-BRIDGE GE
P L AY W O M E N W H O A R E E Q U A L LY C H A R M I N G AND INFURIATING ON THEIR RESPECTIVE U.K . HITS–T URNED–U.S. DARLINGS,
AND
.
AND IN REAL LIFE, THEY’RE JUST AS OBSESSED WITH EACH OTHER AS WE ARE WITH THEM. ( By )
SARA VILKOMERSON @VILKOMERSON
PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE
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YOU ARE THE KIND OF
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A few years ago I got “the call” [to first meet Sharon]. She asked me to come in for a general meeting. I’d always wanted to meet her. SHARON HORGAN It was very sad because we [at production company Merman] just missed the Phoebe boat. We were really hoping to work together, and you were about to start Fleabag. We’d read the play and knew you were the one to meet. But we didn’t get in there! But then we were together at that Emmys party [in 2016]. WALLER-BRIDGE That was a very surreal event. Everything was white and linen. Everyone was famous, pleasant, and walking very slowly.
HORGAN
It was the kind of venue where you wafted. Fleabag had just launched, right? Everyone is nuts about it. As much in the U.S. as they are in the U.K. WALLER-BRIDGE Well, right back at you. I can’t have a conversation with anyone about work without mentioning Sharon. I am f---ing loving Catastrophe’s third season. We have a watching group, me and my friends and in-laws. [The U.K. premiere was in late February.] It’s so brilliant. One of my questions for you is: How do you start? The thought of the “big idea” really scares me. HORGAN It’s the fear that drives me, the fear to make sure we’re not repeating ourselves, or fear that we might outstay our welcome. Our big feeling with season 3 was:
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television watcher who takes your comedy sharp, complicated, and with a surprisingly emotional punch (with a healthy sprinkling of witty Britishisms to boot), then Sharon Horgan and Phoebe Waller-Bridge are just your cup of tea. If you don’t know them yet, you will: Horgan, 46, along with Rob Delaney, is creator, writer, and costar of Catastrophe (season 3 is available April 28 on Amazon Prime), about a couple whose one-week stand leads to marriage and children. Waller-Bridge, 31, is the creator, writer, and star of last fall’s pitch-black Fleabag (also on Amazon Prime), based on her 2013 award-winning one-woman play about a damaged woman who’s grieving the death of her best friend in none of the standard Kübler-Ross ways. Both are currently highly in demand: Horgan is the creator of HBO’s Divorce; is working on a new series, Motherland, for the BBC; and is about to begin filming her role in Game Night, costarring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams. Waller-Bridge, meanwhile, is adapting novellas by Luke Jennings into Killing Eve, a series for the BBC, and has a part in the latest from the Star Wars franchise, the untitled young Han Solo film, out next year. Despite their busy schedules, they managed to squeeze in time to talk weird Hollywood parties, juggling projects, and deadlines. We tried to get some questions in, but after EW asked about their first meeting, these two TV multitaskers were off to the races.
( From top ) Jenny Rainsford and WallerBridge on Fleabag; Horgan and Rob Delaney on Catastrophe
What is it about? We know the characters now. In some ways it’s easier to write for them now. In a weird way it started off with the more secondary characters this season, and we built out from there. WALLER-BRIDGE Do you and Rob designate scripts to one another? HORGAN No, we sit side by side like a pair of weirdos. You’ve got a writers’ room at the moment for Killing Eve, don’t you? Are you enjoying writing with other people? Do you get lonely when you write on your own? WALLER-BRIDGE I think it’s less fun. It takes years and years to get a shorthand with other people. I’d always worked closely with Vicky Jones [who directed Fleabag the play]. I don’t think I’ve written anything ever if it wasn’t for her and that collaboration in the first place. But that’s taken years of friendship and getting drunk with each other. It’s quite intimidating to go in a room with other people. There are so many terrible drafts and ideas along the way. Trusting people not to jump off the ship is big. And then to encourage people to get on your ship as well— I could metaphor about this for ages. HORGAN I usually use food ones. WALLER-BRIDGE I’ve gone nautical! HORGAN When you wrote Fleabag, did you have half a mind it would become a series? WALLER-BRIDGE I didn’t think of anything beyond the play at that point. It took me a year to adapt it, because it was so close to
me as a play. I learned hard and fast. HORGAN Do you take notes on your phone? WALLER-BRIDGE Yeah, I do drafts of emails. What’s the last one you’ve got? HORGAN Should I tell you? It says [holds up phone to screen], “Sat beside a pornographer.” [Laughs] I was invited to a dinner, and I asked, “What do you do?” He was a pornographer. Things sometimes land in your lap, you know? WALLER-BRIDGE Dream! HORGAN His wife was sitting opposite from me, and she worked in wine. WALLER-BRIDGE What a chic couple. HORGAN Here’s something I wanted to ask: What I think is so extraordinary about Fleabag, apart from everything, is that it’s not wearing its stylish tone on its sleeve—it just has a look that feels so sophisticated. WALLER-BRIDGE I have an incredible director and director of photography, and we all felt ambitious from the start. If [protagonist Fleabag’s] subtext is always a mess— emotional mess, physical mess, f---ing all the time, eating in bed, all that—some would think the show needs to look grimy. Like, have pizza running down her t--s! I always thought, no, we need to do the opposite. I always knew that an essential part of the character is that she is desperate to give the impression she’s in control. [Pause] Are you good at deadlines? HORGAN I give myself false deadlines, and I give other people false deadlines, too. WALLER-BRIDGE Do you stick to your own? HORGAN I try to. WALLER-BRIDGE I’m very impressed. I leave everything till the last minute. I’m a terrible, terrible—wait, I should not be saying this. ’Cause, honestly, this is the oppo-
site of what I’ve been telling my producers. [Laughs] You know when you know that it takes half an hour to get to town on the tube? But there was that one day when you did it in 25 minutes, so for the rest of your life you’re like: It takes 25 minutes! Once, I wrote a whole episode of Fleabag overnight. And I always think I might do that again. But I’m still drafting the first episode of Killing Eve and it’s been years! I don’t think I’ve been satisfied with a script that I’ve written. Or looked at something I’ve written and thought, “Done!” HORGAN That’s the best way to be. I have never felt like that either, and I think that’s why you are so good at what you do. WALLER-BRIDGE What I love about Catastrophe is the glory of peeking behind the curtain of a married couple’s lives. Something we always said about Fleabag—it has to be the glory of being a woman. And I think that is so strong in everything you’ve made. Everyone carries darkness so close to the surface, yet we’re all laughing, pissing around, getting off, making friends, and getting married. You always shine the light on the glory of it all. Do you ever feel like you didn’t know what your show was about until people start articulating it back to you? HORGAN Yes! You know what it means to you, but really it’s the people on the outside and how it made them feel and their experience of it. And then you’re all like, bloody hell, really? I feel like you must get this all the time from women who tell you what the character meant to them, how it reflected something from their lives. Then you think, “S---, I have to keep making this show for that woman!” X
The late Carrie Fisher (here with Delaney and Horgan) recurred as Sharon’s mother-in-law on Catastrophe and can be seen in season 3 in one of her last roles. “I’m so glad we became pals,” Horgan said.
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Confessions This is the latest story in our new series that revisits some of the most infamous and curious crimes in Hollywood history
Big Brother 9 was one big party, but winner Adam Jasinski (top middle and inset) got in hot water after he left the house
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of a Reality TV
O N A P R I L 2 7, 2 0 0 8 , A D A M J A S I N S K I W O N B I G B R O T H E R A N D T H E $ 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 T H A T W E N T A L O N G W I T H I T. W H A T H E D I D W I T H S O M E O F T H E C B S P R I Z E M O N E Y L A N D E D H I M —A N D A C A S T M AT E — B E H I N D B A R S .
BY
LYNETTE RICE
@ LY N E T T E R I C E
Wh e n Hollywood writers
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“I’m a great manipulator. Drug addicts are the most resourceful people. You’re constantly conning money out of people to survive. I think my being a drug addict was one of the reasons why I won Big Brother.” Jasinski is sitting in a bare office inside Oceans Medical Centers, a small rehabilitation facility in Boynton Beach, Fla., that was launched by his mother, Denise, in 2016. These days, the center serves as Jasinski’s home away from home since, as a convicted
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went on strike in November 2007, CBS—like so many other networks—scrambled to fill its schedule with shows that didn’t require new scripts. That meant primetime episodes of The Price Is Right. There was also a Canadian import called Flashpoint, which was purchased during the work stoppage and aired later in the summer. And in perhaps the boldest stroke of all, the network ordered its firstever winter edition of summer reality guilty pleasure Big Brother. The move made sense. After all, the show was cheap, only required 16 strangers who were willing to sequester themselves in a camera-filled house, already had a loyal audience, and was easy to get back into production. Julie Chen was even free to host. Despite a few embarrassing bumps along the way—like a group make-out session in the pool that looked like a scene from a low-rent porno— the Band-Aid to the schedule did its job. On April 27, 2008, a high-strung public relations director named Adam Jasinski outplayed the likes of a DJ company owner, bikini barista, porn star, paparazzo, and former Penthouse Pet to be crowned the ninth champion of Big Brother. When asked on national television what he would do with his $500,000 prize, Jasinski promised to invest a fifth of it in an after-school program (he had worked for the United Autism Foundation, a Florida nonprofit, before entering the house). “I would love to start a business,” said Jasinski, looking straight into the camera. “I don’t bully, BS, nobody, man. A car would be a luxury. But...bottom line, I’ll help children. I’ll change lives.” The only life he would end up changing was his own. A year after leaving the reality show, Jasinski used his prize money to fuel a pill-hawking operation that was spawned, in part, by an ongoing addiction to painkillers and an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. After flying from Florida to Massachusetts with a large number of oxycodone pills in his carry-on bag, Jasinski was captured on Oct. 17, 2009, by law enforcement in a Boston-area strip mall. He pleaded guilty a year later to one count of possession with intent to distribute oxycodone and another for failure to
file a tax return on his Big Brother winnings. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison. It was a shocking postscript to a show that was never even meant to air. And yet it launched a journey that ultimately saved Jasinski’s life. “Most people don’t realize that mental illness sits in a closet and waits. It’s genetic and predisposed,” says Jasinski, 38, who is as fast-talking today as he was on Big Brother. “It doesn’t really manifest itself until something happens, like a life-triggering event. I was manic, and that fed my addiction. I was great at selling and doing drugs, you know? A lot of successful people are bipolar, but I chose to channel my energies into bad stuff, because it was more exciting and fun. Who wants to get laid and not get high?”
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( Clockwise from top ) Julie Chen presents Jasinski with his novelty winner’s check; Jasinski celebrates his victory; with Big Brother partner and adversary Sheila Kennedy
felon, his job prospects are limited. It’s also the place Jasinski feels most comfortable sharing his story about how an affable and reckless young man from Cherry Hill, N.J., managed to triumph on one of TV’s most popular reality shows. “I had them all fooled,” he recalls with a huge grin. “They still don’t know me.” And there are still things people never knew about Jasinski’s wild Big Brother experience—until now. Like the fact that he smuggled a fistful of OxyContin into the house. Or that he was forced into withdrawal on live TV after producers uncovered his secret stash during week 2. “I was freakin’ dope sick,” says Jasinski, who remembers bringing in enough pills to take up to three a day until the end of the game. “That was the day I had lost a food challenge, and I was in bed sick. Everyone
thought I was [pouting]. That covered my ass. I was withdrawing, but it wasn’t like I was taking $1,000 a day worth of drugs. So after three or four days, I was better. I didn’t say a word about this until today.” It’s a stunning admission since no one— including producers—knew about Jasinski’s decadelong addiction to painkillers. “If we ever find anything, the players are absolutely told it has to be out of the house,” says Big Brother executive producer Allison Grodner, who adds that she was not personally aware Jasinski had a drug problem. Yet Jasinski claims he had a legitimate prescription for OxyContin—a drug he began taking at 20 after he was involved in a nasty car accident on the way back from a University of Pennsylvania fraternity party. “My face was broken open,” recalls Jasinski, who still sports a scar above his top lip and suffers from constant back pain. “There was blood everywhere. I get in the ambulance and they’re like, ‘Kid, you’re going to die.’ ” By that time, Jasinski was already an experienced user. Having smoked his first joint at 13, Jasinski experimented with
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Xanax and crack cocaine while attending high school, and even sold drugs. “My dad had a motorcycle business, so I got an early work release,” he explains. “I would go to North Philadelphia and buy hard drugs, come back, and sell them to everyone in school. That was my lunch break.” It was a torturous time for his mother, who used to sit and wait for her son on the living-room recliner every Friday and Saturday night. “It was nonstop,” recalls Denise Jasinski, who would bring home drug tests from her then job at a blood-testing facility so she could check her son’s urine. “Looking back, that was the beginning of his disorder. He would be up for days after he was out of high school. And then there would be days where he would sleep. I was beginning to see these traits.” Initially diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and prescribed Ritalin, Jasinski made it through high school and into a local community college, where a sudden interest in fashion led to a yearlong study program in Italy. This is how his career in reality TV began. After launching a small clothing company called Girls Who Kiss Girls, Jasinski got a job as a low-level producer on the first season of The Apprentice. “I worked in Trump Tower!” he says with a grin. “I saw Trump every week. One day he came right up to me and said, ‘Mr. Jasinski, I appreciate your work,’ and shook my hand.” From there, Jasinski auditioned for The Cut, Tommy Hilfiger’s short-lived fashion competition on CBS. Though he didn’t secure an on-camera spot, Jasinski caught the attention of casting director Robyn Kass, who flew him out from Florida to the Big Brother production offices two years later. “When he came into the room he was this whirlwind ball of energy,” recalls Grodner. “He had a lot of interesting thoughts on how to play the game. Is he smart? Crazy? We were intrigued.” But while Jasinski’s outgoing and outrageous manner would make him a casting department’s dream reality TV candidate, there were warning signs—the incessant chatter, those bugged-out eyes, his nervous chain-smoking—that friends and family believe were overlooked. “It didn’t take a genius or even a person who had any familiarity with bipolar disorder to know something was wrong with Adam, other than just being hyperactive,” says his defense attorney Valerie Carter. Even Sheila Kennedy, then a 45-year-old former model who was partnered with Jasinski as part of the game’s ’Til Death Do You Part twist, thought something was “odd” about him. “I was like, whoa, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she remembers about Jasinski. “He’s so different from everyone else that walked in the house. It just didn’t feel like he belonged there.” He certainly showed a horrifying lack of judgment. Within 24 hours of starting the game, Jasinski set off a firestorm outside the house by telling his castmates he wanted to open “a hair salon for kids with special needs so the retards can get it together and get their hair done.” When Kennedy objected, Jasinski replied, “I can call them whatever I want” because “I work with them all day.” Within a week, Long Island-based nonprofit Autism United demanded that CBS cancel the show over his remarks. Asked to explain his actions today, Jasinski says he was attempting to shorthand “mentally disabled children” so his fellow players would understand him. And yet it only furthered the distance between Jasinski and his partner, who was the oldest player in the house. “I really couldn’t stand him,” remembers Kennedy. “We fought through the whole game. He was awful.” But remarkably, Jasinski was able to
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steer the attention away from his toxic partnership and toward his fellow players, most of whom were more interested in hooking up than winning the game. The biggest bad boy in the house was Matt McDonald, a trashtalking construction worker from Boston with a big personality and a set of blindingly white teeth. He and Jasinski became fast friends. “He was from the East Coast like myself, and those are people I gravitate to,” recalls McDonald, who memorably fooled around with—and verbally abused—his then game partner Natalie Cunial. “I kind of connected to him right away. Personality-wise, we were kind of similar.” So when Jasinski managed to outplay the competition and make it to the final opposite college student Ryan Quicksall, McDonald was Jasinski’s most vocal supporter in the jury house. “He’s a good liar,” he told the others. “He made deals...and double-crossed all of youse. He’s a better player.” On finale night, most of the jury members like Kennedy tried to speak earnestly about why Jasinski earned their votes, but the most entertaining—and prophetic—comment came from the pink-mohawk-sporting James Zinkand, who quipped, “I hope you party away this money.”
( Clockwise from far left ) Matt McDonald turned into Jasinski’s partner in crime; “I still have those pants,” says Jasinski of this in-custody photo. “I wear them all the time”; Jasinski parties in 2009
MCDONALD: MONT Y BRINTON/CBS; JASINSKI AND FRIENDS: JARED JASINSKI
Jasinski’s downward postshow
spiral began with a hotel orgy. After the Big Brother wrap party, Jasinski admits he joined at least one other houseguest and that houseguest’s sibling at a nearby hotel to have group sex. (Multiple Big Brother fansites alleged that McDonald was also part of the bacchanal, but he denied it later via a personal blog.) “I was f---ed up,” Jasinski shrugs, saying he left the house not planning to do drugs. “I was going to do the right thing. But someone gave me a Percocet on day 2 and I was doing coke within three days.” The celebration didn’t stop there. Nightclubs all over the country extended invites to Jasinski to make paid appearances, which further boosted his checking account, at $1,000 and $2,000 a pop. After all, the freshly minted reality champ had lots of expensive postshow promises to keep—though giving $100,000 to United Autism wasn’t one of them. “I got out and they were like, ‘You’re fired.’ I wasn’t going to give them the money. I was only trying to do the right thing.” Instead, Jasinski bought three houses and a fourplex back in Florida while sticking to his plan to start a business—which turned out to be peddling pills. But this time, he wasn’t going to do it alone: McDonald, his newfound friend from the game, was eager to join him. “I don’t remember specific details of how it came into play,” says McDonald. “I might have been the one pressing him or it might have been vice versa. I was made aware that he had access to a certain thing and I had access to get rid of a certain thing.” Building a drug inventory wasn’t a problem for Jasinski, especially living in Florida. “It’s the pill-mill capital of the world,” he says. “People were coming here from all over the country to get pills. I’d have girls go into the doctor’s all day and get scrips.” Then he’d flip the product to his customers not just in the Sunshine State but back in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts as well. It was one of his repeat buyers in Boston who ultimately turned him over to the feds. “I knew something was fishy about him,” remembers Jasinski about the time his customer begged him to come to Boston with 2,000 pills. “He just conned me into
it.” On Oct. 17, 2009, Jasinski hid a bundle of pills in a carry-on bag, flew to Massachusetts, and met the buyer at the airport. Once the guy drove to a nearby strip mall and pretended he had to run into a CVS, Jasinski knew it was over. “Eight guys tackled me and f---ed my neck all up,” he recalls. “It was crazy. One was like, ‘Put your hands up.’ One was ‘Put your hands behind your back.’ The other was ‘Hit the ground.’ I was like, ‘What do you want me to do?’ ” But such busts were becoming routine for law enforcement, especially in Boston, given the city’s heavy concentration of hospitals. Abuse of oxycodone had mushroomed in the nation, with one study by the Drug Abuse Warning Network revealing that ER visits involving the painkiller had increased 153 percent between 2004 and 2008. “There was a time that, because oxycodone pills may be obtained by prescription, people were less apt to recognize it as being as dangerous and problematic a drug as heroin or cocaine,” recalls Linda Ricci, the deputy chief of narcotics and money laundering in Boston’s U.S. attorney’s office. “At some point the alarm sounded, and [Adam’s case] was one of many, many oxycodone trafficking cases prosecuted by this office. That we are now facing an opioid epidemic in Massachusetts resulting from the use and abuse of oxycodone and heroin is indisputable.” Back in New Jersey, Jasinski’s mom learned about her son’s arrest while listening to news radio in her car. So when she got the call asking her to post bail, Denise Jasinski already knew how she was going to respond. “I said no. I was leaving for a cruise and he needed to stay there and detox,” she recalls. “I knew he was in a safe place. He had hit bottom and needed to find out what the hell was going on with himself.” His attorney was trying to find out as well. “I couldn’t get a word in edgewise,” remembers Carter of meeting with her client. “His eyes were wide open. He was
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( From left ) Jasinski with girlfriend Veronica Ritchie; with mother Denise, who owns a rehab facility in Florida
McDonald also went from the Big Brother house to the big house, though he says he had given up selling and doing drugs by the time he was indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute oxycodone on April 27, 2010, and taken into custody. “I was working at the W Hotel and I was at a meeting,” says McDonald, 33. “I was actually supposed to be nominated for employee of the month that month. All of a sudden someone taps me on the shoulder and they say, ‘Hey, the district attorney wants to talk to you.’ Before you know it, in come two gentlemen with ‘DEA’ written on their jackets. I was almost questioning why they were there because I kind of turned my life around before I got in trouble. But the past catches up to you, and I had to pay for what I did.” McDonald was sentenced on May 11, 2011, to 36 months in federal prison. He and Jasinski have not spoken since Jasinski’s arrest—even though they live a mere 30 miles from each other—but he does not blame the guy they nicknamed “Baller” on the show for the ordeal. “A lot of people ask if I’m mad at Adam,” says McDonald, who now works as a project manager for a construction company in Fort Lauderdale and is about to get married. “You know what? I’m not. I’ve done a lot of growing up and he didn’t force me to do anything. He offered, and I went for the money. I took a shot, and naturally that shot landed me in prison.”
COURTESY OF ADAM JASINSKI (2)
moving all around and talking incessantly. He was so far different from any defendant I had ever represented, and I have been doing this for 30 years.” Carter, who has a relative who is bipolar, was the first person in Jasinski’s life to suggest that he might have an undiagnosed mental disorder. She took issue with how CBS handled the situation. “You don’t take a young person and turn him loose with that much money, making club appearances with all kinds of alcohol and pills floating around,” Carter says. CBS did debrief Jasinski after the show, but only, he says, to make him aware of the negative publicity surrounding his “retards” comment. “There was no conversation like, ‘Here’s the number to a financial adviser. Pay your taxes. Open a money market account!’ I walked into a Bank of America with $500,000.” (CBS had no comment, but EW has confirmed that all Big Brother winners go through an extensive debrief, including meeting with an accountant. Recalls Grodner now: “I felt bad for him. Obviously he had a problem. It was an incredibly unfortunate situation, and the truth is, it was shocking.”) Before sentencing, Jasinski spent almost five months at an in-patient drug treatment facility in Massachusetts and another half year in treatment at a New Jersey hospital while living at home with his parents. He also enrolled in a program through the University of Pennsylvania that began treating his bipolar disorder. “After treatment, I felt I was in a good position to try to convince the judge that [the typical] 70-to-87-month sentence was not appropriate,” says Carter. On Jan. 21, 2011, a U.S. District Court judge in Boston agreed to a lesser sentence. But Jasinski still had to spend four years behind bars. His first stop was a federal holding facility in Brooklyn. “It was so f---ing crazy,” Jasinski recalls. “I was on the top bunk under these lights. I had to stay there all night. I paid some kid six Snickers bars to open it up with nail clippers and knock the lightbulbs out so I could sleep.” He eventually completed his sentence at a minimum-security prison in Morgantown, W.Va. “There were a lot of guys from Wolf of Wall Street there, a lot of senators,” recalls Jasinski. (It’s also where a fellow CBS reality champion, Survivor’s Richard Hatch, did most of his time for tax evasion—see sidebar.) “There was no fence. It was like a camp, but you only get 300 minutes a month on the phone. So if you have a girlfriend and a mom, that’s five minutes a day each.” He wiled away the time working out, reading, and watching movies in the prison’s theater. “I was a little bit overmedicated, but I didn’t mind. I wasn’t depressed or manic.” And he found comfort in knowing that his mother got the answers she had long sought about her son. “She had an excuse for the way I behaved. She was proud that her kid was bipolar. Like, it’s better than a drug-addict scumbag.”
5 MORE REALITY STARS WHO SPENT TIME BEHIND BARS
FOR THESE OTHER UNSCRIPTED CELEBS, THINGS GOT ALL TOO REAL ONCE THE CAMERAS TURNED OFF. B Y L Y N E T T E R I C E
HATCH: DAMIAN DOVARGANES/AP IMAGES; HATCH (RIGHT): STEVEN SENNE/AP IMAGES; GIUDICE: ALEX MARTINE Z/BR AVO; GIUDICE (RIGHT): MIKE COPPOL A/GET T Y IMAGES; PORT WOOD: MARK DAVIS/PICTURE GROUP/MT V; PORT WOOD (RIGHT): MADISON COUNT Y/SPL ASH NEWS; ALWAY: FR A ZER HARRISON/GET T Y IMAGES; ALWAY (RIGHT): PSPD/SPL ASH NEWS; HARRIS: FOX/GET T Y IMAGES; HARRIS (RIGHT): WALKER COUNT Y SHERIFFS OFFICE/GET T Y IMAGES
As the unofficial greeter Richard Hatch Sur vivor He was Survivor’s first winner, yet paid dearly for it: Hatch was convicted in 2006 for failing to pay taxes on his $1 million prize and another $300,000-plus in rental-property and Boston radio-show income. He was incarcerated for three years and later served an additional nine months for failing to pay back taxes.
Teresa Giudice
The Real Housewives of New Jersey The RHONJ star and her husband, Joe, were indicted on 41 counts of fraud for allegedly exaggerating earnings while applying for loans before the show and concealing income in a bankruptcy filing after season 1. She pleaded guilty to four counts and served almost a year.
Amber Portwood Teen Mom The star of MTV’s Teen Mom pleaded guilty to two counts of felony domestic violence against former fiancé Gary Shirley (her sentence was suspended). She eventually spent 17 months at the Rockville Correctional Facility after pleading guilty to a drug charge and dropping out of a court-mandated rehab program.
Renee Alway America’s Next Top Model After coming in third on ANTM in 2007, Alway became homeless, turning to drugs and a life of crime: In 2014 she pleaded guilty to felony burglary, vehicle theft, and illegal possession of a firearm after getting busted for breaking into a Palm Springs home. The mother of three was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
C.J. Harris American Idol After his country vocal style earned him a sixth-place finish in season 13 of American Idol, Harris was arrested for selling oxycodone and marijuana during a drug bust in Alabama last October. He spent 17 days in jail after failing to appear for a scheduled court date.
of Oceans Medical, Jasinski likes to chat with the new patients and make them feel at home. Today he has set his sights on a burly young man in cargo shorts who just checked in after overdosing on heroin in college. Jasinski addresses the kid like they were pals from the old neighborhood. “That’s the key to success,” he says afterward. “I’m equal to them. I tell them, ‘I was in your same shoes.’ ” But not anymore. These days the only drug in his life is ibuprofen for the pain he still suffers from the accident, and a low dose of lithium, which allows him to experience the highs but, unfortunately, can’t stop the lows. At least Jasinski knows what to expect. “I know when I’m getting depressed. Guess what? I motherf---ing enjoy it! I watch some good movies, I feel sorry for myself, tell my girl I’m in a bad mood, wah-wah-wah for two days, then I’m good for a couple months.” It’s important for Jasinski to feel in control, so he likes to stick to a schedule— near-daily trips to the clinic, five-day-a-week workouts, and a standing date with his girlfriend, Veronica Ritchie, every Tuesday night at the local cinema. He says he’s comfortable financially, mostly living on rental income after paying off his $190,000 tax burden from Big Brother shortly after leaving prison, and working to self-publish his own rehab books. He’s even reconnected with his old TV partner/adversary Kennedy, who notes that “Adam and Matty should be able to go on with their lives and live.” That’s Jasinski’s plan. “If you do the right thing and you help people in this world, it’s payback. I paid all my bad karma back. I’m ahead of the game now. I’m doing phenomenal. I wake up, I have a great life, I have a great girl, I have a great house. I just want to be good.” But occasionally he can’t help but dream of going back to the TV show that made him infamous, if only to prove a point. “I wish they had an all-stars,” he says with a massive grin. “I would win so fast.” X
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Movies EDITED BY
KEVIN P. SULLIVAN @KPSull
Hannah Cagwin
Casting JonBenét DIRECTED BY
R AT I N G
LENGTH
Kitty Green
NR
1 hr., 21 mins.
REVIEW BY
Chris Nashawaty @ChrisNashawaty
ON THE AF TERNOON OF DE C. 26, 1996, THE LIFELESS
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body of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsay was discovered in the basement of her family’s upscale Boulder, Colo., home. Before the blond-haired, blue-eyed beautypageant queen was found strangled with her skull crushed, a bizarrely lengthy ransom note had been left, which many felt incriminated her parents. In the following weeks, months, and even years, the case of JonBenét Ramsay took on a life of its own. Something about the luridness of the crime, the strangeness of the
kiddie-pageant subculture, and the odd behavior of her grieving mother and father grabbed the nation’s attention and refused to let go. After so many Datelines and 20/20s about the still-unsolved murder, it’s hard to imagine what’s left to say about this poor girl and her short, tragic life. Alas, here we are two decades later, still enthralled by a media circus that refuses to leave town. One has to hand it to Australian filmmaker Kitty Green for at least trying to grapple with this particular mystery from a novel perspective in Casting JonBenét— regardless of whether you find that perspective to be boldly unconventional or maddeningly problematic. Either way, it’s certainly provocative. Green isn’t so much making a documentary in the traditional sense; it’s more a meta-exploration of our personal relationship with “the truth”
Sharlto Copley, Brie Larson, and Armie Hammer
REEL NEWS
Hot Stats
Billionaire Beauty Disney’s Beauty and the Beast has
Here’s some of the special-effects mayhem that went into Free Fire
made $1 billion worldwide, becoming the biggest liveaction musical ever.
• Wizarding Law Jude Law is set
to play Dumbledore in the next Fantastic Beasts film.
Free Fire S TA R R I N G
(whatever that means). Constructed from a series of interviews with actors auditioning to play the doomed child and her family members (as well as other key players in the case) for a dramatic reenactment of the murder, the film defies categorization. It also gets us no closer to what really happened. What it does offer is something more slippery. As the actors read their lines in front of a tightly framed camera, they all start spinning their own theories of what may or may not have transpired on the day after Christmas 20 years ago. In their attempts to get a handle on their characters, these hopefuls share their hunches, biases, and in some cases painful personal emotional connections to the case. It’s a fascinating meditation on acting and empathy. What it’s not is nonfiction. In fact, at times it feels downright exploitative and prurient—a collection of half-baked, uninformed gossip and speculation. After listening to dozens of these hopefuls explain why they think JonBenét’s mother killed her because she wet her bed, or how her young brother did it in a violent accident, or that a local creep did it because he was obsessed with her cotton-candy perfection, you might get the feeling that you’re looking at a mirror broken into a thousand little pieces, none of which on its own reflects the truth. A clever filmmaking experiment? Without a doubt. A satisfying one? Not so much. C+ (On Netflix April 28)
KERRY BROWN/A 24 (2)
THIS FILM CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING:
T UN
TODDLERS
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TIARAS
UNRELIABLE NARRATORS
H
HEARSAY
Brie Larson, Armie Hammer
DIRECTED BY R AT I N G
R |
REVIEW BY
1,000
Pyrotechnic bullet-hit effects
Ben Wheatley
LENGTH
1 hr., 25 mins.
Chris Nashawaty @ChrisNashawaty
I F Y O U ’ V E A LWAY S B E L I E V E D
that the climactic Mexican standoff in Reservoir Dogs should have been the whole movie, then you’ll love Free Fire. Director Ben Wheatley has given us an action movie that’s been stripped of distractions like plot, backstory, and character development and instead cuts right to an orgy of bullet-riddled mayhem and florid macho patter. It’s a four-course meal where every course is dessert. Set in the peakpolyester ’70s, Free Fire takes place almost entirely in an abandoned Boston warehouse where two groups of inept, hotheaded hoods meet up for an arms deal. On the buyer’s side are Cillian Murphy and Michael Smiley as IRA rebels; on the seller’s side is Sharlto Copley’s Vern, a comically clueless South African motormouth. In the middle, trying to keep the peace (without much luck), are Armie Hammer (bearded like a classics professor) and Brie Larson (the movie’s lone dose of estrogen and common sense). Needless to say, the handoff doesn’t go as planned, and soon insults are flying, followed by hot lead. What ensues is an hour or so of ultraviolent slapstick, as a dozen or so characters all dig in for cover and squeeze off endless rounds of ammo punctuated by dialogue that’s reminiscent of Elmore Leonard in air quotes. It’s hard to take any of it seriously. Which is what makes it work as well as it does. (Hammer’s and Copley’s hilarious performances don’t hurt either.) Just imagine what an Itchy and Scratchy short directed by Sam Peckinpah would look like. That’s Free Fire. B+
2,000
Paintball-sparking-ball bullet-hit effects
Liters of fake blood
5 Number of times each cast member was shot, minimum
0
Number of stunt doubles for Sharlto Copley when he was set on fire
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The Promise S TA R R I N G
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NORMAN Starring Richard Gere, Michael Sheen, Dan Stevens
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After the worldwide success of two prior installments,, the little blue critters are back on the big screen in The Lost Village, a saccharine fantasy-adventure that’s sure to tide the tots over until a shinier one (Cars 3, anyone?) comes along to take its place.
KEY
= LIMITED RELEASE
= VOD
= NETFLIX
= WIDE RELEASE
THE PROMISE: JOSE HARO/OPEN ROAD FILMS; A DARK SONG: SAMSON FILMS/IFC FILMS; NORMAN: CHRIS SAUNDERS/SONY PICTURES CL ASSICS; SMURFS: THE LOST VILL AGE: SONY PICTURES ANIMATION
ingly sincere, The Promise feels like a film paved with good intentions: a classic war picture whose worthy message gets swallowed nearly whole by broadstrokes storytelling and stock romantic melodrama. Oscar Isaac stars as Michael, an ambitious young apothecary in the last days of the Ottoman Empire who dreams of leaving his small village for medical school in Constantinople. The dowry from his engagement to a local girl he hardly knows (Westworld ’s Angela Sarafyan) provides the means, and the introduction of his new host’s lovely governess, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon, a Renaissance Madonna in a petticoat), ensures that life there will involve more than monklike studies and bladder dissections. She has her own entanglements: a garrulous American reporter (Christian Bale, glowering beneath a Colonel Sanders beard) who works hard to hold on to her waning affections when he’s not busy sending Continental dispatches back home and drunkenly antagonizing government officials at garden parties. The outbreak of WWI, and the subsequent cleansing of ethnic Armenians— a genocide the Turkish government has still not officially recognized—allows director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) to pivot to a sort of bloody, compressed history lesson. But even lush set pieces and a raft of prestige players (including Shohreh Aghdashloo, James Cromwell, and Jean Reno) can’t fulfill the movie’s pretty, ultimately empty promise. C+
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BY SHIRLE EY LI @shirklesxp p
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TV EDITED BY
CAITLIN BRODY @cbroday
Are You There God? It’s Me Television With Starz’s new big-budget American Gods, the final season of HBO’s The Leftovers, and plenty of shows in between, TV is seeking out religion (and maybe trying to lose it, too). B Y J E F F J E N S E N
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Easter month, two bold shows push this interrogation of God and belief to moving depths and provocative extremes. On HBO’s The Leftovers (Sundays, 9 p.m.), co-creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta use a scenario of inexplicable cosmic horror, a catastrophic Rapture known as the Sudden Departure, to nurture metaphors for existential experience, including one that indicts the divine as incoherent and cruel. Each episode is a strange, raw, empathetic portrait of a lost soul suffering or protesting the felt meaninglessness of life. The series is a postmodern Book of Job, but with chain-smoking, empty sex, and grief tattoos. Its third and final season is the finest. Set largely in the desert underworld of Australia, the story uses Justin Theroux’s Kevin Garvey—a maybe magical, maybe messianic lawman—to deconstruct chosen-one saviors. As Nora, a Departure-rocked skeptic who inspects Departurerelated claims, Carrie Coon captures a tension familiar to anyone who hopes for an
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afterlife: investigating a possible fraud she wants to be true. Amy Brenneman’s Laurie—an ironic good shepherd to spiritual seekers—concludes her own struggle to assuage a void of meaning. And the bravura gonzo episode 5 brings Reverend Matt (Christopher Eccleston) face-toface with the show’s conception of God. The last line, delivered to the camera, is a hilarious, chilling account of faith. Starz’s American Gods (April 30, 9 p.m.), adapted from Neil Gaiman’s novel and airing on Sundays with The Leftovers, makes for a fascinating double bill. Ricky Whittle, late of The 100, is Shadow, an ex-con who finds
( Clockwise from top ) The Leftovers’ Justin Theroux, American Gods’ Ian McShane, The Young Pope’s Jude Law, Preacher’s Dominic Cooper, and American Gods’ Gillian Anderson
TWO BOLD SHOWS PUSH THIS INTERROGATION OF GOD AND BELIEF TO MOVING DEPTHS AND PROVOCATIVE EXTREMES.”
I L L U ST R AT I O N BY M A X- O - M AT I C
THEROUX: VAN REDIN/HBO; MCSHANE: JAMES DIMMOCK /STAR Z; COOPER: MAT THIAS CL AMER /AMC; ANDERSON: JAN THIJS/STAR Z; L AW: GIANNI FIORITO/HBO
God is everywhere and nowhere in the peak-TV era. He’s a neglectful parent on The Young Pope, an absentee landlord on Preacher, a lie on The Path. God is an investigated mystery for Reza Aslan, a faraway star for Stephen Colbert to wonder upon, a ridiculous joke for Bill Maher. In the dispiriting number of thrillers that demonize Islam with Muslim villains, God is a motivation for evil. In an eclectic array of other shows—The Americans, Transparent, blackish, and many more—God is a motivation for social justice, reflection, and grace. The image of God produced by the lot of them: silent and invisible, unproven and baffling. At a time of tribulation, TV is voicing a complaint with God, doubting God’s existence, or reframing the meaning of “God.” Some of these shows rank among the most innovative on TV, their creative audacity fueled by purposeful irreverence and a perspective on faith as a cracked state of mind. Here in this Passover and
LOGLINES A Successful Arrangement E!’s scripted series about
Dear White People D AT E
Debuts April 28 |
the dark underbelly of Hollywood was renewed for season 2.
• Seedlings Amazon has tapped Grammy-
DE AR WHITE PEOPLE: ADAM ROSE/NETFLIX
winning band the Roots to develop two series for kids.
himself sucked into a weird holy war in the heartland that pits ancient deities (Ian McShane is the cunning Norse all-father Odin) against modern ones. Gillian Anderson is the goddess Media; she first appears to Shadow as a salacious Lucille Ball, begging for his attention and loyalty. This is meta-genius beyond words. Creators Bryan Fuller and Michael Green remind us that our country is a volatile melting pot of imported mythologies. A brilliant recurring device profiles different gods of different ethnic groups; in one, Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones), the West African spider
god, reveals hard truths to the shackled souls bound for the New World. The gods here reflect a suspicion of religion; most are trickster hustlers chasing power and glory. But the show’s most interesting point is that anything we zealously give our time and money to—work, relationships, technology—can become a god that rules us. Will Shadow choose a side in this Ragnarok clash between the pantheons of old-time religions and digital-age consumerism? Or will he reject all of these degrading American idols? If so, maybe spare that media goddess. We’re not sure we can live without her.
REVIEW BY
TIME
Streaming |
NETWORK
Netflix
Jeff Jensen @EWDocJensen
SMEARED AS RACIST ON TWITTER, PROMOTED
with droll trigger warnings by Netflix, Dear White People reveals itself to be a very entertaining college coming-of-age comedy and a pointed satire about our volatile culture all at once. Reinventing and improving on his 2014 movie of the same prickly name, Justin Simien hones his politically aware, popsoaked voice and hooks you with a plethora of vibrant characters. Set at a fictional Ivy League university, the 10-episode binge follows a group of black students and tracks the fallout of a blackface party that exposes everyone’s racial attitudes. Holding the center is Samantha White (an excellent Logan Browning), an Army-jacket-clad media studies major on a mission to enlighten her school with a combative radio program called Dear White People. She’s polarizing even to her black classmates, a community composed of competing cliques with different perspectives on blackness and change. Sam is mixed-race and marked by complexities that get unfairly tagged as hypocrisies: She’s got a white boyfriend, she loves Ingmar Bergman. Can’t a black girl be woke and dig Scandinavian cinema, too? Each well-crafted 30-minute ep moves back and forth in time to deconstruct a character, from sensitive nerd Lionel (DeRon Horton) to upwardly mobile Coco (Antoinette Robertson) to lovelorn activist Reggie (Marque Richardson). The tone blends distancing, self-aware irony and poignant melodrama. Giancarlo Esposito serves as the “ethnic but nonthreatening” narrator, characters break the fourth wall to lambaste black representation in pop culture, and Simien never forgets his focus: college kids trying to sort out their personhood in fraught times. Dear White People is full of all the urgent hot-take things, but it’s just as much about how we discuss these issues as it is about the cost of denying their validity. A–
Logan Browning and Ashley Blaine Featherson
TV
GOODBYE, GIRLS
Hannah and Her Sisters After six seasons of ever-shifting friendships, love affairs, and one particularly memorable naked ping-pong game, the brains behind HBO’s Girls, creator-starEP Lena Dunham and EP Jenni Konner, tell us (in detail—spoiler alert!) about the series’ end. B Y S A R A V I L KO M E R S O N
You’ve mentioned that the series finale of Girls—Hannah (Dunham) raising her child alone outside the city—was something you’ve had in mind for some time. How come?
Lena has been talking about it forever. L E N A D U N H A M There was always some sense that for Hannah, finality didn’t have to do with a traditional romantic partnership. The selfless partnership you take on when you have a child seemed really interesting to see a notoriously selfish person try their hand at. K O N N E R It was a very emotional story to tell. All of a sudden Hannah—accused of narcissism at every second, and rightfully so—has real stakes to think about. Leaving New York at that age, when you promise in some secret vow that you will stay and tough it out no matter how hard—that’s a big move on her part. D U N H A M She came, she saw, she did not conquer, and she understood it was time to do something different. It’s a challenge to the notion that once you are in New York, you can’t have a life and existence outside of it.
GIRLS: MARK SCHAFER /HBO; SE ASON 1: MARK SELIGER /HBO; KONNER AND DUNHAM: NICHOL AS HUNT/GET T Y IMAGES
JENNI KONNER
There’s always a lot of pressure for a show to stick a landing when it comes to its series finale. K O N N E R We didn’t sleep for, like, six months.
It seemed as if either of the last two episodes could have been a series finale. KONNER
Definitely. The second-to
last episode was a sort of traditional finale, and then the 10th episode was as if there was some imagined spin-off that will never be. Hannah on the Hudson? D U N H A M Like Anne of Green Gables but sluttier. [Laughs] But yes, we wanted a version that satisfied people [with a] more traditional wrap-it-up conclusion. And then there was a version that is true to the messiness we’ve always approached with our characters.
So much of the show has been about these friendships—how some survive into adulthood and others don’t. Shoshanna made a clear choice that she was moving on from this group. K O N N E R She’s been feeling it for a long time, probably since the [season 3] beach-house episode. That was in her anger phase, and now she’s in her acceptance phase.
Of the four girls, the last episode featured just Hannah and Marnie. Was there something special about that particular friendship that you wanted to highlight?
We’ve always said that Marnie and Hannah were the true love story of the show. And Marnie’s personality is such that she was not going to let anyone else [help Hannah with her baby]. KONNER
( From top ) Allison Williams and Lena Dunham in the Girls finale; the cast in season 1: Williams, Jemima Kirke, Dunham, and Zosia Mamet; Jenni Konner and Dunham
The last episode really seems to bring home the closing of a window that all women experience: when they go from “miss” to “ma’am.” D U N H A M The first time I was called “ma’am,” I remember calling Jenni, really upset. That encounter [in the finale] was based on this time there was a girl locked outside my parents’ Manhattan apartment and she was weeping into the phone. She said, “Can I use your phone, ma’am?” She used it to call her mom, who must have asked whose phone she was using, and she said, “Some lady’s.” Lady! [Laughs]
Can you explain the final shot, when we see Hannah’s face as she successfully breast-feeds her son? K O N N E R That last look is not about breast-feeding. That end is: I’ve
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TV got this. In the pilot Hannah is the brattiest girl, and in the very first scene she’s explaining to her parents why she deserves money more than other people. In the end she tells a teenage girl to respect her mother. So she’s really grown. D U N H A M It only took seven years.
And what about the rumblings of an Elijah spin-off? D U N H A M We’ve gotten a lot of requests for it, that part is true. K O N N E R That’s a big Twitter request. We would do it in a heartbeat ’cause [Andrew Rannells is] the most talented person on earth. There are no plans, but please feel free to pitch it to HBO.
This last season of Girls has been particularly beloved.
K O N N E R We’ve been asked this in a lot of interviews, and the answer is always “Of course we would.” But that’s as far as it’s gone. I think a good amount of time would have to pass for us to come back.
K O N N E R It’s been the biggest gift of my life. D U N H A M I think if we were capable of experiencing pure, unmitigated joy as two Jewish women, that’s how we would feel right now.
Andrew Rannells and Dunham
HOW COMEDY’S SECRET WEAPON GOT SCHOOLED
Mentored by the likes of Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling, Emmy-winning writer Tracey Wigfield, 33, now steps up as the creator of Great News (debuts April 25, 9 p.m.), NBC’s kooky sitcom about a news producer and her intern mother (Briga Heelan and Andrea Martin, respectively). Here, Wigfield reflects on the people who’ve shaped her vision and skills. B Y M A R C S N E T I K E R
IN FOCUS BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
VEEP
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
Starring five time Emmy® winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep follows Selina Meyer, who struggles to stay relevant after her short stint as President.
Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne star in this adaptation of the critically acclaimed, bestselling book of the same name. The film tells the true story of how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks’ cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever.
Premieres Sunday, April 16 at 10:30PM on HBO
hbo.com/veep
Premieres Saturday, April 22 at 8PM on HBO
hbo.com/movies/the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks
GIRLS: CR AIG BL ANKENHORN/HBO; WIGFIELD: MA ARTEN DE BOER /NBC/GET T Y IMAGES
There’s been some chatter about a movie down the line. Is that a possibility?
David Letterman, Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, and Great News’ Andrea Martin
LET TERMAN: JOHN P. FILO/CBS; FEY: ALI GOLDSTEIN/NBC; K ALING: EVANS VESTAL WARD/HULU; MARTIN: ERIC LIEBOWITZ/NBC
DAVID LETTERMAN No, she never met him, but as a fresh graduate of Boston College, Wigfield found herself in New York City in 2005 in the page program at The Late Show With David Letterman, following a brief internship at CNN. “The thing that was most impactful to me was the aspirational dreaminess of working in entertainment. My job was so bad—I was paid $10 an hour, and it wasn’t glamorous. But every day at 3:30, you get to stand in the back of this auditorium and watch David Letterman do a tour de force in comedy. It just inspired me and crystallized that this is what I want to do.”
TINA FEY At just 23, Wigfield sent her résumé to 30 Rock and scored a plum gig—”a game changer,” she calls it—as an assistant in Fey and Robert Carlock’s writers’ room, taking notes and pitching occasional jokes for the sitcom. “It’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me,” says Wigfield, who was eventually promoted to
KATHY WIGFIELD
staff writer and then producer (and won her first Emmy in 2013 for co-writing the series finale with Fey). “I had never written when I started, but I was a big fan of Tina and was learning everything about how to write jokes and craft episodes, like it was my graduate school in comedy writing,” she says. “Even 10 years later, with Tina and Robert [both of whom are EPs on Great News] now, I feel like I’m not at the end, but in a new chapter.”
MINDY KALING After 30 Rock, a seasoned Wigfield headed to Los Angeles to help launch The Mindy Project from the ground up. “I got experience in production meetings and pitching episodes to the network, and most of all I got very close to Mindy,” she says. “Like with Tina, I think it was subconsciously good for me to work for so long on shows where the boss was a woman.” Now running the
I N T E R N AT I O N A L B E S T S E L L E R
H O W FA R W O U L D A WOMAN GO TO K E E P H E R D E E P E S T, DA RKE S T S EC RE T ? “Simply one of the best thriller writers working today.” —GILLIAN FLYNN “A thriller that’s part ‘True Detective,’ part ‘The Girl on the Train.’ All parts gripping.” —THE SKIMM
NOW
IN
show herself, Wigfield tries to emulate her mentors. “With girls coming up, especially women writer’s assistants, I think I have an affinity for helping them because there are still less women doing this than men. When you’re a female showrunner, I think it’s a priority to make things as equal as possible in your own small little way.”
PA P E RBAC K
Discover great authors, exclusive offers and more at hc.com
It’s no secret who inspired Andrea Martin’s uninhibited maternal character on Great News. “My mom wasn’t fazed by it at all,” shares Wigfield. “She thinks it’s flattering!” The New Jersey native says she always found comedy in her mother’s lack of boundaries. “Tina Fey and her family once went on vacation to Disney World, and because of my mom, we went with them,” she says, laughing. But Wigfield only recently realized that her mother could be a TV muse: “I started noticing other people thought she was funny too, and since this is my first time developing a show, my mom just seemed like a perfect premade character.”
What to
MONDAY APRIL 24
Watch
Midseason Premiere Gotham 8–9PM
FOX
After convincing himself he doesn’t need Penguin’s help anymore, Edward Nygma begins to reintroduce himself to the city under a new name: the Riddler. It’s much better than his first option: the Nygma.
A DAY-TO-DAY GUIDE TO NOTABLE PROGRAMS* BY RAY RAHMAN @RayRahman
SERIES FINALE Bates Motel 10–11PM
A&E
How will the twisted Bates family saga finally end? The motel’s cleaning crew is bracing for the worst.
Series Debut Booze Traveler: Best Bars 10–11PM
TRAVEL
“Cocktail connoisseur” Jack Maxwell travels the country in search of the absolute best bars in America. If you see the same stressed-out writer in the background at all the bars, it’s not me, I swear.
Kate Duncan, Elisabeth Moss, and Madeline Brewer
ST MU CH WAT H E O F TE K WE
TUESDAY APRIL 25
Series Debut
THE HANDMAID’S TALE
THE HANDMAID’S TALE: GEORGE KR AYCHYK /HULU; GRE AT NEWS: TR AE PAT TON/NBC
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26
STREAMING
HULU
Forget “Netflix and chill”; all hail the new era of “Hulu and panic.” If 2017 feels like both the best and worst of times for dystopian tales, it also continues to be an exceptional year for straight-to-streaming originals. And the platform’s 10-part adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s landmark 1985 novel plays like true prestige television: a masterfully unnerving vision of a near future in which a fundamentalist sect has turned what remains of America into a fascist state, and environmental ills have left few fertile females, including Elisabeth Moss’s Offred. In the hierarchy of this bleak new world, she’s expected to be a pliant, pious vessel for the ruling class, but flashbacks to her past life—all Ubers and juice bars—inject a jarring currency. The nightmarish narrative grips from the very first scene, and Moss is a brilliant muse, bringing texture and humanity to a quasi-fictional fable made suddenly, stunningly real. A —Leah Greenblatt Go to ew.com/what-to-watch for our daily picks of What to Watch
*TIMES ARE E ASTERN DAYLIGHT AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Series Debut Great News 9–10PM
NBC
Briga Heelan stars as Katie, an exasperated producer at a news show. The newscasters are John Michael Higgins and Nicole Richie: He’s the declining Great White Male, she’s the ascendant Snapchatting millennial. Higgins is great as always; Richie’s also great, who knew? The twist: Katie’s mom (Andrea Martin) becomes a meddler-in-chief intern. Martin’s a goofy-energy supernova, but the premise tramples a fizzy workplace comedy into a broadest-of-all-possible farces. The laugh-per-minute rate is high, though, so the worst you can say about Great News is it’s merely pretty good. B+ —Darren Franich
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What to Watch TUESDAY APRIL 25 (cont.)
WED APR 26
THURSD U DAY AY AP A RIL 277
GREAT JONES black-ish 9–10PM
Miniseries Debut Genius NATGEO
Series Debut The President Show 11:30PM–MIDNIGHT
Albert Einstein may have mastered physics easily, but as this drama makes clear, he had a harder time understanding women. Flashbacks to his days as an upstart student (Johnny Flynn) feel mildly repetitive as they explore his helpless-heartbreaker tendencies. The show is most compelling when it tackles its “present,” the period during Hitler’s rise to power, as the politically rebellious scientist (Geoffrey Rush) grapples with rising anti-Semitism and its effect on his future. Yet Einstein isn’t the sole focus of the limited series. True to its name, Genius also explores other brilliant individuals in his life— including his future wife (and scientist) Mileva Marić (Samantha Colley). B —Nivea Serrao
COMEDY CENTRAL
Before the election, there was speculation Donald Trump might start his own Fox News-y TV show if he lost. That’s not what happened, of course, but this new series from master Trump impersonator Anthony Atamanuik imagines the new president following through on that idea, with Mike Pence (Peter Grosz) by his side. “We’ll hopefully be maintaining a combination of comedic activism, satire, and UCB comedy,” Atamanuik says. “Trump’s zeitgeist is probably [Johnny] Carson. This is not a retro show by any means, but the playfulness of those old Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise bits on Carson? There is some level of that with Mike Pence as the sidekick.” —Christian Holub
THURSDAY APRIL 27 (cont.)
FRIDAY APRIL 288 Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992 9–11PM
Series Debut Fire Island 8–10PM
LOGO
Logo’s reality romp follows six men over the course of a summer on the storied Long Island sandbar, cementing arbitrary stereotypes and making events out of the trivial and petty along the way. While the series nods to some of the gay mecca’s quaint trappings and traditions—the ferry, high tea, group dinners—it eschews depth in favor of lasciviousness. Some might titter at these beach-bound male bodies, but the overblown cattiness dampens any thrill. Go to the actual beach instead. C+ —Dan Heching
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ABC
Timed to the anniversary of the ’92 L.A. riots, John Ridley directs a gripping doc that revisits—and provides crucial context for—the turbulent decade that rocked the city. With impressive footage and smart editing, the film lets the story unfold in the words of the people who were there, from embattled cops to African-American community members to Korean shopkeepers. Like last year’s O.J.: Made in America, Let It Fall offers a vivid portrait of the unique tensions that bedeviled L.A. for a generation. B+
Chelsea STREAMING
NETFLIX
“The best thing to come out of this election is how fired up people have been,” says Chelsea Handler, who spends this episode exploring Trump’s first 100 days. “Somehow, you’re talking with people with whom you normally wouldn’t have anything in common.” That doesn’t include the Trumps, whom Handler “would refuse to have on my show.” Instead, she’ll talk activism with Rosario Dawson and Tracee Ellis Ross, plus chat with Sen. Cory Booker, Rob and Nate Corddry, and Evan McMullin. —Nick Maslow
I L L U ST R AT I O N S BY H E N RY K AY E
GENIUS: DUSAN MARTIN/NATIONAL GEOGR APHIC; THE PRESIDENT SHOW: GAVIN BOND/COMEDY CENTR AL (2); FIRE ISL AND: LOGO; LET IT FALL: LOS ANGELES 1982–1992: ABC; HANDLER: KURT ISWARIENKO/NETFLIX
9–10:15PM
ABC
Rashida Jones guest-stars as Bow’s sister, a reality TV star named Santamonica. But will their rich older brother Brentwood also join?
FRIDAY APRIL 28 (cont.))
SATURD UR RD DAY AY APRIL 299
SUN APR 30 Silicon Valley
Season Premiere Catastrophe STREAMING
10 0–10:30PM
AMAZON
CATASTROPHE: ED MILLER /AMA ZON STUDIOS; BEE: ERIC R AY DAVIDSON/ TBS; BELOW DECK MEDITERR ANE AN: VIRGINIA SHERWOOD/BR AVO; VICTORIAN SLUM HOUSE: PBS
Now here’s a predicament. You’re att a p party, y get wasted, and suddenly you’re fon ndling g some dude’s junk. Do you tell your signifig cant other? Season 3 finds Sharon (Sharon n Horgan, see page 76) hilariously mis shandling g last year’s cliff-hanger with Rob (Rob b Delaney), although he hilariously comp pounds s matters with his latest insecurities. IIndeed, d d the episodes that follow the premiere focus on Rob’s struggles with manhood as he seeks to change careers, get fit, and save his family from financial peril. Risky downsizing and makeovers serve as plots and metaphors in a season that adds great depth to the bawdiest, wisest relationship comedy that isn’t You’re the Worst. A —Jeff Jensen
10–11PM
10–11PM
CBS
Toby and Happy are set to marry, but first the team deals with a deadly tunnel fire. Deadly tunnel fires on your wedding day are good luck, right?
CBS
Guest star Leah Remini shows up to play Kevin’s old rival on the force. It’s the King of Queens reunion that tens of viewers have been waiting for! Warning: This Drug May Kill You 10–11PM
10–11PM
TBS
ABC
The one that isn’t from Ryan Murphy ends its third season.
Yes, there will be an official WHCD this year (featuring The Daily Show’s Hasan Minhaj), despite POTUS’ absence. But we’re betting Samantha Bee’s cool-kid shindig will be the belle of the Beltway. Taking place at the DAR Constitution Hall in D.C., the sure-to-be raucous event boasts a fascinating guest list: Rachel Bloom, Keegan-Michael Key, Damon Lindelof, Kal Penn, and Gloria Steinem are just some of the notables who’ll be at the festivities. And while Team Bee is keeping mum on what exactly they have planned, the Full Frontal host has never been one to pull punches. For maximum drama, we suggest keeping an eye on the president’s Twitter account throughout the night.
Veep 10:30–11PM
HBO
Selina is sent to monitor voting in Georgia, the nation, to ensure a free and fair election. But if you want to commit any voter fraud in Georgia, the state, go nuts!
TUESDAY MAY 2
Kevin Can Wait 8–8:30PM
Scorpion
SSeason Finale American Crime
Samantha Bee’s Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
MONDAY MAY 1 HOT STUFF
HBO
Dinesh’s new role att Pied Piper starts going to his head. go Bu ut isn’t there allready someone on the show na amed Big Head?
HBO
Directed by Perri Peltz (Risky Drinking), the timely documentary takes an unflinching look at America’s ongoing opioid epidemic through the perspectives of four families who’ve been devastated by addiction.
Season Premiere Below Deck Mediterranean 9–10PM
BRAVO
Look, this is a ridiculous show about ridiculous people, meant to be enjoyed by ridiculous viewers. But I must confess: I might be one of those ridiculous viewers. While the first season found the yacht crew bringing drama to Greece, this annoyingly addictive new batch sets sail in Croatia with a captain—who, in a first for the show, is a woman. Strict as she is, her underlings find no shortage of stupid, sloppy ways to amuse themselves. And just wait till you see the hunky chef. B
Series Debut Victorian Slum House 8–9PM*
PBS
It’s the most English game show ever: Middle-class Brits are sent to impoverished, period-correct Victorian London housing. There, they must find ways to live, eat, and pay rent while being treated in historically accurate fashion. One older retired man takes a grueling job at a bell foundry because, as the narrator sternly reminds us, “in Victorian times, there is no retirement.” It’s a lot of that, over and over. Leave it to the British to find so many ways to say “life sucks.” B– *check local listings
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train has collided with the circus caravan from Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants.” —NPR
WED MAY 3
THU MAY 4
CELEB VS. CELEB Talk Show the Game Show 10–10:30PM
Season Finale Superstore 8–8:30PM
TRUTV
A hybrid format where celebs compete to be declared “Best Guest.” Tonight: Diablo Cody (Juno), Arden Myrin (Shameless), and Moby (veganism).
NBC
According to the press release, a violent tornado spins toward the store “at the worst possible time.” Hmm, when’s a good time for a violent tornado? MasterChef Junior 8–9PM
FOX
The kids are joined by guests Miss Piggy and Swedish Chef. No word yet on if Statler and Waldorf will be judging. Series Debut Second Wives Club 9–10PM
E!
The 2017 Emmy race is already upon us!
FRIDAY MAY 5 Al Madrigal: Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy 9–10PM
“A gripping story about the power of friendship.” —Melanie Benjamin, author of The Aviator’s Wife
On sale now! Visit us at BookClubbish.com
As the Daily Show’s former “senior Latino correspondent,” Al Madrigal isn’t one to shy away from riffing on his multiethnic background. While his latest special begins with provocative jabs at the president and a self-deprecating story about his family’s journey to the U.S., he abandons his stronger, knottier material early on. Instead, we get tales about his Yelp-obsessed wife, zany family life, and that time he used shrimp in a revenge scheme. Most of it is forgettable, low-hanging fruit—save for the titular seafood bit—and though Madrigal’s casual delivery and loopy voice work garner laughs, the set steadily loses steam. Looks like saving the best for last ain’t easy either. B —Shirley Li AL MADRIGAL: SHRIMPIN’ AIN’ T E ASY: GROVE SREET/SHOW TIME
Inspired by a true story of sacrifice and survival during World War II.
SHOWTIME
What to Watch SATURD UR RD DAY AY MAY M 6
SUNDAY MAY 7 Once Upon a Time
CHRIS GETHARD: CAREER SUICIDE: CR AIG BL ANKENHORN/HBO; ONCE UPON A TIME: JACK ROWAND/ABC
8–9PM
Chris Gethard: Career Suicide 10–11:30PM
HBO
Not far into Chris Gethard’s charming, darkly funny one-man act, he drops a harsh truth: “Sometimes people just break,” he says gently, his face giving way to a wide grin. “Welcome to a comedy show!” Throughout the 90-minute set, the comedian speaks candidly about his years-long depression and the suicidal urges it caused, but he makes sure to insert highly silly asides—like an impassioned ode to Edie Falco’s Carmela on The Sopranos—into his most somber stories. The whole thing’s buoyed by amusing tales of his shrink, an eccentric woman with an X-rated past who proves instrumental in Gethard’s story—one he powerfully tells with both humor and heart. The show’s called Career Suicide; it’s anything but. A– —Ariana Bacle
During Once Upon a Time’s highly anticipated musical episode, Emma (Jennifer Morrison) intends to marry Hook (Colin O’Donoghue). That’s the good news. The bad? Her prophesied death and the ultimate showdown with the Black Fairy (Jaime Murray) also await. “Emma knows the Final Battle is in front of her, but she, in this moment, is brave and not going to let the troubles of whatever they’re dealing with get in the way of her happiness,” EP Edward Kitsis says of her nuptials. “She’s following her mother’s advice to live her life.” Or maybe live what’s left of it. —Natalie Abrams
DO YOU HAVE THEM ALL?
@wimpykid /officialwimpykid @diaryofawimpykid
#10YEARSOFLOL
TROPHY LIFE
ABC
#WIMPYKIDMONTH
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MTV Movie & TV Awards 8–10PM
MTV
Adam Devine hosts what’s effectively the Golden Globes for millennials.
Music EDITED BY
KEVIN O’DONNELL @ODtron
FEIST SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE
On the eve of Pleasures, her first album in nearly six years, the Canadian songstress, 41, recalls the pop stars and punk icons who shaped her. B Y L E A H G R E E N B L AT T
MY FIRST MUSICAL OBSESSION
When I was about 6 years old, it was Elvis—like, the early rockabilly < 1 > Elvis. My mom says I declared I was going to marry him, and when she told me he’d died, I collapsed on the floor weeping. [Laughs]
THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT
My early ’90s were kind of dominated by < 2 > Sinéad O’Connor, so I think it was The Lion and the Cobra? The college paper in Calgary, where I grew up, and the local punk scene that I was a part of were pretty much my only exposures to new music.... And my brother, who’s five years older, didn’t really introduce me to stuff on purpose, but I heard it through his bedroom door: the Eurythmics and the Police and Kraftwerk.
>
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Lady La Gaga, “The Cure” Gaga goes over-the-counter generic, skips her patent freakiness on this breezy return to dance pop—but at
S U M M E R M OV I E P R E V I E W 2 0 1 7
NOTEWORTHY Beware, Scrubs On June 30,TLC will release their first
What to
album in 15 years—and their first since the death of
Stream
member Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes in 2002. T-Boz and Chilli crowdfunded the album via a Kickstarter campaign.
EW’s guide to essential new releases
FEIST: MARY ROZ ZI; PRESLEY: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GET T Y IMAGES; O’CONNOR: PAUL NATKIN/WIREIMAGE; TURNER: FIN COSTELLO/REDFERNS/GET T Y IMAGES; BE ASTIE BOYS: L AUR A LEVINE/CORBIS/GET T Y IMAGES: SIMON: LYNN GOLDSMITH/CORBIS/ VCG/GET T Y IMAGES; BLIGE: JACK THOMAS/GET T Y IMAGES; L ADY GAGA: KEVIN WINTER /GET T Y IMAGES
BRAD PAISLEY
car that has a cassette player in it, and that was one of the first tapes I got for it—maybe one of the only ones. I think I have [Beck’s] Odelay in there, too.
MY FIRST CONCERT
I’m so lucky that it was < 3 > Tina Turner in the Private Dancer era. I mean, where do you go from there, right? The scene in my hometown was pretty amazing, too. My [first] band got to open for the Jesus Lizard when I was maybe 16, and I thought I was gonna melt. We actually got to open for a lot of people who came through: Suicidal Tendencies, Nomeansno, and a bunch of Canadian greats that you probably wouldn’t know about. [Laughs]
MY COMFORT-FOOD MUSIC
Immediately I think of < 5 > Paul Simon’s Graceland. I can listen to it 15 times in a day when I get into that mode ode. In fact, I have a
Strength of a Woman As she deals with a very public divorce from husband Kendu Isaacs, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul digs deep with R&B anthems featuring assists from Kanye West and producers like Kaytranada. (Out April 28)
I actually cried yesterday! It’s Molly Drake—the song “I Remember.” It gets me every time. She’s Nick Drake’s mother, and they found these tapes from the ’60s. There’s only one album, but you can hear her voice change because she recorded them over 20 years, and it’s almost Joni Mitchell-esque. Her voice goes from this super-high clear crystal to deeper as the decades pass, and it’s spectacular.
THE MUSIC THAT REMINDS ME OF MY FIRST CRUSH
MARY J. BLIGE
THE ALBUM THAT WRECKS ME
2 Live Crew. I know, it’s so inappropriate! And Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart.” I can also hear < 4 > Beastie Boys and George Michael’s “Faith”; it’s sort of a mixtape in my head. But then a bit later, more like late teens, early 20s, when I got into [seminal indie-rock trio] Dinosaur Jr., I used to dream about J Mascis and [Afghan Whigs frontman] Greg Dulli, that both of them were going to take me away on a white stallion into the sunset.
Love and War Nashville’s most affable superstar has tapped Mick Jagger and Timbaland for some surprisingly notweird collaborations—and the funny, boot-scootin’ rocker “One Beer Can” is an essential for every summer kegger. (Out April 21)
THE CRANBERRIES
Something Else Do they have to, do they have to, do they have to... revisit classic ’90s alt-pop gems like “Linger” on a covers album of their biggest hits? Yes, they do—and their acoustic take is (almost) as charming as the original. (Out April 28)
THE SONG I WANT PLAYED AT MY FUNERAL
I WAS IN CHOIR WHEN I WAS A KID, AND I HAD A WHISTLING SOLO FOR THIS CANADIAN MARITIME SONG. THAT’S WHERE I CUT MY TEETH AS O ” A PPERFORMER.”
There’s a song from the Library of Congress field recordings—they’re, like, field-workers and coal miners and farmers, just real Americans through the early 20th century— and there’s a guy, Bozie Sturdivant, who sings a song called “Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down.” If my friends could form a processional choir and sing that song in that arrangement, I think that could be it. But also my best friend, Chilly Gonzales, claims he’s going to write a requiem for me, and I almost want him to do it before I die so I can hear it. [Laughs]
3
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5
>
>
>
least her hooks are still potent. B+ —Nolan Feeney
THURSTON MOORE
Rock n Roll Consciousness The noise-rock godhead has teamed with Adele producer Paul Epworth for his fifth solo album, but it has still got a distinctly Sonic Youth vibe, with wicked guitar riffs and Moore’s beatnik-style y i . (Out April 28)) musings.
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“A twisted homage to Hitchcock… Tense, fast-moving and has an increasingly unreliable narrator.” —Martyn Waites, author of The White Room
IN THE PIT AT COACHELLA 2017
KENDRICK & GAGA HEAT UP THE DESERT More than 200 performers braved scorching temps and dust storms to ignite the annual Indio, Calif., bacchanal, which had over 125,000 attendees. Here are EW’s most memorable moments. B Y G E R R A D H A L L
“Intricately woven and heart-stoppingly believable.” —Claire Mackintosh, author of I Let You Go
Kendrick Lamar Was a Damn Good Headliner The MC closed out Sunday with a fiery 75-minute set that leaned heavily on tracks from his justreleased album, DAMN. If those didn’t convert the flowercrowned masses, raucous cuts like “King Kunta” certainly did. Lady Gaga Was a Fierce Beyoncé Understudy All is forgiven for Joanne! With Gaga assuming Queen Bey’s vacated throne on Saturday, Mother Monster made sure to deliver a memorable set of hits (her Beyoncé collab
“Telephone”), discotastic bangers (give it up for “Scheiße”!), plus the EDM-flavored new tune “The Cure.” Radiohead Powered Through Bunk Sound The art-rock perfectionists overcame technical difficulties like pros and played fan favorites such as “Creep” and “Karma Police.” “I’d love to tell you a joke, lighten the mood,” singer Thom Yorke said during one break, “but this is Radiohead, so f--- it.” There Were Surprise A-Listers on Stage... Drake popped in for Future’s top-billed Saturday slot, while
the Weeknd appeared during a set by Canadian rapper Nav. But it was Lauryn Hill’s cameo that shook the festival most: She hijacked DJ Snake’s spotlight to perform Fugees renditions like “Killing Me Softly” and her Miseducation classic “Lost Ones.” ...And Some B-PlusListers in the Crowd Given its proximity to Hollywood, loads of celebs make the annual pilgrimage, and this year was no different, with Kendall Jenner, Hailee Steinfeld, the Riverdale cast, and, of course, a bikini-clad Paris Hilton soaking up the fauxboho vibes. That’s hot.
Kendrick Lamar
“Dark and edgy…a thrilling new voice in crime fiction.” —Mary Kubica, author of The Good Girl
BookClubbish.com
KEVIN WINTER /GET T Y IMAGES FOR COACHELL A
Read them all!
Music
Confessions of a Mad Animator
Famed illustrator Jamie Hewlett, Gorillaz’s visionary visual half, reveals what it takes to build the band’s wild virtual world. B Y L E A H G R E E N B L AT T
D O C U M E N T E V E RY T H I N G “The characters [2D, Noodle, Murdoc Niccals, and Russel Hobbs] have always been based on our family, our group. I don’t go to every [studio] session, because I have to do my work. But we were recording in New York, Chicago, Paris, and Jamaica, and one thing I learned from past Gorillaz albums is that it’s good to capture everything on film when you collaborate with people. Then you have this giant archive you can use.”
G E T B AC K TO B A S I C S
Gorillaz in Our Midst ALBARN: LINDA BROWNLEE/CORBIS/GET T Y IMAGES; HEWLET T: LINDA BROWNLEE/CONTOUR /GET T Y IMAGES; GORILL A Z: JAMIE HEWLET T
As the virtual-band superstars prepare to release their fifth studio album, Humanz, the group’s co-mastermind Damon Albarn, 49, discusses the challenges of holograms, guest wrangling, and drinking on the job. B Y L E A H G R E E N B L AT T
In 2012, you said Gorillaz might be done. What changed? Oh, we think that every time. [Laughs] Jamie [Hewlett] fell in love with a French girl and moved to Paris, and I was terribly hurt I’d lost my friend. It’s like a marriage, these creative partnerships. But luckily, our kids have grown up together, so we didn’t lose contact completely. And we just sort of found all the bits of the porcelain vase we’d smashed on the floor and stuck it all back together. You’re known for recruiting amazingly eclectic guests, but Humanz has more female artists than usual: Carly Simon, Mavis Staples, Grace Jones... I wanted it to be more balanced. Because if we were going to call the record Humanz, I had to. On the last record, we had people like Bobby Womack and Ibrahim Ferrer and Ike Turner who, musically, are patriarchs. I wanted to work with some matriarchs. Give me a Grace Jones story. Locating Grace is the beginning of the challenge. Pinning down a day she could come to the studio took about four months, with lots of false alarms: “Grace is coming!
No, she’s not.” But she truly does have magic in her soul. She’s really naughty but really lovely. When you’re collaborating with so many artists, are you a host? A ringmaster? A wrangler? In a way, you could call me the architect. I’m pretty clear about what I want, but after that, it’s completely up to them how they interpret it, as long as I get the stuff within my bigger narrative. I love being surprised by the direction people take. I suppose the one thing I do know is when it’s not right.
“When everything gets done on a computer, it drives you a little mad after a while, and I wanted to get back to drawing. I took maybe three years of painting in oils on canvases, making a lot of mess, and expressing myself just for my own pleasure, really, because I wanted to come out with a new way of making this art—working with collage, creating environments and virtual reality. So [get ready to] put your goggles on.”
BE FLEXIBLE “The songs tend to change quite a lot. I mean, I think Damon must have made, like, 35 for this album. I listen to them constantly on big speakers in my studio and just draw. Damon makes great songs, and I have complete faith in him. Though I do get attached to them, and then he says, ‘I don’t like that one, we’re not gonna use it.’ That’s just the process.”
H AV E PAT I E N C E
W I T H T E C H N O LO GY
“We tried the holograms when we did the Grammys with Madonna [in 2006], and it looks great on television. But the problem in real life is that when you turn the bass up too loud, the invisible screen that reflects the holograms starts to vibrate, and they fall to pieces. So you have to play very quietly, and nobody Jaamie Hewlett wants to see a quiet concert.” [Laughs]
I hope you still hold on to those. The darkest, greatest thing in my vault is a 4 a.m. duet between myself and Erykah Badu. I’m outof-tune drunk, and I wrecked it. Will you be sending your hologram alter egos out on tour? I wish. The technology is still not there, and it’s a ways off. At some point I’d like to pass on Gorillaz to another generation. The cartoons can go on forever, and the concept of musicmaking is just collaboration, really. And obviously, I’ll make sure I’ve got a fantastic hologram.
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Books EDITED BY
TINA JORDAN @EWTinaJordan
CAITLYN JENNER P O P C U LT U R E O F M Y L I F E
As her transition memoir hits stores, the star sat down to discuss her love of Breaking Bad, the Golden Girls, and Sarah Brightman.
BY ISABELLA BIEDENHARN
1 MY FAVORITE BOOK AS A CHILD
Of Mice and Men. I remember crying at the end. It might have been assigned for school.
2 THE TV SHOW I LOVE
Overhaulin’. It’s a show on the Velocity channel where they secretly take people’s cars and redesign them and
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then surprise the owners with the improvements. [Host] Chip Foose is great.
3 THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY
Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness. It’s her transgender life story, and it made me cry to see her struggles. To know her today as a friend and to see what she went through was heartbreaking.
S U M M E R M OV I E P R E V I E W 2 0 1 7
EVERYTHING WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT CAITLYN JENNER’S THE SECRETS OF MY LIFE
BETWEEN THE LINES Banned Together The most challenged books of 2016 include John Green’s Looking for Alaska, Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park, and Bill Cosby’s Little Bill series.
• Big Deal
Huma Abedin is shopping a memoir for a reported $2 million.
HER GHOSTWRITER INSISTED SHE TELL THE WHOLE STORY
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9
Collaborator Buzz Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) told EW he said to Jenner, “If you’re going to do this, in for a dime, in for a dollar. Everything has to be on the table.” Bissinger ended up with between 4,000 and 5,000 pages of transcripts.
YES, SHE HAD “THAT” SURGERY
The former Olympian, who told Sports Illustrated last year, “It’s nobody’s business whether I want to do that to my body,” reveals that she had gender-reassignment surgery in January 2017.
8
1
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4 THE FICTIONAL CHARACTER WHO IS MY HERO
Superman. I tried out for the part in 1977 for the movie. I got to wear the cape and went to Rome to do the screen test. They had me on hold for the part for almost a year. It was great fun.
5 THE LAST TV SHOW I BINGED
Breaking Bad. Did I like it? Absolutely. But it was also exhausting to watch. I just thought, I’ve got to take a break from this! I’ve got to find the Smurf movie or something.
6 THE ACTOR I WOULD WANT TO PLAY ME IN A MOVIE
The role has gotten more difficult over
ROBERT KARDASHIAN SR. ALLEGEDLY BELIEVED O.J. SIMPSON WAS GUILTY
7
the last few years! I think Rob Lowe could be good. He’s kind of got this look where maybe he’s the one who could pull that off. It’s all in the eyes.
7 THE FICTIONAL GROUP OF PALS I’VE ALWAYS FELT I BELONGED WITH
The Golden Girls. They were classy, they were funny, my kind of humor. That was a great series.
8 MY FAVORITE MOVIE
The Right Stuff. I love aviation and the story of the first man to break the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager. I’ve got such respect for guys that do those types of things. Buzz Aldrin is a great friend. This guy was sitting in a rocket on a
launchpad, with millions of tons of TNT underneath him, going to a place that nobody has ever been to before, knowing, “I’m probably going to die doing this, but it’s worth it.” It just fascinates me that people will do that.
9 THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY
Janis Joplin’s In Concert. Back when I was in college— we’re talking late ’60s, early ’70s—you only had albums. Never did see her live.
10 THE SONG THAT ALWAYS MAKES ME FEEL BETTER
There’s nothing better than sitting there and listening to Sarah Brightman doing The
JENNER: EMILY SHUR /AUGUST; THE RIGHT STUFF: WARNER BROS./EVERET T COLLECTION; THE GOLDEN GIRLS: RON TOM/NBCU/GET T Y IMAGES; JENNER (SIDEBAR): JOHN SHE ARER /GET T Y IMAGES
Phantom of the Opera and just turning the volume up and listening to that golden voice of hers and just… tearing up, you know?
11 THE FICTIONAL PLACE I’VE DREAMED OF MOVING G TO
The Star Wa ars version ace. I’m of outer spa m flya pilot. I’ve been b y ing for 40 years.. wn plane. I have my ow p el, to Space trave ascinating. me, is just fa g
12 THE LAST BOO OOK I GAVE AS A GIFT G
My new boo ok! The only ones to o actually read it so o far are Kris and a d Kim..
13 WHAT I’M READING R RIGHT NOW W
Golf Digest.
Jenner reportedly recalls a car ride with Robert Kardashian in which the attorney (part of Simpson’s defense team) implied that he had questions about his client’s innocence.
SHE’S NOT HAPPY WITH ELLEN
Jenner reportedly blames Ellen DeGeneres for taking her remarks on gay marriage g “out of context” and alienating her from the LGBT community. h y
S.E. Hinton; ( bottom left ) the author in 1967
The Outsiders Turns 50
It’s hard to believe, but The Outsiders, the teen tale of greasers and Socs that Francis Ford Coppola made into a memorable 1983 movie, turns 50 this year. We caught up with author S.E. Hinton, who was just a teen herself—16—when the book was first published. BY ISABELLA BIEDENHARN
Happy 50th anniversary to The Outsiders! Can you believe it’s been this long?
No, I can’t. I can’t believe I’m this old! You started writing the book when you were only 15, so you’re not actually that old. How did it come about?
A few reasons. The first is I just like to write. I’ve been writing practically since I learned to read. So by the time I wrote The Outsiders, I’d been writing for about eight years. It wasn’t like, “Oh, all of a sudden I’m 15 years old and started writing a book.” It was actually the third book I’d written. It’s just the first one I ever tried to get published. Wait, what were the first two books?
Oh, somewhere in the sixth grade, I think, I wrote one about the Civil War. And when I was in ninth grade, I wrote one about some kids working on a dude ranch, and that wasn’t too bad, but not anything I want published. Okay, back to The Outsiders. What sparked the idea for it?
I began a short story about a kid who got beaten up going home from the movies. That story turned out to be about 40 pages long, single-spaced type. And I just kept going back over it and adding more details and flashbacks and so forth. The draft the publisher saw was about the third draft I’d done.
So you had done a lot of self-editing.
Yeah. But another reason why I wrote it is that I wanted to read it. There was nothing realistic being written for teens at that time. It was all, like, “Mary Jane Goes to the Prom.” And I’d been to a few proms, and that was not what was happening. I really wanted to read a book that dealt realistically with teenage life as I was seeing it.
UNTOLD STORIES
What was your writing process like when you were 15? Were you working on it after school?
Yes. Some kids liked to play tennis, I liked to write. I wasn’t out hanging out or doing a lot of stuff teens were doing, because what I liked to do was be in my room and type. How do you think it affected your career to have success so young?
My success was slow. My first royalty check was for $10. So I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I’ve got it made for the rest of my life.” The only thing that overwhelmed me was the realization that there was an audience out there.
pages.” Which is spoken like a true nonwriter. But he’d come over to take me out, and if I hadn’t done two pages, he’d just start reading the newspaper. So that was my big motive for my second book—I wanted to go out. You spent a lot of time on the Outsiders movie set. What memory stands out the most?
Was that a good realization?
No, it gave me writer’s block for four years. My husband, bless his heart, he was my boyfriend at the time. He said, “You’ve got to get over this. I’m tired of you being dreary and gloomy and depressed. Just write two pages a day. Nobody ever died of two
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The best thing, besides working with Francis [Ford Coppola], whom I adore, was the boys. Tommy [Howell] was 15, and Rob Lowe had his 18th birthday on the set. Matt [Dillon] had just turned 18. Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez were just 19. Ralph Macchio was the oldest at 20. They were typical
goofy teenagers, but you get ’em in front of a camera and they’d turn into these serious artists. I loved watching that. What’s it been like to watch their careers?
Insane. And I’ve stayed in touch with all of them. We bonded really strongly because they’re these little boys, and they were tearin’ loose in Tulsa with no adult supervision, so I decided I was their mother and took over mothering ’em. I loved them very much, and they knew that I loved them very much, and they’ve never forgotten it. Rob used to call me Mom half the time.
A Different Sunset | The Greasers | The Leather Jackets | North of Division Street | The
The New York Times bestselling phenomenon by the author of
Books Who are you closest to now?
Have you ever done a cameo?
Well, I’m still really close to almost all of them. Matt and I try to get together whenever we’re in the same town. Last time I saw him was in Vancouver. I visit Vancouver twice a year to visit the Supernatural set, so I was up there for that. And Tim Hunter was directing a Wayward Pines episode that Matt was in, so I went up a little early and we had this little reunion on the set. Matt said, “Oh, you need a bottle of water or something, Suze?” and I said, “No, I’ve got one already, thanks, honey.” And then I looked at him and said, “I’m sorry. You’re over 50. I should quit calling you that.” And he said, “I want you to call me honey until the day I die.”
Oh, yeah! I got killed in the diner by the evil Leviathan Sam and Dean. I’m sitting there in the diner and they decide to kill everyone. When the Leviathan Sam and Dean were wiping everybody out, Jared [Padalecki] jumps up on a table and cocks a gun at me and starts yelling. He just thought it was hysterical that he scared me.
That’s right—I forgot you were a big Supernatural fan.
I wrote [series creator] Eric Kripke a fan letter in the third season and told him what all I liked about it, and two days later I had a letter from him and he says, “Here at the studio we’ve been trying to figure out if this letter is a hoax. But it’d be hard to hoax your email address.” It turns out he’s one of those “I changed his life” fans. So he got me a set visit, which I immediately jumped on. I had a really good time, and I got an invitation to come back. And that’s evolved into, I go usually twice a year and stay for a shooting week.
AMERICAN GODS
I was watching the 2005 recut of the Outsiders movie last night, and I didn’t realize that you had been the nurse.
Yeah! I was the nurse there, and I was a typing teacher in Tex. Talk about an obsolete profession nowadays! And I was a hooker in Rumble Fish. But I always played a professional. Something you said last time I interviewed you has stuck with me. You said, “I could never be that unselfconscious again.” What exactly did you mean by that?
I mean, like, when I was 16, that was the year I was doing my major work on The Outsiders. I wasn’t thinking about any kind of audience for it. I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot of stuff that, you know, of course, afterwards you kind of have to think about. An adult writer I think [would say], “Gosh, it’s emotionally over-the-top. It’s so dramatic.” But that’s the way you feel when you’re that age. And that’s one reason why it’s stayed so long—people are like, “Yes, I felt like this!” I could never do that again. It’s one of the reasons I’ll never write a sequel.
“Gripping, suspenseful and quite wonderful.”
HINTON: DAVID ERDEK ; IN 1967: COURTESY S.E. HINTON; THE OUTSIDERS: WARNER BROS./PHOTOFEST
—The Washington Post
Switchblade Boys | The Long-Haired Boys | The Boys in Blue Jeans
“Norse Mythology delights in the gods’ petty machinations as much as their heroics…. Odd, and real, and dire.” Ralph Macchio, Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe, and Matt Dillon in 1983’s The Outsiders
—The Boston Globe
WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD B W. W. Norton Independent publishers since 1923 www.wwnorton.com
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLER
BEST NEW BOOKS YOUR GUIDE TO GREAT READS IN STORES NOW EW
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He killed me. He killed me not.
MORE ON EW.COM For reviews, author interviews, and publishing news, head to ew.com/books
THE BOOK OF JOAN
By Lidia Yuknavitch 2 NOVEL
Joan of Arc is reimagined as a child warrior in this blistering sci-fi dystopia set in a future where wars have rendered the earth uninhabitable and humans live on a platform floating above the planet. B+
A LWAYS A N D F O R E V E R , L A R A J E A N By Jenny Han 2 YA NOVEL
Han hadn’t actually planned to write a follow-up to P.S. I Still Love You and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, but her own curiosity sparked this sweetly funny final novel about Lara Jean getting ready to head off to college.
A
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON By David Grann 2 TRUE CRIME
The author of The Lost City of Z unspools the story behind one of the FBI’s first major murder cases, where members of the wealthy Osage Indian nation met strange and gruesome deaths in 1920s Oklahoma.
“My favorite thriller since The Maze Runner.”
NONFICTION
A–
B+
B
By Michael Cannell 2 HISTORY
PRINCE CHARLES
By Sally Bedell Smith 2 BIO
Smith is a skilled writer and reporter with unusual access to the British royal family. The Prince of Wales emerges here as a complicated figure—deeply intelligent but also a peevish crank, scarred not only by his distant parents but by the emotional volatility of his first wife, Diana.
A– ROMANCE
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
INCENDIARY
Cannell reveals how a serial bomber on the loose in 1950s New York City drove a baffled police chief to seek the aid of a psychiatrist—which led to the birth of what we now call criminal profiling.
#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Isle of the Lost
–RANSOM RIGGS,
By Jason Zinoman 2 BIOGRAPHY
Why were Stupid Pet Tricks culturally important? The New York Times critic Zinoman explains as he analyzes the life and career of the brilliant and now nearly reclusive former Late Night host, dividing Letterman’s artistic output into three distinct periods and exploring his influence on modern comedy.
–MELISSA DE LA CRUZ,
“A fascinating, twisty page-turner.”
LETTERMAN
A N Y DAY N OW
By Robyn Carr 2 CONTEMPORARY
Readers were introduced to Sullivan’s Crossing—a campground that offers visitors a respite or a reset—when Maggie Sullivan headed there in Carr’s What We Find. Now Maggie’s sister-in-law Sierra arrives for a much-needed break. B+
THE CHOSEN
By J.R. Ward 2 PARANORMAL
This is the 15th installment in Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, which pits vampire warriors against humans who have been stripped of their souls. Ward is a gifted world-builder, and you don’t need to have read the first 16 books to jump in here.
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THIS WEEK’S HITS & MISSES
The Bullseye
Katherin ne Heigl’s new movie iis called ll Unforgettable. Girl, aren’t there laws against lying like that?
Survivor player who outed transgender contestant gets fired from his real estate job. The tribe has spoken, and it wants other people to sell its houses.
Gina Rodriguez to voice Carmen Sandiego. So where in the world is the live-action version? “Jennifer Garner Visits a Cat Café in Her First Public Appearance Since Officially Filing for Divorce” is a headline we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy.
A little less Saturday Night Fever, a little more Wednesday Afternoon Hot Flash
Days of Our Lives gets its villain back, in the biggest soap news since Procter met Gamble.
Biceps are blooming, abs are in season… Justin Theroux must be back on HBO!
Goodbye to two dearly de y missed albeit fairly questionable TV mothers.
The only reason to ever send in birthday clowns: Barbra Streisand turns 75!
Young Pope, young Dumbledore— where there’s a linen robe, there’s a Jude Law.
Gaga’s “The Cure” literally is one.
Veep: making mak politics fun again
Fargo: making Minnesota fun again
N Nothing to Feud about— they both deserve Emmys.
So...go ahead and check “Einstein having sex” off your peak-TV bingo.
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Coachella: like the Purge but with flowers and earth tones
HEIGL: TODD WILLIAMSON/GET T Y IMAGES FOR CINEMACON; LADY GAGA: WENN.COM; CARMEN SANDIEGO: EVERET T COLLECTION; GARNER: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN/FILMMAGIC; THEROUX: SPLASH NEWS; JUDE LAW: GIANNI FIORITO/HBO; MICHAEL GAMBON: MURRAY CLOSE/WARNER BROS.; FEUD: BET TE & JOAN: KURT ISWARIENKO/FX; YARA SHAHIDI, ARIEL WINTER: EMMA MCINT YRE/GET T Y IMAGES FOR H&M (2); VANESSA HUDGENS: SOPHIE FRITZ/STARTRAKSPHOTO.COM; FARGO: CHRIS LARGE/FX; VEEP: JUSTIN M.LUBIN/HBO; GENIUS: DUSAN MARTINCEK/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC; STREISAND: KEVIN MAZUR/GET T Y IMAGES FOR BSB; BATES MOTEL: CATE CAMERON/A&E NETWORKS LLC; GIRLS: CRAIG BLANKENHORN /HBO; ALISON SWEENEY: DAVID LIVINGSTON/GET T Y IMAGES; JOHN TRAVOLTA: KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE; SURVIVOR: GAME CHANGERS: ROBERT VOETS/CBS
B Y MARC SNETIKER @MarcSnetiker
Lash like a boss. Big shot volume, root to tip. The fully loaded lash is here. NEW
the COLOSSAL
™
BIG SHOT
BEFORE: AFTER: Lashes without Just 1 coat for Big Shot volume. fully loaded lashes.
BIG SHOT BRUSH: WAV Y BRISTLES HOLD MORE. LOAD MORE. NO CLUMPS.
Like a boss? It’s the only way. SIMULATION OF ACTUAL PRODUCT RESULTS ON LASHES ENHANCED WITH LASH INSERTS. Maybelline.com ©2017 Maybelline LLC.
#BIGSHOTMASCARA
™