“...
we sometimes perform even in our most private confessions... ”
ELIZABETH McGOVERN
Moves
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Elizabeth
McGovern
“...Idon’tknow whatcomesnext... butIknowIwantit tobemine...”
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...It’s not that she doesn’t see what she’s done—it’s that she’s more interested in what she has yet to do!
By Brinlee Edger
Elizabeth McGovern enters the conversation like someone walking into a memory—luminous, curious, and entirely self-effacing. Despite a career spanning over forty years, she wears her success lightly. Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe nominations are footnotes in her story, not the headline. Her presence is unguarded, almost wistful. It’s not that she doesn’t see what she’s done—it’s that she’s more interested in what she has yet to do.
“I kind of feel like I sit around all day,” she jokes, in the way only people who’ve worked relentlessly can. It’s not humility for show—it’s a worldview. McGovern doesn’t measure her life in awards but in creative attempts, in the slow labor of building something meaningful out of uncertainty.
That spirit is what drew her to Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations, the book she would go on to adapt for the stage, direct, and star in. McGovern is bringing the play to New York City this summer—July 29 to September 14—at the New York City Center in Midtown. The play will then head to Chicago for a short run.
The text is a delicate, sometimes volatile exchange between Ava Gardner and her ghostwriter Peter Evans.
What begins as a professional assignment blooms into something far more intimate—a trust fall between two people reckoning with artifice and vulnerability. “What I found so compelling was the dynamic between them,” McGovern reflects. “It wasn’t a romance in the traditional sense, but there was something charged about it—two people drawn together by truth-telling, by the act of trying to shape a life into something coherent.”
In McGovern’s hands, Ava’s fragmented reminiscences become not just scenes but moments of revelation—charged with regret, nostalgia, and fleeting clarity. She resisted turning the story into a greatest-hits biopic. Instead, the audience is invited into a liminal space: not the spotlight of Ava’s past, but the shadows where her humanity lingers.
“I think I was drawn to the ambiguity of it,” McGovern says. “It’s about memory. About how we rewrite ourselves. And about how we sometimes perform even in our most private confessions.”
The journey to the stage wasn’t linear. McGovern approached two writers to adapt the book. Neither delivered. “I finally thought, ‘Let me just try this.’ I opened a notebook. I didn’t
know if it would work—I just knew I couldn’t wait anymore.”
That small, private act—writing quietly, with no promises—transformed into a years-long labor of persistence. “You have to keep showing up even when no one else sees what you see yet.”
That ethos, of doing the work regardless of outcome, permeates everything McGovern touches. Her play, after multiple director shifts and near-starts, found a home at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse. “They just happened to have an opening,” she says. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop being grateful for that stroke of luck.”
Moritz von Stuelpnagel eventually came on board as director, and according to McGovern, he helped crystallize the emotional architecture of the story. “He understood it wasn’t about spectacle. It was about presence. Stillness. Intimacy.”
There’s an urgency in the themes McGovern explores: celebrity as a form of erasure, womanhood refracted through media distortion, the complicated freedom of aging out of visibility. Ava Gardner, who was both deified and dismissed, offers a mirror to every woman who’s tried to own her story after being consumed by someone else’s.
And yet, for all its gravity, the project isn’t heavy. McGovern’s vision is deeply human. There’s wit in Ava’s dialogue, warmth in her contradictions. “I didn’t want her to be a victim or a saint,” she explains. “I wanted her to be real.”
Parallel to the Gardner project, McGovern returns to the world that made her a modern icon: Downton Abbey. The new film releasing this September, Downton Abbey: the Grand Finale, turns its focus inward, telling what McGovern calls “the smallest and most honest story yet.”
“It’s about Lady Mary’s divorce,” she says. “And in a way, that simplicity is what makes it powerful. Downton was never really about plot—it was about texture. The tension of a glance. The silence between two people at breakfast.”
This latest installment marks another collaboration with her husband, director Simon Curtis. “He joined at a time when a lot of us were unsure,” McGovern shares. “He grounded the project. He saw what it could still be.”
In the midst of it all, McGovern hasn’t put music aside. Her band, Sadie and the Hotheads, recorded a new album during lockdown. It’s a meditation, she says, “on who we are when the noise quiets. We made something we needed to hear. It’s not about making a splash. It’s about staying close to something true.”
That quest—for truth, for expression without pretense—runs through every aspect of her life. Her daughters reflect that, too. One works in television writing, the other teaches primary school. “She keeps us grounded,” McGovern says. “In a house full of creatives, she’s the reality check. And the soul.”
Even now, McGovern’s gaze turns forward. She’s written a screenplay—one she’s not quite ready to name. “I’m almost afraid to say it out loud,” she says, laughing softly. “It’s that phase where no one believes in it yet. But that’s okay. I do.”
That sentence could sum up her entire creative journey. In an industry obsessed with instant validation, McGovern builds slowly. She trusts the long arc. She believes in invisible work. And she never stops choosing the kind of art that’s harder to sell—but easier to live with.
[this page]
“It wasn’t a romance in the traditional sense, but there was something charged about it—two people drawn together by truth-telling, by the act of trying to shape a life into something coherent.”
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Monogamy can be a bit…monotonous sometimes. Same person, same stories, same restaurants. It’s all so…familiar. Like a conquest that’s long been conquered. A tiger that is no longer wild, dangerous, or mysteriously graceful, it’s tame and lying on its fat ass at the zoo instead of taking you on an adventure stalking your favorite band across Europe!
In a relationship, one of the first things to fly into the monochromatic region of boredom is sex. This has sadly become a casualty in my dating arena. Don’t get me wrong,
I enjoy it the sweet sex we have. But I miss the throw down. The feeling like, “I need to have you right now!” There’s no longer a passionate ripping of the clothes in order to expose that sinfully seductive skin underneath. We strip our own clothes off, lay down, and basically go through our routine moves: cowgirl, missionary, doggie. Not always in that order, but basically those are the clutch safe guards.
So in order to bring us back into the world of flying colors and set sail for some much-needed uncharted territory, I
down. no expose routine of order, colors
“...But like all women, I have a few tricks up my sleeve to bring out his animal instinct...”
suggested starting the exploration in the bedroom—it’s a safe place that my fling and I have thoroughly christened hundreds of times. But, then the line went radio silent, deathly silent. Aliens could have abducted him for about 10 minutes while I was anxiously awaiting his response.
“Don’t you like the sex we have?”
Ugh, men’s egos are so fragile! Like paper-mache or a porcelain doll. One little scratch on the surface and the whole
thing loses its stability in addition to its aesthetic appeal. Insecurity breeds the largest egos. Of course I like the sex we have! I wouldn’t still be dating you if the sex were bad. That’s not shallow or selfish. It’s the truth. Women don’t want to have to give instructions for something that should be, quite frankly, instinctual and ingrained into the DNA (Seriously, I don’t understand how ANYONE could be bad in bed.). We just want the hunt. That treacherously vulnerable feeling of surrendering to the person completely; it makes that moment so much more intense.
byJosephErdos
Theacceptedwisdom isthatitwasinvented whentheItalian aristocract,Count CamilloNegronifrom Florence,wantedto addsome umphtohis ‘Americano.’Sonothing muchhaschanged there,right?
Bitter, sweet, salty, and savory. The interplay of all these tastes is what makes eating and drinking so pleasurable. Unfortunately, not everyone loves bitter flavor, like those hated green vegetables. Brussels sprouts, anyone? We are naturally programmed to recognize bitter things as bad, instinctively thinking they would be harmful if ingested. In many cases, that instinct is true, but not everything that is bitter is bad for you. As we become adults our taste buds mature to appreciate bitter and complex flavors, like coffee. What would you do without your morning cup of Joe?
It’s a predilection for bitter tastes that indicates a mature palate, one that would appreciate a sophisticated cocktail. One such drink is the Negroni, which combines three flavorful alcohols: gin, sweet vermouth, and the distinctively bitter and bright red Campari. The resulting cocktail seems almost mysterious, but it’s actually very straightforward.
Not many are familiar with the Negroni, and those who are might dismiss it as an un-American cocktail. But the Negroni just needs to be understood. Once you have one in front of you, you will recognize its allure and complexity. First you notice its color, then its wonderful herbal and citrus scent, and then a slightly sweet flavor followed by that characteristic bitterness. It stimulates more than just a sense of taste. It offers an atmosphere of class and style.
THE BITTER TRUTH
Campari belongs to a group of alcohols known as bitters, called amaro in Italian. Amaro is made from ingredients that can include herbs, barks, flowers, and citrus peels. In Italy, there are hundreds of different varieties of bitters, which were originally developed for medicinal purposes. Many bitters can be enjoyed as digestifs, consumed after a meal, such as Averna. But others, like Campari, are more palatable when mixed into cocktails that are commonly enjoyed as aperitifs. They stimulate the appetite, open the palate, and ready the stomach for eating. Gaspare Campari invented Campari as a teenage apprentice bartender in the mid-1800s during a time in Italy when many new aperitifs were being produced in competition with France.
Campari’s recipe for his drink is a well-kept secret; supposedly only a few key individuals in the company today know the recipe. Legend has it that the recipe contains up to 80 ingredients. However, some of the components have been deciphered. One ingredient is chinotto, a bitter citrus fruit that resembles an orange and is native to Italy and many Mediterranean nations. Cascarilla, a bark from the Bahamas, is another ingredient that adds bitterness to the drink. In Italy, Campari is so popular that it is even mixed into soda to create a type of soft drink. Bottled Campari soda is sold as if it were the equivalent of cola in the United States. But the main difference is that U.S. soda does not have any alcohol content. Those feisty Italians!
What makes Campari so distinctively different from other bitters, besides its unique flavor, is the garnet red color. Originally dyed with carmine, a dye derived from the cochineal insect, Campari has been dyed with artificial red coloring since 2006. The brilliantly colored beverage lends itself to many creative uses in mixed drinks. The most popular cocktails that use Campari include the Americano, the Garibaldi (Campari and orange juice), and the Negroni.
COUNT MEETS COCKTAIL
The Americano was one of the first cocktails designed for Campari. It was popularized by Campari himself and was based on the MilanoTorino, a drink named after the cities where Campari and Cinzano vermouth are made. In the 1900s, the drink started to become popular with Americans residing in Italy. Somewhere along the line, soda water was added to the mix and the new cocktail was renamed in honor of the Americans. James Bond himself was known to enjoy an Americano in Casino Royale. He also had a Negroni.
The history of the Negroni is a bit unclear, but the story that everyone seems to agree upon includes an eccentric Italian count and a bar. Count Camillo Negroni was known to be an adventurous man who had spent time as both a cowboy in Montana and a gambler in New York City. Around 1920, while visiting his favorite Florentine bar, the Café Casoni, Count Negroni asked the bartender to liven up his usual Americano (sweet vermouth, Campari, and soda) by replacing the soda with gin. The bartender also added an orange rind garnish to differentiate it from the Americano, which is garnished with lemon peel. This new cocktail became so successful that people began asking for the Americano in the “Negroni” style. The Negroni family decided to produce it in bottled form, naming it the Antico Negroni. But the count’s drink, which was soon in bars all over Italy, officially became known as simply: the Negroni.
STIRRED, NOT SHAKEN
Quality alcohols are crucial to the outcome of the classic Negroni cocktail. Just switching out the brands of vermouth or gin will create a slight variation in the taste of the finished drink. Sweet rosso (red) vermouth, an aperitif in itself, is the classic ingredient. Dry vermouth can also be used, but the slight sweetness of sweet vermouth helps offset the bitterness of the Campari. The gin used should be good quality, aromatic, and flavorful. If you wouldn’t drink it straight then it should not be used in the cocktail.
When it comes to the methodology for preparing the Negroni, there are always opposite schools of thought. Some who prefer a decidedly chilled cocktail choose to shake, not stir. But stirring the cocktail slowly with ice prevents it from watering down, whereas shaking it with ice mars the character of the drink. Therefore, the stirred Negroni maintains the essential flavors and intricacies of its ingredients for the enjoyment of even staunchest purists.
To create the classic Negroni, combine 1 ounce each of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari in a cocktail shaker with ice. Stir well and strain into an old-fashioned glass or cocktail glass. This classic combination is in fact a very well balanced drink, but some bartenders use 2 ounces of gin and 1 each of vermouth and Campari for a less sweet and syrupy drink. It’s a matter of personal taste. For a unique finishing touch, try a flaming orange trick: squeeze a strip of orange rind about an inch above a lit match held over the drink. If attempted properly, a quick flame from the essential oil content in the orange skin will infuse the cocktail with an aromatic citrus note. Rim the glass with the rind and toss it into the drink before serving.
NEGRONI REINVENTED
One of the Italian reinterpretations is more or less accepted. The Negroni Sbagliato (“the Wrong Negroni” in Italian) is the celebratory form of the cocktail made with sparkling wine, such as Prosecco, instead of gin. In the West Village at the cozy Italian trattoria Dell’Anima, you will find a Roasted Orange Negroni Sbagliato made with Carpano Antica vermouth, Lambrusco sparkling wine, and muddled roasted orange, which produces a luscious citrus flavor.
Just as the Martini can be made with gin or vodka, many replace the gin in a Negroni with vodka, which results in a drink that some term the Negroski, giving the name a Russian flair. Replacing the gin with bourbon produces the Boulevardier. Replacing the gin with tequila and adding a few dashes of orange bitters creates the Agavoni. And if you’re in the mood for something more tropical and sweet, try the Negroni at Death and Co. in the East Village. They call their drink the Kingston Negroni, replacing the gin with Jamaican rum, the sweetness masking the bitterness of the Campari just slightly, making the cocktail more palatable for those who might be averse to its bitterness.
The Negroni is the perfect drink for the transition from winter to spring. The bitter flavor reminds us of the bitter cold and the slight sweet taste portends the spring season. In one sip the cocktail goes from sweet and silky to bitter and sly. Yes, the cocktail has a bit of European snobbery, but it doesn’t mean that any American can’t enjoy it. When you order a Negroni, you will make others wonder what you’re drinking. Then you can tell them the story of the eccentric Count Negroni.
contributors
MICHAEL MULLER
tr ibrtMichael Muller is a celebrated photographer known for his iconic work in entertainment and fashion, including major movie posters. He later turned his focus to underwater photography, capturing sharks in groundbreaking ways. His acclaimed shark work led to a TASCHEN book and VR series. His newest project explores global horse culture.
I am a New York City Fashion Photographer and have been shooting professionally and full-time since the nineties. I also specialize in Beauty, Portraits and Figure photography. I love to shoot and I love to photograph people. I appreciate the special connection between myself and my subjects and love capturing the special moment whether it is during a fast moving guerilla-style shoot on location or a carefully planned studio beauty shot.
MARY FELLOWES
Creative director and polymath has operated in the upper echelons of fashion and media for two decades. With a unique skill set that combines styling, features and copy writing, art directing, brand strategy and celebrity dressing, she has worked for 11 international editions of Vogue. in recent years she has also increased her work with A-list actors for red carpet and other promo. Her home is in London but life is happily on the road and in the air.
Sean Gleason was born in Washington DC, grew up in London where he currently based. He studied photography at the renowned Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and went on to assist many great photographers including David Sims and Mario Sorrenti. He has shot for many of the world’s top publications including Elle, Interview, Vogue, Tatler, GQ, Esquire and Instyle, working with both models, celebrities and sportsmen.
Entrepreneur, innovator, businesswoman, editor and publisher - MOONAH ELLISON brings the same enthusiasm and dynamic energy to all her projects. From a UK based million dollar sales and marketing corporation to an influential fashion & lifestyle magazine in New York City to a successful national event company in the USA involving major players (amongst others Susan Sarandon, Robin Wright, Robert DeNiro, Kerry Washington, Ivanka Trump, Arianna Huffington and media partners MTV, Univision, CBS, ABC, CNN, NBC), Moonah has built success on top of success. She is married and lives in Manhattan.
“Smart, vivid, and full of heart, Kovac nails what it feels like to be a little kid with a big dream, then fearlessly leads us to that dream’s realization and—maybe best of all—to what comes after.”
SARA
NOVIC , New York Times bestselling author of True Biz and Girl at War
“For those who love dance, for those who know nothing of dance, this bittersweet book will speak to you about perseverance, friendship, and what is really important.”
LAUREN KESSLER, author of Raising the Barre, and My Midlife Quest to Dance the Nutcracker
Published by She Writes Press | Distributed to the trade by Simon & Schuster Available wherever books are sold
A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound, Money makes the world go around, That Clinking Clanking sound of.... money,money,money,money,money,money,money,
Research indicates that multitasking actually reduces productivity. But really, I’m the crusty old man at the end of the block, because nothing makes me feel older than how cantankerous I get over the daily reminders of our unmitigated addiction to technology. I don’t hate technology. With it, tasks are streamlined and, admittedly, it’s much nicer not to have to use pay phones. I enjoy both old records and Spotify, and think that with enough time, future generations will examine our unhealthy relationship with the digital world and adjust accordingly. What’s worse to me than being called the “plugged-in generation,” however, is that we are quickly becoming “the multitasking generation,” and it is this fact that will shape our generation’s mental habits, outlook on life, and sadly, our creative output. We have developed this snide bit of pride in our multitasking abilities. We are absolutely convinced that we’re smart enough, so “with it,” that if technology evolves, our biology will evolve to handle it. But this isn’t happening, and it will not happen. Over the past few years, psychologists have voiced concerns over this very point and conducted tests concerning multitasking, showing that with an increase of multitasking prompted by distractions in the form of text messages or internet surfing, all forms of task performance take a drastic downturn.
Most recently, reports on psychological findings to the journal, Science, bust open the myth that multitasking is useful or even good for our brains. A study suggests that the brain may be wired, at maximum, to do only two tasks at once. When the test subjects performed one task, their two frontal lobes lit up with that task. With two
tasks, the frontal lobes split down the middle to accommodate both, dividing just as we divide our attentions, switching between tasks. Once researchers added a third task, however, the brain responded less favorably and began to sacrifice accuracy, while one of the first two activities was pushed out by the third. The inability to transcend the concrete biology of human beings – the fact that we only have two frontal lobes and, unlike computers, cannot create or make room for more gigabytes – is humorously humbling. Unless we can find a way to add another frontal lobe, we need to reexamine the notion that, specifically with portable electronics, “the world is at our fingertips.”
Pete, savant, Upstate
A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound, Money makes the world go around I am so deeply tired of talking about money. I don’t know if this is mainly a New York thing or not, as I grew up in Louisiana and have only been living in New York for a few months. But it feels as though so many of the conversations I have here revolve around finances. I care so little about the material aspects of this world, and it feels as though I am wrong for that now. At home, we never spoke about money. Some people had it and some didn’t and that was that. We went to work and we came home and drank and talked about life and sex and love. Somehow, these nights just didn’t include conversations about the stock market, or day trading. I understand that life is different here and that many people have jobs that revolve around financial matters. I just feel as though there are conversation topics that help you get to know a person so much more deeply than asking about their stock choices. Maybe it’s not about knowing people deeply. But I am nostalgic for a time and place where ideas were a more valued topic than cryptocurrency.
Geoff, capitalist, UK
“God has no religion.”
Mahatma Gandhi
When it comes to religion, I know my stuff pretty well. I mean, coming from an Orthodox Christian family, I know more than anyone that religious people are not always good people. In a way their goal is to suck you in and scare you into following whatever doctrine it is this “God” has apparently laid out for you. They tell you things like, “If you do not accept so and so as your lord and savior, you will suffer eternal hell.” And that, dear friends, is how they get you! Who ever formulated this school of thought (or crap, whichever you prefer) is brilliant, because it works! Honestly, who wants to burn in hell for all of eternity? The threat of Hell from so many religions is disturbing. I personally don’t believe in a place of everlasting torment.
Back in my Sunday School days I was told that the criteria of going to hell includes you believing in Jesus, who he is, what he has done, and deliberately choosing to reject him. The idea that a higher being would punish completely innocent people because of what they felt to be true in the hearts and is, not to mention, wrong in the eyes of religion is irrational. I just don’t think it works like that. One thing that I am sure about is that religion is, has, and always will be the biggest trouble maker through out our entire existence. Whether it is Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. The dictionary defines religion to be a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. Yet it’s very essence is being contradicted for it has started wars, ended lives, broken families apart, and the damage only worsens and continues. The Bible (which I find to be quite dangerous because of how literal some folks take it) poses much negativity against homosexuality, women’s
rights, as well as atheists. And this doctrine that has been written thousands of years ago haunts us till this day.
When a devout Christian comes across an atheist, it’s a pretty big deal. I say this from experience; my boyfriend came to one of my family gatherings and after having a significantly intellectual conversation with one of my Aunts, she asked him what kind of Christian he was. My boyfriend is not a Christian, in fact he is an Atheist, so he nonchalantly told her just that, in which he reacted with an appalling gasp making the party very awkward for him. She also told him he would be going to hell if he did not accept “so and so” as his savior. Rach, sceptic, midtown
What you see is what you get.
It’s presumptuous, but the East strikes up vivid images of men wrapped in loin clothes performing yoga on the banks of deserted rivers, or the delicate folding of a geisha’s hands while performing a tea ceremony in Japan. From scarlet-lipped geishas to kohl- lined dusky skinned women skimming upon the holistic treatments offered at the price of stones and gems. Conversely, star lined asphalt roads in the West beckon the mind with its devious advancements in technology and a Pandora’s box full of jewels it has collected over time. This jewel box has an infinite amount of medicines for sexual prowess to 13 different shades of white milk to allow the mind to pick any color you like. jakki, herbalist, queens
Bleeding Hearts
Somewhere amidst the screaming onslaught of red, white, and blue bunting, between trumpeting elephants and bucking donkeys, there lies a more basic division that cuts right to, well, the heart of the matter: that of political conscience. Are you of the “fat n’ happy” persuasion, content or even edified to contemplate
the luxuries of the life you lead, ignorant or unconcerned with the consequences that the self-serving actions of today will have on tomorrow? Or do you have a nagging activist angel perched on your shoulder muttering, “all is not yet right with the world. Things to be done...things to be done....” What some have come to refer to as Bleeding Heart Liberalism is actually just the manifestation of a conscience when considering soapbox topics. bruce, surfer, long island
Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy
Gone are the days when being of ample weight was a sign of wealth and stature. Ironically, it is the poor who are more likely to be overweight. Cheap calories are fattening calories, and combining the omnipresent fast food chains with the lack of fresh produce in many poorer, inner city areas affects those who can’t afford to deal with the relentless health consequences. Now, looking lean and hungry is what says big money, and our desire to such prominence, like the celebrities we envy, is in the driver’s seat. You may make sarcastic remarks about Anna Nicole Smith, but staring at her bod on the TrimSpa ads may be all it takes for you to stop at the drugstore on the way home. Atkins fanatics and Weight Watchers may very well be shedding the pounds, but the ability to talk the low-carb talk and walk the food points walk at parties and restaurants adds an entire social dimension to dieting that has nothing to do with your heart, cholesterol or your size 12 jeans
Roger, singer, Tribeca
Size Matters
Increased exposure to explicit sexual imagery is being blamed for the rise in genital surgery. Medical experts have sounded the alarm over soaring rates of labiaplasty,
as the preliminary findings of a study show women are increasingly turning to private providers to pursue “designer vaginas” Suzie, ‘actress” midtown
Make someone Happy I would say there are two kinds of altruism: the instinctive kind that makes a mother jump into a tumultuous ocean to save her child; and the kind that makes you help a stranger carry their bags across the street. The first is a result of evolution, a way to ensure our species continues. The second is more shallow – I don’t believe humans do things for strangers without getting something for it, even if it is just a smile, a thank you, or the personal satisfaction of knowing you did something good. And what’s wrong with that? Does having a motive behind our good deed make that deed any less good? If I want to walk an old lady across the street because it makes me feel good about myself, what’s the problem? I don’t believe there are any good deeds in the world that don’t have positive side-effects that are in some way passed on to all involved parties. A good deed is just that: an action that brings something good into the world. And just in knowing that, we are being rewarded. Whatever your motivation, being kind to others is never a bad thing.
John, driver, Bronx
A**hole
Now, for the record, I’m not actually angry with my exboyfriend (anymore) and don’t harbor negative or violent feelings for him (most of the time.) Because what did he do, really? Other than be himself? He was exactly who I fell in love with from the moment I started dating him until the moment I was throwing his belongings in large quantities down the stairs of my house. Exactly. He didn’t change a pinch. (Total asshole, right?)
Sonia, wrestler, 5th Ave
The Ride
By KostyaKennedy
Revere stood for a moment on the muddy ground, the Old North Church
tall across the river before him, the mare, Brown Beauty, shifting on her hooves. Revere understood that for himself and for the others who might ride on this night-along close wooded paths and over wet meadows to visit the farmhouses and boarding houses and homesteads, to sound the warning and make the appeal-this was the most important horseback ride of his life. The Regulars were out.
The Royal Army was on the move.
IF the militiamen had not been waiting at the Lexington Green at dawn on that April day in 1775, to test and slow the British? What if they had not then been at Concord a few hours later, 220 strong, ready and resolute on the high ground?
Those Patriot soldiers arrived by the hundreds that morning, then by the thousands, armed and keen and strengthened in their numbers. They mustered on the damp, open fields and on the forest edges along the Old Concord Road. Farmers and tradesmen, with their muskets and fowling pieces in hand. They turned back the redcoats and then fired on them in their retreat, routing them out of town and back off the land that the Patriots knew now as their own. Villagers from the highlands and the low, ministers and deists and nonbelievers, men dressed in whatever clothes they had— their patched and varied breeches, their worn straight-last boots—a hodge podge of an earnest crew transformed by necessity and determination into American soldiers who that morning showed the will that would drive them in the weeks and months ahead, the will that would win the Revolutionary War.
Suppose they had not come that morning after all, suppose they had not been so timely in their arrival, not been so committed to their call?
Suppose instead the seasoned British soldiers, in their fine cocked hats and under their generals’ command, had in their ransacking of Concord’s Barrett Farm found and taken the stores of gunpowder and ammunition they had come to seize. Imagine if the British had caught the Americans by surprise, as they’d intended. Imagine if, in Lexington, they had killed or captured Samuel Adams or John Hancock, delivering on the bounty that had been put on those men by the King. What would have happened to the path of the American Revolution then?
If not for that first morning of battle—of impudent, plucky, stunning, and world-shifting Patriot success—would the rebelling American army have continued to mobilize so confidently? Would it have stayed so unified in the face of defeat and death, have remained so emboldened to succeed? Would the army have fared so well (even in defeat) in the Battle of Bunker Hill, eight weeks later? Would the Revolution have unfolded so quickly as it did? Would we have July 4, 1776, as our Day of lndependence? Or how much longer might the British have held their grip? Into the 1780s, the 1790s, the 1800s, and beyond? And if they had held that longer grip, what might then
have been the implications for the establishment and growth of the American democracy in the years and decades that followed? What would be the implications today?
When we ask these things, when we consider the plau sible alternatives to the chain of events that occurred on April 18 and April 19, 1775, we are asking this: What might have happened, how might the much-documented and much-deconstructed birth of our nation have unfolded, and with what repercussions, had not Paul Revere mounted his borrowed horse and set out to ride those critical miles in those critical hours across the simmering moonlit land, to rouse the countryside and deliver the news? What would have become of the Revolution, of its crucial early days? What would have become of the whole hard, taxing, extraordinary journey to independence, if not for Paul Revere and his midnight ride?
Of all the Revolutionary War events that live on in collective memory-immortalized in art and prose perhaps none conjures such a succinct image as Paul Revere galloping on his horse under cover of darkness, warning of the British threat. Perhaps no night was more critical to our fate.
If The Ride echoes in romance through the imperishable Henry Wadsworth Longfellow verse that for generations of Americans served as history, it remains resonant for its immediacy, its example of courage and enterprise and urgency. The story endures because of what it represents and what it was. Ordinary men meeting the moment of their lives. An engraver in Paul Revere, a tanner in William Dawes, a doctor in Samuel Prescott, and a network of some forty riders then coursing through the countryside, spreading word of what was at hand. Longfellow’s poem, written eightyfive years after the fact, is not bound by strict accuracy or obligation to detail significantly, there were the other riders, too—yet the poem remains steeped in truth: a man riding horseback through the late-night hours on a fervent mission to save a nation in its embryonic, even pre-embryonic, state. It was Revere at the start and center of it all. It was Revere, booted and spurred, who raised the resistance, who helped to deliver the first, fateful stand.
He was forty years old and stood better than five feet, ten inches tall in his riding boots, taller, if only slightly, than most of the men around him. Broad across the chest and shoulders, burly. His hands were roughened from the work he did and roughened, too, from so often clutch-
ing the reins. Standing now on the far bank of the Charles, Revere could see the shape of the Somerset, the great British warship docked in the river—her masts rising in silhouette, her bobbing hull and readied gun decks a massive chiaroscuro under the night sky. Revere could feel the wet earth beneath his feet and the warmth off the mare’s body as he put a hand against her side. The deacon’s mare. “A very good horse,” Revere would say. The hint of bowleggedness that may have attended Revere’s gait in his daily life, the hitch and hint of a limp, all of that disappeared when he climbed onto the back of a horse. No one among the Sons of Liberty was a better, or more reliable, rider than Paul Revere.
He had, in the last days of 1773, ridden swiftly along the wintry Post Road the twelvescore miles from Boston to New York City to deliver, as he called it, an “account of the destruction of the tea”—the seminal event that had so powerfully churned the spirit of rebellion along the docks and waters of Boston Harbor. Revere had ridden that Post Road route again in the late summer and early fall of 1774, following the stone mile markers to New York and then continuing, still farther south, to Philadelphia, a 350-mile journey in all, to arrive at the First Continental Congress carrying dispatches from the select men of Boston. He had made a northward ride as well that year, more than sixty miles through a hard December wind on a failing horse, to arrive at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and there pass along intelligence that led the Patriots to ambush the Royal watchmen and seize the powder at Fort William and Mary, fortifying themselves for the battles ahead. Revere rode missions at other times and to other places as well. When the movement needed a message delivered faithfully and without delay, Revere was the man to deliver it.
Now, it was the spring of 1775, warm for mid-April, and the white moon was already up in the clear, star strewn sky, and the village roads and the country roads were quiet. At least seemingly so, for the moment. Rain had fallen that afternoon, big drops and then a misting before it cleared. It had rained the day before as well. Revere was preparing to set out on another ride, a much shorter ride than the earlier journeys, more pressing and less precise. He traveled light and bore no documents to support a message or directive—only his voice and what he knew. Revere had thirteen miles ahead of him on the first leg that night, maybe thirteen and a half. He might meet Dawes as he neared Lexington, he suspected. He would get to Adams and Hancock whatever the cost
BUM BAG BLUES
‘Nice fanny pack’... said no-one EVER!!!
“Thanks,” Adam said, and smiled into my eyes, so that for that second, I forgot about where my hands were and relaxed. To my relief, he suggested walking around the shopping center, and I obliged. We strolled around aimlessly, exchanging stories and finding out more about each other. He was such a good storyteller that we didn’t even notice that the elevator had arrived to take us up to a different floor. It was crowded with people though, and Adam and I hesitated.
“Come on in, there’s room,” someone inside encouraged, beckoning us in.
We smiled and stepped in; it was a tight squeeze, but we fit.
But his fanny pack didn’t.
With a ding, the elevator doors detected canvas hideousness in the way and recoiled. Adam squirmed, but there was no room for him to back up—the protruding pouch would not clear the doors. “It’s your belt, man,” Mr. Captain of the Obvious beside me pointed out. Adam was good, naturedly apologetic, and shimmied his body sideways.
That was the longest elevator ride of my life.
Back out in the shopping area, my blush finally receded and I inwardly scolded myself for being so embarrassed. I had, after all, dated other guys with blazingly bad fashion sense: there was the scruffy BMX boy who wore tapered jeans, the outdoorsy environmentalist that wore socks with sandals like it was his job, and the jokester who owned two t-shirts. Could I add funny, sweet, fanny packer to my repertoire?
In the midst of my contemplation, Adam turned to me nervously. “So, I’ve had a great time hanging out with you,” he said awkwardly. “Do you think I can get your number and we can do this again some time?”
He was just the right mixture of sweet and shy and I spontaneously leaned in to give him a hug. It took my breath away. No, not because of passion, but because the fanny pack was jamming into my ribcage. I stepped back and looked at this man in front of me: luminous, shy eyes, witty conversationalist, sweet yet bold enough to approach me, cute, clean, and wearing a ridiculous fanny pack. I took a deep breath. Looking at him flirtatiously, I jotted down my number, and then tucked the paper into his fanny pack and smiled at him.
“Call me.”
feature
THE NUTCRACKER CHRONICLES
JANINE KOVAC
YOU START OUT IN THE AUDIENCE. WE ALL DO. YOU WEAR YOUR FRILLIEST DRESS ...or the one that gets the most air when you twirl. Your hair is perfect, and your face is shiny. You glow from the inside out. You clutch your ticket or your program, whichever you have been allowed to hold, and move at a snail’s pace toward tonight’sseats.The lobby bursts with patrons: blue-haired ladies with canes, slick looking gentlemen, and little girls who look just like you. There’s a bottle neck at the entrance to the house. The black pantsuit at the door examines each ticket, as if there might be a winning lottery number on it, and then directs you to the left or the right.
You find your row and you find your seat and you sit on the edge of it, not because you are too excited to sit all the way back but because you are too small. You are like Lewis Carroll’s shrunken Alice in those plush red-velvet seats.
The chatter of the people injured the rows around you is a dull roar, and you can hear the orchestra warming up above the din. More black pantsuits down there, more important ones. If your seat is close enough, maybe your mother will let you walk - don’t run - to the orchestra pit to see the musicians practice bits and pieces. There’s always the trumpet from the S panish variation playing the first eight bars over and over. The harpist practices her waterfall notes from “Waltz of the Flowers” and the celesta skitters through the last ménage of the Sugar Plum’s solo.
Years later, you are the mother whispering” Don’t run!” As your daughter scampers toward the orchestra pit.No one knows that you, too, were one a ballet dancer in this very opera house.
You danced as a determined warrior mouse, a snowflake shimmering in the lightest possible shade of blue, a flower waltzing in pastels of layered tull, and in the final years before retirement, a candy soloist in the Land of the Sweets.
You know exactly what’s happening bon the other side of the curtain. The stage has shrunk because the party scene furniture takes up half the square footage. The Spanish girls dance with the trumpet’s opening bars, but he never plays the part they actually need to rehearse. In the dressing rooms, dancers are sewing shoe and applying finishing touches of makeup to their faces, carrying out their superstitious rituals. They are in various stages of stretching and smoking and praying.
Please let these shoes/this costume/my ankle last one more show
Some of those dancers you will see tonight will be better than you were. Some off them not as good. But all of them are younger and healthier. They will be onstage, and you will be sitting here reliving every pique arabesque, every grand jete. Your legs will twitch. Your heart will flutter. Your body will remember all of the criticisms but none of the blisters. An old lament will resurface and echo like a motif from the battle field.
If only I”d had more time
At 8:03 p.m., the stage manager clears the area with a heavy whisper and a wave of his hand. The dancers scurry off into the wings and back to their dressing rooms. The soloist who thinks the rules don’t apply to him flitters off one more series of twirls
Meanwhile, it is twilight in the theatre, The lights are lowered. The last of the cherry cough drops are dispensed to stave off dry throats. In the pit, the musicians tune their instruments, swelling and swaying until they converge as on. The orchestra waits for its cue.
Just like that it is Christmas Eve onstage.
Your daughter’s eyes are wide, sparkling with excitement and anticipation. You know exactly what she is thinking.
If only I could be one of them.
From The Nutcracker Chronicles Janine Kovac and reprinted by permission of She Writes Press
... A Fairytale Memoir
“Smart,vivid,andfullofheart,Kovacnailswhatitfeelsliketobea littlekidwithabigdream,thenfearlesslyleadsustothatdream’s realizationand—maybebestofall—towhatcomesafter.”*
Lio Tipton
Moves spoke with Love Hurts star Lio Tipton to discuss everything from their navigation through the entertainment industry as an actor to the liminal spaces that come with embracing all parts of oneself.
This introspective conversation highlights the beautiful non-linear paths we take in life to arrive at the original destination via Tipton’s admission to originally coming to Hollywood to be behind the camera as a filmmaker. The conversation further touched on the LA wildfires, DEI impacts on the LGBTQIA community, and more.
Images by Tiziano
“... I am devastated for the youth. I think more than anything... the youth is what matters... they are the ones that are impacted. And that very frail timeline, the evolution of self and acceptance is now becoming something that the youth is going to have to fight for once again...”
Moves
“... I think that was a coping mechanism because I was overwhelmed with the world. I had something, and I feel like I’m sure that that’s not uncommon with artists... ”
So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you right now? I’ll call you Lio. Is that okay?
Lio Tipton:
Please. That’s the preferred. Yeah. I am at home. Today’s been a little bit crazy. Ke Huy Quan, who is the star of Love Hurts, got his handprints on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this morning. I’ve never been to the ceremony. It’s a very intimate event. People from The Goonies were there… I know that we’re sitting right in back of The Goonies, and I’m, like, losing my mind, like I’m watching my costar get their handprints forever sealed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Josh Brolin came up to speak. It was really special. So that was this morning. I’m back home and then I get into hair and makeup more formally, for the premiere tonight.
I have to begin by first asking are you okay, families, okay? You guys got through the rough of it because I know everybody knows somebody who’s connected to L.A. with regards to the fires.
It’s been devastating. And yes. Thank you for asking. My family, which is here with me for the premiere, are all from different areas in the country. So they’re safe. And we have been safe. A lot of people on production have lost their homes. And so, tonight is really, it is obviously a celebration; but, you cannot escape the feeling of unique camaraderie. L.A. doesn’t have that often… As devastating and tragic as it has been, it’s been a really unique experience being in LA to see some of the camaraderie that I witnessed in other places.
Tell us a little bit about the journey. Tell us a little bit about how you got there. So how was the script presented? What drew you towards taking the part?
I don’t always know why something makes me so excited. I think it’s because it goes against the norm. And yet there is an aspect of my wheelhouse that I haven’t been able to really, utilize or, express for a while. And comedy is something that is really what started me in this business and on this road. I haven’t had the opportunity to do as much physical humor as I would normally love to do. And when this script came up, I read it and I knew who was
attached and I could visualize who was in it. Ke Huy Quan just made perfect sense.
My character was written very gothic and dark. I did black some dark makeup for the audition and I had my hair very straight, very sardonic. And self-deprecating. But I got to just play with the character. And with humor, with comedy, there’s honesty. I’m very confident in my comedy.
But you’re enjoying it. I’m sensing it was different. You’ve made so many of these movies that are kind of very scary. You’ve done some really deep dives into storylines that call for lots of blood and gory stuff from looking at your Rolodex of acting. The yin and yang must be really nice to kind of shift to something that’s not so dramatic.
Yeah, there’s been a lot of drama. We kind of had this mentality like, there’s this thing in Hollywood where you have to play drama to be taken seriously, but there’s no joy like comedy. You get to try things out, you get to be ridiculous and silly and some of it fails. I feel like my comedy is like the rule of pasta where you take a noodle and you fling it on the ceiling and see if it sticks. If it sticks, it’s supposed to be done, right? I kind of feel like that’s how it [comedy] is. Comedy is like flinging pasta all the time. And often the director or the producers are the ones getting it flung in their faces.
Who would you say you’ve had the most fun experience with, that you could kind of talk to to say, ‘Wow, I’d like to live that again.’
Crazy, Stupid Love was an incredible experience. There was a scene where I held a gun to John Malkovich’s head and he stopped the scene and he took the gun. He pulled it closer. He was like, ‘I need to feel it against my skull.’ And I remember telling this to my parents and they were like, you what? And I look back at that and honestly, I have memories with Jeremy Irons, with Scarlett [Johansson]. I have worked with really great, kind people. And I think each one presents something special and unique.
You’ve also had a strong career in modeling. And the time that you did it, that was your moment. And then you move into acting. And you’ve been in front of the camera.
Where do you see yourself going in the next layer? Writing? Producing?
I moved to Los Angeles to be a filmmaker. I had no intention to be in front of the camera whatsoever. Not in modeling. Not in acting. In fact, I did not like actors. I thought I genuinely didn’t understand them. I thought, why are you doing what you do? Does it really make the world a better place? Are you expressing any art? Because I was wanting to be a director and writer, I’m from the place of creating and I never saw actors as artists. At 19, I was on America’s Next Top Model. And of course, my parents were like, what are you doing? And I was like, I have no idea. I’m 19. And I was down in LA and I didn’t know what to do, and that’s how I got into acting, kind of through that. And I didn’t say I was an actor for a good four years.
You just weren’t feeling right. But you say that you started off in film. That was the ultimate objective of going to L.A.. Did you pursue that? Did you pursue behind the camera?
I am. I still am.
I always think that some actors can fit into unique roles or roles that would be outside of their regular kind of day-to-day. They just fit in… As an outsider looking in, it was as if you were made for the part when you look at it and really what you do.
I played pretend [when I was young]. My pretend world I think and my reality as a child have blended together so much because I had such a vivid imagination. And I think that was a coping mechanism because I was overwhelmed with the world. I had something, and I feel like I’m sure that that’s not uncommon with artists. But yeah, going into different roles honestly feels almost more natural than having to be myself.
When I’m out I think there’s a lot of social masking that takes place when I’m presenting myself. And I think in acting, I’m playing adult pretend. And I’m sure if we Google that, that’s probably not going to come out correctly.
The good thing is that you knew when you were in the role and when you were out, right? I mean, you knew how to separate it.
You know what? Actually, that did take me some time, especially with gender. As nonbinary, I feel like I went through a period of time where I really felt like I had to always be this person that I never felt connected to.
It wasn’t until I came out as non-binary that I could honestly separate myself from the rules that I did because when I was being cast as certain things, I would feel like, well, I’m cast as this because they saw this role in me, even though I’m playing pretend. So now I feel like I have that expectation to kind of live up to. Now, I get to put on whatever dress or glam makeup and things like that.
And not give a fuck at that. Which is brilliant, right?. It’s a great place to be. It’s liberating.
Exactly, but if it’s like a female-presenting role, like the role in Love Hurts, Ashley, is female. Or identifies as female. And I would go and I would be able to put on that hair and makeup and get into this character. Just because
people might think of me as one gender, not know who I am. And now that can’t influence my work.
You are a big advocate for the LGBTQIA [community]. How do you feel about what’s happening right now with the whole diversity boundaries that have been thrown at us?
I am devastated for the youth. I think more than anything, and I feel like anyone that has entered the LGBTQIA community, the youth is what matters in so many moments of what’s going on. They are the ones that are impacted. And that very frail timeline, the evolution of self and acceptance that is now becoming something that the youth is going to have to fight for once again. I do feel like everyone wants to double down on making sure people know that they are loved, that they are accepted, that there’s no right or wrong thing. I’m really hoping that it comes in a wave of love, and the best thing to do right now is to really step up. And if you know any-
one going through something or questioning or being open, it’s terrifying. That’s how I feel.
What do you feel would be your next favorite role if you had a choice to take only one?
I want to play Sally Ride, the first female in space. I went to space camp and aviation camp. I’m obsessed with space and mathematics and physics, and it’s a big part of my upbringing. She also had a really fascinating life where, as the woman at the face of American space travel, she was gay. She was also married and had children and lived this initial life of like, see, I can go to space and also have a family and be a wife.
But I’m very excited for the next movie I do, which is this incredible indie film called The Slow Machines. Well, actually the title might change. But it’s just going back to kind of like a character development route. I feel like with the confidence that I have coming from doing comedy, I hope to kind of carry that.
OPEN WHEN...
...You have big decisions to make... ...You’re overwhelmed ...Yourfriendsarenotyourfriends......You’reunderpressure... ...Fearshowsup... ...Youstruggletosayno...
sayno...
overwhelmed with stress
pressure...
“... This book can only serve you as a lighthouse...illuminating a new path you didn’t know existed... ”
Despite the words laid out in front of you, I have never been a talker. Even as a child, I observed and absorbed, but rarely approached anyone in times of need. For that, I did what many quiet kids do: I turned to books. Looking back, I see my impulse to read as a kind of searching. I was asking of the pages what I was unable to ask of real people. I waded through book after book. Sometimes I found what I needed. Sometimes I didn’t.
With that in mind and my current profession as a clinical psychologist, you would be forgiven for assuming that I want to promote inward-focused self-reflection. That is not the case. The inner world is like a sauna; there are benefits to being there, as long as you don’t stay for too long. Instead, I strongly urge you, in challenging times, to connect with other humans in the real world wherever possible. That is where most of the answers are to our naturally fluctuating mental health in the face of life’s ups and downs. But I am also realistic enough to know that not everybody has a reliable and trustworthy person available to them at the most crucial of times. When you find yourself working things out alone and you struggle to be the voice for yourself that you need to hear, this book is for you.
Dr. Julie Smith
in the eye and bring the words we need to hear right now. Words that say “I’m here. Let’s move forward together. I know a way through.” You might say my previous book was the hammer and nails. This book is my hand reaching out to yours in the chaos of the storm, saying “Come this way and let’s get to work.”
In moments of pain or confusion, most of us struggle to be the voice that we need to hear, not because we are pathological in some way, but because we are all simply learning as we go. This is the book for us all, for our children as they fly the nest, for our friends who live out of reach, for our family when we can’t find the right words, and for ourselves when we need to find a way through.
“... Get busy with life’s purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all— and do it while you can...
” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.14
The moment I realized that I needed to write this book was when I heard stories of how people were carrying around my first book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, so that they could refer to it in difficult moments. While these stories were often shared with me as a compliment, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t written for that purpose. It was the wrong book for the job. That book is filled with the concepts and skills that help people to work on their future mental health, often by looking back at past difficult moments. Not one of those pages contains the words I say to people as they sit in their most vulnerable moments, raw with emotion.
In the days before a hurricane, a hammer and nails are exactly the tools you need to arm you for what might lie ahead. But the moment that storm hits, the last thing you need to hear is how you could have been better prepared. In those moments, what we all need is someone to look us straight
With my own experience as both a reader and a clinician, I know that in dark times, words can light the way, illuminating a new path you didn’t know existed. As I wrote these letters to you, which you’ll find at the beginning of each chapter, I wished at times that I could read your mind and know precisely what you are dealing with and the words you need the most. An im- possible task, since I can’t predict the details of the challenges you face. Instead, all I have are the gems I have discovered along my own path and a chance to lay them out on yours.
This book can serve only as a lighthouse. Unable to pull you from the water, but able to shine a light in this direction so that you can work out which way is up when confusion reigns. Use that as you will, but the work of navigating toward calmer waters is all yours.
In the trials that lie ahead, I have high expectations for you because I can be sure of two things. First, that you have potential beyond anything you could comprehend from your current standpoint. Second, no matter where you are starting from, the path to all things better is always through new effort and willingness to learn. It is true for all of us that we don’t know what we don’t know. Please trust me when I say that you have no idea how much better things could get for you until you’re there.
Kindest, Julie
Elaine Kwon
Prize-winning concert pianist. Artistic director. Speaker and educator. AND Five-time US National Tae Kwon Do champion?!?! Yes. Elaine Kwon can—and does—it all. From her work as co-founder and artistic director of the immersive music pairing series, Savor Your Senses®, to performing at renowned venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Hall, George Weston Recital Hall, since the age of 15, to teaching music theory and piano lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for over 22 years, Kwon continues to explore ways to align and communicate her passion for music, martial arts, and creative education. Free from her busy schedule (but most definitely not for long), Moves had a chance to talk with Kwon about topics like creative blocks, balancing all of her passions, and her dream musical collaboration.
What inspires you?
I’m inspired by many things…especially people. I’m moved when I see genuinely good human beings succeed, those who’ve overcome tremendous challenges and are now thriving and helping others. I’m especially inspired by older women living their best life, like my mom, who turns 89 next month. She’s staying healthy, learning new things every day, seeing the good in others, and still traveling and exploring the world. We’re going to Italy, France, and Spain next month together!
I’m fascinated by Savor Your Senses. What connections do you find with music and taste? Have you experimented with sound in different spaces as well?
I’m so happy to hear that! As co-founder, I’m still continuously fascinated by it—there are endless possibilities when it comes to pairing music with the sensory arts. My husband and I created it in
2009, before the sensory experience trend really took off. Through live performance, Savor Your Senses® purposefully pairs a specific piece of music with a “matching” wine, beverage, food, art, concept, and more. I wanted to find new ways to bring people together around music and the things I love—to heighten the delight and share the stories behind each element. As a concert pianist, I love knowing the audience is fully engaged and enjoying the moment through an experience designed to be greater than the sum of its parts.
And there are so many connections between music and taste! Just like music has notes, wine and food can have their own spectrum of flavor notes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, etc). And both music and food evoke a wide range of emotions—joy, nostalgia, relaxation, excitement and
more. We create the music and taste pairings, but the fun part for me is discovering how each person experiences them. Over the years, our events have used unusual set-ups, from rooftops to temples, from tiny offices to Carnegie Hall and all types of occasions. We’ve essentially experimented without trying to experiment. The venue and how the guests and musicians are situated definitely affects the experience. We prefer intimate spaces where guests can sit close to the performers and it’s more engaging. Each Savor event is different—a new adventure every time.
Do you find your passion for martial arts and music to intertwine?
Definitely. Both martial arts and piano require a high level of discipline and focus. I started martial arts much later in life, but all the years of intense piano practicing and the concentration skills I
"... I've found that you need to work even harder in terms of quality, perseverance, consistency, and intention and, most importantly, never give up... "
developed transferred easily to martial arts. There’s a strong mind-body connection in both—coordina tion, balance, timing. Each demands precision and awareness of how the body moves and reacts. Piano requires fine motor skills on a micro level and martial arts works more on a macro level. Both take endless hours of repetition and patience. You could say that piano prepared me for martial arts. Also, both are forms of expression, which is essential to my happiness. Whether I’m express ing emotions through piano music or martial arts movements—I love it all.
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Having accomplished so much from a young age, what advice do you have for artists wanting to fol low their dreams?
Always keep working on mastering your craft. Talent is just the starting point. You’ve got to put in the hours, practice consistently, and trust your own perspective. Be relentless! Even if everything’s not perfect, start where you are and think outside the box. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and lift you up. Create your own opportunities and stay true to your voice. Everyone’s path is differ ent, and success looks different for everyone too.
Is it challenging to excel at so many different things?
As a concert pianist, you’ve performed all over the world—including nine times (and counting!) at Carn egie Hall—and as a martial artist, you were a five-time U.S. National Forms Champion in Tae Kwon Do. How do you balance your passions?
Kwon
All the different things I’m fortunate to do in my life are connected, and I’ve framed them in a way that makes sense to me—a guiding structure that helps me stay balanced and happy. I’ve distilled it into three elements: Passion, Health, and Purpose, which I call my LifeChord®. My passion is what I love most—music. That includes performing as a concert pianist, artistic directing, and composing / arranging music. My health is what I do to keep myself mentally and physically strong—martial arts. I’ve studied Tae Kwon Do and Shaolin Kung Fu and still train every day. And my purpose is what makes me feel like I’m giving back—educating through enlightening musical experiences in my Savor Your Senses® series and 22 years as a Lecturer/Affili ated Artist at MIT. Just like three musical notes can create a harmonious chord, or three strands woven together make a stronger cord, I’ve found that identifying these three things—and naming them— has brought me clarity, direction, and strength as I navigate the noise that life sometimes brings. I've learned to partition time each day to work on each part of my LifeChord®. Consistency is key—just a little bit every day, whether I feel like doing it or not. No cramming. The real challenge is simply running out of time each day. I really wish there were more hours in the day!
What has been your favorite accomplishment and why?
Being able to live my life (LifeChord®), doing what I love (Savor Your Senses®), on my own terms. As a kid, I was quiet and shy, and oddly obsessed with variety shows on TV. I started putting on my own ‘shows’ in 3rd grade because I had an amazing
photos by Pablo Andrés Monsalve Mesa
Evan HOLTZMAN Evan HOLTZMAN
By Ava Branch
... Evan Holtzman is carving out his own path — one thoughtful, careful step at a time...
“You know, they always say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans,” Evan Holtzman says with a grin. “Because it just always ends up going a different way.”
I guess by that logic, Holtzman must keep God in absolute stitches. The Texas-born actor never dreamed about red carpets or movie sets growing up. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin then proceeded to work in Houston’s oil and gas industry for the first two years during his post-grad experience. He landed a stable engineering job in Los Angeles. Acting, for Holtzman, was never on his radar — until, suddenly, it was.
“My roommate, he runs out of his door. He busts through his door and says, ‘Oh, Evan, I got this…I got this audition for NCIS in 30 minutes. Can you help me?’” Holtzman recalls. “I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, sure.’”
That roommate happened to be Glen Powell.
“It was kind of my first — I like to say it was my first peek behind Oz’s curtain,” Holtzman notes.
From there, curiosity turned into a growing fascination. He began sneaking out of his engineering job to attend auditions, taking (as he called it) “very long bathroom breaks,” with an extra change of clothes stashed in his car. “You know, I did the engineering job from 9 to 5 during the day,” he recalled. For Holtzman, this period of time was his “Batman, Bruce Wayne” moment.
Holtzman started taking acting classes “just for fun,” but it wasn’t long before the bug bit hard. “My first acting class was when I was roommates with Glen 13 years ago,” he says. “And so to kind of make a lot of mistakes along the way has been very valuable.”
Holtzman found himself at the center of Warfare, this spring's harrowing and immersive war film from director Alex Garland and former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza. The movie unfolds in real time, tracking a SEAL platoon during a mission through insurgent territory in Iraq in 2006. Holtzman stars as Brock, a sniper, opposite a star-studded ensemble that includes Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Charles Melton, and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai.
Holtzman and Mendoza have known each other for nearly a decade, and that connection helped Holtzman earn a spot in the film — but not without work. The cast underwent an intensive three-week boot camp to prepare for the shoot. “To be clear, we get to be able to do it in a very safe space… I mean, we went through a three-week boot camp,” he says.
“Ray and Alex made it very clear this was not going to be an easy shoot,” Holtzman adds. “They were looking, from the go, for people with really the right attitude and grit to be able to jump on board for something like this.”
Warfare isn’t just another combat movie. The film’s true goal was to create something wholly original. “We’re kind of making a new type of war film,” he explains. “And
photography by Raul Romo
stylist Mark Holmes
that’s a bold statement to say… you never really know where that’s going to go.”
At the core of the project, what grounds the film is its emotional truth — a sense of lived experience that goes beyond performance, a connection that makes the set around him almost transform. “We had the real guys on set with us, too,” Holtzman says. “Seeing your new best friends and your brothers covered in blood… Yeah. It can…it feels very real. It’s scary, but we all knew the as signment. I think we all showed up.”
For Holtzman, the emotional investment ran deep. “This film is on an island of its own. We were so emotionally involved in it,” he says. It’s “my favorite project that I’ve ever been a part of.”
He especially cherished his time with Elliot, one of the real Navy SEALs who inspired the film. “I loved just being on set to be there with my boys and to be there with El liot and to watch through Elliot’s eyes in a way.”
That lens — of empathy, of shared purpose — was at the heart of their performances. In every performance, he’s always thinking, always pondering: “How did my charac ter make you feel in our scenes?” Holtzman says. “What’s the emotional truth of what you experienced? And so that was always our north star with everything.”
Beyond Warfare, Holtzman recently starred in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man on Netflix, opposite Glen Powell and Adria Arjona. His resume includes acclaimed projects like Hidden Figures, Messiah, and HBO’s Westworld as his acting profile continues to rise, Holtzman is keep ing his eye on the long game. “I’m writing a few projects of my own,” he shares. “It’s kind of nice, really, just being able to focus on the stillness of life.”
He’s also interested in stepping behind the camera one day. “I would like to direct,” he says. “I’ve always really looked up to guys like Bradley Cooper — kind of their path through this entertainment world.” But he’s not chasing some sort of headline or brand empire. “Maybe in ten years from now, I’ll be owning a coffee shop and writing something,” he muses. “I never see myself as a guy selling a tequila brand or anything. Nothing against that. But I do like a good tequila. But I love a good coffee.”
Holtzman might be stepping into bigger roles, but ego never seems to enter the equation. At the very beginning of the conversation, after being told how much research had gone into preparing for the interview — and how im pressive his career trajectory really is — he offered a soft laugh and remarked, “hopefully there’s some interesting things about me. I’m curious what you found…
In a way, Holtzman’s journey is a reflection of the kind of character he’s often drawn to — emotionally honest, quietly resilient, and unshakably sincere. Whether he’s im mersed in the sneaking out of an office job to chase after an audition, or chaos of a war zone, he’s always been true to one thing: the version of himself that’s still just figuring it out, humbly, one scene at a time.
EVERYTHING MUST GO!
The Stories We Tell About The End Of The World
It is a sunny afternoon in Taormina, Sicily, and two wealthy couples on holiday are drinking Aperol Spritz on a balcony overlooking the sea. Harper, who runs on anxiety and guilt, says that she has trouble sleeping because of ‘everything that’s going on in the world’. Daphne, who runs on pleasure and denial, asks what she means. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Harper. :Just, like, the end of the world.’ Daphne laughs. ‘Oh no, Harper! The world’s not ending, it’s not that bad.’ She doesn’t follow the news any more. ‘And even if it was as bad as they say it is, I mean what can you really do, you know?’ Harper and Daphne are sitting on the same beautiful hotel balcony, drinking the same expensive drinks, but only one of them is tormented by the sense that we are all doomed. ‘It’s like we’re all entertaining each other while the world burns,’ says Harper.
This is a scene from season two of the HBO series The White Lotus, starring Aubrey Plaza as Harper and Meghann Fahy as Daphne. The show leaves open the question of whether Harper’s position is a morally responsible reaction to vast and dangerous problems or a yelp of impotent despair. ‘Such convictions in the mouths of safe, comfortable people playing at crisis, alienation, apocalypse and desperation, make me sick,’ complains the protagonist of Saul Bellow’s 1964 novel, Herzog
‘We must get it out of our heads that this is a doomed time, that we are waiting for the end, and the rest of it ... Things are grim enough without these shivery games ... We love apocalypses too much.’
What would Herzog say now? Conservatives and progressives offer competing narratives of decline and doom. Many climate activists speak of irreparable breakdown and even human extinction. There are new terms such as doomer, polycrisis and Generation Dread. A peer-reviewed 2021 survey of people aged between sixteen and twentyfive around the world found that 56 percent agreed with the statement, ‘Humanity is doomed.’ In a 2020 YouGov poll, nearly one in three Americans said that they expected an apocalyptic event in their lifetimes, with the Christian Judgement Day relegated to fourth place by a pandemic, climate change and nuclear war; zombies and aliens brought up the rear. While promoting his doomsday satire Don’t Look Up in 2021, director Adam McKay awkwardly tried to define this era: ‘the Great Awfulization ... or the Gilded Rage ... You can just really call it collapse culture ... There’s such a list of things to keep your eye on.’
This is not the religious end of time, or eschaton, that has fascinated humanity for thousands of years (we’ll get to that) but the end of the world as a pervasive mood—a vibe. ‘It’s pretty clear the world is ending,’ Marc Maron says in his comedy special End Times Fun. ‘I don’t want to shock anybody. Seems to be happening though.’ Everybody laughs. Nobody responds as if this were a preposterous claim, just as no reviewer of Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You seemed taken aback by one character’s insistence that there is ‘no chance for the planet, and no chance for us’ and ‘we are standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something.’
Sheila Heti compares life in 2022 to ‘being in a plane that was slowly twirling to the ground’ in her quietly apocalyp tic novel Pure Colour. ‘Hey, what can you say?’ sings the comedian Bo Burnham in his satirical ballad ‘That Funny Feeling.’ ‘We were overdue / But it’ll be over soon, you wait.’ An entirely routine way to express dissatisfaction with the world is to say that it is ending.
In her 2021 novel, Fake Accounts, Lauren Oyler pokes fun at what she sees as a propensity to wallow in self-loathing and impotence: ‘the popular turn to fatalism could be attributed to self-aggrandizement and an ignorance of history, history being characterized by the population’s quickness to declare apocalypse finally imminent despite its permanently delayed arrival.’ This is a fallacy known as presentism, or chronocentrism: the delusion that one’s own generation is experiencing what has never been experienced before and will never be experienced again. Such temporal egotism has been baked into apocalyptic thought since John of Patmos promised ‘The time is at hand’ in the Book of Revelation
As Frank Kermode argued in his classic 1967 book, The Sense of an Ending, we resist the idea that we live in the middle of history, unable to know how it all ends or to be a part of the climactic drama. To make sense of life, Kermode wrote, ‘we need fictions of beginnings and fictions of ends, fictions which unite beginning and end and endow the interval between them with meaning.’
Therefore, even if we are not religious, we like to think that our own time is a unique and crucial turning point. The word crisis comes from a medical Latin term for the point in an illness that decides whether the patient will recover or die. We seem to be built to imagine that we live, if not
at the end of the the end of an era. the death of this to boast that we We do like to feel want a “conclusion,” want to come, in to a decision, a H. Lawrence wrote death in 1930. ‘This satisfaction. All our ness is a movement ment in stages, every full-stop is our “progress” and The fact that this is thought, does not ful. In this way we and mystery of the been frightening because unknown, and tidy
It is hard to in perilous times.
...Theories that involve the end of the world are not amenable to experimental verification - or, at least, not more than once...
Carl Sagan 83)
the world, then at least at era. We love to talk about this and the fall of that, and we are there to witness it. feel special. ‘We always “conclusion,” an end, we always in our mental processes, finality, a full-stop,’ D. wrote not long before his ‘This gives us a sense of our mental consciousmovement onwards, a movelike our sentences, and is a milestone that marks
and our arrival somewhere.’ is an illusion, Lawrence make it any less powerattempt to take the mess the future, which has always because it is the ultimate tidy it into a story.
deny that we live times.
As of January 2023, the hands of the Doomsday Clock, the symbolic timepiece maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947, point for the first time to ninety seconds to midnight on account of the climate crisis, Covid-19, disruptive technologies, rising authoritarianism and the revenant menace of nuclear war arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Martin Rees, the UK’s Astronomer Royal, believes that the twenty-first century could be the one ‘where we as humans destroy ourselves.’ But it should not diminish the importance of the problems that we face now to say that the anxieties of earlier generations felt no less profound. We are not inclined to appreciate the bad things that have not happened to us—the conflicts and famines avoided, the diseases prevented, the lives saved—nor to measure our anxieties against the ordeals of the past.
There have always been doomers. In 1974, the year I was born, the French president Valery Giscard D’Estaing declared, ‘The world is unhappy. It is unhappy because it does not know where it is going and because it senses that if it knew, it would discover that it was heading for disaster.’ One week in September 1965, the most popular song in America was Barry McGuire’s warning that we were on ‘the eve of destruction.’ In 1945, H. G. Wells wrote in his final book, ‘this world is at the end of its tether. The end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded.’
In 1919, the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga wrote that it was ‘bad form to praise the world and life openly. It was fashionable to see only its suffering and misery, to discover everywhere signs of decadence and of the near end—in short, to condemn the times or to despise them.’ He was ostensibly describing the late Middle Ages. In AD 250, Cyprian of Carthage asked, ‘Who cannot see that the world is already in its decline, and no longer has the strength and vigor of former times? There is no need to invoke Scripture authority to prove it. The world tells its own tale and in its general decadence bears adequate witness that it is approaching its end.’ You get the picture.
What is notable now is that apocalyptic angst has become a constant: all flow and no ebb. One might have assumed from the millions of words devoted to the end of the world during the 1990s that the noise about it would reach a millennial crescendo, but
instead it has grown and grown. In 1989, Susan Sontag suggested that the title of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now was wishful thinking and what we are living with instead is ‘Apocalypse From Now On.’ This must come to some degree from the fact that we absorb more news, which is to say bad news, than at any time in history. Speaking during the Second World War, long before twenty- four-hour news or the internet, the poet Wallace Stevens argued that the ‘pressure of reality’ overwhelms our sense of perspective: ‘It is not possible to look backward and to see that the same thing was true in the past. It is a question of pressure, and pressure is incalculable and eludes the historian.’
One can feel the pressure of reality in the frenzied overload of R.E.M.’s 1987 hit ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ or the work of Don DeLillo. In DeLillo’s 1991 novel Mao II, the author Bill contends that the novel has been displaced as a source of truth and meaning by the news, which ‘provides an unremitting mood of catastrophe. This is where we find emotional experience not available elsewhere. We don’t need the novel . .. We don’t even need catastrophes, necessarily. We only need the reports and predictions and warnings.’ When Daphne’s fatuous husband Cameron (Theo James) damns the news as ‘an apocalyptic soap opera’ in The White Lotus, he has a point. In the online era, we have a baleful new word for this experience: doomscrolling. Social media gives the impression that things are worse than they are while at the same time making things worse than they need to be. More than ever, the surest way to be praised for speaking to the times is to say that the times are awful. It can seem almost unserious to believe that things are not getting irreversibly worse.
While writing my previous book, The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s 1984, I investigated the expression of fear of the future in political dystopias. I came to feel that existential dread might be an equally useful way to explore the interaction between fiction, politics, science and the public mood. I wondered whether total immersion in visions of the end might also clarify my own thoughts about the world to come and force me to confront facts and emotions that I had been successfully avoiding. I figured that it might make me feel better in a funny way, gorging on unrealized nightmares, and that I would be in good company.
CONGRATULATIONS PAMELA OSBORNE
ON THIS 2025 MENTOR AWARD AND FOR YOUR EXPERTISE AND INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP STYLE
2025 MOVES MENTOR AWARDS
DIANE ANTISHIN
SVP Human Resources
DTE Energy
“... you need a higher level of thinking and an awareness of the consequences … ”
SHANNON SCHUYLER
Chief Purpose Officer
PwC
“... be the heroine in your own story, not the victim... ”
PAMELA OSBORNE
VP Equinix Americas Sales East
“... You have to articulate your ambitions clearly... ”
TONI THOMPSON
Chief
Human Resources
Officer
Etsy
“... your career is a marathon, not a sprint... ”
wendy star
Senior Vice President
New York City Economic Development Corporation
“... Moving forward, we must maintain our role as fierce advocates for the unheard … ”
Anahita crawford
Head of Global DEI ARM
“... constructive criticism or difficult feedback can be hard to give and even harder to receive.... ”
Kenneth Leonetti
Partne Foley Hoag
“... Just kind of take a moment and pause before you act is always, I think, a good piece of advice.... ”
CHAMPIONING A BETTER TOMORROW
Congratulations to Diane Antishin, senior vice president of Human Resources & chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at DTE, for being recognized by New York Moves for her passionate leadership that has advanced our inclusive culture and created a more welcoming workplace.
As a mentor and champion for young people, men and women, she’s paved the way for many to have their own rewarding careers.
Congratulations, Diane! We’re proud to have you on the team.
By Lydia Reeder
From The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine that Changed Women’s Lives Forever by Lydia Reeder.
Copyright © 2024 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
One afternoon in the summer of 1985, my grandmother and her four sisters, ages seventy-two to eighty-nine, gathered to celebrate their mother, Ellen Babb, who had passed away in 1953. They drank strong coffee, ate crustless sandwiches, and reminisced about being raised by a practicing midwife and healer who cared for the women and children in her rural Missouri community during the first years of the twentieth century.
Speaking into a tape recorder, they shared memories about her life. She’d run the farm and raised twelve children, all of whom went to college. She taught her daughters how to care for the ill and craft remedies from herbs gathered along the nearby Niangua River. Among her friends and neighbors, she was known to work miracles. The busy county medical doctor trusted her judgment and often referred his patients to Ellen. Neighbors sent their young daughters to learn about their monthly periods. She concocted remedies to cure cramps. She cooled fevers, calmed gout, and soothed anxiety among young expectant mothers, attending to their births when the time came. Once, she saved a premature baby by placing it in a homemade incubator: an insulated cabinet lined with hot-waterfilled milk bottles that surrounded the infant, keeping it warm. Throughout the days and nights that followed, she and other family members replaced the water in the bottles as it cooled with water heated in a nearby kerosene fire. The baby lived.
But one particular story seemed to best describe Ellen’s deep courage and quick thinking. One morning a panicked neighbor rushed over carrying her toddler, who had swallowed a safety pin. It had opened and was pointing upward in the poor child’s throat. Without any hesitation, Ellen shoved two fingers down the child’s throat, impaled her forefinger on the sharp pin, and removed her finger with the pin attached. The toddler was uninjured.
To keep up with the latest developments in medicine, Ellen read the medical books recommended by the county doctor. Deep down, she always wanted to be a doctor but had never gotten the chance.
A few years ago, after listening to the recording of my grandmother and great-aunts,the love for their mother shining forth in their voices, I became curious about the great-grandmother I had never known. Her medical skill was superb. Why hadn’t she become a doctor? I performed a few haphazard Google searches, unwittingly planting the early seeds of this book as I soon discovered that, until the end of the nineteenth century, women had been barred from medical schools and higher education. I had heard of Elizabeth Blackwell, so I knew that women doctors existed then. But I was fascinated and chagrined that I did not know about the other pioneering women doctors who followed her—Emily Blackwell, Ann Preston, and Marie Zakrzewska, among others. In order to practice medicine and thrive as doctors, these women had to open their own medical schools and hospitals.
Yet women’s struggle to become licensed physicians spurred a massive backlash. Using Charles Darwin as their guiding star, top scientists and professors of medicine—Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (famed author and dean of Harvard Medical School), S. Weir Mitchell (inventor of the rest cure for women), J. Marion Sims (“father” of gynecology, a man who tortured enslaved women to earn that
moniker), and Edward H. Clarke (a Harvard professor who literally wrote the book on women’s inferiority), among others—conspired to obstruct the advancement of women. They argued that a woman’s inferior biology should prevent her from pursuing higher education or any other endeavor outside the home. If upper-class women—the only women for whom higher education was even a possibility— strained their delicate systems with too much brainwork, they’d become infertile, and the white supremacists at the helm of society just couldn’t have that.
Fortunately, a hero arose and brought data-backed science to the fight. Mentored by Elizabeth Blackwell, the brilliant Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, in her scathing response to Clarke and the rest of the medical establishment, argued that women had the right to control their own physical and intellectual destinies. Most radically, she argued that men and women were not so different and that social restrictions, not biology, threatened female health.
In a Victorian culture that valued women as ornamental birthing machines, the cutting-edge, evidence-based medicine Jacobi practiced was an act of disobedience. Her scientific research dismantled the myths about women’s bodies spread by men, transformed medicine, and laid the groundwork for the future advancements of women, including suffrage. It was a turning point for women struggling to be seen as fully human. Jacobi became one of the most important physicians, male or female, of the nineteenth century. Her amazing accomplishments remain mostly unrecognized today. Along with Elizabeth Blackwell and Susan B. Anthony, Mary Putnam Jacobi should be celebrated for her advancement of women’s rights.
In the decades since the battle against medical men like Clarke and Mitchell, as women fought for the right to vote, own property, use contraception, get equal pay, play sports, et cetera, the white men in power have continued to use “science” and “biology” as ammunition against them. Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers reignited the 1874 controversy in 2005 with his infamous statement that women were less successful than men in science and engineering because of sex differences. Popular evolutionary psychologist Jordan Peterson, a modern-day Victorian and a champion of men’s rights, has published three books arguing that women’s capabilities are defined by their biology and their evolutionary ties to child-rearing, echoing Clarke and Mitchell.
During Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, some people consistently questioned her ability to make decisions because they believed that her hormones would make her irrational, especially if she got her period. Apparently, some men still don’t understand women’s biology.
Disputes over a woman’s capacity to live a fully human life despite her reproductive organs remain a central point of contention. It is imperative that we understand when and where these ideas originated so that we can determine how to defeat them.
As I write this, another profound backlash against women’s fundamental rights and autonomy is underway. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Justice Alito, in writing the court’s majority opinion, ignored judicial precedence and cited the work of seventeenth-century witch hunter and defender of marital rape Sir Matthew Hale, a timeless authority on women’s biology: “Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale likewise described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision,’” Alito wrote.
Like Clarke and his associates, Alito believed that women would not fight back. All of them were wrong.
Profile: Kathryn Hunter
KATHRYN HUNTER Broadway Extraordinaire
I happen to be talking to Kathryn Hunter during Daylight Savings time when the clocks go forward. I think that knocked everything off with the clocks and there was a snafu in connecting. Even after all these years since Covid began and we all became Zoom Warriors there's still the occasional connection conundrum. But I digress. I’m just excited to be talking to Kathryn Hunter, the Olivier Award-winning actress & director. She was in London, where she was born and raised. Her parents were Greek and they moved from Greece to New York where Hunter was born along with her twin sister, and then they moved again, to London, where they were raised.
We begin our conversation on cultural affairs, me living in New York via London via being from India. “I have a long standing love affair with India,” Hunter gushes. “One of my very early jobs was with the British Council and we toured a production of Merchant of Venice. We went to what was then, Bombay and Mumbai, Madras, Calcutta… We spent a month in India. We also did a month in Pakistan and then Nepal and Iraq. Since then I've been back, sometimes for research projects. Once I was researching a gentleman called Ambedkar [Dr. BR Ambedkar] who espoused the rights of the Dalits. I wrote a play about him. And then more recently, I've been back about four times to do my teacher training in Vinyasa Yoga.”
In 2021 she won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the Three Witches in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. Hunter made history in 1997 when she became the first female to play King Lear in Britain. Other notable theater roles include Red Peter in Kafka’s Monkey; Puck, in Julie Taymor’s A 'Midsummer Night’s Dream; Richard the III and King Lear at The Globe; and Hideki Noda’s The Bee. Being a long-term associate of Théâtre de Complicité, Hunter won the Olivier Award for Best Actress for The Visit, as well as performing in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; Foe; The Chairs; Out of the House Walked a Man; Anything for a Quiet Life; Help! I’m Alive; and The Winter’s Tale
Hunter is no stranger to film and TV, having garnered appearances as Lennie in Black Doves on Netflix; Swiney in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things; Eedy Karn in the Disney+ Star Wars series Andor; Harry Potter’s neighbor, Arabella Figg, in the franchise’s fifth movie installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; and Teresa Cicero in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis
“I'm very lucky. I feel very fortunate. We had lists drawn up by our grandmother for arranged marriage so you would get married, and all that. But then my mother was quite an anarchic and went, ‘Oh those children. I suppose they could do what they want to.’ So we sort of escaped, but I think when I told my grandma on my father's side that I wanted to be an actor, I think she kind of had a fit because for her, it was synonymous with becoming a prostitute or something. But my parents were very supportive. They loved the theater. They both loved the theater.”
Hunter is a product of the Catholic school system, where she first got the bug for acting while getting cast as “the bad, old lady who is trying to tempt Snow White and I said, ‘Apples for sale, apples for sale!’” She then went to Queens College on Harley Street where there was an actress who ran a coffee shop who would drag her up to the top of the school and make her watch her audition pieces, which were invariably about, sex workers and strange things. “It made me sort of say, ‘Am I any good?’ And I just kind of got interested.”
But it was at Bristol University where the passion of acting turned into true love, where she took a real notice of all that goes into a theater production and the involvement of all these people: sound, costume, lighting. “And I thought ‘God, here we all are about to join together to make a story!’ And it was just magical. I was in Jean Anouilh's play Ring Around the Moon and I had a line and the audience burst out laughing. I have to say that first love, I thought, that's it. This is what I want to do.”
Hunter then went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and had a principal called Hugh Cruttwell who made the students do ancient Greek plays, [Norwegian
...legendary Shakespearean actress and yoga teacher? Her journey
has been filled with experiences, the depth and breadth is nothing short of amazing.
playwright Henrik] Ibsen, modern plays, just learn by doing. “And then he would kind of come and speak his mantra of the truth. You've got it, you haven't got it. You might get it. You'll never get it.” She was then trained in all sorts of physical theater, and was very disciplined, even though they were performing in little com munity centers and schools. “That was a great lesson in discipline, and respect for the audience, whether you're in a community center or wherever. And then, the big huge change was meeting Complicité [British theatre company founded in 1983] who were sort of the Beatles of the time.”
Thirty or so years ago, Hunter recollects, especially in the UK, “this sense that you can actually, further articulate a physical language in the space was totally new. So when we did The Visit, for which I got an Olivier, but really, the whole company should have gotten it because it was groundbreaking theater. It was like people didn't know what it was! Is this dance theater? You could tell that people were excited. Before that, the company had done devised pieces. But this is the first time we did, during March, The Visit. So now a real play, as it were. And they said, wow, a bonafide serious piece. Very powerful, very political. We can actually kind of push the boundaries, be every bit as true and biting. And articulate politically. But also have a physical expression.”
As Hunter looks back she speaks fondly of her mother who was “a feminist without knowing she was a feminist. She went into business in an area in shipping where there were like three women… women in our community had been pushed aside because they'd been married [arranged marriages in Greek culture years ago] at 16, and then inevitably had an affair, and then were kind of ostracized, and left with nothing and. You didn’t have a chance to have an education. So she [Hunter’s mother] went to court on their behalf. She espoused women's causes, and boy, was she fearsome. I wish I could be as fierce as her sometimes, but in terms of [acting], I gravitated towards male roles.”
From the beginning, Hunter played children, played old people. She gravitated toward male roles because they looked to be more interesting. In Shakespeare's canon, except for Juliet, there are interesting women, but Hunter fell in love with the text of King Lear at school and became obsessed with the play. Polish director Helena Kaut-Howson thought of her mother as a Lear figure and asked Hunter if she wanted to play it [1997]. She was 37 at the time. “And of course, it caused an outrage. But, we went to Japan, and they went, ‘Oh… interesting. We do it the other way around here. We have our men play men, and women play women.. And that was the end of that. They were fascinated, and appalled by the story of a family, where the father is kicked out, sort of thing. Like, I
By Marilyn Ford
insights to be had. There was a Japanese colleague, a very fine artist, Hideki Noda. He did a play called The Bee . Anyway, I played a Japanese businessman, and in it there was a scene where I raped [him]. He played the woman. And there was [still] a rape scene. We did it in a stylized way. But had it been a man? I know it provoked a kind of disquiet, but in a good way. Because I was a woman, and it was really weird. He was a man playing a woman, you know? And we did a rape scene! It provoked a really interesting discourse.
And I'd like to expand into some of the fun space that you've probably lived in your journey. You've worked with so many interesting people. I'd love for you to share one anecdote of some interesting story of when you met somebody who was maybe somebody that you'd always wanted to meet, or an experience that you had with a fellow actor that kind of blew you away because it was outside of the norm.
How does Hunter find collaboration these days? She’s been working with a company called Intermission Youth, a company that was founded about 20 years ago by an ex-offender. “Mark Rylance went into Prison Brixton [male prison in London]. Did a workshop on Hamlet, I think. They do spectacular work where they do Shakespeare remixed. So it's partly in a colloquial vernacular. They work with young people, 15 to 25, using Shakespeare's plays, but reimagined. And so they'll go do their vernacular and then pop into Shakespeare. And it's also a training ground. So I'm working with them at the moment in terms of training and mentoring.”
According to Hunter, Intermission Youth provides a kind of mentorship with lots of other people who would do subsequent workshops with them. “That’s one collaboration that I love. To see from the beginning, how withdrawn, and fearful, and how some of these young people can be. To then see how they're unleashed, and empowered by this possibility to express themselves. And the leadership is kind of disciplined, yet always comforting. It's always accepting. There might be difficult things going on in their lives, and often there are, so to assure them that they're in a safe place. I love that, yes.”
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Michael Evans Behling
by Marion Goldberg
Midwesterner Michael Evans Behling is charismatic. He is best known for his role in The CW’s hit drama series, All American currently in the seventh season—and I happened to catch him after a late night of production work looking rather refreshed. And humbled.
When I first asked him how he got the coveted role of Jordan Baker, the first thing he did was thank others for getting him to where he is now. “I just have to give a lot of praise and thanks to my team, my manager and my agent, Tanya, who have worked incredibly hard to give me this role in the first place. But how did it start? Let me go back in time real quick with you.”
Raised in Columbus, Indiana, 50 miles south of Indianapolis, Evans Behling has an affinity for the outdoors, a passion developed while growing up tending to livestock, mowing grass, and caring for multiple dogs. He is an athlete, earning an athletic scholarship to run track in the 4x4 relay and hurdles at Indiana State University. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and mother, Evans Behling enrolled at Indiana State University, where he majored in pre-med while discovering his true passion: acting. He withdrew from college after two years to pursue an acting career and enrolled in intensive acting classes in New York for Upright Citizen’s Brigade CB improv group, an intensive course. Sprinkle in a few courses with various coaches down in Kentucky in 2017, it was pretty much learning on the go. That small amount of training led to a booking on Fox’s Empire starring Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson before leaving for California in 2018.
“In that time [2018], I was really just looking to get my feet wet in California in any kind of experience, the market,” says Evans Behling. “I had worked pretty consistently in the modeling world in the Midwest area: Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Chicago. My manager wanted me to come out [to California]. So I came out and less than a month later, I’m auditioning for Jordan Baker [on All American], and it truly is a mixture of people believing in you. And being in the right place at the right time.”
“...I’m so very, incredibly fortunate and thankful for everybody who’s helped me get to this point. Everybody’s always been in my corner, no matter what has been going on in life and rooting for me.
And I’ve always appreciated that... ”
For Evans Behling, it was a typical audition. You get a call back. Studio test, network test. Just a few days after his birthday in March, he was shooting the pilot. “I was rather beside myself and very nervous because this was my second role. And I’m working with actors who have decades of experience and so the biggest thing that I wanted was just to be a sponge, be the biggest sponge I can be. Just watching them work and staying after my scenes were done and just seeing how they handled certain situations. I think just to be able to give this character the respect that he deserves and do my best to just carry on this authenticity.”
And at the end of the day, he’s just looking for the ability to continue to learn and grow. This is his second acting job. Which is mind boggling because he does it so effortlessly, he looks like a vet on screen. He’s gotten auditions before and looked at the material and thought, this is a little bit outside of the norm. But at the same time, this is what he wants, the opportunity to show people what he could do.
Seven seasons. A lifetime for a show in the present day. With so many options for viewing content, longevity for any show is a rarity. I had interviewed Bryan Cranston a few years back and he had said one of the things young actors forget these days is that if they were just themselves, then that carries through, which is what producers and directors are looking for. And so far, he has obviously done that very, very successfully.
Evans Behling’s working on a few different projects while continuing to act on All American. He and a buddy of his have been fleshing it out a 30-minute sitcom and the other one is more of an hour-long drama. Evans Behling likes the flow of television,
the structure of television. Smooth with an order to it. I’ve listened to a number of his interviews, and while talking to him for this piece, I found it funny because I was thinking how do I get him to talk about something outside of just playing very mellow and easy. He’s just that smooth. “I may have been a little bit too media trained back
then, and now,” he laughs. “I’m doing my best to open up a little bit more now.”
Opening up is something Evans Behling is trying to do with his fans on social media. He enjoys engaging with fans but sees a side of it where people want to catch you in something. “Gotcha! Not journalism, but gotcha. Like commenting on situations, and so that makes me a little bit more hesitant to be as active as I used to be, for sure. But, I still love it. I still enjoy it. I think it’s a great way for people to connect. I learned so many recipes on TikTok. I don’t know about you, and it’s amazing.
“I want to do my best for whoever’s watching my personal pages, because I can’t help what the writers write for me on a TV or film, right? But if it’s my personal content, I want you to see it and maybe laugh, or crack a smile, or maybe think. But it’s usually the first two because life is too short.”
Having modeled in several campaigns for Armani Beauty, American Eagle, Isotoner, Nike, Finish Line, Jordan Brand, True Religion, Reiss, Kitson, and Microsoft, among many others, it was no shocker to learn that he had a fashion line called DesignedAt5AM, a brand that was around for around five years. It was a clothing line of athleisure wear, “just to kind of inspire people that, like, the mornings aren’t that bad. I’m a morning person, so I don’t mind getting up early and starting my day, whether it’s in the gym or, early call time, whatever it may be. We had a successful five years, five and a half years. And we all decided, as we all started to get busier and busier in our lives, that it was time to set that bird free.”
For now Evans Behling is just happy to be here, happy to be working in an industry he so desired to be a part of. He remains committed to animal welfare programs and is an advocate for mental health awareness while also being actively involved in youth programs with The Boys & Girls Club of America and St. Judes Children’s Hospital. But Los Angeles has become home for him, having bought a house two years ago. His family’s back in Indiana and siblings are all over the country, but once he booked the show, he was going to stay in LA. “I’m so very, incredibly fortunate and thankful for everybody who’s helped me get to this point. Everybody’s always been in my corner, no matter what has been going on in life and rooting for me. And I’ve always appreciated that.”
“... I was rather beside myself , very nervous because this was my second role and I’m working with actors who have decades of experience... ”
photographer Cécile BOKO
stylist Patrick Lynere groomer Peter De Oliveira
The Disordered
By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
We don’t know, for example, if spacetime ordered at the smallest scales, which weirdness of quantum mechanics. during the first sliver of a trillionth very rapidly so that for the most every direction and looked the same was sameness everywhere. Except blip out of nothing due to random quantum effects, maybe in spacetime, sure about that. Then again, we this, either: for some reason those matter than antimatter. That process, ticle type called baryons, is called those baryons started to form structures, structures stars formed. Then the them died in super epic, rather fabulous
They exploded into supernovae, like carbon and oxygen in the process. went on to be the basis for all life planet, one of the structures that the leftovers of supernovae. Eventually, structure that we call life formed life-forms that evolved were relatively a variety of methods of communication. billion of these apes, with various pheomelanin in their skin and hair, colors. The apes also have a lot Some of the ones with less eumelanin now been cruel to the ones with know as “Black people.” We know don’t fully understand the why, but ness or because they are jealous this, Black lives come from the same same supernovae, and the same matter what the lowest-eumelanin
Are Star Stuff and Black Lives Matter—all
DESPITE
THE FACTS OF THIS A LOT THAT WE DON’T KNOW
In science, we tend not to think the subject (us) and object (universe) way of thinking is something we thought, specifically the ideas of study the Andromeda Galaxy, we sian thinkers, seeing it as something and our home in the Milky Way. are in a very technical sense bound It has its own story: it is the Milky neighbor, and its existence does mon origin with the Milky Way. Yet, galaxies will merge because they gravitational potential, which we which they are both slowly spiraling to eventually meet. Don’t worry—this fully underway for another 4 billion the kind of violent chaos that we
Disordered Cosmos
ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A UNIVERSE. WE ARE NOT SURE ABOUT HOW IT STARTED OR WHETHER THERE IS A REASON.
spacetime is ordered or diswhich are dominated by the mechanics. We are pretty sure that trillionth of a second it expanded part it looked the same in same from every position. It Except that particles started to random fluctuations caused by spacetime, we are still not super are not super sure about those particles formed more process, which formed a parcalled baryogenesis. From there structures, and from those the stars got old and some of fabulous fashion.
making heavy elements process. Those elements life on Earth. Earth is a that formed around stars from Eventually, a smaller type of formed on Earth. Some of the relatively hairless apes that use communication. There are about 7 various levels of eumelanin and hair, giving them a range of of different hair textures. eumelanin have for a long time with more, some of whom we know why this is although we but it might be due to lazijealous of our boogie. But despite same baryogenesis, the structure formation. No lowest-eumelanin people say, Black Lives Matter—all of them.
STORY, THERE’S STILL KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE.
in these terms—imagining (universe) to be distinct. This inherit from European René Descartes. When we we record its details as Cartesomething apart from ourselves But at the same time, we bound up with Andromeda. Milky Way’s nearest major not trace back to a comYet, in the future, these two they are bound together in a can think of as a well in spiraling downward, destined worry—this collision isn’t set to be billion years, and it won’t be we imagine when we think
about the word “collision.” This isn’t two cars smashing into each other, quickly and violently. Rather, it is stars and gas and (maybe?) dark matter particles reorganizing themselves into a new formation, guided by their gravitational relation ships with one another.
This story is maybe our story. I say maybe because around the time that this collision occurs, our sun will be dying and our solar system will be destroyed in its death throes. Before its life ends completely, the sun will expand the amount of space it takes up, changing what constitutes the habitable zone of this solar system before eventually destroying the earth entirely. By then, we may have self-immolated anyway, but perhaps we will have just relocated to another solar system in a galaxy far, far away, using technology that is completely unimaginable and even unbelievable to me now. Or perhaps we will be in a solar system closer by, still in the Milky Way, in which case we will be carried along with the collision. The observations that our progeny will use to watch this phenomenon slowly unfold over the course of millions of years will require careful calculations about their location relative to all of the action.
As it is, we already do this. We are always studying our location in the universe, even when we tell ourselves that we are simply looking outward, beyond ourselves. In our attempts to learn more about the structure of galaxies, we spend an enormous amount of time looking at our own and wondering if it is normal. We are still unsure whether the Milky Way is an average spiral galaxy or whether there is something special about it. Even though we are not the center of the universe, because indeed the universe has no center, we are the reason that we bother with the universe at all.
Our location in all of it matters. Some of us wonder about where we belong more than others. I am a descendant of Indigenous Africans whose connection to the land was forcibly severed through kidnapping and the colonization of their bodies. West Africa is enormous and full of so many different peoples. I do not know and will likely never know for sure which Indigenous communities my ancestors came from, so the question of location remains fraught for me. I am also by and for East LA (east of downtown Los Angeles), and forged from Black American, Black Caribbean, Eastern European Jewish, and Jewish American histories. Today I split my time between where I live on the Seacoast region of New Hampshire and where my spouse lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Los Angeles, Cambridge, and New Hampshire are colonial names for the homelands of the Tongva, Pennacook, Wabanaki Confederacy, Pentucket, Abenaki, and Massachuseuk Nations. These locations and the people rooted in them matter in this universe too.
I am also a scientist who as a child terrorized her single mother by persistently questioning everything. I am a born empiricist, someone who by nature (ask my mother!) takes seriously that information should be collected and then provided as a mechanism for explaining why the world
is organized in the ways that it is. This commitment to rationalizing order often seemed to center on my household chores, but I also wanted to know why mathematics so accurately described the universe and how deep that relationship goes. That question, along with the need to have some kind of career because I knew that bills had to be paid somehow, is why I decided at age 10 to become a theoretical physicist. It is also a question that remains the subtext of my work as a theoretical physicist nearly 30 years later.
But I also wanted to know why my third-grade teacher had left all the Black children with two Black parents off the playbill for our class’s forthcoming modernist production of Strega Nona (produced and directed by actress Conchata Ferrell z”l), where I was to play one of Macbeth’s three witches. Mrs. M threw me out of class for asking the question, but at the time I didn’t think of it as a challenge to her authority. I simply wanted to know if she was a racist. I was curious. I had watched my mom’s grassroots organizing combating racism and sexism, I had experienced racism by her side trying to get motel rooms on road trips, and I just wanted to know if I had discovered an instance of it on my own.
When I was 10, I thought that I could keep my curiosity about the mathematics of the universe and the existence and function of racism separate. But it was not to be. A hard lesson I learned as I emerged from my mother’s home into rarified academic settings (first stop: Harvard College) was that learning about the mathematics of the universe could never be an escape from the earthly phenomena of racism and sexism (and now that humanity is moving deeper into our solar system, racism and sexism are no longer earthbound). As I progressed through college, graduate school, and teaching, I learned quickly and painfully that physics and math classrooms are not only scenes of cosmology— the study of the origins and inner workings of the physical universe—but also scenes of society, complete with all of the problems that follow society wherever it goes. There is no escape.
In physics, matter comes in different phases. For example, water and ice are different phases of the same chemical—liquid and solid. A phase transition occurs when matter changes from one phase to another. We see such a phase transition occurring when water evaporates: the liquid becomes gas. When it freezes, the transition is from liquid to solid. Phase transitions also occur in environments that feel far less mundane to us, for example, when a massive star goes supernova and converts from plasma to a neutron star that is some combination of superfluids and solids quite unlike those we find on Earth. Similarly, I had to undergo incredible intellectual phase transitions to conceive of what it meant to go from being a Black girl who loved but did not understand particle physics to a queer agender Black woman who loves—and is one of the chosen few to understand how much we don’t understand—particle physics. My new understanding that society would follow me into the world of physics was also something of a phase transition for me.
WW un i osaku W
When Wunmi Mosaku appears on screen in Sinners, it’s with a stillness that commands the audience to lean in. The psychological horror follows two brothers in the American South during the 1930s, grappling with an evil presence that has been brought upon them. It’s a performance that’s both feral and restrained, one that crackles under the surface. The film has generated a dedicated following—not just for its genre stylings, but for Wunmi’s singular ability to anchor the uncanny in something deeply human.
Sinners is far more than the psychological horror its listed as on IMDB—at least to Wunmi it is. “I learned so much about Yoruba and Ifa culture, history…the religion,” she explains, reflecting back on her time on set. Sinners afforded Wunmi the opportunity to gain an even deeper understanding of New Orleans, “the myth and mythologies” that shaped the narrative of one of America’s oldest cities.thinking about blood or jump scares. “she says.
“I had forgotten it (the horrror) because of the heart. The heart was still 100% there, even with the scary stuff. There’s always heart, there’s always meaning.”
That seems to be the continuous thread woven throughout all her work: an invitation to always look deeper, to question, to sit with discomfort— and maybe, to come out the other side seeing things a little differently. It’s that deeper emotional undercurrent—the mythology, the legacy, the inheritance—that drew her in. For Wunmi, Sinners is horror with purpose. “There’s a reason it’s not horror for horror sake. There is—there is depth there. So I feel like, yes, there might be things that might make you jump and…want to shut your eyes. But ultimately, I hope that…it will force you to ask questions and feel things.”
Wunmi Mosaku—thoughtful, unpretentious, and grounded. It’s the same steadiness her presence brings to every performance, from her breakout role in Damilola, Our Loved Boy to the critically acclaimed His House and the Marvel multiverse hit series Loki. Her choices are often bold, but always rooted in something real.
Her journey to this point started with a small but significant act: a £30 bet on potential. Her mother took a chance, giving her the money to audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Smiling, Wunmi reflects on how her mother’s support drove her to success. “If it wasn’t for all those people, she [mother] may not have been like, here’s £0 pounds try out for the top drama school in the country.” That small gesture—equal parts faith and risk—set Wunmi on the path toward one of the most respected acting careers of her generation.
BUT—Wunmi didn’t grow up seeing acting as a viable career—especially not in her household. “I had come from a very scientific household,” she explains. “Just, you know, on a practical level, like doing animal study…getting into a ton of student debt.” She remembers feeling like “maybe I’ve lost the plot here because I don’t know why…I don’t know how this works.”
For her, drama school changed that. “I am grateful for my time there,” she says. “I’m grateful for
the opportunity to learn and to…to have a craft.” It gave her a sense of direction she hadn’t before. “Because before that, I think I was, you know, just improvising it, you know, being an actor. Like, it was, it wasn’t a—it wasn’t a real—it wasn’t even a real job in my mind before drama school.”
And then came the break: “I’m sure you’ve heard this, the Albert Finney Daddy Warbucks story. And that’s how I heard about drama school.” RADA enabled her to connect with the right people. “I got an agent, was introduced to casting directors, like I was able to get a career because of it. So I will never, never not give it its props for that.” Still, it wasn’t easy. “It was hard, though. It was hard. I was a child and really didn’t understand what 18 [was] like. I just turned 18 and [was] away from home in a very different environment. It was difficult.”
How does Wunmi navigate the difficult roles she takes on? Reflecting on her role in Call Jane, the 2022 film about a secret network of women helping others access abortions during pre-Roe America. “When I signed on for it, I didn’t think—I had no idea that had dire repercussions in the future.”
“I thought it was just a loosely-historical piece.” For Mosaku, the timing was jarring. “I learned a lot about the American political systems during the pandemic,” she recalls, “I had no idea Roe v. Wade could be overturned.”
Wunmi is constantly driven by stories that make her feel something—that tend to challenge her and others around her to be better, to think more deeply about the contexts we live in. “I want to do the thing that makes me—feel good,” she explains. “I feel like, as long as people are being inspired, being around you then, you’re doing your work right.”
That complexity is something she’s become known for—women carrying quiet storms, balancing resilience with vulnerability. It’s what made her turn in His House so memorable. It’s what gave depth to Hunter B-15 in Loki, a role that started out tough and enigmatic but slowly peeled back to reveal something much more human. This is the same drive that drove her to audition for Sinners in the first place. “In the first seven pages I was like, ‘wow,” thanking Ryan Coogler for “writing something that’s got me chomping at the bit to be a part of it.”
It’s clear that for Wunmi, storytelling isn’t just about performance—it’s about legacy, meaning, and honoring where we come from while imagining where we go next.
All the more reason to root for her.
Photographer: Ashley Randall
Stylist: Shameelah Hicks
Hair: Vernon Francois
Makeup: Uzo
Jameela Jamil
By Moonah Ellison
Jameela Jamil. Actor. Mental health activist .
“...I’vealwaysbeenveryopen.Mylifesortoffeelslikeitresets everyJanuarythefirstsomyjourneysortofbeginsevery singleyearbecauseIfeellikeI’mchangingsorapidly...”
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An email address. A sent video. An audition. Weeks later, national television. So it goes for Jameela Jamil, the London-born PakistaniIndian actress first seen here in the States as Tahini in the Golden Globe-nominated NBC sitcom, The Good Place, opposite Ted Danson and Kristen Bell [2016-2020]. She’s just wrapped up a role in Netflix’ People We Meet on Vacation and is a voice in the new Pixar ‘toon, Elio, in theaters this June.
A defining moment that started it all came to Jamil while reading a book by Danny Wallace called, The Yes Man, and it changed the trajectory of Jamil’s entire life, a read that haunts every decision she makes.
“He [Danny Wallace] wrote this book about a man with depression who decides one day to say yes to everything, and after reading that book, I'm very easily influenced,” insists Jamil, 39. “I started to do the same, and I'm going to that audition and showing up and saying yes. And then when I got the job, doing something so terrifying, so out of my comfort zone with me saying yes, and then trying out for the radio and trying out as a writer, and then moving to the United States, and then going to the audition for The Good Place even though I had no experience as an actor.
“And then, showing up as an advocate and speaking at the UN with no experience as an orator who has no background in politics. My life has been hugely dominated by Danny Wallace, his voice in my head to just say yes. And so I show up to things that I'm not necessarily qualified for, or I'm not prepared for and along the way, I have found out skills that I didn't know I had. I've also found weaknesses that I didn't know I had, but so much of the experience of being a woman or anyone in this world being defined at a very young age and pigeonholed. And so not only does the world never get to discover what we're capable of, but we never get to discover what we're capable of sometimes.”
Jamil has learned about who she really is within the last decade, really. “I would have been so sad for me to define my trajectory at 18, the way that we are encouraged to. And
I'm still trying new things. I'm still scaring myself and still embarrassing myself. I think the last two decades of my life have very much been about embracing the adventure, embracing the failure, embracing the potential for embarrassment. And, and utilizing them as a way to be either a lesson or a funny story.”
Those failures, those embarrassments, those triumphs, have all culminated into Jamil’s new podcast launched in May, Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil , a comedy podcast celebrating the most cringeworthy, disastrous, and in hindsight, hilarious stories of Jamil's guests’ lives that led to comically awful consequences.
“I think the world just needs a bit of levity right now. Everything is so dark. In fact, I feel confident that our brains are not designed for this much anxiety. And so right now, it feels a little bit like we're on the Titanic and it's sinking. And I'm the orchestra playing everyone out, temporarily until things get back to some sort of equilibrium.”
With Wrong Turns, Jamil decided to put her energy into comedy, offer people respite, and understands how that can be frivolous. “It was comedy that carried me through some of the darkest moments in my youth. And in my life now.” She wanted to make a comedy podcast that celebrated disaster, without making it something that has to always be inspiring. Or always have a meaningful silver lining or great pearls of wisdom. We don't have to turn everything into “some sort of inspiration porn moment on Instagram.
“I think we have been doused and drenched in toxic positivity in a way that I think is quite alienating. And so I wanted to bring together a lot of the funniest people that I've ever met to tell me their obscene, absurd stories where there was no great growth gained…. Even though it's just comedy, how nice it feels to be able to admit to your cock ups without having to materialize something profound out of it. And that, to me, is exactly what I wanted to achieve with the podcast. It's just making people feel less alone, giving people escapism and something fun to talk about at the watercooler.
“I believe in a sustainable long term fight, and that means having respite occasionally from all the misery and the terror and the stress. I think there are many activists in the past who have cited that joy is a rebellious act in and of itself. And so just infusing a little bit of joy and respite into people's lives, I think is important to keep their energy up for what is going to be a very long fight.”
When I’m talking to Jamil, the positivity just oozes out of her and I can sense the strength and the space that she comes from. There's always a silver lining in her vision, in her life, in everything she touches or speaks of. Let's navigate this differently and make it work. Jamil has clung to having a sense of humor, and it's not even necessarily a positive lens. She looks at the world through a comedic lens, always looking for the funny in everything. And that has carried her through. She’s always looking for the ridiculous and the obscene in every situation. And that's how she maintains a relatively positive attitude.
Jamil will next lend her voice to Pixar's Elio this June, starring Zoe Saldana. “Elio is a really beautiful film about hope, which I think is a story that children really need right now, because there's not many places you can look around and find it. And I think that the rage of this world is pouring out into the streets, and it's no longer something that you can even really protect children from, because it's just amorphous. It's everywhere. And so what I like about this film is that it tells you that in order to make a difference, you don't have to be a celebrity. You don't have to be someone of huge influence, that everyone has within them the power to make change.”
Although social media has been a huge platform to get Jamil’s content and positivity out into the universe and to her followers, the public, it does have a dangerous side and she feels strongly that it should be banned for anyone under 16 years of age, like the recently passed law in Australia.
“It should be treated like alcohol and cigarettes. I think we will look back on it at this time and not be able to believe, we allowed teenagers to participate in this so that we as adults spent so much time. I recently saw a study that said, the average human spends the equivalent of 88 days a year on their phone. And that is such a humbling and terrifying statistic. I think it has destroyed the sense of community in the world. I think it leaves us with a false sense of community that then, of course, dragged us away from each other in person. I think we've lost our empathy, our ability to read emotional cues, our humanity.
“We sort of struggle with the illusion of explanatory depth because we're constantly consuming
soundbites and headlines, and we've lost the ability to actually dig deeper and do our own research. We think that we're critical thinkers because we've read multiple different headlines, but we've not really read much into any subject. I think that misinformation is now more prevalent than information on social media… anyone under the age of 18 should not be allowed anywhere near it. I think it's so dark, and I have
watched it pollute our society. And if you look at the suicide rates and the violence and the selfharm and the eating disorder rise in children, it's a direct correlation with the rise of social media.”
That direct correlation touches on two of Jamil’s biggest advocacies: mental health awareness and body image positivity, especially with women. You see, Jamil doesn’t bullshit you, she takes action, a refreshing change of pace to those celebs who preach and then click send. Jamil the mental health activist. In 2018, Jamil launched a platform called I Weigh—a platform and community of changemakers who come together to share ideas, experiences and ultimately mobilize activism; exploring social issues that stem from mental health to climate change to the representation of marginalized groups. In April 2020, the I Weigh with Jameela Jamil podcast launched with Jamil speaking to guests about their own experiences and stories with their mental health. The podcast featured guests such as Gloria Steinem, Reese Witherspoon, Jane Fonda, Billy Porter, and Demi Lovato. (Reader note: The I Weigh podcast ended in November 2024.)
In Fall 2024, off the success of I Weigh, Jamil started Move For Your Mind, which works to democratize exercise and make it more accessible for all bodies, while promoting movement for mental health. Move For Your Mind publishes original content: interviews, editorial stories, BTS, mini docs, round-table discussions, informational assets and more across all social platforms like Instagram, X, and YouTube. They host events globally with panel discussions, fireside chats, movement sessions, and community walks.
“I always think it's by design that we are distracted, and made to feel as though we are supposed to fight time and gravity forever. We're [women] given these ridiculous double standards that men aren't given. And we're not taught to preserve our bodies and protect our lives. And I think it's by design to take our eye off the ball, that it seems as though the more we need to fight, the more beauty standards are thrown at us, and the more behavioral standards are thrown at us. There's a deep correlation between beauty standards being so constrictive and the swing towards conservatism. That I think is a pattern worth investigating. History doesn't always repeat itself. But as they say, it does often rhyme. Well, I think we should look back, through history and recognize it as a pattern here.
Move For Your Mind is continuing to create content and produce materials for mental health awareness. Jamil stresses the importance of people coming together in a community, getting offline and getting in-person. They did a bunch of events last year and the year before that around exercising for your mental health. And they were successful. “We just want to keep that conversation going, continue to encourage women to learn self-defense as a form of cardio and exercise, amongst many other things,” insists Jamil. “It's another safe space on the internet where you can learn about your mental health without feeling like it's a trap door into being sold something to make you less ugly.”
Regarding the future of Move For Your Mind events, Jamil plans to take these globally. So far she has hosted events in England, New York, Los Angeles, Australia, but she would love to take it around Europe, Asia. “This is a universal issue,” says Jamil, who splits her time between London and the States and who has been in a relationship with the singer-songwriter James Blake for the past 10 years. “And so I feel as though hopefully we'll be able to continue to take it around the world.”
We hope so too, Jameela.
Iwouldsaymyjourneyinto theentertainmentindustry startedthedaythatIwasstreetscoutedbyatelevisionproducer inapubwhoI’dhadasortof jokeyargumentwith,andhe askedmeifIwouldeverbeon television.Andthenhetoldme itwas1,000poundsaday,and myintegrityflewoutofthe window...”
Boohoo jacket, dress
Vintage Fusion jewelry
Valentina Rangoni boots
photographer Michael Muller
photo producer Selah Tennberg
stylist Estelle Aporongao @ Exclusive Artists
hair Richard Norman Grant @ Exclusive Artists
makeup Christine Tirado
location Moxy Downtown Los Angeles
“... my life sort of feels like it resets every January... ”
Jameela Jamil