actor

Author Harlan Coben, known for gripping thrillers that place ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, has provided enough source material for book-to-screen adaptations on Netflix that it merits its own landing page. The latest screen translation of his work begins with a parent’s worst nightmare.

“I Will Find You” follows an imprisoned father wrongfully convicted of brutally murdering his son. When he learns his child may still be alive, it sets off a harrowing, twist-filled search for the truth. User discretion is advised as to whether that makes it the perfect binge for the Father’s Day weekend. “I Will Find You” is also the first series in Coben’s partnership with the streamer to take place in the U.S. — other projects have been set in countries across Europe, including the U.K., France and Spain, in four different languages. Coben and showrunner Robert Hull stopped by Guest Spot to discuss the eight-episode series.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our streaming recommendations include a series of brief historical videos that honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and a Netflix documentary that revisits Michael Jackson’s 2005 child molestation trial.

And if you’re a fan of “House of the Dragon,” which returns Sunday with its third season, check out coverage from Tracy Brown, our resident expert on all matters related to Targaryen family drama. She assembled a guide to refresh your memory on the events of the second season and spoke with Emma D’Arcy ahead of the new season.

Keep on reading (and watching). See you next week.

—Yvonne Villarreal

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“250 to 250”/@twofiftytotwofifty (YouTube)

In the spirit of the old CBS “Bicentennial Minutes” (the spirit of the old CBS for that matter) — which ran in commercial breaks from July 4, 1974, until Dec. 31, 1976, and featured celebrities telling a story from “200 years ago today” — historian and podcaster Heather Cox Richardson has mounted a series of similarly timed semiquincentennial videos, as “250 to 250.” Narrated by an array of scholars, politicians, activists, public servants and others, its overarching theme is that “the story of America has been one of the constant efforts of Americans — from all races, ethnicities, genders, and abilities — to make real the belief that we are all created equal and have a right to have a say in our democracy.” (It can’t be said too often.) Segments (there are 25 as of this writing) include the Constitutional Convention, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the Erie Canal, the AIDS Memorial Quilt, Man o’ War, Eisenhower’s “D-day: In Case of Failure” statement, Rita Moreno, the Everglades, the Social Security Act, Fannie Lou Hamer, An Wang (the inventor of magnetic core memory), Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” and L.A. Times reporter Rubén Salazar, killed by a sheriff’s rubber bullet during the 1970 National Chicano Moratorium March Against the Vietnam War. — Robert Lloyd

A still from “Michael Jackson: The Verdict” of Mark Geragos, who briefly served as the singer’s defense attorney.

(Netflix)

“Michael Jackson: The Verdict” (Netflix)

Moviegoers embraced “Michael,” propelling Antoine Fuqua’s film about the global superstar to become the highest-grossing music biography in movie history. But reviewers and others have continued to criticize the absence of references to the child molestation allegations that continually shadowed the singer. Netflix’s documentary “Michael Jackson: The Verdict,” however, brought it into focus. Directed by Nick Green, it chronicles the 2005 child molestation trial that threatened to derail Jackson’s career after a young boy accused him of abuse. The three-part series uses archival footage and new interviews with attorneys involved in the case, journalists, fans and members of Jackson’s inner circle to explore the trial, which sparked international attention, and its aftermath. Although the project is unlikely to affect Jackson’s popularity much, some of the revelations uncovered during the investigation are disturbing. — Greg Braxton

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Sam Worthington as David Burroughs, a wrongfully imprisoned father, in “I Will Find You.”

(Christos Kalohoridis/Netflix)

What would you do to save your child? “I Will Find You” follows David Burroughs (Sam Worthington), a father serving a life sentence for the gruesome killing his toddler son. But when his ex-sister-in-law Rachel Mills (Britt Lower), an out-of-work reporter, presents him with evidence that suggests his young son, Matthew, is still alive, it sets in motion a daring prison escape and a high-stakes rescue mission in search of the truth. And that’s just one of the parent-child dynamics that fuel the series to illustrate, as Coben told us, how most parents are “trying to do what we think is best for our child — and that could lead to greatness or it could lead to disaster.” Over a recent video call, Coben and showrunner Robert Hull discussed the chilling premise and the book moment that was most challenging to bring to screen. Beware of spoilers ahead. — Y.V.

Harlan, Netflix wanted to make this before you even finished the book. How did that shape or intensify your normal writing process? Is it hard to turn off the noise of the pressure that carries?

Coben: Actually, no. In terms of writing the novel, I’ve learned that the worst novels are the ones that you write thinking you’re going to make a great TV series or a movie. If you write a novel going, “Ooh, I can’t wait for it [to be adapted],” it’s going to stink — trust me. My caveat to that is, though, I don’t care about making changes. I don’t have fidelity to the novel. Once I knew it was going to be already a TV series, I made sure I cut off any thoughts of that, and just told Robby, “Your job is going to be to worry about how to adapt whatever I do.” The way it started was Robby and I had met, and we wanted to do something together at Netflix. We wanted to maybe do the first one that was going to be filmed [and take place in the U.S.], and weren’t sure which to do. I pitched the idea to Robby as I started writing the book, and Robby’s eyes lit up. We went to Netflix and [executives] were like which book is this? I’m “Well, it’s not a book yet; it’s a third of a book right now. I’ll finish it while Robby’s working on the pilot and the adaptation.

Robby, what pulled you into this story?

Hull: As a father myself, I would easily give my life to save my children. What would be terrifying is to not have that opportunity. And Harlan created this character [in that situation] — he says very early on in the book, “A father’s job is to protect my son, and I didn’t do that.” He’s [David] living in this spiritual prison, regardless. And in this day and age, to have someone come and say, “Hey, there might be a way for you to correct the past, to change the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to you” — I thought that was just an incredible way to start a story.

Britt Lower as Rachel Mills and Sam Worthington as David Burroughs in “I Will Find You.”

(Netflix)

Was there a moment from the book, or a twist, that was most challenging to bring to screen, or one that you were most excited about?

Hull: It’s actually the same moment: When Rachel comes [to the prison] and shows David the photograph very early on. That is a scene that has to establish who Rachel is, establish her back story, her pathos, her connection to David, introduce the mystery, David’s reaction to the mystery. There is so much going on. You have to check off in three pages and in the hands of possibly actors other than Sam and Britt, that could be a real train wreck of a scene. Sam’s reaction when he first sees that photo is just unmistakably incredible, and you don’t have to write it. He tells you in three or four seconds the last five years of what he’s been through, and the possibility that maybe things can be different just by staring at a photo, which is incredible.

Coben: That’s one of my favorite scenes too. Also the ending, making sure that landed and gave the emotional punch that I wanted and I felt when I was writing the book. I think we delivered it less-was-more there. It closes it and it leaves it, so you can interpret it your own way, and you can bring it. We were thinking, it’d be really interesting to ask people a year from now, “Where do you think those characters are?”

Let’s talk about that part of the ending — so spoiler warning starts here. The book goes more deeply into how Rachel and David’s relationship evolves into a romance by the end. The series is more vague — we see them hold hands. Robby, how did you want that moment to play?

Hull: If you want them to be together and you’re hoping they are, then I’ve done my job right. I actually don’t want to answer that question because the relationship is so complex and so dynamic. Early on, we didn’t want the traditional two-hander, where [it’s] “Oh, now they’re going to fall in love, now they’re going to come together.” No, Rachel’s her own character with her own story and pathos, and at the end, what they’ve been through together, if that moment is the promise of something more, great; if it’s the promise of “look what we’ve been through,” that’s OK too. That’s what I was going for, at least.

Do you think there’s more of David’s story to tell? Would you want a Season 2 to explore what happens next?

Coblen: I’m probably the only writer who will say this: No, not really. I don’t do Season 2’s unless I think they’ll be better than Season 1’s. Let me do new stories instead. This is a complete story to me. Now, if somebody says to me, “I’ve come up with an idea that might work, that could be as compelling as being [in prison] for five years for the murder of your child for the same character? I never say never. I’ve learned that in my career. But we’ll see. I don’t think so.

Robby’s like, “but I want a Season 2.”

Hull: The moment he said, “If you can come up with a story better than the one we told …,” I was like, “Oh, guess we’re not doing a Season 2.”

Before I let you go, what have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone?

Coben: “Your Friends & Neighbors” [Apple TV] by my pal Jonathan Tropper and my other pal Jon Hamm. I’m proud of the job they’ve done on that show and I’m happy for them.

Hull: “Run Away,” ’Safe,” “Fool Me Once.” [Each are a Coben adaptation for Netflix]. Those are the three I’m digging right now.

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Unlike the movies, where directors get the glory, TV directors sit lower in the hierarchy, below creators, producers and actors. In most series, which might employ several over a season, they are interchangeable — which isn’t to say they aren’t valuable, transforming words on a page into a four-dimensional living thing. But a director hired to helm a pilot, as James Burrows, who died Friday at 85, was again and again — almost as a lucky charm — helps set the tone for the series. Jake Kasdan’s input was crucial to the feel (and philosophy) of “Freaks and Geeks,” as Hiro Murai’s was to “Atlanta” (and most recently “Widow’s Bay”). In some cases a director is a co-creator in all but title and union affiliation. A show might subsequently pass to later hands, but they’ll be honoring its established look and feel.

But Burrows was more than a little well known. If you sat through the opening credits of “Taxi,” whose pilot he directed along with 74 other episodes — and why wouldn’t you, with its pleasing Bob James theme and Checker Cab crossing the Queensboro Bridge — you would have seen his name for weeks on end. You might have noticed it on “Cheers,” which he co-created and for which he directed 236 episodes, or on “Will & Grace” (246 episodes), or “Frasier,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “Caroline in the City,” “Two and a Half Men,” “2 Broke Girls,” “The Neighborhood” or, just last year, “Mid-Century Modern” — all series whose pilots he directed. You might have caught it on episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Phyllis,” “Rhoda” or “Laverne & Shirley,” until you began to think that maybe there was nobody else directing network multi-camera situation comedies, the most human of television formats and a specialty from which he rarely strayed.

And you might have seen him as himself this year in the third season of Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback,” as the man she enlists to save a television pilot from hacky AI jokes. “Surprising only comes from a group of writers huddled in a corner, beating themselves up to beat out a better joke,” he says.

“As director, I am there to help create the ensemble, to do everything I can to foster a community among the company, and to train a new set of actors to behave as a group and respect one another,” he wrote in his 2022 memoir, “Directed by James Burrows.” He famously took the cast of “Friends” to Las Vegas before the show premiered in order to foster bonds in a soon-to-be-impossible state of anonymity. “I guess I have a gift for creating families,” he told the New York Times in 2023.

But if “Friends” refers to the characters and the people who play them, it includes the audience too. Burrows’ talent was to midwife a real relationship between the viewer and the viewed, “You want to go where everybody knows your name,” runs the “Cheers” theme, and where you know everyone’s name. The families he excelled at creating were yours as well, and one watched knowing that these things happened in real time in real space, and that you could be in the room, if you made the effort. Tickets were available.

The son of Abe Burrows, who wrote or co-wrote the books for “Guys and Dolls,” “Can-Can” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and co-created the radio comedy “Duffy’s Tavern” — set, like “Cheers,” in a bar, though the younger Burrows denied any influence — he’d been directing dinner theater when he had the idea to write to Mary Tyler Moore, whom he’d met on the set of a never-opened “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” musical. His stage experience (and his Yale School of Drama degree, presumably) proved eminently transferable to the proscenium reality of multi-camera situation comedy.

What Burrows shows share — the ones we remember, at least, out of many we don’t — is that they’re fundamentally joyful. They lack cynicism. They’re expressive of their times without being showily edgy. They walk a line between freshness and familiarity, which makes one want to return week after week. They may push an envelope — “Friends” was something new, after all — but subtly. We can assume, given his reputation and the fact that he could have retired on “Cheers” alone, that he liked what he did and did what he liked, and regard his choice of projects as a form of personal expression in itself, the basis of a body of work that has and will live on.

What is the angriest acting performance you’ve ever seen?

Maybe it’s Joe Pesci in “Goodfellas.” (“Funny how? Do I amuse you?”) Perhaps it’s James Caan kicking the stuffing out of his ne’er-do-well brother-in-law Carlo in “The Godfather.” John Goodman enforcing the rules of bowling in “The Big Lebowski”? It’s in the conversation.

Did Ben Kingsley in “Gandhi” cross your mind? Probably not.

The 82-year-old Oscar winner thinks it should.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Don Logan or Mahatma Gandhi? The answer isn’t as plain as you might think.

Not long ago, I spoke with Kingsley just before an Emmy FYC event for “Wonder Man,” the enjoyable new Marvel TV series that finds him revisiting Trevor Slattery, the washed-up, drug-addled actor he first played in 2013’s “Iron Man 3.”

“Wonder Man” follows struggling actor Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), trying to land a big break in Hollywood while keeping his superpowers hidden. Trevor befriends Simon. Initially he has ulterior motives, but soon becomes Simon’s mentor, turning the series into a look at the indignities that actors face while pursuing their profession.

Taking notes while watching the show’s eight episodes, I wrote, “Ben Kingsley’s seething anger is everything.”

You may remember Kingsley’s bullying and badgering and swaggering menace playing the underworld sociopath in Jonathan Glazer’s 2000 crime-thriller “Sexy Beast,” still my favorite Kingsley performance, one that earned him a supporting actor Oscar nomination. (He lost to Jim Broadbent in “Iris.”)

Is that kind of boiling rage as fun to play as it is to watch?

“If the expression of rage or indignation is completely dramatically justified and that expression of indignation is of enormous benefit to the tribe, yes,” Kingsley answers.

(Larsen&Talbert / For The Times)

Kingsley says Itzhak Stern, Oskar Schindler’s loyal aide and factory manager in “Schindler’s List,” was, “bless him,” all about “contained rage.”

“And a colleague of mine who saw ‘Gandhi’ said, ‘That’s the angriest performance I’ve ever seen on screen,’” Kingsley continues. “That righteous indignation propelled him, and it can be expressed in many ways. Sometimes the safety valve is efficient enough to allow it to come through language and gesture, and sometimes the safety valve can’t hold it.

“That was Don Logan in ‘Sexy Beast.’ No safety valve.”

Let’s circle back to that thought of how rage can help the “tribe.” In “Wonder Man,” Trevor proclaims that “acting is not a job. It’s a calling, the single most consequential thing anyone could ever do with their life.”

“I would broaden the definition and refine it back to its origins,” Kingsley says when I ask if he shares Trevor’s view on acting. “There are images, thoughts and threads that I find nourishing and sustaining, and I treasure them. The tribal storyteller is a very consequential figure in the tribe, and if the mantle of the tribal storyteller falls upon that person’s shoulders, that is the single most consequential thing that person can do in their lives.”

“Trevor expresses it quite differently, and that’s fine,” Kingsley says. “That’s in the script. I honor the lines. But for me personally, as a rather convoluted answer, the tribal storyteller is the hand I hold and the baton I want passed on to me. Maybe it has. I hope I’m worthy, but it’s …” Kingsley widens his eyes and whispers, “Wow.”

“It is the single most consequential thing I can do with my life.”

Corey Feldman was rushed to an L.A. hospital after his plane arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday.

The “Stand by Me” star, 54, started feeling unwell on his flight from Chicago to Los Angeles and was met by medical professionals at his gate. A doctor happened to be on board and checked on the former child star while in the air, but it was unclear what the issue was.

Doctors at a Los Angeles hospital were able to rule out gallstones, and on Tuesday, a representative for the “Goonies” star told The Times that they cracked the case, and Feldman is on the mend.

“Corey is doing much better and is now out of the hospital,” a rep for the actor and singer said. “They determined it was a really bad case of food poisoning (which no one ever wants to have on a plane!). Corey wants to thank everyone for all of the love and well wishes. He has definitely seen a lot of the messages and really appreciates everything.”

As for what soured Feldman’s stomach, his rep said, “Corey is vegetarian so I can definitely confirm it was not shrimp!”

Feldman was in Chicago to participate in a 40th anniversary celebration of the 1986 classic “Stand by Me,” one of the earlier films that put Feldman on the map as a young actor. He appeared at anniversary events alongside co-stars Jerry O’Connell and Wil Wheaton.

Feldman is dropping the single “What Am I Here 4” on Monday and is slated to perform two birthday shows, on July 25 at the Arrow Room in Rancho Cucamonga and on July 26 at the Garden Amp in Garden Grove.

Seth Rogen and James Franco were once an inseparable comedic duo.

But following several women’s allegations of sexual misconduct by Franco in 2018, the pair has been publicly estranged. Rogen recently told the New York Times that he hadn’t spoken to Franco “in a long time” and didn’t plan to work with him.

“Nothing has changed since the last time I talked about all this,” Rogen said, “and I haven’t worked with him in a really long time and I have no plans to.”

The actors got their start in Hollywood on the cult classic TV show “Freaks and Geeks.” At the time, Rogen was 16 and Franco was 21. As they continued to make their way through the industry, they became known for a string of well-loved early-2000s and 2010s comedies including “This Is the End,” “The Disaster Artist” and “Pineapple Express.”

Franco’s illustrious movie career came to a halt when five women, including several of his acting students, accused him of sexual exploitation. Some of the allegations included removing protective plastic guards covering actresses’ vaginas during the filming of intimate scenes, and Franco getting angry when actresses didn’t want to go topless.

Two of the accusers filed a class action in 2019, claiming sex discrimination, sexual harassment, fraudulent business practices and intimidation. Franco settled the case in 2021 for $2.2 million.

Rogen and Franco’s friendship has been a point of contention for the actor, as Rogen continues to climb the ranks in Hollywood. Just last year, “The Studio,” a show that Rogen created, writes, stars in, directs and produces won 13 Emmys and is currently filming its second season.

Rogen previously said he regretted saying that he could work with Franco again after the allegations surfaced.

“What I can say is that I despise abuse and harassment and I would never cover or conceal the actions of someone doing it, or knowingly put someone in a situation where they were around someone like that,” Rogen said in 2021, in an interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times. “I also look back to that interview in 2018 where I comment that I would keep working with James, and the truth is that I have not and I do not plan to right now.”

The actor is still hesitant to detail the nuances of his friendship with Franco. He told the New York Times that it’s “a very personal thing.”

“There’s the public-facing side of it, which I’ve spoken about, and I have the same stance publicly that I’ve had, and I think the proof is in the pudding — I have not worked with him in years,” Rogen said. “But the personal side of it is just so nuanced, and it involves people that I don’t know if I should be dragging into this.”

Some people are still processing “Euphoria’s” evolution away from its roots as a gritty drama that explored highly mature and dark teenage experiences to, in its final season, a fever dream-esque look at adulthood that played like a full-blown neo-noir crime thriller. But another show’s creative transformation has taken the stage now.

The third season of AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” brings a reset to the captivating world of bloodsuckers. While the first two seasons adapt the original 1976 novel, relying heavily on the recollection of Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) as he recounts his centuries-long life and romance with Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) to a journalist, the new season shifts narrative focus and perspective over to Lestat, who transforms into a charismatic frontman of a glam-rock band to publicly set the record straight. As such, the series has been retitled “The Vampire Lestat,” which is the name of Rice’s second novel. For this week’s Guest Spot, I spoke with showrunner Rolin Jones about the show’s rebranding and Reid’s commitment to the musical challenge.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, TV critic Robert Lloyd steers us away from the usual streaming options to recommend a man’s video journal that documents his quest to travel the world by foot, while culture critic Mary McNamara suggests a new British comedy about codependent BFFs navigating the sort of tricky development that would end most friendships.

Speaking of endings to relationships, it was announced this week that “Doctor Who” showrunner Russell T Davies is exiting the series (again) seven months after Disney+ decided not to continue its partnership with the BBC to distribute the long-running sci-fi series. BBC also announced it will not air the show’s previously announced Christmas special this year. Lloyd, a longtime Whoverse follower, is a voice of calm through it all. He shares his thoughts on why the new questions swirling around the franchise don’t necessarily have to be cause for alarm — evolution is part of the show’s essence, he reminds us. Elsewhere in current events, if you’ve been curious (… sure, that’s the right word!) about the UFC Freedom 250 live event that will unfold in an oversize cage on the White House South Lawn in celebration of Trump’s 80th birthday and the country’s 250th anniversary — and will be streamed live on Paramount+ — check out our explainer about the controversy — and lawsuit — it has sparked.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another Matthew Rhys story to read so I can maintain my executive membership in the fan club. See you next week!

— Yvonne Villarreal

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@AlexanderCampbellOfficial (YouTube)

In February 2023, Alexander Campbell, then 27, set out from Sydney to walk west around the world. Currently he is somewhere around Albania, having traversed, among other places, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Bulgaria. He’s been documenting his progress on camera all along the way, but it wasn’t until Day 938, in Georgia, that he began posting the longer, “uneventful” videos that make his channel such a singular, meditative, even hypnotic, form of vicarious travel. Walking alone to the sound of his own footsteps, through sun, rain, sleet, snow and dark of night, over mountains and deserts, through forests and fields, he becomes a character in a peripatetic, nearly one-man show. The occasionally encountered friendly local will warn him about wolves or bears or the hunters who might mistake him for one, though he meets more dogs than people. (He calls them all “Buddy,” warily.) Titles include “I Slept in a Barn Full of Stray Dogs,” “I Got Caught in a Snowstorm With Nowhere to Sleep” and “Something Was Out There in the Forest.”) — Robert Lloyd

Jemaine Clement, left, and Nicola Walker in “Alice and Steve.”

(Lara Cornell / Hulu)

“Alice and Steve” (Hulu, Disney+)

What would you do if your ex-turned-longtime bestie slept with your 26-year-old daughter? Well, Alice (“The Split’s” Nicola Walker) 100% loses her mind. Sure, during a drunken convo at a bar, she did tell Steve (“Flight of the Conchords’” Jemaine Clement) that he could have any woman he wanted, but she most certainly wasn’t talking about Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith). Having just returned home after breaking up with her boyfriend, Izzy decides that Steve, now bunking down on the sofa, is “strangely hot” enough for a little rebound sex and then a romantic relationship. And Steve, though initially regretful and more than a little shell-shocked, decides this is what he wants too. “I really like her,” he says by way of sheepish explanation. It leaves Alice no choice but to hilariously alternate between screaming and scheming as she tries to put a stop to the proceedings even at the expense of her marriage, her career, her friendship with Steve and her self-respect.

Clement’s sad-sack charm successfully boosts the leap of faith required to keep Steve from becoming an oblivious creep, but the show belongs to Walker. Her Alice becomes a blazing embodiment of the emotional maelstrom inside every woman who is expected to somehow put on a supportive, understanding face no matter how outrageous or impossible the situation. The laughs she elicits are exhalations of shock, recognition and relief. We can’t all ditch the high road for pure, luxurious fury, but it’s mighty fun to watch someone who does. — Mary McNamara

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Sam Reid as Lestat De Lioncourt in “The Vampire Lestat.”

(Sophie Giraud / AMC)

If you thought posting cryptic digs about an ex on your social media accounts as a way to cope with unresolved emotions was petty, this TV vampire may have you beat. The wild new, music-infused season of “The Vampire Lestat” (formerly “Interview With the Vampire”) revolves around Lestat de Lioncourt (Reid) on an elaborate mission to tell his side of the story after his ex-lover, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson) published a scandalous memoir — with the help of journalist — that detailed their turbulent romance. In his bid to control the narrative, Lestat becomes an immortal glam rocker who launches a music tour and enlists the same journalist — newly turned into a vampire — to direct and film a music documentary about his life. The result is a flamboyant seven-episode season that blends rock-opera style performances (the season will feature 20 original songs) with personal reflections from its flashy frontman. As it enters its second week of release on AMC and AMC+, creator and showrunner Rolin Jones spoke over video call recently to discuss the show’s creative pivot and more. — Y.V.

To kick off the new season, there was an immersive premiere concert event at the historic Beacon Theatre in New York City earlier this month. Was that a surreal experience? Did you feel like a music manager?

I have a hard time talking about the work — the selling of the work, all that kind of stuff. I want to finish my edit, and then I want to like disappear at the Arctic. I knew we were doing this and I knew that there were like fans from all over the world flying in for it — some who didn’t have tickets. I knew there were people who had worked on the show from Seasons 1, 2, and 3 who got on a plane, asked for a ticket, and made a pilgrimage there. I was really moved by it. It was about as good as these things can ever be. It felt really beautiful. It felt like Vampire Church. It was pretty cool. And Sam — “surprising” is not the word because I’ve worked with him for a long time — was way better than he should have been. It’s incredible.

In this TV landscape, taking a show and giving it a new title as it enters its third season is a daring move. The series moves focus to the second book in Rice’s oeuvre. And while it continues the story of these characters, at the same time, it feels like a new show. What made you nervous about carrying out that kind of creative transformation? And what was thrilling about it?

We could start with a thrilling part because the idea to be able to go to the people who worked really hard and say, “Hey, let’s rebuild it” — that’s exciting. That part’s cool. The executing part about it is where the terror begins because most worthwhile art — you can call TV art — invariably has to have risk and danger involved in it, otherwise you’re probably performing a magic trick. No offense to magicians. But you want something that when you turn off the TV, you’re not immediately forgetting. The more risk you do, in terms of form, in terms of all that, you want to be able to feel like you can pull it off because, otherwise, they [the audience] have nothing to grasp onto. [And they say,] “You just destroyed this thing we love, how dare you!” But generally speaking, everybody — from the top of the network down to the actors who are doing it — was down for it. Mostly because, if you listen to our fandom, I think they demand it. They’re out there on a limb telling everybody “it’s the greatest TV show, and blah blah blah” and you have to deliver that for them so that they can continually confidently bombard all their friends and neighbors and say, “Watch the show.” There’s nobody who didn’t give everything [to this season]. It was a real collective leap together.

Sam undergoes quite the transformation to make this rock star vampire persona believable. What struck you about how he approached embodying Lestat this season?

I gained 20 pounds in Toronto, and that’s because I kept stuffing my face with bread, and about every three or four times I would have this big sloth of butter on bread, I’d go, “Poor Sam” because I know Sam had not touched a piece of bread. Let’s start there — 0% body fat, the dimensions on the waist. The level of dedication. He was living and breathing every second about the role and about the demands of it — sing songs, and not only sing songs, but go learn to be a musician, and go train with people who have been doing it their whole life so you can fake it. I feel very confident saying this: Anybody who watches this season and Sam’s performance will feel like, at the end, they saw one of the 10 greatest performances in the history of our medium. I think he absolutely disappeared. James Gandolfini did not sing songs, Swearengen [the “Deadwood” character played by Ian McShane] did not sing songs. Mr. White [the “Breaking Bad character played by Bryan Cranston] did not sing songs. I’ll put him [Sam] up against all of them. He’s incredible.

What if he wants to go off and be a rock star now?

He could do it.

Jacob Anderson as Louis De Pointe Du Lac in Season 3 of “The Vampire Lestat.”

(Sophie Giraud / AMC)

You have a rock band posing as vampires fronted by an actual vampire who is the focus of a documentary being directed by a vampire passing as a human. And for all this to work, the band has to be good. What was the challenge of making this fictional band’s stardom believable — the charisma, the presence on stage, the discography? It’s a tall order, in addition to making a compelling TV show.

Anytime you have seen these things, following a band, there’s so many ways it can fall flat. You can do three or four of the things you need to do, and if one of them falls apart, you’re still stuck there, going, “Eh.” We all, who are working on it, love music. We’ve all been in clubs. The first thing we did was remove the stardom for budget reasons, but also for singular storytelling — he decided to do rock ’n’ roll in the year 2025. Some basic building blocks, we need songs. So with [composer and songwriter] Daniel Hart, we bring him into the [writers’] room because it’s not only writing songs, but writing the context about when and where he’s [Reid] singing them. He has to be aware of what we’re doing in the room. We also have to be able to pivot when he has pure inspiration; he can come in with something we’ve never talked about, and go “Boom!” And it’s OK, now what do we do with this song? And quite often this year we restructured episodes because the song was beating our episode. [We had to] hire actors who can play or musicians that can act — and that’s not everybody, so that shrinks that down. Make sure when you’re in the club, or whether you’re singing the song in rehearsal, let us uglify it, embrace the mistake, make it a little dirty. We have a song this year that has some of the most beautiful orchestrations, but because of where it landed in the season and what it talked about, we ended up going with the most stripped down, bare version of it. Don’t worry, you’ll get to hear these beautiful orchestrations [at some point]. [It’s also thinking about] how do you carve out the time you need to shoot it and the playback elements of it, and what sacrifices you have to make on other set pieces that you would normally put in is a lot. But everything from the beginning was with one thing in mind: Do not suck. How can we suck less? Let’s not suck. And we just kept going over and over again with that.

At the end of the first episode we see Lestat reunited with his undead mom, Gabriella, who he has, I think it’s fair to say, an oddly intimate relationship with —

Multifaceted.

And obviously the Louis-Lestat romance is far from being over. What are you interested in exploring within those two dynamics, in particular, moving forward since they’re so central to Lestat?

It becomes immediately about him going, “Let me try to explain this … I might have just repelled 80% of you.” I’m really interested in the viewers who are really off-put by it. I want to see where they’re at by the end of Episode 7, if they trust us. And see what they’re feeling. I guess [some people feel], “Oh, you’re not allowed to do this in the TV world unless you got f— dragons and s—, but all the things that you would have thought [that the network might say], “Don’t do this,” we didn’t really have a lot of those obstacles. There was a lot of trust. The thing with the Lestat character is like it’s probably harder to cuddle up to him like you could Louis. Louis is a Faustian tale; here it’s like a Faustian tale but Elton John’s at the center of it. There’s a series of questions like “Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Why do you keep get trapped into these things?” It’s like going on odyssey, or as Jacob called it, an idiocy, with a character that is exotic and eccentric and contradictory. For us going forward, as we wrote it, every time we fell into the something that felt well-made or cool on a twist or turn level, we found we were very suspicious of it, and we were trying to make alien TV as best we could. So, what do I want? It’s less about exploring those two dynamics, although they’re richly part of this fabric. It was, how can you take them on a magic carpet ride, a very difficult one? The idea is to actually have, by the end, every single person recognize that part of themselves in him. And how can you normalize him over seven episodes? How can you deliver that to an audience?

I know you’ve been super–busy, but what’s the last thing you watched that you found yourself recommending to everyone or something that you were obsessed with right now?

A TV show I’m watching, one that I’m enjoying right now, is “Widow’s Bay” [Apple TV]— that has been very enjoyable. It’s so much fun.

Matthew Rhys’ facial expressions are so good.

Oh, he’s great, and that show just really knows what it is, and is joyfully silly, and has a great atmosphere. It’s one of the most beautifully shot things I’ve seen in a while. I’m not finished yet.

OK, before I let you go, I hope we get a concert out in L.A. at some point.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Where would you put it up? Echoplex?

Maybe the Troubadour.

What about the Greek? That would be nice.

ICYMI

Must-read stories you might have missed

Tomorrow marks the start of Emmy nominations voting, and we’re marking the occasion with with not one but two issues this week.which means twices as many series, and stories, to catch up with. So let’s get to it!

Cover stories

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

It’s rare for an awards roundtable to spark a real debate, but the thoughtful group of actors to appear on our 2026 Emmy Drama Roundtable — Katherine LaNasa (The Pitt”), Billy Magnussen (“The Audacity”), Zahn McClarnon (“Dark Winds”), Tom Pelphrey (“Task”), Michelle Pfeiffer (“The Madison”) and Karolina Wydra (“Pluribus”) — captured my attention with their layered conversation about runaway production.

Considering the economic boon Hollywood has brought to popular shooting locales like Atlanta and New Mexico, the dire consequences for the L.A. film industry and the increasing threat from production zones overseas, the group didn’t agree on one diagnosis, much less solution, to the problem. But in their conversation, these top names in the industry all showed deep concern about what such changes mean for showbiz’s shrinking middle class. “Our crew doesn’t get to go — the people that we know that we need, that we work with, that we make these things with,” as Pelphrey acknowledged. “We get to go wherever the f— we want, actors, directors, but the crew doesn’t.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

For the guests on our 2026 Emmy Limited Series/TV Movie Roundtable — which included Jamie Bell (“Half Man”), Linda Cardellini (“DTF St. Louis”), Camila Morrone (“Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen”), Michael Peña (“All Her Fault”), Andrew Rannells (“Miss You, Love You”) and Constance Zimmer (“Love Story”) — there’s no predicting which performances will resonate with viewers — or when.

The 2002 live-action adaptation of “Scooby-Doo,” in which Cardellini starred as Velma, has taken on cult status since its premiere, and enjoyed a revival of interest as a new Netflix version announced the cast. Rannells (“Girls”) and Zimmer (“Entourage”) have each seen their roles in epochal HBO comedies revisited by younger generations, who are often viewing the series through a very different lens. Peña, whose comedic flatulence on an “Eastbound & Down” blooper reel is now a viral meme, even wonders if he’ll be remembered for that over more serious fare like “Crash” and “World Trade Center.”

“Is that going to be your In Memoriam thing?” Rannells jokes.

At least Peña, laughing, takes it in stride: “Can you imagine?”

Digital cover: ‘The Boys’

(Bexx Francois / For The Times)

There’s plenty to chew on in contributor Max Gao’s digital cover story on Prime Video’s twisted superhero satire after the conclusion of five gloriously gory seasons, but my personal favorite feature may be the sidebar of memorable from key cast members. Chace Crawford’s on-set snacks of choice? Check. Jack Quaid’s surprising craftiness? Also check. Karen Fukuhara’s struggles with nausea? Ditto. If you are already missing “The Boys” and want to re-live it vicariously through some of its central figures, be sure to read the full piece, which already includes creator Eric Kripke and actors Laz Alonso and Erin Moriarty.

The mayor is in

(Ebru Yildiz/For The Times)

Speaking of double duty, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys showcases his range this season in two very different performances, last fall as a real estate scion suspected of killing his wife in Netflix’s “The Beast in Me” and right now as the put-upon mayor of a possibly cursed island town in Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay.” One man is menacing, the other faintly absurd, but Rhys embraces the challenges of each role with aplomb — in particular, his physical comedy in the latter has gotten several big laughs out of me.

As contributor Emma Fraser reveals in her interview with Rhys, though, there is one stage direction capable of sending a chill up his spine: dance. “That still makes me shudder,” he says of a line-dancing scene in “The Americans” from 8 years ago. Let’s hope Widow’s Bay doesn’t have an underground swing dancing club.

More stories from this week’s issues

Martin Mull was best known to audiences for playing comedic characters like Col. Mustard in “Clue” and Gene Parmesan in “Arrested Development,” but a new exhibit opening next year at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art seeks to elevate the role Mull was most proud to inhabit: a respected painter.

“Martin Mull: The Joys of Indoor/Outdoor Living,” co-curated by comedian Steve Martin and Hammer Museum Director Emerita Ann Philbin, comes to SBMA next June and runs through October. It will be the first major museum exhibition of Mull’s artwork in 20 years.

The paintings featured include scenes of unassuming houses visited by otherworldly guests, dead-eyed office workers, gravity-defying displays and lambs being led to the slaughter. They play with perspective, color, space and time to illuminate postwar American tensions, be they racial, political or existential.

“Martin Mull’s work as an artist will certainly be his primary legacy,” Martin said in a statement. “After a full-time career in painting, in the last 20 years of his life with his technical gifts fully developed, Martin’s art coalesced into tight, narrative paintings of a peculiar nature. Combining surreal elements with family idioms, he formed his own worried portrayal of American life.”

Martin Mull’s “Band on the Run,” 2014. Oil on panel.

(Estate of Martin Mull)

The exhibit, which will take over the museum’s 6,000 square feet of main galleries, will feature more than 50 paintings and drawings by Mull, most of which come from the artist’s estate and the private collections of Mull’s entertainment industry colleagues, including Steve Martin, Jennifer Tilly, and Ted and Nicole Sarandos .

The exhibit is the second curatorial collaboration between Martin and Philbin since 2015, when they partnered on “The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris” at the Hammer Museum.

Steve Martin and Ann Philbin — at the Hammer Museum gala in 2005 — have been friends and collaborators for years.

(John Shearer / WireImage )

Philbin, who retired from her longtime role as the Hammer’s director in 2024, told The Times via email that the idea behind the Mull show came after she saw one of his paintings in Martin’s dining room.

“Steve talked about how Mull’s painting practice was his deepest passion, despite the fact that his fame was as an actor and comedian. It prompted me to do a little research, and I became very intrigued by his body of work. I wrote to Steve, ‘Martin Mull. There’s something there.’ That’s how the project began,” she said.

Along with Martin and Philbin, the upcoming exhibition is led by SBMA Chief Curator James Glisson and Amada Cruz, the museum’s director and CEO. In a news release, a museum spokesperson said Mull’s work “upsets any storybook picture of perfection” and resists nostalgia while acknowledging its allure.

Martin Mull’s “Envy,” 2008, from the series “Seven Deadly Sins.” Oil on linen.

(Estate of Martin Mull)

“It’s so deeply strange — dark and funny, hopeful and menacing all at once,” Philbin said. “The paintings are about the smoldering tensions that underlie the American dream, so I think it’s a particularly apt moment to bring them back into the public eye.”

Mull, who died in 2024, received his master of fine arts degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1967. Though he went on to craft a career in the public eye as a musician, comedian and actor, painting remained his “true vocation.”

Martin, a longtime friend of the multidisciplinary artist, echoed this sentiment in an email to The Times.

“If a comedian says he is also a painter, run. Except this once.”

The 79th Tony Awards went off without a hitch at Radio City Music Hall, Sunday. The show, hosted by Pink, ran just over three hours and was relatively unsurprising when it came to the wins it delivered. Although each year it seems more marquee film and television stars appear in the audience as celebrities of a certain caliber continue to flock to the stage in search of a more authentic—and immediate—connection to their audience.

This year viewers could see Adrien Brody, John Lithgow, Laurie Metcalf, Rose Byrne, Daniel Radcliffe, Nathan Lane, Alden Ehrenreich and more. Despite, or perhaps because of the star power, the show stuck to its expected script with “Schmigadoon!” winning best musical, “Ragtime” best musical revival, “Liberation” best play and “Death of a Salesman” best revival.

Still, the night had enough laughs, groans and tender moments to keep things interesting. Here are seven of our favorites.

Vampires as metaphor for what ails America

Ali Louis Bourzgui used vampires as a metaphor for American folly in his acceptance speech for performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical at the 2026 Tony Awards.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Who knew vampires made such a good metaphor for America’s worst excesses? When 26-year-old Ali Louis Bourzgui took to the stage at Radio City Music Hall after an upset win for performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical, he used the undead to poignantly describe the country’s biggest sociopolitical challenges.

“Vampires represent those who have shunned their own humanity in order to achieve a nonexistent sense of superiority. The billionaires will never find happiness from their money. The colonizers will never find fulfillment from the land and lives they steal. The fascists will never find meaning from their conformity, not in this lifetime or eternity,” said Bourzgui, who originated the role of David in the musical adaptation of the cult vampire horror film “The Lost Boys.”

—Jessica Gelt

A Tony trifecta for John Lithgow and Laurie Metcalf

John Lithgow won the third Tony Award of his career at the 2026 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

It’s always a good feeling when actors we have known and love get rewarded by a well-deserved win, and so it was on Sunday night when John Lithgow and Laurie Metcalf took back-to-back wins early in the show. The former for performance by an actor in a leading role in a play for his portrayal of the controversial, beloved British author Roald Dahl in Mark Rosenblatt’s drama “Giant.” The latter for featured actress for her portrayal of Willy Loman’s protective wife, Linda, in “Death of a Salesman.” The plays were quite different, but the winners shared a very specific honor: the night marked the third Tony win for each actor.

Lithgow won his previous trophies in 1972 and 2002, and Metcalf in 2017 and 2018.

—Jessica Gelt

Nathan Lane is an ‘American theatrical treasure’

Nathan Lane accepts the best revival of a play award for “Death of a Salesman” at the 2026 Tony Awards.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Unless Nathan Lane gets a crack at playing King Lear, his Willy Loman in Joe Mantello’s production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” will go down as one of the peak challenges of his acting career. Not winning the Tony for his indefatigable performance must sting, but John Lithgow was favored to win for his brave turn as the baleful Roald Dahl of Mark Rosenblatt’s “Giant.” Lane had to have been prepared but a subtle wince of disappointment could be detected when the camera pryingly caught his immediate reaction.

So it was gratifying to see Lane receive his due from Mantello, who upon accepting his award for directing credited Lane with being the inspiration for the production. And when “Salesman” won for best revival, it was only fitting that Lane accepted the award on behalf of the company about a play that, ultimately, he pointed out, is about a family.

It was a point that Laurie Metcalf, who won for her featured performance as Linda Loman, also raised when she thanked Lane, Christopher Abbott (who played Biff) and Ben Ahlers (who played Happy) —her ferocious Loman family— for making her better.

A three-time Tony-winner already, Lane doesn’t need another trophy to assure him that he’s an American theatrical treasure. But this wasn’t just another Broadway outing for him. This was Miller’s masterwork in a production that will be remembered long after the tally of this year’s Tony Awards are long forgotten.

—Charles McNulty

Joshua Henry is a good person, a great actor and everybody loves him

Joshua Henry won a Tony Award for performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical at the 79th Annual Tony Awards, earning perhaps the most rousing standing ovation of the night.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

The biggest standing ovation of the night came when Joshua Henry won the award for performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical for his critically acclaimed portrayal of Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the revival of “Ragtime.” Wearing a show-stopping black suit with golden flowers, Henry rushed to the stage as the star-studded crowd leapt to its feet to deliver a rousing standing ovation.

Henry first came to the full attention of fans playing Aaron Burr in the 2017 national tour of “Hamilton,” and has since gone on to distinguish himself as one of Broadway’s most charming and relatable stars. His optimism and kindness shine through, as does his fierce love of his art form, which was apparent as he gave his acceptance speech, thanking — in particular — his first vocal coach for believing in him. He also gave a poignant shout-out to the show’s original cast members Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald, and sent all the love to his three young sons.

—Jessica Gelt

Pink had fun, but didn’t seem to know why she was there

Neil Patrick Harris and Pink perform during The 79th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.

(Jenny Anderson / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Pop star Pink kicked off the show with a wink and a nod to her hit “Lady Marmalade,” and went on to wow the audience with an action-packed opener filled with more than 150 performers and riffs from every Broadway show imaginable, plus a spirited appearance by Megan Thee Stallion. But the line that resonated most came early on when she spun hopelessly on a rope above the stage dressed as Peter Pan and a worried Neil Patrick Harris appeared to ask why she was performing in such an old-fashioned show.

“I just want to show how much I love theater even though I’ve never been on Broadway,” Pink said, still dangling, but nailing a few tricks. “I’m just concerned people might be like, ‘Why’s Pink hosting the Tonys?’”

That wasn’t the first time she seemed to be apologizing to the audience for being there.

—Jessica Gelt

Darren Criss gives happy endings

Darren Criss and Nicole Scherzinger joked it up during the 79th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Darren Criss is a Broadway superstar who consistently delivers “Happy endings,” according to co-presenter Nicole Scherzinger.

In what might have been the show’s most racy and deliciously groan-worthy joke, Scherzinger, stood side-by-side with the “Maybe Happy Endings” star to deliver the penultimate awards of the night, and noted, “You gave the world happy endings.”

“I did?” asked Criss, feigning innocence.

“You’re a giver,” said Scherzinger.

The pair took a beat through bubbling titters from the audience before knowingly yelling, “Happy Pride everyone!”

—Jessica Gelt

Leslie Odom Jr. delivers a moving in memoriam

Leslie Odom Jr. performs the In Memorium tribute during The 79th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.

(Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. sang a soulful rendition of “Without You” from “Rent” during the ceremony’s In Memoriam segment, which honored artists who died in 2025 and 2026, including Diane Keaton and Robert Redford. These annual segments are mournful — and tricky — and the “Hamilton” star managed to create an understated atmosphere that set the perfect tone for the somber projection of recently lost greats such as Robert Duvall, Tom Stoppard and Carmen de Lavallade.

—Jessica Gelt

The 79th Tony Awards telecast kicked off with a bang by giving out two major awards in the first 30 minutes — and before viewers could blink both John Lithgow and Laurie Metcalf had each won the third Tony Award of their careers.

Lithgow won best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play for his portrayal of the controversial, beloved British author Roald Dahl in Mark Rosenblatt’s poignant drama “Giant,” directed by Nicholas Hytner. Times theater critic Charles McNulty called Lithgow’s performance “at once terrifying and never anything less than human,” and “one of the bravest” of the Broadway season.

Lithogow’s win, however, was far from assured. He was in the running against Nathan Lane in the season’s most talk-about show’s “Death of a Salesman,” and many bets were surely placed on the latter to sweep.

Lithogow is among a cadre of accomplished film and television actors who have a deep love of the stage. His first Tony win came for best featured actor in a play for his 1972 Broadway debut in “The Changing Room.” His second came 30 years later in 2002 when he he won for best actor in a musical for “Sweet Smell of Success.”

Metcalf won best featured actress for her portrayal of Willie Loman’s protective wife, Linda Loman, in “Death of a Salesman.” This is Metcalf’s third win in less than a decade, and was not a surprise as she has inherited “Helen Hayes’ mantle of First Lady of the American Theater,” according to McNulty.

Perhaps that explains her perfunctory, somewhat rote speech — which still didn’t detract from the joy of her win. Viewers know a towering talent when they see one.

Lithgow, to the contrary, was clearly stunned — and deeply honored.

“I’ve had dozens and dozens of static, ecstatic moments on stage, but I have to tell you right now, this moment has got to be one of the best,” he said as he held his award.

The 79th Tony Awards return to Radio City Music Hall on Sunday to celebrate the best of Broadway. Pop-star Pink hosts the show for the first time, and while she hasn’t been on Broadway yet herself, her songs have been featured in the musicals “Moulin Rouge!” and “& Juliet.”

The broadcast airs air live beginning at 5 p.m. on CBS and Paramount+, but don’t sleep on the annual pre-show, “The Tony Awards: Act One,” where the first round of Tonys will be presented. It will stream live on free service Pluto TV starting at 3:35 p.m. and be hosted by Tony Award nominee Laura Benanti and actor Tituss Burgess.

Times staff writer Eloise Rollins-Fife wrote a complete guide on how to watch and everything you need to know.

Play

“The Balusters”
“Giant”
“Liberation”
“Little Bear Ridge Road”

Musical

“The Lost Boys”
“Schmigadoon!”
“Titaníque”
“Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”

Revival of a play

Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”
Gina Gionfriddo, “Becky Shaw”
Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe, “Every Brilliant Thing”
“Fallen Angels”
Robert Icke, “Oedipus”

Revival of a musical

“Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
“Ragtime”
Richard O’Brien’s “The Rocky Horror Show”

Performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical

Sara Chase, “Schmigadoon!”
Stephanie Hsu, “The Rocky Horror Show”
Caissie Levy, “Ragtime”
Marla Mindelle, “Titaníque”
Christiani Pitts, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”

Performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical

Nicholas Christopher, “Chess”
Luke Evans, “The Rocky Horror Show”
Joshua Henry, “Ragtime”
Sam Tutty, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”
Brandon Uranowitz, “Ragtime”

Performance by an actress in a leading role in a play

Rose Byrne, “Fallen Angels”
Carrie Coon, “Bug”
Susannah Flood, “Liberation”
Lesley Manville, “Oedipus”
Kelli O’Hara, “Fallen Angels”

Performance by an actor in a leading role in a play

Will Harrison, “Punch”
Nathan Lane, “Death of a Salesman”
John Lithgow, “Giant”
Daniel Radcliffe, “Every Brilliant Thing”
Mark Strong, “Oedipus”

Book of a musical

David Hornsby and Chris Hoch, “The Lost Boys”
Cinco Paul, “Schmigadoon!”
Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue, “Titaníque”
Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”

Original score

Music: Caroline Shaw, “Death of a Salesman”
Music: Steve Bargonetti, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”
Music and lyrics: The Rescues, “The Lost Boys”
Music and lyrics: Cinco Paul, “Schmigadoon!”
Music and lyrics: Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”

Performance by an actor in a featured role in a play

Christopher Abbott, “Death of a Salesman”
Danny Burstein, “Marjorie Prime”
Brandon J. Dirden, “Waiting for Godot”
Alden Ehrenreich, “Becky Shaw”
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”
Richard Thomas, “The Balusters”

Performance by an actress in a featured role in a play

Betsy Aidem, “Liberation”
Marylouise Burke, “The Balusters”
Aya Cash, “Giant”
Laurie Metcalf, “Death of a Salesman”
June Squibb, “Marjorie Prime”

Performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical

Ali Louis Bourzgui, “The Lost Boys”
André De Shields, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Bryce Pinkham, “Chess”
Ben Levi Ross, “Ragtime”
Layton Williams, “Titaníque”

Performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical

Shoshana Bean, “The Lost Boys”
Hannah Cruz, “Chess”
Rachel Dratch, “The Rocky Horror Show”
Ana Gasteyer, “Schmigadoon!”
Nichelle Lewis, “Ragtime”

Scenic design of a play

Hildegard Bechtler, “Oedipus”
Takeshi Kata, “Bug”
David Korins, “Dog Day Afternoon”
Chloe Lamford, “Death of a Salesman”
David Rockwell, “Fallen Angels”

Scenic design of a musical

dots, “The Rocky Horror Show”
Soutra Gilmour, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”
Rachel Hauck, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Dane Laffrey, “The Lost Boys”
Scott Pask, “Schmigadoon!”

Costume design of a play

Brenda Abbandandolo, “Dog Day Afternoon”
Qween Jean, “Liberation”
Jeff Mahshie, “Fallen Angels”
Emilio Sosa, “The Balusters”
Paul Tazewell, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”

Costume design of a musical

Linda Cho, “Ragtime”
Linda Cho, “Schmigadoon!”
Qween Jean, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Ryan Park, “The Lost Boys”
David I. Reynoso, “The Rocky Horror Show”

Lighting design of a play

Isabella Byrd, “Dog Day Afternoon”
Natasha Chivers, “Oedipus”
Stacey Derosier, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”
Heather Gilbert, “Bug”
Heather Gilbert, “The Fear of 13”
Jack Knowles, “Death of a Salesman”

Lighting design of a musical

Kevin Adams, “Chess”
Jane Cox, “The Rocky Horror Show”
Donald Holder, “Schmigadoon!”
Adam Honoré, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Adam Honoré and Donald Holder with 59 Studio, “Ragtime”
Jen Schriever and Michael Arden, “The Lost Boys”

Sound design of a play

Justin Ellington, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”
Tom Gibbons, “Oedipus”
Lee Kinney, “The Fear of 13”
Josh Schmidt, “Bug”
Mikaal Sulaiman, “Death of a Salesman”

Sound design of a musical

Kai Harada, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Kai Harada, “Ragtime”
Adam Fisher, “The Lost Boys”
Brian Ronan, “The Rocky Horror Show”
Walter Trarbach, “Schmigadoon!”

Direction of a play

Nicholas Hytner, “Giant”
Robert Icke, “Oedipus”
Kenny Leon, “The Balusters”
Joe Mantello, “Death of A Salesman”
Whitney White, “Liberation”

Direction of a musical

Michael Arden, “The Lost Boys”
Lear deBessonet, “Ragtime”
Christopher Gattelli, “Schmigadoon!”
Tim Jackson, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”
Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”

Choreography

Christopher Gattelli, “Schmigadoon!”
Ellenore Scott, “Ragtime”
Ani Taj, “The Rocky Horror Show”
Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant, “The Lost Boys”

Orchestrations

Doug Besterman and Mike Morris, “Schmigadoon!”
Ethan Popp, Kyler England, Adrianne “AG” Gonzalez and Gabriel Mann, “The Lost Boys”
Lux Pyramid, “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)”
Brian Usifer, “Chess”
Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Wilson, Trevor Holder and Doug Schadt, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”

Anthony Head, the British television actor who had roles in “Ted Lasso,” “Merlin” and most notably as father figure Rupert Giles in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” has died, his family announced Friday.

Head’s daughters Emily and Daisy Head confirmed his death to the Associated Press and said he died of complications from pneumonia. He was 72.

“Our grief is far greater than the hole he has left behind, but we know his legacy will live on, in the shows he was a part of, and in the audiences that love them,” Head’s daughters said in a statement to AP. “How lucky we are to know we are able to watch him doing what he loved, even when he is no longer with us.”

Head, a veteran of several BBC series including “Doctor Who,” became most familiar to American audiences in the late 1990s, playing Rupert Giles — a high-school-librarian-turned-magic-shop-owner and mentor to Sarah Michelle Gellar‘s titular character in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” He starred in a majority of episodes — 121 installments, according to IMDb — during the series’ run from 1997 to 2003. Head’s death follows those of fellow “Buffy” cast members Michelle Trachtenberg in February 2025 and Nicholas Brendon in March.

In addition to being Buffy’s advisor, Giles would go on to become a surrogate father figure to the slayer and her crew. In “Buffy” terms, Giles was a Watcher, a member of a council devoted to tracking and studying supernatural entities to keep evil forces at bay. Despite his stuffy demeanor and penchant for tweed, Giles was compassionate and had a rebellious streak, particularly in his youth. He would defy the rules set out for him by his job in order to save Buffy when he could.

Head’s portrayal of Giles left enough of an impression on audiences and series creator Joss Whedon that there was talk in 2001 of a Giles-centric spinoff. The series was planned to air on the BBC and was set to center on Giles and his sleuthing endeavors away from the main “Buffy” band. In the following years the potential miniseries evolved in to a one-off film, but Head finally confirmed in 2008 that the spinoff would not be moving forward. Whedon was “busy with another project, I’m tied up too, so at the moment I’d just say that it’s still out there,” Head told the BBC at the time.

After “Buff the Vampire Slayer” aired its final episode in 2003, Head continued his television work in British series including sketch series “Little Britain,” “The Invisibles” and “Free Agents.” His next prominent role would be in the fantasy series “Merlin” as Uther Pendragon, the King of Camelot and the father of would-be-king Arthur and sorceress Morgana Pendragon. The fantasy series premiered in 2008 and concluded in 2012.

In the following years he appeared in series “You, Me & Them,” “Dominion” and “Guilt,” among others. Head in recent years appeared in hit series “Bridgerton” and “Ted Lasso.” In the latter, co-created by Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, Head portrayed another Rupert — this time Rupert Mannion, a womanizing billionaire and ex-husband of soccer team owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham).

Head, born Feb. 20, 1954, in London, was the son to documentary filmmaker Seafield Head and actor Helen Shingler. His older brother, Murray, is also an actor and singer.

Before Head became known for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the actor gained a reputation among British audiences in the 1980s when he starred in a series of romantic ads for Nescafe Gold Blend instant coffee. The ads were later reshot for a U.S. audience for Taster’s Choice.

Head began his acting career in musical theater and has guest starred in series including “NYPD Blue” and “Highlander.” He appeared in a number of films, including in the Oscar-winning “The Iron Lady,” starring Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.

Head is preceded in death by his partner, animal welfare activist Sarah Fisher. She died in 2025 at age 61.

Times staff writer Tracy Brown and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Anyone who has been a new parent knows it’s not easy to do on your own — it really does take a village. And in the latest season of “The Four Seasons,” which returned to Netflix last week, Ginny, played by Erika Henningsen, finds her village as she navigates single parenthood after the sudden death of Nick, played by Steve Carell. While that may sound gloomy — no, terrifying — the comedy series created by Tina Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield keeps the laughs coming, whether they involve the central friend group spreading Nick’s ashes — morbid, I know, but I promise you’ll laugh — a malfunctioning breast pump or making friends with someone who loves to dig really big holes in the sand at the beach. Henningsen dropped by Guest Spot to talk about her character and what she hopes comes next if the show gets a third season.

And if you breeze through the second season’s eight episodes, there’s plenty else to watch this weekend. For more laughs, Mindy Kaling’s latest comedy series, “Not Suitable for Work,” premiered this week with three episodes. The TV creator spoke to Times TV writer Yvonne Villarreal about how the series touches on the heightened feelings Kaling experienced living in New York in her 20s, trying to break into comedy writing. But if you are looking for the complete opposite, the first two episodes of the newest iteration of “Cape Fear” are out today on Apple TV (you may remember the 1991 film version directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, or even the 1962 version starring Robert Mitchum). The series, which inserts some modern elements and twists, stars Javier Bardem as the villainous Max Cady and Amy Adams as lawyer Anna Bowden, who our television critic says “is low-key forceful as his primary opponent.”

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our critics recommend a web short that will give you some background on “Backrooms,” as well as a horror film with a similar vibe, and a new nature documentary series. — Maira Garcia

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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Chiwetel Ejiofor in “Backrooms,” which was inspired by Kane Parson’s surrealist web videos.

(A24)

“Backrooms – Presentation” (YouTube), “Buffet Infinity” (VOD)

Last weekend, 20-year-old Kane Parsons became the youngest filmmaker to hit No. 1 at the box office with “Backrooms,” a surrealistic experiment about a furniture salesman (Chiwetel Ejiofor) drawn into a maze of humdrum office space. Peek into the movie’s lore on Parsons’ YouTube channel where his eight and a half minute short, “Presentation,” hints at why Mark Duplass was running around in a lab coat. Or let the feature stand as its own work and watch Simon Glassman’s “Buffet Infinity” instead. Told through snippets of local TV commercials, this morbidly hilarious horror tale is like plopping down on one of the backroom’s couches to channel surf. The bland muzak and cinematography are spot-on, as are the familiar breeds of low-budget pitchmen: the car salesman, the personal injury lawyer, the housewife. But once two neighboring restaurateurs duel over the rights to a special sauce — and one gets defamed and disappeared — these escalating, tense ads reveal a town under siege. Things have gotta be bad when the pawn broker starts rapping about his vast selection of knives. — Amy Nicholson

A pilosaurs in NBC’s “Surviving Earth.”

(NBC)

“Surviving Earth” (NBC, Peacock)

If computer animation is good for anything, it is its ability to bring prehistoric creatures to convincing conjectural life. From Willis O’Brien‘s stop-motion dinosaurs in “The Lost World,” to “Jurassic Park,” to the BBC’s “Walking With Dinosaurs,” we are ever glad to take that trip backward, in increasingly sharp detail. “Surviving Earth,” an eight-part nature documentary cum disaster movie cum action film, adds a thematic twist: extinction. With titles like “When the Earth Burned,” “When the Seas Died” and “When the Forests Collapsed,” it is, on the one hand, a dark tour through a long history of climate crises and population collapse; on the other, per its title, its relatively cheering theme is that life, generally speaking, can handle whatever the planet (or stray asteroid) throws at it. (Humans are not left off the hook; the two episodes out for review each conclude with a visit to our destructive modern world.) As in many nature films, the animals are framed in cute or suspenseful stories that largely involve family and community; territory and travel; and looking for food and not being food. (The more adorable the animal, the more likely it is to escape uneaten, and some of those baby dinos are precious.) It premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. on NBC, and new episodes air weekly, followed by a rebroadcast of “The Americas,” the network’s earlier present-day nature series, and stream on Peacock the next day. — Robert Lloyd

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

Kerri Kenney-Silver as Anne and Erika Henningsen as Ginny in Season 2 of “The Four Seasons.”

(Emily V. Aragones/Netflix)

What if you found out you were pregnant? And then your partner died suddenly. Oh, and he hadn’t divorced his wife yet, so there’s no money to support yourself and a new baby. For some people, it would be enough to cause a meltdown and an existential crisis. But in Season 2 of “The Four Seasons,” Ginny takes it all in stride. The character, played by actor Erika Henningsen, forges ahead, has the baby — fathered by the now-deceased Nick — and ends up getting help from the most unexpected person: Anne, her partner’s ex.

The comedy series once again follows the close-knit friend group consisting of Jack (Will Forte) and Kate (Tina Fey), Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani), and the new odd couple, Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) and Ginny. This season, they take trips to the Catskills, the Jersey Shore and Italy as they try to navigate grief following Nick’s death, supporting Ginny despite the awkwardness of her situation with Anne, and an international move by Danny and Claude after they decide not to have a child.

Henningsen discussed Ginny’s arc this season and how she connects with Anne, who finds purpose in caring for baby Gino (or Eugene, depending on whom you ask), and what it was like juggling multiple projects along with filming “The Four Seasons.” — M.G.

At the end of the first season of “The Four Seasons,” viewers were hit with a big surprise: Ginny is pregnant. And in Season 2, we see her further along and eventually with a baby. What was it like to play Ginny at this stage in her life, navigating single motherhood? Did you look to anyone for inspiration?

I feel like Ginny’s character arc in this season was a tightrope walk that our writers executed flawlessly. Because, let’s be honest, the situation between Anne and Ginny is a bit bizarre. To quote our show, “there is no Beyoncé song” for what to do when your recently deceased ex-husband’s pregnant girlfriend shows up on the group hiking trip! What myself and the writers really tried to highlight, especially in those early spring episodes, is how scared Ginny feels to be entering motherhood without a partner by her side and how that fear and grief become the dominating force behind her actions. She’s just scrambling for some semblance of confidence and security, to feel like she’s going to be “ready” when the baby arrives. But, as any real mom can attest, there is no ‘“ready” when it comes to a baby. You just take it one day at a time and figure it out as you go. I love that Ginny has that realization toward the middle of the season. She may not be the perfect mom to Gino, but she’s his mom, and getting to play the beach scene where Ginny takes one tiny bold step, alone, into motherhood was super special. In terms of inspiration, I was constantly texting two friends of mine who had just had babies for ways to walk, ways to lay down, ways to stretch, etc. Also, our incredible hair department head, JT Franchuk (shoutout, JT!), was on set with me every day, and I was lucky to have her as a confidant and sounding board as she was seven months pregnant when we began shooting Season 2.

You share many great scenes with Kerri Kenney-Silver, who becomes a surrogate mother to Ginny and grandmother to her baby, despite the history between them. How did you two navigate this dynamic, and what was it like working together?

Kerri Kenney-Silver is truly the greatest scene partner an actor could have for a litany of reasons. Kerri comes from an improv background but is also a technical wordsmith. She’s constantly throwing out new line readings and physical comedy to bounce off of, but is also deeply respectful of the words Tina Fey and company have crafted, so she’s equal parts anchor to a scene as well as a playmate. Kerri and I never tried to nail down one exact “right” way to play a scene. We were constantly adjusting the levers with each take, digging into one another versus backing off, casually throwing away a sentimental line versus staring into one another’s eyes. What we did agree on was to never judge these two characters. Some people might look at our character’s choices as debilitating or selfish, but we both found that Anne and Ginny deeply needed and wanted to be there for one another. In their own little “odd couple” way, they were choosing one another to get through the next tenuous, unknown chapter of life. Oh, and working with Kerri? As I’ve said, “if you’re gonna lose a Steve Carrell, just wait til you gain a Kerri-Kenney Silver.” She is obviously so talented, but also one of the warmest and most welcoming humans I have worked with. And she makes me snort-laugh on a regular basis.

You came up in theater and originated the role of Cady Heron in the Broadway production of “Mean Girls,” based on the film by Fey. You were on Broadway in “Just in Time” last year, too. What has it been like to balance your stage work with your TV work lately?

Honestly? It’s been a lot! I say that with 98% gratitude and 2% “so tired when is vacation?” exhaustion. Last year, I was doing press for “The Four Seasons” while opening a brand-new original Broadway show, while also recording Season 3 of the hit animated series I currently star in, “Hazbin Hotel” [Prime Video]. My days were spent doing interviews in the morning, rushing to Circle in the Square theater for “Just in Time” preview rehearsals in the afternoon, recording episodes of “Hazbin Hotel” on my dinner break, all before heading back to the theater for an 8 p.m. curtain. I remember there was one night I did a SAG panel with Tina, Kerry and Marco on 55th and Broadway that ended at 7:45, and I was in pincurls and fake eyelashes, ready to go onstage opposite Jonathan Groff at 8:15. It is definitely a balancing act, and one I would not be able to navigate without my team and my husband. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love how each discipline has started to inform the other: I’ve taken my spontaneity in the voice-over booth onto set, I’ve taken my trust in stillness in front of the camera onto the stage, and I’ve taken my discipline doing eight shows a week into everything. Getting to dip a toe into multiple pools of the entertainment industry is, I think, the only way my brain wants to operate.

If “The Four Seasons” gets a third season, where would you like to see Ginny go?

In a perfect world? I’d love if Danny/Claude planned a fabulous trip to a gay destination like Mykonos that the rest of the group somehow gloms onto. I remember visiting Fire Island for the first time a few summers ago at Tina’s recommendation and loving it so much. I texted her that I never wanted to leave and she basically wrote back, “Yup. Always follow the gays.” So, maybe we will do exactly that in Season 3. Also, on a very specific Ginny note, I will hopefully have a toddler in Season 3 as opposed to a baby (our babies on set were under 6 months old so they definitely fell into the “handle with care” category!), and my dream is to be able to hold one the way Diane Keaton holds her toddler in “Baby Boom.” It’s a perfect moment of physical comedy, and I aspire to re-create it.

What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?

“Beef” Season 2 and the recent Rafael Nadal documentary, “Rafa.” Both Netflix. What can I say? I’m loyal. The entire cast in “Beef” is spectacular, and I love the genre-bending the showrunner weaves throughout. You never quite know where you stand, but the twists feel earned and character-driven as opposed to gimmicky. There’s one quasi-bottle episode set in an ER that felt perfectly surreal, claustrophobic and exactly what it feels like to be in the ER on bad health insurance (speaking from 21-year-old experience). “Rafa” is just … no words. I love a sports doc (“The Last Dance” [Netflix], “Prefontaine” [VOD], “The Endless Summer” [Tubi] — you name it), probably because, in my heart of hearts, I just want to be an athlete.

What’s your go-to comfort watch, the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?

I will never tire of watching “The Parent Trap” [Disney+]. It’s perfect. Chessy is a queer icon, Meredith Blake is the “villain” but also get that vineyard honey, one of Lindsay Lohan’s best performances, and what I wouldn’t give to have an ounce of the class that was Natasha Richardson. Every scene is perfect, there’s not a single “skip” on the soundtrack. Also a flawless Maggie Wheeler cameo! Nancy Jane Meyers: You outdid yourself.

ICYMI

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SAG-AFTRA members overwhelmingly approved a four-year TV and film deal with major studios including Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday night, increasing minimum wages and addressing concerns about the use of AI performers.

The deal, which was expected to be approved, received the support of 91% of SAG-AFTRA members who voted on the agreement, which starts July 1 and ends June 30, 2030. The union represents 160,000 performers, including actors, stunt performers and influencers.

“This agreement builds on the foundation members fought to establish and carries that work into the next chapter of our industry,” said SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin in a statement. “It delivers meaningful gains in compensation, strengthens protections around artificial intelligence and digital identity, reinforces the long-term security of members’ benefit plans and recognizes the realities of how performers work today.”

Under the new deal, the length of the agreement between SAG-AFTRA and major studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expands from three years to four years.

It also boosts minimum wage by 3% annually, increases contributions to the health plan by 1% and expands the bonus to the union’s Success Bonus Distribution Fund based on residuals that performers get for popular streaming programs.

The contract also addresses concerns about the growing use of artificial intelligence in TV and film and its impact on actor jobs. Last year, many actors spoke out about Tilly Norwood, a computer-generated “actor” and whether synthetic characters like her could threaten their livelihoods. Some performers have also advocated for getting paid if their likenesses are used to create such characters made through AI systems.

Not all members were in favor of the contract, saying it did not go far enough in protecting performers against AI.

“It normalizes the use of AI replicas and synthetic performers rather than drawing a firm line protecting human performers and their jobs,” said Chuck Slavin, a background actor and performer.

Slavin, a former New England local board member, ran against Astin for SAG-AFTRA president last year.

Producers agreed to “a principle strongly favoring human performances” and that producers would only use a synthetic if it “brings significant additional value to the motion picture.” If a producer decided to use a synthetic in a role that could be done by a human, they would need to notify the union and bargain in good faith.

Additionally, the contract merges the pension plans of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which were previously separate but combined in 2012 to form SAG-AFTRA.

Their health plans were consolidated in 2017, but the pensions have remained separate . That was a major sticking point with members, some of whom couldn’t qualify for benefits as their contributions were split between two plans. Studios agreed to boost their overall contributions to the combined plan by 1%.

SAG-AFTRA’s deal comes after the Writers Guild of America members also approved an agreement with the AMPTP in April.

The groups were able to agree on contracts this year, without striking as they did in 2023.

“SAG-AFTRA’s leadership brought a genuine commitment to partnership, and together with the WGA agreement, these deals demonstrate what is possible when the industry works toward practical solutions that support its long-term stability,” AMPTP said in a statement.

The Directors Guild of America began negotiations with AMPTP last month, with its contract expiring on June 30.

Staff writer Cerys Davies contributed to this report.

TOP Gun: Maverick actor James Handy has been stabbed to death with his girlfriend’s son telling cops in a 911 call: “I just killed the man”.

The 81-year-old, who also starred in Logan and Jumanji, was found unconscious with multiple stab wounds to his chest on his front yard.

Authorities rushed to the scene in Tarzana, Los Angeles on Wednesday morning at around 9.30am after receiving a chilling 911 call.

Police revealed a voice at the end of the line said: “I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin.”

Officials rushed to James’ home on Erwin Street and raced him to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Some time later, 44-year-old Michael Gledhill – the son of James’ partner – waved down officers as they searched near the home.

GRISLY END

Man bleeds to death after ‘cutting off his penis & slicing throat’ on LA street

Gledhill confessed to carrying out the fatal attack and said he was the one who phoned the police, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Gledhill was arrested for murder and taken to Van Nuys Jail with his bail set at $2,000,000.

The LAPD statement said: “Detectives believe this is an isolated incident and there appears to be no danger to the public at this time.”

A motive for the attack remains unclear.

Neighbors have claimed Gledhill and James were overheard arguing overnight.

The star’s talent agent, Pam Ellis-Evenas, paid tribute saying: “With great sadness I can confirm that the gentleman who was attacked and killed on Wednesday in Tarzana was the actor James Handy.”

James’ career spanned almost five decades with his most recent major role being in Tom Cruise’s Hollywood sequel Top Gun: Maverick in 2022.

He played the role of bartender Jimmy.

Another memorable role for James came in 2017 superhero flick Logan as he played the doctor who treated lead man Hugh Jackman.

James also starred in 1995 cult classic Jumanji alongside Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt and Kirsten Dunst.

His career featured several TV credits such as the role of Arthur Devlin in eight episodes of Alias and recurring stints on Melrose Place and NYPD Blue.

James’ tragic death comes less than a year after Hollywood icon Rob Reiner, 78, had his throat slit inside his LA home.

Son Nick, 32, is currently in jail after being accused of killing both Rob and his mum Michelle, 68, while they were in bed on December 14, 2025.

Nick has pleaded not guilty on both counts of murder and is awaiting trial.

Los Angeles police are investigating the fatal stabbing of actor James Handy, who officials said was killed by his girlfriend’s son Wednesday at a home in Tarzana. The suspect was apprehended after he made a bizarre 911 call.

On Thursday, authorities identified the 81-year-old stabbing victim as the actor, who appeared in the films “Logan,” “Jumanji,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Arachnophobia.”

Representatives for the actor confirmed the news to The Times.

On Wednesday morning around 9:30 a.m., West Valley area patrol officers responded to an emergency call in a residential neighborhood of Tarzana. The 911 caller stated, “I am the son of man. I just killed the man of sin.”

When police arrived, they found Handy in the front yard of the Erwin Street home, unconscious and suffering from a stab wound to his chest. According to law enforcement, Handy was taken to a local hospital by paramedics, where he was pronounced dead.

A news release said that Michael Gledhill, the man suspected of stabbing Handy, flagged down officers who were responding to the incident and told them he was the one they were looking for.

Gledhill, 44, lives at the Erwin Street home with his mother, who police said was in a relationship with Handy.

Detectives said they believed this was an isolated incident and there appeared to be no danger to the public at this time.

Gledhill was arrested and transported to Van Nuys Jail, where he was booked on suspicion of murder. His bail was set at $2 million.

Handy has more than 150 acting credits to his name and had acted across television and film since the 1970s. Most recently, he played a bartender alongside Jennifer Connelly in the 2022 sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.” In 2017, he played opposite Hugh Jackman in “Logan” as a doctor who pleads with Wolverine to heal up.

In 2021, he portrayed Father MacGuffin in the comedy “Senior Entourage.” The film’s director, Brian Connors, posted on Facebook last year that Handy was one of the “finest character actors I know.”

Handy also acted in numerous television crime dramas, including “Alias,” “Criminal Minds,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Rizzoli & Isles,” “CSI: NY,” “Cold Case” and more.

The police are asking anyone with additional information about this incident to contact the Robbery-Homicide Division, Valley Section, Dets. Simonyan or Lopez, at (818) 374-9550.

Los Angeles police are investigating the fatal stabbing of actor James Handy, who officials said was killed by his girlfriend’s son Wednesday at a home in Tarzana. The suspect was apprehended after he made a bizarre 911 call.

On Thursday, authorities identified the 81-year-old stabbing victim as the actor, who appeared in films “Logan,” “Jumanji,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Arachnophobia.”

Representatives for the actor confirmed the news to The Times.

On Wednesday morning around 9:30 a.m., West Valley area patrol officers responded to an emergency call in a residential neighborhood of Tarzana. The 911 caller stated, “I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin.”

When police arrived, they found Handy in the front yard of the Erwin Street home, unconscious and suffering from a stab wound to his chest. According to law enforcement, Handy was taken to a local hospital by paramedics, where he was pronounced dead.

A news release said that Michael Gledhill, the man suspected of stabbing Handy, flagged down officers who were responding to the incident and told them he was the the one they were looking for.

Gledhill, 44, lives at the Erwin Street home with his mother, who police said was in a relationship with Handy.

Detectives said they believed this was an isolated incident and there appeared to be no danger to the public at this time.

Gledhill was arrested and transported to Van Nuys Jail, where he was booked on murder charges. His bail was set at $2 million.

The police are asking anyone with additional information about this incident to contact the Robbery-Homicide Division, Valley Section, Dets. Simonyan or Lopez, at (818) 374-9550.

Since launching at the start of 2025, “The Pitt” has emerged as more than just a hyperrealistic depiction of an embattled American emergency department. Using its hospital setting as a social microcosm, HBO Max’s Emmy-winning juggernaut has explored various systemic issues — including the misogyny that women of color face in the workplace.

“Some of the stories from real physicians and nurses that I’ve spoken to are so crazy. The system feels like it’s 15, 20 years behind other industries,” says Sepideh Moafi, who portrays attending Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. “There is still this older culture of a boundaryless style of work where [there’s] a lack of understanding and compassion,” with respect to pregnancy and childcare, for working women.

“The Pitt’s” depiction of such subjects includes unflinching attention to microaggressions and unconscious biases. Isa Briones, who plays second-year resident Dr. Trinity Santos, recalls hearing from qualified on-set doctors that “a lot of female physicians will wear their lab coats, because it makes them look like more of an authority.”

“We have a female, half-Asian doctor on our set who consistently says that people talk to the nurse in the room if they’re a white man instead of her,” adds Supriya Ganesh, whose character, fourth-year resident Dr. Samira Mohan, is mistaken for a nurse in Season 2, despite having “DOCTOR” emblazoned on her name tag.

Supriya Ganesh.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Nor is the series reluctant to show the other side of the dynamic, as doctors Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) and Langdon (Patrick Ball) lash out against their colleagues in lieu of acknowledging their own flaws. Although the women of “The Pitt” would never compare acting to saving lives, Briones believes that the experiences of women — especially from marginalized communities — share commonalities across many male-dominated industries.

“The entertainment business constantly feels like a boys’ club that you cannot penetrate no matter what you do, because it’s still always going to be these older white men who are making all the decisions,” she says. “That’s why seeing the storyline with Langdon and Robby informed my performance so much, because I know this feeling of being like, ‘Why the f— are these men fist-bumping each other? I’m also here! I’m doing my job too!’”

“As a woman in any field, if you express emotion, if you make your opinion or your voice heard, then it’s like, ‘You’re talking too much. You’re being hysterical,’” Moafi says.

Sepideh Moafi.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

In holding up a mirror to the healthcare system, showrunner R. Scott Gemmill also wanted to explore the linguistic diversity of its practitioners, allowing his actors of color to reconnect with their mother tongues.

“Language shapes who you are, how you see the world,” Moafi says. Al-Hashimi became a polyglot — speaking English, Farsi and Armenian — in part to curb the effects of a seizure disorder on her temporal lobe, which is crucial for language comprehension. “[Language] connects you to different registers in the body. The rhythms are different, and the emotional access is more immediate.”

During Season 1, Santos — who, like Briones, is half-Filipino — surprised nurses Princess (Kristin Villanueva) and Perlah (Amielynn Abellera) by chiming in on their gossip session in Tagalog. But wanting to show “a more vulnerable side of Santos” this season, Briones worked with her own actor father, Jon Jon, to find a Filipino lullaby that she could sing to baby Jane Doe.

To reflect the 100-plus languages spoken in the Philippines, they selected a Hiligaynon lullaby called “Ili Ili Tulog Anay.” Briones advocated for the scene not to have subtitles: “It should be just this quiet moment that you don’t have to understand [the language] to understand, but also it’s a great moment for people who do speak it to feel that little secret joy.”

For Briones, speaking Tagalog at work has opened up difficult conversations with her immigrant father, who feels shame about not passing down enough cultural knowledge to his children. “I’ve been starting with Rosetta Stone, so I can start conversing with my dad and then he can help me, because I want to be able to talk to my lola and she doesn’t have to work through English,” she says. “This show has reminded me of how important that is to me.”

Isa Briones.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Ganesh, who grew up in New Delhi, felt strongly that Mohan should not be fluent in Hindi because of its similarities to Nepali, the language that doctors struggled to identify when treating a patient in the first season. Instead, the actor chose to infuse her own heritage into the character, who uses Tamil as a way to feel connected to her late father.

“She chooses to speak it with her mom, because maybe that’s the only other person she has in her life who she can speak it to,” explains Ganesh, who recalls consulting multiple generations of her own family — and even her on-set coach’s family — for the Tamil dialogue. “She wants to preserve that as much as she can, even though it’s already filtered through her being American and being born in this country.”

That part of Indian American culture will be lost next season, with Ganesh officially departing at the end of Season 2. The actor reiterates that the “creative decision” to write Mohan off was made by executive producers Gemmill, Wyle and John Wells: “They work with such intention on the show and make all the choices that they make for that reason, so I think it’s better to ask them for answers.”

“I’m going to treasure all the memories I had working with these two and everyone else,” Ganesh adds. “It’s been so great just getting all the love from the fans. I feel sad for them, too, that they won’t get to see this character.”

“The representation that you brought to the show is so beautiful,” Briones chimes in. “Seeing the fans ride for you so hard and be like, ‘This was the first time I felt represented on camera,’ it’s really gorgeous to see everyone coming out and celebrating that and celebrating you.”

For her part, Moafi believes that Dr. Mohan will be remembered for the way “she won’t compromise humanity in how she delivers care.” “The power of strength comes from vulnerability, and in order to go fast, you have to slow down,” she adds. “That’s something that is so ingrained in us, as women.”

Nick Pasqual, an actor who appeared in “How I Met Your Mother,” has been sentenced to 32 years to life for the attempted murder of his estranged girlfriend, L.A.-based makeup artist Allie Shehorn.

Following a jury trial, Pasqual was also convicted of counts of injuring a spouse or partner, first-degree burglary and rape, according to court documents. During the trial, Shehorn had visible scars on her hands and neck when she testified, per ABC.

The incident occurred in May 2024, when Pasqual repeatedly stabbed Shehorn in her Shadow Hills home. Prosecutors said that the actor broke into Shehorn’s home just before 4:30 a.m. on May 23, attacked her with a knife and fled California.

Days before the attack, Shehorn had filed a restraining order against Pasqual, detailing acts of sexual and physical assault. While the judge approved the order, it was unclear whether Pasqual had been served prior to the stabbing.

Christine White, Shehorn’s friend and roommate, discovered the makeup artist lying in a pool of blood and called emergency services. Friends believe Shehorn was stabbed more than 20 times. Following the attack, Shehorn underwent emergency surgery and spent days in intensive care.

Pasqual was ultimately stopped by authorities at a border checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Texas, and extradited to Los Angeles.

The former couple met on the set of Zack Snyder’s film “Rebel Moon,” where Pasqual worked as a background actor and Shehorn worked as a makeup artist.

Last week, Shehorn sued the actor for sexual battery, assault and negligence, among other counts, according to a lawsuit submitted in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The 17-page complaint echoes details about the May 2024 stabbing that led to Pasqual’s arrest two years ago and his attempted murder conviction.

Staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario and former staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.

TWIN Peaks star Owain Rhys Davies has died aged 44.

Owain’s heartbroken family confirmed the news of his sudden death on social media, hailing him as “a brother to many” in a touching tribute.

The Welsh actor was best known for his role as Agent Wilson on Twin Peaks: The Return.

He also starred in Disney’s Alice Through The Looking Glass and A Serial Killer’s Guide To Life.

And his talents took him to the West End too, with appearances in London productions such as The Wizard of Oz and Mamma Mia!.

Owain’s brother Rhodri wrote: “It is with profound sadness that my father and I share the news that my brother, Owain, has passed away.

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“This news will come as a great shock to many. The reach of Owain’s love, friendship, and generosity was vast.

“While there are still questions that remain unanswered regarding the circumstances of his death, our understanding at this stage is that Owain passed suddenly, naturally, and peacefully.

“The outpouring of messages we have received over the past few days has been deeply moving and a testament to the impact he had on so many lives.

“Owain was fortunate enough to have more than one family.

“Alongside his biological one, he built extraordinary, family-like bonds with many of his closest friends, colleagues, and loved ones.

“I am incredibly proud that, while he was my brother, he was also a brother to so many others.

“We know that this loss will be felt by a great many people, and we take comfort in knowing how loved he was.”

Tributes have flooded in from celebs across the acting world, including Coronation Star Hayley Tamaddon.

The devastated actress, 49, described Owain as a “beautiful friend” in a heartbreaking tribute.

It read: “Heartbreaking to hear that my beautiful friend has passed away. Owain was loved by so many. He lit up Every room he went into.

“I have some wonderful memories of us together, we go back so many years.. but our time together in LA will always make me smile.

“Sleep well my love. My heart goes out to his friends, and family Rhodri and Conway.”

Downton Abbey star Joanne Froggatt said: “No words seem to convey my emotions. I am so sorry for your loss and the grief you must be feeling.

“I am devastated to lose our beautiful friend, he was more than a friend, he was joy and life and talent and kindness and fun and intelligence.

“He was everything and my brain can’t compute that we don’t get to hug him again.

“What I would give for one more hug. You’re forever in our hearts cariad.”

More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online

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In her early 20s, Ashley Padilla moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, hoping to make a living in comedy. She was taking classes at the Groundlings when an acting exercise forever changed her.

“The teacher said, ‘All right, everyone try to get my attention.’ Everyone starts going crazy,” recalls Padilla, imitating the manic movements her classmates incorporated to be as noticeable as possible. “I just stood in the back like a quiet little freak. I didn’t try to do anything. And she went, ‘I’m just staring at Ashley.’”

Padilla, now 33, is sitting in the restaurant at the 1 Hotel on Sunset, dressed in an elegant white blazer and long skirt, a long way both mentally and professionally from that aspiring performer struggling to find her creative voice. But that lesson remains close to her heart.

“I think about it all the time: You don’t have to be so loud. It actually is more powerful if you’re a little slower.”

Currently in her second season as a featured player on “Saturday Night Live,” Padilla, who sports an ebullient manner and warm smile, has become a fan favorite by exploring how much humor (and tension) you can derive from stillness. Her best sketches, including “Mom Confession,” in which a MAGA mother finally, begrudgingly, admits to her liberal kids that maybe Trump hasn’t been a great president, sparkle because of how expertly she builds suspense regarding where the setup is going.

Ashley Padilla, right, with castmates Tommy Brennan and Jane Wickline in the “SNL” sketch “Mom Confession.”

(Will Heath/NBC)

“I really want to be able to stop and take that pause at the beginning [of a sketch], which are the quickest things to cut because you’re trying to save time: ‘Let’s get rid of when you enter,’” she says. “What roots me as an actor is a little breath. Before we get to the jokes, let the audience see me live in it for a second. I think I’ve proven that [those pauses are] not going to suck the air out of the room. It’s actually going to assist in the blowup that we’re waiting for.”

When Padilla lived in L.A., she adored her Los Feliz neighborhood, so on this late April afternoon she confesses to some disorientation at doing press on the Westside. Still, memories keep creeping up unexpectedly. “I’ll see a coffee shop, and you remember how you were feeling: ‘Will I ever make it?’”

There were encouraging moments that kept her going. One dispiriting day, she was on Melrose Avenue walking to the Groundlings. “In my head I went, ‘Will I ever be on television?’ Just then, a car passes with the girl rolling down the window going, ‘I’ve seen you perform! You’re going to be on television!’ It’s literally like someone answered my cry inside and went, ‘Calm down, it’s going to be OK.’”

Optimism came through other channels too, such as her job as Diane Keaton’s assistant, eventually co-creating her 2024 book “Fashion First.” Padilla adored the late actor and filmmaker, grateful for her endless sense of wonder, which inspired Padilla to see the world differently.

“She would stare at a tree: ‘Look at the way the sun goes through the branches,’” Padilla says, marveling. “I have a voicemail that I listen to whenever I’m feeling a little sad or I miss her — she’s just like, ‘Hey, Ash, how are you doing? I’m just checking in.’ And she stops and goes, ‘The blue sky. Wow.’ And I’m just like, ‘You are someone we all want to be around.’ It’s why she is so massive in people’s lives.”

Before ‘SNL,’ Padilla had stints at the Groundlings and as Diane Keaton’s assistant.

(Sela Shiloni / For The Times)

Since girlhood, Padilla has loved to write, which was valuable once she joined the Groundlings, doing seven shows a week. “You don’t get onstage unless you write your own stuff,” she says. Her viral “SNL” sketch “Haircut” — in which Padilla goes to dinner with friends, disturbing them with her atrocious haircut — was created at Groundlings, where it killed. But pitching it at “SNL” revealed the differences between the stage and live television.

“‘Haircut’ started as a ‘[Weekend] Update’ [feature], and I was unwilling to get rid of some stuff in there because I knew it worked at Groundlings,” she recalls. Padilla credits her frequent “SNL” co-writers Alison Gates and Kent Sublette for helping her understand the program’s rhythms. “They made it punchier and snappier. I definitely need the other writers — they make it so much better. At the Groundlings, there’s no camera cuts, there’s no time limit — you can mosey and do behavioral stuff. But [‘SNL’ sketches] need to look good on television. These writers are so good — they’ll say a joke that I go, ‘You’ve just said everything I was trying to do in a whole page.’”

Padilla’s peculiar but grounded characters may make you wait to see what they have in store, but she isn’t wasting any time. Last summer, wanting to distract herself from wondering whether she’d be asked back to “SNL,” Padilla wrote a screenplay, which is now being backed by Oscar-winning “Moonlight” producer Adele Romanski. Padilla won’t say much about the project, but you can bet she included a part for herself.

“It’s like, ‘I want to be on television? OK, write your sketches. I want to be in movies? I wrote a movie,”’ she explains. “I don’t want to wait around for someone to give me a role. I hope I get to work with great people, but I also want to control my own career — and my own happiness as well. I want to be creative all the time.”

It’s hard to believe we’re approaching the end of May and the midpoint of the year, which means some of our favorite shows have come to a close, including “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” which aired its final episode on CBS last week. Our critics and columnists weighed in on Colbert’s tenure as host of “The Late Show” over the years, writing about why he was the risky but right choice to host, his faith and his next chapter. And “Hacks,” starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, dropped its series finale on HBO Max last night. Times culture columnist Mary McNamara and television critic Robert Lloyd took a moment to discuss the course of the show after five seasons, the characters and why they found the finale satisfying.

While those series have come to an end, a new television show, Prime Video’s “Spider-Noir,” arrived this week with a different take on a beloved superhero, Spider-Man. “Spider-Noir” stars Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly and his alter ego the Spider. Writer Carlos Aguilar spoke to Cage and co-star Lamorne Morris about their spin on the comic book-based characters they portray, and this week, Karen Rodriguez, who plays Ben’s secretary Janet Ruiz on the show, stopped by Guest Spot to talk about her character, working with the ensemble cast and how she gets a nice prize at the end of the season (be warned, a few spoilers ahead).

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our writers recommend a trio of newly arrived second seasons and a collection of films based on Homer’s “The Odyssey” that will get you in the mood for Christopher Nolan’s epic arriving later this summer. Vacation screen time can’t come soon enough. — Maira Garcia

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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Asif Ali, Poorna Jagannathan and Saagar Shaikh in Season 2 of “Deli Boys.”

(Sandy Morris / Disney)

Season 2 of “The Four Seasons” (Netflix), “Patience” (PBS) and “Deli Boys” (Hulu)

There is a season, goes the song, and there is sometimes a second season. Here’s your chance to turn (turn, turn) on your TV to three fine, finally returning series. Tina Fey’s “The Four Seasons” demonstrates there’s still life in this bumpy midlife friend-com about couples (in flux) who vacation together four times a year because apparently there are people who can afford to do that. (On this year’s itinerary: the Catskills, the Jersey Shore and Italy.) It stars Fey, Colman Domingo, Will Forte and others, and even a little bit of Steve Carell, though his character died at the end of Season 1. (Flashbacks, baby.) “Patience,” a charming British mystery, airing here as part of PBS’ “Masterpiece,” stars charismatic autistic actor Ella Maisy Purvis as a neurodivergent amateur detective, assisting the police in York, England. This season replaces Laura Fraser’s finally understanding detective investigator Bea Metcalf with Frankie Monroe (Jessica Hynes), a less sympathetic successor, but Mark Benton (whom you may know from Britbox’s “Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators,” or should) as Calvin Baxter is happily still around as the boss. Abdullah Saeed’s hectic, hilarious “Deli Boys” retails the further misadventures of brothers Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh), who last season stumbled unaware into their late father’s drug business, fronted by a chain of convenience stores. New to the show this season are Fred Armisen as a casino owner, Andrew Rannells as a district attorney and Kumail Nanjiani as the lawyer for the brothers’ Lucky Auntie (Poorna Jagannathan, majestic). — Robert Lloyd

John Turturro, left, Tim Blake Nelson and George Clooney in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

(Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures)

Odysseys (Criterion Channel)

All hail original IP, which is great and all, but sometimes a 3,000-year-old story sticks around for a reason. Homer crystallized the impulse to return home after a long time away from all that is familiar. We’ll watch Matt Damon make that journey in Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” hitting theaters July 17, but until then, Criterion builds anticipation with some of the most notable homeward journeys. Martin Scorsese achieves a kind of cosmic misfortune with 1985’s “After Hours,” in which Griffin Dunne’s yuppie only wants to escape Soho and go back to his apartment after a late-night date gone sour. You can bop to the Coens’ tuneful “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” a faithful Homeric translation, then check out the Preston Sturges satire “Sullivan’s Travels,” which inspired the Coens’ title. But don’t let David Lynch’s “The Straight Story” pass you by: It was the least name-checked of his films when the director died last year, but it’s one of his most gentle and improbable triumphs, about a road trip via lawn tractor to a dying brother. — Joshua Rothkopf

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Janet Ruiz (Karen Rodriguez) in “Spider-Noir.”

(Aaron Epstein / Prime)

Being exceptionally competent at your job is a superhero power — so says this editor. In “Spider-Noir,” Rodriguez plays Janet, a secretary to private investigator Ben Reilly, a.k.a. the Spider. But Janet is not just someone who sits behind the desk answering phones and filing paperwork. She’s as much a gumshoe as Reilly, walking into a police station with poise and ease to sweet-talk the officer into giving her crucial information on an investigation (all it takes is a good sandwich). Her ability to ask the right questions and find answers puts her on equal ground with Reilly and his best friend Robbie Robertson, the investigative journalist played by Morris, leading her to a rightful promotion at the end of series. Don’t you love it when good old-fashioned hard work gets you ahead?

While Rodriguez has been busy lately with her breakout role in “Spider-Noir,” she has also been at work on “The Hunting Wives,” Netflix’s hit drama in which she plays Deputy Wanda Salazar and is slated to return later this year. The actor spoke to us about going toe to toe with Cage, why she loved working with her various cast mates and what she’s watching now. — M.G.

“Spider-Noir” is a comic book adaption, but it’s also a take on classic noir films. How did you prepare for your role as Janet given the mix of genres?

I had a little more freedom because Janet is strictly based on the Girl Friday archetype from classic noir. So I first started with the scripts. Oren [Uziel]’s vision for Janet was very precise in the writing, and from that arc I wanted to figure out why this particular woman in this particular world and what does she offer the environment that no one else can. Then I delved into “The Maltese Falcon” (Janet was based off of Effie Perine), “Double Indemnity,” “His Girl Friday,” among others. And then I mixed it all in with Nick’s take on Ben Reilly because so much of who Janet is absolutely informed by who Ben is.

Janet is very no-nonsense, especially with Ben, even though he’s her boss. What was it like “managing up” and playing off of Nick’s acting? Have you ever dealt with a boss like that in real life?

Well, I think that what’s great about Janet is that she is no-nonsense but she also has a killer sense of humor and wit. I think it makes her someone who’s very skilled at getting what she wants, a little sugar with the medicine. Nick is the ultimate scene partner — so prepared, so playful and most importantly, unpredictable. For Janet, Ben’s antics are her obstacle in the scene and Nick always made sure Ben gave Janet plenty of obstacles. All I had to do was know Janet is the boss and the voice of reason, then listen and respond to him. We had a great time keeping each other on our toes and I’m so grateful to have had that experience with him. No, I haven’t had a boss like that!

Janet shares a lot of scenes with different characters, like Robbie (Morris), Lonnie (Abraham Popoola) or even Frankie (Cary Christopher), the little boy who’s friendly with Ben. She is very good at connecting with people. How was it creating a rapport with so many different cast mates and was there a scene or moment that stood out to you?

Thank you for saying that! Her ability to connect with people is one of my favorite parts about her. And oh, I loved it. The ensemble acting of it all thrills me. It allows me to explore different facets of the character and it’s just fun to collide with different actors. And this particular cast made it so joyful — they’re all mega-talented but also super-focused and hardworking. We just wanted to make the best show we could.

A moment that stood out to me … I loved seeing Janet’s superpower in the scene with Lonnie, how her kindness and ability to make people feel seen makes her a powerful player in this world. And Abraham Popoola is just magnificent so it was a really fun day on set with him and Lamorne.

In the end Janet and Ben become partners. Was that inevitable given her skills?

I would like to think so! And I think Janet would too! But it still made me cry when I read the episode and when I saw the office door sign with both their names. I think for Janet, too — despite knowing she’s worth it, it is still momentous to have Ben give her her due.

Along with “Spider-Noir,” you’ll be back on “The Hunting Wives” for Season 2 later this year. Anything you can tease about what Wanda Salazar might be up to?

You know Maple Brook is going to give her plenty to do! She’s definitely going to have her hands full this season. And I’m excited because I think fans are in for some shocking moments!

What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?

“Ponies” [Peacock]. Oh, and I’ve been watching “The Comeback” [HBO Max], Season 1-3. Lisa Kudrow forever.

What’s your go-to comfort watch, the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?

“The Office” [Peacock]. “Bridget Jones’s Diary” [YouTube, Paramount+]. “Pride and Prejudice,” 2005 vibes [Britbox, Prime Video].

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