BRIDESMAIDS star Wendi McClendon-Covey has revealed why she was missing from the cast reunion at the Oscars saying “I look like a melted candle.”
Fifteen years after its debut, the film‘s main stars gathered onstage at the 2026 awards ceremony for a hilarious reunion.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
Wendi revealed she had undergone a neck lift surgery and was unable to attendCredit: Instagram/wendimclendoncoveyMelissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Ellie Kemper gathered onstage at the 2026 awards ceremony for a hilarious reunionCredit: ReutersWendi played Rita in the comedy sensation BridesmaidsCredit: Alamy
“So I had to skip the Academy Awards. No drama. Everything is fine.”
A snap showed her lying down with a bandage wrapped around her head.
Fans flocked to comment and one wrote: “Sending some healing energy your way!”
Another added: “Gorgeous before and after.”
A third said: “Love your transparency. F-yeah! Some people can embrace that candle look but others…h*** no. Either way is right as long as it makes you happy. Big healing love!”
While a fourth wrote: “You’re such a sweet, kind, hilarious legend, shine on my friend.”
During the Oscars reunion Kirsten joked: “I cannot believe that it’s been 15 years. Now we are not good with numbers, but we figured out backstage that means we shot this movie in 1883.”
Each of them was then handed a note and claimed it was signed by A-list audience members like Leonardo DiCaprio or Stellan Skarsgard, who spoke about their good looks.
Maya opened hers and said: “Oh, this is strange. Well, mine says, ‘First of all, you ladies look extremely beautiful tonight.’ Thank you. ‘You’re aging well.’ Signed, Stellan Skarsgård.”
Kirsten read a fake note from Benicio Del Toro which said “You guys have been talking for a long time. This bit could have been a lot shorter.
Who won on Hollywood’s biggest night?
One Battle After Another ran away with the night with six Oscars, while Sinners, which was nominated for a record-breaking 16 awards, came away with four. See the full winners list below:
Production Design: Frankenstein, Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau
Sound: F1, Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo and Juan Peralta
Visual Effects: Avatar: Fire and Ash, Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett
Casting: One Battle After Another, Cassandra Kulukundis
“This is really going on and on. You aren’t even talking about score. That’s all. Love ya lots, Benicio Del Toro. Or for those of you who refuse to learn Spanish, it’s Benedict of the Bull.”
Directed by Paul Feig, Bridesmaids was written by Kirsten Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who were nominated for Best Original Screenplay when the film was released in 2011.
The film gained cult status and went on to gross over $300 million worldwide.
The film gained cult status and went on to gross over $300 million worldwideCredit: AlamyThe film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay when it was released in 2011Credit: AlamyMelissa McCarthy earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in BridesmaidsCredit: Shutterstock EditorialEach of the cast members were handed a note and claimed it was signed by A-list audience membersCredit: Getty
In “Rooster,” a genial comedy premiering Sunday on HBO, Steve Carell, comfortable as an uncomfortable person, plays Greg Russo, the author of a best-selling series of books whose hero is named Rooster. He has come to leafy, fictional Ludlow College to give a reading, but also because it’s where his daughter, Katie (Charly Clive) teaches art history, and because it’s all over school that her husband, Archie (Phil Dunster), a history professor, has left her for Sunny (Lauren Tsai), a graduate student in neuroscience. He’s a concerned father.
“They are light; they are fun. The characters that you like have sex, the ones you don’t get shot in the face,” Greg tells poetry professor Dylan (Danielle Deadwyler) of the “beach read” books he writes, as she ushers him to an auditorium. Unlike his fictional alter ego, Greg is by his own account a self-conscious introvert, heightened by the fact that his ex-wife, Elizabeth (Connie Britton) — “a philanthropist, a pioneer in corporate gender equality and an accomplished CEO” whose name adorns the school’s new student center — left him five years earlier and he never moved on. Additionally, Greg likes nuts and cocoa, can toss a penny into a jar from across a room, and played minor league hockey, which will put him back on skates here.
College president Walter Mann (John C. McGinley) decides it would be “a feather in his cap” to hire a reluctant Greg, “a best-selling author that the parents have actually heard of,” as an artist-in-residence — a deal he makes impossible to refuse by agreeing to keep Katie on staff after she accidentally burns down Archie’s house. (She was only trying to burn his first edition of “War & Peace.”) It’s a role quite like the one McGinley played/plays on “Scrubs,” but more politic and better dressed, when dressed — he takes meetings in his backyard sauna.
And they’re off.
Poetry professor Dylan (Danielle Deadwyler) and author Greg (Steve Carell) become colleagues when Greg is named artist-in-residence.
(Katrina Marcinowski / HBO)
The series was created by Bill Lawrence (“Ted Lasso,”“Shrinking,”“Scrubs,”“Bad Monkey”) and frequent collaborator Matt Tarses, and as men of at least a certain age, the view is slanted from experience back toward innocence; students play a secondary, though not insignificant role in the story. There are some pro forma jokes about the sensitivities of the young, with Greg getting into not-very-hot water over misunderstood references to “white whale” and the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian.” (“Liberal arts college used to be havens for free thought, Greg,” says Walt. “When did you and I become the bad guys?”) Not that the olds are reliably smart about life — the ways in which they’re not power the series — but they have a better notion of where they’re stupid.
“No one must be humiliated,” Greg says to Archie, quoting Chekhov, as Archie goes off to talk to Katie. (The quote is in the animated opening titles as well, so you can take it as important.) But no one here is out to humiliate anyone, which is nasty and unkind and not at all the sort of humor Lawrence trades in. Of course, characters will be put into embarrassing positions, or embarrass themselves, embarrassment being the root of all comedy, or near enough. (There’s a good bit of slapstick knitted in.) And though we’re told that “there are real villains lurking around this place,” niceness reigns — at least through the six episodes, of 10, available to review — with the possible exception of Alan Ruck as the dean of English. (“There’s no way she wrote all these poems,” he says of Emily Dickinson.)
Though there are couples, and ex-couples and new couples, one doesn’t necessarily feel invested in their getting together, or staying together, or getting back together. Indeed, as in other Lawrence projects — which typically feature divorced or separated characters — romance is a sort of side dish, less the issue than whether people are managing to treat one another well. We knew Ted Lasso wasn’t going to get his wife back, but it wasn’t the point (nor was winning games, really); kindness was what mattered. Greg’s possibly pre-romantic friendship with Dylan is no more significant than his cross-generational friendship with a group of goofball students (led by Maximo Solas as Tommy); they treat each other as peers, while knowing they aren’t. He teaches them that peanut butter can make celery better, and they teach him that he’s cooler than he thinks.
Katie, who says she still loves Archie — who says he still loves her — will also call him “a run-of-the-mill narcissistic a— who sometimes smells like wildflowers.” (As for Sunny, practical and deadpan — that no one gets her jokes is a running joke — not even Archie can see what she sees in him, a problem you might have as well, but, as is true of most everyone here, we’re not meant to merely write him off. Funny secondary characters, who get some of the best business, notably include Rory Scovel as a cop who can’t keep track of his gun, Robby Hoffman as Sunny’s intense, anti-Archie roommate and Annie Mumolo (co-writer of “Bridesmaids”) as Walt’s arch assistant.
Old-but-not-that-old-fashioned, “Rooster” has a tinge of Gen X nostalgia, underscored by the ’80s college radio classics that line the soundtrack. (R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe co-wrote and sings the series’ theme, and Greg, drunk and in a mood, will kill a party getting the DJ to play “Everybody Hurts.” Directed by Jonathan Krisel (“Portlandia,” “Baskets”), it’s low stakes, soft-edged, humane, basically gentle, a little fantastic, a little farcical, well cast and well played in every instance — qualities I happen to like, and maybe you do, too.
A moment of silence for all the comedians, late-night-show writers, political satirists, memers, animators and random influencers who just lost a wealth of inspiration.
Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary, was fired Thursday by President Trump, ending the 13-month tenure of a political figure whose bravado, cruelty, incompetence and commando cosplay inspired more wickedly funny material than Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin and Sean Spicer combined.
Social media’s so-called ICE Barbie, the first Cabinet secretary to leave the Trump administration during the president’s second term, was a font of material for “South Park,” “SNL,” late night and thousands more sketch artists, impersonators, musicians and everyday trash posters. She never disappointed, unless you were looking to her for feasible, humane immigration policy enforcement.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
Drama and spectacle marked her brief career, from posing in front of a packed holding cell at El Salvador’s maximum security prison CECOT, where the DHS had shipped and detained deportees, to casting herself as an agent of action in multiple ICE raid videos. Donning a big gun and long, flowing locks of hair, she insinuated herself into operations, vamping for the camera in a bulletproof vest while masked agents rounded up fellow humans like cattle.
Grim, to be sure, but at least she contributed a shred of comic relief (unintended, of course) to our new, sad reality of federal agents invading American cities and abducting people off the streets, out of their cars and from their homes.
“South Park” skewered Noem in unprintable ways. “SNL” brought back Tina Fey to play Noem. Dressed in a lavender pantsuit, too much makeup and brandishing a massive firearm, she introduced herself as “the rarest type of person in Washington, D.C.: a brunette that Donald Trump listens to.”
The endless stream of memes across social media date back to 2024, when in her memoir Noem recalled shooting and killing her 14‑month‑old dog, a wirehaired pointer named Cricket, after deciding the dog was “untrainable.” Gov. Gavin Newsom later trolled the DHS and Noem with a meme captioned “Kristi Noem’s Dog Obedience School: She’ll Treat Them As Good As She Treats Brown People.” The mock ad featured a smiling woman holding a gun and kneeling beside a dog.
If it seems cruel, consider that the DHS posted holiday-themed deportation memes around Christmas, proclaiming that federal agents were stepping up removals “for the holidays,” with a “holiday deal” offering a free flight and $1,000 to those who self-deport. One X post featured an AI-generated image of federal agents in Santa hats with the caption, “YOU’RE GOING HO HO HOME.”
Noem’s dismissal comes on the heels of two congressional hearings this week where she was questioned about her response to the ICE killings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis (she incorrectly called Good a domestic terrorist and claimed Pretti was involved in an act of domestic terrorism). She was grilled about the department spending $172 million for the purchase of two jets, the nature of her relationship with top DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski, and her $220-million DHS ad campaign starring none other than Kristi Noem. She testified in the hearings that Trump approved the ads. He said he knew nothing about them.
Her firing triggered an immediate rush of snarky content across social media, and a sharp a comment or two from prominent politicians. “Shouldn’t let the door hit her on the way out,” said Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.
But all is not lost for those needing a laugh at Noem’s expense, or at the expense of the DHS, for that matter. The president said Thursday that Noem would take on a new, freshly invented role: Envoy for The Shield of the Americas. He described the position as one that will lead “our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.” The job title and description already sound like the basis for a villainous political satire, without even trying.
And for the new guy taking the post? He’s Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a former MMA fighter. Let the memes begin …
Running free during a game of catch on the empty field at SoFi Stadium is a fantasy most Angelenos will never experience. For comedians Jo Koy and Gabriel Iglesias, it’s just a warm-up to a dream that’s been a lifetime in the making.
Gripping the football with fingers covered in Filipino tribal tattoos extending in a sleeve up his arm, Koy looks across the expanse of emerald green turf at his son jogging toward the south end zone of the Inglewood stadium on a recent afternoon. “To be able to throw at SoFi is crazy,” Koy said with a sparkling grin of bright white veneers.
The 54-year-old comedian with a beard full of gray stubble drops back to pass, launching a tight spiral underneath SoFi’s massive technicolor halo scoreboard hovering above a sea of empty stands. Joseph Jr. — a wiry 22-year-old with a head full of curly dark brown hair — runs briskly toward the goal line with a black cast on his left arm. He raises his right arm just in time to scoop it into his chest for a touchdown. The imaginary crowd goes wild.
“Yes!!!” Koy shouts, his excitement echoing in the stadium. He jogs over to Joseph in his navy blue coverall jumpsuit and L.A. Dodgers cap to deliver a satisfying father-son chest bump.
A few yards away, Iglesias is watching Roka, his tiny black chihuahua, dart around the field like four pounds of rambunctious entitlement. The plus-sized comedian — better known as “Fluffy” — is sporting his typical loose-fitting vintage Hawaiian shirt, denim shorts and black flat cap. Whenever they stand together, the duo’s dynamic is like a modern-day Laurel and Hardy.
Nearly 70% of tickets for Koy and Iglesias’ SoFi show sold within days, making this the largest stadium stand-up performance to date.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
“The fact that we’ve known each other as long as we have is wild … we’ve known each other since we both had hair,” Iglesias, 49, says as they both lift up their caps in unison, laughing and exposing their shiny bald heads.
On March 21, this stadium will be filled with more than 70,000 guests as the pair takes center stage at the Super Bowl of comedy — the largest stadium stand-up show to date. Koy and Iglesias are now part of a small fraternity of comics, including Kevin Hart, Dane Cook, Bill Burr and Larry the Cable Guy, who’ve sold out stadiums across the country.
The one-night-only show, which won’t be televised or recorded as a special, is meant to be one giant party for comedy fans who’ve supported Koy and Iglesias since their early days. The comics will be passing the mic back and forth throughout the night, which will feature special guests, surprise moments and plenty of other unplanned interruptions that will make for a roughly four-hour show. Though the L.A. comedy scene tends to exist in the shadow of Hollywood, this feat managed by two of its biggest names puts a historic spotlight on stand-up.
“It’s more sweet because it’s taken so long,” Iglesias said. “This wasn’t an overnight thing. Nowadays, everybody wants everything so fast. Between the two of us, we’ve got about 60 years of comedy experience.”
“It’s insane. I can’t explain it,” Koy adds, staring up at the stadium’s glass roof, preparing to crack it with decibels of laughter. “Every time we come in here and look up, I’m like, ‘There’s going to be a stage here the size of the end zone.’ We took the stage from the arenas that we normally play and injected steroids into it.”
For comedians who’ve witnessed their ascent, which now literally includes hands and feet cemented in front of TCL Chinese Theatre and a star for Fluffy on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the journey has been incredible to watch.
“It’s huge for stand-up, it used to be just in dingy clubs and bars and always something small and intimate and kinda like an afterthought,” said fellow comedy star Tiffany Haddish, a longtime friend to both Koy and Iglesias. “To be honest I never thought comedy would be this big.”
Jay Leno, a confidant to Iglesias and the man who inspired him to start his own insane car collection and offered Koy his first late-night appearance on “The Tonight Show,” agrees that a show like this is a huge step for comedy.
“My attitude when I came to this town was if you can’t get in through the front door, go in the back door,” Leno said. “And they didn’t do it the traditional way, they got to where they are as comedians, one audience member at a time.”
For the two L.A. comedians, the historic milestone represents decades of work and signals comedy’s arrival in mainstream entertainment venues.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
When the pair of arena-selling comics announced last year they’d be joining forces to perform at SoFi, the task of filling the massive concert venue and football stadium seemed laughable. But within a week, it clearly wasn’t a joke. Nearly 70% of the tickets were sold just days after going on sale. Now, weeks before the gig, the show is completely sold out with more seats being added. If there’s one person who is not necessarily surprised, it’s Iglesias. By his calculations — including his ability to sell out Dodger Stadium twice for the filming of his 2022 Netflix special, “Stadium Fluffy,” and Koy’s ability to sell out the Forum a record-setting six consecutive times (more than any other comedian) — the math checked out.
“At a certain point it’s like we’ve been doing [huge stand-up shows] for so many years, it becomes normal,” Iglesias said. “What do you do to change things? What do you do to grow? The worst thing that happens is it fails. But at least we know we tried it. Then we know what our ceiling is. But as of now, this isn’t the ceiling.”
Despite the logic, looking at the stadium’s massive seating chart during an initial meeting with the venue made the task feel akin to climbing Mt. Everest.
“SoFi is the size of like five Forums. That seating chart on a wall was the most discouraging thing I could possibly look at,” Koy said. “And then looking at the amount of money it was gonna cost us even before we sell one ticket. Me and Gabe should’ve been looking at that and been like, ‘What … are we thinking? Hell nah we ain’t doing this … !’”
It took more than a little convincing from Iglesias to get Koy on board. “[Jo] does not like change. I had to break down the math for him and I pushed it a lot,” Iglesias said. “And I’m glad we did because now that it’s sold out, the hard part is over. We just have to show up and deliver a kick-ass show. And then we can both celebrate after, crack a couple bottles and I know I’m taking a week off after that.”
Unlike a typical arena show, which takes several months to coordinate, their big night at SoFi required a full year of planning. The production and stage will be three times the size of the comedians’ normal stages and will be managed by the same team that produces stadium shows for acts like Los Bukis and Bad Bunny.
“It’s more sweet because it’s taken so long,” Iglesias said. “This wasn’t an overnight thing. Nowadays, everybody wants everything so fast. Between the two of us, we’ve got about 60 years of comedy experience.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s almost like a chessboard,” Iglesias said. “You got to do a bunch of moves in order to pull something like this off, it’s not just we’re gonna do it. This took a lot of planning, a lot of coordinating.”
When asked how the tickets could’ve possibly moved so fast, outside of typical avenues of good marketing and promotion, Koy says it was really comedy fans making a statement of support for them and for stand-up.
“There’s no such thing as marketing on this one, to me it’s a phenom,” he said, noting the pride both he and Iglesias have to see the excitement and support from local fans, especially Filipino and Latin communities across L.A. that have been a major part of their respective fanbases. “That type of reaction and that response to us saying we’re gonna be at SoFi is almost like a bragging right and it’s ‘our night, we’re gonna be there, I don’t care where we’re sitting.’”
The SoFi gig was conceived in February of 2024 during Koy’s sixth sold-out show at Kia Forum. In the hoopla of Koy breaking his own audience record at the venue, Iglesias crashed the show, presented his friend with a plaque and laid down the gauntlet in front of 17,500 fans. When Iglesias asked Koy if they should contemplate performing “across the street” together, the crowd erupted with excitement.
“Our agents and managers were like, ‘Are you sure you wanna do that?’’’ Iglesias said. “I think they missed a couple bonuses. But at the end of the day, it’s part of history.”
“That’s what’s beautiful about Gabe, he’s not scared to take on those big risks,” Koy said. “But the whole thing was a risk. We gotta alter our tour dates and sacrifice other opportunities to make this happen.”
“Every time we come in here and look up, I’m like, ‘There’s going to be a stage here the size of the end zone,‘” Koy said about the upcoming SoFi show on Mar. 21. “We took the stage from the arenas that we normally play and injected steroids into it.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
For Koy, a life of comedy was a risk inspired by his heroes while growing up in Tacoma, Wash. He traces it back to being 15 and seeing Eddie Murphy perform at Climate Pledge Arena during his “Raw” tour in Seattle. He remembers taking a panoramic look at the sold-out crowd roaring in the darkness before the leather-suited legend even took the stage. “I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, this guy got this many people in here?’ I just thought that was the most impossible thing,” Koy remembers. “And now I get to share this moment with my son and let him walk with me and let him see that this is possible.”
When Koy was moving up the comedy ranks under his real name Joseph Glenn Herbert, the thought of calling himself a comedian felt like a pipe dream. Koy, the son of a white father and Filipina mother, saw comedy as a way to channel an overactive personality and need to make people laugh into a career. Going from coffee shop open mics in Tacoma to clubs and casinos in Las Vegas in 1989, Koy scratched out a living doing random jobs to move to L.A. in 2001 with hopes of making it big.
Working at a bank or Nordstrom Rack offered some stability as he drove up and down Sunset Boulevard in his battered Honda Prelude with one broken headlight, looking for a way forward to pursue his passion. Haddish, his longtime friend, spent years working with Koy, who served as her mentor at the Laugh Factory. Between sets on stage, the two would often take breaks to fantasize about fame.
“Jo and I would sit outside of the Laugh Factory and have these conversations and we’d be eating hot dogs wrapped in bacon and we’d be dreaming about being in a big movie, playing big theaters and helping people heal through laughter,” Haddish said. “Now here we are.”
“At the end of the day, this is a big stamp. And I think it also lets other comics know, ‘Hey, man, step up your game. Let’s grow this,’” Iglesias said.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Pulling off a show of this magnitude is jaw-dropping to think about, Iglesias said, even after having achieved a similar feat just a few years ago at Dodgers Stadium where he filmed his special over the course of two shows. He also set a record for fines incurred by a performer for going over his allotted time slot (a hefty $250,000 for not leaving the venue until 4 a.m.). The SoFi gig leaves him only one shot to get it right. This time around, Iglesias feels infinitely less pressure despite the bigger venue.
“[Dodger Stadium] for me was grueling,” Iglesias said. “I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know how it was gonna go. Every day we were pulling our hair out trying to figure it out. Fortunately we were still able to pull it off and we learned a lot from it. This time around, believe me when I tell you the stress of this show is not even there.”
Iglesias, a native of Long Beach, has spent over 30 years rising up the comedy ranks. Among his accomplishments are seven major comedy specials, a TV show (“Mr. Iglesias”) and becoming the first Mexican American comic with a top-grossing worldwide tour. Like Koy, who also has seven major specials, Iglesias went through a lot of metamorphosis on stage prior to finding his calling as a gregarious, fun-loving comedian with a penchant for doing cartoon-ish voices.
Leno says one of the key factors in Fluffy’s mass appeal is his likability.
“The great thing about Gabriel is that the kindness comes across, there’s not a mean spirit in his body,” he said. “There’s a lot of comics who are really funny but people don’t like them because they think they’re mean-spirited. … When you watch Gabe even when he does something that’s not fall-down hysterical, you smile because you like him. … I find him a joy to watch.”
Much of what Iglesias learned about marketing himself was inspired by the WWE. The costumes, witty banter and theatrics of the wrestling ring influenced his consistent look and even allowed the name “Fluffy” to become his calling card.
Comedians Gabriel Iglesias, aka, “Fluffy,” in front, and Jo Koy are photographed at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on February 10, 2026, ahead of their March 21st show.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
“There is a certain level of pandemonium, as they say in wrestling, that’s needed to get people excited,” Iglesias said. “Then there’s the marketing and the way that you do it — so I did study wrestling a lot.”
Handing the kingdom of SoFi over to the court jesters for a night is a feat worthy of celebration.
“At the end of the day, this is a big stamp. And I think it also lets other comics know, ‘Hey, man, step up your game. Let’s grow this,’” Iglesias said. “And it’s not, ‘Step up your game,’ like we’re competing with each other. It’s more so like, ‘Let’s elevate the game of comedy.’”
Right now Koy feels plenty elevated, as though he’s floating every time he enters the stadium and looks up at the stands — like the night he saw Eddie Murphy all those years ago.
“You should’ve heard the whispers me and Gabe had to ourselves walking out of the stadium tunnel, like, ‘Yo, is this really happening?!’” Koy said with a megawatt smile. “Coming from an open mic night at a coffee house, never in my wildest dreams did I say, ‘Someday, a football stadium’ … we’re literally living our dreams right now.”
We made it! After this weekend, when the Producers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild hand out their highly predictive precursors, the final shape of the Oscar race should be (reasonably) clear — and nominees worn out by months of campaigning will be breathing a sigh of relief.
Before I share highlights from this week’s issue, one programming note: This will be my last letter from the editor until our inaugural Cannes issue drops in May. (Don’t worry, I will be plenty busy in the interim catching up on this year’s top Emmy contenders.)
Thanks as always for following along, and may you triumph in your Oscar pool!
Cover story: Rose Byrne
(Ryan Pfluger / For The Times)
Times columnist Mary McNamara and I don’t agree on everything, but we do agree on this: “Damages” deserves to be ranked alongside “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” in any discussion of the Golden Age of TV.
That’s thanks in one part to a gripping flash-forward narrative structure now so common it could be considered a cliché, and in another to Glenn Close’s indelible performance as ruthless litigator Patty Hewes. But it’s also a testament to the multifaceted talents of Rose Byrne, who went “toe-to-toe” with Close in what would become her breakthrough role — and then confidently pivoted to projects like “Insidious,” “Bridesmaids” and “Spy.”
“Byrne is something of a creative chameleon, moving easily from drama to comedy to horror, film to television to stage and back again,” McNamara writes in this week’s cover story. “In many ways, her gut-wrenching, darkly funny performance as a woman pushed beyond all endurance in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” is a culmination of all the characters she brought to life before it.”
Inside Warner Bros.’ dominant Oscar haul
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Whether you come down on the side of “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another” in the best picture race may be perfect fodder for debate with friends over a few small beers, but for Warner Bros. executives Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy it would be akin to choosing a favorite child. After all, both projects emerged from the pair’s desire, as contributor Gregory Ellwood writes, to make WB “a destination where filmmakers of all varieties, including auteurs, bring their projects for ‘white glove’ treatment.”
As De Luca explains, “Everything was original once… If you don’t refresh the coffers with new IP to create new franchises, at some point you get to Chapter 10 or 11 and people start to move on.”
The many faces of ‘The Secret Agent’
(Ryan Pfluger/For The Times)
The moment Tânia Maria arrives onscreen as Dona Sebastiana in “The Secret Agent,” you can’t help but ask yourself, “Who is that?!” (Star Wagner Moura had the same reaction.) But the real feat casting director Gabriel Domingues pulls off in the Oscar-nominated Brazilian thriller is to make you ask yourself the same question, over and over, every time a new character appears.
How did Domingues find a range of actors to represent the country’s endless diversity? It’s part of his process, writes contributor Carlos Aguilar: “He prides himself on doing the shoe-leather work of looking for fresh, compelling faces in cities where others might not think to look — those without a prominent arts scene, for instance.”
“Strip Law,” a new cartoon premiering Friday, finds Netflix in an Adult Swim state of mind, which is to say there was no thought of it being made for everybody. (Possibly including some of the people it was made for.) It’s rude, lewd, surreal in a banal sort of way, at times ridiculously violent — that is, the violence is ridiculous.
It was the cast that attracted me: Adam Scott, once more the schlemiel as leading man; Janelle James, sure of her own magnificence, not far from her character on “Abbott Elementary”; and Keith David, whose deep, sonorous voice is almost necessarily one of authority, turned to good or evil or in between as the script demands. James and David, especially, I could listen to for days.
Created by Cullen Crawford, (“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Star Trek: Lower Decks”), the series is centered on a failing Las Vegas law firm, headed by Scott’s Lincoln Gumb, with James as Sheila Flambé, “a magician and three-year all-county sex champion” he hires as his “co-counsel in charge of spectacle.” Niece Irene (Shannon Gisela), an iron-pumping 16-year-old, works as his investigator; she wears a blindfold labeled “Underage” whenever she’s required to be in a bar. Stephen Root plays his disbarred (later undisbarred — rebarred?) lawyer uncle, Glem Blorchman, the strangest of them all — “It’s 115 degrees out so I put marshmallows in gin,” is something he says as they gather to watch Christmas movies. And David plays Lincoln’s nemesis, Stevie Nichols, the very successful former partner of Lincoln’s late mother, upon whom the son remains perversely fixated.
Much of it is the sort of thing that will work or not work depending on your mood, but generally I prefer the small throwaway jokes to the big gross ones. There are self-reflexive meta gags about “hard-working cartoon writers” and “reappropriating out-of-date catchphrases.” There are many nods to “The Simpsons,” including “frosty chocolate milkshakes” and James L. Brooks’ Gracie Films logo. The final episode, of 10, takes place within the finale of a “Suits”-like legal dramedy. (“It’s against their nature to let something be sweet and fun and airy,” that firm’s bromantic lawyers say of Lincoln’s team. “They have to make it dark and strange and crass.”) And there are left-field references to Cocteau Twins and Bikini Kill, whose “original bass player” Glem claims to be. (“I don’t know what Bikini Kill is,” says Irene. “Neither did I, according to Kathleen Hanna,” says Glem.)
There are various oddball judges (nothing remotely legal happens in a courtroom); “local character” Lunch Meat, who turns up in many roles; a barman, Mr. O’Raviolo, who switches between exaggerated Irish and Italian accents in mid-sentence. Comedian George Wallace plays himself as the mayor of Las Vegas. A Halloween Christmas episode parodies “Miracle on 34th Street”; another takes off on Colton Burpo, the “boy who saw Heaven,” which includes a live-action trailer for a faith-based film featuring Tim Heidecker as a coke-snorting atheistic Lincoln. A virtual reality HR seminar is hosted by “a computerized amalgamation of all five personalities of the Rat Pack,” an immersive Autoverse, in which actors create situations that somehow amount to a driving test. There are the “Nevada-grown” Hot Dates, a sexualized version of the California Raisins; riots occur when the characters are redesigned to be more respectable (“They’re walking away from years of established canon,” laments Lincoln.)
The series felt a little off-putting at first, as if it were straining for effect, but gathered steam as it went on, either because the later episodes are weirder or better written, or because one just gets used to being in that world with those people. There is just enough character in the comedy to create stakes in the narrative; its misfit energy has fueled the screen’s bands of outsiders throughout the years. (“Even when you’re a disaster, you’re a disaster for the right people,” Irene tells Lincoln.) As to the famous fine line between stupid and clever, the stupidity and the cleverness are all but inextricable, and to the point.
The credits declare that the series is “proudly made by real, non-computer human beings,” which is pleasant to know, and in 100 years will still have been the best way to make cartoons, even if by then they are only made by and, for all we know, for machines. The thin-lined drawing style is standard for more or less realistic 21st-century adult TV animation, with perhaps a hint of comics artist Daniel Clowes laid on. But the characters are expressive, and the medium is used to unreal ends, which is, after all, what cartoons are good for.
HE’s got almost 2 million followers on TikTok alone, has an army of A-list celebrity fans and now US comic Corey O’Brien is preparing to invade the UK.
After blowing up on social media post lockdown with his hilarious videos impersonating everyone from Dua Lipa and Justin Timberlake to the Spice Girls– who all shared his clips online – the 34 year-old former dancer’s comedy career has gone from strength to strength.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
US comedian Corey O’Brien’s career blew up on TikTok – and how he’s headed to the UKCorey’s video impersonating the Spice Girls was shared by the ladies themselvesCorey in action onstage
And next week he’s performing in London for his first ever UK show, much to the delight of both Corey and his legions of British fans.
“I’m a real anglophile,” smiles Corey, as he chats to The Sun from his home in Los Angeles.
“I’m really excited because I feel like my comedy goes across really well with a UK audience.
“I’m unhinged and have no filter, and I feel like you guys really get that. I have no boundaries, I say whatever the f*** I want to say and I think that’s quite a British sense of humour.”
He may live 6000 miles away from Blighty, but Corey admits he avidly follows UK pop culture – whether it’s binging classic early seasons of Love Island with his former NFL star boyfriend Ryan K Russell (“we stopped having sex at one point because we were so obsessed with watching Hannah Elizabeth) to keeping abreast of every development of the Beckham family feud.
“I am so invested in that drama,” he confesses. “I’m team Posh, of course. If Victoria wants to come to crash my wedding, do a full dance number and make the night all about her, I wouldn’t hate it.
“She could slap me in the face in the middle of my vows and I would probably say thank you. She’s Victoria Beckham. She was my gay awakening.”
Indeed, when Corey impersonated all five Spice Girls for his own take on the iconic Say You’ll Be There video three years ago, he never expected it to get more than three million views and be shared by the legendary pop group’s official social media channels.
“I think I cried when that happened,” he confessed. “It was one of the most amazing things to ever happen. My boyfriend was upstairs at the time and I screeched as if someone was killing me. He was quite concerned.”
It’s not just iconic British girlbands that Corey is obsessed with though – during our chat he happily recounts his favourite moments from various UK Celebrity Big Brother series.
Corey is a huge anglophile addicted to Love Island UK and Celebrity Big BrotherCredit: vixinatorCorey dates retired NFL footballer Ryan RussellCredit: instagramThe hilarious star is more than happy to flash the flesh on instagram
“Oh my god, I’ve watched all of Chris Hughes and JoJo Siwa‘s romance, I can’t get enough of Farrah Abraham‘s fight with Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace and of course Tiffany Pollard’s ‘David’s dead’ moment is my all time favourite,” he laughs.
“I’d love to do Celebrity Big Brother. If any casting people are reading it, get me on there! I’ll get nude if they want me too!”
Anyone who follows Corey on social media will know he’s more than happy to flash his naked buff body – either in the name of comedy or simply for a bit of a thirst trap.
“I’ve not said this publicly before, but I microdose Ozempic,” he confesses when asked about his increasingly toned physique, before admitting to making a big mistake when he started on the fat jabs.
“I ordered some off some random website for like $400 and, believe it or not, I’m not a doctor so I didn’t really understand the dosages,” he deadpans.
“The first time I took it, I shot up a whole month’s worth of it in one go and I didn’t realise. I lost like 12 pounds in a week and it was all muscle that I lost. So yeah, now I just do little microdoses here and there.”
And he’s more than willing to show off some skin when he hits Britain next week.
“I’ll show my nudes on stage, hell, I’ll show them in person for like 20 bucks,” he laughs.
“I need to make some money – the exchange rate is crazy right now!”
Corey O’Brien: Live In London is at the Top Secret Comedy Club in London on Monday February 23. Doors open from 5.30pm.
Corey will play his first UK show next Monday, February 23Corey is a former professional dancer who turned to comedy during lockdownCredit: Luke fontana
