purpose

During a dark moment in Bing Liu’s “Preparation for the Next Life,” our protagonist, Aishe (Sebiye Behtiyar), seeks guidance in a place she did not think she’d return to: a mosque. An undocumented Uyghur immigrant from China, Aishe has left behind the religion in which she was raised. But feeling alone and stuck in New York City, she turns toward this place of cultural familiarity, where the imam counsels her that she’ll be rewarded for her obedience in her next life. But what about this life, the one she’s living now?

Aishe has been preparing for her next life since she arrived in New York, getting stronger, smarter, faster, so that she can make the leap to an existence that’s more comfortable, safer, more abundant. Like most young girls with big dreams, there’s only one thing that can slow her forward momentum and that is, of course, a boy.

“Preparation for the Next Life” is the narrative feature debut of Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Liu. His much-lauded film “Minding the Gap” is a searing and searching project about his childhood friends, a group of skateboarders he followed over the course of a heady transition period, often turning the camera on himself and his own family.

In “Preparation for the Next Life,” Liu once again trains his lens on the delicate coming-of-age that is the early 20s. As the title of this adaptation of Atticus Lish’s 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award-winning debut novel suggests, it captures a liminal time in which Aishe, in reflecting on her past while getting ready for her future, is surprised by the arrival of a new person who enters her life and asks her to stay in the moment, at least for a little while.

Aishe locks eyes with Brad Skinner (Fred Hechinger) on the street in Queens and they share an immediate intrigue. He’s recently been discharged from the Army, arriving in New York with some cash and a desire to do anything but go home. The young couple fall into lust, then love, over beers in a Latin American cowboy bar, Uyghur street food and then in a shabby basement apartment. Skinner is a reprieve from Aishe’s life working in brutal restaurant kitchens for under-the-table wages; Aishe is a grounding force for Skinner, grieving the loss of his best friend and managing his PTSD symptoms with a cocktail of meds and plenty of booze. They are both utterly alone in the world until they have each other.

Liu transports us into this small but affecting love story with stunning, saturated, fluid cinematography by Ante Cheng and a swooning score by Emile Mosseri. The filmmaker deploys this lush aesthetic to make us fall in love with Aishe and Skinner’s impossible, head-over-heels romance.

He weaves in Aishe’s childhood memories of her father, with her Uyghur language narration addressed to him, as she asks imploring questions of a man who will never be able to answer. Skinner’s military background inspires her own physical training, jogging miles and lifting weights. She’s always seeking her father, not just in Skinner the soldier but in herself too, the remnants of his presence thrumming through her memory.

Ambitious, driven and desperate to change her station in life, Aishe contemplates marriage, hoping for a path to legal status, though the only free advice she can get from an immigration lawyer is to be careful about whom she marries. She heeds this warning, starting to realize that this boyfriend might not bring her freedom but deadweight, as much as she tries to help him help himself. The scenario is high stakes given both Aishe’s status (she’s at one point arrested and detained) and Skinner’s mental health struggles, but this is a classic tale of a first love that curdles from sweet to sour.

The compelling performances and Liu’s artful direction elevate the script. Behtiyar, in her debut feature, is spectacular, eyes fiery, her expression often inscrutable, body in constant motion as Cheng’s camera follows close behind. Her connection with Hechinger is palpable, heady and heated, despite their characters’ differences, and it’s nice to see Hechinger in a more adult, romantic role, even as Skinner falls prey to his own demons.

Liu does indulge in the prolonging of heartache and indecision, and the story stalls while heading into the third act, the film stretched beyond what the material can sustain. Nevertheless, “Preparation for the Next Life” is a powerful assertion of dreams, humanity and hard work, arguing that every person has a past, a future and a story to tell. Some loves are for a lifetime, others just a moment, but nothing’s stopping Aishe from what she wants in this life — or her next.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

SACRAMENTO — Seven months into President Trump’s second term, California has filed 37 lawsuits against his administration and spent about $5 million doing it.

Before you go off on a government-spending rant, let me drop this figure on you: For each dollar the state has spent in litigation with Trump, it has recouped $33,600 in funds that the federal government has tried to take away from the Golden State, according to Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.

That, as he put it during a Monday news conference, is “bringing the receipts.”

These aren’t dollars Californians were wishing for or begging for from the federal government — these are funds that have already been legally allotted to the state but which the Trump administration is attempting to stop for reasons petty, ideological or both. They pay for teacher training, immunizations, tracking infectious diseases, keeping roads safe, disaster recovery and on and on. And they are predominantly your tax dollars, being withheld from your state.

“What we’re demanding is that we get the funding that’s already been legally approved and appropriated,” Bonta said.

But as much as it’s about paying for the basics that keep California going, it’s also about protecting an inclusive and equitable way of living that defines the ethos of our state. Don’t tread on us! Californians get to spend our money how we see fit.

“When you add it all up, you see the totality of what’s at stake: the California dream,” Bonta said. “The idea that every Californian, no matter how they look, where they live or how much money they have, can send their kid to school, go to the doctor when they’re sick and put food on the table and a roof over their heads.”

Or as Gov. Gavin Newsom put it, it’s litigation not for the sake of suing, but to “defend, to stand tall, to hold the line in terms of our values, the things we hold dear.”

It’s serious times, folks. Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t stand for LGBTQ+ rights, for immigrants’ rights, for women’s rights, for due process or even public schools. But so far, the courts have held, for the most part, to their responsibility to be a check on this unbalanced administration.

Of course, lawyers win cases, sometimes regardless of facts. I want to give a shout out to our state Department of Justice. Bonta may be the state’s top lawyer, but there is a whole army of legal folks behind these lawsuits.

The $5 million spent so far has been entirely in-house, Bonta said. This cash isn’t going to expensive outside counsel, but, as my colleague Kevin Rector points out, money that is funding the smart, talented attorneys and staff who work for taxpayers.

More than a few of them were around during Trump’s first term, when the state was involved in more than 120 lawsuits against his administration. Many of those suits were about process — the haphazard, rules-be-damned way Trump seeks to implement his policies.

Our California lawyers learned then that courts do in fact uphold law, and simply pointing out that rules have to be followed was often enough to stop Trump. While we now have a seasoned legal team that understands the weaknesses in what Trump is doing, the sort-of-funny part is that he’s still doing it. Few lessons learned, which is good for California.

So far, these lawsuits by California have ensured that about $168 billion that Trump would have cut off instead continued to flow to California. Bonta said that in the 19 cases that have made it in front of a judge so far, he’s succeeded in 17, including winning 13 court orders directly blocking Trump’s “illegal actions.”

He’s also secured wins outside of court, including when the U.S. Department of Education recently backed down after freezing school funding weeks before school is set to start. That funding, under threat of a lawsuit, has been restored.

Bonta said that while the state is fighting every lawsuit with rigor, two are personal to him and “remain sort of the most important in terms of what they represent.”

They happen to be the first two suits the state filed, shortly after Trump took office. The first was about birthright citizenship, and Trump’s bid to end it. It’s a case Bonta says is “very meaningful” to him.

Bonta was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States when he was 2 months old, living in a trailer in the Central Valley town of La Paz, the home of the United Farm Workers. His parents left their country to avoid martial law as the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos gained power, and worked with civil rights leaders including Cesar Chavez once they settled here.

So it makes sense that an executive order that would leave about 24,500 babies born each year in California without U.S. citizenship hits hard with Bonta.

Bonta, along with attorneys general of several other states, filed that lawsuit the day after Trump took office, in response to an executive order he signed on Inauguration Day. So far, multiple courts have expressed deep skepticism of that order, and the idea that the Constitution and prior Supreme Court rulings should be ignored in favor of Trump’s position.

The second case that Bonta takes personally is a multistate pushback on Trump’s sweeping halt of federal funding. That case put at risk about $3 trillion nationwide, including that $168 billion in California, about a third of the state budget.

Coming up next is a challenge to the deployment of Marines and National Guard troops in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has been quietly removing those soldiers in recent days, perhaps in preparation for asking the court to drop that case, which seems like a loser for them. No troops, no case. We’ll see how it goes in a few days.

“The Marines and the National Guardspeople arrived to quiet streets in L.A.,” Bonta said. “The president has been incredibly, in my view, disrespectful to these patriots. He’s treated them as political pawns.”

The $5 million the state has spent so far on legal fights with Trump is part of $25 million the Legislature set aside earlier this year during a special session. Bonta said that even that will likely not be enough to keep the challenges flowing for the next three and a half years.

Newsom, for his part, is all in and promised that Bonta “will not be in need of resources to do his job.” (And yes, I know it raises his profile for a 2028 presidential run.)

As much as it seems ridiculous that we are setting aside this huge chunk of change for legal fees at a moment when we are facing a budget crisis, the cost of letting Trump run roughshod over our state is much higher. This is money well spent.

Because it’s not just our federal funding at stake, it’s the California dream.

A MAJOR high street bank has become the latest British lender to quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the bank said on Friday.

Barclays argued that the departure of several global lenders has left it no longer fit to support the bank’s green transition.

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Barclays’ decision to quit the foremost banking alliance focused on tackling climate change follows on from HSBC and several major US banks.

It also raises questions about the ability of the group to influence change in the sector going forward.

The bank said in a statement on its website: “After consideration, we have decided to withdraw from the Net Zero Banking Alliance.”

It added that its commitment to be net zero by 2050 remained unchanged and that it still saw a commercial opportunity for itself and its clients in the energy transition.

Earlier this week Barclays published the first update on its sustainability strategy in several years.

It said the bank made £500 million in revenue from sustainable and low-carbon transition finance in 2024.

Jeanne Martin, co-director of corporate engagement at responsible investment NGO ShareAction called the decision to leave the Net Zero Banking Alliance “incredibly disappointing and a step in the wrong direction at a time when the dangers of climate change are rapidly mounting.”

Barclays said the alliance was no longer fit for its purpose: “With the departure of most of the global banks, the organisation no longer has the membership to support our transition.”

The Net Zero Banking Alliance, a global initiative launched by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, lists more than 100 members on its website – including leading international financial institutions.

A spokesperson for the alliance said it remains focused on “supporting its members to lead on climate by addressing the barriers preventing their clients from investing in the net-zero transition.”

It comes after it was announced that Barclays is slashing interest rates on its popular Rainy Day for the third time in less than seven months.

From August 4, the interest rate for balances up to £5,000 will fall from 4.61% to 4.36%.

The Rainy Day Saver account, which offers easy access to funds, has been a favourite among Barclays‘ 20 million customers.

It is designed for balances up to £5,000, with savers earning the higher rate on the first £5,000 – currently 4.61%.

Savings above this threshold earn just 1% interest, but customers benefit from instant access to their money at any time.

At the current rate, holding £5,000 in the account would earn you £230.50 in interest over 12 months.

However, when the rate drops to 4.36%, this will fall to £218 – a loss of £12.50 per year.

Once boasting a competitive 5.12% interest rate earlier this year, Barclays has steadily chipped away at its appeal.

In February, the rate dropped to 4.87%, followed by another cut in April to 4.61%.

In February, the bank reduced the rate to 4.87%, followed by another cut in April to 4.61%.

Now, just months later, rates are set to drop again, leaving savers questioning whether to stick with the account or explore better options elsewhere.

How Barclay Card Changes Could Affect You

ANALYSIS by Consumer Reporter, James Flanders:

Barclaycard’s change to its credit card repayment structure sounds great if you don’t dig into the details.

After all, Barclaycard says it’s “making the changes to give you greater flexibility each month”.

In practice, it means that if you can’t afford to pay off your balance in full at the end of each statement period, you can repay much less under the minimum repayment option than you have done previously.

If you only pay the minimum amounts on occasion, this is super useful.

But if you rely on this type of repayment plan in the long term, it could will cost you hundreds of pounds extra in interest.

It could also negatively affect your credit file as it’ll take you much longer to clear your debt.

More interest will be applied to your outstanding balance, too, as less is paid down each month.

For example, if you have a balance of £5,000 on a Barclaycard at 24% interest, where you only make the minimum payments and don’t spend on the card.

Under the old “2.5% of the balance plus the interest charged” rule, it would take around 14 years to clear the balance.

In total, you’d expect to pay about £3,500 in interest.

But with the new “1% of the balance plus the interest charged” calculation, it will take over 30 years to clear the same balance.

You’d then end up paying a whopping £8,500 in interest.

Before taking out a new credit card or increasing the amount you borrow, it’s vital to consider the consequences.

You should only borrow money if you can afford to pay it back.

It’s always vital to ask yourself if you actually need to borrow before committing to a new credit card, personal loan or overdraft.

If you use a credit card, I’d recommend that you always pay off your balance in full at the end of each statement period.

Lenders have a responsibility to help customers who are in debt.

If you’re in a debt crisis, your first point of call should be your lender.

They might help you out by offering you a reduced interest rate or a temporary payment holiday – so check in with your lender if you’re struggling.

With the Jeffrey Epstein controversy still dogging him, President Trump has embraced his favorite distraction: the culture wars.

It began when he announced that Coca-Cola was switching to cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Coke responded with a statement that basically boiled down to: “Wait, what?” — before announcing the company would release a Trump-approved version of the famous cola.

Now, you might think decisions like these should be left up to the companies. After all, it’s none of the government’s business, and Republicans supposedly believe in free markets.

But no! Trump followed up by threatening to block a new stadium for Washington’s NFL team unless it changed its name back to the Redskins. He also demanded that Cleveland’s baseball team go back to being called the Indians.

At first glance, this seems like a ridiculous ploy to distract us from Epstein. And sure, that’s part of the story. But here’s what Trump understands: A lot of Americans feel like somebody came along and stole all their cool stuff — iconic team names, high-hold hair spray, military bases named after Confederate generals — and replaced them with soulless, modern stuff. “Guardians,” “low-flow shower heads,” “Fort Liberty.”

We might laugh at his trivial Coke crusade, but sports teams evoke more primal emotions. You can drink a Coke today and a Pepsi tomorrow. But you can’t root for the Indians on Monday and the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday. Not unless you’re a psychopath — or someone who wants to get punched in a bar. Team loyalty matters.

Trump gets this. When I was a kid, the Redskins won three Super Bowls. There were songs like “Hail to the Redskins,” team heroes (like John Riggins, Doug Williams and coach Joe Gibbs), and all manner of burgundy and gold merch. It wasn’t just a team. It was part of our identity — as well as an excuse to spend time together (even as decades passed without another Super Bowl run).

Then one day: poof. Goodbye Redskins.

Now imagine that same sense of loss in an already deracinated place like the Rust Belt, where the ball club is a big part of the city’s identity, and where they already closed Dad’s factory and then had the gall to take his boyhood team’s name too.

This isn’t really about names. It’s about nostalgia. Tradition. Identity. It’s about trying to keep a tenuous grip on a world you can still recognize, while everything else dissolves into a place where even choosing a bathroom is a political statement.

Now, is the name Redskins offensive? Sure. Even though a 2016 Washington Post poll found that 9 out of 10 Native Americans weren’t offended, you’d be hard-pressed to defend it on the merits. But the Indians? Come on. Just lose the Chief Wahoo cartoon. This isn’t rocket science.

So is Trump onto something when it comes to the real-world backlash to overwrought political correctness? Yes. But he’s also profiting politically off of people pining for a world that never really existed.

I thought about this last fall when Trump worked the fry station and drive-through window at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. At first, it seemed like just another stunt to troll Kamala Harris (who said she once worked for McDonald’s).

But then I saw him in that red apron with the yellow piping — still wearing his red tie, of course — and thought: This is Rockwell. This image evokes a time when a white guy of a certain age could sling burgers, go home to his wife and kids, mow his middle-class lawn, crack open a Coca-Cola, and watch the Redskins and the Cowboys.

Whether Trump consciously appreciates the power of this imagery, I don’t know. But he clearly understands that there is power in yearning, that culture is more primordial than American politics and that refusing to exploit these forces (out of some sense of propriety) would be a sucker’s move.

To some degree, he’s been playing this game for years — think energy efficient lightbulbs, paper straws and his criticism over Apple’s decision to get rid of the iPhone home button. If something new comes along, Trump is already up there stoking cultural outrage, blaming the “woke” left and demanding somebody bring him a Diet Coke. It’s what he does.

But here’s why this actually matters: These little skirmishes don’t just distract from the bigger, more dangerous stuff — they enable it.

Even as he accuses former President Obama of treason (which is absurd and dangerous), Trump’s bond with his supporters is reinforced by these small, almost laughable grievances. He makes them feel seen, defended and nostalgic for a world that (to them, at least) made more sense.

That emotional connection with his base is what allows Trump to tell bigger lies and launch bolder attacks without losing them.

Coke and the Redskins may seem trivial. But they’re the sugar that helps the poison go down.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

The 2025 Tony Awards winners are being announced in a telecast hosted by Cynthia Erivo, and it’s a night in which so many major categories remain tossups. Three musicals — “Maybe Happy Ending,” “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Death Becomes Her” — are tied with the most nominations, with 10 each. The best play frontrunners are an eclectic bunch too: Cole Escola’s crowd-pleasing romp “Oh, Mary!” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Pulitzer Prize-winner “Purpose” and Kimberly Belflower’s “John Proctor Is the Villain,” a reexamination of “The Crucible.”

Hollywood’ invasion of Broadway is reflected in a starry list of acting nominees that includes George Clooney, Sadie Sink, Sarah Snook, Mia Farrow, Daniel Dae Kim, Darren Criss, Bob Odenkirk, Conrad Ricamora and Jonathan Groff. The performance that cut the deepest for Times theater critic Charles McNulty was six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald as Rose in George C. Wolfe’s revival of “Gypsy,” which he called “a harrowing reexamination of the musical through the historical prism of race.”

Here’s how to watch the Tony Awards, but if you can’t, check back here often. This list of winners will be updated in real time Sunday.

Lead actress in a play

WINNER: Sarah Snook, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Laura Donnelly, “The Hills of California”
Mia Farrow, “The Roommate”
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, “Purpose”
Sadie Sink, “John Proctor Is the Villain”

Original score

WINNER: “Maybe Happy Ending” (music by Will Aronson, lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park)
“Dead Outlaw” (music and lyrics. by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna)
“Death Becomes Her” (music and lyrics. by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey)
“Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical” (music and lyrics by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts)
“Real Women Have Curves: The Musical” (music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez)

Costume design of a musical

WINNER: Paul Tazewell, “Death Becomes Her”
Dede Ayite, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Gregg Barnes, “Boop! The Musical”
Clint Ramos, “Maybe Happy Ending”
Catherine Zuber, “Just in Time”

Costume design of a play

WINNER: Marg Horwell, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Brenda Abbandandolo, “Good Night, and Good Luck”
Rob Howell, “The Hills of California”
Holly Pierson, “Oh, Mary!”
Brigitte Reiffenstuel, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”

Scenic design of a musical

WINNER: Dane Laffrey and George Reeve, “Maybe Happy Ending”
Rachel Hauck, “Swept Away”
Arnulfo Maldonado, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Derek McLane, “Death Becomes Her”
Derek McLane, “Just in Time”

Scenic design of a play

WINNER: Miriam Buether and 59, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”
Marsha Ginsberg, “English”
Rob Howell, “The Hills of California”
Marg Horwell and David Bergman, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Scott Pask, “Good Night, and Good Luck”

Lighting design of a musical

WINNER: Jack Knowles, “Sunset Blvd.”
Tyler Micoleau, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Scott Zielinski and Ruey Horng Sun, “Floyd Collins”
Ben Stanton, “Maybe Happy Ending”
Justin Townsend, “Death Becomes Her”

Lighting design of a play

WINNER: Jon Clark, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”
Natasha Chivers, “The Hills of California”
Heather Gilbert and David Bengali, “Good Night, and Good Luck”
Natasha Katz and Hannah Wasileski, “John Proctor Is the Villain”
Nick Schlieper, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Choreography

WINNER: Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Joshua Bergasse, “Smash”
Camille A. Brown, “Gypsy”
Christopher Gattelli, “Death Becomes Her”
Jerry Mitchell, “Boop! The Musical”

Orchestrations

WINNER: Marco Paguia, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Andrew Resnick and Michael Thurber, “Just in Time”
Will Aronson, “Maybe Happy Ending”
Bruce Coughlin, “Floyd Collins”
David Cullen and Andrew Lloyd Webber, “Sunset Blvd.”

Sound design of a musical

WINNER: Jonathan Deans, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Adam Fisher, “Sunset Blvd.”
Peter Hylenski, “ Just in Time”
Peter Hylenski, “Maybe Happy Ending”
Dan Moses Schreier, “Floyd Collins”

Sound design of a play

WINNER: Paul Arditti, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”
Palmer Hefferan, “John Proctor Is the Villain”
Daniel Kluger, “Good Night, and Good Luck”
Nick Powell, “The Hills of California”
Clemence Williams, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Book of a musical

WINNER: “Maybe Happy Ending,” Will Aronson and Hue Park
“Buena Vista Social Club,” Marco Ramirez
“Dead Outlaw,” Itamar Moses
“Death Becomes Her,” Marco Pennette
“Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical,” David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts

Musical

“Buena Vista Social Club”
“Dead Outlaw”
“Death Becomes Her”
“Maybe Happy Ending”
“Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical”

Play

“English” by Sanaz Toossi
“The Hills of California” by Jez Butterworth
“John Proctor Is the Villain” by Kimberly Belflower
“Oh, Mary!” by Cole Escola
“Purpose” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Revival of a play

“Eureka Day”
“Romeo + Juliet”
“Thornton Wilder’s Our Town”
“Yellow Face”

Revival of a musical

“Floyd Collins”
“Gypsy”
“Pirates! The Penzance Musical”
“Sunset Blvd.”

Lead actor in a play

George Clooney, “Good Night, and Good Luck”
Cole Escola, “Oh, Mary!”
Jon Michael Hill, “Purpose”
Daniel Dae Kim, “Yellow Face”
Harry Lennix, “Purpose”
Louis McCartney, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”

Lead actor in a musical

Darren Criss, “Maybe Happy Ending”
Andrew Durand, “Dead Outlaw”
Tom Francis, “Sunset Blvd.”
Jonathan Groff, “Just in Time”
James Monroe Iglehart, “A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical”
Jeremy Jordan, “Floyd Collins”

Lead actress in a musical

Megan Hilty, “Death Becomes Her”
Audra McDonald, “Gypsy”
Jasmine Amy Rogers, “Boop! The Musical”
Nicole Scherzinger, “Sunset Blvd.”
Jennifer Simard, “Death Becomes Her”

Featured actress in a musical

Natalie Venetia Belcon, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Julia Knitel, “Dead Outlaw”
Gracie Lawrence, “Just in Time”
Justina Machado, “Real Women Have Curves: The Musical”
Joy Woods, “Gypsy”

Featured actor in a musical

Brooks Ashmanskas, “Smash”
Jeb Brown, “Dead Outlaw”
Danny Burstein, “Gypsy”
Jak Malone, “Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical”
Taylor Trensch, “Floyd Collins”

Featured actress in a play

Tala Ashe, “English”
Jessica Hecht, “Eureka Day”
Marjan Neshat, “English”
Fina Strazza, “John Proctor Is the Villain”
Kara Young, “Purpose”

Featured actor in a play

Glenn Davis, “Purpose”
Gabriel Ebert, “John Proctor Is the Villain”
Francis Jue, “Yellow Face”
Bob Odenkirk, “Glengarry Glen Ross”
Conrad Ricamora, “Oh, Mary!”

Direction of a play

Knud Adams, “English”
Sam Mendes, “The Hills of California”
Sam Pinkleton, “Oh, Mary!”
Danya Taymor, “John Proctor Is the Villain”
Kip Williams, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Direction of a musical

Saheem Ali, “Buena Vista Social Club”
Michael Arden, “Maybe Happy Ending”
David Cromer, “Dead Outlaw”
Christopher Gattelli, “Death Becomes Her”
Jamie Lloyd, “Sunset Blvd.”

Unlike generations of Mexican children before and after him, actor Pablo Cruz Guerrero didn’t grow up watching the hugely popular sitcoms created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, the late writer, producer and performer better known as “Chespirito” or “Little Shakespeare.”

It’s a wonder, considering that at peak, Gómez Bolaños’ family-friendly programs were watched by over 300 million people worldwide, and they remain pop culture pillars across Latin America — even in Portuguese-speaking Brazil — 50 years after they first aired.

The programs’ influence also extends to the U.S. among diasporic communities, enduring through reruns that periodically introduce his characters to new viewers. The catchphrases Gómez Bolaños penned have also become ingrained in the vernacular of many countries.

His most popular creation, “El Chavo del Ocho,” centers on an orphan boy (which he played) living in a courtyard apartment complex filled with peculiar neighbors. Then there’s “El Chapulín Colorado,” a satirical take on tights-wearing superheroes, where Gómez Bolaños plays an inept though goodhearted paladin (chapulín means grasshopper in Mexico).

That Cruz Guerrero, 41, wasn’t familiar with these landmark shows or characters is all the more shocking because he’s now embodied Gómez Bolaños in the new bioseries “Chespirito: Not Really on Purpose” (“Chespirito: Sin querer queriendo”), streaming on Max starting Thursday with new episodes weekly.

Pablo Cruz Guerrero stars as Mexican comedic writer, producer and performer Roberto Gómez Bolaños in Max’s “Chespirito: Not Really on Purpose.”

(Max)

The actor’s lack of nostalgic attachment for the universe of physical comedy, wordplay and social commentary that Chespirito created gave him a leg up when auditioning, he believes.

“I want to convince myself that this was the one thing that allowed me to gain objectivity about the story,” he says in Spanish during a recent video call from Mexico City. “Had I been a fan, I would have been ridden with nerves when approaching the character.”

It was casting director Isabel Cortázar who first saw Cruz Guerrero’s potential, and in mid-2023, asked him to audition for the part. “Before receiving her call, I would have never seen myself as Chespirito,” he says. “No one had ever told me before that I looked like him.”

Cruz Guerrero has been consistently acting for over 20 years in films (“El Estudiante,” “From Prada to Nada”) and TV. More recently, he played a memorable antagonist in the second and third seasons of Netflix’s “Luis Miguel: The Series,” another bioseries about the famed Mexican singer played by Diego Boneta.

As to why he didn’t watch Chespirito’s work during his childhood, Cruz Guerrero hypothesizes that because his parents lived in Los Angeles for three years before he and his siblings were born, they were more interested in culture produced outside of Mexico. Instead, they took them to the cinema, to outdoor concerts and museum exhibits.

Ironically, Cruz Guerrero has appeared on several Televisa productions over the years, the same storied network that produced Chespirito’s work.

“In middle school, I had a social and comedic disadvantage because many of my friends knew all of Chespirito’s jokes and imitated the characters’ voices, and I couldn’t follow along,” Cruz Guerrero says.

When offered a chance to vie for the role, he consumed as much Chespirito content as he could find online, whether it was of Gómez Bolaños playing his characters or interviews he gave.

“In middle school, I had a social and comedic disadvantage because many of my friends knew all of Chespirito’s jokes and imitated the characters’ voices, and I couldn’t follow along,” Pablo Cruz Guerrero says.

(Carlos Alvarez-Montero / For The Times)

The arduous audition process required Cruz Guerrero to appear every Tuesday for about seven weeks for a variety of tests. Beyond doing scenes from the episodes of “Chespirito,” each meeting would add more elements that got him closer to Gómez Bolaños: He tried on the costumes, interacted with the actors who would play his children, he shaved his beard and tried on the prosthetic nose, contact lenses and receding hairline required for the role.

And even then, as the weeks dragged on, Cruz Guerrero wasn’t certain he’d be picked, especially after sharing with the family of Gómez Bolaños, who are involved in the production, his neophyte status on everything Chespirito.

“I could read on their faces they were thinking, ‘Are we making the right decision with someone who doesn’t genuinely love our father’s legacy already?’” the actor recalls.

Ultimately, Cruz Guerrero won them over because he was able to closely replicate the mannerisms and voice of the real Chespirito. Gómez Bolaños’ physicality called to mind silent film era icons such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

“I felt like if I tried to play around with my feet and knees when I walked, not only did I lose a little bit of height to get closer to Roberto’s height, but it also put me in a position to feel a little more playful with my body,” says Cruz Guerrero while wiggling his arms.

Roberto Gómez Fernandez, Chespirito’s son, admits he initially had doubts about Cruz Guerrero. The show had been in the works for about four years at that point, two of which had been spent searching for the right actors to recreate Gómez Bolaños’ world.

Slowly, as Cruz Guerrero refined his performance and the makeup got him closer to Chespirito’s image, Gómez Fernandez became convinced they had found their man.

“I saw my father in him,” says Gómez Fernandez on a recent Zoom chat, “during complex situations in a scene and in a little wink or a glance that Pablo did.”

The family’s approval fueled him. “They would say to me, ‘I just heard my dad through you. I just had a conversation with my dad. I just shook his hand and gave him a hug,” says Cruz Guerrero, who recalls being deeply moved. “That empowered me to feel more in his skin and not feel self-doubt because of my previous distance.”

Once he officially landed the role, Cruz Guerrero immersed himself in Gómez Bolaños’ personal and professional life via his autobiography, “Sin querer queriendo,” which lends the series its title. It functioned as a link between the actor and the creator, who died in 2014.

“I was trying to establish a metaphysical dialogue through the words he had written and edited himself in the book,” Cruz Guerrero says. “I asked him questions, and I feel like we had very beautiful conversations thanks to the book.”

Many of the pointed questions that Cruz Guerrero sought answers to in the text revolved around fatherhood, namely the elusive notion of work-life balance.

“In our careers, there are moments of beautiful enlightenment where you’re creating and having a great time,” he says. “However, you’re also aware that you’re fulfilling a contract, and chasing financial compensation. This means that you’re investing time and energy and you often prioritize the professional instead of being at home and you miss your family.”

That struggle became rather personal for the actor during this process.

“I found out I was going to be a father for the first time the same week I found out I was going to play Roberto,” recalls Cruz Guerrero. “I wanted to absorb knowledge from him about his experience as a father and the experiences I was about to embark on playing him.”

While the series features moments where Cruz Guerrero dons the emblematic attire of Chavo del Ocho and Chapulín Colorado, the focus is on the real man behind them.

Andrea Noli, left, Miguel Islas, Paola Montes de Oca and Pablo Cruz Guerrero in a scene from “Chespirito.” The series is less about the characters Roberto Gómez Bolaños was famous for and more about the real man behind them.

(Max)

The book also served as the foundation for Gómez Fernandez and his sister Paulina to write the episodes’ screenplays. The two are also producers and were involved in every decision about the project.

For Roberto Gómez Fernandez, the challenge was for the series not to become a solemn, saintly tribute to the larger-than-life figure their father was.

“I had to remember that I wasn’t thinking about my dad, but about the character of Roberto Gómez Bolaños,” he says. “They weren’t real-life people because you have to transform them into characters, and sometimes you have to pull some strings to make the dramatic dynamics more effective.”

And yet, despite having fictionalized aspects, Gómez Fernandez believes that the series offers truthfulness about his father’s essence as a person.

“I think we achieved it, but along the way, we had to undress the character’s successes and failures, many of which had consequences in his life,” Gómez Fernandez says. “Some things turned out alright for him, but others went wrong, and he also hurt people.”

It’s not lost on Cruz Guerrero that someone like him, who didn’t previously revere Chespirito’s genius, wound up taking on the task of bringing his story to the screen.

“In moments of fear, insecurity and doubt, I would ask myself, ‘Oh, man, how did I end up here?’ And then it was all resolved with laughter because in front of me I would read the title of the show, ‘Not Really on Purpose,’” he says with a knowing smile.

After more than two decades mostly appearing in supporting roles, Cruz Guerrero is basking in what’s undoubtedly the most important credit of his career so far.

“I’m especially grateful to the family, who chose me to play this beloved character, who is obviously part of their personal story,” Cruz Guerrero says. “I live this moment with great gratitude, so thank you to Roberto Gómez Bolaños.”