show

Should I stay or should I go?

It’s at once a practical and existential question that plagues the two lead chefs in FX’s “The Bear.” He was the emotionally tortured and volatile chef who left behind a rising career in Michelin-starred restaurants to return to Chicago, his hometown, to run his recently deceased brother’s floundering sandwich joint. She was a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef with potential and a steady demeanor seeking mentorship and an opportunity to work with a prodigy. Together, Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto and Sydney “Syd” Adamu — played by Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, respectively — transformed the Original Beef of Chicagoland from a hole-in-the-wall into the titular fine-dining establishment.

But now their partnership in the kitchen has come to an end.

Created by Christopher Storer, “The Bear’s” fifth and final season picks up the morning after Syd, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Nat (Abby Elliott) learn Carmy is quitting the food industry and leaving the restaurant in their hands at a make-or-break moment. And the pressure mounts for Syd to decide if she’ll jump ship to pursue another opportunity. The eight-episode season, now streaming in full on Hulu, largely stretches across one day as the restaurant’s debts accumulate, suppliers cut them off and an unrelenting storm floods the kitchen and threatens to upend a night of service the chefs desperately need to have one last shot at survival and one last performance as a team to deliver an improbable turnaround.

In some ways, it’s a journey that mirrors the actors’ own trajectories. Before “The Bear” became a runaway hit, White was best known for his role on Showtime’s long-running dark comedy “Shameless,” while Edebiri primarily worked as a stand-up comedian and writer. Just as their characters have evolved and gained electric momentum in their careers, so have the actors. Both garnered Emmy Awards for their performances on “The Bear,” and they have added a multitude of film and TV credits to their résumés since. Edebiri is currently starring opposite Don Cheadle in the revival of “Proof,” her Broadway debut, while White will be starring this fall as an investigative reporter in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning,” a companion piece to “The Social Network” that chronicles Facebook’s whistleblower scandal.

Over separate video calls from New York, Edebiri and White reflected on “The Bear’s” conclusion and what it means to leave the characters that supercharged their careers behind. Here are edited excerpts from the conversations.

Ayo Edebiri as Sydney Adamu and Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto in a scene from Season 5 of “The Bear.”

(FX)

After living inside these characters’ skins for so many years, what’s it like to be done playing them?

Edebiri: They keep saying that we’re done, so I guess that really is the thing of it. Obviously I know that it’s over, but even when we were finishing our first seasons, it didn’t matter how much critical acclaim we got because we’re on a show that’s a part of a network that has a deal with the streaming service — there’s all these things that are continually in flux or that you know that you have no control over. As an actor, you’re used to this state of limbo or not totally knowing or being prepared for an ending, so I think I’m not overwhelmed by it, if that makes sense.

White: I don’t know yet. We were very lucky to understand for a long time when the show was going to end and, to a degree, how the show was going to end. It was difficult to see the direction it went — I have strong feelings about Carmy and where he ends up and how his story might continue on. So much of this season, for Carmy, is about a surrender or acceptance of his place in the world and his place in the kitchen, and it’s the first time he’s really been able to get very honest with himself since we’ve met him. And, in doing so, he chooses to leave, and that was hard for me, for Jeremy. Maybe there’s a world in which he tries this and he comes back. I think I had a different understanding for a while of Carmy’s future. I want him to be happy and healed, but it felt like … I don’t know — imagining him outside of a kitchen was hard for me.

I want to unpack that a little bit more. He wants to be happy. But it was interesting to see him wrestle with how his work hinders that — is it the crutch or the salvation? Did you find yourself having an existential moment as Jeremy taking in what Carmy was wrestling with, or have you reckoned with it before?

White: He threw himself into this work, into this world, pretty young in life. And he was really good at it. But a big part of him burying himself has so much to do with his brother, with his family. I was finishing something too. And, yes, of course, I was thinking of goodbyes, and I was thinking of moving on, and new pursuits and all of these things. I was checking in with myself and what it might feel like to just make such a hard turn in life. I thought a lot about what you get back from your work, but I think ultimately, what Carmy and I don’t share is he was causing so much chaos in his work life; it wasn’t just himself that he was punishing at times. It came down to this surrender to an easier way, a softer way, which was to turn it over to Syd, to turn it over to Richie, to turn it over to Tina in the kitchen — that part, I had an easier time understanding.

“The most beautiful thing about their relationship is their true unconditional belief in one another,” says Allen about Sydney and Carmy in “The Bear.”

(David Urbanke / For The Times)

Syd was facing a crossroads: a shiny new job that could take her to the next level or sticking with this seemingly sinking ship that has taken her to the next level, but where she’s felt unappreciated or stifled at times. Ayo, what did you think of the choice she made?

Edebiri: We’re really fortunate to have such amazing writers who thought about her and her journey. [There’s] an awareness of Sydney’s womanhood and Blackness and youth, but I think [they treated] her with the full dignity of just being a human being and getting able to be a complex character in this show and giving her the dignity of being just as flawed as the other characters. [The choice she made] just made sense to me. It made sense in the architecture of the show. It was gratifying to get to build to that with everybody.

The bulk of this final season has the team dealing with this massive storm that’s created a slew of setbacks at a make–or–break moment for the restaurant. It leads to one final symphony in the kitchen together.

White: Those days were beautiful. So much of our show is shot so quickly, but then we really get to slow down with these choreographed pieces of kitchen ballet, and that’s also when we feel really strong as a group of performers, where we’re incredibly reliant on one another, not just for the emotional beats of a scene, but in this very technical aspect as well. I remember going back to Season 1 and filming Episode 7, “The Review,” which was the single-take episode, and just how much camaraderie came from that, and how much respect came from that for everyone — that feeling of real success that we could do this. It’s a really nice thing that happens sometimes on sets, where there is such a nice mirror of what’s going on with the characters and what’s going on with the cast. In this last push, and this team effort, we want these things as the characters, and we want these things as the cast. We want these people to have what they want, what they deserve, so it was really exciting shooting that last episode or two where all those things are coming into place.

Edebiri: That’s Chris’ thing — it’s like a classical piece of music or something; there’s different movements. His own challenge that he puts on himself, and that, in turn, puts on us, is that we’re still in the same piece of music, but everything just has a different feeling. He’d been talking about it since, low-key, Season 3, but definitely started talking about it a little bit more concertedly when we were filming [Season] 4. It was really starting to take shape in his brain. This challenge of having it be in this one day, and how each episode can feel different, was really exciting to him, so in turn, it became exciting to us.

Were you hoping for more runway to chart what the characters were facing?

Edebiri: No, I think it was cool. I was just like, “Yeah, let’s see what it is.” That’s kind of what everything has been with this show. Part of her emotional journey for the last season, what was on a slower track, in a way, there was something also really fun in having the pressure cooker of one day, and everything getting to ramp up and be quite immediate, which I think has been reminiscent of Seasons 1 and 2 in a fun way.

Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), left, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) in “The Bear.” The restaurant faces multiple setbacks, including a storm that causes damage and dwindling supplies.

(FX)

Carmy and Sydney’s dynamic has been so fundamental to the series. These are two people who see something in each other that the other doesn’t. What do you admire about their relationship as friends and as co–workers?

White: The most beautiful thing about their relationship is their true unconditional belief in one another. They see the beautiful things in one another that the other one is not able to witness in themselves. Even though trust has been tested and trust has been broken at times, there is such a loyalty to the best in themselves. They know that they can rely on one another. In a lot of ways, they saved each other. That piece in the opening episode of Season 3, where Carmy gets the call about Mikey and serves the scallop to Syd without ever having met her — there is this invisible tether that was not witnessed by either of them, but it inspired Syd, and whether Carmy knew it or not, this thing was loved and enjoyed by someone that was birthed from this very traumatic moment. There’s just this beautiful, invisible tether that has always existed and will always exist between the two of them.

Edebiri: What I admire about it is the fact that they are able to bring out — through a lot of miscommunication and hard work, but ultimately, I think, with good intentions — the best in each other. They want to see each other be the best versions of themselves.

How is that reflected in your dynamic? Jeremy, who is Ayo as a scene partner and what has she brought out in you as a performer, and vice versa?

White: I was really so lucky to kind of witness Ayo in real time — everybody else had to wait some months to see her on the show. I remember genuinely being struck by her presence, her groundedness. It felt like, if this makes sense, wrong because she was doing it so well. She’s incredibly smart, she’s a wonderful writer, and she’s very skilled improvisationally, and so, in acting with her, there’s something that always makes you feel very in the moment. You can never like relax, in the best way. It’s like you always have to surrender yourself to each moment.

Edebiri: When we first started, I was coming from the comedy world, and he was coming from a much more dramatic world. Our approaches were so different. He has such amazing presence of being and a quiet focus and has such care for the work. He’s a really great leader. There are ideas in society of men in power, and what power held by men has to look like and feel like, and he’s very gentle — especially in the show, which can live so much in the space of chaos and anxiety, having a gentle spirit really helps with filming. He’s so good at making that very clear and helping teach me that as well … I’ve definitely learned from him, without realizing it, ways to protect yourself and protect your peace, and protect also the peace of your co-workers — you get the work done, you be serious about it, but it doesn’t have to be torture.

Edebiri on working with White: “When we first started, I was coming from the comedy world, and he was coming from a much more dramatic world. Our approaches were so different. He has such amazing presence of being and a quiet focus and has such care for the work.” (David Urbanke / For The Times)

What was it like to see them get this thing they’ve been after — not one, but two Michelin stars?

White: Reading that moment —there’s been so much pain and heartache … for years and years and years, and I was just so relieved to see this joyous moment on the page. It felt so, so close to the surface of me already. And we — Jeremy and Ayo — have shared so many insane, joyous moments in our lives since the show. So it felt familiar in the best way. I’m so glad for that moment for both of them — for Carmy and Syd.

Edebiri: We’re shooting it so fast. You always wish you just had more time, and that was one of the last scenes — I think it was the last thing that he and I shot. There’s obviously a bit of a preciousness and emotionality that you’re feeling in that moment, while also tapping into what’s happening to the characters. It’s this thing that, in the brain of myself, we’ve been building to this over five seasons. There’s obviously a somewhat meta reflection of what we’ve gone through — this is just such a crazy journey. But I think at the end of it, especially because of what we know is going to change in their relationship, that in their working proximity, that they are not going to be close, but they know that they were able to do this thing and build this thing together, I think [is] what felt very special, and felt very cool. I hope it’s something that people who have loved the show also feel.

Fans have intense feelings about their relationship, as I’m sure you know. Has it surprised you how strongly people feel about their dynamic?

White: I know that exists. I don’t have too much knowledge on how that all works. It’s funny, I’m very aware of it now because it’s become part of a conversation around the show, but it was nonexistent in our approach to the work. It wasn’t even a thought for either of us. It didn’t occur to us. But I understand it. There is an intimacy, of course, with these two characters. And there is this trust. They lean on each other and they admire each other so much. I’m not like — nobody’s crazy to feel that. There is love there, it’s just not a romantic partnership.

Edebiri: It surprised me the first two [seasons] because I don’t think that that’s what we were doing. Anytime that you say otherwise, I’ve learned [not to]. It’s been hard when doing press, it feels like we get asked specific questions to try to give a specific answer, but the point of art is we make it and we give it. If people are having a response, that’s great, and if I don’t agree with you, I don’t think I’m shutting it down or anything. We made something, then you’re picking something up — that’s the exchange.

White says he knows fans have intense feelings about the relationship between Carmy and Syd. “It’s funny, I’m very aware of it now because it’s become part of a conversation around the show, but it was nonexistent in our approach to the work. It wasn’t even a thought for either of us.” (David Urbanke / For The Times)

Carmy has a few heartfelt conversations this season, but one that really stands out is the one with his mom, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, while revisiting the family home he’s stayed away from for years. He cooks for her. She’s remorseful. Jeremy, what did you think of that moment for Carmy?

White: There’s resistance in it. People like Carmy, you can give them the answer, you can give them the sorry, you can give them the opportunity, and a lot of the times they don’t know what to do with it, or they push it away, or they push it down. What that scene was about, for Carm, was becoming available to even listen. That was the conflict of the scene and the moment. But he was able to eventually get to that acceptance to release some of the resentment, to release some of the anger. Then he is able to show up for her, which was what has been absent. He was able to take it and give her something. It’s been years, if ever, that he’s really been able to do that, to get out of his own way, and be of service in that way to his mother.

Ayo, it was really touching to see Syd naming Tina her chef de cuisine. How did you feel about what that sets up for where Syd and the Bear might be headed with these women as partners in the kitchen?

Edebiri: I loved it. I love getting to work with Liza [Colón-Zayas]. I’ve been so privileged to also be able to direct her — she’s just phenomenal. I think about these two characters, where they started Day 1; Tina was pretending not even to speak English just to stay away from the girl. It was rough from the get-go, but I think both for Liza and I, as two women of color as well, we felt so invested in their relationship and the community they built with each other. There’s something very moving about that to me. Part of the thing for Sydney, she doesn’t know — I think Carmy can see it — that one of her strengths is that they’re different types of leaders. Part of what I think makes Sydney a great leader is that she’s able to delegate and actually remove herself when she knows that she might not be the best in a situation, it might be somebody else.

I haven’t actually seen it. I can’t watch the episodes, but I know when we were filming it, it was both very sweet and very funny. I don’t know if they kept any of the improv from Liza.

You can’t watch because you’re emotional about it or because you just don’t have access?

Edebiri: No, I don’t want to. We were doing all this press and everybody was, “You were so emotional; you wanted to cry, right?” And I’m like, “No, I just don’t want to watch.” I’ll watch it later. The only season that I watched before [it aired], frankly, was 3 and 4 because I had episodes that I made in it. I love the show and I know the show is good. I don’t enjoy watching myself.

I do love that Syd’s ethos in the kitchen is borrowed from “Ratatouille.”

Edebiri: Yes, f—ing rat. It tracks for Sydney.

“I love getting to work with Liza [Colón-Zayas],” says Edebiri about her co-star, whose character is named chef de cuisine. “I’ve been so privileged to also be able to direct her — she’s just phenomenal.”

(FX)

Jeremy, what was your reaction when you read Carmy is in a suit interviewing for an internship at an architectural firm? And what he expresses there?

White: I understand and I’m proud of the courage that it takes [to do a life pivot], but also I tried to play that scene in a way where I didn’t want it to be entirely clear [what happens next]. I wanted the question to be like, “Is this guy still so f— up in the head that he’s trapped regardless of his place in this world, or place of work? Is it a romance that he’s saying goodbye to? Is it a love that he still has, and he’s not quite over yet?” Then I was like, “Do we snap out of that scene and we’re back on the clock?” What is this? I think the goal of the scene is it shouldn’t be all too clear and wrapped up.

What do you think?

White: I could see there’s obviously so much love. There’s love for the people he works with, and there’s love for the paces he’s gone through, but I didn’t know. … I didn’t know if it was a goodbye or an admittance. I think I was trying to find something between him coming clean and being like, you know what, I don’t belong anywhere else or I’m so in love with this thing, but it’s not good for me, and I think it exists somewhere in between that.

Ayo, what was your reaction to Carmy interviewing at the firm?

Edebiri: I was like, “Yeah, that makes sense. This boy’s a noodle.” He’s a fool, he’s ridiculous. It makes sense.

Where do you think he goes from here? Have you thought about it? Do you think he will ever find his way back to the kitchen?

White: I haven’t thought about it too much. I do think there’s something really honest about that direction that Carmy was moving into, but I would hope there’ll always be room for him somewhere in a kitchen.

Edebiri: Syd is like, “You can’t do anything else, brother. Like, what’s the plan?” I don’t know if he takes a break, if he comes back to help her, if he does his own thing.

What do you think happens to the Bear?

Edebiri: I think they do well. It’s not just her; it’s her and Sugar and Richie and Marcus and Tina. She got in it for Carmy, but I think she ended up finding her own voice. I think they keep going, at least for a few more years. I really do.

White: I have to believe that all the pain and suffering and trauma — not only that Carmy has gone through, but that everybody has gone through — is for some greater good. That there is a payoff. My hope is that it would be successful. They’ll have the endurance and the motivation to make it.

Expanding the World Cup to 48 teams always presented one obvious problem – it was an imperfect number for a tournament.

With 32 teams, the maths was simple – eight groups of four teams, with the top two going through to a last 16, then quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final.

By adding another 16 nations, Fifa had to find a way to get to a symmetrical knockout stage. There was no ideal solution – one which preserved the intensity of the previous format.

The original plan was to create 16 groups of three teams. The two top in each would go through to the last 16.

But there was an issue. Three-team groups meant individual fixtures – and those in the final match would know exactly what they needed to do to qualify. Nations could play for specific results to secure their passage to the knockout rounds.

Fifa, after all, knew all about alleged collusion from the scandal at the 1982 World Cup. Back then, with groups of four, teams did not play their final group matches at the same time.

West Germany faced Austria in the standalone last game. A slender win for the Germans would send both teams through at the expense of Algeria. The match finished 1-0 to West Germany. Algeria went out.

Fifa changed the format so all final fixtures would be played simultaneously, but that would not have been possible with three-team groups.

The climax to the group stage in Qatar was so exciting that Fifa had a rethink. It accepted there must be 12 four-team groups and two matches would be played at the same time to determine who would qualify.

Except for one crucial difference – something that removed much of the jeopardy that made the last World Cup so gripping.

Eight of the third-placed teams must go through for there to be 32 teams in the knockout rounds. It became harder to be knocked out than to progress.

And one issue becomes clear with two matches this week.

First up, Australia played Paraguay on Thursday. The teams were second and third in Group D and both on three points.

Four points is almost certain to be enough to take one of the eight third-placed qualifying slots, so it created a situation in which the teams knew that a draw was helpful to both.

The match finished 0-0.

Australia are definitely through in second place and celebrated with their supporters at the final whistle. Paraguay played it low key but, barring a very unlikely set of results in the remaining groups, they will go through too.

The next game of interest in this respect is Austria v Algeria in Group J (03:00 BST Sunday).

Again, the two teams are second and third on three points. A point is very likely to send both teams through, while defeat is much more likely to send one home.

Will we see another draw?

After being impacted negatively in 1982, Algeria could be the beneficiaries in 2026.

You could argue a game in Group F on Thursday fell into the same category, with Japan starting the match on four points and Sweden on three.

That match also finished 1-1 to guarantee the Scandinavians would progress, but there was no real risk involved for Japan if they have lost.

It is the same in Group L, too, with Ghana on four points and Croatia on three.

Daryl Hall recently underwent a kidney transplant and he’s already feeling better.

The 79-year-old musician — formerly of the iconic rock duo Hall & Oates — took to social media Tuesday to share the news.

“I thought you should know that I recently received a kidney transplant from a very kind and generous living donor,” Hall wrote in an Instagram post. “It happened a couple of weeks ago, and I’m already starting to feel better. It was, according to my doctors, a complete success!”

The “Dreamtime” singer-songwriter added that he expects to be “back to normal in a few months” and promised “more music and lots of Daryl’s House shows” in the future. Hall has been hosting “Live from Daryl’s House,” a web series where he and his band perform with guest artists, on and off since 2007.

A living-donor kidney transplant is when a healthy living person donates their kidney. The recipient is usually experiencing kidney failure. According to the National Kidney Foundation, “kidneys from a living donor may last longer and are more likely to start working right away than a kidney from a deceased donor.”

Hall did not share any additional details regarding his kidney transplant.

The “Bring It On Home” singer has opened up about other health issues in the past. In 2005, Hall & Oates had to postpone a series of shows after Hall was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that is spread through the bite of infected black-legged ticks — also known as deer ticks. Symptoms can include fever, rash, facial paralysis, an irregular heartbeat and arthritis, according to the CDC.

The One Show presenters Alex Jones and Roman Kemp addressed an expletive on the programme.

The One Show presenter Roman Kemp issued an apology after a guest swore live on air.

The programme returned on Thursday, June 25, with Roman joining Alex Jones on the sofa.

They welcomed guests Kate Humble, Ben Fogle and Martin Clunes to the show, before it was thrown into chaos.

The Doc Martin star had been talking about the US version of the beloved programme emerging, starring Josh Charles in the leading role.

As a preview clip of it aired, Martin was asked about Josh’s spin on playing the grumpy doctor.

He replied: “He’s completely done his own thing, much nicer than me, less awkward and abrasive… he’s warm and better-looking.”

Martin then responded to a moment he just saw from the preview, adding: “I was just looking at that bit… they wouldn’t let me call the dog the son of a b***h, which I thought was funny.”

As the studio erupted into laughter, Roman rushed to apologise, saying: “I have to apologise quickly.”

Alex jokingly chastised Martin, adding: “You’ve been on a hundred times!”

Martin then turned to Ben, arguing: “He’s a vet… it’s a female dog!”

Continuing about the programme, Martin went on to address the future of the show, saying: “They’re going again, they’re doing another series.”

The Good Wife actor Josh will be starring in Best Medicine, with Sky previously teasing: “A US remake of UK television favourite Doc Martin, Best Medicine is a heartwarming new comedy-drama about a physician who moves to a small coastal town in the hopes of a quiet life.

“Dr Martin Best packs up his surgical career in Boston, Massachusetts and heads to start a new life as a physician in the coastal fishing town of Port Wenn in Maine. His aunt, a local lobster merchant, is nearby, and his new private practice is perfect for a simple life. Or so he thinks.

“Soon he’s introduced to Port Wenn’s community, filled with quirky but loving characters with no end of ailments for him to figure out and diagnose. However, as someone who is quite introverted and likes to keep himself to himself, he struggles with the adjustment.

“He’s also got a huge blood phobia – which doesn’t help his abilities as a doctor who may need to tend to wounds from time to time.

“But behind his brusque attitude and no-nonsense approach to a bedside manner, Dr Martin hides his own personal pain that he is hiding from the world which explains why he is the way he is. Will this little town bring him out of his shell?”

The One Show airs weeknights from 7pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

Richard Montoya of Culture Clash doesn’t mince words when it comes to politics, current events or the state of mainstream Hollywood. But he does sugarcoat his technological limitations as a 67-year-old comic in the dreaded age of video calls with a punchy Chicano twist.

“I’m a low-tech Aztec,” he writes via email when requesting a Zoom link to our Monday interview.

Culture Clash — which includes members Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Sigüenza — arrived on the scene as a guerrilla sketch theater group from the San Francisco Mission District in 1984. By that time, the Chicano movement had reached its peak, thanks to the United Farm Workers labor movement, as well as student activist organizations like Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), which advocated for Chicano unity, political empowerment and educational access.

Luis Valdez, founder of El Teatro Campesino — who began putting on social justice-oriented plays for the striking Delano farmworkers in 1965 — backed the slapstick satire troupe, considering the trio “the cutting edge of fresh, new Latino comic genius.”

Culture Clash stood out in a time when Chicanos became more vocal and visible — and its members challenged an entertainment industry that has historically lacked Latino representation. Between 1993 and 1996, Culture Clash hosted its own self-titled TV show on the syndicated Fox network. The show, which was filmed at the Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles, is widely considered the first Latino sketch comedy to air on American television.

Throughout the last four decades, Culture Clash has parodied nearly every prominent Latino figure in history, including Che Guevara, Frida Kahlo, Ritchie Valens, Rita Moreno, Edward James Olmos and others. Its members have mocked hard-shell cholos and gangsters, often by placing them in funny scenarios. For instance, take this clip, in which the trio take on cholo characters and reimagine what it would be like to surf on the Southern California shore.

But they’ve also taken on more serious topics in their classic “Chavez Ravine” play, which looks into one of the darkest chapters in L.A. history: the forceful removal and displacement of families, mostly Mexican, in the 1950s under eminent domain. Recently Montoya attended a live reading adapted by Somos El Teatro, led by Xolo Maridueña, Mariana da Silva and Angel Villalobos at Elysian Park.

“It gives us so much life that people are finding the issues of swindlers, whether it’s gentrification, the taking over of settlements,” says Montoya. “The generational trauma of losing your home in L.A. has never gone away.”

But not every Culture Clash joke or skit has been safe from criticism. Montoya still remembers how a conservative pundit chastised the group for using light humor to discuss the 1992 riots, when LAPD officers were acquitted for using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King.

“By looking at it and treating it as dynamite, exploding it and then by bringing some levity and a whole lot of seriousness to the Rodney King matter allows us a moment, a fraction of time to look at the issues a little bit differently,” says Montoya. “That laugh allows us a moment to examine it differently.”

On June 27, Culture Clash will return to Grand Performances, a free summer concert series at California Plaza in downtown L.A., with comedic sketches colored by political and social satire. The show, titled “American Payasos! Culture Clash’s End Times Cabaret” will be co-presented with De Los.

While their 40-year-plus legacy might merit a show reminiscent of old goofball skits — like their early 1989 show “The Mission” that poked fun at the problematic Spanish Franciscan missionary Junipero Serra — this will not be an “oldies but goodies show,” as Montoya put it. “We are highly pissed off about a lot of stuff right now.”

“ We’re thinking a lot about the Mexican American patriarchy, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and it’s time to address some of these things,” says Montoya. “ We want to look at the service workers of Los Angeles, the people that sell cotton candy in MacArthur Park, the people that sell ice cream in Echo Park and the people working the World Cup.”

For the veteran comic, son of the late Chicano poet Jose Montoya, it is also impossible to ignore the immigration enforcement raids that have rattled Los Angeles communities in recent years.

“This is a very strange moment for satirists,” says Montoya. “We have a responsibility to use those tools to say what’s going on in our city and country and provide these moments where we can do a little bit closer examination because the people in power aren’t telling us what’s going on.”

In the last five years, Montoya has fiddled around with digital media, creating sporadic videos featuring old clips of the troupe, as well as videos of Latino media, to connect with technologically diverse audiences of all ages. (One example is a video calling on people to get out the vote, that features clips of Speedy Gonzales and honors political figures like Huerta.)

Although Montoya believes Culture Clash is nearing the end of its career, there’s a question lingering inside his mind: What does a graceful exit look like for a group like Culture Clash, which has never been fully integrated into mainstream Hollywood and still left such a profound legacy in the world of Latino entertainment?

The answer to that might still be unknown, but like any Culture Clash project, it will likely be wickedly satirical and punchy. Says Montoya: “We’re ready to go out with a huge, loud bang that can say something against the power structure.”

Culture Clash will take center stage on June 27 at Grand Performances, in partnership with De Los. Also performing is the retro cumbia-quebradita musician É Arenas (bassist of Chicano Batman), the cumbia-fusion, luchador-masked cumbia group La Nueva Ola de Cumbia, as well as DJ Dali.

Bailey Zimmerman is apologizing after a warrant for the country singer’s arrest was issued following an incident at a New Mexico hotel.

Last week, an arrest warrant was issued in Bernalillo County for Zimmerman, who’s facing a felony charge of criminal damage to property and a misdemeanor charge of falsely obtaining services after the “Holy Smokes” singer allegedly caused more than $16,000 worth of damage to a room at the Sandia Resort and Casino in Albuquerque.

The 26-year-old country singer was scheduled to perform at the resort May 27 and 30 but abruptly canceled the show the day of the performance.

“I have not been feeling well and have tried to power through, but I’m not able to give you all the show you deserve,” Zimmerman wrote on Instagram at the time.

According to an affidavit reviewed by People, hours before the singer was slated to perform, he appeared inebriated and volatile during a sound check.

The document alleged Zimmerman stumbled onto the stage around 4:30 p.m., smashed a guitar on the ground, threw cymbals, kicked a drum set, pushed a guitarist and threw a microphone before he stormed offstage. At one point, he tripped and fell backward.

The affidavit further alleged that the country singer “spit toward a Sandia security officer standing nearby.”

A representative for Zimmerman emailed The Times a statement on Tuesday.

“First things first, I want to apologize to the Pueblo of Sandia and to everyone at Sandia Resort & Casino. I never meant for any of this to come across as disrespectful. I am deeply sorry for my actions that transpired. I respect your community and the hospitality and appreciate the opportunity that was given to me to perform on Native Land. I take full accountability for everything that happened and I am sorry to anyone who feels hurt or disrespected,” the statement read.

“To my fans who bought tickets and showed up expecting a performance, I am so sorry, you deserved better from me,” the statement continued. “I understand that being a musician comes with big responsibilities, both on and off stage, and I know that I fell short that day. I am reflecting on the disappointment and concern that I caused.”

Zimmerman wrote that he was taking the legal matter seriously and was committed to doing the “work necessary to learn and grow.”

“Thank you to my fans for holding me accountable and for understanding that I am human. I do not take your support for granted,” the statement added.

The critically acclaimed Australian crime drama is perfect for fans looking for a new binge-watch

Crime drama fans hunting for their next must-watch should look no further than this critically acclaimed Australian series that has cultivated a loyal fanbase across the globe.

Created by and starring Scott Ryan, Mr. Inbetween is a dark comedy-crime drama that chronicles Ray Shoesmith, a contract killer who tries to juggle his perilous criminal existence with the mundane demands of fatherhood, relationships, and friendships.

Over three seasons, audiences follow Ray as he’s compelled to handle everything from underworld conflicts and domestic challenges to personal tragedy.

Mr. Inbetween originally broadcast on Fox Showcase from 2018 to 2021 and garnered widespread praise for its writing and acting.

The series also features Justin Rosniak, Brooke Satchwell, Nicholas Cassim, and Damon Herriman.

Despite spanning only across 26 episodes, Mr. Inbetween has established itself as one of the finest crime dramas in recent memory and has received praise from viewers.

One enthusiast wrote on Reddit: “Mr Inbetween is one of the greatest shows ever made. Believe me when I say this show really is a masterpiece”, reports the Express.

“The camera work is beautiful, so many brilliant shots which feel organic and clear, you are never confused at what you are looking at and it stays consistent since it is the same director every episode.”

They complimented the pacing as “fantastic”, adding: “The action is honestly one of the best showcases of special and practical effects on TV in terms of gun scenes.”

They continued: “The characters are what truly makes the show, every character is acted so well you really believe them and see them like a real person. They all have struggles and motivations that make you care for all of them.

“The dialogue is so well written, so many amazing jokes and threatening, gritty quotes which are extremely effective. One plot thread leads to another all while feeling like a day in the life story.”

The enthusiast concluded: “I can confidently say that this show is far better than any Australian movie or show ever made and can stand up to some of the greatest shows ever made. I implore you to please give this show the love it deserves.”

Another echoed their sentiment: “This show is truly a masterpiece. The acting is sublime, everything about it is unbelievably good and the use of some of Nick Cave’s music so perfectly placed that I think it’s the best show to come out of Australia.”

A third chimed in: “When I finished watching all 26 episodes I thought the same thing. Best show ever made.”

Another concurred: “Absolutely loved it. Best show I have seen since season 1 of true detective. The ending…THE ENDING! ! Magnificent.”

All three series of Mr Inbetween are available to stream now on Disney+.

When the gates opened at St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino on Good Friday, the music coming from inside wasn’t that of angel-faced choristers or pipe organs; it was the collective scream of electric guitars.

As the sky darkened over the white stucco church framed in palm trees and the dry peaks of the San Bernardino Mountains, fringed teenagers made their way inside, shaking their limbs and chattering in excitement. Fluorescent lights shone overhead in a room that, by day, hosted Bible studies and food pantries — that night, it would be the site of Spinkick Dance Hall, a regular underground music series where noses are bound to bleed and limbs to flail along to ear-splitting riffs.

It’s just one of many shows taking place from Pomona to Palm Desert, heralding a Latino-led youth revival where the freewheeling movement of mosh pits meets the raw power of punk rock: Inland Empire hardcore.

Teenagers congregate in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino before the start of the night’s hardcore shows on April 3, 2026.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

As the fast-paced and anti-establishment genre known as punk went mainstream in the ’80s, a harder and more unhinged variant emerged in the States; bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Black Flag pushed the limits of vocalization and instrumentation into dissonant new sounds that would make up the subgenre known as hardcore punk.

“As a teenager pre-social media, the music scene was the release for teen angst,” said music photojournalist Zach Cordner. “It was a convergence of nationwide bands that would come to play at [the now shuttered Riverside venue] Showcase Theater, and through word of mouth people got inspired to make cassettes and zines.”

Cordner and his friend Ken Crawford grew up in Riverside in the ’80s and ’90s, photographing the initial wave of hardcore punk taking shape in the Inland Empire. They turned these photographs into a sprawling exhibition held at the Riverside Art Museum earlier this year, “60 Miles East.”

“The scene looks a lot different today than it did in the ’90s,” Crawford said. “It’s browner, it’s queer, and that’s a good thing, to see how it’s become way more diverse.”

Inside the church, the frontman of all-Latino hardcore band Barrio Slam emitted rough growls as the crowd broke into a bustling mosh pit. Teenagers did pinwheel kicks, wrapped Mexican flags over their shoulders and filled the air with chants of “F— ICE.”

Lead vocalist Victor Campos’ family moved from Guadalajara, Mexico, to Pomona, where he says he discovered hardcore through friends. Then, at age 14, Campos attended his first rock show.

“That was the first time that I saw hardcore and metal and the heavier side of music for what it was, and the violence and culture of the shows just sucked me in and I’ve been in it ever since,” Campos said. “It felt like freedom.”

Angela, 19, was in the mosh pit during Load Tha Nine’s performance when she was accidentally struck in the nose by another concertgoer on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. Hardcore shows are characterized by intense music and rough dancing where bloody accidents are not an uncommon sight.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

Jose Ruelas and his Barrio Slam bandmates headbang as they perform on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

Campos credits local Latino-led bands like Xibalba and Harsh Reality as inspirations to dive into making music and embrace his identity in the genre.

“In the I.E., it’s really the norm. We’re singing in Spanish, we’re proud. But when we tour, we see it’s not like that everywhere,” Campos said. “Some people still consider punk ‘not for us.’ My own family members will say, ‘You’re listening to white people music.’”

The show at St. John’s is just the tip of the Inland Empire’s DIY venue iceberg. Living rooms, restaurant dining rooms, tattoo shops and record stores have transformed into hardcore venues across the region as established locales closed down.

San Bernardino four-piece “beatdown” group Big Ass Truck is one band that found success beyond the I.E. scene. They signed to Nuclear Blast Records, and at the time of our interview, they had just returned from a tour of Europe.

“With the I.E. especially, we lose a venue like every week. If we have a venue, it’s not staying around for long. I’ve personally seen like three or four venues [in the last few years] just call it,” said Big Ass Truck vocalist Abel Abarca. “So we do get scrappy, and I think that’s what sets the I.E. apart from places like L.A. and O.C.”

San Bernardino hardcore band Big Ass Truck performs a surprise concert at Creator Fest on May 2, 2026, at Creator Tattoo in Pomona.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

Izzy Leyva, 17, describes being met with an immediate “sense of welcoming” at her first DIY hardcore show.

“It’s nice finding people my age to talk about life with. You can start conversations so easily,” Leyva said. “Especially after moshing with someone in the crowd. If you’re struggling to make friends in school, you’ll be able to find someone here.”

She enters the mosh pit fearlessly, dodging flailing arms to two-step — a synchronized dance move that requires punching and running in place — unleashing her energy in the punk sanctum.

“I never feel like an outsider here,” Leyva added.

1

2

3

4

5

1. Mauricio Rivera performs with his band Barrio Slam on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 2. Toni Feliz shows her “IE” tattoo, a nod to her hometown, at Creator Fest on May 2, 2026, at Creator Tattoo in Pomona. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 3. Izzy Levya, 17, two-steps during Marked for Death’s performance on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 4. Fans dance and “two-step” during Barrio Slam’s performance on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times) 5. Andres Rodriguez, 18, moshes during Marked for Death’s performance on April 3, 2026, in St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Bernardino. (Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

As 25-year-old Guatemalan American vocalist Jorge Cruz entered the show, he embraced his friends and bandmates. Cruz, who fronts the voracious hardcore band KnuckleSandwich, says he sees TikTok as a major platform for hardcore fans to find one another.

“I saw shows online and was hooked … I used to be so nervous to be in the mosh pit, I’d throw up outside. But when I got in there for the first time, I feel like it changed me into someone who was more comfortable in myself,” Cruz said. “It was like a baptism.”

His music, ranging from songs like “Melting ICE” and corrido-hardcore fusion “El Corrido del Maton,” is inspired by his immigrant household upbringing and interest in Chicano studies.

“Especially with this growing anti-intellectualism going on, and conservatives in our government, writing about Chicano identity and the issues in America feels important,” Cruz said. “There’s no one out there to speak up for us than us.”

A day after attending the show, Garrett Boyer and Kenny Sylvia, longtime friends with nearly matching tattoo sleeves and baseball caps, stood talking in Creator Tattoo Parlor in Pomona.

The pair helps to run Division One, a local booking company that books anywhere from Corona storefront DBZ Books N’ Records to their very own tattoo parlor.

A few weeks prior, Boyer got a call from his sister: His niece was diagnosed with an aggressive childhood cancer called neuroblastoma that had spread through her body, causing his sister to tackle insurance and medical costs. Boyer said he reached out to the hardcore community for help and was “overwhelmed” by the response.

“The community really, really, really came together. A lot of people reached out and really quickly we threw this benefit show that raised thousands of dollars,” Boyer said. “That’s the core of what hardcore music should be and is. It’s community.”

A few months before that, they had united with local bands to throw a benefit show, raising money for immigrant coalition groups after increased ICE raids.

“We thought, ‘How could we not help?’ I’m second generation from El Paso. So many of my neighbors and even my partner’s family were directly affected,” Boyer said. “So many shows are not just about music but they can [impact] people’s lives.”

Brett Rock, bassist of San Bernardino hardcore band Big Ass Truck, performs during Creator Fest on May 2, 2026, at Creator Tattoo in Pomona.

(Katerina Portela / Los Angeles Times)

In Creator’s graffitied back lot area on May 2, bands Load Tha Nine, ’92 and Auditory Anguish opened up a DIY festival called Creator Fest, where 22-year-old Cynthia Garcia came out to “let off steam.”

Garcia, who fronts local band Exutoire, said discovering the local alternative scene “changed everything.”

“In high school, it was very much like nothing was happening. We’re all bored. We’re all depressed. We’re writing, and finally, we get to put the writing to use,” Garcia said. “We meet people that are like-minded and trying to get out of that boredom, and then [the music scene] just exploded.”

At Garcia’s shows, she says she constantly meets concertgoers from L.A., or even from San Diego, who drive hours into the I.E. to be part of its blossoming scene.

At Creator Fest, Abarca commanded the stage, building up the energy of the crowd until hair whipped in frenzies. Abarca says he sees I.E. hardcore continuing to evolve, fusing new genres and making the Inland Empire a place to watch as alternative music booms in the “scrappy” venues of San Bernardino, Corona, Pomona and Riverside.

“Latinos in the Inland Empire have always been hardcore,” Abarca said. “People just know it now because we make them hear us.”

There are few things a Los Angeles local is less likely to do than take a Hollywood sightseeing tour on a big, garish bus. Only rush-hour traffic and $20 tacos inspire the same level of dread.

Yet nearly everyone aboard the open-air bus for a Tuesday night production of “California Gothic: A Bus Tour” was an L.A. resident. The show, which is produced by the aggressively hip New Theater Hollywood, recently wrapped its third “season” after debuting in February and returning for an April encore. Set on a moving bus, the 1.5-hour-long experience is part esoteric Tinseltown history lesson, part immersive theater. The narrative conjures meaning from the Los Angeles cityscape by fusing a hodgepodge of textbook theories about the sprawling metropolis onto the gritty reality of daily life.

“We originally organized this thinking there would be more people coming who aren’t from here,” said Oliver Misraje, the show’s writer and primary tour guide, as the bus pulled away from the curb at Santa Monica and Wilcox. “But this just goes to show how much people love the city and are from here, contrary to popular belief.”

In lieu of celebrity-hungry tourists, “California Gothic” has been packing its bus twice a night with rowdy young scenesters and in-the-know locals eager to absorb its heady mix of California history, public intellectualism and performance artistry.

While the show wrapped its latest run in mid-June, it will reopen its automated doors during the last week of October for a special “ghost tour” edition co-written by Misraje and New York it girl Ruby McCollister.

The bus arrives for New Theater Hollywood’s “California Gothic: A Bus Tour.”

My tour was far less steeped in irony than I feared. As the bus wound its way through the streets of Hollywood, starting at the New Theater’s doorstep before eventually circling the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Misraje led the audience through his take on the death of the “California dream” and the rotting carcasses of empty buildings and broken promises left in its wake. Along the way, we encountered a haunted-eyed Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Brooks Ginnan), a masked Hollywood legend known as the Duchess of Argyle (Shauna Frente) and a singing, swaggering “Rat Czar” with a lot to say about real estate developers (Loren Kramar).

Yes, it’s whimsical, and yes, it references Mike Davis’ “City of Quartz” more than any of the TMZ-type excursions it gently parodies, but it’s still, at its heart, a bus tour.

In a nod to classic Hollywood tour advertisements, the show’s winkingly all-caps poster declares, “You Will See: The Hollywood Sign, Marilyn Monroe, the Schizo City State.” There is also a stash of BuzzBallz ready-to-drink cocktails for trivia winners, but Misraje and his cast do not deliver their performances with smirks or smarm. They commit full-throatedly to playing out Misraje’s vision of a Hollywood haunted by the dreamers it’s wronged and the secrets it’s plastered over.

“Ultimately, we are trying to pay homage to the bus tour format, which is intrinsically ‘carny,’” Misraje said, likening himself to a carnival barker espousing aesthetic philosophy aboard an ever-changing “Ship of Theseus.”

Before the performers infiltrate the ship, “I’m trying to intentionally set up audience expectations to think they’re going to get this run-of-the-mill Hollywood death tour,” he explained. “I consider myself a kind of impish person, but still fundamentally sincere.”

1

2

3

1. Tour guide Oliver Misraje begins the show. 2. Rat Czar, portrayed by Loren Kramar, performs during the bus tour. 3. Guests board the bus.

Given the show’s monologue-heavy format and bevy of literary references, it’s no surprise that the concept began as an essay. Misraje, a 27-year-old writer and self-described “Hollywood hustler” raised primarily in the Inland Empire, was inspired after the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires to stage a piece he had written bridging his love of Gothic literature with his “welfare class” upbringing in a family of seven raised by a single mother, which he considered gothic in its own right.

“We were in the Inland Empire and it was the 2008 financial crisis,” he said. “There was all this imagery of things famously California-coded, like the suburban house, the pool, the strip mall, and when we were there, it was just, like, destroyed. There were abandoned housing subdivisions rotting in the sun.”

The perfect setting, he explained, for the kind of “literature that emerges after the failure of a historical project.”

After reaching out to New Theater co-owner Calla Henkel and conceiving the project, Misraje and his producers elected to turn the funhouse mirror onto Hollywood, framing the neighborhood with historical context and Freudian theory but ultimately letting it speak for itself.

The bus passes the TCL Chinese Theatre.

The highly mutable nature of street life and the participatory character of the show means its tone can shift drastically from tour to tour, even within the same night. Sometimes, the streets appear glittering; other times, seedy and dangerous. Once, there was a showdown with another tour bus — one presumably not carrying theatergoers. At a different show, a drunk pedestrian tried to board the bus during faux-Monroe’s speech. One particularly harrowing night, someone circled the bus on an electric scooter, shouting homophobic slurs at the all-queer cast.

“It’s almost like surfing,” Misraje said. “There’s so much chaos you’re confronting, and you have to find a way to ride it and let it be a part of the show.”

The show’s high production costs make bringing in a profit difficult, but Misraje said he and the New Theater Hollywood team plan to revive it periodically, with an evolving story and cast of characters.

On my tour, no performer better represented the blurred line between theater and street life than the Duchess of Argyle, a.k.a. the Mysterious Masked Lady of Hollywoodland, a.k.a. Shauna Frente, a busty Blanche DuBois figure in an eyeless flapper mask and gartered stockings. Just three days before, she had been evicted from a home on Argyle Avenue that once allegedly belonged to Cecil B. DeMille. This happened after a lengthy legal battle, during which the show helped raise money for temporary housing.

As the Duchess spilled neighborhood secrets, our bus repeatedly passed an Extra Space Storage facility painted with images of old Hollywood behemoths: Lucille Ball, Groucho Marx and the like. The intermingling smells of sizzling hot dogs, urine and marijuana wafted through the open windows.

Hollywood may be ghostly, the Duchess told us, but it was hers to haunt.

Duchess of Argyle (Shauna Frente) tells Hollywood stories during the tour.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

BAYWATCH reboot star Brooks Nader wears a bejewelled bikini ahead of the show’s upcoming launch.

The 29-year-old American model-turned-actress sported the jewelled two-piece ahead of a Sports Illustrated show in Miami, Florida.

She won fame by winning the publication’s swimsuit model search in 2019.

Since then she has been cast in the new Baywatch as Selene, captain of the lifeguards patrolling Zuma Beach in California’s exclusive Malibu.

The remake of the Nineties favourite – which starred David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson – is set to hit screens next January.

Brooks said putting on the show’s famous red swimsuit brought her to tears.

RED HOT

Brooks Nader channels inner Pamela Anderson on runway ahead of Baywatch reboot

BABE-WATCH

Brooks Nader ditches her bra in daring dress on the red carpet at Cannes

And she said: “We’re going to pay homage to Pam and all of Baywatch to the best of our ability.”

In addition to her modelling career and stint on DWTS, Brooks stars on the new reality TV series, Love Thy Nader, which premiered on Hulu earlier this year.

The show follows Brooks and her sisters, Mary Holland, Grace Ann, and Sarah Jane, as they navigate building careers in the Big Apple.

She has been dating actor Taron Egerton, who starred in Rocketman and Apple TV+ prison drama Black Bird.

The now-influencer appeared on BBC’s Song Marry Avoid when she was just 19-years-old

A woman who appeared on a popular BBC show says she had no choice but to turn down some major opportunities.

Sophie Bow received a dramatic ‘makeunder’ on BBC’s Snog Marry Avoid, which featured the sassy robotic style guru POD (Personal Overhaul Device).

Rather than being given a makeover, those who appeared on the show were given a ‘makeunder’ as they were persuaded less is more.

The show was a huge hit with fans in the late 00s with singer Jenny Frost followed by comedian and Strictly Come Dancing star Ellie Taylor as the host. The BBC Three show aired from 2008 until its sixth and final series in December 2013.

Sophie was just 19 when she first appeared on our TV screens, when she encountered POD as a teenager who loved lots of fake tan, heavy makeup and eye-catching outfits covered in sequins and glitter.

At the time, viewers fell in love with the teen and show bosses were keen to get her back on our TV screens for other projects.

Now 33, she has become a popular social media content creator but revealed that she was forced to turn down a number of TV opportunities because of her anxiety.

Looking back on her journey since appearing on Snog Marry Avoid, she took to TikTok and gave fans an update on her life today.

She started off by saying: “I would say appearing on telly back in the day definitely helped my career.

“Back then it was a very popular show but it disappeared off the face of the earth and no one knows why or where it went but it would be so good if they brought it back.”

She revealed: “After being on that show, I did actually get casted for the first ever Love Island but I was in a relationship. I’ve always been in a relationship so I never went on the show. “

However her relationship wasn’t the only thing holding her back as she explained: “But there have been so many opportunities that I actually did miss out on – throughout my life because I do have anxiety – I suffer badly with anxiety.

“I don’t really know what triggered it but I do get quite back anxiety. Even to this day I get asked on brand trips or anything outside my comfort zone, if I’m not going with somebody I can’t.”

The influencer added: “I really need to push myself to do more. I have a little boy and he is the best thing ever so I did take a little break from social media for a little while but then I did go back into social media.

“I did lose quite a lot of following from having the break then I started a TikTok account and here I am.”

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.

Clarke’s masterplan, so to speak, was playing Kieran Tierney ahead of Robertson on the left, two vastly experienced operators to deal with the threat of Hakimi and Brahim Diaz.

A risk, for sure. And so much for the thinking behind it. Just over a minute gone – Diaz assist, Ismael Saibari goal, the nightmare scenario come true.

The traffic cone guys weren’t letting such trifling issues dampen their day.

Everybody else had a haunted look about them, their noise and passion reduced to soft groans, the lusty pride they all displayed with another thumping rendition of Flower of Scotland now replaced with shrieks as Morocco ran amok.

Or threatened to run amok. Seventy seconds it took them to score. For much of the opening half they were like a cultured fighter, boxing the ears off an over-matched rival, bamboozling their punchbag with their movement before what felt like an inevitable knockout.

Scotland were on the ropes, covering up and praying that the punishment would stop. And minute by minute, it did.

Morocco’s intensity was wonderful for half an hour and they could have been two or three ahead by then, but they weren’t. They’re terrific footballers, very easy on the eye, but they’re not ruthless, not killers. Scotland’s resilience kept them in it.

When Morocco’s energy started to dissipate, it became a contest.

Scotland finished the opening half strongly, their confidence rising, those worried stares on the faces of their supporters giving way to blessed hope.

A beloved Celebrity Gogglebox pair have made their return to the Channel 4 show

Celebrity Gogglebox fans were over the moon after two beloved stars made their comeback to the programme.

The Channel 4 spin-off show returned to screens on Friday (June 18) for a brand new episode, welcoming back firm favourites, such as Vernon Kay and Paddy McGuinness, Nick Grimshaw and niece Liv, and Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan.

There are several new additions to the new series too, including Olivia Attwood and her mum Jennifer, Harry and Matt aka Nitro and Legend from Gladiators.

Finishing off the line-up are Strictly star George Clark and content creator Max Balegde comedian and actor, Julian Clary and actor and television presenter, Nigel Havers.

And for the latest instalment, show favourites Stephen Mangan and his sister Anita were back on the sofa – and fans were over the moon. On X, one person declared: “So glad Stephen and Anita are back!” Someone else wrote: “My favourites!” A third chimed in: “Love these two.”

Stephen is a presenter and actor who found fame playing Nathan Stern in The Split, alongside Nicola Walker, Fiona Button, Annabel Scholey, and Barry Atsma.

Beyond his acting credentials, the star also hosts Artist of the Year on Sky Arts. He also fronted the ITV game show The Fortune Hotel. Meanwhile, his sister Anita is an artist, illustrator, and designer. The brother-sister duo frequently collaborate on popular children’s books, with Anita illustrating the stories that Stephen writes

In 2023, Anita opened up about working with her brother on the books. When asked whose idea it was to work together, she told The Bath Magazine: “Mine! I’ve been an illustrator and designer for years and have wanted to work with Stephen for a long time.

“Stephen is brilliant at writing but can’t draw (his words!), so it’s a great match! I convinced him to consider it. Initially he thought we’d be doing picture books, where I did most of the work … but no, I said ‘40,000 word chapter books please!’ I got my way, mwahahahaha.”

Talking about their relationship, Anita added to the publication: “We have always been close and have been making each other laugh since we were children. Now we’re still making each other laugh – and our readers too (hopefully!). I always look forward to reading the first draft of Stephen’s books to see what drawing challenges there will be. I once told him that drawing horses is hard, so he put horses in The Fart that Changed the World, goats in The Unlikely Rise of Harry Sponge and The Great Reindeer Rescue is full of reindeer.”

Stephen added: “Well, I am the big brother – that’s what we do. I love working with Anita. It’s a treat to see how she illustrates my characters, and she always makes me laugh.”

Celebrity Gogglebox airs every Friday at 9pm on Channel 4

Comedy director James Burrows, the 11-time Emmy-winning director who co-created “Cheers” and helped turn such long-running sitcoms as “Taxi,” “Friends,” “Will & Grace” and “The Big Bang Theory” into fan favorites, has died, his family confirmed to People. He was 85.

“We celebrate the extraordinary life and enduring legacy of James ‘Jimmy’ Burrows, who passed away peacefully today surrounded by his loving family,” his family said in a statement to People. “For more than five decades, Burrows was one of the most influential and beloved directors in television history. As a legendary director, mentor, and creative force, he helped shape generations of comedy and brought immeasurable joy to audiences around the world.”

A master of the multi-camera sitcom, Burrows started his career shooting episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in 1974 and “The Bob Newhart Show” in 1975. He soon joined the quality-oriented production company, MTM, which counted James L. Brooks, Steven Bochco and Gary David Goldberg among its alumni.

“They were smart enough to know that it’s better to have a director who can talk to actors rather than a director who can move cameras. You can’t really learn how to make something funny, but you can learn to move the cameras,” Burrows said in a 1995 interview with The Times.

Burrows was born in Los Angeles and later moved to New York with his family where he attended the High School of Music & Art. He graduated from Oberlin College and completed a graduate program at the Yale School of Drama. He worked years as a stage manager with his father, a playwright and director, assisting on shows such as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” starring Moore and Richard Chamberlain.

He solidified his name in television with “Cheers,” co-creating the lively Boston travern “where everybody knows your name” with Glen and Les Charles. Over its 11 seasons on the air, Burrows directed 237 of its 275 episodes, emerging as a behind-the-scenes comedy legend.

“You bring ‘em in, you sit ‘em down and they talk. That’s all ‘Cheers’ was,” Burrows told The Times. “The word is more important than the goofiness. It was all about the words — which is how I was trained, how my father was trained, how anybody who reads books is trained. It’s the word.”

His father, Abe Burrows, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter and director who performed in radio comedies and co-wrote the books for the Broadway musicals “Guys and Dolls” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” The younger Burrows said that growing up on radio comedies helped him hone his ear for humor.

“I know what’s funny, and I probably know the best way to deliver the joke. Whether it’s walking out of a room, facing that way, facing this way,” Burrows said in a 2010 interview with The Times. “I just have a sense of that.”

Another skill he learned from his dad? was working on his feet.

“He’d run the scenes over and over. He created this wonderful camaraderie, which I always try to do. I love to do ensemble shows because that’s where you get the camaraderie.”

Burrows, often considered a fatherly manager, tried to bridge the gap between actors and writers and notably took the cast of “Friends” on a trip to Las Vegas before directing 15 episodes of the blockbuster comedy. He also threw a party for the “Mike & Molly” cast to build rapport because he believed when everyone liked each other, it showed onscreen.

Actors would know when a joke landed when they would hear Burrows giggle as the scene unfolded.

“I’m the guy that wants you to walk the comic plank for me,” he said. “Take it as far out as you want to take it and I’ll bring it back. Sometimes I’ll take it further. But trust me.”

With his slate of hits — he’s credited for directing several shows in NBC’s primetime “Must See TV” lineup of the 1990s — Burrows amassed sizable wealth and, from an early age, was in constant demand by those seeking his magic touch for their show. However, he also saw his fair share of flops: Henry Winkler’s “Monty, “Cafe Americain” with Valerie Bertinelli and a slew of promising pilots that never got off the ground. He also felt that ABC’s “The Associates” and “The Class” on CBS were canceled too soon.

From 1998 to 2006, Burrows helmed every episode of “Will & Grace,” the Emmy-nominated sitcom about a woman and her gay best friend that aired on NBC for eight seasons during its original run. To Burrows, it was the funniest show he ever worked on. He was also behind the camera for the comedy’s 2017 revival, which brought the envelope-pushing antics of Will, Grace, Jack and Karen back for three more seasons.

“It was a fairytale literally and figuratively,” he said in a 2016 Hypable interview. “It was not of the real world in a strange kind of way. These were exaggerated characters. Although they were grounded with Will and Grace, there was this exaggeration that made the stuff you could do and get away with on that show so extraordinary.”

He won his 11th Emmy Award serving as an executive producer on 2019’s all-star re-staging of “Live in front of a Studio Audience: ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Good Times.’” A year earlier, he was nominated for directing the “‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons’” TV special.

James Burrows behind the scenes.

(Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press)

Throughout his career Burrows had a penchant for directing pilots because it meant “you’re better than an episodic director” and could create something new in the writer-driven medium of television. He was also drawn to “more uptown, the more urbane, the more sophisticated” comedies. He tried doing cinema once — 1981’s “Partners” with Ryan O’Neal and John Hurt — and said the result confirmed his belief that he was built for television.

“I’m not a cinematic guy. I’m a theater guy. For what I do, I need a live audience,” he said in a 2016 interview with the Television Academy.

Among his favorite TV moments were the pilots for “Frasier” and “Third Rock From the Sun,” the long-awaited kiss between Sam (Ted Danson) and Diane (Shelley Long) and Woody’s (Woody Harrelson) wedding on “Cheers,” Rev. Jim (Christopher Lloyd) taking his driving test in “Taxi,” Ross (David Schwimmer) being attacked by a cat in “Friends” and Will, Grace, Jack and Karen getting in the shower together on “Will & Grace.”

Late into his career, Burrows continued to work in the multi-camera sitcom format, which is shot in a studio, usually before a live audience. In 2013, he was honored by the Television Academy, and, in 2016, he celebrated directing his 1,000th episode of television programming, crossing the milestone with an episode of “Crowded.” NBC marked the milestone with “Must See TV: An All-Star Tribute” special. According to critics, the show — billed by several outlets as the elusive “Friends” reunion and came off as a living eulogy to Burrows — fell short and did not do the legendary director justice.

In all, Burrows was nominated for 45 Emmy Awards and 17 Directors Guild of America Awards.

ASHLEY Cain was secretly sacked from a BBC job last year for being ‘drunk on set’.

The star, 35, has come under-fire this week after historic tweets were exposed in which Ashley made degrading comments about women and suggested blurring the lines of consent during sex in worrying messages.

The posts were made by Ashley between 2013 and 2015 after he first rose to fame in footballing and his appearances on MTV show Ex On The Beach.

The Guardian has compiled a range of messages, posts and concerns relating to Ashley’s behaviour in the past – which has since led to him being dropped by the BBC.

Last night, the publication detailed new allegations that Ashley was secretly sacked from filming a BBC documentary in June of last year for being ‘drunk on set’.

The TV personality, who had already begun to work with the BBC on their documenary series, Into The Danger Zone, had been picked to host, Sin City: The Real Las Vegas.

VETTING FAILURE

Ashley Cain’s show axed by BBC after ‘unacceptable’ posts about women

TWEET SHAME

Ashley Cain under fire as posts calling women ‘s**ts’ & sex video row resurface

He was flown out to Nevada to film the show but concerns were raised about his conduct.

Appearing to be drunk during filming of the show, the production was suspended and Ashley was ultimately dropped from the project.

Another presenter was then chosen to front the programme instead.

Nonetheless, the incident went largely ignored as Ashley returned to filming with the BBC earlier this year for the second series of his Into The Danger Zone series.

However, following The Guardian’s reports, that series has now been axed and won’t be making it to air.

The BBC revealed they had no plans to work with Ashley again in the future after admitting that their “vetting” process before hiring talent had “failed”.

A BBC spokesperson told The Sun:  “The posts by Ashley Cain, albeit from many years ago, are completely unacceptable.”

“The BBC has clear requirements around vetting and social media checks, which are undertaken by the production company. In this instance, the process clearly failed and we are investigating why. We are continuing to strengthen our processes to ensure everyone working for, and on behalf of, the BBC meets our values and standards.”

“We have no plans to broadcast the new series of ‘Into the Danger Zone’, and no future projects with Ashley Cain.”

The Sun has contacted a representative for Ashley Cain for comment.

Ashley’s comments and behaviour – which largely took place over 10 years ago – first began to emerge after he took part in the very succesful first series of MTV show Ex On The Beach which propelled him to national fame.

Derogatory terms allegedly written in 2014 and 2015 include “sl**s”, “b***hes” and “psychos”, while he said he’d like to “choke slam” and “spit in the face” of Love Island star Jessica Hayes while commenting on the ITV2 reality show.

The Guardian reports that other misogynistic tweets saw him say he wanted to “talcum powder pimp slap these b***es already!” while watching a Channel 4 documentary and demean women by writing: “I DO NOT.. I repeat I DO NOT think EVERY girl is a slag! There are some absolute PHENOMENAL women out there.. They’re just a rare commodity.”

In 2015, Cain was accused of recording Rachel Roftis, 33, during sex and sharing clips to Snapchat without her consent — something he strongly denied.

The pair met at a club in Bexleyheath before spending the night together in a hotel.

Roftis told The Guardian she “screamed” at Cain when she realised the footage had been shared publicly and the incident has “massively affected her relationships with men. She doesn’t trust anybody really now.”

The notoriety from the posts, which saw Cain brand himself the “Snapchat King” and rack up 60,000 views, led to an appearance on short-lived ITV Daytime show O’Brien where he boasted of being a “play boy” and sleeping with 15 girls a week.

Of his attitude towards women, he said: “If you are a lady, I respect you. But if you don’t respect yourself, how can you expect me to respect you?”

ITV series Fletchers’ Family Farm has been a hit with viewers since it launched in 2023

Fletchers’ Family Farm fans have declared they “can’t wait” after the stars posted an adorable video confirming what lies ahead for the show.

Former Emmerdale star Kelvin Fletcher’s programme – which chronicles him, his wife Liz and their children on their Peak District farm – has proven enormously popular with audiences since its 2023 debut. And earlier this month, ITV announced it had commissioned two further series, reports the Liverpool Echo.

The Fletchers have now posted a clip on Instagram featuring their daughter Marnie revealing the announcement. The nine-year-old was spotted calling enthusiastically to her dad, who was occupied feeding the sheep.

“I’ve got some news!” she shouted, but Kelvin said he couldn’t hear her.

She then attempted to inform little brother Milo, who was riding his toy bike, before calling out to her mum Liz and twin brothers Mateusz and Maximus, who are four. “What did she say?” they asked each other.

Marnie then declared: “Guys! The Fletchers are back. Series five and six, let’s go!”

Viewers were delighted by the clip, which was posted on Instagram with the caption: “WE ARE BACK! Who’s excited?!”

“Love this!” commented one individual, while another wrote: “Absolutely love this show, always lifts me up, such a lovely family.”

Another described the programme as “one of the best things on TV”.

“Excellent news,” remarked someone else, while another fan exclaimed: “Fletchers are BACK let’s gooooooooooooooooo.”

“Great news!” observed another viewer, as one admitted: “I’m that excited I almost peed my pants.”

“Wonderful wonderful news and amazing family,” gushed one delighted viewer, while another declared it was the “best show” on television.

Kelvin, who is widely recognised for his portrayal of Andy Sugden in ITV’s Emmerdale, first chronicled his agricultural journey in Kelvin’s Big Farming Adventure, before he and Liz went on to star in Fletchers’ Family Farm together.

The show has proven to be a hit with audiences keen to follow the family’s escapades on their 120-acre farm, and has now run for four successful series.

Reacting to the confirmation of two further series, Kelvin and Liz said: “We’re delighted to be returning for series five and six. What started as a simple desire to share our family’s journey has grown into something far bigger than we ever imagined.”

Fletchers’ Family Farm airs on ITV.

GREG James has confirmed his Radio 1 show return and revealed that he’s ‘exhausted’ as he shared an update on his dad’s recent open heart surgeries.

The radio star, 40, was missing from the Radio 1 Breakfast, which airs weekdays from 7am to 10:30am, on Wednesday and Thursday (18 June 2026).

Greg took to his Instagram story this morning to reveal the heart-breaking reason why – and admitted that he’s “in no fit state” because his father Alan Milward has undergone heart surgery.

Then this afternoon, he decided to give his 1.3m followers on the social media platform an update.

Sharing a selfie from a sauna, Greg wrote: “Hello from the sauna! I felt daft updating on all of this but because it was such a loud part of the comic relief challenge, I feel like it’s nice to be honest about it all.

“Just to say, my dad is responsive, just about conscious and being looked after amazingly.

hard time

Greg James reveals heartbreaking reason he’s missed Radio 1 show for 2 days

soak it up

Greg James appears live on BBC Breakfast in the BATH after raising £4m

“Obviously, after two open heart surgeries in three months, he’s not out of the woods by a long way, but we’re hopeful he’ll be fixed and we can all just get on with life.

“Which is what I’m gonna try and do.

“I won’t keep updating on here about it all as quite frankly, we’re all exhausted by it and it’s going to be a long road to recovery.”

He then went on to share exactly when he’ll be back on the radio – and fans don’t have long to wait.

Greg continued: “I’ve wanted to make sure my mum is OK so it’s been nice to spend loads of time with her and my big sis, but I’m back to the show tomorrow and I can’t wait.

“Thank you again for the most amazing load of messages.

“It’s genuinely very comforting.”

It comes after Greg told fans yesterday: “Hello from my mum’s garden! I wasn’t on the breakfast show today as my dad was in for another go at heart surgery (it’s been a wild few months and I didn’t want to bore you with it all). 

“But here we are. Back to square one. Waiting for news and staying distracted and keeping calm by making water features. 

“All being well, back on tomorrow morning.”

However Greg later revealed Alan’s surgery took “much longer” than they’d expected so he would be taking another day off. 

He said: “What a great day! An absolute hoot in ICU. 

“Surgery was much longer than everyone hoped. Big up my mum and my big sis. And the surgeons. And the NHS. What a gang. We’ve all gone mad. 

“Real talk, surgery went ok but he’s far from out of the woods so I’m gonna take it easy tomorrow and hopefully back on Friday. 

“Plus, I’m in no fit state to be on the radio. I mean, look at me, I’m posting photos from intensive care ffs. Thank you for your lovely messages.”

In March Greg had to cancel his show and rush home after Alan suffered a stroke during a planned heart operation.

He later opened up about his dad’s struggles during his 1,000km tandem bike ride for Red Nose Day.

Undertaking the mammoth task just a week after Alan’s stroke, Greg got emotional talking about the man he calls “Big Al”.

He said: “I feel elated. I feel a bit overwhelmed by all these people who just turned up out of nowhere. I just burst into tears as I was going up to Blaenavon. It was all a bit much.

“Just thought about… I just thought about everything. Just thought about my dad, thought about my mum. It got way too much. It’s so silly. It must have been the altitude.”

In this week’s episode of The Envelope podcast, Rachel Sennott discusses finding the voice of “I Love L.A.” — and finding her footing as series creator — during a tumultuous time in her life.

Kelvin Washington: Welcome to The Envelope, Kelvin Washington alongside you know who, Yvonne Villarreal, Mark Olsen. Always great to have you two here and spend some time with you. We talked about it earlier, we had Emmy season — a few weeks ago we discussed it. But now Emmy nominations are on the way. Yvonne, I’ll start with you, just maybe someone, a show, a couple of things you’re looking at saying, “Hey, I would love to see this or that person nominated.”

Yvonne Villarreal: I wanna give some shout-outs to the women right now. I was really frustrated when Rhea Seehorn didn’t get love until the final season of “Better Call Saul,” and I’m hoping — and I do have a lot of hope — that she will be recognized for “Pluribus.” [I] was a really big fan of “The Comeback” this season. I would like to [see] Lisa Kudrow get in there. Show-wise, I would like to see “The Testaments” in there. I don’t know how much of a dark horse that one is, but that’s my pick for show.

Washington: You’ve been riding “The Testaments.” What about you, Mark?

Olsen: I’m sort of leapfrogging over nominations, and I’m just thinking about what would be exciting on the show. And last year, I remember Stephen Colbert won for talk show kind of right after his show had been canceled, and that seemed like a very exciting moment. And so this year, with Jimmy Kimmel, where this is the first Emmy cycle since he had his suspension last year, and really has been in the news, I just think if he were to be nominated and then to win, that just would be such an exciting moment at the show. What’s he gonna say? I just would really love to see that.

Washington: Yeah, he seems like he would have some things to say, right? Because just kind of the nature of who he is. We’ll have to wait and see. And just for me, a couple of people. Just a fan of this particular person, Janelle James is hilarious to me. She plays in “Abbott Elementary.” She plays that role great. And then this one is no real surprise, probably 50-plus-year career, but Martin Short. Every time I see him, he’s amazing, steals the scene. So those are folks that just jump off on the radar for me.

All right, I’ll get to you, Mark. You had a chance to sit down with Rachel Sennott of “I Love L.A.,” creator and star of it. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Olsen: She’s been kind of a real, like, bright light on the comedy scene for the last few years in films like “Shiva Baby,” “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and “Bottoms,” and, you know, she also was like a writer as well as a performer. And so with “I Love L.A.,” which is a look at sort of like the young creative class in Los Angeles, she is the star of the show, she created the show, she writes on the show, she’s executive producer, she actually made her directing debut with one of the episodes. And so it’s just exciting to see her sort of really like come into her voice and come into her own with this new show.

Washington: Kind of reminds me a little bit of, you know, now maybe a decade ago Issa Rae’s surge in L.A. and comedy creating, and then Riz Ahmed, who you spoke with last week — same thing creating and starring and stuff. Seems like that’s the energy [we’re] getting from a lot of the young talent. Well, here is Mark and Rachel now.

Rachel Sennott, creator and star of HBO’s “I Love L.A.”

(Evan Mulling / For The Times)

Mark Olsen: We’re here with Rachel Sennott, creator, executive producer, writer, star, and for the first time, director on the show “I Love L.A.,” as well as co-creator and writer on “Big Mistakes.” That’s a lot.

Rachel Sennott: When you say it like that, I’m like, “Oh, my God.” And I’m also a friend, daughter, let’s not forget girlfriend. Yeah, those are all things that I am doing. And I am so grateful and having so much fun doing that.

Olsen: Hopefully this isn’t something that just I get a kick out of, but we’re here at the L.A. Times offices in El Segundo, and the Randy Newman song “I Love L.A.,” one of the first lines in the song is “Rolling down the Imperial Highway.” And we are in fact on Imperial Highway.

Sennott: We’re here right now. We’re living it.

Olsen: Tell me about the title of the show, its relationship to the song and what was it that you liked about having the show called “I Love L.A.”

Sennott: We were between two titles for a while, “I Love L.A.” and “Climbers,” and the reason we went with “I Love L.A.” is because in the process of making the show, I moved here from New York and I had a hard time when I was first here. And in the process of filming the pilot, I really fell in love with L.A., and I think getting to make something here, I all of a sudden saw L.A. through this lens where everything was like a movie. I would go on my walks that I usually go on. I would walk through my neighborhood, I would go to my spots, and I just saw it through this different lens, and I was really falling in love with it in the process of making the show. And I think with “Climbers,” that title fell a little bit — it was a double meaning of like social climbers and then also, being the age that I am, where I feel like ever since I got to college, ever since I became an adult, there’s been this chaotic energy in the world and uncertain ground where things never felt expected. It was always unexpected events. Graduating into COVID and then there was a strike and everything. So I feel like Sisyphus, where you’re always pushing the rock up the hill and it’s never enough. But we were worried that “Climbers” would seem too negative … We didn’t want to set people up already judging the characters.

Olsen: And then what has it been like for you learning to be a showrunner in making “I Love L.A.”? It’s funny, your co-showrunner Emma Barrie, she mentioned how you were very organized, but she was struck that you had everything in a pink binder with horses on it. So it was you trying to learn this new thing while also holding on to your essence.

Sennott: I feel so grateful for everyone who works on the show with me. I learned a lot from Emma. I learned from Lorene [Scafaria], who inspired me so much as a director. Aida [Rodgers], our producer, Amy [Gravitt] and Allie [Wasserman] at HBO; Max [Silvestri], who’s one of our EPs and writers. Showrunning is a million different jobs, and some of the jobs I’d done before, some of them I hadn’t, and I felt like I got to see different people shine in certain things, people who are more talented or more skilled at structure than me, people who have directed before, people who understand shots and basically learn from everyone and see that everyone wants the show to be the best it can be. They’re bringing stuff to the table. And so I benefited from everyone else’s skills and talents and just being like, “If you know how to do this better than me, I’m gonna learn from you and watch you and hopefully take from that so I can do my job better.”

Olsen: In a lot of the press as you’ve been talking about the show, you’ve been talking a lot about the concept of the Saturn return and this sort of chaotic period people have in their late 20s. You yourself now are 30 —

Sennott: Yes, I made it. I literally just finished. I was relieved, but my Saturn return was the process, getting the show picked up and the first season of the show. That was my Saturn return.

Olsen: Can you already feel that something has settled or things are different somehow?

Sennott: Yes, a thousand percent. My Saturn return, the dates that it was the strongest were the month around when the show got picked up. Making the pilot was so amazing and I learned so much. And then I was in this moment where I had to pick — basically, I couldn’t take on acting jobs because I was gonna hopefully do the show, but I didn’t know if the show was picked up yet or not. And so I had to say no to certain things and kind of take this leap. At the same time I went through a breakup, and then I got arrested for having CBD in the Cayman Islands. And it was just a very chaotic month of my life where I was like in jail for six hours on a break with my boyfriend, so he, like, had no idea where I was, and I was like, I don’t even know if I have a show, I just said no to this other thing. I just felt like I didn’t know what was happening. I’m someone who it’s hard for me to take risks sometimes, and that was a big risk and leap into what I thought I should be doing. And then the rest of it was learning for the first season how to do a job I’d never done before. Obviously, I still have more to learn, but I think that was a big Saturn return for me, the roller coaster of it.

Olsen: It’s so interesting to hear you say that you think of yourself as a person who’s afraid of risk, because that’s not my impression of you.

Sennott: You’re like, “Stop taking risks. Chill on the risks, every second.” No, I think it’s more [that] I didn’t necessarily believe in myself as a creator on my own, and that was really scary for me. That was the risk, I think.

Olsen: Because especially in building up to making “I Love L.A.,” in your career, I feel like you’ve created this comedic persona for yourself. What is the biggest distinction between the Rachel I think I know and like the actual you?

Sennott: You mean the characters that I play? Or like the persona?

Olsen: These sort of hard-charging, very ambitious, but maybe not always understanding of themselves characters, and you. I’m just interested in how you see the distinction between that persona and the actual you.

Sennott: Well, I hope that the characters that I’ve played have been somewhat different from each other. I think “Shiva Baby,” that character, was a little bit more anxiety-inward. Alice in “Bodies” was way more outward and kind of no filter, said every inside thought. Maia on “I Love L.A.,” I think, is kind of bitter in the beginning of the first season and is pinning her failures, blaming them, on her friend. All of those characters, I always draw on some element of myself. I think all actors, you have to find some connection to the character. But I think I’m hopefully more grounded and balanced and mature than the character. I hope.

Olsen: You’ve talked about how “I Love L.A.” really explores the foibles and challenges that people have leading these very, like, online lives and the way that people nowadays are really sort of tethered to their phones all the time. Is that something that you feel like you grapple with yourself? Is it something you yourself have had to kind of get over?

Sennott: I would say I started my career on the internet, and I grew up on the internet, and basically, I created a different sort of persona on the internet that was based in truth of a time when I was in my early 20s in New York, and it was a lot more messy and a little chaotic, and I was just going through things in my life at that time [that inspired] — I say “writing,” but like the tweets, the jokes, the videos, whatever, that were coming out of me. And then I felt I changed, but I still wanted to kind of project that character. And so I actually ended up putting that character into Tallulah [played by Odessa A’zion]. And I think Maia was a little bit more the version of myself when I first moved to L.A. and I felt isolated and it was during COVID, and I felt I was kind of gripping onto my friends in a codependent way. And so I think the show is sort of dealing with, whether or not you’re an influencer or person online, anyone who’s grown up on the internet is projecting some sort of version of themselves. So I think it was that I was trying to explore.

Olsen: You mentioned that the character of Tallulah is this version of you that you used to be. So what was it like for you creating this character that was almost like your id unleashed?

Sennott: It felt like I was separating myself from her. At first, [it] maybe could have felt like a caricature. And then when we cast Odessa, who is so talented and just, as an actor, she has such depth and range, and I think she asked questions and brought so much to it. Then it actually made me sever myself from the character, and the character became its own thing that she brought to life.

Olsen: Your character, Maia, in some ways is the audience surrogate, she’s kind of the most “normal” character on the show. And considering that in “Bottoms” or “Bodies Bodies Bodies” you often were the outrageous character, what has it been like for you to play this character that’s a little more self-contained?

Sennott: It’s been fun. I think we sort of found her during the first season. I feel that Episodes 6 through 8 are really where the show finds its footing and where we find what’s the comedy of Maia. It takes a little for her to kind of crack open, what’s funny about her as a character, but also I think Tallulah is almost like an agent of change for her — Maia was set in her ways and sort of struggling and depressed, and I think Tallulah puts her on track, and she’s going through her Saturn return and all that stuff. And so I think we get to see at the end of the season and just having been writing Season 2, I think that we get see her do a lot more fun stuff.

Olsen: It’s funny, as viewers, a lot of times people say, “Oh, you know, there’s this show you should watch, it really gets going on like Episode 3” or whatever. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard a creator say before, like, “Oh, 6, 7, and 8, we figured it out.” Do you feel you knew that in the moment, or has that only come to you as you’ve been working on Season 2?

Sennott: I think as we were editing the first season. Tone is something that you can say, like, “We want it to be like, this needs this, and it’s that and that and the tone of that.” But tone is what you find in the edit. I think you shoot different versions of a line, of a scene, and then you piece it together. And I think for me, that’s when I felt like, “This is the tone of the show. This is the world of the show.” And in writing Season 2 as well, just living more in that world.

Olsen: You kind of touched on this, but the characters on the show, they kind of skirt this line between being endearing and annoying. What is it that you like about that?

Sennott: Because I think that’s how people are. I am not interested in seeing perfect people or people who are flawed in a way that’s not actually real. So I love all the characters. I think Alani [played by True Whitaker], for example, is someone where you could really easily be like, “Oh, a nepo baby, she’s so privileged, whatever.” I think she’s the character with the biggest heart. She’s the best friend out of the whole group. She cares for everyone. She’s so deeply sensitive. And she’s actually been through a lot of s— and she drops these little things, these clues where you’re like, “Gee, she went through something crazy but is choosing to look at life half-full,” and I think that’s fun. I like the characters who make you feel or expect something of them and then show you another side. Charlie [played by Jordan Firstman] I think does that as well, where you meet him and you think he’s a little acerbic, he’s a little judgmental, and then he goes through loss and grief when Lukas, spoilers, Lukas Landry dies, RIP Lukas. That’s really hard for him. I’ve been friends with Jordan for so long, and I love him so much. I think he’s so talented. But I think he showed a totally new side of himself with the character.

Olsen: I agree. I found those scenes very touching. There’s an emotion there that’s kind of unexpected. Another moment that I really like in the show is Odessa’s character, she wants to change a dinner reservation to five people at 8 o’clock. And then you have to spend hours trying to make that happen. And I really appreciated how it’s something that sounds like it should be simple, and for some people it’s no big deal. But then for other people, it’s the biggest hurdle imaginable. Did you like that the show explores this sort of proximity to ease? Sometimes you end up at this party in a big, big house, but it’s not your house. Was that something you wanted to explore about life in L.A.?

Sennott: Totally. There’s also something specific to L.A. and specific to the industry we’re exploring — which is the internet as opposed to Hollywood — that I would say is relatable to me, to anyone in their late 20s, early 30s. When you’re in your early 20s, everyone’s sort of grouped together or feels like they’re in the same bucket. It’s like, “Oh we’re all doing this same thing, we’re all roommates, we’re all in school together, we’re all whatever.” But people make decisions that you don’t even see. I feel like the first time I found out that one of my friends had a SEP IRA, I was like, “When did we all decide that we’re getting SEP IRAs?” And it was a friend who loves to party, and I was thrown. Now I’m panicking I didn’t do that. Or who’s getting in a serious relationship, whatever. People start making decisions in their late 20s, all of a sudden everyone’s off on different paths. It’s like, “Wait, you’re getting married, but you’re still partying the way that we did when we were in college.” This person is moving, this person is changing their career path. And so you all of a sudden feel a little bit betrayed or on your own, and it’s isolating, and that is something that, yes, we’re doing it through a specific lens of L.A. and this world and these characters, but I think it’s really relatable to people at that age.

Olsen: I’ve heard you describe yourself as a zillennial cusp.

Sennott: Yeah, I’m cusp, and I feel like I relate to a little bit of both.

Olsen: But do you feel a pressure for the show to feel like some sort of a generational statement, to capture these kind of big-picture things?

Sennott: No. Ayo [Edebiri] and I were texting each other because there’s always an article that’s like, “Turns out these b— are 30. Yeah. They’ve been lying the whole time. They said they’re Gen Z.” I’m like, “I didn’t say anything. I was born in ’95. I’m 30.” Call me what you want, but I was just writing to what I feel at the time. I think people who grew up on the internet in the way that I did will relate to it, but I think you can relate too if you’re older or you’re younger.

Olsen: As people are writing about the show, they very frequently are referencing “Girls,” “Insecure,” “Sex and the City.” But I’ve heard you reference “Entourage” quite a bit. Could you explain that?

Sennott: “Girls” and “Sex and the City” and “Insecure,” all of those shows, all HBO shows, are formative to me as an artist. I remember watching “Girls,” I was in high school and looking at colleges with my dad and we went and toured [New York University], and in the hotel room that night, he was like, “I heard so much about this new show, ‘Girls,’ we should watch it. And it was the episode with Patrick Wilson where they f— in his nice apartment the whole time, and we turned it on and my dad was like, “OK, you can watch this later on your own, this is for you.” And I remember going to bed being like, “I’ve gotta go to New York, like whoa, this is crazy.” I think naturally those were already gonna inspire me. “Entourage” and “Atlanta,” those were two references that I mentioned a lot when we were making the show. “Entourage” because I feel I got to come up in this industry with my friends, and when I’m with my friends I feel completely invincible, and so there was that aspect. It was like, “I wanna see ‘Entourage’ but from a different point of view and perspective and a slightly different industry.” And then “Atlanta,” there is already having a family relationship and friendship on top of managing. Like how [Earn] manages Paperboi. And then I think “Atlanta” did such a great job of capturing a city that has almost magical realism elements to it. And L.A., a lot of the time, there’s things that happen here that are crazy, that feel almost unreal, but they are real. So that was a big inspiration for the show as well. Like the opening of the show, sex during an earthquake. That’s happened to me, but it also feels a little ridiculous, but it happens in L.A.

Olsen: You mentioned earlier that in waiting for the show to come around, you felt you were having to turn things down or you were really having to sort of change your mindset in a way. Can you talk a little more about that? With the show “Big Mistakes” that you created with Dan Levy, is that one of the things that you had to step away from or readjust how you were gonna be involved because of the fact that you were going to have “I Love L.A.”?

Sennott: I was more talking about acting roles. When you step into a creator role, it’s a different mindset than acting jobs and you have to commit to a longer time period. When you’re just acting in things, you can pop in, pop out and you leave set and you’re like, “I love you guys so much. I’ll see you in a year at the premiere,” which is fabulous too — love doing that. But when you are creating something, you’re in it from beginning to end, and you really wanna give your all to it. So I think I was more talking about just, like, betting on myself as a creator, as opposed to just acting.

Olsen: And how has that felt now that you’re on the other side of it, with one season of “I Love L.A.” made? How do you feel about having made that decision, having bet on yourself like that?

Sennott: I think it’s changed me, in a way where I’m so happy I did it. And it’s sometimes harder and there’s more parts to it, but I feel more in myself creatively than I ever have before, I think.

Olsen: It changed you how?

Sennott: Just because you all of a sudden see all the different parts of the process of making something and all these different jobs that maybe I wasn’t as aware of before. And I think there’s also something beautiful about popping into something and acting and just being like, “I am present as my character. This is what I am thinking about. I’m thinking about what does the character want.” And that’s amazing too. But I feel so lucky to have been able to experience other parts of making something.

Olsen: What was it like learning how to switch hats, especially during production? I would imagine you have a producer brain, you have an actor brain, then for one episode you have a director brain.

Sennott: I had to like sort of take it day by day. There are days where it’s a lighter scene for me and I can be on the side approving locations, taking meetings during lunch. There was a day where I had two sex scenes, for Episodes 6 and 7. So we shot the end of 7, the fight scene with me and Josh [Hutcherson], and the sex scene where it’s Maia and Dylan but she’s fantasizing about Ben. It was a lot. And so I was like, to Emma and Max and Aida, “Let’s not do any other meetings today in the middle of the day,” and they were like, “Totally got you.” That day I was more focused. I really needed to be present in the scene and have this be my main focus. And then on a day where I’m shooting like, “you’re texting on your phone” and “you’re walking on your walking treadmill,” I can do other stuff. So I think it was just taking each day as it comes and having so much support from the rest of the team.

Olsen: It’s wild to think of just one day providing all this material for the show. Just a single day could be so pivotal.

Sennott: Yeah, totally. A lot can happen in a day and then other days you’re like, “I’m just opening doors.” You never know.

Olsen: How did you come to conceive of how you kind of wanted to depict the online world, how people text, whether they’re FaceTiming and things like that? The show obviously exists with that world, as part of it, but you didn’t spend a whole lot of time animating texts. How did you come to conceive of how to depict people’s online life?

Sennott: I wanted it to feel how it does in the real world, which is the internet is just a big part of everyone’s life, but people aren’t explaining it to each other all the time. So we wanted to have the internet feel like the real internet, but our own internet. We didn’t want to ever reference anything that would date us because the internet moves so fast. So, like, Coke Larry, for example, when Dylan gets made into a meme, whatever, that’s our own thing, but it moves the same way as the internet does. And we tried not to have too much phone screens, texting, whatever. Like for example you [just] see snippets of Tallulah making videos or posting or whatever. In “Entourage,” you don’t really see that much of Vince acting. You see all the stuff around it. So that was sort of our model for the show.

Olsen: You directed the final episode of the season. Do you expect to be directing more in Season 2?

Sennott: Yeah.

Olsen: And how did you find the experience? What did you like about it?

Sennott: I loved it. You’re just in every aspect of the process. You are thinking about everything, and it was so engaging and exciting, and afterwards I felt fried, and I like crawled onto the edit couch and I was like limp and it took a lot out of me. People describe it like giving birth. And then you’re like, “I gotta do it again.” So that’s kind of how I felt on the other end.

Olsen: Can you talk a little about that final episode? The show is called “I Love L.A.” You send the main characters to New York for the final episode, which has turned into kind of a controversial decision. A lot of people have talked about that. Can you talk just a little about deciding to end the season in New York?

Sennott: I think it was because it was sort of addressing the fact that these girls went to school in New York together. They lived in New York and they chose to move to L.A., and I think when you do that there’s always going to be the push and pull of the two cities, and going back to New York, it was almost like getting a chance to get back together with your ex and being like, “You know what, there’s a reason it didn’t work out.” And they end the episode with, “I miss L.A.” So I think that’s kind of what we were aiming to do.

Olsen: And then before we wrap up, I should be sure to ask, is there anything that you could tell us about Season 2? What can people look forward to?

Sennott: It’s sort of what we were talking about earlier, Episodes 6 through 8, I think, I just feel we’ve locked in to our tone, we get to see other sides of characters we haven’t before, we go deeper on certain characters. And I think there’s some fun stuff that we set up in the finale that we get to explore.

GREG James has revealed the heartbreaking reason he’s been missing from his Radio 1 show for two days saying he’s “in no fit state” to be on air. 

The 40-year-old was absent from his Radio 1 Breakfast show on Wednesday and also missed Thursday’s edition. 

Greg took to social media to tell fans he’s been supporting his family while his father Alan Milward undergoes heart surgery. 

Writing on Instagram, the presenter said: “Hello from my mum’s garden! I wasn’t on the breakfast show today as my dad was in for another go at heart surgery (it’s been a wild few months and I didn’t want to bore you with it all). 

“But here we are. Back to square one. Waiting for news and staying distracted and keeping calm by making water features. 

“All being well, back on tomorrow morning.”

ON YOUR BIKE

Greg James breaks down in tears as he finishes epic ride and raises over £4m

JAIL TRUTH

I know exactly why Lee was banged up in Dubai – & why he may end up back in jail

However Greg later revealed Alan’s surgery took “much longer” than they’d expected so he would be taking another day off. 

He said: “What a great day! An absolute hoot in ICU. 

“Surgery was much longer than everyone hoped. Big up my mum and my big sis. And the surgeons. And the NHS. What a gang. We’ve all gone mad. 

“Real talk, surgery went ok but he’s far from out of the woods so I’m gonna take it easy tomorrow and hopefully back on Friday. 

“Plus, I’m in no fit state to be on the radio. I mean, look at me, I’m posting photos from intensive care ffs. Thank you for your lovely messages.”

In March Greg had to cancel his show and rush home after Alan suffered a stroke during a planned heart operation.

He later opened up about his dad’s struggles during his 1,000km tandem bike ride for Red Nose Day.

Undertaking the mammoth task just a week after Alan’s stroke, Greg got emotional talking about the man he calls “Big Al”.

He said: “I feel elated. I feel a bit overwhelmed by all these people who just turned up out of nowhere. I just burst into tears as I was going up to Blaenavon. It was all a bit much.

“Just thought about… I just thought about everything. Just thought about my dad, thought about my mum. It got way too much. It’s so silly. It must have been the altitude.”

It’s Friday afternoon in North Hollywood and Ziggy Marley is perched on a stool inside his newly built Rebel Lion Studio, tucked in one of the neighborhood’s creative enclaves.

The nine-time Grammy winner is surrounded by a collection of lion figurines, guitars, traditional hand drums and a piano. Along the walls hang two replicas of backdrops his legendary father, Bob Marley, used on tour in the 1970s. The murals, depicting Rastafari icons and Haile Selassie I and Marcus Garvey, were featured in the 2024 biopic “Bob Marley: One Love.”

“These are what we used as the backdrop for the concert scenes. Them spiritual to me,” Marley says in patois as the smell of palo santo dances around the rehearsal space.

Music has been both an inheritance and lifelong pursuit for Marley. From sitting in studio sessions with his father as a child to building a five-decade career of his own, he has remained a curious student of the craft, one willing to challenge convention in search of a deeper meaning. That spirit is evident on “Brightside,” his ninth solo album, which was released on vinyl on April 18 (Record Store Day) and May 1 on streaming.

Rather than recording the eight-track project in 440 Hz, the standard tuning frequency for most modern music, he opted for 432 Hz, a tuning some musicians and theorists believe creates a warmer, more meditative listening experience. He also slowed down his songwriting process, giving each lyric room to carry its message of hope through turbulent times. The album, which may be his most personal yet, also features “Many Mourn for Bob,” the first song he has written directly about his late father.

“I think it shows the next stage that I probably am in,” says Marley, adding that he felt connected to his father on a spiritual level. “We took another step in the relationship, to another place that it’s never been before.”

Ziggy Marley is bringing his “Brightside” tour to the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 alongside reggae star Burning Spear.

(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)

He adds, “When I was doing the song, it kind of came to me like this song could’ve been my father’s song. It could’ve been a song that he wrote.”

The reflective nature of “Brightside” arrives at another pivotal time in Marley’s career. This year marks the 20th anniversary of “Love Is My Religion,” the Grammy-winning album that launched his solo career and crystallized a personal philosophy he still carries today. He is also set to release his sixth children’s book, “True to Myself,” in September.

As we wrap up our conversation, Marley has only a few minutes before Rebel Lion Studio shifts back into work mode. Within minutes, bandmates, background singers and production crew members begin funneling into the space, hauling in stacks of equipment as promotion and preparations continue the “Brightside” tour, which stops at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You recorded your latest album, “Brightside,” here at Rebel Lion Studio, which you designed and built from the ground up. Can you take me back to the beginning of that process and why you wanted to do it?

I grew up around my father and my mother as growing musicians trying to succeed and there was one thing I kept hearing over and over throughout my life: independence. Their whole mission was to be independent. I saw them work and I saw my father build a studio. I saw him have a space where he can do more music and control his own time. That was a dream of mine for a long time, ever since I started doing music because usually we use other people’s studios. I couldn’t have this in my house. It’s too much. It’s a dream come true.

We’re surrounded by two beautiful murals. Is there a particular item that is personal to you?

The murals are replicas of my father’s backdrops that they used. The original artwork is by Neville Garrick, but he helped us re-create them for the Bob Marley movie. These are the murals we used as the backdrop for the concert scenes. They are spiritual to me cause that’s Haile Selassie and Marcus Garvey, two very important beings for us. Inspirational.

On “Brightside,” Ziggy Marley dedicated a song to his father, Bob Marley, for the first time in his career.

(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)

“Brightside” is your ninth solo album. What mindset were you in emotionally and spiritually when you started working on it?

I never thought about making an album, I was just writing songs. You just tap into things in your subconscious that are waiting to become music, I feel like. Then when the time comes for writing songs, the time comes. It’s like a season. Like you have blueberry or orange season. So there’s a season for me when I write songs. Then you say, “All right, let’s make an album then.” But you don’t think about an album before. It’s just an expression or a feeling just to make music, not for any reason but to make it. It happened over a period of years. Ideas and experiences that eventually come out. But closer to the time I [made] the album, I remember writing some of the later songs like “Why Let the World.” It was a song that I wrote because I was feeling down and everything that was happening in the world and the country. Just so much negativity and I just felt like I needed to take a break from it. To recharge yourself. We cannot fight every day. We need to take a break and then get back to it. I needed to teach myself to take some time. It was more of a mental thing than an emotional thing. Stuff I deal with my father, personal life and stuff with my spirituality and my faith. So there’s a lot of me in this record.

“Many Mourn for Bob” is the first song you’ve explicitly written about your father. Your brother, Stephen, is also on the vocals. What surprised you emotionally once that song was finished?

I’m not sure I thought about it like that. The experience of expressing that emotion, it’s a spiritual experience. I think it shows the next stage that I probably am in and even my relationship with my father on that spiritual level. It’s a different place. We took another step in the relationship, to another place that it’s never been before. When I was doing the song, it kind of came to me like this song could’ve been my father’s song. It could’ve been a song that he wrote. That’s how I felt about it. This is partly his song. It’s me and him making this song. This song is his song too.

How has your relationship with grief changed over the years?

It’s more of a comrade, understanding, empathy and having the maturity and the experience to understand what he went through as a man, as a human being. I think that’s what it is, really. A better understanding of what he went through, not the glory. The pain, the mental and emotional state. You’re more than just an idol. You’re more than just a legend. You’re more than just a father. To go deeper than that, so that’s the next level.

Yeah, the skit you used of him saying “I’m just a man from the ghetto” on the song really summarizes that.

That’s the real him. That’s him right there. Even in the tone of his voice, you can hear the real Robert coming out.

Another standout song from the album is “Racism Is a Killa.” One thing that you do well is having a heavy topic, but finding a way to still make it feel hopeful and joyful. Why was it important for you to approach the track this way rather than from a place of anger, heaviness or sounding preachy?

I think it started out preachy and angry, but over time, it kind of evolved and I kind of evolved too ‘cause my own evolution is represented in the music. And you know something, doing that song helped me evolve because I had to think about it differently without the anger. The song made me do that. Like how else can I approach this? It’s inspiration that causes these things. It’s not an intellectual thing. I didn’t do that intellectually. Like over time, something just started coming out of me. I never really thought about it before, but I can see it now.

In the video, which features your daughter, Zuri, you referred to the condition as “Racismosis” in the video and sang about how it can be cured.

It’s kind of like a sickness, a disease. It’s a virus. We can minimize the virus and stop the disease. It’s true. Racism is a killa. This virus can kill ya. Literally kill ya. Spirtually kill ya. Emotionally kill ya. Mentally kill ya. It kill ya in different ways. It kills the victim and it kills the person perpetrating it. It’s killing everyone, but we can cure it though. It starts with the children. I have a friend of mine who said, “Yo, my little son loves this song. He doesn’t want to stop. He says ‘Put on “Racism is a Killa.”’ So that’s where the antidote is starting. The minds of the children. The music with a conscious message gives them the right consciousness that they grow up with. That is how we take our time and lower the spread of the virus.

You recently released an alternate version for “Racism Is a Killa” with Big Boi. How did that collaboration come together and what excited you about working with him?

I’ve loved Big Boi and Outkast from a long time ago. He’s a legend and a strong voice. There’s different layers to it and I feel like Big Boi took it to that other layer. So yeah, we just love Big Boi and I’m going to jump on something he does. [Laughs]

I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask your approach for your album and how you swapped the typical 440 Hz for 432 Hz. Do you remember the first time you heard the music played back that way?

It’s a long journey because for most of my life in music, I’ve tried to be a student. I’ve tried to keep an open mind and learn more and more. With this album, there’s an inspirational side of music and that’s where I lean into most of the time, but as I grew up, I started to understand there’s also a science too. It’s also mathematics. The universe, it’s all mathematics and science, and I shouldn’t shun the science of music just because I think the inspiration is all it should be. I think a part of that was learning that for myself and opening up and saying, “Yo, let me put some science into this.” Frequency. What does frequency do to people? Frequency affects people. Frequency is a weapon. It’s a tool. I’m sure the army has some kind of frequency thing. So frequency is powerful. I wanted to try something different anyway. I want to be different. I want my frequency to be different from the majority of frequencies that’s being played out there, because it’s fun for me to be different.

When I was working on the demos, I was like “Let me try this 432 Hz thing” and I like how it feels for me personally, how I sing on the frequencies. It resonates differently and makes me feel different. We did it and it felt good, and we did it live, and from my point of view, I felt a different energy with the audience too. So all of those experiments led me to the final conclusion to say, “Yeah, let me do the record in 432.” It’s really nice vibes, which the world needs a different frequency. We can use it.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of “Love Is My Religion,” your first solo Grammy-winning album. When you think back to that era of your life, who was Ziggy back then?

A lot was changing because I moved to L.A. during that time.

You got married around that time too, right?

Yeah. I don’t really fight change. I just try to navigate them and figure them out cause sometimes change is hard. There was a lot of change living here, moving around, trying to find a place, music, but then it’s like we are continuously updating ourselves. I’m continually updating. You know how you update your OS. I’m updating my OS. My operating system is being updated throughout my experience in life. There’s always something else out there for me to evolve to. So during that period of my life, “Love Is My Religion” came to me when someone asked me, “What religion are you?” And I just said “Love is my religion.” I never thought about it before, never contemplated it, never even thought of those words together before in my life, and they just came out to me that day. So the album represents a time in my life when I realized there’s a spiritual awakening that I had. “Love Is My Religion” is a spiritual awakening. That’s my thing. That’s who I am. That’s why it’s a milestone.

“If you think you’re going to change this world with music and you’re trying to send a message out there, you have to speak to children,” Ziggy Marley says.

(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)

You’re kicking off the “Brightside” tour this month, which includes a stop at the Hollywood Bowl. What are you most excited about when it comes to bringing this album to people for the first time live?

I’m excited about playing the music. I think it’s about the music. These new songs, they vibrate very highly for me and I’m excited about experiencing and expressing that. And also kind of not doing it for the audience. I don’t want to do it for the audience. I want the audience to experience what I’m experiencing, what I’m expressing. I want them to feel me. I don’t want them to be like “Hey look at me.” [Laughs] There’s still connectivity going on, but I want them to feel the songs the real way. That’s what I’m excited about for people to feel it the way that I feel it.

You even posted the lyrics and told fans to get to practicing, so they can really understand the message.

Yeah. Just reading them for me, I really like the writing I did on this. I also took some time with this too. I was saying to someone that I developed a deeper relationship with the lyrics and the words than I did before. My relationship with the words here are very mature. I feel good about it. That’s why I want people to know the words because words are very important. Words are very important. If you know the words you get a deeper understanding of what I’m talking about and what I’m feeling.

After nearly 50 years of making music, Ziggy Marley built his own studio in North Hollywood called Rebel Lion Studio. He plans to turn it into a multipurpose creative space.

(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)

Look on the bright side is a phrase that people say often, but what do those words mean to you right now?

Sometimes we can get in a place [where] we can’t see the other side of things because we’re so caught up in that one place. Like the cliché, there’s two sides to a story, ya know? The universe is always yin and yang, but there’s always another side of things. But I feel like the way we are being programmed in a way through media and everything, it’s like there’s only one side. Everything is like this, there’s nothing else going on over there that we need to see, we only need to see this. This is all that’s going on in the world. There’s nothing good, there’s nothing nice, there’s no good people, there’s no love. So it’s a realization too. A realization that there’s the other side. Never get to that place where we think it’s just that side alone because we get so much of it. It’s a reminder, I think, for us like “Come on guys.” The thing about it too, sometimes you can feel like — even for me — some people say, “Hey look on the bright side,” some people find that like “Why are you happy? Why you so chirpy?” [Laughs]

That’s true.

I’m proud that I’m on the bright side. I’m living on the bright side, I don’t care. You don’t like me because I’m living on the bright side? You want me to be like you, you want me just live on the dark side with you, right? So it’s like a proudness of being positive and having that outlook in life, and not feeling like you have to [fall to] peer pressure. More positivity in life, not just the negativity. I’m confident in that too. So it’s kind of like that too, you know, like being proud, lifting up that side of me. Yeah, I’m happy to be living on the bright side.

TINA Daheley’s BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show replacement has been revealed just a day after she announced she’s quitting.

The newsreader has spent nearly eight years on the programme and was dubbed former host Scott Mills’ “work wife”, but now she’s moving on.

Filling her sizeable shoes is journalist Matt Carter, and he can’t wait to get going.

Writing on Instagram, he said: “Thrilled to finally be able to spill the beans and tell you I’ll be joining a stellar cast of @djsaracox, @theelliebrennan and the fantastic prod team as your newsreader on the NEW breakfast show next month! Big (and very stylish) shoes to fill – wish me luck…

“See you on the 6th!”

The news was well received by listeners and station legends.

all change

BBC Radio 2 star Tina Daheley QUITS breakfast show after seven years on air

early bird

Sara Cox confirms Radio 2 Breakfast Show start date – with Hollywood star guest

Zoe Ball said: “Fantastic news Matthew [heart].”

While OJ Borg posted: “Mate this is wicked! You were wicked when we did breakfast together.”

Tina, 45, told how the role had been “one of the greatest privileges of my life” and admitted it was “humbling” to “deliver the biggest breakfast show in Europe”.

She then made the reveal she is staying in the Radio 2 fold and on Jeremy Vine‘s 12-2pm show over summer.

In an emotional statement, she wrote: “After more than seven years of early alarm calls on Radio 2, I’m stepping away from Radio 2 breakfast.

“It’s been one of the greatest privileges of my life to wake up with you every morning, and humbling to have been trusted to deliver the news on the biggest breakfast show in Europe.”

Tina went on to reminisce about her time with the BBC and said: “My breakfast run ends on Radio 2 but it all started on 1Xtra where I landed my dream job reading the news on Trevor Nelson’s Breakfast Show.

“From there, I spent a decade broadcasting to one in four young people in the UK on Radio 1.

“After 18 years and six back to back breakfast shows (probably a record) in there somewhere, I am looking forward to a lie in”.

Tina, who began her BBC radio career on Trevor Nelson’s show, reads the early-morning news and contributes to lively discussions.

Earlier this year, she went “missing” amid an “awful week” after being struck down by illness.

Scott Mills Scandal in Brief

SCOTT Mills has been sacked from BBC Radio 2 – yet what’s happening?

She was absent at the same time as her former co-host Scott was pulled off-air.

It was revealed earlier this year that fan-favourite host Scott, 53, had been fired from his Radio 2 Breakfast Show over allegations surrounding his “personal conduct“.

Scott was dismissed after new information about a police investigation about alleged sex offences with a boy aged under 16 in 2018 came to light at the BBC.

As well as losing his role on Radio 2, Mills was also sacked from working on the BBC’s Eurovision coverage and from a new podcast spin off from Race Across The World, which he won the celebrity series of in 2024.

It was revealed shortly afterwards that Sara Cox would take over the sought after Breakfast Show slot earlier this year, with insiders saying the talented star was seen as the “heir apparent” for the job.