Waiting for the Out follows a man who teaches philosophy to prison inmates
BBC slapped with complaints as viewers fume over new prison drama(Image: BBC)
The BBC has been slapped with complaints as viewers fumed over a new prison drama on Saturday (January 3).
New six-part drama Waiting for the Out has been penned by award-winning screenwriter Dennis Kelly from Andy West’s memoir, The Life Inside.
It follows Dan Stewer (played by Josh Finan), who decides to teach a group of male inmates about dominance, freedom, luck and other topics that have troubled philosophers for thousands of years. These topics also gain a new meaning when seen through the prisoners’ eyes, both igniting passions and creating tension.
The official synopsis continues: “Through his work, Dan begins to dig deeper into his own past – growing up with a father (Gerard Kearns) who ended up in prison, as did his brother Lee (Stephen Wight) and uncle Frank (Phil Daniels). Dan took a different path, but this time working in a prison begins to make him worry, obsessively, that he belongs behind bars just like his father.
“As Dan’s personal crisis deepens, his actions begin to threaten both his own future, and his family’s.”
The show’s cast also includes Samantha Spiro, Phil Daniels, Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo, Neal Barry, Alex Ferns, Francis Lovehall, Steven Meo, Ric Renton, Tom Moutchi, Nima Taleghani, Sule Rimi, Charlie Rix and Jude Mack.
The first episode saw Dan begin his first day teaching philosophy in a men’s prison. The lesson soon unravelled as he realised he’d underestimated his audience – and the weight of his own past.
Fixating on small details, Dan lost control of the class, risked his chance to become a father and broke an important promise to his new girlfriend. But when a familiar face resurfaced, Dan was soon forced to confront someone he thought he’d left behind.
BBC viewers were quick to share their complaints after watching the episode, with many sharing their frustration on X (formerly Twitter). “Well this is 45 mins of my life I won’t get back,” one person wrote.
Another added: “This is so weird,” while a third said: “God this is awful. Fella has no survival instinct. I’d be out of there. Don’t think they’d lock him in there alone with no way out.”
Meanwhile, other viewers were impressed with the contents of the episode, with one person writing: “Wow very interesting style! Quite different from anything else I’ve seen,” while another shared: “Just watched #WaitingForTheOut and I think it’s going to be brilliant.”
Andy West, executive producer and author of The Life Inside, previously said in a statement: “I’m so thankful to the writers, directors, producers and everyone involved in adapting The Life Inside. They have brought extraordinary creative and moral imagination to the stories in the book. We all hope to make a series that goes beyond the clichés about prisons and the families inside them and that touches people either side of the wall.”
Writer and executive producer Dennis Kelly added: “It’s not at all unusual for the men in Andy West’s family to end up in prison – but Andy is the only one that chose to be there. His book is funny, insightful, beautiful, genuinely heartbreaking and nothing like what you’d expect it to be – we’ve tried to take that into the series. God alone knows if we’ve succeeded, but we’ve tried…”
Waiting for the Out is available to stream on BBC iPlayer
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It’s the second day of a brand new year, and I’d like to take a moment to look back at some of the towering talent we lost in 2025 through the appreciations and obituaries written by the arts staff.
A caveat: The Times strives to acknowledge significant figures in arts and culture when they die, but due to the fast-paced nature of daily news, we often miss people we wish we hadn’t, so this list is far from inclusive.
A preview of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Geffen Galleries, June 26, 2025.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Singer Angelique Kidjo performs with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Aug. 28, 2025, at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)
The cast of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”: Bisserat Tseggai, left, Jordan Rice, Victoire Charles and Claudia Logan, Oct. 1, 2025, in Los Angeles.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Edward V. Valentine’s “Jefferson Davis,” at the “MONUMENTS” exhibit at MOCA, Oct. 10, 2025, in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Gustavo Dudamel conducts Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, Oct. 11, 2025, in Inglewood.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
June Squibb, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York City.
(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)
Ben Platt, Dec. 4, 2025, in Los Angeles.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
The SoCal scene
The exhibition floor at the LA Art Show in 2022.
(LA Art Show)
Art for 2026 The first big art event of the new year kicks off Wednesday when the 31st edition of the LA Art Show opens downtown. Galleries and institutions from around the world will exhibit art across the vast spaces of the Los Angeles Convention Center. This year’s program includes the debut of an invitation-only Latin American Pavilion, curated by Marisa Caichiolo, who also curates the DIVERSEartLA program. Among the other featured presentations are works by Israeli artist Yigal Ozeri and South African artist Esther Mahlangu, plus a solo exhibition of abstract paintings by Sylvester Stallone. The show continues through Jan. 11.
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Idris Elba arriving at the 2004 Primetime Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
That’s Sir Idris to you
Actors Idris Elba and Cynthia Erivo were among the more than 1,100 people on King Charles III’s annual New Year Honours List released this week. The British tradition recognizes people who have “made achievements in public life” and “committed themselves to serving and helping the UK.” Elba, known for television roles in “The Wire” and “Luther” and movies including “Beasts of No Nation” and “Thor,” was knighted for services to young people. “Wicked” star Erivo, a Tony and Grammy winner and three-time Oscar nominee, received a Member of the Order of the British Empire, or MBE, for services to music and drama.
Freedom from fascism On a recent fall day, Catherine Rampell of the Bulwark was given a guided tour of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., by the artist’s granddaughter Daisy Rockwell. In an article published this week, “The MAGAfication of Norman Rockwell,” Daisy expressed her displeasure with the Trump administration’s misappropriation of her grandfather’s work to promote the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s anti-immigrant operations. “Norman Rockwell was antifa,” Daisy told Rampell. “They used [the paintings] … as though his work aligned with their values, i.e., promoting this segregationist vision of America. And so of course we were upset by this, because Norman Rockwell was really very clearly anti-segregationist.” Through most of Rockwell’s career, he depicted American life largely through a white lens, but eventually came to a reckoning with some of his own views, chronicling some of the most significant moments of the civil rights movement. In November, the Rockwell family published a letter in USA Today detailing how the artist’s “efforts to eradicate prejudices both within himself and others led him to explore issues of racism, violence and segregation well into his 70s.”
Russia reopens Mariupol theater where hundreds died In March 2022, a Russian air strike killed more than 600 civilians sheltering inside a historic theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. This week, the Associated Press reported that Moscow-installed authorities in the now occupied region reopened the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater with a gala concert on the building’s newly rebuilt main stage. Russian state media outlets shared images of the building’s marbled pillars and staircases as dancers, wearing kokoshniks, traditional Russian headdresses, performed. Mariupol’s Ukrainian city council, which left the city when it became occupied, denounced the “restoration,” calling it “a cynical attempt to conceal the traces of a war crime” in a statement on Telegram.
— Kevin Crust
And last but not least
“Twelfth Night,” with Moses Sumney, left, Kapil Talwalkar, Junior Nyong’o and Lupita Nyong’o at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, which was broadcast on PBS’ “Great Performances” in November and is available to stream via PBS Passport.
(Joseph Sinnott)
Times television critic Robert Lloyd wrapped his year with an essay, “6 ways public broadcasting will improve your life. And that’s a promise.” One suggestion is to make a tax-deductible $5-a-month donation to PBS. That gifts gets you “PBS Passport,” public television’s all-access streaming platform, which offers an endless bounty of quality programming. Key among the offerings of interest to readers of this newsletter are programs such as “Great Performances,” “Austin City Limits” and “Artbound,” plus a rabbit hole of regional arts programming with something for every taste. As Lloyd wrote, “If you can’t find something to watch or listen to here, you are simply an incurious person.”
We asked the film staff to name the titles they were most stoked for in 2026. They were happy to see the returning likes of Nolan, Spielberg, Gerwig and Wile E. Coyote.
2025 was challenging for Angelenos. The year began with the double firestorms, and chaos and uncertainty continued into June when immigration agents and protesters clashed, as the Trump administration deployed thousands of National Guard troops to the city. Unquestionably, these news events were among the most-read articles published by the Los Angeles Times this year.
However, several other stories made the list, including two notable faith-focused stories, how Cesar Galan joined the priesthood after belonging to a violent L.A. street gang and how the hosts of a popular evangelical podcast known as “Girls Gone Bible” have become unlikely religious authorities.
To look back on the diverse stories that defined this year, we compiled our most-visited coverage into three categories: The articles that attracted the highest number of readers, the stories our audience spent the longest time reading (most of them are accompanied by audio) and the most popular stories that only our subscribers get to read.
The Times published countless live blogs, stories, investigations and feature pieces related to the catastrophic January fires that blazed through thousands of acres, killed 31, forced the evacuation of roughly 100,000 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures.
These stories, undoubtedly, received the highest number of visits, as the Eaton and Palisades fires brought disruption, displacement and uncertainty across the city.
Residents received faulty emergency alerts, exposing early on the systemic failures in preparedness, evacuation protocols and emergency response. The Times reviewed the aftermath of L.A.’s double disaster to call city and county officials to account, reveal critical gaps and make the case for ensuring that we’ll be better prepared next time.
2
The news of the killings of “When Harry Met Sally” director Rob Reiner and his photographer wife, Michele Singer Reiner, sent shock waves across Hollywood and the country’s political establishment — Reiner championed progressive causes and was involved in efforts to challenge the proposition that had banned same-sex marriage in California in 2008. Reiner’s son Nick, who struggled with addiction for years, was arrested on suspicion of murdering his parents.
A massive earthquake of magnitude 8.8 in Russia brought tsunami alerts to a wide swath of the Pacific. After the tsunami waves arrived in California, advisories were downgraded and canceled for much of the state. Southern California saw only modest waves and the highest tsunami waves reported on state shores peaked around 4 feet in Crescent City, about 20 miles from the Oregon border, where a dock was damaged. For how monstrous the earthquake was, why was there so little damage?
4
In September, detectives discovered a girl’s badly decomposed remains in an abandoned Tesla registered to rising singer D4vd at a Hollywood tow yard. Authorities identified the remains as those of 15-year-old Celeste Rivas, an Inland Empire resident who was reported missing in April 2024. According to court documents reviewed by The Times, the LAPD is now investigating Rivas’ death as a homicide.
5
The fifth-most read story of the year was those pertaining to the June immigration raids and protests in L.A. On June 6, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out a series of immigration sweeps, including two downtown that sparked a tense standoff. In the following days, immigration agents and protesters clashed across L.A. In a show of force, President Trump sent 2,000 California National Guard troops to the city, marking the first time in 60 years that a president had deployed a state’s National Guard without a request from that state’s governor.
As the wildfires raged into Wednesday, Jan. 8, scores of fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades had little to no water flowing out and all water storage tanks in the area quickly “went dry.” Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation into the causes behind the dry fire hydrants that hampered firefighting efforts and L.A. City Council called on the city’s water utility to explain why firefighters ran out of water and why a key reservoir was offline.
Nearly a year later, residents and experts are examining the weaknesses of L.A.’s water systems and are calling to redesign Southern California’s water infrastructure.
Seven-month-old Emmanuel Haro disappeared on Aug. 14 after his mother, Rebecca Haro, said she was assaulted by an unknown man in a sporting goods store’s parking lot and was rendered unconscious. The missing baby’s mom told investigators that when she awoke, her son was gone. More than a week later, baby Emmanuel’s parents were arrested on suspicion of murder.
According to a news release from the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department, the couple faked the story about their son being kidnapped. In November, Jake Haro, Emmanuel’s father, was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder of his son.
8
In late January, after President Trump said on social media that the U.S. military had “entered” California and “TURNED ON THE WATER,” the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dramatically increased the amount of water flowing from two dams in Tulare County. In a visit to L.A. the previous week, Trump had also vowed to “open up the valves and pumps” in California to deliver more water. Local water managers were caught off-guard by the decision, but they said they convinced Army Corps officials to release less water than originally planned.
9
A week after the Palisades fire began, several areas reopened to residents as officials continued to investigate the cause of the wildfire. Officials focused their efforts on a popular hiking trail that reveals the famous Skull Rock and views of the Pacific Ocean. The general area was the site of a small fire on New Year’s Eve that burned for a few hours before fire officials said they extinguished it.
In October, authorities offered a detailed timeline about what they allege caused the fire: The Jan. 1 blaze, now known as the Lachman fire, rekindled to become the Palisades fire days later. They also simultaneously announced the arrest of a 29-year-old man whom they suspected of setting the initial fire on New Year’s Eve. He has now been charged with deliberately setting the Lachman fire.
Over the first weekend of the January fires, firefighters were able make progress with the help of calmer winds and higher humidity. As a fleet of aircraft worked to prevent the Palisades fire from scorching homes in Brentwood and Encino, officials warned that Santa Ana gusts were expected to pick up again the following week and cautioned the public to stay on alert.
This is the story of Father Cesar Galan, a chaplain at St. Francis Medical Center, who experienced the lowest moment of his life and found the grace to change in the very hospital in which he now listens to patients’ fears, prays with them and offers to hear their confessions if they are Catholic. Galan grew up in the heart of Chivas and belonged to its street gang until a bullet spun him down to the ground on his stomach.
2
For Alejandro Sánchez, reclaiming a gold mine in Mexico, which was taken over by the sons of the drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was more than a business proposition. It was a reckoning with his past.
For years, Sánchez had worked to revive the mine, encountering corrupt officials and cartel operatives who demanded hefty bribes. He once had to dive for cover during a firefight. But now he was close to resuming operations at the mine with deposits worth billions.
Why did the billion-dollar mine matter so much to Sánchez and was he able to reckon with his past and reclaim the billion-dollar mine?
3
Angela Halili and Arielle Reitsma are best friends who both have a background in modeling and acting. Nearly every week for the last two years, the two have shared heart-to-hearts that are at the core of “Girls Gone Bible,” their faith-based podcast they launched in 2023. The evangelical podcast now has millions of listeners and as a result, Halili and Reitsma have built a two-microphone megachurch. They have gone on a national live tour and prayed at President Trump’s pre-inauguration rally.
The co-hosts of this podcast that tops religious charts on Spotify predict that a Southern Californian Christian revival is coming.
4
Times staff writer Christopher Goffard revists old crimes in L.A. and beyond, from the famous to the forgotten, in his series “Crimes of The Times.” In this installment of the series, Goffard examined the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in California, after the Trump administration released a cache of classified files.
Convicted gunman Sirhan Sirhan’s current attorney, Angela Berry, said a team of researchers is combing the files for new evidence. Have they been able to find anything of use?
5
As the Eaton fire devastated parts of the San Gabriel Valley, Santa Anita Park stepped up and fulfilled its role as a community citizen. Even though the 80-year-old track was unaffected by the fires and the air quality was well within the range for safe racing, the park canceled racing the first week after the fires and opened up its expansive space to be used as a center for donation collection and distribution among other charitable gestures.
But horse racing is decades past the days when spectators lined up to watch the sport. As attendance continues to decline from what it was years ago, many battle with the unfathomable idea that the track may soon close or be sold.
6
This is the story of Jerardyn, a 40-year-old refugee from Venezuela, who at the height of the immigration raids and protests in Southern California, confronted a painful decision: After entering the United States last year with her family in hopes of obtaining asylum, Jerardyn would migrate again, this time, voluntarily.
7
Authorities initially ruled the 2023 death of 18-year-old Amelia Salehpour an open-and-shut case of accidental overdose. The medical examiner’s office agreed, deciding against a more thorough autopsy. But Salehpour’s family was unconvinced. They hired a high-end investigative firm that uncovered evidence that Amelia was being groomed for sex work, that she was strangled to death and that her death had been made to look like an overdose.
The contradictory findings have since triggered internal conflict among L.A. County prosecutors and detectives from the LAPD’s homicide and narcotics units.
8
From Andrew Garfield to Zendaya, Daniel Craig and Demi Moore, Hollywood’s biggest stars dressed to impress at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards.
Since L.A. experienced its first wide-scale homelessness during the Great Depression and the housing crunch after World War II, it has suffered chronic homelessness. Former Times staff writers Mitchell Landsberg and Gale Holland explored the key events and policies that shaped L.A. to become the homeless capital of the U.S.
10
In April 2024, USC hired a new coach for its men’s basketball program. USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen declared the day Eric Musselman was introduced as a “transformational day for USC men’s basketball.” Almost a year later, in March, Times USC beat writer Ryan Kartje joined Musselman toward the end of a hard first season.
(subscriber-exclusive stories ranked by number of visits)
1
A new California housing bill, which took effect July 1, has changed the way homeowners associations are allowed to discipline homeowners. The changes came just in time for Jinah Kim, who was set to be fined up to $500 per day for fixing a doorway inside her condo even though her homeowners association said she couldn’t. Under the new rules, she now owes only $100.
Will the new rules allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn’t and abuse community rules?
2
In July, talk show host Phil McGraw’s TV network, Merit Street Media, which launched last year, filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors and sued its distribution partner, Trinity Broadcasting Network. During a nearly three-hour hearing in Dallas in October, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Scott Everett said that he’d “never seen a case” like the Chapter 11 filing Dr. Phil’s company was attempting.
How did the genial celebrity psychologist’s media network crash?
3
Entering the job market can be a stressful endeavor for new graduates and for a fresh generation of students behind them who are preparing to start their college journeys. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates is at its highest nationwide since 2021. What are the lowest- and highest-paying majors according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report?
4
This investigation was so popular, it also landed on our list of deep reads.
5
Every year for the last 13 years, The Times has published its essential guide to L.A.’s dining scene. This year, Times restaurant critic Bill Addison took the challenge further and spent months journeying California to find the best restaurants that depict the state’s eclectic food scene accurately. Instead of ranking the restaurants that make the Golden State, in Addison’s words, a “culinary juggernaut,” the list, which is only a beginning, offers a glimpse into the cultures and diversities that make up California. Start eating!
This is the grisly story of Patrice Miller, 71, who was found dead with her right leg and left arm partially gnawed off in her kitchen and whose autopsy determined, officials said, that she had probably been killed by an animal after it broke into her home. Miller’s death marked the first known instance in California history of a fatal bear attack on a human and has sparked increasingly heated battles around predators in the state.
What solutions are lawmakers representing conservative rural districts in the state’s rugged northern reaches pushing forward? Would measures to ward off California’s predators increase safety?
7
Tulsa Remote is a program that pays remote workers to relocate to Oklahoma’s second-largest city for at least a year. Since its inception in 2019, the program has attracted more than 3,600 remote workers. More than 7,800 Californians have applied to the program and 539 have made the move.
Why are Californians moving to Tulsa through the program, cementing California as the second-most popular origin state behind Texas?
8
In a more recent edition of the “Crimes of the Times” series, Goffard writes about a 50-year-old West Virginia man, Alex Baber, who dropped out of high school and taught himself codebreaking. Baber now says he has cracked the Zodiac killer’s identity, and in the process solved the Black Dahlia case as well.
9
This series attracted a high number of readers and also landed on our list of deep reads.
10
Artificial intelligence’s coding capabilities and tools are rapidly advancing, making experienced engineers more productive. But these improvements now outpace entry-level programmers, making job prospects for early-career software engineers more difficult to find.”We don’t need the junior developers anymore,” said Amr Awadallah, chief executive of Vectara, a Palo Alto-based AI startup. “The AI now can code better than the average junior developer that comes out of the best schools out there.”
We might rarely get to see snowfall in Los Angeles, but logging onto social media in December means the arrival of a different kind of flurry. The one where our friends, both close and parasocial, excitedly share the year-end music-listening data dumps of their Spotify Wrapped.
Spotify Wrapped only represents the culmination of our listening habits on a single music platform, but every shared Wrapped post seems to come with some self-evident clarity about our personal identity. Spotify Wrapped bares our souls and provides us the opportunity to see ourselves deconstructed via our musical inclinations. By most accounts, it’s an irresistible delight. Oh, Spotify, you rascal, you’ve got us pegged.
Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to take that temperature check.
But listening to music can be a passive experience — one enjoyed in tandem with folding laundry, or driving a car. To really learn about ourselves and how our year has been, we might want to turn elsewhere, to a habit with more intention. I’m talking, of course, about reading.
While there’s apps for tracking our reading habits, like StoryGraph or Goodreads, I’m devoted to a wholly analogue tracking method that’s helped me churn through books faster and with more intent than ever before: the book stack.
Starting every January, whenever I finish a book, I place it sidelong atop a shelf in the corner of my living room. With each new book I conquer, the stack gets taller, eventually becoming a full tower by December. A book stack, low on analytics, can’t tell me the total number of pages I’ve read, or how many minutes I spent reading, but it’s a tangible monument to my year’s reading progress. Its mere presence prods me into reading more. It calls me a chump when the stack is low and cheers for me when it reaches toward the ceiling.
My first book stack started in 2020, a wry joke to demonstrate the extra time we could all devote to reading books during a pandemic. The joke barely worked. I ended up reading just 19 books that year, only a few more than I had the previous year (though it could’ve been more if one of those books wasn’t “Crime and Punishment”).
Still, the book stack model gamified my reading habits and now I give books time I didn’t feel I had before. I bring books to bars, movie theaters and the DMV. If ever I have to wait around somewhere, you better believe I’ll come armed with a book.
The pandemic may have waned, but my book stack count continued to climb, peaking in 2023 after reading 52 books, averaging one per week.
But, hey, it’s about quality, not quantity, right? If there’s a quality to be gleaned from my 2025 book stack, you’d see that I’ve been looking for hot tips on how to survive times of extreme authoritarian rule. Some were more insightful than others.
In the stack was Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s “All the President’s Men,” a landmark true story about two intrepid reporters who brought down the president of the United States by repeatedly bothering people at their homes for information. Fascinating as it is, it also feels like a relic from a time when doing something like that could still work. Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” tells the story of a Jewish New Jersey family in an alternate timeline where an “America First” Charles Lindbergh beats Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election, ignoring the threat of Hitler in Europe and giving way to a rise in antisemitism at home. Roth paints a dreary portrait of how that scenario could have played out, but the horrors are resolved by something of a deus ex machina rather than by any one character’s bold, heroic actions. Then there’s Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “All the Light We Cannot See,” about the converging stories of a German boy enlisted in Hitler’s army and a blind French girl during World War II. Sadly, this novel reads less like a book about living under fascist rule than a thirsty solicitation to become source material for Steven Spielberg’s next movie.
Each of these titles have merit, but this year’s book stack had two gems for anyone who wants to know how best to resist tyranny. Pointedly, there was Timothy Snyder’s tidy pocket-sized handbook “On Tyranny” filled with 20 short but fortifying chapters of practical wisdom like “Do not obey in advance,” “Defend institutions” and “Believe in truth.” Each is applicable to our current moment, informed by historical precedent set by communist and fascist regimes of the past century. This book — well over a million copies sold — came out at the start of Trump’s first term in 2017, so I came a little late to this party. The fact that Snyder himself moved to Canada this year should give us all pause.
Practical advice can also be found in great fiction, and on that front I found comfort and instruction in Hans Fallada’s “Alone in Berlin” (a.k.a. “Every Man Dies Alone”), based on the true story of a married couple living in Berlin during World War II who wrote postcards urging resistance against the Nazi regime and secretly planted them in public places for random people to discover. Under their extreme political conditions, this small act of civil disobedience means risking death. Not only is the story riveting, there’s also great pleasure in seeing the mayhem each postcard causes and how effective they are at exposing the subordinate class of fascists for what they truly are: nitwits.
Also notable in “Alone in Berlin” is the point of view of both the author and his fictional heroes. Neither a target of persecution, nor a military adversary, Fallada nevertheless endured the amplified hardships of living under Nazi rule during World War II. His trauma was still fresh while writing this book and it’s evident in his prose. He survived just long enough to write and publish “Alone in Berlin” before dying in 1947 at the age of 53.
If I’ve learned anything from these books, it’s that it’s in our best interest to not be afraid. Tyrants feed on fear and expect it. A citizenry without fear is much harder to control. That’s why we need to raise our voices against provocations of our rights, always push back, declare wrong things to be wrong, get in the way, annoy the opposition, and allow yourself to devote time to do things for your own enjoyment.
And in that spirit, my book stack also includes a fair amount of palate cleansers in the mix: Jena Friedman’s “Not Funny,” short stories by Nikolai Gogol, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” (whose main character is named after Gogol), and a pair of Kurt Vonnegut novels. Though it’s hard to read Vonnegut without stumbling upon some apropos nuggets of wisdom, like this one from his novel “Slapstick:” “Fascists are inferior people who believe it when somebody tells them they’re superior.”
Zachary Bernstein is a writer, editor and songwriter. He’s working on his debut novel about a poorly managed remote island society.
Christmas is behind us, and the New Year is bearing down on us with alarming speed. It’s hard to believe that it has been almost a full year since the devastating fires erupted in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, sending many of us, our neighbors and friends fleeing to far corners of the state to escape the flames and smoke.
That tragic week marked the beginning of 2025 and the dawn of the second Trump term, ushering in a year that would challenge us in more ways than could have been imagined at the end of 2024.
As I look back on all the stories that The Times’ arts team covered over the last 12 months, it’s notable that the fires and Trump’s effect on the arts dominated the top of the most-read list. But there were also joyful stories about the people, shows and trends that shaped the cultural narrative of the endlessly surprising mid-2020s.
Without further ado, here are the top 10 most-read arts stories of 2025.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt wishing you a happy, safe and healthy new year. Here’s your arts news for the week.
Our critics
Art critic Christopher Knight’s recent retirement reminded us how fortunate we are to have the finest critics covering the arts in Southern California. Here are a few of our most read pieces of criticism from 2025.
The new David Geffen Galleries, opening in 2026, are composed entirely of Brutalist concrete.
Countdown NYE The giant intergalactic rave, promising alien contact, four stages and all-night debauchery, moves to the L.A. Convention Center for its 11th edition with headliners including John Summit, Above & Beyond, Pryda, Madeon, Slander, Sub Focus, Crankdat and Wuki. 7 p.m.-5 a.m. Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St., downtown L.A.. countdownnye.com
A preview of last year’s New Year’s Eve LA Midnight Countdown at Gloria Molina Grand Park.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Countdown to 2026 Gloria Molina Grand Park’s free, all-ages New Year’s Eve celebration, reportedly the largest on the West Coast, rings in the holiday with live music and performances on the Get Down Stage (hosted by Shaun Ross, featuring Ashley Younniä, Clax10 and DJ Wayne Williams) and the Countdown Stage, hosted by DJ Gingee featuring Ceci Bastida, Bardo and Ruby Ibarra. 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday. 200 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. grandparkla.org
New Year’s Eve with El DeBarge The R&B crooner of such hits “All This Love,” “I Like it,” “Stay With Me” and “Rhythm of the Night” helps the new live jazz venue inaugurate a new tradition. 8 and 11 p.m. Wednesday. Blue Note LA, 6372 W. Sunset Blvd. bluenotejazz.com
The Roots ring in the New Year at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn.)
New Year’s Eve with the Roots Philly’s finest take a break from “Tonight Show” duties to bring their eclectic blend of hip-hop to L.A. for two shows to close out the year. 7 and 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Queen Mary New Year’s Eve Party in timeless elegance aboard the iconic ocean liner (safely moored in Long Beach to ensure there’s a morning after) with its Masquerade Soirée, live music, performances, casino games and fireworks. 8 p.m. Wednesday. 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach. queenmary.com
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Eugène Grasset, “Vitrioleuse (The acid thrower)” (detail), 1894, from the periodical L’Estampe Originale, album 6, April–June 1894. Printed by Auguste Delâtre. Lithograph, hand stenciled in five colors. 22 7/8 x 18 in.
(UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum. Bequest of Elisabeth Dean.)
A great gift The UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts marks its 70th anniversary in 2026 and the Hammer Museum is presenting a two-part exhibition drawn from the center’s more than 45,000 prints, drawings, photographs, and artist’s books. Part one of “Five Centuries of Works on Paper: The Grunwald Center at 70” features nearly 100 works ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary art and includes pieces by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vassily Kandinsky, Käthe Kollwitz, Ansel Adams, Elizabeth Catlett, Corita Kent, Bridget Riley, Ed Ruscha and Vija Celmins. The exhibit opened Dec. 20 and runs through May 17. Part two is scheduled from June 7-Oct. 25.
Fred Grunwald, a shirt factory owner, began collecting art in Germany in the 1920s with a focus on German Expressionism. After the Nazis seized most of the original collection, he and his family immigrated to the U.S. in 1939. Grunwald started a new shirt factory and resumed his collecting in Los Angeles, expanding his interests to include prints from 19th and 20th century Europe, 19th century Japan and contemporary America. In 1956, Grunwald donated his extensive collection to UCLA so it would be accessible to students. His wife and children continued making gifts to the Grunwald Center after his death in 1964.
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“There is very strong evidence that all three pieces came out of Cambodia, out of a context of war and violence and the dissolution of order,” said Chase F. Robinson, the NMAA’s director. “All three can be connected with problematic dealers, and no evidence emerged that gave us any confidence that the pieces came out in anything other than those circumstances. So after a lot of internal research and several visits to Cambodia, we worked closely with both the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts as well its legal representative Edenbridge, shared the information we had, and came to the conclusion that all three pieces should be returned.”
The three returned artifacts are a 10th century sandstone head whose ornate carved designs match others at the temple of Pre Rup; a four-foot-tall sandstone sculpture of the goddess Uma, also from the 10th century, whose detailing ties it to the temple of Phnom Bakheng; and a bronze statue of Prajnaparamita, the goddess of transcendental wisdom, from around 1200.
— Kevin Crust
And last but not least
Once you’ve slept off the New Year’s Eve festivities and had your fill of football, settle in Thursday at 8 p.m. for PBS SoCal’s broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual concert from the city’s historic Musikverein. The ensemble will be conducted for the first time by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and feature performances by the Vienna State Ballet and location segments hosted by “Downton Abbey’s” Hugh Bonneville.
Gaza City – The Holy Family Church in Gaza has lit its Christmas tree for the first time after two years of Israel’s genocidal war on the Strip. It is Christmas Eve mass, and the worshippers have packed the main prayer hall. Many of them are excited and happy – not just because it is Christmas but because they are still alive.
The glow of lights on the big Christmas tree and holiday decorations could not hide the harsh reality left by the war on Gaza. The church decided to limit the celebrations to a prayer service and brief family gatherings, but the bells rang loud, and that alone filled people with joy.
The Christmas tree is lit at the church in Gaza during prayers, with celebrations subdued due to the conditions in the Strip [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
One of those people is 58-year-old Dmitri Boulos, who missed celebrating Christmas during the war. He was displaced along with his wife and two children in the early days of the fighting after heavy Israeli shelling hit around his home in the Tal al-Hawa area, south of Gaza City.
“We fled to the church seeking safety at the time, but it turned out there was no safe place,” Boulos said. “The church was hit twice while we were inside, and we lost friends and loved ones during that period.
“Nothing had any taste at all,” he recalled. “There was immense fear and grief for those we lost. How can we celebrate when everything around us is wounded and sad?”
Dmitri Boulos, 58, has been displaced in the church with his family since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Boulos hopes this Christmas and the new year will bring an end to all the suffering and lift restrictions on Gaza.
“We are trying to make ourselves and our children feel that what’s coming will be better, even though the reality is extremely hard,” he said. “We hope things will return to how they were before.”
The Holy Family Church, the only Catholic parish in Gaza, has long held symbolic importance beyond the Strip. Throughout the war, the late Pope Francis called the parish almost daily, maintaining a direct line to the besieged community.
Most of Palestine’s Christians live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, totalling approximately 47,000 to 50,000, with an additional 1,000 in Gaza before the war.
The number of Christians in Gaza has dwindled in recent years. Today, there are a few hundred left, a sharp drop from the 3,000 registered in 2007.
During the war, Israeli attacks targeted several Christian places of worship where many displaced Palestinians were taking shelter.
Although the Holy Family Church was not placed by Israel in the zones marked for expulsions, the other churches in Gaza City, including the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius and the Anglican St Philip’s Church, were.
But the nearly 550 displaced people sheltering in the Holy Family Church still mistrust the Israeli military. The church has been attacked so many times before – despite Israeli guarantees that it does not target places of worship.
Many of those people remain traumatised and try to rebuild the semblance of a normal life.
“My heart is still heavy with the tragedies and exhaustion we lived through during the war,” Nowzand Terzi told Al Jazeera, as she stood outside the Holy Family Church’s courtyard watching the worshippers without engaging them.
Nowzand Terzi, 63, feels no desire to celebrate after the suffering she endured during the war [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
“We were displaced here under bombardment two years ago. I lost my home in an Israeli strike, and then I lost my daughter, who fell suddenly ill last year and passed away,” said Terzi as her voice choked after remembering her 27-year-old daughter – who did not make it on time to hospital because of the war.
“May God help those who have lost their loved ones, and may conditions in the Gaza Strip calm down,” she said, wishing peace and safety for all.
It’s a wish that resonates across the Gaza Strip, where nearly two million people are dealing with continued Israeli attacks and violations of the ceasefire, lack of food, lack of medicine, lack of shelter and basic services.
More than 288,000 families in Gaza are enduring a shelter crisis as Israeli restrictions on humanitarian supplies worsen conditions for Palestinians displaced by the war, the territory’s Government Media Office says.
More than 80 percent of buildings across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed during the war, according to UN figures, forcing enormous displacement.
Edward Sabah is just 18 years old, but he knows well the tragedy of war and displacement. He was forced to leave his home during the war and took shelter in the Saint Porphyrius Church in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City. The church was bombed on October 19, 2023, in an Israeli attack that killed 18 people.
“We were gathered in the church courtyard … We were talking normally with other displaced people when suddenly a massive explosion hit one of the church buildings,” Sabah recalls.
Edward Sabah hopes to resume his high school education after missing studies during the war [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
“We never expected the church to be targeted, but it happened. Everything unexpected happened during the war. Bombing was everywhere,” he said, adding that he and his family survived and later moved to another church, where they lived for a year and a half.
“During the past two Christmases, we tried very hard to create an atmosphere, but it was extremely sad,” he said. But he is also full of hope and the desire to live.
“This year it’s less intense, but we’re still afraid of what might happen. Still, we decorated the church and tried to create a joyous atmosphere,” Sabah said, adding that he hopes to complete his high school education.
This Christmas has brought joy and a sense of relief to many Christians in the Gaza Strip and in the rest of Palestine. Many Palestinians talk about their sense of belonging and attachment to their land despite all the hardships, tragedies and wars.
That’s why Janet Massadm, a 32-year-old woman from Gaza, decided to style her hair and put on new clothes to celebrate Christmas for the first time in two years.
Janet Massadm lives in the church with her parents and siblings and hopes the war won’t return so she can resume her work in psychology [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
“We are tired of grief, loss, displacement, and fear that have taken so much from our lives and our years,” Massadm said emotionally.
“Inside, I am completely exhausted because of what we have witnessed,” she added. “But what can we do? We must try to create joy and happiness.”
Like many Christians in Gaza, Massadm was displaced to the church with her family, her parents, brother, and sister, fleeing bombardment in the Remal neighbourhood of central Gaza City.
Christian families in Gaza hope to bring some Christmas cheer this year, following two years of war [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
“I hope the war does not return,” she said. “That people reunite with their loved ones, that we witness a better future, and that Gaza is rebuilt soon.”
Why this column stuck with me: I chose “I’m Fighting Parkinson’s One Punch At A Time” because it was a story that took four years to write but one that has resonated immediately and endlessly.
When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the winter of 2021, I decided to keep the diagnosis a secret. Initially I didn’t even tell my own three children. I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me, or looking at me differently or, worse, treating me differently. I wanted to continue with my normal life while fighting the disease in private.
As part of this fight, I attended a boxing class for Parkinson’s patients. The class was filled with 80-year-old women pounding on a heavy bag, 75-year-old men dancing across the floor, elderly and trembling people working hard to stave off the effects of PD. They quickly became my heroes, and deserved to be illuminated as inspirations to others. I finally realized that I could tell their story and maybe push others to come out of the PD shadows and seek the same therapy.
And, well, if I was going to write about others with Parkinson’s disease, I would have to come clean about myself. So, with help from boxing instructor Jody Hould and sports editor Iliana Limón Romero, I did. And I’m glad I did. I’ve since heard from countless people that the story moved them to admit their illness and begin boxing therapy or other types of PD workouts. My diagnosis was a punch in the gut. But thanks in part to the encouragement that came from this story, I’m fighting back.
Every December, much of the Christian world enters a familiar cycle of celebration: carols, lights, decorated trees, consumer frenzy and the warm imagery of a snowy night. In the United States and Europe, public discourse often speaks of “Western Christian values”, or even the vague notion of “Judeo-Christian civilisation”. These phrases have become so common that many assume, almost automatically, that Christianity is inherently a Western religion — an expression of European culture, history and identity.
It is not.
Christianity is, and has always been, a West Asian / Middle Eastern religion. Its geography, culture, worldview and founding stories are rooted in this land — among peoples, languages and social structures that look far more like those in today’s Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan than anything imagined in Europe. Even Judaism, invoked in the term “Judeo-Christian values”, is itself a thoroughly Middle Eastern phenomenon. The West received Christianity — it certainly did not give birth to it.
And perhaps nothing reveals the distance between Christianity’s origins and its contemporary Western expression more starkly than Christmas — the birth story of a Palestinian Jew, a child of this land who was born long before modern borders and identities emerged.
What the West made of Christmas
In the West, Christmas is a cultural marketplace. It is commercialised, romanticised and wrapped in layers of sentimentality. Lavish gift-giving overshadows any concern for the poor. The season has become a performance of abundance, nostalgia, and consumerism — a holiday stripped of its theological and moral core.
Even the familiar lines of the Christmas song Silent Night obscure the true nature of the story: Jesus was not born into serenity but into upheaval.
He was born under military occupation, to a family displaced by an imperial decree, in a region living under the shadow of violence. The holy family were forced to flee as refugees because the infants of Bethlehem, according to the Gospel narrative, were massacred by a fearful tyrant determined to preserve his reign. Sound familiar?
Indeed, Christmas is a story of empire, injustice and the vulnerability of ordinary people caught in its path.
Bethlehem: Imagination vs reality
For many in the West, Bethlehem – the birthplace of Jesus – is a place of imagination — a postcard from antiquity, frozen in time. The “little town” is remembered as a quaint village from scripture rather than a living, breathing city with actual people, with a distinct history and culture.
Bethlehem today is surrounded by walls and checkpoints built by an occupier. Its residents live under a system of apartheid and fragmentation. Many feel cut off, not only from Jerusalem – which the occupier does not allow them to visit – but also from the global Christian imagination that venerates Bethlehem’s past while often ignoring its present.
This sentiment also explains why so many in the West, while celebrating Christmas, care little about the Christians of Bethlehem. Even worse, many embrace theologies and political attitudes that erase or dismiss our presence entirely in order to support Israel, the empire of today.
In these frameworks, ancient Bethlehem is cherished as a sacred idea, but modern Bethlehem — with its Palestinian Christians suffering and struggling to survive — is an inconvenient reality that needs to be ignored.
This disconnect matters. When Western Christians forget that Bethlehem is real, they disconnect from their spiritual roots. And when they forget that Bethlehem is real, they also forget that the story of Christmas is real.
They forget that it unfolded among a people who lived under empire, who faced displacement, who longed for justice, and who believed that God was not distant but among them.
What Christmas means for Bethlehem
So what does Christmas look like when told from the perspective of the people who still live where it all began — the Palestinian Christians? What meaning does it hold for a tiny community that has preserved its faith for two millennia?
At its heart, Christmas is the story of the solidarity of God.
It is the story of God who does not rule from afar, but is present among the people and takes the side of those on the margins. The incarnation — the belief that God took on flesh — is not a metaphysical abstraction. It is a radical statement about where God chooses to dwell: in vulnerability, in poverty, among the occupied, among those with no power except the power of hope.
In the Bethlehem story, God identifies not with emperors but with those suffering under empire — its victims. God comes not as a warrior but as an infant. God is present not in a palace but in a manger. This is divine solidarity in its most striking form: God joins the most vulnerable part of humanity.
Christmas, then, is the proclamation of a God who confronts the logic of empire.
For Palestinians today, this is not merely theology — it is lived experience. When we read the Christmas story, we recognise our own world: the census that forced Mary and Joseph to travel resembles the permits, checkpoints and bureaucratic controls that shape our daily lives today. The holy family’s flight resonates with the millions of refugees who have fled wars across our region. Herod’s violence echoes in the violence we see around us.
Christmas is a Palestinian story par excellence.
A message to the world
Bethlehem celebrates Christmas for the first time after two years without public festivities. It was painful yet necessary for us to cancel our celebrations; we had no choice.
A genocide was unfolding in Gaza, and as people who still live in the homeland of Christmas, we could not pretend otherwise. We could not celebrate the birth of Jesus while children his age were being pulled dead from the rubble.
Celebrating this season does not mean the war, the genocide, or the structures of apartheid have ended. People are still being killed. We are still besieged.
Instead, our celebration is an act of resilience — a declaration that we are still here, that Bethlehem remains the capital of Christmas, and that the story this town tells must continue.
At a time when Western political discourse increasingly weaponises Christianity as a marker of cultural identity — often excluding the very people among whom Christianity was born — it is vital to return to the roots of this story.
This Christmas, our invitation to the global church — and to Western Christians in particular — is to remember where the story began. To remember that Bethlehem is not a myth but a place where people still live. If the Christian world is to honour the meaning of Christmas, it must turn its gaze to Bethlehem — not the imagined one, but the real one, a town whose people today still cry out for justice, dignity and peace.
To remember Bethlehem is to remember that God stands with the oppressed — and that the followers of Jesus are called to do the same.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Imax is having a moment. More than 50 years after debuting at the 1970 Osaka world’s fair with the 17-minute experimental film “Tiger Child,” the format has become the ascendant king of spectacle. Today, Imax counts 1,829 screens in 89 countries — just 1% of theaters — yet makes up an increasingly vital part of the theatrical box office, with 50% market share growth since 2018 and an estimated $1.2-billion take in 2025. And the company shows no signs of slowing down.
“As long as there are filmmakers who are fans as well as studios who are fans, we’re going to make a difference,” says Chief Executive Richard Gelfond, who acquired the company in 1994 with business partner Bradley Wechsler.
Breaking into mainstream Hollywood didn’t come easy. For decades Imax films were largely documentaries, often about space exploration, nature or discoveries, with systems installed in museums and science centers. The flash point came in 2008 with Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” which featured 28 minutes filmed with Imax 70mm cameras. Film buff and industry content creator Lizzy Gonzalez vividly remembers when the Joker (Heath Ledger) unmasks himself during the chaotic bank heist. “It was my earliest Imax experience, and my jaw dropped in awe,” she says. Ever since, she’s been hooked, admitting the premium format is “the only legit movie experience that immerses you in the story.”
Directors are now leaning in, with the “Filmed for Imax” (FFI) lineup expanding to 14 titles in 2025 — doubling last year’s total. The program lets filmmakers shoot with Imax cameras or other approved cameras and provides additional production support, such as a longer window with the equipment and more publicity during release. “In previous years, Imax used to do about 10% of the box office in North America, but [with] FFI movies we’ve averaged about 15%. It means more dollars to whoever makes them and more profit to the studio,” says Gelfond.
Regina Hall in “One Battle After Another.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Not all movies exhibited in Imax formats are shot under the FFI banner — indeed, from James Cameron’s original “Avatar” to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” the majority of Imax releases are instead enhanced using digital media remastering. But movies that take advantage of FFI, including “Sinners,” “Superman” and “F1,” are seeing box-office benefits and a palpable moviegoing experience.
“Today’s audiences are searching for an emotional connection; they want to feel something, to step inside the filmmaker’s vision. That’s exactly what we wanted to give them by shooting in 65mm Imax,” says “Sinners” cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who was the first woman to shoot in the format. “When you sit in a dark theater and take in a full 1.43:1, 15-perf Imax image, it fills your field of view, and you finally understand what cinema can be.”
Claudio Miranda, the cinematographer behind Joseph Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick” and “F1,” agrees. “For me, Imax is all about immersion. It brings audiences more into the movie than any other format, surrounding them from the north, south, east and west with the film, which is needed for a story of the size and scope of ‘F1.’ Joe and I operate under the shared understanding that audiences react more viscerally to a film that’s been shot authentically, and they can feel it in their bones if it’s not. So we gravitate towards telling immersive, human stories.”
Imax is improving technical capabilities too, including a new Imax 70mm film camera system nicknamed “The Keighley” in honor of late Chief Quality Officer David Keighley, who oversaw hundreds of Imax projects. Its most significant improvement is reduced noise. The previous model was bulky, heavy and notoriously loud. Thanks to the quieter design, Nolan’s “The Odyssey” will become the first theatrical movie shot entirely on Imax film cameras, something he couldn’t achieve on “Oppenheimer” due to sound issues.
“Brad Pitt” in “F1.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic has already caused a stir, as most Imax tickets sold out a year before its release next July. Imax superfan Shane Short, who saw “Oppenheimer” 132 times and once sat next to Arkapaw during a screening of “Sinners,” says it’s a good thing. “What really pulls me into movies is the emotional aspect when connecting with something. For me, it’s hard to get that in a normal theater. Imax is truly the ultimate immersive experience that draws me in.”
Of course, Imax is not the only big-screen game in town. There’s AMC Prime, Cinemark XD, Regal RPX, Dolby Cinema, Real3D and 4DX, to name a few. All share one thing in common: an extra premium for a ticket. “The upcharges for a lot of people are worth it,” says Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “When you go into Imax or other premium formats, it’s really about the sound and vision coming together. And for the right movie, the right screen, fans who don’t go to the movies every day are going to splurge.”
How much that will cost audiences going forward is left up to theaters. “By way of our agreement, it’s not our place to get involved,” says Gelfond about pricing. “We believe there could be more elasticity if it’s a big release, but again, it’s up to the exhibitor.” Any indication of a price squeeze on consumers will likely surface in the next two years with the forthcoming “Project Hail Mary,” “Supergirl,” “The Batman: Part Two” and “Dune: Part Three,” for which director Denis Villeneuve shot scenes using the new Imax 70mm cameras.
A “60 Minutes” story on the Trump administration’s imprisonment of hundreds of deported Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador was pulled by CBS News Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss shortly before it was scheduled to air Sunday night.
The unusual decision drew a sharp rebuke from Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent for the piece.
Alfonsi said the decision was motivated by politics, according to an email she circulated to colleagues and viewed by the Times. Alfonsi noted that the story was ready for air after being vetted by the network’s attorneys and the standards and practices department.
“It is factually correct,” Alfonsi wrote. “In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
According to the CBS News press department’s description of the segment, Alfonsi spoke to released deportees who described “the brutal and torturous conditions they endured inside CECOT,” one of El Salvador’s harshest prisons.
In a statement, a representative for CBS News said the report called “Inside CECOT” will air in a future “60 Minutes” broadcast. “We determined it needed additional reporting,” the representative said.
Weiss viewed the segment late Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly. She had a number of issues with story and asked for additional reporting, which could not be completed in time for airing on Sunday. A press release promoting the story went out Friday.
Weiss reportedly wanted the story to have an interview with an official in President Trump’s administration.
But Alonsi said in her email the program “requested responses to questions and/or interviews” with the the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department.
“Government silence is a statement, not a VETO,” Alfonsi wrote. “Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.”
Alfonsi’s email said she learned the story was pulled on Saturday and that she had not discussed the matter with Weiss.
Even if Weiss’ concerns might be valid, the sudden postponement of a “60 Minutes” piece after it has been promoted on air, on social media and through listings on TV grids is a major snafu for the network.
For Weiss, it’s perilous situation as her every move as a digital media entrepreneur with no experience in television is being closely scrutinized.
As the founder of the conservative-friendly digital news site who was personally recruited by Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, journalists at CBS News and media industry observers are watching to see if Weiss’ actions are tilting its editorial content to the right.
Trump recently said “60 Minutes” is “worse” under Paramount’s new ownership following an interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in which she was highly critical of the president and his administration.
Paramount acquired the Free Press for $150 million as part of the deal to bring Weiss over. Her first major move was to air a highly sympathetic town hall with Erika Kirk, the widow of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Erika Kirk has taken over as head of Turning Point USA, the political organization her husband founded.
With the ongoing fracas over President Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing, a number of other Trump administration-led attempts to remake the architectural landscape of Washington, D.C., have flown largely under the radar. This includes the sale and possible demolition of the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, which was completed in 1940 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Part of what makes the building so beloved is a series of 1942 frescoes by Ben Shahn titled “The Meaning of Social Security,” commissioned as part of the Roosevelt administration’s robust New Deal art program. In a recent article in the New Republic, architectural historian Gray Brechin is quoted as calling the Cohen building, “a kind of Sistine Chapel of the New Deal.”
The structure, originally known as the Social Security Administration Building, has served as the headquarters for Voice of America since 1954. In March, Trump signed an executive order cutting funding for the agency that oversees VOA, and most of its staff was placed on administrative leave. In June, more than 600 VOA employees received layoff notices, and the service basically shut down.
At the beginning of this year, Congress agreed to sell the Cohen building, which had been suffering from major maintenance issues. The scope of the threat to the building became clear earlier this month when Bloomberg reported that “The White House is independently soliciting bids to recommend the demolition of the historic buildings [including the Cohen building], without the input of the General Services Administration, which maintains government buildings.”
“Federal properties can be sold quickly with limited public input. As powerful interests move in haste to sell this historic building, we call for the process to be paused and conducted with transparency, respect, and public participation,” the petition, which has garnered more than 4,700 signatures, states.
The Shahn frescoes aren’t the only precious New Deal artworks in danger. Other art housed in the Cohen building include murals by Seymour Fogel and Philip Guston.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt wondering when enough is enough. Here’s your arts news for the week.
On our radar
Grant Gershon conducts the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(Jamie Phan / Los Angeles Master Chorale)
Disney Hall-e-lu-jah It’s hard to imagine the holidays without music, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale has three days of caroling and chorusing that should lift anyone’s seasonal spirits. A new addition to the choir’s traditional offerings is the family-friendly “Carols for Kids” (11 a.m. Saturday. Walt Disney Concert Hall), featuring Youth Chorus LA and designed for even the squirmiest children, 6 and under. That will be followed by the “Festival of Carols” (2 p.m. Saturday. Disney Hall), a program of global holiday music. The group’s performance of “Handel’s Messiah” (7 p.m. Sunday. Disney Hall) is a worthy centerpiece of any celebration. If you’re ready to have your own voice be heard, “Carols on the Plaza” (6 p.m. Monday, across the street at the Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza), is your chance to join in on free outdoor caroling with family, friends and fellow Angelenos. Festivities conclude with the Master Chorale’s “Messiah Sing-Along” (7:30 p.m. Monday) back at Disney Hall where 2,000 voices will unite for the “Hallelujah Chorus.” — Kevin Crust Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave.; Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY The Fruit Cake Follies In its 27th year, this madcap holiday variety show promises “music, mirth and merriment.” 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with dinner at 6:30 p.m.; 1 p.m Sunday, with brunch at 11 a.m. Catalina Jazz Club, 6725 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood. catalinajazzclub.com
Guadalupe Maravilla: A Performance Expanding on his solo exhibition “Les soñadores,” the transdisciplinary artist creates a collective ritual combining sound, vibration and healers from around the world alongside L.A.-based artists. 8 p.m. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Piotr Beczala The Polish-born tenor, known for his work in opera and the classical vocal canon, performs, accompanied by conductor and pianist Kamal Khan. 7:30 p.m. Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica broadstage.org
“Wet” by Sahar Khoury at Parker Gallery, 2025
(Sahar Khoury / Parker Gallery)
Sahar Khoury The interdependence of materials and their social and cultural environments inspired the sculptor’s newest solo exhibition, “Wet,” a series of pieces created from ceramic, steel, iron, brass and aluminum. 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday, through Jan. 17. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave. parkergallery.com
SATURDAY Christmas Joy Concert The free Third@First concert series continues with a program of carols, classic and new. 4 p.m. First United Methodist Church of Pasadena, 500. E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. thirdatfirst.org
Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps in the romantic drama “Love & Basketball.”
(New Line Cinema)
Love & Basketball Writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood marks the 25th anniversary of her modern romance classic, starring Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Alfre Woodard and Dennis Haysbert. 7 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
The cast of “Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet.”
Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet This 80-plus city tour offers a distinct blend of classical ballet with avant-garde circus techniques and global influences, complete with 10-foot-tall animal puppets constructed by Roger Titley. For its 33rd year on the road, the production adds a new character: Sweets the Dog, created by Barry Gordemer of the award-winning puppeteer studio Handemonium. — Ashley Lee Noon, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles; and 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd. nutcracker.com
SUNDAY Collecting Impressionism at LACMA This new exhibition traces how the museum built its collection and its pursuit of legitimacy through early acquisitions of American and California Impressionism and donations of paintings by Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro from major Hollywood collectors. Through Jan. 3, 2027. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Resnick Pavilion, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Actor Taylor Nichols, left, and director Whit Stillman at a 20th anniversary screening of “Metropolitan” at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
(Jemal Countess / Getty Images)
Metropolitan It’s hard to believe that it’s been 35 years since the young socialites of the “urban haute bourgeoisie” entered our consciousness via filmmaker Whit Stillman’s delightfully droll film and its banter-driven, Oscar-nominated screenplay. Stillman and actor Taylor Nichols will be on hand for a Q&A with the screening. 2 p.m. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com
WEDNESDAY
Aloe Blacc and Maya Jupiter host the 2025 L.A. County Holiday Celebration.
(Music Center)
L.A. County Holiday Celebration The Music Center’s annual spectacular features more than 20 local music ensembles, choirs and dance companies. The free, ticketed event will also be broadcast on PBS SoCal. Aloe Blacc and Maya Jupiter are this year’s hosts. 3-6 p.m. Dec. 24. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org
— Kevin Crust
Dispatch: A director with a human touch
Cameron Watson is the new artistic director of Skylight Theatre Company.
(David Zaugh)
Stage director Cameron Watson has one of the best batting averages in town.
His productions of “The Sound Inside” at Pasadena Playhouse, “On the Other Hand, We’re Happy” for Rogue Machine Theatre at the Matrix and “Top Girls” at Antaeus Theatre Company were morale-boosting for a critic in the trenches, offering proof that serious, humane, highly intelligent and happily unorthodox drama was alive and well in Los Angeles.
Watson’s appointment as artistic director of Los Feliz’s Skylight Theatre Company starting Jan. 1 is good news for the city’s theater ecology. Producing artistic director Gary Grossman, who led the company for 40 years with enormous integrity, built the small but ambitious Skylight into an incubator of new work that embraces diversity and the local community.
Developing new plays is fraught with risk. Watson has the both the artistic acumen and audience sensitivity needed to usher Skylight through this perilous moment in the American theater when so many companies seem to be holding on by a thread.
Watson, like Peter Brook before him, knows how to convert an empty space into a realm of magic and meaning. For Watson, the play’s the thing. But for the spark to happen, actors and audience members need a director as intuitively attuned to the uncertain human drama as Skylight Theatre Company’s new leader. (The director’s current production of “Heisenberg” at Skylight ends Sunday.)
— Charles McNulty
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Moving in stereo The most Tony-nominated play in Broadway history, “Stereophonic,” is playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre through Jan. 2. Times theater critic Charles McNulty caught opening night and wrote that the first touring production fails to capture the high notes of the Broadway original. A few days later, I sat down for an interview at Amoeba Records with Will Butler, the former Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist who wrote the music for the show. Our interview took place before Butler got onstage with the cast of the show for a short live in-store performance.
Boiling in Brooklyn Brooklyn was also on McNulty’s itinerary, where he saw Michelle Williams in the new revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” at St. Ann’s Warehouse. “Michelle Williams seems to have unlimited emotional access. Her inner intensity expresses itself in a frenzy of volcanic feeling that can never be tamped down once it reaches its boiling point,” McNulty writes.
The name game The Kennedy Center continued its Trump-era transformation Thursday after the board voted unanimously to rename the world-famous performing arts venue The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. It remains unclear if the move is legal, or if the name change will need to be made official via an act of Congress.
Viva Las Vegas I got a look at newly revealed architectural plans for the Las Vegas Museum of Art, which is expected to break ground in 2027. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré is designing the city’s first freestanding museum and says his ideas were inspired by the red rocks and canyons of the desert surrounding Sin City.
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LACMA United Workers at Los Angeles County Museum of art voted to unionize Wednesday. The vote in favor was 96%, and came after LACMA rejected workers’ requests for voluntary recognition. Staffers have expressed disappointment in management over what they are calling its anti-union campaign.
La malchance The Louvre is down on its luck. Maintenance issues have lately plagued the famous Paris museum, and then there was that infamous heist. Now workers have voted to strike over working conditions among other complaints.
No, our Women in Film issue doesn’t exclusively feature women — Noah Baumbach and Brendan Fraser feature in our Dec. 16 edition as well — but it does shine a particular spotlight on their extraordinary contribution to the year in film.
As performers and production designers, writers, directors and more, the women included here helped fashion deeply felt stories of parenthood, friendship, grief and betrayal, and that’s just for starters. Read on for more highlights from this week’s Envelope.
The Envelope Actresses Roundtable
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
This year’s Oscar Actresses Roundtable was full of laughter, sparked by everything from Gwyneth Paltrow’s impression of mother Blythe Danner to Sydney Sweeney’s tales from inside the ring on “Christy.” But when it comes to self-determination, this year’s participants — who also included Emily Blunt, Elle Fanning, Jennifer Lopez and Tessa Thompson — are dead serious.
As performers, producers and businesswomen, the sextet told moderator Lorraine Ali, the boxes that Hollywood and the broader culture seek to put them in need not apply. And realizing that is its own liberation. As Lopez put it, “I don’t ever feel like there’s somebody who can say to me, ‘No, you can’t.’”
‘Hamnet’s’ last-minute miracle
(Evelyn Freja / For The Times))
Since the moment I first saw “Hamnet,” I’ve been raving to everyone I know about its climactic sequence, set inside the Globe Theatre during a performance of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” (Well, if you can call it “raving” when you preface your recommendation with the sentence, “I sobbed through the last 45 minutes.”) As it turns out, though, the process of making the film’s final act was as miraculous as the finished product.
“There were only four days left of shooting on ‘Hamnet’ when Chloé Zhao realized she didn’t have an ending,” Emily Zemler begins this week’s digital cover story, which features Zhao, actors Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal and Joe Alwyn and production designer Fiona Crombie. What they created from that point, combining kismet, creative inspiration and grueling preparation, will buoy your belief in the power of art. “It was like a tsunami,” Buckley tells Zemler. “I’ll never forget it.”
A Is for Animal Wrangler
When I first read Helen Macdonald’s transporting “H Is for Hawk,” which combines memoir, nature writing and literary criticism, I can’t say I closed the book wondering when we’d get a film adaptation. Little did I know that director Philippa Lowthorpe, star Claire Foy and a pair of married bird handlers would provide such a thorough answer to my skepticism.
As Lisa Rosen writes in her story on the marriage of art and goshawk in “H Is For Hawk,” that meant shaping the production around the notoriously wary birds of prey, including its lead performance. “It wasn’t like having another actor who had another agenda or actions or a perspective that they wanted to get across in the scene,” Foy told Rosen of her extensive screen time alone with the five goshawks who stood in for Helen’s. “I was along for the ride with these animals.”
Even the most accomplished actors sometimes feel out of their depth on a movie.
Gwyneth Paltrow, who returns to the big screen this fall as an Old Hollywood star trying to make a new start in “Marty Supreme,” was “way out over her skis” in her early 20s when she played a Park Avenue wife opposite older co-star Michael Douglas in “A Perfect Murder.” Jennifer Lopez, who showcases her triple-threat skill set in the musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” felt a “huge” responsibility to get it right when portraying Tejana icon Selena Quintanilla in the 1997 biopic about the late singer. And Emily Blunt, who goes toe-to-toe with Dwayne Johnson in the mixed martial arts saga “The Smashing Machine,” had to avoid being typecast as the go-to “acerbic British bitch” after the success of 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada.”
These and many more tales from inside the maelstrom of megawatt stardom were the subject of The Envelope’s 2025 Oscar Actresses Roundtable, where Paltrow, Lopez and Blunt were joined by Sydney Sweeney, who transformed physically and emotionally to play boxing legend Christy Martin in “Christy”; Tessa Thompson, who tries to keep up appearances as the title character in “Hedda,” Nia DaCosta’s acclaimed new adaptation of “Hedda Gabler”; and Elle Fanning, who plays an American star struggling to find her way into a Norwegian art film in “Sentimental Value.”
In conversation with Times critic Lorraine Ali, the six performers discussed how they deal with bad press, resist being put in career boxes and inhabited some of the most-talked-about film roles of the year.
Jennifer, you play the title role in “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a story set in Argentina during a military dictatorship. It takes place in a political prison where the men imagine themselves in a glamorous, sweeping musical. As producer on the film, why was it important for you to tell this story now?
Lopez: It’s never been more relevant, which is really scary. Manuel Puig wrote the novel in the 1970s about these two prisoners during the uprising in Argentina. It really is a love story about seeing the humanity in another person, like two very different people with different political views. One is queer, and the other is a political revolutionary. The two of them were like oil and water. But they escaped into the [fantasy of] a movie, which is “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” They slowly come together and see each other’s souls instead of who they were on the outside. I think with everything that’s happening in the world right now, especially in this country, with Latinos and queer communities being targeted, demonized — there’s never been a more important time to say, “Look at me on the inside. Stop with all of this divisiveness. See people for who they are.”
Gwyneth, “Marty Supreme” is set in the 1950s. You play Kay Stone, a faded starlet. Who did you base her on?
Paltrow: She’s an amalgam of a few ideas, but principally Grace Kelly, who also had this amazing movie career and was this incredible star, and then walked away from it for marriage. My character does the same. When I was looking at photographs [of Kelly during] her films, and then photographs after she got married, it was like the light dimmed. She lost something. My character had a very rough road to get to stardom, so she walks away from this big career to marry an unsuitable but very wealthy man. And then her son dies, so she has a lot of tragedy.
Sydney, “Christy” is the story of Christy Martin, a pioneer in popularizing women’s boxing in the 1980s and 1990s. You really transformed for the role. Can you talk about that transformation?
Sweeney: Her story is probably one of the most important stories I’ll ever get to tell, so I felt that immense importance. I needed to fully transform myself. I trained every day for three months leading up to shooting. I put on 35 pounds. And I got to spend time with her, and now she’s like one of my best friends. I just kinda lived and breathed Christy for the entirety of the whole thing.
There’s so much violence in her world, particularly outside the ring. Was the real-life Christy there when you shot the domestic abuse scenes between her and her husband, Jim Martin (played by Ben Foster)?
Sweeney: To protect her, we didn’t have her on set when we were shooting the last part of the movie where the domestic violence came into play. The following Monday, we had her come to set, and the entire crew stood up and just started applauding. It was so beautiful. Then after that, she was on set all the time. We would be in the ring, and she’d be sitting [outside the ring], and I’d hear her say, “Hit her with the left hook, Sydney!”
Lopez: She was coaching from the sidelines?
Sweeney: Oh, yeah. We were having a blast. And in the fights, we actually fought. My No. 1 thing with all the girls was that I don’t want this to be fake because so much of Christy comes to life in the ring. I didn’t want to have [the camera] at the back of my head or have to cut to fake the punches. Every single one of those girls, they’re badasses. They punched me, and I punched them. We had bloody, broken noses. I had a concussion.
Blunt: Sydney broke someone’s nose.
Sweeney: I got a concussion. I’m not going to confirm [what else happened]. But I definitely caused some, uh, bruises and blood.
Emily, with “The Smashing Machine,” you play Dawn Staples, girlfriend to Mark Kerr, who was a pioneer in the field of MMA fighting. How much did you know about that world before taking on the role?
Blunt: I knew very little, and I was moved that Mark Kerr was my first window into [MMA] because he is such a juxtaposition to the violence of the world. This is a man who headbutted people to oblivion, and when you meet him, he’s like [subdued tone], “Hi, how are you?” He’s so nice. And I said to Mark one day, “How did you do that?” And he goes, “I know, it was nasty.” He’s just so sweet and dear and eloquent. But I think he was sort of filled with this uncontrollable rage that he hardly knew what to do with, and he struggled so much with his own demons. The movie is more about struggle and fragility than it is about fighting.
Tessa, “Hedda” is an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play “Hedda Gabler” and you play the title role. Your castmate, Nina Hoss, said the role of Hedda Gabler is for women actors what Hamlet is for men. Do you agree?
Thompson: I like to say that Hamlet is the male Hedda, just because I think it’s a nice reversal. But people say that because the truth is that we don’t have that many [roles] that are canonical in the same way that Hedda Gabler is, so it feels like this behemoth. It’s one of the parts in theater that feels like a mountain to climb. There’s a kind of complexity to the character that has compelled audiences and actors for centuries … which is the case with both [Hedda and Hamlet]. But I think the comparison is kind of boring, frankly. I remember an actor saying to me, “Oh, I learned in drama school you have to have your Hedda ready.” And I did not have my Hedda ready, but I got it ready.
The wardrobe and sets in “Spider Woman,” “Hedda” and “Marty Supreme” are beautiful. Did you swipe mementos when the films wrapped?
Paltrow: No, you can’t.
Lopez: I mean, you can.
Paltrow: I tried the Birkin bag from “The Royal Tenenbaums” [but I could not], so I took the loafers instead.
Blunt: Not the same. Not quite.
Thompson: [To Gwyneth]: I was almost you [in “Tenenbaums”] for Halloween, but I couldn’t get it together in time and I wanted do you justice. But one day …
Paltrow: Next year. I’ll lend you the loafers.
Elle, in “Sentimental Value,” you play a Hollywood star who’s cast in an art–house European production. In reality, you were shooting the massive production “Predator: Badlands” when you joined “Sentimental Value,” a smaller European film. Were the parallels with your character, Rachel, apparent at the time?
Fanning: I got a call that “Joachim Trier has a part for you and would like to talk over Zoom, and here’s the script.” I was like, “Oh, my gosh, Joachim Trier [who made] ‘The Worst Person in the World.’” I would’ve said yes to one line. But I was already doing “Predator.” I was about to go off to New Zealand, but it’s very important for Joachim to rehearse, so he [wanted me] to come to Oslo. I wasn’t sure which movie I could do, and I wanted to do both. So, of course, there were parts to the character that I could relate to. I kept thinking, “There’s a lot of meta-ness going on in this film,” particularly for my character, being the Hollywood actress coming to Oslo for the first time, working with a Norwegian director. And coming off of this action-packed film to go to this very intimate, emotional foreign film, they fed into each other in ways that I didn’t expect them to.
How do you all deal with rough reviews?
Paltrow: I try to never read anything about myself, full stop, ever. Period.
Lopez: Wait, not anything about yourself? Ever? Period? Because I don’t read reviews of my films either, but people will bring it to you it when it’s good and you’re like, “Oh, nice.” But there’s other things they’ll bring you …
Paltrow: Sometimes I’ll come upon it.
Lopez: And you want to die.
Paltrow: Want to die. Like when someone forwards you a link to something really horrible about yourself, and they’re like, “Oh, this is bull—.” I do try to avoid [that kind of stuff]. I deleted Instagram.
Blunt: Me too.
Lopez: You need to cleanse every once in a while.
Sweeney: Sounds nice. I can’t do that.
How do you push the negative stuff about you or your personal life aside and focus on your work?
Sweeney: It helps when you love what you do. Like, if you’re loving the characters that you get to play, you’re loving the people you get to work with, and you’re proud of what you’re doing, then it’s just outside noise. When we walk on set, the world kind of disappears and we get come to life in a different kind of way. Those are the moments and the relationships that matter. Everything else is just people we don’t know.
Paltrow: [To Lopez] I want to hear your answer to this question.
Lopez: From the very beginning, for whatever reason, I’ve been a lightning rod for nice things and a lot of negativity. And it’s hard because you say to yourself, “These people don’t get me. They don’t see me. They don’t understand me.” Then all of a sudden they do. And then they don’t again. Even from when I was very young, I would always say, “I know who I am. I’m a good person. I know what I’m doing. People wouldn’t hire me if I wasn’t good at what I do.” I was always affirming myself and keeping my feet on the ground. Luckily, I had a great mom and dad who really instilled in me a sense of self. And what Sydney was saying, I’d have to block out the noise so I can put my head on the pillow at night and go, “I did good today. I was a good person. I was kind to people. I worked really hard. I’m a good mom.” That has always helped me through.
Thompson: Not having your sense of self or identity entangled in this other self that belongs to the public seems like such a healthy thing. I’m still trying to figure out my balance with that. When I was acting in some projects, I felt like I was delivering a lump of clay that got sculpted by somebody else. So if someone was harsh on the final [product], I was like, “Well, I didn’t sculpt it. I’m just the material.” But now that I produce, it’s a completely different thing. It’s building it from the ground up and feeling so much responsibility to the people that you’ve made it with. You made a baby and sent it into the world, and you just hope it doesn’t get misunderstood.
Gwyneth, you’re stepping back into the film world with “Marty Supreme” after seven years doing other things, such as Goop. Were you nervous coming back into the fold?
Paltrow: I [had been] doing things like “Iron Man” and “The Avengers,” which are totally fun, but it’s like doing a TV show where you go back in and you know the character. It’s not that difficult. So it had been a really long time, and I was like, “How did I used to do this? How are you, like, natural?” And then I did the camera test and I was really nervous. I felt like a fish out of water. And then luckily the first scene that I shot for real was a scene in the movie where she’s rehearsing a play. And I started in the theater, and I did a million plays before I ever did a film. The camera was far away, and I had my mom’s voice in my head. She’s like, “You’re on the boards, you know, just let the energy come through your body.”
Can wardrobe and styling help you embody the emotional core of a role?
Blunt: Dawn’s got a vibe for sure. It was that very overt ’90s, overglamorized thing, and everything was so revealing. I feel like my t— looked like two heads by the time they were done with the Wonderbra. They were just up under my chin. That helps you stand different, walk different. And the nails helped me. She had this incredibly long, square, chunky French tip manicure, and she’d talk with her hands. And the spray tan and the wig. It’s all fabulous. It’s such an amazing thing to look at yourself and go, “Who’s that?”
Thompson: [In “Hedda”], the construction of those dresses in the ’50s, there’s so much boning. We had Lindsay Pugh, who’s a brilliant costume designer. I also started looking up the starlets of the time and what their waist sizes were. It was like 20 or 21 inches. They were extreme. In the beginning, when we were constructing the dress, I was like, “I’m going to try to get down to that Dior-like silhouette,” which is impossible. Then we [fell in] love with the idea that the dress doesn’t actually fit her, because she’s inside of a life that doesn’t fit her. But the sheer sort of circumference of the dress makes her a woman who comes into a room and takes up space. A big part of [a woman’s] currency was their beauty and their body. That felt very foreign to me to inhabit. I didn’t recognize or had maybe suppressed the idea of using that part of me to gain power in the world.
The 2025 Envelope Oscar Actresses Roundtable: Top row, left to right, Tessa Thompson, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elle Fanning. Bottom row, left to right, Sydney Sweeney, Jennifer Lopez and Emily Blunt.
Hollywood likes to put people in boxes, particularly women. What boxes has it tried to stuff you in?
Fanning: I was in “Maleficent” and I played Sleeping Beauty, so like Disney princess in pink. Blond.
Blunt: But look at that face. Come on!
Fanning: But I can be mean too! In “The Great,” [I played] Catherine the Great, she was a queen, but she was raunchy. It was such a delicious show in that way. People were like, “Whoa.” They were surprised [seeing me like] that.
Blunt: If there’s a movie that takes off, you will have to carve out space away from that. I remember after “The Devil Wears Prada,” I got offered every acerbic British bitch. I’m like, “I should not do that for a while.”
Paltrow: When I stepped back to be an entrepreneur around 2008, I really confused and upset people. Nobody understood what I was doing, and I faced a lot of criticism and confusion over the course of the 17 years since I sent out my first Goop newsletter. I really do think that women, we are so incredibly multifaceted. We are all the archetypes. We’re not just a mother, or an artist, or an intellectual. We’re all the things. So I’ve always kind of tried to make it my mission to say, like, “No, don’t put us in boxes. We get to define who we are.”
Blunt: Was it hard for you to keep going and ignore it?
Paltrow: It was really hard. Some days I was like, “Why did I do this? The headwinds are so extreme and I’m so misunderstood. I had a perfectly good job. People did my hair. Why on earth did I do this to myself?”
Thompson: And you also did it before there was a cultural appreciation for people doing multihyphenates and starting businesses.
Lopez: I think our generation started thinking, like, “We need and want to do other things.” Even when I started acting and I had done my early films, “Out of Sight” and “Selena,” and then decided I wanted to record music, and it was such a big deal. People were like, “They’re never going take you seriously as an actor ever again.”
Paltrow: And you had the No. 1 movie and the No. 1 album in the same time, right?
Lopez: It was in the Guinness Book of Records. But that’s the thing, everybody’s always trying to tell you: “You can only do this,” or “You can only do that.” I had my perfume line. I had my clothing lines. I have my J Lo beauty now. You have to just do what feels good for you. It doesn’t mean it’s for everybody. Somebody wants to just act their whole life, that’s beautiful too. That’s fantastic. I still want to direct. I still want to write more books. And I don’t ever feel like there’s somebody who can say to me, “No, you can’t.”
Blunt: Say that to Sydney and she’ll break their nose.
Rob Reiner was born into the lineage of comedy thanks to his father, television pioneer Carl Reiner, and he first gained recognition as an actor, including his Emmy-winning role on “All in the Family.” And while there is certainly a streak of humor through almost all of his films, what marks Reiner’s work as a director is his astonishing versatility, able to switch styles from one project to the next with remarkable ease. The run of films that begins with his feature directing debut, 1984’s “This Is Spinal Tap,” on through 1986’s “Stand by Me,” 1987’s “The Princess Bride,” 1989’s “When Harry Met Sally…,” 1990’s “Misery,” 1992’s “A Few Good Men” and 1995’s “The American President” is simply breathtaking for its mastery across the specrum of popular Hollywood moviemaking.
‘This Is Spinal Tap’ (1984)
Harry Shearer, left, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean in the movie “This Is Spinal Tap.”
(Archive Photos / Getty Images)
Though not strictly the first to explore the form, Reiner’s first feature as director more or less cemented the concept of the “mockumentary,” presenting itself as a documentary on the (fictional) rock band Spinal Tap. Reiner appeared onscreen as Marty DiBergi, director of the faux film-within-the-film, forming a neat transition from his career as an actor to director. And while this year’s sequel “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” was not particularly well received, the legacy of the original, still among the most quotable comedies ever made, remains untouchable. — Mark Olsen
‘The Sure Thing’ (1985)
Made amid the teen sex comedy craze of the 1980s, Reiner’s second film, about two college students sharing a cross-country car trip together, had something special and different about it — namely the performances of John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga, who both brought an openhearted tenderness to a story that might have toppled into cynicism. The emotional earnestness that would often come through in Reiner’s work first emerged here, making what could have been a run-of-the-mill exercise into something more. — M.O.
‘Stand by Me’ (1986)
Wil Wheaton, left, River Phoenix, Jerry O’Connell and Corey Feldman in the movie “Stand by Me.”
(Columbia Pictures)
Based on a novella by Stephen King, “Stand by Me” is about four boys — played by Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell and River Phoenix — who find their friendship tested during a particularly eventful Labor Day weekend of 1959. Approaching the story with a mix of dewy nostalgia and incisive clarity, the film earned Reiner the first of three nominations from the Directors Guild of America. — M.O.
‘The Princess Bride’ (1987)
Robin Wright and Cary Elwes in the movie “The Princess Bride.”
(20th Century Fox / Kobal / REX / Shutterstock)
It would be inconceivable to not include “The Princess Bride” in any consideration of Reiner’s best, as the swashbuckling fantasy romance embodies a sense of playful inventiveness and anything-can-happen ethos. An elderly man reads a story to his grandson as the action comes to life in the tale of a farm boy and a princess who are fated to be together, if only they can overcome all manner of trials and challenges. The movie has now enchanted multiple generations of children and adults alike. — M.O.
‘When Harry Met Sally…’ (1989)
Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in the movie “When Harry Met Sally…”
(Castle Rock Entertainment)
As much as any other movie, “When Harry Met Sally…” (scripted by Nora Ephron) has come to embody the modern romantic comedy with its will they-won’t-they tale of two good friends who come to realize they may also work as something more. Grounded by the charming performances of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, as well as a strong supporting cast including Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby, the film has a rare warmth. It was Reiner’s mother Estelle who delivered the unforgettable punchline, “I’ll have what she’s having.” — M.O.
‘Misery’ (1990)
Kathy Bates and James Caan in “Misery.”
(Archive Photos / Getty Images)
Reiner named his production company Castle Rock Entertainment in honor of his deep love for Stephen King’s fiction and after making a splash with “Stand by Me,” there was no way he wasn’t going do something scarier as a follow up. (You get a hint in “When Harry Met Sally” — look at the hardcover Crystal is skimming.) King’s captive-author nightmare gets classed up by two knockout performances calibrated in perfect harmony: Kathy Bates’ psycho fan, a turn that earned her an Oscar, and James Caan as the bedbound writer. At the time, Caan was an actor in need of a second chance. Reiner was it. — Joshua Rothkopf
‘A Few Good Men’ (1992)
Jack Nicholson, left, and Tom Cruise in the movie “A Few Good Men.”
(Mondadori Portfolio / Mondadori via Getty Images)
Reiner seemingly conquered yet another movie genre with this tightly wound military courtroom thriller and received his only Academy Award nomination, for best picture. Reiner was also recognized with nominations from the Directors Guild, Producers Guild and Golden Globes for the film. Written by Aaron Sorkin and featuring a cast that includes Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, this has Jack Nicholson’s volcanic delivery of the now-legendary line, “You can’t handle the truth!” — M.O.
‘The American President’ (1995)
Michael Douglas and director Rob Reiner on the set of “The American President.”
(Archive Photos / Getty Images)
A president as a romantic lead? Such things actually happened during the Clinton era. Reiner injects warmth and realism to Sorkin’s swaggering original script, loaded with wonky dialogue and walk-and-talks. But it’s the careful steering of Michael Douglas as a widowed U.S. leader and rising star Annette Bening as an extra-persuasive eco-lobbyist that distinguish this gentle comedy, one that seems positively alien to our current climate. Widely known for his vigilant activism in later years, Reiner’s on-screen politics were no less optimistic. — J.R.
‘Rumor Has It’ (2005)
Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner in the movie “Rumor Has It.”
(Melissa Moseley / Warner Bros. Pictures)
Not many would dare to take on a sort-of sequel to a movie as beloved as “The Graduate,” but Reiner brought a casual ease to the tale of a woman, played by Jennifer Aniston, who believes her mother and grandmother were the inspiration for Charles Webb’s original source novel. Though reviews at the time largely savaged the movie, it now seems just the kind of self-assured studio comedy audiences yearn for, buoyed by Shirley MacLaine’s outrageous performance as a woman who may be the real Mrs. Robinson. — M.O.
‘Albert Brooks: Defending My Life’ (2023)
Albert Brooks, left, and Rob Reiner in the documentary “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.”
(HBO)
Reiner received two Emmy nominations for this documentary tribute to comedian, actor and filmmaker Albert Brooks, a friend of Reiner’s since the two met as teenagers at Beverly Hills High. It’s captured as an expansive conversation with the two sharing a meal in a restaurant. As much as the film is a portrait of Brooks, it also reflects Reiner’s own unique position as someone who knew show business and its ups and downs with a rare intimacy. — M.O.
