In the last decade or so, Angelina Jolie has been on screen less frequently. So when she is — and not in forgettable tentpoles like “Eternals” — it’s worth paying attention. There seems to be a thoughtful intentionality to the roles she now chooses, almost as if this astoundingly famous woman wants to tell us something vital about herself, offering clues into her understandably guarded personal life.
Take 2015’s “By the Sea,” which she wrote and directed. Coincidentally or not, that pained study of marital dissolution, co-starring Jolie’s then-husband Brad Pitt, intersected with the couple’s real-life breakup — not to mention Jolie’s grief over the death of her mother, Marcheline Bertrand. Two years ago, Jolie portrayed a version of the elusive, emotionally closed-off opera singer Maria Callas in “Maria.” The conception of the role, marked by a dim view of stardom’s suffocating alienation, was something Jolie clearly understood. Moviegoers should be careful not to read too much autobiography into an actor’s creative choices, but Jolie makes such speculation tantalizing, adding additional layers of drama to her films.
The intermittently affecting “Couture” feels similarly close to her heart, depicting a filmmaker whose life is interrupted by a cancer diagnosis — a reality Jolie knows all too well. In 2013, she underwent a preventive double mastectomy over concerns of her likelihood to develop breast or ovarian cancer. (Bertrand died of cancer in 2007.) Knowledge of Jolie’s circumstance will inform a viewer’s reaction to her wounded, resilient performance, but our inherent sympathies can only take French writer-director Alice Winocour’s ensemble piece so far.
Jolie plays Maxine, an American indie director hired to create a flashy opening film for Paris Fashion Week. Newly arrived in the City of Light, she has only a few days to put together the short, assisted by her trusted cinematographer Anton (Louis Garrel). As we deduce from the phone calls Maxine makes back home, she’s also going through an acrimonious divorce and has trouble connecting with her blasé teenage daughter. At least this Paris paycheck gig will bolster her finances — and get her ready for the feature film she’s been wanting to make for years.
Just then, though, Maxine’s future gets a rewrite. A French doctor (Vincent London) tells her she has breast cancer and needs a double mastectomy immediately. Maybe she can finish the Fashion Week film, but her passion project must wait. An artist and mother who has spent her adulthood in constant motion will have to learn what it means to stop everything and be still.
The film’s title would appear to be a reference to the story’s setting, but in French, “coutures” can also mean “stitches,” and indeed Winocour sews together three thematically linked story strands. As Maxine wrestles with her cancer diagnosis, an inexperienced South Sudanese model named Ada (Anyier Anei) works Fashion Week so she can send money home to her family. (Ada has no interest in modeling, hoping instead to become a pharmacist.) Meanwhile a makeup artist, Angèle (Ella Rumpf), longs to be an author, although she cannot get anyone interested in her writing. Each one becomes a part of the fabric of Fashion Week, but their disparate problems are a far cry from the glitzy event’s self-importance.
Winocour has often made films about women balancing their public-facing life with their private selves In 2019’s “Proxima,” Eva Green played an astronaut missing her young daughter. In 2022’s “Paris Memories,” Virginie Efira starred as an interpreter recovering from the shock of surviving a terrorist attack. Winocour shows us the intimate, vulnerable spaces within her characters that those on the outside don’t have access to.
“Couture’s” three principals rarely interact with one another, but those meaningful exchanges argue that, amid the mad clatter of the everyday, a brief, unguarded moment with a stranger can be supremely restorative. Unfortunately, the juggling of storylines ends up being more schematic than insightful. Angèle’s narrative never catches fire and while Anei is striking as Ada, that section of the film feels slightly patronizing, reducing this immigrant tale to yet another strained salute to perseverance.
This leaves Jolie as the movie’s magnetic center, with Maxine drifting through despair as she ponders what to do. Her doctor insists that the surgery cannot wait, but putting her ambitions on hold means losing a part of herself — a different kind of death sentence than the one she’s now facing.
The character is underwritten but Jolie picks up much of the slack through her silently shattered expression. As she’s gotten older, the Oscar winner has become more comfortable doing less in her performances, allowing for a fragile serenity that is belied by the anguish and anxiety roiling underneath. It’s not just our recognition of the real-life parallels that make Jolie so touching in “Couture” — it’s that ineffable star power she’s possessed for so long. In a story about a potential tragedy, what’s saddest is that Winocour’s film cannot match its lead’s effortless command.
‘Couture’
In French and English, with subtitles
Rated: R, for language, some sexuality, nudity and brief bloody violence
As summer heats up alongside the exhausting news cycle, it’s crucial to find ways to unplug and wind down. Golden Hour in the newly renovated sculpture garden at the Norton Simon Museum is just the thing. Taking place tonight (Friday), and on two more Fridays this season (July 31 and Aug. 28), the event lasts from 4:30-6:30 p.m. and features a different musical group each time.
Tonight is the Verbena Quartet; a North Indian ensemble and a jazz trio are upcoming.
The fun is free with museum admission, and guests are encouraged to bring blankets to relax in the grass. I took my family of four to a recent event and it proved to be the rare occurrence when both the 10-year-old and the 17-year-old were happy. The museum provides all kinds of great art supplies on a big table by the entrance, including sketch paper, clipboards, colored pencils and charcoal drawing utensils.
There are also sheets of paper encouraging creative ways to approach drawing various sculptures in the garden, alongside a family-friendly Golden Hour bingo card with squares including “Spot something framed by tree branches” and “Look at the space between two objects.”
I did some drawing with my toes in the grass while my kiddos curved their necks over their own mini masterpieces. My husband read a book. The sun slanted low as the afternoon melted into early evening, casting lovely shadows on the families, couples, friend groups and solitary artists scattered around the garden sipping wine and snacking on cheese and crackers from the nearby cafe.
When we had our fill of relaxing, we ambled into the museum. My daughter wanted to gaze at the Picassos and the Van Goghs. As did I. I never don’t cry when I look at “The Mulberry Tree.”
“Can you imagine what he was thinking?” I asked my 10-year-old as we regarded the painting. “The pain and the beauty of it?”
She nodded sagely, gently smoothing her thumb against her own recent drawing, her deep inner world a mystery to me. The beauty and the pain of it. I was glad we had cuddled together in the late afternoon sunshine.
I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing you and your loved ones peace. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Antigone The Bebelos Players present a back-to-basics production of Sophocles’ classic drama about a young woman who defies a king to honor her dead brother. 7 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Theosophy Hall, 245 W. 33rd St. eventbrite.com
“Horse,” by Rick Bartow, 2014, wood, tar, wax, false teeth, nails. 56 x 42 x 12 in.
(Yubo Dong, ofstudio)
Rick Bartow Last chance to catch “All of these things have happened,” an exhibition of works on paper by the late Native American artist that touch on tragedies from throughout his life, as well as “Horse,” a 2014 sculpture covered in tar, wax, false teeth and nails that is “a study of sustained resilience.” Noon-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday (last day). Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, 7424 Beverly Blvd. timothyhawkinsongallery.com
Spencer Finch “Balboa of House and Garden,” composed entirely of new work, is the artist’s first exhibition in Los Angeles. The show includes more than 50 unique works on paper, a site-specific skylight installation and a monumental outdoor sculpture. Finch’s “Memory Landscape (Nairobi, Chicago, Honolulu, Jakarta),” 2025, a commissioned tile wall mural inspired by places from President Barack Obama’s formative years, was recently installed at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Opening, 6-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Aug. 22. Lisson, 1037 N. Sycamore Ave. lissongallery.com
Bodo Mato The pseudonymous multidisciplinary artist uses a subconscious dreamworld to access a legendary lost city to find real-world parallels in the exhibition “Atlantis: Echoes of Hubris.” Opening reception, 6-10 p.m. Friday. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Tuesday. 7811 Gallery (West), 7813 Melrose Ave. 7811gallery.com
Raymond Saunders, “Layers of Being,” 1985. Mixed media on canvas, 81 x 59 15/16 x 1 in.
Raymond Saunders “Flowers From a Black Garden” is a career-spanning look at the painter (1934-2025) as he moved from Dada, expressionism and assemblage to Fluxus, Pop and postmodernism, beginning in the 1960s. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, through Jan. 3. UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. langson.uci.edu
SATURDAY
Chrysalis prototypes deployed in Joshua Tree, 1970, reproduction.
(Chrysalis Corporation)
Alternative Palm Springs: Other Desert Architectures In some parallel reality there may exist a Coachella Valley unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. In lieu of that, this exhibition shares the unbuilt visions of prominent architects, off-grid designs of the counterculture, and private and public worlds created by the LGBTQ+ during the 20th century, yielding an expanded view of the area’s architectural ambitions. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday; noon-8 p.m. Thursday; through Jan. 4; closed June 26 and July 4. Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, 300 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs. psmuseum.org
Declarations of Independence Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles and guest artist Justin Tranter celebrate national and individual freedom and pride for America’s 250th anniversary. 7 p.m. Saturday; 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Saban Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. gmcla.org/declarations
A Great Night in Hip-Hop The Roots return for their third year at the Bowl, joined by Nas, with appearances from T.I., Bun B, De La Soul and more. 7:30 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
Rota Fortunae A one-night-only experimental opera featuring Jordan Slaffey reimagines the four women of the 1996 crime thriller “Set It Off” using movement, live music and fashion. Directed by Chris Emile, music by composer and DJ Cody Perkins and designs by James Flemons. 7:30 p.m. Indoor Swap Meet, 128 S. La Brea Ave., Inglewood. eventbrite.com
Peter Stampfel An innovator of anti-folk, freak-folk and psych-folk, the 87-year-old co-founder of the Holy Modal Rounders makes a rare West Coast appearance. 8 p.m. McCabe’s Guitar Shop, 3101 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. mccabes.com
THURSDAY
Ojai Film Society Summer Screening Series Annual presentation of independent, foreign, documentary, critically acclaimed and classic films kicks off Thursday with Taika Waititi’s 2016 adventure comedy “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” starring Sam Neill. Other screenings: “Selena Y Los Dinos” (July 10); “Cookie Queens” (July 17); “Best in Show” (July 24); “Arrival” (Aug. 20); and “Jurassic Park” (Aug. 27). 7:30 p.m. Thursday; various dates through Aug. 27. Libbey Bowl, 210 S. Signal St., Ojai. ojaifilmsociety.org
Tank and the Bangas The Grammy-winning New Orleans music group shares its signature blend of funk, soul, hip-hop, rock and spoken word. Featuring an opening set by Butter Funk Family and DJ sets by Tosstones. 7 p.m. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. skirball.org
Arts anywhere
Meryl Streep, from left, and Amanda Seyfried, Rachel McDowall and Ashley Lilley in the 2008 movie version of “Mamma Mia!”
(Peter Mountain / Universal Pictures)
Broadway unbound
Two of the biggest hit musicals ever are in town simultaneously starting this week — “Mamma Mia!” is at the Ahmanson through July 19 and “Phantom of the Opera” plays the Hollywood Pantages through Aug. 9. If you want to bone up beforehand or relive the hits after you’ve been to the theater, the cinematic adaptations of both are widely available. The 2008 movie version of “Mamma Mia!” starring Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried streams on Prime through the end of June and the 2004 “Phantom” with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum is streaming on Prime and Apple TV. Both films are available to rent or buy on various platforms and, if you’re into physical media, relatively inexpensive Blu-ray and DVD versions can be had online. Public libraries are also great resources for arts-related content.
— Kevin Crust
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Passengers wait to board the first train to arrive at the Metro D Line at the Wilshire/Fairfax Station in Los Angeles on May 8, 2026.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
With the new Metro D Line subway extension up-and-running with new stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega, we asked architecture writer Sam Lubell to take an aesthetic look at these new displays of public art. “Suddenly the city feels different. Not transformed, exactly. But more connected,” wrote Lubell. “The fracturing grip of the city’s incomprehensible expanses, clogged arteries and stagnant governance — all intimidating barriers to healthy civic life — feels a little looser. … The stations, too, feel more connected, with art, architecture and infrastructure blending seamlessly into a cohesive experience … But above ground, it’s a tale of two (transit) cities. Outdoor plazas lack the kind of textured civic presence that’s been created below.”
The Hollywood Bowl opened its summer season with a lavish production, “The Best of Broadway,” starring Lea Salonga, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Darren Criss, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Halle Bailey, and hosted by Billy Crystal. The program including a selection of Broadway tunes old and new, was delivered with flair to an appreciative audience. “I had a lovely time,” reports Times theater critic Charles McNulty, “but I can’t say the concert lived up to its title. Not that impressive virtuosity wasn’t on display, but Broadway is truly at its best when musical numbers are embedded in a story, allowing the performers to feed off each other and reach heights that they might not be able to reach on their own. Too much of the bill required the actors to stand and deliver, ‘American Idol’-style. It was a little unfair to place such a heavy burden on them.”
McNulty also reviewed the Geffen Playhouse’s Los Angeles premiere of Pearl Cleage’s “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous,” about an American expat actor angling for her big comeback. The play, wrote McNulty, “is hamstrung with exposition. More time is devoted to setting up the dramatic situation than to activating it. … The intentions are noble and the themes are handled with admirable complexity, but the writing is sluggish. The plot is like an old car whose engine just refuses to start on a cold winter morning.”
After 20 years as LA Opera Music Director James Conlon will step down.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The final show of L.A. Opera’s production “Marriage of Figaro” last Sunday also marked the end of James Conlon’s tenure at the podium as the organization’s music director. Stepping down after 20 years, Conlon spoke to Times classical music critic Mark Swed. “I love L.A. and I’m not going to leave,” said Conlon. “I am absolutely happy at this point in my life. You know my age is 76. It is not a secret. I wear it proudly. But I’ve been a music director for 47 years, and I don’t want to be a music director any longer. I will still conduct.” Will he return regularly to L.A. Opera? “That’s the theory,” he said
Another maestro who can’t quit L.A. is Esa-Pekka Salonen. Last weekend, the beloved composer and conductor, who is back with the L.A. Phil as creative director, returned to the Ojai Music Festival after a quarter-century absence. “Salonen found renewal not from the desperation of rethinking but from freshening, illuminating the perception of exceptional young musicians first encountering greatness,” wrote Swed in his review of the four days. “In these uncertain times, that may be the most remarkable act of artistic optimism.”
Spanish artist Nieves Gonzalez stands next to one of her paintings that is part of her solo show at the Richard Heller Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica on June 18, 2026.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Not yet 30, Spanish painter Nieves González is a burgeoning international art star with an exhibition at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica. “Fashion inspires me,” she told writer Jane Horowitz in a recent interview. “Just as 17th century artists drew inspiration from the fashion of their day — often creating paintings that served as catalogs of current styles — I do the same. The goal is to not merely convey a specific message or ideology but to create a testament to a generation and the era in which we live.”
“California Gothic: A Bus Tour,” an avant-garde sightseeing event organized by the New Theater Hollywood, turns Tinseltown “into a stage, drawing locals for a mash-up of state history, gothic storytelling and public-intellectual riffing on the broken California dream,” wrote Times staff writer Eloise Rollins-Fife. The tour ended its latest run in mid-June, but will reopen during the last week of October for a special “ghost tour” edition.
Times columnist Patt Morrison reported from the City of Lights on Paris-born street artist JR’s “La Caverne du Pont Neuf,” which she describes as “an enormous art installation, a trompe l’oeil inflatable snow-clad mountain range … an homage to the innovative work of groundbreaking environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.” The work uses about 200,000 square feet of printed fabric on the city’s oldest bridge to create the illusion and the artist told Morrison, “Your eye wants to believe it, and for a moment you let yourself. That gap between knowing and believing is where the play happens, and people love being inside that gap.”
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Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Assn., displays a newly-acquired suite of four interrelated paintings by Norman Rockwell titled, “So You Want to See the President!” at the association’s offices Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Washington.
(John McDonnell / Associated Press)
In the 1940s, Norman Rockwell spent time in the visitor’s lobby of the White House sketching U.S. senators, members of the military, the press and a Miss America as they awaited entry into the Oval Office to see President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eight decades later, four of the sketches have been acquired by the White House Historical Assn. for $7 million, according to the Associated Press. Titled “So You Want to See the President!” the sketches will be on public display through June 2027 at the historical association’s “The People’s House” education center near the White House.
It was a busy week for announcing some of this fall and winter’s Broadway openings. Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont will host a revival of Aaron Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men,” starring Bradley Whitford and Tom Blyth, directed by six-time Tony winner Michael Arlen, starting Oct. 8. In March 2027, LCT Artistic Director Lear deBessonet will helm a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” for its first Broadway run in nearly 30 years. A revival of Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain” lands in February 2027 at a Shubert Organization-owned theater to be announced with Anna D. Shapiro directing. The cast will include “Heated Rivalry’s” François Arnaud and David Corenswet of “Superman” in their Broadway debuts, joined by Yvonne Strahovski of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The play was previously on Broadway in 2006 with Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd. Walter Hill’s 1979 gang saga “The Warriors” will make the leap from screen to stage as a musical, with a book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis. Previews begin at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in March 2027 with an opening slated for April. Jenny Koons will direct.
For a long time, the lifestyles and foibles of the modest bourgeoisie were a mainstay of art-house cinema, with urbane, upscale audiences happy to turn out to see versions of their own lives depicted on the screen. But more recently, as ideas about what middle age looks like have shifted, along with the changing demographics of viewers, these films have largely disappeared. Which is what makes the seriocomic “The Invite” feel both fresh and something of a throwback — a movie for those who worry about losing their edge.
Directed by Olivia Wilde, “The Invite” was a clear standout when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and now arrives in theaters as one of the best dramas of the year so far. It feels daring for how it wants to actually examine the emotional costs of contemporary grown-up life, bringing wincing laughs of recognition.
The film begins with married couple Angela and Joe, played by Wilde and Seth Rogen, checking back in at their home in San Francisco at the end of the day. He has been at the teaching job he resents and she has been frantically preparing for the dinner party she may not have told him about. Their daughter is away at a sleepover for the evening and it seems they no longer fully know how to relate to each other. As they bicker and jab, their quiet dissatisfaction with their lives stops being so quiet.
Angela has invited over their neighbors from the apartment upstairs, who they do not know well and who often have loud sex. That couple, Piña and Hawk, played by Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, seems more assured, self-possessed and adventurous, the kind of people you can absent-mindedly invent stories about, assuming their lives are much cooler than your own.
Things go in ways both expected and unexpected, the two couples warily feeling each other out as they wait to spring their own private agendas. Over the course of the evening, things will be alternately tense, flirty, vulnerable and revelatory as surprisingly little food is eaten. (Other substances get ingested instead.)
An adaptation of Cesc Gay’s 2020 Spanish film “Sentimental,” the screenplay is credited to Rashida Jones and Will McCormack. In an unusual step, the script was further workshopped and developed with the cast during rehearsals. Rogen came up with some of the biggest laugh lines and Norton wrote the deeply earnest monologue he delivers late in the film. (The popular Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel is also credited as a consultant.)
This American version expands upon the characters more than Gay’s original film while consistently returning to the disappointment of Angela and Joe’s lives in terms both big and small. Neither of them are the people they once thought they might become. Whether two people who are each unhappy can make it as a couple becomes the overriding theme of the film.
This is Wilde’s third movie as a director and it is, by far, her most cohesive and accomplished, both contained and expansive. Her debut, 2019’s charming end-of-high-school tale “Booksmart,” had a throw-everything-at-the-wall quality, as if she wanted to get out every idea and try every trick in case she never got another chance to direct. Wilde’s follow-up, the 2022 psychodrama “Don’t Worry Darling,” became mired in behind-the-scenes gossip and tabloid speculation that overshadowed what was intended as a stylized portrait of female rage and discontent.
Her latest fulfills and exceeds the promise of those earlier movies. Shot on 35mm film by cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, the action of “The Invite” is almost entirely confined to Angela and Joe’s apartment, which thanks to a recent renovation has plenty of rooms to explore. All four players are exceptional in their roles, playing smartly off their screen personas while exploring the nuances of the characters and their intersecting dynamics.
Wilde’s Angela is expressive and antic; Rogen’s Joe is sullen and snarky. Cruz is alluring and watchful, while Norton turns out to be the film’s secret weapon. He has a low-key comic energy and helps guide the story through a few of its trickier emotional turns. At one point he simply rises from behind a couch and it plays like a punchline.
Skip the next two paragraphs if you want to hold onto the film’s purest pleasures. Those noises from upstairs have been Piña and Hawk hosting group sex parties and they are now cruising Angela and Joe for some extramarital couples’ fun. Here, the movie pivots from passive-aggressive party conversation into farce, as Angela and Joe try to process the idea anyone else might find them desirable, as they have long since given up on seeing themselves in that way.
Wilde in particular lights up during this section, Angela’s mind racing at possibilities she never considered for herself while fumbling over the practicalities of protocols and just how this would work. Before pushing the film into its final forlorn section, the excitement that something sexy might happen charges the actors. It is very likely that streams of Sade’s seductive “By Your Side” will skyrocket.
But the focus stays very much on the struggles of married life. One of the biggest strengths of “The Invite” is the way it keeps evolving as the night progresses so it never feels claustrophobic or repetitive. There is a sense of visual invention and imagination to the film that continues all the way through, such as a moment when Wilde crouches down to check on a doomed soufflé in the oven and addresses the camera directly, looking up as if talking to Rogen. The viewer is frequently placed in an adjacent POV to the different characters, as if you are there in the room too.
The film has a propulsive rhythm to it, a relentlessness, even as Wilde and editors Yorgos Mavropsaridis and Anthony Boys know when to ease off the throttle and take it easy for a bit. The film breathes in a dynamic way, the last few beats taking a startling turn toward a somber wistfulness. The ending is just enigmatic enough to have audiences talking it through as they make their way out of the theater.
The end credits include a handwritten dedication, “For Diane,” a nod to Diane Keaton. The live-wire wit and idiosyncratic verve that she embodied in “Reds” and “Something’s Gotta Give” are very much on display here. Early in the story, Norton dryly notes, “We love a contentious environment.” Thanks to Wilde’s confident direction and the ensemble’s unpredictable performances, audiences will too.
‘The Invite’
Rated: R, for sexual material, language throughout, and drug use
Veteran broadcast journalist Katie Couric has leveled sharp criticism at CBS’ “60 Minutes,” detailing a culture of systemic sexism and marginalization she says she experienced during her tenure at the prestigious newsmagazine.
On this week’s episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Couric, 69, described incidents during her time at “60 Minutes” when her story ideas were reassigned to her male counterparts. She described the circumstances as “really tough situations.”
The Emmy-winning journalist said she suspected early on that Jeff Fager, the “60 Minutes” executive producer at the time, didn’t take a liking to her.
“I think maybe because he wasn’t really consulted about bringing me over,” said Couric. “I was sort of seen as somebody from a different network coming in and sort of muddying the waters. I hadn’t come up in the CBS system. So I don’t know, he just didn’t like me.”
Couric started her run at the newsmagazine as a correspondent and as an anchor at CBS News in 2006, after spending 15 years co-hosting NBC’s “Today” show. Her role at CBS made her the first female solo anchor of a national weeknight news broadcast. She stayed with the network for five years before taking on a new role as special correspondent for ABC News.
Fager remained at “60 Minutes” from 2004 to 2018. He also served as the chairman of CBS News. He was eventually fired for allegedly sending a “harsh” message to a CBS reporter. At the time, he was also facing accusations of ignoring inappropriate behavior at “60 Minutes.” He previously denied the claims. CBS could not be reached for comment.
Trouble first came to a head when Couric pitched a profile of the rising pop star Lady Gaga. Fager had initially turned down the idea until he decided to pursue the story a year later, as Gaga had gained more notoriety.
Couric said she had proposed a fresh angle on Gaga’s Catholic school upbringing, but when she arrived for the interview, she discovered her name had been replaced with Anderson Cooper’s. His interview with Gaga aired in February 2011.
“It made me crazy,” Couric said.
A similar situation occurred once again when Couric was set to interview then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The confusion began when the State Department reached out to Couric, wondering why fellow correspondent Scott Pelley’s team was inquiring about Clinton.
“So I go to Jeff Fager, and I say, ‘I thought you wanted me to do Hillary. You told me explicitly that you wanted to assign that story to me,’” Couric said. “And he said, ‘Yeah, we decided to change things up.’”
Couric said she was frustrated with Fager, for repeatedly going “behind [her] back.”
“Like, without even the decency to call me and say, ‘Guess what? We decided to reassign the story, and this is why,’” she said. “Talk about getting gaslit. I mean to me, that is the definition of it.”
Couric isn’t the only former “60 Minutes” to call out sexism at the newsmagazine. Meredith Vieira, who worked as a correspondent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said in 2018, that she’d experienced sexism at CBS.
In the last few months, “60 Minutes” has undergone a massive upheaval. Under CBS News editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, several correspondents, including Scott Pelley, and the program’s top producers were fired. Anderson Cooper also recently resigned from his post at the newsmagazine. With the upcoming season slated to begin in September, the program is currently under pressure to replenish its ranks.
It’s been more than 30 years, but Andy’s toys are proving irreplaceable at the box office.
Walt Disney Co. and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” opened to a massive $160 million in the U.S. and Canada last weekend, marking the biggest domestic box office debut so far this year. Internationally, the film brought in $152 million for a worldwide total of $312 million.
With those numbers, “Toy Story 5” broke several franchise records for opening weekend totals. As my colleague Cerys Davies and I wrote last week, it’s a sign of the long-running juggernaut’s firm grip on audiences amid a sea of Hollywood sequels, reboots and spinoffs.
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“‘Toy Story’ has been breaking ground since it first hit the screen more than 30 years ago,” Disney Entertainment Studios Chairman Alan Bergman said in a statement. “It’s wonderful to see ‘Toy Story 5’ continuing that tradition and connecting with audiences around the world to deliver the biggest opening for the franchise and the biggest of this year as well.”
For theater owners, “Toy Story” may have seemed like a surefire bet. After all, the franchise has grossed more than $3 billion in worldwide box-office revenue, and its third and fourth installments each made more than $1 billion globally.
The big opening weekend for “Toy Story 5” has no doubt brightened the outlook for many theater operators as the all-important summer movie season gets underway.
Already, last weekend’s box-office totals were a whopping 80% improvement compared with a year ago, when Universal Pictures’ live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” was in its second weekend in theaters. But more importantly, the domestic box office is now up 14% to $4.46 billion compared with the same time a year ago, according to data from Rentrak.
This summer’s lineup of films, including “Toy Story 5,” will play an important role in terms of whether 2026 will truly be the year that the theatrical business turns the corner from the COVID-19 pandemic and the dual Hollywood strikes of 2023.
In one promising sign, summer box-office revenue so far is up 15.2% to about $1.84 billion compared with the same May to mid-June period in 2025. (That summer ultimately ended in a dismal finish of $3.67 billion.) Compared with pre-pandemic 2019, this year’s summer box office to date is down just 1.9%.
Studio executives and theater owners have told me they feel good about this summer and are optimistic about the overall outlook for 2026.
It’s easy to see why. The deck is stacked, with upcoming titles such as Universal and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters,” Disney’s live-action “Moana,” Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”
In a propitious sign, presales for “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man” have already shown massive demand. Overall, there’s just more and varied movies in theaters now, which expands the pool of potential moviegoers, theater owners have said.
Take A24’s “Backrooms” or Focus Features’ “Obsession,” for instance. The two original and digital-native films shocked the industry by keeping a weeks-long grip on the box office, largely by attracting Gen Z audiences who were familiar with the 20-something directors from their followings on YouTube.
Beyond these two, as well as Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day,” many of this summer’s films continue established franchises.
Although not all spinoffs have performed this year — including Disney and Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which saw ticket sales drop sharply after its late May opening — “Toy Story” has remained a consistent force in theaters over the decades.
Disney and Pixar executives credit the films’ focus on character relationships, particularly that of Tom Hanks’ Woody and Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear. And as the franchise spanned years, its appeal became generational.
“Having parents now that say, ‘I grew up with ‘Toy Story,’ and now I’m showing my kids,’ has been really gratifying,” Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter told me by phone a week before the movie’s opening.
“Toy Story” is now the most-watched franchise on the Disney+ streaming service, with more than 2 billion hours streamed. And its beloved characters have spawned 19 theme park rides, four themed lands, two hotels and roughly $1 billion a year in global retail sales.
That has no doubt kept the franchise front and center for both adults and children, as well as fueling interest in future stories.
Stuff We Wrote
Film shoots
Number of the week
The FIFA World Cup has been a major boost for broadcasters, as an average of 6 million viewers tuned in to Fox and cable network FS1 for the first 16 group stage matches, an increase of 128% compared with the last World Cup in 2022, according to Nielsen data released last week.
On Spanish language network Telemundo, which is owned by Comcast, the first 12 group stage matches drew an average of 7.5 million viewers, up 234% from four years ago. (The Telemundo telecasts are also streamed on Peacock.)
I was in the Bay Area last week on vacation and didn’t watch many of the games, but I did catch my colleague Clara Harter’s great read about the mutual love and respect between fans of Mexico and South Korea and how that has played out in Los Angeles.
What I’m watching
Since I was out of town last week, I didn’t watch a ton of TV. But I did make time to watch the series finale of “The Way Home,” a quirky time-travel drama on Hallmark that I’ve followed for all four seasons.
I’m a big fan of time-travel stories (The “Back to the Future” trilogy is one of my favorites), so the usual past-future questions, plus the complicated family dynamics anchored by matriarch Andie MacDowell, made this a must-watch for me. The series finale was a satisfying ending, though there are definitely some loose strings that deserve further exploration.
Barry Manilow has told the story behind his first big hit so many times that I had no intention of bringing up the half-century-old “Mandy” when I sat down with the singer on a recent afternoon at his home in Palm Springs. Among the questions I did ask was how he ended up recording the song that opens his new album, and the answer — as it’s so often been throughout Manilow’s career, beginning with that 1975 chart-topper — was Clive Davis.
“It was all Clive,” Manilow said of “Once Before I Go,” the Peter Allen/Dean Pitchford number that leads off his just-released “What a Time” LP. Davis, the star-making record executive with the so-called golden ears, had been urging him to record the song for years, Manilow told me, which inevitably brought him back to the well-rehearsed tale of “Mandy” — to Davis’ decision that Manilow’s debut for his Arista label lacked a breakout smash and to his suggestion that the singer cut a version of a modest hit called “Brandy” by Scott English.
“So I went in the studio and did it trying to sound like that guy,” Manilow recalled, stomping his foot to approximate a lumbering rock beat. “Clive came in and said, ‘That’s terrible.’ I said, ‘I know it’s terrible.’ But in order to learn the song, I’d slowed it down and changed the key — I found the love song hiding in ‘Brandy,’” Manilow continued. (He also changed the title to avoid any confusion with Looking Glass’ “Brandy,” which had recently reached No. 1.) Manilow played the tune in his more romantic style for the exec. “I’ll never forget it — Clive said, ‘Just do that.’ And that was the record.” He laughed.
“He’s a kind of a genius.”
Davis, who died Monday at age 94, didn’t sing or play an instrument. “I knew nothing about music,” he once said, looking back at his entry into the record business. Yet his instincts made him one of the surest spotters and nurturers of talent in pop history, with a long — and varied — line of success stories that included Manilow, Janis Joplin, Neil Diamond, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson and Maroon 5, among many others. He even helped the Grateful Dead score a Top 10 single with “Touch of Grey” in 1987.
Davis, who got his start in Columbia Records’ legal department, could identify original voices and seemed to intuit which songs were likely to become hits. Sometimes the hits came from the voices themselves, as in the case of Bruce Springsteen, whom Davis cajoled into writing “Blinded by the Light” for his Columbia debut; sometimes the exec match-made performers and composers, as in the case of “Mandy” or “Freeway of Love,” a zippy Narada Michael Walden jam that launched Franklin’s comeback in the mid-1980s.
A natty dresser with a cosmopolitan air, Davis founded Arista in 1974 after he was fired from Columbia (where he’d ascended to the presidency) amid an embezzlement scandal of which he was later cleared. In 2000, he was ousted from Arista in a corporate shakeup — just months after the label won eight Grammy Awards with Carlos Santana’s 15-times-platinum “Supernatural” LP — then launched a new label, J Records, which scored an immediate blockbuster with Keys’ “Songs in A Minor.”
Clive Davis at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2020.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Wherever he worked, Davis’ goal was shepherding hits that spanned formats and generations; he delighted in projects like “Smooth,” the inescapable Santana single pairing the rock guitarist and Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty, and a series of Great American Songbook albums by the once-scruffy Rod Stewart. He might also have been the music industry’s biggest believer in ballads, at least among suits: Between 1985 and 1992, Houston alone released almost a dozen of music’s all-timers, including “Saving All My Love for You,” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and — perhaps the greatest pop ballad ever recorded — her take on Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” (It wasn’t a huge hit, but listen to Houston and Jermaine Jackson’s pedal-steel-drenched “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” from Houston’s debut, for an early instance of that crossover ambition.)
One of relatively few nonperformers inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Davis brought his flair for variety to the party he threw at the Beverly Hilton every year on the night before the Grammys — a famously hot ticket that drew A-list celebs from the worlds of music and Hollywood as well as business and politics. You could always count on the exec to have persuaded some number of the year’s splashiest new acts to perform; this year’s bash, in January, had Sombr, Olivia Dean and the women of “KPop Demon Hunters.” But my favorite part of the show was always seeing which veteran Davis had tapped to mix it up with the youngsters — Diamond or Manilow, for instance, or Johnny Mathis, who absolutely killed in 2015.
Davis horrified many in 2012 when he opted to proceed with his party just hours after Houston was found dead in a hotel room at the Beverly Hilton. In the years after the singer’s death, Davis drew criticism for taking too much credit for Houston’s artistic achievements; to some, he became a symbol of the music industry’s efforts to tone down Houston’s Blackness in order to reach white audiences. Five years ago, I asked Warwick, who was Houston’s cousin, whether she’d taken on any kind of consulting role on “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” the 2022 Whitney biopic that Davis produced.
Bobby Brown, from left, Whitney Houston and Clive Davis in New York in 1998.
(Stuart Ramson / AP)
“Not one thing,” she told me. “I want them to let Whitney rest in peace. Leave her alone. Ten years [since she died] — it’s time to let her sleep.” (In a statement Monday, Warwick called Davis her “dear friend” and said she “can think of no other record man that seemed to have that magical ability to know a hit when he heard a song.”)
I spoke with Davis many times over the years and was always struck by his enthusiasm about music and about his recall of events from decades ago. In 2017, I interviewed the exec alongside Mathis and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds about a record the three made together that had Mathis singing newish pop songs like Adele’s “Hello” and Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” — a concept Manilow told me in March he and Davis had been talking about replicating. After my story ran, Davis emailed me and said he’d enjoyed the piece, which had a couple of lines about Davis’ tendency to go overboard hyping his projects.
“Yes, a few of your bites required a personal Band-Aid,” he wrote, “but I did appreciate your perspective of the Mathis album’s quality.”
He knew the music was good; Clive Davis always knew when the music was good.
For my 50th birthday, I bought a Toyota Corolla. Wait. Is my midlife crisis car really a Corolla, the best selling and most boring model of all time?
Well, yes. And no.
I have “modded” it, or in layman’s terms, modified the stock components and tuned the engine. This is not your aunt’s Corolla. When I hit the gas, the car pulls hard and the engine buzzes as if it’s powered by a hive of killer bees.
I get thumbs-ups from Mustang drivers and cool head nods from Challenger owners. My favorite is when kids at red lights ask me to rev the engine like I’m F1 driver Lewis Hamilton.
Probably a lot of my drive-by admirers are fans of the movie “The Fast and the Furious,” which was released 25 years ago this month. Fans of modified Japanese import cars, like me, have a love-hate relationship with the $7 billion “Fast and Furious” franchise. On one hand, the movies helped popularize modified Japanese cars. People all over the world fell in love with them and the import car culture they publicized.
On the other hand, the movies left out so, so much of the story.
In Southern California in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, people lived, for the most part, phone-free. The internet was nascent — a repository for flyers and ’zines — and most websites looked like Tetris.
The fashion was baggy everything for guys and short shorts, midriffs and little backpacks for girls. The hair was outrageous. And the cars, especially Japanese import cars, had reached the pinnacle of automotive engineering.
During this era, I was in college at UCLA. I saved up and bought a red 1989 Honda CRX Si. It also had a slick five-speed manual transmission, peppy engine and nimble steering. That car got me to work and through college, and from the mountains of California to the border of Oregon. It probably helped me get girlfriends. It consoled me through breakups. It helped me move to the San Francisco Bay Area for my first grown-up job.
And then, stupidly, I sold it, and all the precious memories it carried.
Now when I hit a loopy freeway interchange at night and my GR Corolla carves through the turns, it’s 1996 and I’m cruising in my CRX, getting pho in San Gabriel or rushing to a flyer party at Naga in Long Beach. That’s the magic of certain cars. A regular car takes you from place to place. A special car takes you back in time.
To be completely honest, I bought the CRX to fit in.
The ’90s import car scene was as diverse as Southern California. But there’s no doubt it started with Asian Americans (specifically Japanese Americans in the South Bay city of Gardena) who were influenced by modified car culture in Japan. Soon, Asian American kids all over the region were taking their inexpensive, underpowered four-cylinder, front-wheel-drive Honda Civics (our parents preferred Japanese reliability over American muscle) and turning them into street rockets.
Not only were they building race cars from scratch, they were also building one of my first experiences with a collective Asian American identity: one that wasn’t overtly about politics and activism, or immigration and assimilation. It was about Asian American joy. It was Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese Americans building cool-looking, fast cars. It was kids stereotyped as nerds going to parties where the awful stereotype of Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles” was shredded into rubber and obliterated by exhaust blasts.
At the time, the Asian Americans we saw in the mainstream media were negligible or offensive, especially for Vietnamese Americans like me. But in import car culture, I saw, for maybe the first time, Asian guys and Asian girls in a centered and even glamorous light.
We made our own cars and our own car shows. We raced each other and then got fast (with turbos, superchargers and nitrous oxide) and raced others. And we won. We published our own magazines, built our own automotive businesses and, for good and bad, promoted our own outlaw street racer image and our own beauty standard. In those 1990s clubs and car shows, you could see and feel that Asian Americans weren’t assimilating culture. We were creating it.
“The Fast and the Furious” picked up on that. Based on a 1998 Vibe magazine article about street racing import cars in New York, the film was transplanted to Southern California. But it got so many details glaringly wrong. Its street races looked like street raves on major, four-wide roads packed with pedestrians. The races of our scene were clandestine, underground events in industrial, under-policed areas, where cars faced off two at a time.
But the most egregious and inexcusable Hollywood crime to me is that “The Fast and the Furious” whitewashed Asian Americans, the creators of this world, out of starring roles. The Korean American actor Rick Yune appears in the movie, sure — but he plays the villain, Johnny Tran, a guy who hates Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto for a crime deal gone bad (understandable) and for sleeping with his sister (ditto). Of course, in a tradition that goes back to “Madame Butterfly” and “Miss Saigon,” Tran dies at the end, shot dead by the blond-haired, blue-eyed hero, Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner.
A few months ago, seeking a mechanic to mod my Corolla, I was referred to an auto shop in Garden Grove aka Little Saigon. The guy who sent me asked me, “Do you even know who’s working on your car?”
“No,” I replied.
He told me the name, and I Googled it.
Apparently, back in the ’90s, this Vietnamese American mechanic from Orange County had one of the fastest Honda Civics in the world. A true OG of the import car scene modified my car with his own hands. What an honor, and what a connection to the past.
This import car story ends in a full poetic justice circle. As a pioneer and legend of the real-life import car scene, my mechanic wasn’t the villain. He was the hero. He was the fastest, and his car was the most furious.
That’s the heart of my GR Corolla journey. Asian Americans created import car culture. We all deserve to be the hero of our own story.
“Toy Story 5,” the latest installment to one of Disney Pixar’s longest-running franchises, topped the box office this weekend.
The tech-fueled tale, led by fan favorite characters Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie, earned $160 million for its opening weekend at the domestic box office and a global total of $312 million, according to Rentrak Data. The animated feature now holds the biggest box office opening of the year, further signaling what could be a massive summer for theaters.
“Toy Story 5” features the original cast, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear and Joan Cusack as Jessie. The story follows the beloved band of toys as they grapple with the introduction of technology into their home, with a tablet named Lilypad. The production budget for “Toy Story 5” is about $150 million to $200 million, and a crew of about 300 people worked on the film at Pixar’s Emeryville, Calif., headquarters.
“Tech versus toys is a very easy concept for families and parents to grasp. Every family goes through that to some degree,” said Andrew Cripps, head of theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios.
With the successes of “Inside Out 2” and “Zootopia 2,” sequels have proved to be dependable releases for Disney and Pixar in recent years. But “Toy Story” has been a steadfast juggernaut for the entertainment giant. This new release marks a new debut weekend record for the 31-year-long franchise, beating the nearly $121-million opening of 2019’s “Toy Story 4.” The original opened with $29 million in 1995, 1999’s “Toy Story 2” hit $57 million, and the third installment from 2010 received $110 million.
“The franchise is just so big,” Cripps added. “It’s in the theme parks. The consumer products keep it alive. It’s been 31 years with five movies, so it’s not like it’s overstayed its welcome. They’re very good at Pixar. They tell a story when they have a story worthwhile telling, and it feels like this one was worthwhile.”
Across the franchise’s lifetime, “Toy Story” has grossed more than $3 billion worldwide. The new movie also landed the second-highest animated opening weekend of all-time, behind only “Incredibles 2,” which earned $182 million.
With this uptick, there’s a chance the box office could climb back to pre-pandemic numbers. The 2026 box office is tracking 1.1% behind the summer of 2019 and 16% ahead of last year, according to Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Rentrak data.
“The industry’s on a roll,” Dergarabedian said. “There’s some unpredictable things that have happened so far this year, with the holdover strength of ‘Project Hail Mary,’ ‘Michael’ and ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2.’ Their worldwide grosses are incredibly impressive. It’s a phenomenon.”
“Toy Story 5” is just the first of several theatrical tentpoles hitting the big screen later this summer. Rentrak predicts this could be another $4-billion summer season domestically, following in the steps of the 2023 “Barbenheimer” summer.
Two of the biggest box-office standouts of 2026 so far were not made by established studio directors or built on franchise IP.
“Obsession” and “Backrooms” — horror films from internet-native directors in their 20s — have outperformed far more expensive studio releases.
The breakout success of these films has ignited debate across Hollywood about what made these movies so popular, especially among Gen Z moviegoers who haven’t been flocking to cinemas in recent years. Here’s what to know:
The numbers
”Obsession” was directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, who got his start on YouTube with sketch comedy and horror shorts. Released May 15 by Focus Features, the film was made for just $750,000 but opened to a staggering $17 million and has improved on its debut every weekend since.
“Obsession” set an all-time horror record for the biggest fourth weekend for a film at the domestic box office, raking in $25.4 million. It now ranks as the year’s fifth most popular film, nearing $200 million domestically and roughly $295 million worldwide — ahead of Pixar’s “Hoppers” ($166 million) and Paramount’s “Scream 7” ($121 million), per Box Office Mojo.
Released May 29 by A24 (known for such acclaimed films as “Moonlight” and Everything Everywhere All at Once”) on a reported $10-million budget, it opened to $81 million and crossed $100 million in under a week.
Within two and a half weeks, it had outgrossed the entire theatrical runs of horror films “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” “Smile” and “Scream 7.” It sits as 2026’s eighth-highest-grossing film.
Who is watching?
The audiences are young. In recent weeks, nearly 90% of “Backrooms’” viewers were under 35, with more than half under 25. Over “Obsession’s” first few weekends, 75% of the audience was 17 to 34, which is significant at a time when major studios have struggled to consistently get younger viewers to trek to the multiplex.
Why it’s working
Audiences have clearly latched onto the stories, said Jason Blum of Blumhouse–Atomic Monster, who worked on both films.
“There’s been an audience kind of waiting to get back to the movie theaters, and we in Hollywood really have not landed on what would get them back,” he told The Times in an interview this week.
Blum, who upended horror genre with the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, ties the success of “Backrooms” and “Obsession” to a connection to the directors’ origins.
Because the films were made by creators who speak to younger viewers daily on YouTube, he said, that generation “feels like they’re being spoken to.”
David Gross, an analyst at FranchiseRe, framed it as a new pipeline of talent and material. Creators can build large followings very inexpensively, he said, and their stories arrive further developed — which expedites the development and discovery process. He called internet-based storytelling “another additive source for material for movies.” Blum added that the films’ success could make studios more willing to bet on undiscovered directors who “might not have been considered” before.
Rosie Ramirez, chief marketing officer at Galaxy Theatres, said a young first-wave audience tends to generate buzz. More than a month after “Obsession” was released, she said, the Nevada chain’s four California locations are only now seeing a second wave of moviegoers curious about the hype.
Whether this marks a lasting shift or a fluke is unclear. May crossed $1 billion in box office — with “Backrooms” and “Obsession” doing much of the heavy lifting. Despite the improvement, the box office has yet to full return to pre-pandemic levels, with the summer tracking roughly 3.5% behind summer 2019, said Comscore’s Paul Dergarabedian.
And Dergarabedian questioned how the industry could replicate a success that, in his words, was “authentically and organically created” rather than manufactured: “It just happened,” he said.
Ramirez argued the broader summer slate — franchise tentpoles like “Toy Story 5” alongside some original surprises — points to a healthy box office regardless, a reminder that “it doesn’t always have to be the big summer blockbuster.”
The Italian prime minister has accused Trump of making up a story that she ‘begged’ him for a photo at the G7 summit in France.
Published On 19 Jun 202619 Jun 2026
A diplomatic row between United States President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has escalated, with Italy’s top diplomat cancelling an upcoming visit to the US.
At issue is Trump’s claim that Meloni “begged” him for a photograph during the Group of Seven (G7) meeting in France earlier in the week.
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“She’s probably happy I talked to her. I didn’t have to talk to her,” Trump reportedly told the Italian La7 network. The broadcaster only published a dubbed Italian version of the interview, not the original English version.
“She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her.”
On Friday, Meloni posted a video answering Trump’s statement, saying that “certain things deserve an immediate response”.
“Donald Trump’s statements are completely fabricated. I am frankly stunned,” she said. “I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way toward his own allies. After all, this isn’t the first time this has happened.”
The head of a far-right party who campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform, Meloni had long been seen as one of Trump’s most supportive counterparts in Europe.
She had met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate following his 2024 election victory and attended his inauguration in January 2025.
However, the pair have diverged during Trump’s second term over several issues, including support for Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, the US-Israeli war with Iran, Trump’s threats to seize the Danish territory of Greenland and his criticism of Pope Leo.
In her video, Meloni said it was a “shame” Trump did not show “the same resolve toward the enemies of the West, toward the enemies of the United States” as he did in his statements against her.
She accused the US president of being “much more accommodating” to foes than allies.
“But there’s one thing he must remember: Italy and I do not beg,” she said.
Shortly after Meloni posted the video, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he was cancelling a weekend trip to the US, where he was scheduled to attend a business forum in Miami, Florida and meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
He called Trump’s reported statements “serious and offensive”. Several other government officials also weighed in.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio suggested Trump’s remarks besmirched the legacy of the US soldiers who died during World War II.
“The thousands of crosses marking the graves of American soldiers who died to free us from Nazi-Fascist dictatorship did not deserve such a painful blow to our fraternal ties,” Nordio posted on X.
Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said he did not believe Meloni would ever beg for a photo, “not even under threat”.
“Jokes of this kind do no good to anyone: neither to the USA, nor to Italy, nor to the alliance,” he said.
The White House did not immediately respond to Meloni’s comments.
Woody and Buzz realise there’s a new enemy in the toy boxCredit: APBonnie’s parents buy her a Lilypad – a kid-friendly tablet that she can ‘connect’ with other children onCredit: PA
IT’S more than 30 years since the first Toy Storyfilm changed the way we look at the contents of an old toy box.
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And it might seem that after four films — and a pretty dire Buzz Lightyear spin-off in 2022 — that the story of toys could have been packed up and put in the loft for ever.
But, no. There’s always room for another play.
And Woody, Buzz and their motley crew realise there’s a new enemy sucking the imagination out of their beloved children’s minds: Technology.
The film focuses on good old rootin’-tootin’ Cowgirl Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack), who is favoured by her owner, Bonnie.
The kid loves nothing more than playing games where Jessie and Buzz Lightyear get hitched.
Sadly, the neighbourhood kids don’t want to join in with Bonnie. In fact, they laugh at her suggestions.
When Jessie goes on a mission to persuade them otherwise, she watches as they all sit staring at devices, like little zombies.
“That’s not playing!” she exclaims. “They’re not even looking up.”
In a misguided act of kindness, Bonnie’s parents buy her a Lilypad (Greta Lee) — a kid-friendly tablet that she can use to “connect” with other children. And, as you can imagine, this does the opposite.
Bonnie becomes addicted to the screen, while shunning her toys, losing her imagination and getting cyber-bullied by the girls in her class.
So, it becomes Jessie and the crew’s job to get her away from the screen and the misery it brings. Which, as any parent will know, is a near impossible task.
There is also another story running alongside it involving a shipment of new Buzz Lightyears trying to find their way to a star.
At the same time, Woody has to be brought into the pack as he’s living on the outside with the rebellious Bo Peep.
The brilliant dynamic between competitive pals Woody and Buzz is hugely missed here — as is Randy Newman’s superb theme tune, You’ve Got A Friend In Me.
This time, Taylor Swift’s original song, I Knew It, I Knew You, is played at the credits.
And Jessie’s relentless energy also becomes a little grating.
However, it’s great to see the gang back together on the big screen, and this outing has enough entertainment and imagination to make sure you won’t check your phone throughout.
EFFI O BLAENAU
(15) 90mins
★★★★★
Leisa Gwenllian as Effi in Effi O BlaenauCredit: Unknown
THIS hard-hitting drama is adapted from Gary Owen’s one-woman play Iphigenia In Splott, which transforms his doomed Greek tragedy character into a working-class woman.
Effi (Leisa Gwenllian) has a bleak life, spending her days drinking vodka from a mug with her mates and eating Pot Noodles in a grim house in the Welsh valleys.
Her joy comes from club nights in Llandudno, where she meets handsome soldier Lee (Tom Rhys Harries) and the pair have a passionate one-night stand.
After he ghosts her, Effi discovers she’s pregnant.
But in the poorly maintained hospital in the poverty-stricken area, an NHS maternity care horror story then changes her life forever.
This Welsh-language film is a breathtaking work by director Marc Evans.
It strikes the perfect balance of grit and heart to make the subject matter compelling.
Gwenllian’s performance as the unpredictable and broken Effi is a masterclass in how to make an initially unlikeable character be- come someone you want to throw your arms around and care for.
FAMILIAR TOUCH
(12) 90mins
★★★☆☆
Kathleen Chalfant as RuthCredit: Alamy Stock Photo
IN her debut feature film, director Sarah Friedland brings to life a moving story about a woman with dementia who is placed in a retirement community.
We meet clever, stylish Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant) as she’s making a delicious meal with immaculate precision. Yet at one point, she pops a piece of toast on to the dish-drying rack.
Her son then arrives – whose name she needs a reminder of – and she wonders about his profession and acts as though they may be on a date.
But he is there to take her to an assisted-living home.
Ruth has significant short-term memory loss, though she can still reel off the recipes with precision.
She enters with little protest, apart from telling the carer, in front of her son, that she never wanted children.
Chalfant’s performance is brilliant and has none of the clichés of the elderly.
Ruth is still a sassy, flirty woman who really knows her own mind even though it is betraying her.
This gentle film has a slow pace and the long, silent scenes often ask a lot of the audience – and there’s no rush in unravelling the story.
But its subtle characterisation makes it compelling and somehow uplifting.
FILM NEWS
THE Shrek 5 trailer is out, with the film set for release in a year.
ANYA Taylor-Joy joins the cast of The Lord Of The Rings: The Hunt For Gollum.
A THIRD Jump Street film is in the works, starring Channing Tatum, Ice Cube and Jonah Hill.
Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie will be back at the box office this weekend, delivering what could be the biggest film debut of the year.
Analysts expect the fifth installment of Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story” franchise will pull in at least $150 million in the U.S. and Canada, with some predicting as much as $175 million — either of which would set a franchise record, topping the nearly $121-million opening of 2019’s “Toy Story 4.”
A strong showing for “Toy Story 5” will further fuel a recovery of the box office this year from the post-pandemic doldrums.
Domestic ticket sales are up over last year, and Roth Capital Partners forecasts the second quarter will climb 6.5% to $2.8 billion — a post-pandemic high.
“Toy Story 5” is the first of several family tentpoles this summer, ahead of Universal and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters” and Disney’s live-action “Moana.”
“Right now we’re on pace for the best opening of the year,” said Daniel Loria, editorial director at Box Office Co. “This is a performer.”
The timing also is fortuitous for Walt Disney Co. at a moment when its other once-reliable franchises such as “Star Wars” and Marvel have faltered. The recent “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” dropped sharply at the domestic box office after its late-May opening, bested by low-budget horror films “Backrooms” and “Obsession.”
“People love these characters from ‘Toy Story,’ ” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore. “It’s just as appealing as ever.”
Indeed, across four films and 30 years, “Toy Story” has grossed more than $3 billion worldwide. It is the most-watched franchise on Disney+, with more than 2 billion hours streamed. Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie have spawned 19 theme park rides, four themed lands, two hotels and roughly $1 billion a year in global retail sales.
The production budget for “Toy Story 5” is about $150 million to $200 million. A crew of about 300 people worked on the film at Pixar’s Emeryville, Calif., headquarters.
For Pixar, the reliance on “Toy Story” reflects a shift away from originals that used to be its lifeblood.
February’s “Hoppers” managed a respectable $372 million worldwide, but the surer money now comes from sequels.
“Inside Out 2” grossed nearly $1.7 billion in 2024, and both “Toy Story 4” and “Toy Story 3” crossed $1 billion globally.
Still, the franchise label is no guarantee: The 2022 spin-off “Lightyear” stalled at $226 million worldwide after straying from the formula, recasting Buzz as an actual sci-fi hero — voiced by Chris Evans rather than Tim Allen — and sidelining Woody and the rest of the gang.
“Toy Story 5” stays closer to home but wades into new territory: the explosion of tech in everyday life. The toys must contend with Lilypad, a tablet that captures the attention of their owner, Bonnie — a premise that grew out of a tech-toy character originally written for “Toy Story 4” and scrapped for time. Disney is betting the underlying tension is universal.
“What parent hasn’t had anxiety over tech versus toys with their kids?” said Andrew Cripps, head of theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios.
Disney is betting that this universal concern will drive audiences to the film.
The fifth installment also arrives with an unusually high-wattage assist: Taylor Swift wrote and performed an original song, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” and made a surprise appearance at last week’s premiere, performing it after the credits before joining longtime franchise composer Randy Newman for “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
“It means the world to me to be a small part of the universe of these films,” Swift told the crowd.
The expected blockbuster opening for “Toy Story 5” would be a full-circle moment for the long-standing franchise; Pixar animators in 1995 hadn’t even considered the possibility of a sequel while working on the first “Toy Story.”
“There was so much learned on that first film, specifically our iterative process,” Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter said in a phone call last week from Madrid, shortly before the film’s Spain premiere. “A lot of things that we discovered having worked on that film have just continued to inform every movie that we make.”
“Toy Story” revolutionized the movie business as the first computer-animated feature film. But its enduring appeal was in the bonds between the characters, Docter said.
Docter, who supervised animators and helped with character design and writing on the original “Toy Story,” added: “It certainly had some new technology, but it was really up to the story and characters to carry the audience.”
The franchise’s longevity is also due to its ability to capture generations of fans.
“Having parents now that say, ‘I grew up with “Toy Story,” and now I’m showing my kids,’ has been really gratifying,” Docter said.
Woody and Buzz realise there’s a new enemy in the toy boxCredit: AP
IT’S been over 30 years since Disney’s Pixar changed the way we all look at the contents of an old toy box forever, with the creation of 1995’s Toy Story.
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And it might seem that after four films – and a pretty dire Buzz Lightyear spin-off in 2022 – that the story of toys might have been packed up and put in the loft forever.
But, no. There’s always room for another play.
And Woody, Buzz and their motley crew realise there’s a new enemy sucking the imagination out of their beloved children’s minds: technology.
This film focuses on rootin’-tootin’ Cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), who is favoured by her owner, Bonnie.
The kid loves nothing more than playing games where Jessie and Buzz Lightyear get hitched.
Sadly, the neighbourhood kids don’t want to join in with Bonnie. In fact, they laugh at her suggestions.
And when Jessie goes on a mission to persuade them otherwise, she watches as they all sit staring at devices, like little zombies.
“That’s not playing!” she exclaims. “They’re not even looking up.” In a misguided act of kindness, Bonnie’s parents buy her a Lilypad (Greta Lee) – a kid-friendly tablet that she can ‘connect’ with other children on.
Bonnie’s parents buy her a Lilypad – a kid-friendly tablet that she can ‘connect’ with other children onCredit: PAThe film also features a shipment of new Buzz Lightyears trying to find their way to a starCredit: AP
And, as you can imagine, this does the opposite – making Bonnie addicted to the screen – while shunning her toys, losing her imagination and becoming gently cyber-bullied by the girls in her class.
So, it becomes Jessie and the crew’s job to get her away from the screen and the misery it brings. Which, as any parent will know, is a near impossible task.
There is also another story running alongside it involving a shipment of new Buzz Lightyears trying to find their way to a star.
Also, Woody has to be brought into the pack as he’s still living on the outside with the rebellious Bo Peep.
These multiple storylines make Toy Story 5 disjointed in places, and while plenty of fresh ideas are shown, it keeps repeating the idea of kids growing out of playing with toys.
The brilliant dynamic between the competitive pals Woody and Buzz is missed – as is Randy Newman’s superb theme tune You’ve Got a Friend in Me (this time Taylor Swift’s original song “I Knew It, I Knew You” is played at the credits).
And Jessie’s relentless energy becomes a little grating.
However, it’s great to see the gang back on the big screen – and it has enough entertainment, imagination and heart to make sure you won’t check your phone throughout.
NEW YORK — A nationwide network of charitable foundations is encouraging its members to emphasize their positive contributions to American life, a 250th anniversary campaign aimed at quelling what it calls the “greater intensity” of scrutiny felt from the federal government and populist movements.
Popular notions of philanthropy as merely a game for the ultrawealthy to fund partisan projects and commit fraud have left the sector vulnerable to political attacks, as the Council on Foundations sees it, influencing policies that hamper essential community services. The advocacy group, which represents about 1,000 nonprofits, hopes to overcome what CEO Kathleen Enright calls the sector’s “perception gap” with its “Generosity Builds” campaign, launched Monday.
Enright believes most Americans don’t recognize their reliance on the charitable sector. Just about 1 in 20 adults said they or anyone in their immediate family received nonprofit services in the past year, according to a 2023 Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy report.
“This week, I got an MRI at Georgetown University Hospital, I participated in my church at St. Columba’s, my daughter was inducted into National Junior Honor Society. Four or five nonprofits have been instrumental in my life this week,” she said. “Folks just aren’t putting that tag on it.”
And that tag is growing increasingly important, Enright said. Last year, negotiations over President Trump’s tax and spending bill included proposals to levy new taxes on private foundations that Enright said would have taken resources from communities if they made it into the final law.
The battle over defining what nonprofits actually do has recently been amplified from the highest rungs of the Trump administration, which has upended decades of partnerships built with nonprofits. Trump froze, cut or threatened a sweeping range of social service grants characterized by the White House as “government largesse that’s often riddled with corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse.” More recently, the Department of Justice charged the Southern Poverty Law Center — a civil rights nonprofit accused by Republicans of targeting conservatives in its work tracking extremists — with defrauding donors through payments to informants.
Vice President JD Vance described the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the Harvard University endowment as “cancers on American society” back as a 2021 U.S. Senate candidate, telling Tucker Carlson that “we are actively subsidizing the people who are destroying this country and they call it a charity.”
“All across our country, we have nonprofits — big foundations — that are effectively social-justice hedge funds,” he said in a talk that year on “woke capital.”
Narratives about nonprofits being “overly politicized” or wasteful are “extreme minority stories” that don’t reflect how philanthropy operates, according to Enright.
Across many surveys, trust in the nonprofit sector has remained higher than most others. But its impact is sometimes difficult to measure and explain. The sector hasn’t faced an environment this challenging in almost six decades, according to Kathryn Thomas, the vice president of communications for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan.
She cited the congressional effort to increases taxes on foundations’ investment incomes and acknowledged the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts.
“In an era when everything is under partisan attack and there’s so much polarization, we really have to do a better job of emphasizing why we exist,” Thomas said.
Enright said the story of philanthropy is not one where a rich person “saves the day.” She sees growing concerns about billionaires’ influence fueling suspicion about philanthropists’ motivations. Some argue the charitable sector allows moneyed interests to decide how tax dollars are spent rather than elected officials.
The campaign will emphasize that most donors “have just a little bit more than they need and therefore want to give back,” she said, especially at the local level.
“Money does not solve problems. It’s a tool that creative people and institutions inside communities use to solve problems,” she said. “The real heroes of most of these stories are nonprofit leaders, religious leaders, civic leaders who just roll up their sleeves and get something done — but do it with some financial underpinning by charitable foundations.”
That’s the story told by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation in Sarasota, Florida. A 10-apartment affordable housing complex for military veterans opened last year with the foundation’s support.
The area has an “embarrassingly high” number of veterans without housing, according to Jon Thaxton, the foundation’s director of policy and advocacy. Many are priced out in Sarasota, increasingly a luxury destination with high real estate prices.
Local donors had been trying to build a similar project when they approached the foundation in 2020 for help. Thaxton secured land already vested for affordable housing, corralled $2.2 million in donations, got $800,000 from the city and won the backing of their U.S. representatives.
The foundation’s leaders believe their track record made that possible. Phillip Lanham, the president and CEO, noted the project was completed across multiple election cycles and a pandemic, suggesting that community foundations are well situated to “play the long game.”
“Most people think that foundations like us deal with money and donors. We really don’t. We deal with relationships and trust,” Thaxton said. “That’s our commodity. That’s what we earn. That’s what we save. And that’s what we contribute back to the community.”
The Council on Foundations will also elevate examples of early, ordinary philanthropists as part of its case for philanthropy as an integral “part of the American story.” Enright credited a formerly enslaved man with donating land in North Carolina that became an African Methodist Episcopal church that endures as a pillar of the local community.
Lillian Kuri, the president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation, welcomed the focus on everyday philanthropists. The Cleveland Foundation is considered the first community foundation, established in 1914 by lawyer Frederick Harris Goff as a way to fund durable change in the city.
The foundation aims to find new ways to expand today’s tent of philanthropists dedicated to improving their surrounding areas. It announced new investments this week in a fund dedicated to turn vacant industrial land into job-ready work sites. They’ve also launched a fund that allows donors to invest in major Northeast Ohio companies, supporting local business growth while that money increases into a sizable amount that can be donated to nonprofits.
“Generosity cuts across everybody,” she said, adding that community foundations offer “a way for everyday people — not just the largest, wealthiest people — to participate in the change they want to see in their communities.”
“The Listeners,” which premieres Friday on Starz, began unusually as a story written by Jordan Tannahill as the basis of Missy Mazzoli‘s 2022 opera, also called “The Listeners” (libretto by Royce Vavrek), which he turned into a 2021 novel, which became a 2024 BBC television series, also written by Tannahill. Starz has cut its original four episodes into five, which means that they end in odd places, but given its controlled, glacial pace, shorter might be better.
Tannahill’s inspiration is an unexplained phenomenon reported in the real world — though exactly how real it is is open to interpretation — generally called “the hum,” where people experience a low but persistent background noise inaudible to others. (It isn’t tinnitus, or any diagnosable medical condition.) One such sufferer is Claire (Rebecca Hall), a high school literature teacher with a husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah) and a teenage daughter, Ashley (Mia Tharia), with whom she gets along well. We begin on an up note, Claire and Ashley singing along to Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight” as they drive to school (she also has Nick Drake on her phone). And then the 1970s British folk rock gives way to a less pleasant auditory landscape, as the hum appears, bringing on headaches and nosebleeds and affecting her concentration and mood, her work and family.
Any condition can be isolating from those who don’t share it, and Claire gets some relief when she’s approached by a student, Kyle (Ollie West), who also hears it. They go investigating possible sources of the sound — wind turbines, a radio telescope — and wind up eventually at something like a support group for hum-hearers run by Omar (Amr Waked) and Jo (Gayle Rankin). There is some sketchiness in their past, including a changed identity, and they like to keep the group on a tight rein, but the breathing exercises and visualizations seem pretty standard, and more benign than, say Scientology, and the suggestion that one may tame an affliction by embracing it is pretty reasonable. Claire’s mistake here is not to get a signed parental permission slip, as it were, or enlist a chaperone, and her growing closeness with Kyle (not romantic, not sexual we are assured) will cause them trouble, cost Claire her job and mess up her marriage. She makes some insufficiently careful decisions, but those around her tend to overreact. This is very much a story about listening and not listening.
Directed by Janicza Bravo and photographed with great intention by Jody Lee Lipes, it has the studied look and tempo of a 20th-century art film. (It is always great to look at.) I was reminded of Antonioni’s “Red Desert” and Bergman’s “Persona,” psychological studies of women going to pieces, but also, thematically, of Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” with its characters driven to what looks like madness by private bulletins from the ether, pushing them away from family and toward others who are getting the same message. No aliens here — not a spoiler — though I might have liked that ending more than this, which in its own way seems to drop from space.
You can look for metaphors and social comment here — there are references to conspiracy theories and industrial noise pollution and such — but it seems to me to operate most effectively as a beautifully rendered mood piece and character study, and, certainly in the case of Hall, whose story this is, a platform for some exquisitely subtle acting.
While the smoke has begun to clear at “60 Minutes” after three correspondents were fired, CBS News leadership now faces the challenge of finding journalists who can fill their shoes just three months before a new season starts.
The venerable news magazine was plunged into crisis last week as longtime correspondent Scott Pelley confronted management about the May 28 firings of his colleagues Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega along with the program’s executive producer Tanya Simon and her second-in-command Draggan Mihailovich.
Pelley, who also accused CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss of “murdering” the program, was terminated June 2 after a 37-year career at the network. He later gave an interview to The New York Times, accusing Weiss of “putting her thumb on the scale” for the Trump administration when guiding the editorial direction of stories.
(CBS News denied Pelley’s accusations. But Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, who has given Weiss a free hand in disrupting the CBS News hierarchy, found the turbulent situation concerning enough to personally reach out to veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, according to The New York Times. He assured Stahl the program would not be subject to political interference, a message she passed along to the staff.)
Lesley Stahl in the 2022 film “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On.”
(A24)
The recent personnel bloodbath followed the already announced departure of Anderson Cooper, and leaves CBS News with four correspondent roles to fill and a far less experienced executive producer — former tech journalist Nick Bilton in place to keep the program on track.
Remaining staffers were encouraged that Maria Gavrilovic, a 19-year veteran of CBS News who worked closely with Pelley, was promoted to senior producer under Bilton. They are also relieved that correspondents Stahl, Jon Wertheim and Bill Whitaker chose to remain with the program rather than leave in solidarity with Pelley.
Norah O’Donnell’s interview with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in 2021.
But “60 Minutes” is under pressure to get a new team in place as newcomers will have little time to learn the program’s formula that gives it the comforting consistency its viewers seek. The 13-minute pieces on “60 Minutes” are filmed, written and voice-tracked in a distinctive narrative style that takes time to master, according to people who have gone through the process.
Weiss has told people internally that “60 Minutes” is the most important platform within the news division and if a major story comes from outside its corps of correspondents, it will find a place on the program.
Here are the leading contenders for full-time roles based on interviews with several sources at CBS News who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. A CBS News representative declined comment.
Holly Williams: Williams has been a foreign correspondent working out of Istanbul since 2012. The Australian journalist has reported extensively from war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza and Ukraine. When covering Syria’s civil war from inside the country, she and her team gained access to a prison where alleged ISIS terrorists were being held.
Williams has contributed reports to “60 Minutes” over the years. Before joining CBS, she was a Beijing-based correspondent for Sky News.
CBS News foreign correspondent Holly Williams,
(Michele Crowe / CBS News)
Tony Dokoupil: The anchor of “CBS Evening News” is expected to be added as a contributor to “60 Minutes,” a role also given to his predecessors at the newscast including Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Scott Pelley and Norah O’Donnell.
Dokoupil has done longer interviews and segments for “CBS Sunday Morning” over his 11 years at the network. The additional exposure to a Sunday night audience of more than 9 million who tune into “60 Minutes” could also help boost his nightly newscast. The program has struggled in the ratings since he took over in January when, during his inaugural week, he awkwardly saluted Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the close of one episode.
“CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil and the network’s chief national correspondent Matt Gutman.
(CBS News)
Matt Gutman: The network’s national correspondent was Weiss’ first significant on-air talent hire when he joined from ABC News in December. Gutman has been a frequent presence on big stories and breaking coverage for “CBS Evening News” since he arrived.
Mariana van Zeller at the Ultimate Disney Fan Event at the Anaheim Convention Center in September 2022.
(Image Group LA / Walt Disney Co.)
Mariana van Zeller: The multilingual journalist is best known for her documentary series “Trafficked,” which airs on the National Geographic Channel. Van Zeller, 50, has won dozens of awards for the program that has taken her around the world to report on black market activities and human trafficking.
Norah O’Donnell: Currently a contributor to “60 Minutes” who already appears on the program’s trademark open, O’Donnell’s role is expected to expand. After CBS settled a $16-million lawsuit filed by President Trump against the program for what he claimed was deceptive editing of an interview, O’Donnell helped the program by stepping up to interview the president twice, subjecting him to tough questions. Her recent joint interview with three U.S. cardinals about Pope Leo XIV and his church’s opposition to the Iran war and Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown became a major story in April.
Major Garrett: The network’s chief Washington correspondent recently appeared on “60 Minutes” to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The assignment caused internal tension as Stahl was pursuing a sit-down with the leader. But Weiss handled the booking and gave Netanyahu the option to select Garrett.
While the decision faced some criticism, the program regularly agreed to former President Obama’s preference for now-retired “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft to interview him even though other journalists on the team wanted a chance.
Tomorrow marks the start of Emmy nominations voting, and we’re marking the occasion with with not one but two issues this week.which means twices as many series, and stories, to catch up with. So let’s get to it!
Cover stories
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
It’s rare for an awards roundtable to spark a real debate, but the thoughtful group of actors to appear on our 2026 Emmy Drama Roundtable — Katherine LaNasa (The Pitt”), Billy Magnussen (“The Audacity”), Zahn McClarnon (“Dark Winds”), Tom Pelphrey (“Task”), Michelle Pfeiffer (“The Madison”) and Karolina Wydra (“Pluribus”) — captured my attention with their layered conversation about runaway production.
Considering the economic boon Hollywood has brought to popular shooting locales like Atlanta and New Mexico, the dire consequences for the L.A. film industry and the increasing threat from production zones overseas, the group didn’t agree on one diagnosis, much less solution, to the problem. But in their conversation, these top names in the industry all showed deep concern about what such changes mean for showbiz’s shrinking middle class. “Our crew doesn’t get to go — the people that we know that we need, that we work with, that we make these things with,” as Pelphrey acknowledged. “We get to go wherever the f— we want, actors, directors, but the crew doesn’t.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
For the guests on our 2026 Emmy Limited Series/TV Movie Roundtable — which included Jamie Bell (“Half Man”), Linda Cardellini (“DTF St. Louis”), Camila Morrone (“Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen”), Michael Peña (“All Her Fault”), Andrew Rannells (“Miss You, Love You”) and Constance Zimmer (“Love Story”) — there’s no predicting which performances will resonate with viewers — or when.
The 2002 live-action adaptation of “Scooby-Doo,” in which Cardellini starred as Velma, has taken on cult status since its premiere, and enjoyed a revival of interest as a new Netflix version announced the cast. Rannells (“Girls”) and Zimmer (“Entourage”) have each seen their roles in epochal HBO comedies revisited by younger generations, who are often viewing the series through a very different lens. Peña, whose comedic flatulence on an “Eastbound & Down” blooper reel is now a viral meme, even wonders if he’ll be remembered for that over more serious fare like “Crash” and “World Trade Center.”
“Is that going to be your In Memoriam thing?” Rannells jokes.
At least Peña, laughing, takes it in stride: “Can you imagine?”
Digital cover: ‘The Boys’
(Bexx Francois / For The Times)
There’s plenty to chew on in contributor Max Gao’s digital cover story on Prime Video’s twisted superhero satire after the conclusion of five gloriously gory seasons, but my personal favorite feature may be the sidebar of memorable from key cast members. Chace Crawford’s on-set snacks of choice? Check. Jack Quaid’s surprising craftiness? Also check. Karen Fukuhara’s struggles with nausea? Ditto. If you are already missing “The Boys” and want to re-live it vicariously through some of its central figures, be sure to read the full piece, which already includes creator Eric Kripke and actors Laz Alonso and Erin Moriarty.
The mayor is in
(Ebru Yildiz/For The Times)
Speaking of double duty, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys showcases his range this season in two very different performances, last fall as a real estate scion suspected of killing his wife in Netflix’s “The Beast in Me” and right now as the put-upon mayor of a possibly cursed island town in Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay.” One man is menacing, the other faintly absurd, but Rhys embraces the challenges of each role with aplomb — in particular, his physical comedy in the latter has gotten several big laughs out of me.
As contributor Emma Fraser reveals in her interview with Rhys, though, there is one stage direction capable of sending a chill up his spine: dance. “That still makes me shudder,” he says of a line-dancing scene in “The Americans” from 8 years ago. Let’s hope Widow’s Bay doesn’t have an underground swing dancing club.
Earth Wind & Fire’s “September,” with its nonsensical phrase “ba-dee-ya,” has been streamed more than 2.3 billion times on Spotify, more than the band’s next five songs combined (including “Let’s Groove,” “Boogie Wonderland” and “Shining Star”).
With networks and streamers seeking to create compelling content, many have found the answer in true stories. But with the surge in documentaries, it can be hard to sift through what’s worth your time. Each month, we provide an inside look at a documentary and others you should add to your queue.
But he also explores, in depth, the complexities of the band’s central figure, Maurice White. A self-affirming visionary who wanted to bring hope to people, White mixed journaling with talk of spaceships and metaphysics. However, he was also traumatized by a childhood in which his mother moved to Chicago for more opportunities, leaving White in Memphis, where he was once brutally beaten by white policemen. Those scars created a man who was a distant father and equally remote with his band members at the peak, mistreating them with casual disdain until everything fell apart.
Questlove recently spoke by video call about the film, now streaming on HBO Max, which features interviews with family, surviving band members, childhood friend Booker T. Jones and a couple of fans named Barack and Michelle Obama. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to this story?
In 2020, I was DJing on the internet, live streaming and I was DJing to calm people down from thinking they’re going to die in the apocalypse. One day I did an Earth, Wind & Fire set and when I got to the fourth hour, I thought, “Yo, is this one of the most relentlessly positive groups of all time?”
I started researching the lyrics and realized this band tricked us into positivity, like getting us to eat our vegetables. I started wondering how a band like that got past the velvet rope and realized that none of it was by accident, it was all by design. Their music was so good and you start singing the lyrics and there’s an osmosis effect of positivity that gets you.
When I started this in 2023, I had a spooky feeling that the turmoil of 2020 was going to visit us again, so I thought people would want something to watch that will help them plant seeds of what to do.
Maurice White, the band’s central figure.
(Henry Diltz / HBO)
You save “September” to the end. Was it so people would see the band was more than their biggest hit or to send audiences off humming and happy?
It’s an unlikely legacy song. They have so many meaningful songs like “Shining Star,” while “September” is a leftover that was a filler song from a greatest hits album that became a career-defining song.
Initially, I was coming out the gate with “September,” just, “Let’s get this out the way.”
It took a while. Early on the Obamas weren’t part of the project. I interviewed them the morning after the 2024 elections; they were so professional and so in the moment and also helped us process the day.
We’d never gotten to see them sit next to each other and be playful and dance. And I didn’t say, “OK, let’s see how you move, dance for 12 seconds,” I was just playing something and they started dancing and the camera happened to be running.
But they put the song in context. In 2009, they said, “What’s the statement we want to make to America to show this is a new era at the White House?” And Earth, Wind & Fire was chosen to be one of the bands at the inauguration and it was that song. So my producer said, “Now we can treat ‘September’ like an encore.” We used that story to show how that song grew on its own organically.
White is a complicated guy. Was it challenging to balance everything in your narrative?
Oftentimes Black artists are seen as caricatures or one-dimensional. It’s easy to do the gotcha of “You’re so positive and metaphysical, what about this or that?” My goal is always to find a human element that you see yourself in. In Maurice’s case with his career, he did drink the Kool-Aid. But his personal life stemmed from not ever forgiving his mother for leaving him behind when he was little. When we hold anger and other emotions in, when we refuse to talk to our partners or friends — and you want people to read your minds — that’s when it becomes a problem. But I wanted to show that in a way where I don’t spell it all out. Hopefully people will make the connection of the importance of dreaming and planning and affirmations but also the importance of letting things go, like forgiving people.
Ali Louis Bourzgui scored an upset win for performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical for originating the role of David in the musical adaptation of the cult vampire horror film, “The Lost Boys.”
As viewers scrambled to keep their score cards straight — André De Shields was favored to take the trophy for his work in “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” — the 26-year-old Bourzgui went on to deliver the night’s most impassioned, and pointedly political speech.
He began by noting that, “Vampires represent those who have shunned their own humanity in order to achieve a non-existent sense of superiority. The billionaires will never find happiness from their money. The colonizers will never find fulfillment from the land and lives they steal. The fascists will never find meaning from their conformity, not in this lifetime or eternity.”
Through the cheers of an invigorated audience, Bourzgui went on to talk about how “theater is one of the last places people can come to worship the power of true collective human presence.”
At its best, he said, theater helps us see ourselves in a stranger’s story.
“This is dedicated to the beautiful tapestry of immigrant families who make this country really special. May you one day not have to audition for the empathy that should be freely given by this country that benefits from your beauty, for the queer and trans communities who will exist, no matter what people in power try to take away from them.”
Bourzgui, whose father immigrated to America from Morocco, went on to pay tribute to Palestine and his own Arab heritage.
“For the people of Palestine, who deserve a free life, a full life without occupation, for Arabs and their makers and artists, may we continue to tell our stories and show our faces. Our humanity becomes undeniable, and our families can no longer be written off as merely collateral damage, may they know the beauty of our kisses upon his cheek and the romance of a language rooted in passion for love and life itself.”
He wrapped up this speech with a plea for love and empathy.
“If there’s one thing we can learn from vampires, it’s that life is short, but that’s it’s a gift. Find beauty in the ephemeral and gratitude in what is not promised, and always invest in the people that want to see you blossom into your truest self, and hold that space for them in return.”
In this week’s episode of The Envelope podcast, “Love Story” stars Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon open up about inhabiting John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette — and creating a cultural moment of their own.
Kelvin Washington: Welcome to the next episode of The Envelope, Kelvin Washington alongside Yvonne Villarreal; we got Mark Olsen as usual. And so you, my friend, had a chance to speak with stars of “Love Story” — Ryan Murphy, of course, tackling love with this. So it got me thinking, give me some real-life love stories that you’d like to see portrayed, maybe next season. Some love stories you always found interesting.
Villarreal: This one doesn’t have a tragic ending, and that’s why I want it. And that is Ina and Jeffrey Garten. “Barefoot Contessa”!
Olsen: I didn’t know that there was a great romance in her life.
Villarreal: Mark. You’ve never heard of Jeffrey? You don’t know Ina and Jeffrey. OK, this is why we need it. That man adores Ina and anything that she makes. Chicken, anything. This is a love story I need to see get the full display. I’ve read it in her book, but I need —
Olsen: So like “Julie & Julia.” Julia Child and her husband.
Villarreal: But cuter, sweeter, more adoring.
Washington: Loving the food theme here.
Villarreal: She’ll make anything and he thinks it’s delicious, and she laughs at everything he says, and I just want more of it, and I’m very curious what a Ryan Murphy take on Ina and Jeffrey would be.
Olsen: But see, that’s the thing. A Ryan Murphy take on that would ruin it for you.
Washington: That would be dramatic and spicy. Salacious.
Villarreal: Nothing could ruin it for me.
Washington: You got one?
Villarreal: Yeah, what’s yours?
Olsen: Well, I have two. One is because the sort of the ’90s vibes of “Love Story.” So you would obviously do Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. And that one would be very exciting and dramatic and very ’90s-ish. But I think for more of a torn-from-the-headlines [version], Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Villarreal: It’s too current.
Olsen: That’s why though.
Villarreal: How about you?
Washington: So I’m gonna stay with your ’90s. Instead of the pop grunge. I’m going to go R&B pop. I’m going to go Bobby and Whitney.
Olsen: I mean, that’s gold right there.
Washington: I’m just saying. You got love, you got fame, you got tragedy. You’ve got stuff that we didn’t know about behind the scenes.
Villarreal: Maybe he could hire us as head writers for each of these seasons and we can all have our say.
Washington: We can all have our own season. So as I mentioned, Yvonne, you had a chance to sit down with Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon of “Love Story.” How’d that chat go?
Villarreal: They play John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, respectively, and it sort of looks at this seven-year tumultuous relationship and what they both endured navigating the spotlight and what that did to them, how they each felt about it. So it was interesting to get the take from Paul and Sarah about how they’re also navigating the spotlight, because I feel like social media fame is quite different than what John and Carolyn were navigating back then. And I was curious to see what it was like for them. So yeah, it was an interesting conversation.
Washington: All right, let’s get into that conversation now.
Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly, the breakout stars of FX’s “Love Story.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Villarreal: I imagine doing this series has been a sort of singular experience. What do you want to remember about this moment that you’re in?
Kelly: All of it’s so fun, it’s exciting. It’s definitely, for me, a new muscle that I’m learning to use and explore and stretch and flex. And I get to hang out with her a little bit more. It was wonderful.
Pidgeon: I think it’s just really hard to contextualize what this [is] — [to Kelly] I don’t know if you feel this way too — because there hasn’t been a ton of space from even the show having all the episodes come out. I don’t think I totally understand how this fits into the story of my life. I recognize that we’re experiencing something very exciting. And I think I speak for both of us that we feel really grateful and so honored to have taken on these roles and that it’s resonated and has excited people. But being out and about in New York and someone stops you and says, like, “Are you that girl from that show?” … When you’re making something, it can feel so insular. I remember when I started, I had a freak out sort of midway through like, “Oh, this is actually going to come out. It’s not just about the making of it. People will see it.” I had a huge heat rash. [To Kelly] Remember when we were in Hyannis Port? I just haven’t totally had that perspective. It’s just been very full-on in the most exciting, lovely, happy way.
Kelly: It’s all unfolded in succession. There’s been no period of time to really process. I can’t believe I did it, still. It’s out and it’s exactly the same thing … people are like, “Hey, you’re the guy in that thing, right?” I’m like, “Yeah.”
Villarreal: Has it happened in an awkward way?
Kelly: No, no, it’s all been overwhelmingly positive. I guess that’s best-case scenario, but I still try to walk around with a mustache and glasses and a hat and they’re still like, “Hey …!”
Villarreal: You didn’t try to go to the [JFK Jr.] look-alike contest in New York?
Kelly: Oh, my gosh, no.
Pidgeon: He would have won. That wouldn’t have been fair.
Kelly: It’s too many people. I got the show, so I think I already won.
Villarreal: A big theme of the series is exploring the heavy ramifications of fame on privacy. And aside from the great opportunities that come with doing the press or other things that come along with this, what has it been like adjusting your life to this experience?
Pidgeon: That idea was on both of our minds when we were filming. And we were filming in New York, so apart from the scenes and subject material we were exploring, we actually experienced it in real life as well. You have even more characters in a scene when you’re shooting on the streets of Tribeca and people stop and watch. And there was a lot of interest from the public while we were filming. I’ve been marinating on that idea. Maybe not marinating, but meditating. [Or] a little bit of both. Through our characterization of Carolyn and John, I think we felt those extremes. I haven’t felt anywhere close to that. But I don’t know about you [Kelly], but I feel like I’ve been quite busy going different places, coming on podcasts and things like that where my downtime hasn’t really been spent walking the streets so much. It’s been kind of going home and taking a shower and going to sleep.
Kelly: Same. I haven’t really had much time to go out and just be in the public, which I think has been kind of a gift. I recently had a child, so I have no time between the show and being dad. It’s been really great to live within that little privacy bubble I have at the moment. I’m going to New York for the first time in a little while tomorrow.
Villarreal: Has living in their story made you more conscious of what types of boundaries you do want to set?
Kelly: Absolutely. That was a really great gift of the show. And exploring the exponential setting of what privacy means to people, certainly those two individuals. But now I’ve adopted that within my own life, and it’s like, “OK, yeah, I like to be a private person.”
Villarreal: What about you, Sarah?
Pidgeon: So much, at least for Carolyn, was she was constantly battling this sense of how she was being perceived. And I really admire her ability, whether or not she felt the pressure [to do so] — she never spoke on the record and never had to correct the record despite, in my mind, a lot of those allegations being false in the stories about her. That sense of sort of self-possession is quite admirable and, again, this is so new for the both of us. Being able to embody her, that approach and attitude towards it, is something that’s quite interesting to me. And I mean, it definitely has a lot of self-restraint attached to it, so who knows if I possess that as well.
Villarreal: The love story between John and Carolyn, as well as their fateful flight, generated a lot of media attention. And I know you, Sarah, were a toddler, at the time of their deaths; and you, Paul, were a young boy — and you’re a Canadian. What was your image of them in terms of the lore that surrounded them before making the series?
Kelly: Growing up in Canada, I was familiar with who he was. I became even more familiar with them after living in the States for a while. I was a model before, and I had been told I looked like him, so after being told that, you kind of do a little bit of research. Who is this guy? And I was like, “I don’t look anything like JFK.” But then I realized [they meant] JFK Jr. “OK, maybe; yeah, I do look like him a little bit.” So I became more aware of them after that. But growing up, it definitely wasn’t in my cultural zeitgeist, whatever you want to call it.
Pidgeon: I knew that Carolyn worked at Calvin Klein. I knew they were married. I knew their story. I was such a young child when they passed, but they remained so in the cultural conversation because, especially in 1999, they represented such hope in politics. And they’re such a modern couple, sort of breaking the rules of what those norms are, especially coming from such a storied family that has such legacy in the States.
Villarreal: There’s an overwhelming amount of source material from the Kennedy side, but less so on Carolyn. What proved to be most useful to you? What were the things that you turned to to study or figure out who she was?
Pidgeon: That was such a mystery. [I was] taking these still photographs, mainly paparazzi images — and now that I’ve had a few photos taken of myself, you hold yourself differently when you know someone’s taking a photo of you that you also don’t know. That plus videos of her, very few in which she was speaking. And some of the candid photos, mainly from when she was younger. I sort of laid those on top of each other and then used as many books that I could find and interviews that people would give who knew her. But there’s scarcity in terms of that information. That at times felt arresting, but at other times … there’s a lot of freedom in that. And I think that’s what was so interesting about playing this character that is so well known and yet very enigmatic. Finding her walk and thinking about how that changes over the course of nine episodes and six-and-a-half, seven years. How this woman with so much freedom and anonymity — 26 years old, living in New York City, barreling down these streets in the East Village — then changes when she’s the most photographed woman in America. How that perception changes you physically.
Villarreal: Her walk was very striking for me, because I’m like, I can’t move that way.
Pidgeon: Yes you can. You can get a pair of Manolos.
Villarreal: It won’t look as elegant as you, Sarah, but talk to me about finding that walk because, like you said, it shifts from when the onslaught happens. Did you work with a movement coach? Was that all you?
Pidgeon: Julia Crockett is so incredible. There’s not enough hours in the day to sing her praises. We started with a lot of what I just mentioned, the quotes that people said of how she moved. She spoke with her hands. She could be a fast walker — most people who live in New York are. If there was a video of what I was doing in these hotel rooms, they’d think I was absolutely crazy. Rolling around on the floor, isolating different parts of my body, making it as dramatic as possible, and working it into a circle of attention that felt real. And understanding we were both 5-10, which helps. I think tall women carry themselves in a certain way. But understanding that my body is still my body, and our production I don’t think was particularly interested in doing huge physical transformations in terms of prosthetics or things like that. But getting the shoes, walking around in my spare time in New York in heels, which Carolyn does in the show and Sarah Pidgeon does not. That really changes you and it changes how you feel. And just always having that through line of, “What were the touchstones of Carolyn as a young woman, and where did I want her to end up physically?” You can see it through so many different versions in these different photographs — her hair changes, how she dresses changes, the red lip. I [was] always remembering that there was a journey that I was going on: “How can the world close in on her? What does that feel like?” Also, not only putting it into my body first, but feeling it in my body, imagining that. And what are the images that come up? We thought about [her as a] mossy ball; very tactile, just rolling down these hallways in the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.
Villarreal: Paul, you had about three weeks from when you got cast and when production started. And there’s ample stuff to sift through. How did you figure your way out through the noise? What was the thing that really helped you lock in to who he was?
Kelly: He narrates his father’s book, “Profiles in Courage,” and that for me was a great asset. I had to learn how to use my tongue in a different way than I’ve ever spoken before. His speech patterns are different. I worked with a dialect coach. I would listen to that all day, every day — amongst ’90s alt music, some Nine Inch Nails and stuff because that’s what John would do.
Villarreal: Was that what he was into?
Kelly: I think so. One of my favorite photos of him is a candid photo, and he’s wearing a Nine Inch Nails shirt. I’m like, “My guy! Here we go. I can relate.” I watched a lot of his interviews just to see how he kept his cool and composure. He was a very relaxed individual under extreme stress situations. The Larry King interview was a great one; I relied on [it] a lot. I also looked at a lot of images and saw how he moved through the world. I was a model before so I’m pretty good at understanding how my body moves and how to move it; I also worked with Julia pretty briefly, but she gave me some really great tips and I took those throughout the entire duration of filming and just ran with it.
Villarreal: Are you someone that takes bike as your transportation often?
Kelly: Oh yeah. Four wheels moves the body, two wheels moves the soul.
Villarreal: How is it doing it with the suit on?
Kelly: It’s hot.
Pidgeon: Yeah, you did a lot of that in July during a heat wave.
Kelly: Oh, my gosh, when we started filming, the first scene where John is introduced on the bicycle, we shot that on a Sunday and it was like 103 degrees outside and I’m in a ’90s wool suit. It was great … And a hat. And a backpack. There’s a photo where there’s several hands coming at me with fans and spritzer.
Villarreal: How about finding John and Carolyn together? What did that look like for the two of you, figuring out who they were as a couple?
Kelly: I feel like it happened organically. We had like this unspoken bond and trust with each other from the moment we met and it was just like, “OK, we both understand the assignment.” Then we get to step into these shoes and we understand what that was like, I guess, but just going through it together [helped]. It’s also so well written and it is easy to fall into that. It’s very easy to fall in love with this one every day and then fight.
Pidgeon: Oh, you flatter me.
Villarreal: Because you both were so young at the time that they were a couple, were there modern-day couples of your generation that you looked to in terms of how they dealt with the spotlight? Was there someone you were looking to, to help you understand it?
Pidgeon: I think they were pretty singular, especially considering so much of how we view them as a couple was the time in which they existed. I don’t think I can really point to a couple … obviously there’s a comparison with [Princess] Diana, but I can’t really I put my finger on a couple that had the same essence of John and Carolyn, or the same challenges and obstacles of being a couple in public life. [To Kelly] Can you think of anyone?
Kelly: Not really, no.
Pidgeon: It was also that we were coming in on this advent of paparazzi. Obviously coming from such an important family, there was — and I want to speak for you [Kelly] in terms of how you felt about your characterization of JFK Jr. — but there was so much investment in them as a couple because America, and really the world, had watched him grow up. So of course there is this heightened interest in who America’s son marries. And again, that hope that they were this modern couple, one that we’ve never seen before, and what will they become in this new millennium? In terms of finding them together, what was so wonderful about the writing of the show was they were — granted, it happened in about three or four episodes [for the show’s purposes] — but as we were getting to know each other, so were Carolyn and John. They were falling in love with each other and figuring out what that dynamic was and having those misfirings and miscommunications and moments of intensity and questioning. The amount of times I’ve used the word “meta” while talking about the experience of making this show, that sort of mirrored life in a way. I was able to just absolutely give over to Paul and trust him and be excited working with him every single day and be so curious about who John and Carolyn were that day on set. No one better than Paul Anthony Kelly.
Kelly: Oh, you flatter me.
Villarreal: There are a lot of scenes that are stuff that we’ll never know whether they actually happened. But then there are the moments that were played out in tabloids — one of them is the Bryant Park episode. What can you tell me about what that was like shooting on the streets of New York? What do you remember about that experience?
Kelly: What was it, the Nextdoor app called?
Pidgeon: Citizen.
Kelly: The Citizen app. They called it [a] “domestic dispute” … so we were obviously doing our job correctly. It was interesting. Shooting in New York is a very interesting experience because you have all these outliers just watching and gawking. Everyone’s got phones and cameras and what have you. And we’re so in it and doing it and then to have like this blowup argument over and over and again, take after take, angle after angle.
Pidgeon: I wonder if someone reported us just to be like, “Make it stop!”
Kelly: Yeah, exactly. Nobody tried to save you in the moment. Maybe that was them trying to save you [by posting it in the app].
Pidgeon: That was always something to contend with or accept, really, at a certain point. This is an expectation of working in the city. And what I really liked about that scene was that — considering there was such little videography of her, especially because that was a private moment that was unfortunately caught on tape — they both had less inhibitions. I found it [to be] a really amazing exercise as an actor to finally be able to really take something and mimic it exactly and find how the words that Connor [Hines] had written [aligned with it]; it felt like such a great sign when it felt the writing really matched what I physically knew to be true. Because our interest in the story is what happens behind closed doors, as you said. But in those few moments that we did re-create, the real-life [moments], it felt very reassuring as an actor to feel like the words that we were speaking matched the physical footage. I just found it such an exciting way to go about it, to have it really be this outside-in approach. You take this physicality and vocal pattern that I had developed as Carolyn, but then really have some proof for that to be the jumping-off point. I love that we had that scene; we had when they take their first photo after their wedding; we had, in Episode 9, the [Newman’s Own/George Awards] event. Remember that clip that we watched? We’re in the exact same outfits, and I think it’s the Newman’s Own event. I always appreciated those moments. It felt like a different way in to a character that I had really started to get to know at that point.
Villarreal: Whenever I watch something based on a true story or people that were like historical figures, I can’t help but Google to see if something really happened. Is there something you Googled in the process of making the show where you were like, “Did this really happen?”
Pidgeon: There’s a bit of speculation as to how they met. There’s a couple of different stories. Considering this couple was so well known, the fact that there’s still a mystery into how they even met for the first time I think is quite interesting.
Villarreal: I Googled — and I will say I clearly am not the only one that thought this because there was a whole story of it — “Did they really eat KFC chicken?”
Pidgeon: They did.
Kelly: Fine dining.
Pidgeon: You didn’t eat any chicken.
Kelly: Noooo. I got secondhand chicken. That chicken, oh my gosh.
Pidgeon: They did warm it up a bit, but it was pretty cold, you know.
Villarreal: We can’t talk about this show without talking about the wardrobe, the costumes. It’s such a key piece to the storytelling here. Tell me about that collaboration and what the clothes said to you about who Carolyn is and then who John is.
Pidgeon: Yes, clothes are incredibly important to the story and to how most of the public knows and remembers Carolyn. Working with Rudy Mance was so incredible. What he was able to source, while we’re not necessarily sure if they were pieces that Carolyn herself wore, they were the exact pieces of the exact same collection. The very few pieces we weren’t able to source, they were impeccably re-created. Just the attention to detail, I had never really experienced something like that. It was just really watching a master at work, and the rest of our crew as well; not a detail was ever overlooked. The mystery that we really tried to solve in the beginning was: Wow, there’s so many photos of her [from] ’95, ’96 and beyond; there are far fewer photos of what she looked like when she was working at Calvin Klein. And we’re in that space and that time for quite a while. From the photos that we do have of her living in this time in her life, and then how we know she will dress, what are the through lines? What are the pieces she repeats? I don’t think I wore much Prada in the first two, three episodes, which makes sense, because she was just starting out at Calvin Klein. We [had her wear] a lot of Calvin pieces. What was so insightful to playing her was her sartorial choices and her understanding of how, especially since she never spoke on the record, [and] what she can communicate through fashion and how in those initial fittings, even before I really spoke the words of those episodes, how it immediately changed how I held myself as Carolyn was growing and getting older. I keep referencing this quote about Yohji Yamamoto, a designer whom she wore frequently. He liked making the association with his clothing to armor. I just thought that was such a great way into her sort of mental state and how she approached clothing. It was very her, she wore the clothes. That was something that I had to remember, that if I was going to try and embody her, I had [to] feel like I was wearing the clothes because that’s what really stuck out. You always saw her first, despite her wearing some incredibly beautiful clothing. Carolyn was No. 1.
Kelly: John had such great style. Sometimes it was pretty kooky. I also loved that too because it just is such a sense of him. Working with Rudy was a dream. He and his team were incredible. They were able to source so many things. And if they couldn’t find it, it was a direct re-creation, like exact copy of what it was. I remember even just like those shorts with the Knicks logo that he wears playing football. I remember seeing a comment, “John would never wear those.” [Sighs.] “OK, sure.” There’s something about getting into those outfits that it just was this whole other transporting layer of becoming. You hold yourself differently in these things and it just made it feel more real and you’re like, “OK, cool,” and you just live in it and it feels good and you get slouchy and whatever. It was really nice.
Villarreal: How does your style compare? Did they influence your style now?
Kelly: Honestly, it’s a little different, but it’s not that far off. I feel pretty good in a suit. I like to wear suits a lot. I’m the suited heavy metal guy.
Pidgeon: You also have that cool factor about you too. I think there’s something in that with John. He looked great in a suit, he looked great in a tux, but then there was a bit of an edge to him. There was bit of a realness, I think, that you guys share.
Villarreal: Everyone’s trying to emulate it. So many TikToks of people trying to re-create it. Sarah, do you feel like you can never go back to brunette now? Like this is your thing now? You have to stick with it?
Pidgeon: The blond seems to be working. I like being a different hair color. I don’t think I’ll be blond forever. Simply too much time [involved]. It’s so much work. My colorist is amazing — Kari Hill. Cannot sing her praises enough. And Alex Pardoe, who does extensions. It’s been really interesting to find how I [am as a blond] — so much of my time being blond was embodying Carolyn. [Paul and I] would both sleep on the weekends. We wouldn’t do anything while we were shooting. So I didn’t really get a chance to take a walk in this new hair. And when I started dressing again, to go out, I would put on my favorite clothes from when I was brunette. It’s like, “Oh, it just doesn’t hit.” It’s been cool to see how I present and how color theory is crazy. But we’ll see, I guess it depends on how much time I have on my hands.
Villarreal: The series really grapples with the media invasion that swirled around them. What do you say to the critics that feel that a show like this either reignites that craze or contributes to it? What do you want the takeaway of a show like this to be?
Pidgeon: Thinking about one of the first questions you asked — how are we now dealing with with being potentially recognized — I think the intensity of interest in famous people, famous couples, celebrity, actors, musicians, you name it, artists, it’s changed shape, but it has never gone away. Our intention in making this show was, again, what we know about their lived reality, but what can we infer might have happened behind those closed doors. To the general public, [they were] sort of two-dimensional … I knew very little about Carolyn, but I ingested so many photos of her far before this project was ever on my radar. While I recognize this may have contributed to reigniting interest in them, I hope that that interest feels like there’s a more intimate understanding of these people; that they weren’t just figures, that they were people with very full lives, feelings, a profound sense of privacy, intense relation to each other, very, very human. I guess that would be my answer to that. I hope that this is also a bit of a lens or a mirror that, again, if that intensity hasn’t changed, how might we [change it] in the future?
