thing

Wendi McLendon-Covey shared a message to everybody wondering why she missed the “Bridesmaids” reunion at the 2026 Oscars: Don’t worry, she’s fine.

“I had a neck lift last week because I’m tired of looking like a melting candle,” McLendon-Covey wrote in an Instagram post Sunday. “So I had to skip the Academy Awards. No drama. Everything is fine.”

The caption — complete with a winking emoji blowing a kiss — accompanied a photo of the “St. Denis Medical” star wearing a bandage around her face and neck.

McLendon-Covey indicated she had received some messaging asking why she did not take part in the reunion, which saw her “Bridesmaids” co-stars Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Maya Rudolph and Ellie Kemper share the Oscars stage to present the Academy Awards for original score and sound.

Directed by Paul Feig, the 2011 comedy followed the misadventures of a group of bridesmaids led by the maid of honor, Annie, played by Wiig (who also co-wrote the film). McLendon-Covey portrayed the bride’s (Rudolph) cousin, Rita.

“Bridesmaids” stars Melissa McCarthy, left, Rose Byrne, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Ellie Kemper reunited on stage at the 98th Academy Awards.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“I cannot believe it’s been 15 years,” Wiig said when the cast took the stage Sunday. “Now, we are not good with numbers, but we figured out backstage that means we shot this movie in 1883.”

The cast then proceeded with a bit that involved each of them reading notes supposedly written by their fellow actors in the audience, with the name-dropped A-listers playing along.

“First of all, you ladies look extremely beautiful tonight,” said Rudolph, reading the first note. “You’re all aging well.”

The note was supposedly signed by “Sentimental Value” actor and nominee Stellan Skarsgård.

McCarthy later followed up with another letter commenting on the “Bridesmaid” cast’s looks.

“I also agree you ladies look radiant,” McCarthy read. “All the things you’ve done to your faces are very tasteful. Yours truly, Elle Fanning. … Just kidding, it’s me again, Stellan Skarsgård.”

Wiig and Kemper rounded things out by reading notes addressing the length of their bit and the length of the show, respectively.

It started with a Shohei shot.

Ohtani began the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo for Team Japan with a double on the first pitch he saw and then, one inning later, a grand slam … of course he did.

It continued with an espresso shot …

The hitters of lovable Team Italy celebrated home runs with shots of Italian espresso in a dugout dripping with cheek kisses and caffeine.

After hitting three homers against Mexico, Italy’s Vinnie Pasquantino told Fox that he was, “beaned up.”

Truly, this blip of a tournament has been beaned up, a glorious 10 days of deafening cheers and eye-blacked tears, fans dressed like discount popes and bald eagles, TV ratings through the roof, baseball at its October best … in the middle of spring training?

Italy’s Jac Caglianone takes a shot of espresso as he celebrates with teammate Vinnie Pasquantino after hitting a solo home run against the U.S. during the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday in Houston.

(Kenneth Richmond / Getty Images)

What a thing! What a treat!

All hail the WBC, 20 years old and all grown up, its sixth incarnation stealing the stage in a sweet spot during NBA doldrums and before March Madness.

Have you watched any of it? Have you been energized by all of it? It’s been like two weeks of All-Star games, only the players are serious. It’s been like when baseball was part of the Olympics, only the players are all truly the best in the world.

In the middle of the most boring part of the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues, it’s like a Superhero League. Two weeks before opening day, it’s like the final week of a pennant race.

It’s competitive, and it’s crazy, and Friday’s quarterfinals were filled with both.

There was giant Vladimir Guerrero Jr. going airborne to score a run for the Dominican Republic against Korea, and then leaping up and pumping his fist as if he had just won the World Series.

There was Juan Soto flying home to score an inning later, his head-first dive celebrated by Soto doing a swim move in the dugout.

Then there was Team USA’s David Bednar, screaming along with the chanting crowd as he worked out of a seventh-inning jam in a win over Canada.

In a tournament filled with equal parts emotion and edginess, Team USA now plays the Dominican Republic Sunday in Miami in a semifinal that could be the most-watched game of this season before the season starts.

Paul Skenes versus a lineup so deep Julio Rodriguez bats seventh? A team led by Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper versus a team featuring Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr?

Dominican Republic’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. dives past South Korea catcher Park Dong-won to score on a double by Junior Caminero during the World Baseball Classic on Friday in Miami.

(Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

“I expect it to be one of the best games of all time,” said Team USA Manager Mark DeRosa.

No, the WBC isn’t as big as the World Series. One notable player said it’s even bigger.

“The Classic kind of feels above the World Series,” Kiké Hernández told reporters earlier this spring. “Maybe it’s because of what we have on the chest,”

Hernández, who didn’t play for his home country Puerto Rico because he is recovering from elbow surgery, nonetheless showed up in San Juan for the pool-play games.

He was so excited when Puerto Rico beat Panama on a walk-off home run, he texted Dodgers baseball president Andrew Friedman and asked if he could accompany the team to Houston for the knockout round. Friedman of course said yes.

Yes, yes, yes, more, more, more.

Before this spring, I had watched exactly one WBC at-bat. The entire deal felt cheesy and contrived. American players didn’t appear to care. American players would rather lounge through the final days of spring training in occasional games and on countless golf courses

Other countries loved it. Other countries caused a ruckus. The fan experience was highlighted by a memorable and deafening 2009 final at Dodger Stadium featured a Japan victory over South Korea in a game that many observers said was the loudest they ever attended.

Not me. Didn’t care. I pretty much ignored the whole thing until stumbling upon that one at-bat, the final out in the 2023 title game, that stunning dramatic strikeout of Mike Trout by then-Angel teammate Ohtani to give Japan the title.

Ohtani threw his cap and glove in a rare show of emotion, setting off a wild and sincere celebration as my ignorant self finally realized, “Hey, this is a thing.”

Three years later, the American players have agreed, stacking the roster with stars like Judge and Harper, kids like Pete Crow-Armstrong, vets like Kyle Schwarber and Big Dumpers named Cal Raleigh, all transforming this occasional baseball oddity into must-see TV.

You know how one can tell it’s real American baseball? The team spent its first week mired in social media drama and a second-guessing controversy.

American right fielder Aaron Judge celebrates his team’s win over Canada during a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game on Friday in Houston.

(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)

Tarik Skubal, the game’s best pitcher, found himself defending his patriotism after leaving the tournament early to better prepare for his opening day start with the Detroit Tigers.

First, he admitted he was surprised at how bad he felt about abandoning Team USA. That seemed to be a theme in a clubhouse that has been stunned at how much this matters.

“I totally misread how I would feel,” he said.

Then, he seemed genuinely hurt that people think he is turning his back on the flag.

“It’s just not fair,” he told the Athletic, later adding, “If they know me, though, and they know me on a personal level and they know what my peers think of me, I don’t think it’s fair to say those things.”

Also finding himself in hot water was USA manager Mark DeRosa, who nearly allowed his team to be eliminated in pool play because he didn’t know the rules.

When Team USA played Italy on Tuesday night, DeRosa rested most of his starters, nearly used retired Clayton Kershaw and basically managed the game as if he thought they didn’t need to win to guarantee advancement to the next round.

Guess what? They needed to win. But they didn’t win, losing 8-6 in a shocking upset. So they were forced to sweat out the Italy-Mexico game on Wednesday, where another Italian upset allowed them to back into the quarterfinals.

DeRosa claimed he knew the rules all along, which he clearly did not.

Before the game against Italy, in an interview on the MLB Network, he said, “Our ticket’s punched to the quarterfinals.”

After the game, DeRosa claimed he just, “misspoke”

And then Thursday he told the media, “I was well aware that we had to win the game.”

The 16-year journeyman clearly messed up, and then tried to cover up, and here’s guessing even if Team USA wins this tournament, he won’t be managing them in the 2028 Olympics or in any future WBC events.

Seems like the perfect job for Dave Roberts, no?

Meanwhile, one American player had a dissenting view about the status of this tournament, Harper offering a tired argument.

“Obviously, the WBC has been great, but it’s not the Olympics, right?” he told reporters. “That’s no disrespect to the WBC or anything, but everybody knows that when the Olympics are on, everybody’s watching. It doesn’t matter what sport it is; it could be the most random sport, and it’s got all the fans watching it.”

Wrong. Here’s guessing more fans will be watching Sunday night in a matchup for the ages. Then, imagine if Team USA wins and plays Japan on Tuesday night for the championship?

With the sport headed toward a seemingly inevitable work stoppage this winter, this could be the sweet beginnings of a long farewell. Soak it in. Enjoy the buzz. Get all beaned up. March madness indeed.

The 10th season of “Love Is Blind” ventured to Ohio, yielded a record seven engaged couples and made structured cape blazers and the idea of daily Pilates classes feel like rage bait.

With the season over, and just two couples saying “I do,” the cast of the popular Netflix dating series came together for this week’s reunion special to share updates on their lives since the cameras went down — and to unpack the twists, turns and lies that played out over the season. The result was a reunion that finally provided (mostly) satisfying questions and answers about participants’ pasts and presents instead of dancing around topics.

Unable to budget the time for a trip to Cabo — or even Malibu — to process it all, TV editor Maira Garcia and I have brought our running “LIB” thread out of our Slack DMs to unpack our thoughts in this safe place.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our streaming recommendations include a spray-tan crime comedy and a Morgan Freeman-narrated mind trip about the rise and fall of dinosaurs. Plus, we tell you where you can stream the slate of best picture nominees ahead of this Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony.

This is your cue to block off some “couch time” in your calendar this weekend.

— Yvonne Villarreal

Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Will Forte as Martin and D’Arcy Carden as Vicki in a scene from “Sunny Nights.”

(Lisa Tomasetti / Hulu)

“Sunny Nights” (Hulu)

D’Arcy Carden fans, and I can’t imagine anyone who’s ever seen her work isn’t one, will be elated to find her at full force starring in this dark, sometimes violent Australian crime comedy alongside Will Forte, who, yes, has fans of his own. They play brother Martin (cautious) and sister Vicki (impulsive), who have traveled to Sydney to flog a tanning spray at a lifestyle convention, though Martin has an ulterior motive, to win back his wife, Joyce (Ra Chapman). What with one thing and another, they find themselves repeatedly in need of cash and mixed up with a panoply of criminals, some fairly sympathetic (former rugby star Willie Mason, excellent as former rugby star Terry; Jessica De Gouw as Susi), and others not at all (Rachel House as kingpin Mony, just out of the jug). All are trying to change their lives, or at least their business plan, including Joyce, a journalist stuck writing clickbait articles for an editor who doesn’t want to know, and Megan Wilding as Nova, an animal control worker who knows something important about an exploding crocodile. — Robert Lloyd

A still from “The Dinosaurs.”

(Netflix)

“The Dinosaurs” (Netflix)

This four-part series will have you mentioning the Carnian pluvial episode in every conversation. Aptly narrated by Morgan Freeman and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, the sweeping CGI-enhanced nature documentary traces the evolutionary history of dinosaurs, from their origins in the Triassic period to their extinction 66 million years ago. And it’s more proof that attention spans, no matter a person’s age, will always lock in for dinosaurs. Before morning, your Google search history will include terms like “Marasuchus,” “Vulcanodon,” “Heterodontosaurus” and that Carnian pluvial episode (a.k.a. the longest downpour in history, which lasted more than a million years). Prepare to have your perception of time forever altered. Still, it’s a surefire way to give your mental health a break from current events — though, for a certain generation, it may also unlock those “Land Before Time” memories. — Y.V.

Catch up

Everything you need to know about the film or TV series everyone’s talking about

Scenes from “One Battle After Another,” left, “Hamnet” and “Sinners.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures; Focus Features)

The 98th Academy Awards will broadcast Sunday at 4 p.m. Pacific. How many of the best picture nominees have you seen? Is it less than the number of think pieces you’ve read on Timothée Chalamet’s comments on ballet and opera? We’re here to help. If you’re feeling inspired to be a studious viewer ahead of film’s big night, here’s where you can stream the best picture nominees:

• “Bugonia” (Peacock): Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the surreal comedy thriller follows a paranoid bee keeper (Jesse Plemons) who kidnaps a pharmaceutical CEO (Emma Stone), convinced she is an alien responsible for destroying humanity. The film received four Oscar nominations.
• “F1” (Apple TV): From “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski, the sports drama stars Brad Pitt as retired F1 driver Sonny Hayes, who agrees to compete in the globe’s most prestigious racing event to salvage his reputation and the failing team of his buddy. The film received four Oscar nominations.
• “Frankenstein” (Netflix): Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of the classic horror tale transforms Jacob Elordi into the tragic monster, known here as The Creature, and features Oscar Isaac as its titular mad maker. The film received nine Oscar nominations.
• “Hamnet” (Peacock): Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, Chloé Zhao’s historical drama explores the grief, love and strained marriage of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley). The film received eight Oscar nominations.
• “Marty Supreme” (Available to rent or buy on platforms like Prime Video and Apple TV): Directed and co-written by Josh Safdie, the film is loosely based on the life of American table tennis player Marty Reisman, here called Marty Mauser and played by Timothée Chalamet. It is expected to be released on HBO Max later this spring. The film received nine Oscar nominations.
• “One Battle After Another” (HBO Max): Paul Thomas Anderson’s satirical political thriller, a loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland,” follows a paranoid ex-revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) trying to save his daughter when an old enemy (Sean Penn) resurfaces. The film received 13 Oscar nominations.
• “Sentimental Value” (Available to rent or buy on platforms like Prime Video and Apple TV): Joachim Trier’s Norwegian drama follows two sisters (played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) as they reunite with their estranged filmmaker father (Stellan Skarsgard). The film received nine Oscar nominations. It is expected to be released on Hulu later this month.
• “Sinners” (HBO Max): Ryan Coogler’s gothic horror drama is set in 1932 Mississippi and follows twin brothers (played by Michael B. Jordan) who, trying to leave their troubled past behind them, return to their hometown to start anew — only to face new horrors. It became the most-nominated film in Academy Awards history with 16 total nominations.
• “The Secret Agent” (Hulu, Disney+): Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the Brazilian historical political thriller stars Wagner Moura as a former professor fleeing persecution during the 1970s military dictatorship while trying to protect his son. The film received four Oscar nominations.
• “Train Dreams” (Netflix): Based on Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name, the film is an intimate birth-to-death portrait of a quiet railway laborer (Joel Edgerton) as he watches the world change around him. The film received four Oscar nominations.

Break down

Times staffers chew on the pop culture of the moment — love it, hate it or somewhere in between

It’s crazy to think that about six years ago, golden goblets, pods and “the experiment” were disparate ideas and objects that were on the precipice of infiltrating the culture. Now, you can’t think of one without the others. “Love Is Blind,” the reality dating show that tests the premise of whether singles can find love sight unseen and marry at the end, marked a milestone this year with its 10th season, filmed in Ohio.

While the series has produced a number of marriages and engagements, some have ended in breakups and divorce, as we saw on Wednesday’s Season 10 reunion. So while the answer to the question “Is love blind?” seems to be no, the series has nonetheless made for entertaining television for viewers who have made dissecting the people, fights and makeups a sport. Why are we so invested? Because it’s a reflection of where we are as a society when it comes to relationships and what we expect from partners emotionally, politically, physically and financially. With that in mind, Yvonne and I sat down with our golden goblets to unpack the Season 10 reunion. Here are five moments that stood out. — M.G.

Jordan and Amber are now divorced

Jordan Faeth and Amber Morrison were one of two couples to say “I do” at the altar. Morrison, a single mom, discussed with Faeth over the course of the show if he was ready to be a stepparent and where they would live, given that Morrison owned a home and her daughter was happy at her school. At the reunion, the couple revealed that they never moved in together and that they divorced after four months. Morrison talked about how her daughter was distraught after the breakup, leading to an emotional moment where Morrison ran offstage in tears. It raised an important question that fans have debated closely: Should parents be on the show? Seasons 6 and 9 also featured single parents, neither of whom made it to the altar. Given the compressed timeline of when people meet, become engaged and head to the altar, deciding whether marriage should include parenthood at the start adds another layer of complexity, not to mention how it could affect a child, who suddenly has a stranger in their life. The outcome wasn’t necessarily surprising, but it was sad.

Vic and Christine: boring but perfect. More, please

The other couple to make it down the aisle was Vic St. John and Christine Hamilton, who hit it off from the get-go and seemed to exist in their own blissful bubble. According to Netflix production, the show only budgets for six couples to go on a trip after the reveal and engagement. But they continued to track them, with St. John and Hamilton spending time in Malibu instead, taping dispatches together and getting to know each other without the rest of the cast in proximity. Throughout the course of the show, you see their connection grow. Their mature and thoughtful conversations about being an interracial couple and potentially raising biracial children were exactly the type of discussions you would hope they’d have before proceeding down the aisle. It may not make for dramatic TV, but it was genuinely thrilling to see a couple so well-suited for each other continuing to thrive. And in an effort to make up for not getting to go to Cabo, Mexico, with everyone else, the show offered them a trip paid by … Turbo Tax? It was an odd product placement, but if they want to foot the bill for their honeymoon, no one’s complaining. As long as it’s somewhere tropical on a beach — and not Lake Erie.

Who took accountability?

Despite not making it to the altar on screen after the blazer cape breakup, Connor Spies and Bri McNees are still together. But the bigger record-scratch moment arrived later, when it was revealed that Devonta Anderson broke up with Brittany Wicker a few days after what he told her was a work trip but was actually a getaway to Austin, Texas, to attend a concert with McNees, Ashley Carpenter and Priyanka Grandhi. Wicker didn’t seem thrilled that she had to find out about the trip from Amber (who found out from Jordan, who can’t remember that he even knew about it). McNees didn’t like the implication that she may have broken “girl code” with the whole fiasco — but if all the women are as close as they say they are, why wouldn’t you check in about such an arrangement regardless of the relationship status? (It was weird, too, that Connor thought it was a girls’ trip.) And the fact that it was the same three women who listened to Chris Fusco talk poorly about his former fiancée Jess Barrett — giant sigh. During the reunion, after Barrett voiced her disappointment in her friends about that incident, Carpenter apologized for not doing more to defend her in the moment.

Meanwhile, Nick unleashed his best attempt to channel Andy Cohen and grilled Fusco about his highly questionable behavior and the backlash over his comments to Barrett about her body, specifically stating he usually dates women who do Pilates or workout daily, and for trying to make the moves on McNees. Fusco, mostly quiet and stone-faced (could it be the shame?), acknowledged he was not proud of the moments he watched back and apologized to Barrett. His seat mate, goalkeeper Alex Henderson, was also on the defense. The self-proclaimed nomad never fully seem to vibe with his fiancée, Carpenter. He admitted she’s not his usual type. She still maintained he wasn’t telling the whole truth about his job or dating history, and overall lifestyle. Throughout his segment, Henderson was noticeably irritated by the insinuation that his stories didn’t add up. But he did seem to enjoy being asked to describe his relationship with Carpenter as if it was a soccer match, prompting him to cite a Liverpool game that ended in a tie. Are you laughing too?

Can this be a TikTok?

To commemorate the milestone season, the audience for the reunion special consisted of 150 former participants of the series. And while the time spent getting life updates with some of them throughout the show felt less forced and time-consuming than reunions past, it still felt like an add-on better suited to live in a separate (shorter) special or as social media content. If we wanted an update on these people’s lives, we can find them on social media. A gender reveal courtesy of someone’s dead grandmother, as sweet and touching and lovely as that may for an expectant couple, is not the sort of jaw-dropping moment a show like this needs. And maybe the money saved — assuming production footed the bill for those flights — could have sent every couple to Cabo.

Did you hear? Nick Lachey is from Ohio, guys.

His constant mention of his hometown roots was unquestionably the biggest declaration of love in the 90-minute special. Sorry, Vanessa.

ICYMI

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Just in time for the Oscars, Tilly Norwood, and by extension her creator, Eline van der Velden, gave actors at every level an unexpected gift — the chance to breathe a little easier.

AI will not be replacing you any time soon.

On Tuesday, the AI phenomenon known as Tilly debuted a single and music video titled “Take the Lead.” In it, Tilly sings a self-celebratory, pro-AI anthem with the big-eyed feisty longing of an algorithm marked “Disney princess: Big song” while she wanders through increasingly fantastic self-affirming scenarios that scream “Plus ‘Barbie.’”

Van der Velden was clearly trying to persuade actors to embrace the possibilities of AI but like Timothée Chalamet, who managed to prove that opera and ballet have many devoted fans by publicly suggesting the opposite, her attempt will likely backfire. The underlying message of the video, at least to performers, appears to be: Relax — AI hasn’t figured out how to lip sync properly, much less act.

It’s a bit of good news in a time of AI anxiety, some of which was Tilly-induced. Last year, Van der Velden, a Dutch actor and founder of the production company Particle6, debuted Tilly, via Instagram, as the “world’s first AI actress.” Around the time the account hit 50,000 followers, Van der Velden announced that several talent agents were interested in representing Tilly. Not Van der Velden, but Tilly Norwood, a “performer” who did not exist.

For a few minutes, Hollywood lost its collective mind. Not only were creators and performers facing a future in which their work, bodies and faces could be scanned and fed into an algorithm capable of imitating writing styles or creating images of actors doing things they never did (in a recent AI video, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt duke it out on a war-torn rooftop), now some feared they would be competing for jobs with “actors” who could work 24 hours a day, required no health benefits and would never demand bowls of M&Ms with the green ones removed.

SAG-AFTRA, which had just ended a strike caused in part by concerns about AI, protested Tilly and the use of “stolen performances to put actors out of work.” Various actors were outraged and some called for the interested talent agencies to be identified. Even Emily Blunt was publicly disconcerted, begging Hollywood agencies to “please stop taking away our human connection.”

Van der Velden quickly responded, insisting that Tilly was “not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art … a new tool — a new paintbrush.”

Then, on Tuesday, “Tilly” released a music video that seems to argue the exact opposite.

In the video, which appears over the message “Can’t wait to go to the Oscars,” the computer-generated young woman trips through a montage of “famous person moments,” as Tilly insists that she is not a puppet but a star; she encourages all actors to embrace and use AI, to own their creativity and “be free.”

A note prefacing the video states that “18 real humans” were involved in its production (including Van der Velden who is the basis of the performance), who provide the subtext for Tilly warbling: “They say it’s not real, that it’s fake, but I’m a human, make no mistake.”

Whatever Van der Velden and her team hoped to achieve, one thing is very clear: Emily Blunt has nothing to fear from Tilly Norwood.

The questionable merits of the song, performance and production value aside, the video is the best argument yet for why AI “performers” are a limited threat. As Tilly walks the streets of London, poses for selfies, signs autographs, appears on talk shows, performs live in front of enormous audiences, interacts with photographers, we are reminded that Tilly could never do any of this. AI performances are, by their very nature, limited to a screen.

Instagram fame is a real thing and can be monetarily beneficial, just as animated and digitally enhanced characters can connect deeply with audiences. But beyond her ability to raise the spectre of wholly coded “performers” constructed from borrowed bits of humans (which, as anyone who has read or seen “Frankenstein” knows, never ends well), Tilly doesn’t appear to have anything like star power.

And to consider her as existing separate from her creators is like imagining that the ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy could have a career, and an agent, separate from the real performer Edgar Bergen.

Though Charlie did have the advantage of being able to be seen live and in person.

Watching Tilly, one is reminded that the magic of actors is that they are human. Audiences are, after all, human too and whether facing a stage or a screen, we are captivated by certain performers’ ability to bring all manner of characters and stories alive, while also being, as Us Weekly says, “just like us.”

People with bodies that age and change, people who fall in love, get messy, say dumb things, say smart things, fall prey to illness and accidents, shop at Trader Joe’s, end up in court or trip when about to receive an Oscar.

Their faulty, glorious humanity allows them to connect to their art, but it also connects them to us. We may never get an Oscar or be able to masterfully deliver a Shakespeare soliloquy on a chat show, but we know what it’s like to trip or say something dumb or experience aging, illness or accident.

You can’t replace actors with algorithms, even if/when someone comes up with something more convincing than Tilly, because actors are not just about performances. They are people who are alive in the world and no amount of coding can replicate that.

There’s a hidden door in Downtown Disney. Only this one isn’t meant to be walked through.

Flanking a stage near the monorail station, you’ll find a glistening white tower, the work of artist and activist Nikkolas Smith, who has adopted the term “artivist.” At first glance, the tower — one of Downtown Disney’s most striking works — appears to be a nod to Disneyland’s Midcentury art, for its curved lines and space-age optimism wouldn’t be out of place in Tomorrowland.

That’s there, says Smith, but there are also a number of more subtle inspirations.

The tower is a nod to five Black architects, trailblazers whose creations sometimes went unnoticed or overlooked. And that’s why at the base of the structure is a looping opening meant to signify a half-open doorway.

Downtown Disney’s Legacy Tower touches on the styles of different Black architects as it rises into the sky.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

Smith shares a distressing anecdote. “They had to learn how to read drawings upside down, because they weren’t allowed to sit next to the white clients,” Smith says, adding they also had to endure unequal pay. “So I was incorporating things like the half doorway to symbolize their struggle.”

Officially designated as the Legacy Tower, Smith himself fixates on that word — “legacy.” The term, he says, represents a thematic constant across his work. A regular collaborator on a number of Walt Disney Co. projects and a former architect with Walt Disney Imagineering, the division of the company focused on theme park experiences, Smith is something of a connector. His canvas art, full of fast-moving brush work, is often rooted in the past while urgently seeking to draw links to the present.

Artist Nikkolas Smith went viral for his portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. in a hoodie, a tribute to slain teenager Trayvon Martin.

(Nikkolas Smith)

His 2025 children’s book, “The History of We,” tells the story of how humanity can trace its roots to Africa. And one of his best-known pieces is of Martin Luther King Jr. in a hoodie, meant to evoke the image of Trayvon Martin, the slain 17-year-old whose death inspired a social justice movement. The work went viral in 2013 while Smith was still working for Imagineering. It altered his career trajectory.

“It was like, ‘I cannot just make art about churros and rides right now,’” Smith says. “There’s a time for that, and there’s also a time to talk about this.” He references his portraits related to the killings of Black men, many at the hands of police officers, such as Philando Castile and Michael Brown.

“At the end of the day, Disney understood that,” Smith adds. “They understood that I needed to make art that was extremely important at the moment, about justice or the lack of justice.”

Smith left Disney in 2019 after 11 years but has maintained a close relationship with the company, so much so that Imagineering called upon Smith to design the tower, which opened in 2023.

Artist Nikkolas Smith, left, chats with guests Ricky Yost and Martina Yost of Aubrey, Texas, who recognized Smith from a recent Disney cruise excursion.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

As the Legacy Tower spirals toward the sky, its patterns and and lattice work nod to the likes of James H. Garrott, Robert A. Kennard, Roy A. Sealey, Ralph A. Vaughn and Paul Revere Williams. All were active in Los Angeles — Williams, for instance, was a pivotal designer on the LAX Theme Building — and Smith interlaces decorative flourishes in varying styles that twist around one another to work up the Legacy Tower’s pointed spheres.

The door of the Legacy Tower symbolizes perseverance, Smith says. “They made it through, despite all of the obstacles they had to go through.”

Smith had studied the architects while a student at Hampton University, and has documented on his Instagram their various stylings, which range from restrained to whimsical to ornate. A section referencing Vaughn is modern minimalism, whereas an area dedicated to Sealey is full of jagged, pointed linework. All of it is held together via a coiling design that feels full of movement.

The patterns of the Legacy Tower are nods to the likes of James H. Garrott, Robert A. Kennard, Roy A. Sealey, Ralph A. Vaughn and Paul Revere Williams.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

“How can I show humanity’s interconnected future? That’s the idea,” Smith says. “There’s this African theme of Sankofa. If we look toward our future, we have to look at the past and value and appreciate the past. I thought it would be great if I could really commemorate some Black designers and architects as the foundation and backstory of the tower. And I was also thinking about these breezeway block patterns that you see in Leimert Park.”

And yet it also feels like something that belongs in the park. Smith says he looked at some Tomorrowland designs.

“A Midcentury Modern vibe was Walt,” Smith says, referring to park patriarch Walt Disney. “That was Walt’s thing. It all connects. I love that people can hopefully now connect both things. You can connect Tomorrowland and Walt with Paul Revere Williams.”

It’s clearly Smith’s favorite design of his for Disney, although it’s not the only space at the resort that features his artistry. During his decade-plus with Imagineering he regularly worked on teams that focused on projects at Disney California Adventure, which this year is celebrating its 25th anniversary. He was heavily involved, he says, in the evolution of Avengers Campus, contributed to a small promenade stage in Pixar Pier and helped envision the facade of Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout!, which transformed the former Tower of Terror into a sci-fi structure.

Nikkolas Smith says elements of Downtown Disney’s Legacy Tower symbolize perseverance.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

Smith looks back fondly at his years at Imagineering, specifically calling out his time on the Guardians project. The former fake hotel is now full of glistening bronze pipes, a retro futurist look that former Imagineer Joe Rohde, who led the design, has said takes influence from the high-tech aesthetic of architect Renzo Piano, who worked on France’s Pompidou Centre.

“How much can we add to it? How much can we get away with gluing onto this thing?” Smith says of the Guardians facade. “What is the right amount of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ without being too much? Without scaring people on the freeway?”

Today, Smith continues to focus on social justice work, and has also collaborated with filmmaker Ryan Coogler, such as completing concept designs for his Oscar-nominated film “Sinners.” Smith’s 2023 children’s book “The Artivist” documents the importance of creating art that’s in conversation with the world, believing it’s not only a source for education but for empathy. Smith’s weekly paintings speak out often against the current administration, and Smith has been particularly vocal on the ICE raids.

A selection from “The Artivist,” an illustrated book from Nikkolas Smith.

(Nikkolas Smith)

“Some people say that all art is activism, but I feel that some of the best art that is created is art that has a message,” Smith says. “And hopefully that message has to do with the humanity of all people, and for me, I like to focus on marginalized communities, and how we can value the humanity of everybody. That’s why I make picture books about the origins of humanity and the origins of this country.”

The Leimert Park resident says his wife and young son regularly visit the Disneyland Resort. And when he does, Smith says, he always takes a moment to stop by the Pixar Pier stage that he contributed to, which is often used for character meet and greets.

“They were team projects, and I do go up to them with so much pride,” he says. “I go up to the Pixar Pier promenade stage, and I just go up to it and touch it. … The beautiful thing about Disney is these creations are usually around for a lifetime.”

It turns out you can take the artivist out of Disney, but you can’t fully take the Disney out of the artivist.

Author Diana Gabaldon knew readers had been mentally casting the timeless main couple at the center of her “Outlander” book saga since the first novel’s release in the early ‘90s — particularly its leading man, a tall and burly Scottish Highlander with striking red hair. She recalls a 50-year-old German actor who, she says, “always looked like he’d been dipped in cooking oil” among the imaginary candidates. Another was a 5-foot-4-inch race car driver. She quickly learned not to weigh in.

“They would keep asking me who I’d like to play Jamie — ‘Nobody,’ I kept saying because on the rare occasion when I mentioned some possibility, the immediate response would be shrieks of dismissive outrage and heapings of scorn that went on for days (online),” she says over email. Besides, she felt the whole notion of considering prospects was pointless because, as she puts it, it’s not like Hollywood would want to adapt a 300,000-word book anyway.

However, Ronald D. Moore and Maril Davis, longtime collaborators through their Tall Ship Productions banner under Sony Pictures Television, did. And Gabaldon was thrust back into the casting debacle, watching test videos and learning not to judge a book by its cover — or actors (in this case, Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe) by the photos that pop up in a Google search: “Sam doesn’t look like Jamie, and Caitriona doesn’t look like Claire, but both of them can be those people, and that’s all that matters,” she says. And they were those people.

In 2014, the duo brought to the screen the epic story of Claire Randall, a British combat nurse who is mysteriously transported back to 1743 Scotland and marries Scottish warrior Jamie Fraser to survive. Together, they ignite a passionate romance that traverses decades and endures brutal separations, wars and time travel. After spinning its own sweeping narrative for more than a decade, the Starz series is launching its eighth and final season on Friday.

In “Outlander,” Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) is a British combat nurse who is mysteriously transported back to 1743 Scotland and marries Scottish warrior Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) to survive.

(Ed Miller / Starz)

And it won’t exactly be a by-the-book ending. The final season pulls from the remaining material in Book 8, as well as Book 9 — Gabaldon is working on a 10th installment, “A Blessing for a Warrior Going Out” — leaving Matthew B. Roberts, the showrunner, and the writing team to craft an original ending for television. In a signal of how much pressure there was to do right by the beloved fictional couple, four endings were written and filmed.

“Diana’s been involved since Day 1 — she reads everything, she sees everything,” Roberts said by video conference. “I told all the endings that were going to be written. She briefed me a little bit of where she might be going, not the ending of the books, but just where the book might be going. I wanted to at least incorporate some of that in some of the endings that were written.”

Can it be anything other than a happy ending? Maybe the clue is in “I Love Lucy.” Lucy and Ricky Ricardo‘s love story was often a reference point for Roberts throughout his time on “Outlander.”

“No matter what trouble Lucy got in, no matter what she was doing, never did you think they were ever going to break up,” he says. “That’s Jamie and Claire, no matter what happens, no matter what he goes through or what she goes through, no matter what trouble or what they tell each other sometimes, we’ll never think they break up. And the audience knows that too, and we knew, if you just stayed true to that, then that love story would be successful.”

Ahead of the show’s final season premiere, The Times spoke with Balfe and Heughan to get their thoughts on bringing the historical romance to life and the journey to reach the final chapter.

In the spirit of the Season 8 premiere, which has a moment where Claire and Jamie reflect on the early days of their story, let’s travel back in time. Do you remember how this series was first presented to you and what went through your mind?

Balfe: I think the logline I saw was “nurse goes back to Scotland and then goes back 200 years in time and meets a Highlander.” I think I had two lines. That was all I had.

Heughan: It sounded like it was never gonna work. I found out it was a book series, and I think we both read it, didn’t we?

Balfe: Yeah, I read the book in four days before we tested. You’d already been cast at that point … I was living in L.A. I had tiny bit parts in a few films, and I was definitely struggling. I had booked to go on a trip to India, sent my passport into the Indian embassy. Of course, that’s exactly when I found out that maybe I had to travel to London for this test.

Heughan: At the time, I had failed attempts at pilot season, and I was back in London working in a bar and thinking, “I can’t afford to do this and I’m 34 years old. I should probably think about giving up.” Because there was no way I could support myself. I wasn’t loving it.

Balfe: You were 33, by the way.

Heughan: Oh, yes. I was younger. Then this thing came through. And actually, to be honest, the logline and perhaps the dialogue, when I read it, I just thought, “I know this guy.” There just was something very familiar.

“At the time, I had failed attempts at pilot season, and I was back in London working in a bar and thinking, ‘I can’t afford to do this and I’m 34 years old. I should probably think about giving up,’” says Heughan. (Sophia Spring / For The Times)

Tell me about the decision to say goodbye to this show and these characters. Does it feel like the right time?

Balfe: By the time we got to Season 7, that was our last season that we were contracted for, and there were conversations going around that they — the writers — felt that they had eight seasons [for this story]; that that was sort of an organic finish to it. But we were more than halfway through Season 7 before anyone came to talk to us. Actually, we had all scripts, bar the last two. And it wasn’t ending. Before they came to us, it was like, “How is this gonna happen? Are they going to wrap it up in two episodes or are they coming to us?” It was a lot of pressure in a very short amount of time to decide, “OK, do we just wrap this up in two episodes or do we try and give it a season to properly say goodbye?” There’s a lot of people’s jobs, and there’s a lot of people’s livelihoods, and there’s a whole ecosystem around it. We felt that it needed that kind of time.

Heughan: A lot of thought went into it. I think we were ready to move on or do something else. But also, there was this itch, like we hadn’t finished it and it didn’t feel satisfying for us and for the fans. We wanted to come back and really tie it up properly.

The final season focuses on Claire and Jamie’s struggles during the Revolutionary War, with the war having followed them home. What intrigued you about this final onscreen chapter of their story?

Heughan: Jamie’s concerned about himself in the foremost because he has this information that he’s going to die. But they’ve fought for eight seasons to stay together and to protect everyone they love and the greater community and I think that continues, but there’s so many more distractions or more challenges along the way in this season from the inside.

Balfe: And the Revolutionary War has been circling them for a very long time. It was time for the culmination —

Heughan: [Laughs] Instead of saying “War is coming,” it’s “War is here.’

“There’s a lot of people’s jobs, and there’s a lot of people’s livelihoods, and there’s a whole ecosystem around it. We felt that it needed that kind of time,” says Caitriona Balfe, right, with Sam Heughan, about finishing the “Outlander” story with an eighth season.

(Sophia Spring / For The Times)

The fandom around this property is active and devoted. There’s good that can come from that — the engagement, the creativity — but some bad too, like when things get toxic. What was the learning curve of playing this beloved fictional couple and navigating the fandom?

Balfe: It was a bit of a baptism of fire.

Heughan: We were both quite green when we were thrust into it and engaged wholeheartedly.

Balfe: The landscape is very different. Twitter was Twitter before it was death pit, Instagram was far more innocent as well. In the beginning, it was really nice. I wasn’t a mom. I had loads of time on my hands — well, not really, because we were shooting all the time — but anytime I did, it used to be nice and we would do these quick Q and As. That one-on-one connection with the fans was really, really lovely. I do think there was a moment where … the tide shifted, and this sort of shipper-dom got very intense. I was getting married, and that was having an impact on the people in my life and and I think I had to then step away because I was like, “OK, this doesn’t feel good for everyone in my life.”

Heughan: Look, I think it’s still there. It is a strange one to get your head around. People, in one way, are uber fans of the show, but in other ways, they’re overtly intrusive in your life. But it is a small minority. I think … perhaps we’ve done our job that well? It’s not just about Jamie and Claire, it’s about that person behind it and their life behind it, and their family behind it, that people want to get invested in. I don’t know if it’s a great thing for actors, to be honest, but in this current environment, we’re always asked to give more of ourselves to engage with fans, but it’s been something we’ve had to learn on the job.

Balfe: And I think there are times in your life when you have more capacity to be more open, and there’s times in your life where you need to shut off a little bit more. The overall reception from the fans have been so positive and so supportive of things that we’ve done in our lives, and that is the thing that I choose to focus on with it.

“Outlander” isn’t strictly a romance, but that’s what gives it power. You’ve spent more than a decade in this space. What have you learned about how that romance space functions and what the fans seek from these stories?

Balfe: I was sort of unaware of the need and the appetite that people have for it. Nowadays it’s served an awful lot better, but I think it was an underserved demographic. Or it was not given the due that people needed. It’s sometimes looked on as the second-class citizen of storytelling, in many ways, but I think it’s a genre that allows you to really look at the beauty of humanity and … the core things that we care about, which is love and family and connection.

Heughan: And comfort. It’s comforting. This show proves that there’s a real appetite.

Balfe: There’s many more shows now. Everybody’s talking about “Heated Rivalry.” There’s “Bridgerton.” Maybe it’s the emancipation of women in the last 50 years. It’s like they are finally like, “Well, we want our TV that speaks to us as sexual beings and as mothers and as matriarchs and as professionals and whole round of people.” Our show did that a lot.

“There’s many more shows now,” Balfe says of series that serve up romance. “Everybody’s talking about ‘Heated Rivalry.’ There’s ‘Bridgerton.’ It’s like they are finally like, ‘Well, we want our TV that speaks to us as sexual beings and as mothers and as matriarchs and as professionals and whole round of people.’ Our show did that a lot.” (Sophia Spring / For The Times)

Have you taken stock of just how much Claire and Jamie have gone through as a couple?

Balfe: How many near-death experiences?

Heughan: Yeah, how many times they’ve nearly died or been attacked or assaulted.

Balfe: How many people they’ve killed. Claire, she’s like a serial killer.

I was wondering, because it’s the last season, you can’t get in trouble now, where would Caitriona or Sam have called it quits in this relationship? Like, this is too much, I need to move on.

Balfe: I don’t know if Caitriona would have gone back 200 years in time.

Heughan: When she fixes his shoulder — that’s pretty painful. She gets him in a lot of trouble and he puts himself in a lot of trouble. I wouldn’t have gone past Episode 1 [he mumbles].

Balfe: See! I would have gone to Season 3.

Heughan: No, I think when he sends her through the stones and is like, “That’s it. She’s gone.” But she keeps coming back. I thought I got rid of her, finally!

Caitriona, you make your directorial debut on the show this season with Episode 2. Tell me about that experience.

Balfe: It was so fun. They gave me Episode 2, which allowed me to do my prep before we started. I was so lucky that Jan Matthys, who is the director of Episode 1, was an incredible mentor to me throughout the process. I just got to work with these guys in a totally new way, which was so amazing. I was buzzing. The whole first 10 weeks [of this season] felt like the very first 10 weeks again because you’re learning all these new skills and you’re just in such high operating point; you have to make decisions on the fly, I was also in scenes. It was just mad, but brilliant.

Heughan: You were also probably happy to take the corset off.

Balfe: To be able to walk around in proper wet weather gear and trousers and be able to go to the bathroom — not to be TMI, but it was so good.

They did not give me the easiest episode. Every day had its thing — obviously, the bear attack sequence. Three days before we were filming that, that was a cougar; we were going to have a live cougar. There was a whole thing planned. And a cougar attacks in a very different way than a bear does. So my whole shot list had to go out of the window and I had to rethink the whole thing. But that was kind of fun.

The final season of “Outlander” focuses on Claire (Balfe) and Jamie’s (Heughan) struggles during the Revolutionary War, with the war having followed them home.

(Robert Wilson / Starz)

Finales can be tough, given how viewers chime in on social media. You can’t please everyone. But what was your vision for the ending of “Outlander”?

Balfe: I didn’t really have one. I would not want to have had Matt’s job because that’s a really heavy load to bear, trying to finish this out. But I would say the season was unusual. Normally, we would get an overview of the season before we start. This season, we went into it blind so we weren’t getting sort of any info about what was going to happen. Through the whole season, it was like finding out as the scripts came what was happening. And to be honest, we still don’t really know the ending. We know bits that were filmed, but [not] how he’s going to edit it.

Heughan: I definitely had a firm belief about a certain element of it. I spoke to a few people — few other execs and producers — and there was a common consensus, and I think that might be one of the directions, but it’s going to be a surprise for us when we watch it. I don’t know when we are going to watch it.

Multiple endings were filmed.

Balfe: There was a few different things filmed.

Heughan: Hard to know what’s [going to make it] — it’s all in a same direction. But what direction that is …

Would you call it a happy ending?

Heughan: I don’t know. It was such a secret on the call sheets and stuff.

Balfe: There was different versions of scripts that went out.

Heughan: There were fake people put in. There was a reduced crew.

In its second week of release, the sophomore season of “Paradise” is already at its midpoint. And it just delivered one of the season’s shocking twists with the death of — don’t worry, we won’t spoil it for you.

The post-apocalyptic drama, which dropped its fourth episode this week, has ventured outside bunker life this season as our Secret Service protagonist Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) continues his journey through Atlanta to find his wife — and now, he’s got a baby to keep safe in the process. Meanwhile, back inside the idyllic simulated town in the depths of Colorado, which anchored the first season, things have started to unravel and the fight for control intensifies. And the mastermind behind it all — Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson), the tech billionaire who set up the bunker town after a massive catastrophe threatened the extinction of the human race — isn’t MIA anymore. Last seen unconscious in a hospital bed after being shot, she’s awake and ready to regain order and control. Nicholson stopped by Guest Spot to talk about what she finds intriguing about her character’s motivations.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our recommendations include an ever timely reminder from Anthony Bourdain on the gift and privilege of discovering a new culture and engaging it without judgment, as well as a suburban noir starring a trio of TV heavyweights that spins middle-age malaise, swinging and murder into an addictive tale.

Read on. Then press play and give your thumb a break from all the fast-forwarding you did while watching the wedding episode of this season’s “Love is Blind.” See you next week.

— Yvonne Villarreal

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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Anthony Bourdain visits Havana in 2015 for an episode of “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.”

(David Scott Holloway / CNN / Turner Entertainment)

“Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” (HBO Max)

It was Bourdain’s masterpiece, the last and best of his several series, and arguably the greatest travel show ever. Bourdain will occasionally fetch up at some fancy eatery, but the heart of any cuisine is formed on the street, or in the country, or along the sea. As a story of how people live, with a good bit of historical context thrown in, the series is explicitly and implicitly political, philosophical and autobiographical; Bourdain has no time for bigots, fascists or bullies — or, one would imagine, McDonald’s cheeseburgers — but he revels in complexity and contradiction. (See Season 4, Episode 6, “Iran.”) The episode on Massachusetts encompasses clambakes and heroin. “I visited and learned to love many places not my own,” says the host, “cultures and beliefs very different from the Upper East Side of Manhattan.” They include, among many other places, Cuba, Ethiopia, Beirut, Buenos Aires, Hanoi, Sri Lanka, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Borneo, Los Angeles and Hanoi, where he sits down with then-president Barack Obama in a family-run noodle shop. Gorgeously filmed, the series can be heartbreakingly beautiful, and sometimes plain heartbreaking. There are 12 seasons running from 2014 to Bourdain’s death in 2018, and I can’t help but believe that anyone who watches them attentively will come out a better person. — Robert Lloyd

Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini and David Harbour in “DTF St. Louis.”

(Tina Rowden / HBO)

“DTF St. Louis” (HBO Max)

The true-ish crime series about a deadly love triangle is so wonderfully twisted and unexpectedly deep, it’d be criminal to miss this dark comedy starring David Harbour, Jason Bateman and Linda Cardellini. Initially inspired by a real scandal (covered in the 2017 New Yorker article “My Dentist’s Murder Trial: Adultery, False Identities, and a Lethal Sedation”), it evolved into something else. Set in the suburbs of St. Louis, the seven-part series follows fastidious local news weatherman Clark (Bateman), the TV station’s guileless sign language interpreter Floyd (Harbour) and Floyd’s calculating wife, Carol (Cardellini), as each grapples with a middle-age identity crisis. Seeking to spice up their sex life, the men join the discreet, eponymous hook-up app, and one of them ends up dead. Solving this peculiar whodunit is anything but predictable, and the case consumes seasoned detective Homer (Richard Jenkins) as well as young crimes officer Jodie (Joy Sunday). But it’s the quest for connection among all these misfit characters, including Floyd and Carol’s troubled son Richard (Arlan Ruf ) and an unlikely hookup (Peter Sarsgaard), that makes this series so powerful. — Lorraine Ali

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

Julianne Nicholson as Sinatra in a scene from Season 2 of “Paradise.”

(Ser Baffo / Disney)

If you see Nicholson on screen, you know things are about to get good. She consistently and compellingly delivers strong performances in some of your favorite films and TV shows, whether she’s expressing both quiet strength and palpable desperation as a mother in “Mare of Easttown” or bringing comedic pizzazz as a social media star in “Hacks.” Her latest captivating performance, in Hulu’s “Paradise,” brings power to a complicated character. She plays Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond, a deeply emotional and eerily ruthless billionaire mastermind responsible for the underground bunker city that grounds the series. Driven by the intense grief of losing a son and a desire to control her environment to protect her family, the character is faced with trying to regain order of the simulated utopia after tension and chaos erupts. Over email, Nicholson shared her thoughts on the morally ambiguous character and the Dustin Hoffman film that brings her comfort. — Yvonne Villarreal

Sinatra is not the usual “villain” in a post-apocalyptic story. Despite her approach, there is an altruistic motive, at least initially, that drives her actions. Which version of her fascinates you the most: pre-global disaster Samantha, who is trying to figure out a way to protect her remaining family, or post-apocalyptic Sinatra, who is closer to facing a reckoning in the aftermath of what she’s created?

I am especially interested in Sinatra after she wakes from the coma. Finding the balance between vulnerability and control. Taking back her power while also recognizing no amount of it or money will necessarily keep herself/her family safe. And then the idea that the bigger picture she’s been working towards the whole time may actually be coming true with the introduction of Link [Thomas Doherty], and who he may be to her, cracks her wide open.

There have been real-life assessments of the power billionaires wield and their influence in the White House — those figures are primarily men. How have those conversations shaped your performance or how you think about the power dynamics of “Paradise’s” fictional world?

I love that Dan Fogelman wrote the most powerful person in the room as a woman. Normalizing women in power can only be a good thing. Even if we don’t necessarily agree with her tactics, she sure is fun to play. I love her take no prisoners/no apologies attitude.

This season Sinatra wakes from her coma and faces a new obstacle in Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom). What intrigues you about how they play off each other and how Sinatra is navigating the threat Jane may pose?

One of the most fun scenes to play in Season 2 was when Jane is trying to find out what Sinatra remembers of the shooting. The wonderful director, Ken Olin, really encouraged us to make a cat and mouse game of it with neither giving anything away. And I love we don’t ever find out what Sinatra remembers. I think it’s a real case of keep your friend close here. Sinatra realizes Jane is much more valuable as an ally than an adversary.

In “Paradise,” Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson), left, was last seen in a coma after being shot.

(Ser Baffo / Disney)

You delivered a brilliant performance in Season 4 of “Hacks” as TikTok sensation “Dance Mom.” What’s a memory that stands out from filming those scenes? And did you find yourself giving a dance lesson on the set of “Paradise”?

I loved every moment of working on “Hacks.” I loved having dance/choreography sessions with Cory Baker in the run up to filming and the utter absurdity of the “boofing” scene. I also almost lost it when DM was passed out on the stoop on Wisteria Lane and Jimmy [Paul W. Downs] and Kayla [Megan Stalter] come driving around in the golf cart looking for her and shouting, “Dance Mom!” That name alone is so funny to me. Alas, there were no dance lessons in “Paradise.”

What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?

I was blown away this year by the film “Sirât.” I recommend but also warn as it is a deeply affecting, intense film and not for the faint of heart. I love its exploration of a world I know nothing about (a traveling rave culture set in Morocco), the humanity in it and the real faces and performances of the actors. [And] its originality and bravery.

What’s your go-to “comfort watch,” the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?

“Tootsie” is one of my favorite films and I can watch that any time. It’s partially nostalgic as I remember watching it in the theater when it came out and I was so taken with NYC at that time. The tall buildings, yellow cabs and hustle and bustle. It’s such a smart comedy with brilliant performances across the board, starting with Dustin Hoffman but each actor is as perfect as the next! So much heart and depth without ever taking itself too seriously. And just very, very funny.

ICYMI

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As a child in Newark, N.J., Narciso Rodriguez was often transported back to Cuba by the stories from his family and their friends. He walked the halls of El Encanto, a Havana department store and fashion mecca on the island — one that drew in celebrity clientele and featured haute-couture designs and fragrances from the far-flung fashion capitals of Paris and Milan.

“I don’t know that they could have afforded any of those things when they were in Cuba,” he tells De Los. “But they certainly filled my imagination with beautiful stories and laid the foundation for my work.”

It was the women in his life — the “amazing, powerful, loud, colorful dynamos,” as he describes them — who inspired him to pursue a career in fashion.

“Their stories, their lives, their power, their curves, it all influenced me,” he says. “They’re the reason I wanted to create things.”

Over the last three decades, the renowned designer has earned a reputation for sleek, flattering lines and effortless shapes, most famously seen on the career-launching dress he designed for his friend Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy to wear on her wedding day. The bias-cut silk slip has remained a source of inspiration for generations of brides since, and has been making waves again thanks to the FX series “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.”

Omari K. Chancellor as Gordon Henderson, from left, Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette, Tonatiuh as Narciso Rodriguez in FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette”

(Eric Liebowitz / FX)

“Love Story” will follow the couple’s wedding in the latest episode, out March 5. (Rodriguez is portrayed by Tonatiuh on the show.)

After designing Bessette-Kennedy’s dress, Rodriguez launched his own label and a fragrance line, and has continued to create designs that are woven into the fabric of American history — Michelle Obama wore his dress on election night in 2008.

De Los spoke with Rodriguez about his career, upbringing and memories of designing Bessette-Kennedy’s dress.

You’ve spoken about how inspired you were by the women in your life growing up. Are there any “fashion icons” from your family or neighborhood that you could point to from your childhood?

You know, I’m so lucky because I was raised in a very Cuban household in a very culturally rich community in Newark. I mean, it was Italian, Spanish, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Black. It was everything. But I always think back to when I was very, very young, there was a kind of matriarch here in the neighborhood. Her name was Concha and she was kind of this lightning rod. My dad’s sister was married to her son, so when my parents came to the U.S., she gave them a place to stay. She would teach all of the young women how to cook and gave everyone a place to stay until they got on their feet. She was larger than life, she was like “Auntie Mame.” She had these great ‘60s beehive wigs in amazing wig boxes, she made these beautiful Chanel suits for herself, and had all these gold bangles, great lipstick and stilettos. When she came into the room, she just radiated power, joy and style. I always think of her as being my first signpost on the road.

They were all beautiful, you know? My aunts and my mom were the most beautiful, glamorous women. None of them were wearing designer clothes, but they took great pride and great care in how they looked, and that really made an impression on me.

How did that impression translate into a concrete passion? How did you go about actually pursuing a career in fashion?

I loved architecture. I loved building things, so I was always drawing, sketching and sculpting. Then I would see my mom take a piece of fabric and the way she could take something flat and shapeless and turn it into a garment was fascinating. By the time I was 13, I was doing fashion illustration, and I got a job in a tailor shop. Later, I enrolled myself in Saturday courses at Parsons [School of Design], and I kind of had to hide it from my parents at first. I felt like I couldn’t be a fashion designer, you know, because of the whole “macho” idea, but I just kept going. I was lucky that I was someone who always knew what they wanted to do, and that Parsons recognized I had talent for it at a young age.

I was exposed to really great people there, too. Donna Karan was a critic, Calvin Klein was a critic, Oscar de la Renta too. I got to do projects with all of them, and then I was hired after school by Donna Karan while she was still at Anne Klein. It was an amazing experience, and then I got poached by Calvin Klein, which was a very different experience.

How so?

It was incredible, but just very different. Whereas Anne Klein was this melting pot of creativity, Calvin was much more image-driven and precision-driven. He brought in great talents to collaborate with, so on any given day, you’d be working with the most amazing photographers, stylists and art directors. It was a really great finishing school as a young person.

You arrived at Calvin Klein during a period of reinvention for the brand. This was in the era of Kate Moss, and the famous “Marky Mark” print ads. We see a version of it in “Love Story,” but what was it like to actually be there?

When I got there, I think around 1989, it hadn’t really started to change yet. And I thought, “Wow, I made a really big mistake. This is not my aesthetic, not my thing.” But it changed very quickly, and it was very exciting. [Calvin] worked very hard. He was very focused, and he appreciated that I could keep up. Like everybody, there was a rough initiation period, but afterward, he gave me the opportunity to work on some tailored pieces that sold really well at retail, so I was rewarded with more opportunities.

But it was the ‘90s, and it was New York, and it was brilliant. It felt like the whole city was reinventing itself, and Calvin was a leader in that. All the best photographers, the most brilliant artists were there. Jacky Marshall, Zack Carr, Carolyn — the talent was endless. I was really fortunate to experience it and build friendships that were lifelong.

I’m curious if you remember your first impressions of Carolyn. How did you two connect?

We were quite friendly immediately, and then we became the best of friends. We lived in the same building, so the rest was history. You know, she’s an incredible person, and she had great style. She was bigger than life.

Carolyn has been regarded as a fashion icon, and especially now, everyone is trying to re–create her look. There was something more subtle and interesting going on than just “minimalist” fashion, so how would you describe what made her style so special?

Carolyn was so authentic in so many ways, and I think that she was very pragmatic about her choices. She had a great eye. She knew what worked for her, and she knew how to present herself. She never wanted to be uncomfortable. She was very connected to herself. I think so many people have this relationship to fashion and what they think they should look like based on the ideas they see in a magazine or being sold to you by the industry, and Carolyn never fell into that trap.

I have this conversation often with young designers, with people, with journalists. Today, everything that we see is inauthentic. Celebrities are paid to wear designer clothes. They’re styled by a stylist, and nothing is innate. That is the opposite of Carolyn. She was 100% real.

Narciso Rodriguez in 1997.

(Paolo Roversi)

We have to talk about her wedding dress. If you’re a bride, it’s impossible to look for inspiration without coming across her dress. What was it like to have a friend ask you to create something for such a special, important moment?

You know, until my children were born, Carolyn was the love of my life. We were very close, and she asked me, as you said, to make the dress that she would marry the love of her life in. It was very personal for me. It wasn’t a press event, it was a conversation between two people who were very close. I knew what looked good on her, she knew what looked good on her. I knew that she would never want to be bogged down with trains and lace. It wouldn’t be her.

What was the actual design process like?

It was an effortless collaboration. She came to fittings in Paris, we pulled the neckline down a bit lower, and the dress was born. I added the gloves, the veil and the shoe. It was just magical, and exactly the way it should be. It really made her the focus. You know, she was the one who pointed that out to me about my work. She always said, “You create a frame for a woman’s beauty and personality to shine through.” I’ve always thought that was a really beautiful thing that she gave me, because it’s true. I never want my work to be what you see first. I think the success of that dress is that you see her and her happiness and the purity of it all.

Everything about the wedding, including the dress, had to be kept a secret. Was it a challenge to make sure that no one knew what you were working on?

I was working in Paris, and I got approval from the owner of [Cerruti]. He was discreet about it. I worked with one pattern maker. I had a fit model who was lovely. Nobody knew who it was for. They always asked. But because I was working in Paris, they didn’t really connect me to her. I was also quite cautious when the dress was in work, I remember I had become quite friendly with Azzedine Alaïa. I asked, “Can I take this dress over to you and have you check it out to see what I’m doing?” I went over and he looked at the prototype, and said, “Why don’t you move this seam over the bum by a centimeter. I think it’ll be more flattering.” And I did, because he was the master, and he tortured me to know who it was for, but I never told him. Later, when it was all over the press, he would call and pretend he was a fancy lady looking for a wedding dress for her daughter. [Laughs] He tricked me a few times into believing some of his gags, but he was an amazing person.

It was just a magical time in all of our lives. And then I flew to America with the dress and went to the wedding, and it was that simple. You know, I’ve heard all these amazing stories about how the dress didn’t fit, and I had to sew her into it, and that she was hours late because of it, and none of this is true. But I love that people have made up all these stories.

Maybe the dress on her seems so effortless that people want to invent a way to complicate it.

[Laughs] I really have heard so many crazy stories, but when you look at the pictures, it certainly doesn’t look like it didn’t fit. That’s for sure.

As you mentioned, the dress was all over the press later. How did that moment impact your career?

Well, I went from Paris to my best friend’s wedding, and then I flew home to New York to do a pit stop at my apartment. When I arrived, there was a huge crowd outside the building with news trucks. I kind of walked through the crowd and into the building, and I said to the doorman, “What’s all that about?” And he looked at me, and he said, “They’re here to see you.”

Oh, wow.

It was a very big, kind of scary, unexpected change in my life. I remember going up to my apartment and trying to navigate that when Anna Wintour’s office called and said, “Anna would like for you to come to the Princess [Diana] benefit in Washington.” And I said I couldn’t go, I needed to be back in Paris, I didn’t even have a white shirt. And they said, “It’s Princess Di and Anna Wintour. You’re going. We’ll send you a shirt.” So I went, and I met Princess Diana, and it was really strange to be at such a big event and have so many eyes on me, because I didn’t expect that, and everyone was curious. I remember they were shady journalists trying to sit next to me and get information about where [John and Carolyn] went on their honeymoon. Life changed dramatically, but it brought great attention to the work that I was doing in Paris, and I was able to then go off and start my own business and do my own thing.

I’m sure you had an understanding through Carolyn about what it felt like to be hounded or followed by photographers and press, but did that firsthand experience in New York give you another layer of understanding for what she was going through?

It’s so funny because society today will do anything for that. But it was a very different time, and she was a very private person. I was a very private person. It’s very invasive, and I was kind of stuck in the middle, because while I needed to promote my work and my shows, and sort of be in the press, it wasn’t something that I was very comfortable with. I mean, I love doing the work more than I like the things attached to it. It can be debilitating, and it was difficult for me, but I adjusted, because I could hide behind my work, but as a private citizen, it was more difficult for her.

Narciso Rodriguez.

(Sølve Sundsbø)

You’ve been a part of fashion history on numerous occasions. Michelle Obama frequently wore your designs, but most famously, on election night in 2008, and then during her final appearance as first lady. How does it feel to have been a part of those moments?

It’s hard to put into words. You know, you spend so much time in it, and you have these amazing moments, like designing a dress that became legendary for brides, or getting to dress the first lady, and it wasn’t until COVID that I took a step back. I think about my mother and father coming here to give their son a chance to live out his dreams. And to have been able to sit with my friends on election night and watch her appear in my dress on such a historic moment — the first African American elected president of the United States — words fail. [Michelle Obama] is such an incredible human being who I admire so much, and to have been a part of that night, I feel so lucky.

I don’t talk about my work with my children, but the other day, when they were on the bus headed to school, they told one of their friends, “My dad went to the Obama White House.” They were proud of me. My parents’ dreams came true, and now I get to share that with my children. It’s very special.

It’s really powerful to hear you frame it that way — that these moments mean so much because of your experience being the child of immigrants. How does it feel to be in the midst of a revival right now?

It makes me want to create more. It means a lot to me that people remember these pieces, and that they’re still part of the conversation. But it also means a really great deal to me because I think it’s an important story to tell today. I think it’s important that young people hear that this kind of thing can happen to the children of immigrants, especially as I’m watching all of the horrible things happening to immigrants now.

I could never do what my parents did. When I think about it now, my parents were so much more successful than I could ever be, because they left behind their home for a cold climate, in a place where they couldn’t speak the language, and they really struggled for a long time before I was born. And now, the idea that we’re trying to take that opportunity away from people? It just blows my mind.

My parents faced so many hardships, their life wasn’t easy, but I can’t imagine if they had been put through what immigrants are put through today. I am the “American Dream,” right? I got the chance I got to do the work that I love and succeed because of them. I want that for everyone. I want that to be the world we live in.

The day after he saved the Dodgers’ season, Will Klein was hungry. He ordered from Mod Pizza.

He drove over to pick up his order. The guy that handed him the pizza told him he looked just like Will Klein.

“You should just look at the name on the order,” Klein told him.

Chaos ensued.

“He actually started screaming,” Klein said. “He just started flipping out, which was funny.”

Thing is, if it were two days earlier, the guy would have had no idea what Klein looked like. Neither would you.

On Oct. 26, Klein was the last man in the Dodgers’ bullpen, a wild thing on his fourth organization in two years, a last-minute addition to the World Series roster.

On Oct. 27, the Dodgers played 18 innings, and the last man in the Dodgers’ bullpen delivered the game of his life: four shutout innings, holding the Toronto Blue Jays at bay until Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off home run.

Dodgers pitcher Will Klein celebrates during the 16th inning of Game 3 of the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays at Dodger Stadium on Oct. 27.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

When Klein returned to the clubhouse, Sandy Koufax walked over to shake hands and congratulate him.

That was Game 3 of the World Series. The Dodgers, the significantly older team, slogged through the next two games, batting .164 and losing both.

If not for Klein, that would have been the end. The Blue Jays would have won the series in five games, and there would have been no Kiké Hernández launching a game-ending double play on the run in Game 6, no Miguel Rojas tying home run and game-saving throw in Game 7, no Andy Pages game-saving catch and Will Smith winning home run in Game 7, no Yoshinobu Yamamoto winning Game 6 as a starter and Game 7 as a reliever.

There would have been no parade.

When Klein rescued the Dodgers, he had pitched one inning in the previous 30 days.

“You can never take your mind out of it,” he said. “You’ve got to stay prepared. Something might come up, and you don’t want to be the guy that gets thrown in the fire and just burns.”

The Dodgers are not shy about grabbing a minor league pitcher, telling him what he can do better and what he should stop doing, and seeing what sticks. If nothing sticks, the Dodgers are also not shy about spitting out the pitcher and designating him for assignment.

In his minor league career, Klein struck out 13 batters every nine innings, which is tremendous. He walked seven batters every nine innings, which is hideous.

The Dodgers scrapped his slider, mixed in a sweeper, and told him his arm was so good that he should stop trying to make perfect pitches and just let fly.

“A lot of times, pitchers are guilty of giving hitters too much credit, and hitters are guilty of giving pitchers too much credit,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations.

“Part of our job is to show them information that helps instill some confidence. I think that really landed with Will.”

In his four September appearances with the Dodgers — after a minor-league stint to apply the team’s advice — he faced 17 batters, walked one, and did not give up a run. That’s why he isn’t buying the suggestion that something suddenly clicked in the World Series.

“Things were incrementally getting better,” he said, “and then you add that to the atmosphere. It amplifies it to 100. All the prep work and mental stuff that I had been doing, I finally got a chance to shine.”

Said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts: “He’s done it in the highest of leverage. You can’t manufacture that. You’ve got to live it and do it. So, since he’s done it, I think he’s got a real confidence.”

Dodgers pitcher Will Klein speaks during DodgerFest at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 31.

(John McCoy / Getty Images)

Klein last started a game three years ago, at triple A. After making 72 pitches in those four innings of Game 3, did he entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, he was meant to be a starter after all?

“No,” he said abruptly. “I hate waiting four or five days to pitch and knowing exactly when I’m going to pitch.

“When I did, the anxiety just built. I want to go pitch. I hate sitting there and waiting. That kind of eats at you. I like being able to go out to the bullpen and have a chance to pitch every day.”

The Dodgers are so deep that Klein might not make the team out of spring training. Whatever happens, he’ll always have Game 3.

In the wake of that game, a fan wanted to buy a Klein jersey but could not find one. So the fan made one himself before Game 4, using white electrical tape on the back of a Dodger blue jersey. I showed Klein a picture.

“That’s cool,” Klein said. “That’s pretty funny.”

Dave Wong, a Dodgers fan living in San Francisco Giants territory, also wanted to buy a Klein jersey.

“They didn’t have a jersey for him,” Wong said.

He settled for the Dodger blue T-shirt he found online and wore it to last Friday’s Cactus League game against the Giants, with these words in white letters: “Will Klein Appreciation Shirt.”

This, then, would be a Will Klein Appreciation Column.

Gina Gershon considers herself a storyteller, first and foremost. When we connect via video call, Gershon admits this is the first interview she’s done since submitting the manuscript for her latest book, “AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs.”

“I don’t have my spiel yet!” she warns, inquiring for the first of a few times what I thought of it and whether I enjoyed it. Despite the many decades Gershon has been treading the boards, starring in indie films and Hollywood star vehicles, and stalking the stage as a singer-guitarist, she still really cares about what you think, even if it won’t change her own mind. Perhaps that’s the key to her professional longevity.

“AlphaPussy” is neither a memoir nor a guide to self-betterment, but elements of both feed into Gershon’s stories. Each wittily titled chapter plunges readers into Gershon’s freewheeling 1970s childhood, defiant adolescence, burgeoning performance career and collaborations with some of the biggest names in film (including Sharon Stone, Paul Verhoeven and Tom Cruise). Most of the stories take place in the San Fernando Valley, where young Gershon was discovering weed, mushrooms and rock ‘n’ roll. This is not a titillating tell-all, and all the better for it.

“AlphaPussy” by Gina Gershon

(Akashic Books)

“This book realistically started during COVID,” Gershon explains from her New York home. “I’d told my book agent, a friend, some stories one day when we were drunk, and he kept prodding me to write a book. I was hesitant, though. I’m not a tell-all gal, that’s not my MO.”

She adds, “It was during lockdowns, and I think his mother was sick and he was having a hard time, so when he said, ‘Just write me stories to keep me cheered up,’ I started to write stories in no particular order, whatever bubbled up, because otherwise I figured I’d forget them one day.”

At the same time, Gershon had observed that young women weren’t feeling empowered to advocate for themselves in their personal relationships and workplaces.

“I noticed that especially with younger women friends of mine, they’d tell me about things they were going through on set or with their bosses, and I don’t know if it’s a millennial thing, but I said, ‘Why don’t you just look him in the eye and tell him to stop?’ and there was this sense [for me] of ‘Why can’t you do that? Because if you don’t, you’ll always be prey to these guys.’ ”

She clarifies that she means “annoying” men rather than abusive men.

“I’m not that tough,” admits Gershon. “But I’d learned how to maneuver a lot just from growing up in the Valley, and it was a crazy time to be living there. So I thought about the stories that led me to be able to steer myself through toxicity.”

In her new book, Gina Gershon recalls the industry vitriol toward her 1995 erotic film “Showgirls.”

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

And also to steer herself through well-intended advice, both personal and professional, to follow her instincts.

“Listen, it’s not like I’ve had the most normal career. I’ve done most of my projects despite warnings from other people and from my agents saying, ‘You can’t do this, you’ll ruin your career.’ I’m like, ‘Why? I like this project!’ ”

One of those projects, most infamously, was “Showgirls,” which gets plenty of mentions in the book.

As Gershon recalled, it was 1994, and an astrologer had predicted her major breakout role would arrive in October that year, testing the young actor and her ability to cope with notoriety. Great, thought Gershon, bring it on.

Months later, Gershon was hanging from the ceiling, dressed in bondage gear, reflecting upon her early acting goals to perform Chekhov, portray Medea and stun audiences into silence.

She was on the set of “Showgirls” (or “Survival of the Titties,” as she nicknames it), dressed in one of the many glittering, spangled, flimsy outfits that her character Cristal Connors parades about wearing as a veteran of Vegas striptease. That role, and the vitriol from within the industry toward the movie (a flop turned cult favorite), still stings.

“I was super excited going into ‘Showgirls.’ As I talk about in one of the chapters, it was just very different when I got there. It was a completely different show than I thought I was going to be doing. … I thought it was gonna be one of [director Paul Verhoeven’s] dark Dutch films.”

Realizing that it was something else, to say the least, Gershon pivoted.

“I learned how to deal with an insane environment while keeping focused on what it is that I was trying to achieve with the part, without getting swallowed up by the insanity, which is a valuable lesson, you know? I mean, it’s a good lesson to learn no matter what you’re doing.”

Last year, Gershon watched the movie for the first time in decades.

“I hadn’t seen it in a zillion years, and when I saw it, I understood it a little bit more. It made me feel tense, but I also thought, ‘Oh, interesting.’ Some scenes that I thought shouldn’t have been there and others that absolutely have to be there. I saw it with a different lens.”

She says, “Weirdly, I feel like I’m not supposed to be talking about ‘Showgirls,’ although I think I have five chapters about ‘Showgirls’ [in the book]. I did the ones that I thought were kind of funny and fun and had some sort of growth in it for me.”

Having recently wrapped filming on “an independent film, a trans love story” in Palm Springs, penned a script and midway through writing another, Gershon doesn’t intend on writing another book anytime soon. Still, “there’s so many stories I left out,” she concedes.

“I could write three more books with things, but I really wanted to stay on point with the themes of manipulation, survival, and moving around and being able to stand on your own two feet and know who you are and to have agency over your life, especially as a woman, especially as an actress, especially in this world.”

“I’m not that tough,” says Gina Gershon. “But I’d learned how to maneuver a lot just from growing up in the Valley, and it was a crazy time to be living there. So I thought about the stories that led me to be able to steer myself through toxicity.”

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

BERKELEY — University of California President James B. Milliken, in his first extensive interview since taking the helm of the nation’s premier public higher education system, defended UC’s diplomatic approach to President Trump’s fusillade of actions against the institution — contrasting it with the more aggressive fight Harvard is waging with the government.

UC has not repeatedly sued the federal government or publicly criticized Trump, while Harvard battles the administration in and outside court amid billions in White House funding freezes.

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“We could have said, ‘We’re going to sue tomorrow.’ We saw that movie with Harvard,” Milliken said of his first seven months on the job dominated by federal attacks. “Harvard is still in negotiations to settle the federal government’s actions, but they have had a series of devastating enforcement actions taken … Given our responsibility to the university and to the state of California, the better course for us was to engage.”

Yet days after the interview, the U.S. Department of Justice leveled another strike against UC in a lawsuit alleging UCLA “routinely ignored” and “failed to report” employee complaints of antisemitism since 2023.

In a statement after the interview, Milliken said UC has already committed to combating anti-Jewish hatred without court interference.

“Antisemitism has no place at UC and we have taken important actions to protect our Jewish students, faculty and staff … We will always have work to do, and our commitment to our community is unwavering,” the statement said. “In light of this — and our oft-cited willingness to work with the government in good faith — the new lawsuit is unfortunate and, in our view, unnecessary.”

In a wide-ranging interview at UC Berkeley’s Grimes Engineering Center, Milliken, 68, offered his assessment of Trump’s actions to overhaul higher education and declined to say whether UC would pay an amount smaller than the $1.2-billion proposed fine over UCLA’s alleged campus antisemitism.

On federal talks, Milliken said UC would “never compromise” on its independence, governance, values and academic freedom.

James B. Milliken.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

He touted UC’s accomplishments despite the challenges: Four faculty members received Nobel prizes last year — the largest ever number from one institution — and UC secured more patents for inventions last year than any university in the world.

Aside from Trump, UC faces internal pressures: multiple campuses, including UCLA, are in deficit. Labor unions are demanding better job conditions. Members of the UAW 4811 academic workers union have authorized a potential strike.

Milliken spoke in favor of diversity, celebrated immigrants and said he wanted to expand student access to the university. He said UC should lead on artificial intelligence.

Milliken started in August after more than six years as chancellor of the University of Texas system. He previously held top roles at the City University of New York, the University of Nebraska and the University of North Carolina. A news and history buff and former Wall Street lawyer who prefers reading paper over pixels, he often cites his study of “The Gold and the Blue,” a two-volume chronicle of UC’s ascent in the 1950s and struggles during the political turmoil of 1960s written by former UC Berkeley Chancellor turned UC President Clark Kerr.

He said his job is “to do everything we can to demonstrate the value that’s delivered by these amazing places … I don’t want to underestimate the difficulty in the current political environment,” but, he added, universities have been a national boon “over generations.”

Trump and higher education

Adjusting to the possibility of further retrenchment of Washington’s university research funding is among Milliken’s top concerns.

UC relies on $17.5 billion annually in federal monies, including research grants, Pell grants and hospital payments for Medicare and Medicaid. Last year, the government suspended $584 million in UCLA federal medical, science and energy research grants before a UC faculty-led lawsuit restored the money. But roughly $170 million in grants is still on hold systemwide.

Another independent faculty- and union-led federal suit has temporarily halted the $1.2-billion UCLA settlement demand seeking rightward ideological change on campus. But UC remains open to talks to quash federal probes on its own terms.

James B. Milliken.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Milliken was vague on the status of negotiations and whether UC would pay a fine — such as the $200 million Columbia University signed off on last year — to settle federal investigations.

“It would be foolhardy of me to speculate on what ultimately might be proposed to the University of California or what we might find acceptable,” he said.

He declined to specify how he would uphold his promises to protect UC’s independence, governance, values and academic freedom.

“I’m not going to go into detail on those because it gets pretty close to the line of what could be a discussion with the federal government,” Milliken said.

Educational access

Milliken was more verbose on the role of higher education and his big-picture visions for UC.

College “helps make sure that we have an educated citizenry that is prepared to actively participate in a democracy that understands our civic traditions, that understands our political system, that understands how our economic system works,” Milliken said.

“Talent is universal,” he said, “but opportunity often isn’t.” Universities “match this talent with the opportunity.”

But federal moves have threatened to change access to education. The Trump administration has sued California’s public universities and community colleges for allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition. A Trump travel ban on dozens of countries has stalled student and faculty applications from Asian, African and South American nations, while a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign hires could hurt university and hospital recruitment.

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Milliken pledged to protect immigrants.

“I think we need to take a step back and recognize how fundamental the country’s embrace of people from around the world has been,” Milliken said. “It has been an enormous boon in terms of talent and culture and the kinds of things that make this country what it is today. I know people are worried, they’re anxious. In some cases, they’re afraid … One of the things that our university presidents and chancellors think about every day is keeping these communities safe.”

Lifelong learning

UC — home to several of the most selective and prestigious campuses in the nation — continues to grow in size and popularity. The system set a record enrollment of about 301,000 students in 2025. And 252,000 high school and transfer students have submitted applications for the coming fall, another record high. Yet, vast numbers of academically qualified students do not get in, especially to UCLA and UC Berkeley.

Campuses, including UCLA, have upped professional certificate programs and extension school offerings in recent years. Milliken said universities should further embrace learning programs outside of the undergraduate experience. UCLA is developing a plan called “UCLA for Life” to reimagine the Westwood campus’ role for professionals.

“A four-year baccalaureate experience is not enough to prepare you for 40 years or 50 years of a career. You’re going to need to retool, going to need to re-skill. And I look at universities. Students ought to turn to their alma maters. There’s a relationship that you ought to have for life,” Milliken said.

The university’s future and evolution

Milliken wants UC to take on a lead role in AI.

“The continued adaptation of AI is inevitable, and there are good things and not so good things about that. But UC is the most important, impactful university in the world, and it should not be following others in developing what is the ethical and responsible,” Milliken said. “… We’re in a place where I think leadership, whether we wanted it or not, is a responsibility.”

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More Californians should take stock of UC’s role outside of undergraduate education, he said.

“Two-thirds of our students are undergraduates. It’s a hugely important thing. But so is the research we do. So is the healthcare that we do across the state. So is the work we do at national laboratories which support incredible innovation and national security,” he said.

Milliken said he hoped the cuts to university research were a short-term “aberration.”

New research funding state bond bill

UC has put its weight behind a $23-billion bond proposal that will be on the November ballot to create a California Foundation for Science and Health Research, which would fund university and private institutions in ways similar to the National Institutes of Health.

If voters pass it, Milliken said the measure would “go an enormous way” toward making up for federal losses but that it was “impossible to speculate” on the extent as federal research funding, priorities and procedures fluctuate.

“I hope we never get to the question of whether California can replace federal funding,” he said. “Would I like to see it supplement, ensure that disruptions — even if shorter term — don’t derail the important science that’s going on here and the preparation of the next generation of scientists? Yes, I think that’s an incredibly worthwhile endeavor for the state.”

More from The Times’ interview with Milliken:

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Matthew Lillard has been campaigning for a while.

He wanted to get back into the “Scream” franchise. Of course his character, Stu Macher, could survive a television being dropped on his head (though it’s said that he was electrocuted). Lillard even thought about dropping an actual TV on his head to prove that it was possible. Luckily, he didn’t go through with it, becausea lot of TV figuratively dropped on his head anyway.

The “Scooby-Doo” actor has been cast in several high-profile projects. He’s on “Cross,” the Amazon Prime show starring Aldis Hodge as a homicide detective and forensic psychologist. He will be in the eight-episode “Carrie” miniseries — yes, that Carrie — developed by filmmaker Mike Flanagan for Amazon MGM Studios. He’s dipping his toes in the Marvel cinematic pond with a role in Netflix’s “Daredevil: Born Again.”

On the big screen, he’s prepping for a third “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”

And his campaign paid off: He’s in the newest chapter of the popular “Scream” franchise — which just released its final trailer earlier this week.

All of this from an actor whom Quentin Tarantino (speaking on “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast”) “doesn’t care for.” Lillard has answered questions about and commented on Tarantino’s viral comments often in the last few months. An actor for almost four decades, Lillard says he has built up a thick skin, but the comments were hurtful.

He talks about those comments, along with his recent projects, working with friends and his constant desire to say “F— ICE.”

So. Tarantino said some things about your (and Paul Dano’s) acting prowess …

Look, candidly, it was a weird moment. It was a bummer. It was a drag at the beginning. But I’ll say this — I have never felt so seen by this industry. My entire career, I felt like a blue-collar working-class actor trying to be in the best movies and do the best work I possibly can. In that moment, along comes an industry that I’ve served now for 35 years, rising up and saying really lovely things. I said, in the past, it felt like I was living through my own wake. You don’t normally see that outpouring of love until after somebody passes. At the end of the day, it ends up being a really beautiful moment for me.

It’s not like I’m this fragile little thing. I’ve been around a long time. Did it suck? Sure.

This Quentin Tarantino thing … I’m good. I love his films. It also sucked because I was like, “Oh, I would love to get in there and kick ass for him.” But whatever. It is not about the box office wins that week. It’s about a body of work, a community of friends, and longevity that really defines. Which is the goal, and it defines a life well spent.

You mentioned longevity, and a quick IMDb search shows that Shaggy is your world! There’s so much “Scooby–Doo.” Straight-to-video. Live-action. Video games.

Yeah. Isn’t that crazy?

Looking back, how did you approach doing the voice work and being in the movies, and what was your thought process when that first came to you?

My first thought process was, “I’m getting that job.” I’m like, “I will kill that.” The way I got into the voice was that I would have to scream myself hoarse. I’ll never forget coming down and being in the car, an empty Warner Bros. lot, screaming to prepare my voice for the audition, and having Chuck Roven, the producer, walk by and knock on the window and be like, “Dude, are you OK?”

The first movie was so successful that I felt like I was launched. James Gunn and I went in and pitched “Plastic Man” at Warner Bros. I felt like, “Oh, I’m now an option to be No. 1 on a call sheet.” Then “Scooby-Doo 2” came out, didn’t do great, and started a reset of my career that took a couple of years.

I look back now at 56 years old and think, without that, I wouldn’t be in this career. I don’t know if I would have been around long enough to get this comeback that I’m in the middle of and enjoying.

“Scream 7” revisits one of the most successful horror franchises ever. How did you feel about being approached to come back? Can you say much about your role?

Ghostface in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.”

(Brownie Harris / Paramount Pictures / Spyglass Media Group)

I’m not going to lie, I was over the moon. At some point, right before I got the offer, probably three or four months before I got the offer, [“Scream” franchise creator] Kevin Williamson put it out in the world that the “Scream” franchise does not need Matthew Lillard. I remember reading that and thinking to myself, “Why don’t you just leave me alone? I’m planning on getting back in.”

[Film producers] Radio Silence had set up in [the fifth and sixth films] the potential or the whisperings that Stu was still alive. So I was like, “We’re trending in the right direction here. Why is Kevin Williamson kicking me in the teeth?” And the funny thing is, he called me in the middle of the afternoon and he’s like, “Are you interested in coming back?” I was super excited. And … there’s not a lot I can say about the movie, for obvious reasons. But I think that people are going to be really excited.

You’re continuing in the horror field with “Carrie.” No release date yet, but what can you say about it?

I had a small scene [in “Life of Chuck”], but the scene’s great and the movie’s beautiful. I saw Kevin Williamson at [“Life of Chuck” and “Carrie” producer] Mike Flanagan’s house because we were playing a game of “Mafia.” I was doing “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and I was sitting talking to Mike and he was talking about doing “Carrie” and everything he’s got coming up. After he and I did “Life of Chuck,” he’s like, “Well, congratulations. You’re now in the Flanafam.” He works a lot with the same actors.

I finally got up the courage to say, “Hey, listen, what is that? I mean, if I’m in the Flanafam, what does that mean? How does that work? Am I supposed to tell you my schedule?” He’s like, “Oh, no, no, no. I have a part for you in ‘Carrie.’ I want you to come and do ‘Carrie’ if you’re interested.”

Everyone knows the story. Carrie, pig blood, all that. But that De Palma version only uses certain specific aspects of the book. The thing I’m excited about is that Mike Flanagan pulls in elements of the book that are not necessarily in the first film, and then adds headlines ripped from today’s day and age in terms of bullying and things we’re seeing in social media and all of that. So he’s giving it a new lens to look at what bullying looks like for kids today. I saw the first three episodes — the entire cast gathered at a screening room — and it blew me away.

Summer Howell plays Carrie, and she’s incredible, and Sam Sloyan plays her mother. There’s three basic parties. There’s the kids, there’s the parents, and then there’s the faculty. I play the principal at the school, watching the entire thing fall apart around them.

You’re also dipping your toes in the world of Marvel with “Daredevil: Born Again.”

I can talk about “Daredevil” a little. I played Dungeon & Dragons with three incredible showrunners. Dario Scardapane, who runs “Daredevil,” Matt Nix, who’s doing the new “Baywatch,” and then Elwood Reid, who does “Tracker.” I’m their dungeon master. We play with Abraham Benrubi, this beautiful actor (“ER,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), a dear friend of mine. … Dario brought me in to play Mr. Charles [on “Daredevil: Born Again”], who’s like a CIA spook. He’s a guy that controls power from afar. He helps nations rise and fall, but he’s very clandestine. He is not impressed by the powers of [Vincent] D’Onofrio’s character [Kingpin] at all. He and I get into this really delicious struggle over power. It’s good. It’s fun.

Matthew Lillard taps “Scream” vibes with Ghost Face Vodka, whose release will coincide with the seventh installment of the film franchise.

(Andreas Branch)

You’ve combined storytelling with alcohol for your lines of whiskey, vodkas and the like. How did you decide to mix the two?

I started a Dungeons & Dragons company six years ago now called Beadle & Grimm’s. Somebody approached me about building a spirits company around Dungeons & Dragons.For me, what I heard in that was like, “Hey, build a luxury item for niche communities that people don’t always respect and know and understand.” My experience with Beadle & Grimm’s was very clear. They will come out and support it.

So we created Quest’s End Whiskey. Quest’s End is a 16-bottle drop over four years. Each bottle is a different character class, but each bottle delivers a new chapter of an ongoing saga. We sold out in the first two weeks. In a week, we had 25,000 people on the waiting list to purchase that first bottle.

I know the impact that “Scream” [has] had on the horror community. I realized that if we could license the [intellectual property] of [film villain] Ghostface that we could make something super badass that fans would go crazy for. It took us a while to secure those rights. But once we did, we built Ghost Face Vodka.Our hope was to sell 2,000 units of a collector’s edition. We had 40,000 people sign up for early access in the first 72 hours.

Ghost Face Vodka has a game on the back, a QR code. When you sit down, all your people can hit that QR code with their smartphones and load an automated game of “Mafia.” It’s a communal game. It’s like two or three of you are Mafia members, and you have to figure out who that is. And it’s super fun. Again, trying to build community. Our hope is that, launching around “Scream 7,” it’s going to catch the zeitgeist and blow up.

Lastly, we have “Cross,” your most current TV project.

Matthew Lillard in “Cross.”

(Ian Watson / Amazon MGM Studios Prime Video)

I’m in love with that creative team and Aldis Hodge and everything he represents. I don’t think people understand that that show did 40 million views in the first 20 days for Amazon. It is unapologetically a Black show that … it feels like it’s being ripped from the headlines. I think Aldis Hodge and the creative team do an incredible job representing a man who is a Black man as a detective in this world. The relationships, the friendships, the bonds he has with his community — just being around that creative team has been really inspiring, and [show creator] Ben Watkins is an incredible storyteller.

I think the thing about “Cross” is that it really challenges you, especially given what we’re living through in this moment. I have to say it — politically speaking, we’re in a s— storm. I went viral a month ago about saying, ‘F— ICE.’ But … f— ICE.

Could you describe your character?

Another dubious character. He’s a billionaire named Lance Durand, and he’s out to solve world hunger. Sometimes, a billionaire has very questionable scruples as to the best ways to go about things. Solve world hunger, kill all the people. That’s how you do it.

The whole series opens up with a bunch of middle-aged white men on an island doing horrible things to girls. So when I say “ripped from the freaking headlines” … It’s, like, crazy.

With spring football practice approaching, reporters met with USC’s staff to talk about the Trojans. We gave you our first 15 thoughts out of those interviews in this week’s Times of Troy newsletter.

(You can subscribe to the Times of Troy here for that news in your inbox every Monday morning.)

But there’s still more to share. Here are 10 more notes, quotes and things to know ahead of spring football …

1. “Everybody thinks he’s the No.1 player in the country for a reason,” defensive line coach Shaun Nua said of freshman Luke Wafle. “He has the potential, the mentality, the character. It’s our job to make sure we maximize that on a consistent basis.”

2. The most encouraging development on USC’s defensive front? “Depth is the greatest friend you can have,” Nua said. He’ll certainly have more of it this season. Assuming his freshmen up front settle in quickly. Wafle is sure to play, while freshman defensive tackles Jameion Wingfield and Tomhuini Topui look primed for early roles. That’s in addition to Jahkeem Stewart, an All-American as a freshman, and fellow rising sophomore Floyd Boucard, who was a standout in stretches last season.

3. Skyler Jones, USC’s new defensive tackles coach, got his break in college football because of Eric Henderson. Now, with Henderson back in the NFL, Jones got promoted in his place at USC. Jones said he cried when coach Lincoln Riley told him the good news. He’ll be a critical figure in improving USC’s interior, and in developing Stewart. It’s a huge opportunity, but I think Jones is capable of continuing Henderson’s work. “Dawgwork is alive,” Jones said. “Dawgwork isn’t going anywhere.”

4. Of all the new coaching hires, Mike Ekeler impressed me most. Ekeler said he left Nebraska because he already built a strong foundation for the Cornhuskers’ special teams, which he said were now “on cruise control.” He didn’t like the feeling of being comfortable, he said. He wanted a challenge — and he’ll get a double dose with USC’s linebackers and special teams units. Last season, Nebraska was great on kick return while also blocking five kicks. The Trojans had a good kicker … but that’s about all the nice things you can say about the special teams.

5. According to Ekeler, even “Ray Charles could see we have a talented linebacker room here.” If that’s true, we haven’t seen that talent harnessed yet. USC is putting a lot of faith in the untapped potential of Desman Stephens and Jadyn Walker, who both have very particular skill sets for defensive coordinator Gary Patterson to utilize. But Ekeler is convincing: “Over 30 linebackers that I’ve coached have gone to the NFL,” he said. “We’ve got guys in our room with that ability. Now it’s just about getting that out of them.”

6. Another great quote from Ekeler, who was asked about the perception that Riley can’t have a good defense: “Anybody who says that Lincoln Riley doesn’t care about defense, I’d have to check their oil.”

Jontez Williams returns an interception for Iowa State last season.

(Justin Hayworth / Associated Press)

7. Safe to say that Jontez Williams will open spring as USC’s CB1. Cornerbacks coach Trovon Reed said he saw the Iowa State transfer as “the best all-around player in the portal.” That’s high praise, but USC made Williams its top target this offseason for a reason. It’s been a while since USC had a true shutdown corner.

8. The other cornerback spot is wide open. I didn’t get the impression that Chasen Johnson, who was expected to fill a starting spot last season, is assured to play opposite Williams in the fall. There’s Marcelles Williams as well as RJ Sermons, who would’ve been one of the top recruits in this year’s class if he hadn’t reclassified. Prophet Brown also could play outside if he doesn’t play in the slot.

9. Don’t be surprised if freshman corner Elbert “Rock” Hill is a serious contributor by season’s end. Reed said the “sky is the limit” for the four-star freshman, who could play any number of positions in Patterson’s defensive backfield. “Wherever we can get him on the field fastest, that’s where he’ll be,” Reed said.

10. Safety Christian Pierce is out after offseason surgery. Safety is a critical spot in Patterson’s scheme, and Pierce is one of the most important players on the team. It’d be unfortunate if he had to sit out spring, but I’m bullish on Pierce having a big year regardless.

A sparkly pink electric guitar hangs on a wall of the recording studio where Hilary Duff made her new album. The cozy, gear-filled joint near the Van Nuys Airport belongs to her husband, Matthew Koma, who produced “Luck… or Something,” the singer and actor’s first LP in more than a decade. But as Duff points out on a recent afternoon, the paisley-print guitar is all hers.

“I got it for my 16th birthday,” she says proudly — a gift from the Fender company. “I found it in the storage unit and Matt was like, ‘Oh, that’s going up there.’”

Before Miley Cyrus, before Sabrina Carpenter, before Olivia Rodrigo, Duff arrived in the early 2000s as a Disney kid with pop-idol ambitions. She broke out in the endearingly awkward title role of the Disney Channel’s “Lizzie McGuire” then went on to star in family-friendly movies like “Agent Cody Banks” and “Cheaper by the Dozen.” By the time she received that guitar, she’d topped the Billboard 200 with her album “Metamorphosis,” which sold 4 million copies and spawned hit singles like “So Yesterday” and “Come Clean.”

Duff stepped away from music for most of her 20s to focus on acting and starting a family. (An attempted comeback album in 2015, “Breathe In. Breathe Out.,” didn’t really go anywhere.) Now, at 38, she’s returned with a bracingly honest record full of the texture and detail of her life as a wife, sister and mother of four.

In frank yet wordy songs that layer guitars and synths over shimmering grooves, Duff sings about trying to overcome old habits and about her fear that her best times are behind her. “We Don’t Talk” appears to address her estrangement from her older sister, Haylie, while “Weather for Tennis” describes her tendency to keep the peace as a child of divorce. In “Holiday Party,” she recounts a recurring dream in which Koma cheats on her with her friends.

“I wake up in a rage and he’s like, ‘I didn’t do anything!’” she says with a laugh. “And I’m like, ‘But you want to.’ A lot of this stuff came out of the hormonal boom of: I’ve just had a baby and I’m nursing and I’m trying to get my two feet back on the ground again.” (Duff and Koma have three daughters aged 7, 4 and 1, while Duff shares a 13-year-old son with her ex-husband, former hockey player Mike Comrie.)

Asked how he hopes the album fares commercially, Koma says, “I don’t [care]. Public perception or sales, that’s all cool, but it’s a separate experience from why we did it.” The producer, who’s known for his work with Zedd and Shania Twain, adds, “The whole purpose was to make something that Hilary could feel good about stepping into.”

Yet early-2000s nostalgia led to a recent run of sold-out theater gigs, and this summer it’ll carry her into arenas around the world, including Inglewood’s Kia Forum on July 8 and 9. (Less happily for Duff, it also made a viral sensation of an essay in the Cut by her fellow millennial Ashley Tisdale in which Tisdale wrote about leaving a “toxic mom group” that allegedly included Duff and Mandy Moore.)

Curled on a sofa in the studio’s control room, Duff says, “I’m finally at this place where I’m zero percent ashamed of my past and any of the things that used to embarrass me” — one reason she made the bold choice to open her set at the Wiltern last month with two of her biggest hits, “Wake Up” and “So Yesterday.”

After those songs came “Roommates,” perhaps the most vulnerable track on Duff’s new album. It’s about navigating a dry patch in a marriage, and the language is as vivid as it is unsparing: “I only want the beginning / I don’t want the end,” she sings, adding that she longs to be in the “back of a dive bar, giving you h—.”

A surprising word choice.
How would you have said it? Sometimes you need to make the lyrics fit — you need it to rhyme with something. [Laughs] It’s meant to be polarizing because it’s such a desperate plea. I can say I haven’t actually given h— in the back of a dive bar. But it’s just trying to capture the feeling of a time when you felt alive.

Like all teen stars, you had to figure out how to grow up and talk about sex as a public figure. Now there’s the idea that it’s better left to the young.
I finally feel like I know a lot about sex. My whole 20s, sex was not always enjoyable — it was so much to figure out. Now I finally understand it. Maybe that’s a female thing, but I’m not ready to be put out to pasture. People come up to me all the time and they’re like, “Wow, you aged really well.” I’m like, “I’m only 38! Just because you’ve known me since I was 9…”

You’re handling senior citizenship well.
When do I start getting the discounts? I feel like 38 is not old, although when I thought about my parents at 40, they looked so different than we look now.

I always stop at those TikToks where it shows what 35 looked like in 1982.
I don’t think anyone drank water back then. They were, like, dusty-crusty.

Hilary Duff, left, and Matthew Koma at Apple Music Studios in Los Angeles in December.

(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for Apple Music)

You borrow the chorus of Blink-182’s “Dammit” for your song “Growing Up.” Why?
Blink is one of my favorite bands. I remember getting my driver’s license, and that was what was playing on my iPod. “Growing Up” is such a deeply personal song to me, talking about sitting in the backyard with one of my best friends and just needing to drink too much wine and unload about life. But it also feels like a love letter to my fans. I don’t like saying that word, but I genuinely feel like I’ve had fans for 25 years, and getting to see them now in adulthood — I didn’t know I was going to have this opportunity.

What’s the problem with “fan”?
It puts me on a pedestal that makes me feel uncomfortable. If you were to talk to Matt or someone close to me, they’d probably say, “Hilary doesn’t understand what she’s meant to some people.” And I think that’s true. When I think of myself, I’m not like a grand pop star — I feel more like a woman of the people.

A woman of the people?
Am I allowed to say that? [Laughs] Is that offensive in any way? My feet hit the ground in the morning, and I’ve got a million things to do. Sometimes my baby’s still sleeping. And I have a teenager to get ready for school that we’re always all waiting on.

Why do you have four children?
I know — we’re sick.

Did you expect to have four?
I thought I would have at least three. I always wanted a big family because I come from a super small family and I always wanted more siblings. I had Luca obviously pre-Matt, and then we had Banks before we got married. Then the pandemic hit — we had a pandemic baby like everybody else. The fourth was just a crazy-a— decision. Matt was like, “Everybody’s gonna think we’re really Christ-y if we go for No. 4.” We also have three dogs, two cats and eight chickens.

As two artists, how do you sort out the work of child-rearing?
I don’t know if I’ve actually said this out loud — to Matt I have for sure — but I think that part of my wanting to make a record was coming out of having my fourth child. I love motherhood, obviously — I wouldn’t have four kids if I didn’t. But I think I felt really jealous that he got to go to work every day and just be alone with his thoughts. I was like, I need to stretch. That’s what it felt like after the fourth baby: I’m either gonna lose myself completely and just become a stay-at-home mom and wait for the phone to ring, or I’m gonna go make something that moves me.

You don’t need me to tell you that our culture is always happy to make moms feel guilty. Was it a journey to accept that it’s OK to do something for yourself?
That’s what the healthy part of the brain says. But the other part that’s wired to be with the children you birthed — sometimes that part overshadows it. And it’s very hard to fight that. I could probably cry right now thinking about all the things I’m gonna miss this year.

Hilary Duff in the studio where she recorded her new album.

(Jay L Clendenin / For The Times)

You’ve got a line in “Roommates” where you say, “Life is life-ing and pressure is pressuring me.” At the shows you just played, did you think of your audience as being at the same place in life as you?
For sure. When they were scream-singing it back to me, I was like, “Oh, you know.” That doesn’t mean you have to be a parent. “Life is life-ing” is the bills and the monotony and the traffic and the family — it’s all the things. I knew that if it’s bumping around inside my head, and I’ve been living a pretty normal life for 10 years — normal as I can get — then people would see themselves in it.

Twenty-five years ago, you were playing to 10-year-olds. Would a 10-year-old today be interested in your new songs?
I don’t think so. But I mean, I used to sing Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” all the time, and I had no idea what it was about.

The last decade has been a golden age for young female songwriters: Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo.
You forgot Chappell Roan.

“Luck… or Something” feels aligned with that deepening craft. But maybe your early stuff felt sophisticated to you.
I don’t think the intent back then was sophisticated songwriting. There was no Taylor Swift yet — it’s like before Christ and after Christ.

She changed the game?
On all the levels.

How’d you end up on Atlantic Records? I wondered whether this was a product of personal friendships — the Elliot Grainge and Sofia Richie and Good Charlotte of it all.
We’re more personally friends with them now. I finished making the record and for the first time ever was like, “It’s done — do you like it?”

You weren’t looking for notes from the label.
I’m not saying I didn’t have meetings with A&R. But pretty much the record was created, and that was that. I didn’t go shopping anywhere else, which was fantastic because I hate a dog-and-pony show.

Did you feel like you’d been chewed up by the record industry in any way?
After “Breathe In. Breathe Out.,” it was very easy to be like, “RCA forced me to lead with this song when I knew it should’ve been this song.” But that was me not having [courage], you know what I mean? It was a joint effort of [messing] it up. But I learned a lot from that. I don’t think I would’ve made this record if I hadn’t fumbled the ball a little.

The story about the toxic mom group blew up just as you were launching this album. Did that experience give you pause about reentering the pop world?
I mean, this is not new for me. I’ve had this since I was maybe 15 and starting to get followed around by paparazzi. Everything starts getting documented and everyone knows my life and all the players in it. So the stories that get news pickup — it’s not what happens to a normal person who maybe became an actor as an adult. And now it’s escalated by the talking heads on TikTok that need clickbait. It’s hard because you’re like, “Wait, whoa, that person kind of got it right,” and “Whoa that person doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” I saw something that was like, “None of the moms at school actually like her and neither do the teachers,” and I was like, “First of all…”

Is it hard or easy for you to tune out —
By the way, the women at school are lovely and I’m obsessed with all of them.

But can you ignore the chatter about you on social media?
It just depends on the day. Knowing that I get to open up the backdoors and play soccer as a family and take a hot tub and go get our chicken eggs — that’s the purpose of life. On the days when crazy s— happens, I go home and quiet the noise.

The most prestigious board ever put together.

That is how the president of the United States, a man convicted of fraud, described his new team focused on international relations. A team that does not include representatives from our closest neighbors — Mexico and Canada — but did save room for leaders accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Now, we do not know whether President Trump created his “Board of Peace,” which this week held its first meeting, specifically to undermine the authority of the United Nations. But we do know that the president has pledged $10 billion in tax dollars to the board’s mission while still owing the U.N. half that amount in back payments. We do not know whether Trump, who is indefinitely the leader of this peace board, intends to relinquish that power after he leaves the White House. But we do know he is still trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Whether the “Board of Peace” is the most prestigious panel ever assembled is debatable. What is not debatable is that it was conceived by an adjudicated sexual abuser who is referenced in the released Epstein files some 38,000 times.

That is not my take.

That is simply what is happening.

Which is why the president encourages his supporters to ban books and reject journalism. He doesn’t want voters to pay attention. He doesn’t want voters to understand his actions.

Ten years ago this month — after his Nevada caucus victory speech — Trump said, “I love the poorly educated.” And his reliance on this base is why, over the past decade, he and other conservatives have purposely misconstrued the term “woke” as a catch-all slur toward progressive and far-left policies. It used to mean “aware” and “informed.” The term was not born out of modern politics but rather the need to understand the history of the social economic systems we all are living in. The alternative is to be blindly led by an unscrupulous leader most concerned with his own well being.

Being “woke” is why the Boston Tea Party happened in 1773; it is why Thomas Paine published “Common Sense” in 1776; it is why Republicans formed the Wide Awakes to help get Abraham Lincoln elected in 1860. When voters understand the context in which decisions are made, we are better equipped to address shortcomings at the ballot box and in our daily lives.

Trump’s self-proclaimed love for the poorly educated has nothing to do with progressive policies or college degrees and everything to do with whom he can convince to believe him. And by making “woke” an insult, Trump and other conservatives have politicized the very tool necessary to help the country fulfill its promise: information.

This threat is the reason his administration attacks, and even arrests, journalists; the reason he refers to reports he doesn’t like as “fake news”; the reason he fired the labor statistics chief after an unflattering jobs report last year. He’s waging a war on information.

The reason 2025 marked the worst nonrecession year for job growth since 2003 isn’t that the country was “woke.” It’s because of shortcomings in leadership.

When Trump returned to the White House, he made lowering the U.S. trade deficit a key component to his economic policy. In 2024, the deficit was $903.5 billion. In 2025, it was $901.5 billion — and America’s families paid $230 billion more for goods because of his yo-yo tariff policies.

He told his supporters that other nations would be paying for the tariffs he enacted — obvious nonsense to anyone who attended a day of Econ 101. And we know that as a result of his reckless and ignorant policies, farmers in particular suffered. It’s not clear whether that financial burden was a consideration when the Supreme Court on Friday declared the president’s sweeping tariffs to be illegal. What we do know is before Trump entered politics, his businesses filed for bankruptcy six times — so perhaps he was never the economic savant he claimed to be.

Just as the saga of the Epstein files reveals he is not the protector of women and young girls that he claimed to be.

Just as his recent attacks on the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 14th Amendments show he was never the defender of the Constitution he took an oath to be.

Acknowledging the laundry list of untruths tied to his promises and presidency is not political or a symptom of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” It’s simply having information: the one thing that helps voters understand why things are the way they are. The one thing the president hopes his supporters never wake up to see for themselves.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who is feeling mighty nostalgic about the ’90s and early aughts.

On Thursday night, we learned that Eric Dane died at 53 after a battle with ALS, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease. The actor was known for his mid-2000s role on ABC’s medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” where he earned the moniker “McSteamy” as Dr. Mark Sloan, a plastic surgeon. Coincidentally, yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of his first appearance on “Grey’s.” More recently, he appeared in HBO’s teen drama “Euphoria” as Cal Jacobs, a very complex father to Nate (Jacob Elordi), one of the central characters. The actor will appear posthumously in the show’s third season when it returns in April. Dane remained busy in the past couple of years, having also appeared in the one-season action series “Countdown” on Prime Video and in an episode of ABC’s “Brilliant Minds.” If you want to go further on Dane, Netflix announced this morning that an episode of the docuseries “Famous Last Words” featuring the actor was available. The show consists of an interview with a notable subject, and is only released posthumously.

If you want another trip down memory lane, last week saw the arrival of FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” which takes a closer look at the famous couple who unexpectedly met a tragic end. The show fully immerses you in the culture of New York in the ’90s, complete with Calvin Klein ads, tabloid magazines with zany headlines and partying at the Roxy nightclub. Connor Hines, the creator of “Love Story,” spoke to us about the show, which you can read below.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, we recommend an Irish series on Netflix from the creator of “Derry Girls” and another nostalgic docuseries about “America’s Next Top Model.”

ICYMI

Must-read stories you might have missed

Grace Van Patten and Jackson White of “Tell Me Lies” at American Quick Start & Gas Inc. in Brooklyn, N.Y.

(Dutch Doscher / For The Times)

On ‘Tell Me Lies,’ Grace Van Patten and Jackson White’s toxic (onscreen) relationship ends: After three seasons, “Tell Me Lies” comes to an end. Creator Meaghan Oppenheimer unpacks the series finale alongside stars Grace Van Patten and Jackson White.

Missed ‘Scrubs’? They did too, and now they’re back making the rounds: Donald Faison, Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke spoke about reuniting for the revival of the beloved medical comedy created by Bill Lawrence and now helmed by Aseem Batra.

‘Baywatch’ casting call brings back ’90s with in-person auditions, red suits and ripped bods: About 2,000 people flocked to Marina del Rey on Wednesday in hopes of landing a role in the upcoming “Baywatch” reboot, which the production hopes will be a boon for Hollywood.

How ‘The Pitt’ portrayed a rape kit exam sensitively with the help of experts: To portray the exam shown in Episode 7 accurately, the show’s writers and actors consulted with experts from the UCLA Health Rape Treatment Center and Pittsburgh Action Against Rape.

Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Bronagh Gallagher, back left, as Booker, Shauna Bray as Midwife, Saoirse-Monica Jackson as Feeney in “How To Get To Heaven From Belfast.”

(Christopher Barr / Netflix)

“How to Get to Heaven From Belfast” (Netflix)

Lisa McGee, whose “Derry Girls” was the toast of 2018, returns with another comedy of Irish women in a mad place. Three friends since school travel to a one-taxi, one-hotel town for the wake of an estranged fourth: Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher), an award-winning television writer who can’t seem to keep her engagement ring on her finger; Robyn (Sinéad Keenan), a busy, bored rich wife and mother; and Dara (Caoilfhionn Dunne), who has been stuck, or has stuck herself, caring for her mother. All share a dark secret they hope to keep buried, but which has begun to poke its head above ground. What, and who, they find, and don’t find, kicks off a manic mystery, served with a side of car trouble, hangovers, a storm, a blackout, oddball supporting characters and a little romance, not necessarily in that order, with sharp, funny dialogue driving it along. And that’s just the beginning. — Robert Lloyd

A still of “America’s Next Top Model” contestants, clockwise from far left, Nicole Panattoni, Adrianne Curry, Elyse Sewell, Kesse Wallace, Robbyne Manning, Giselle Samson, Shannon Stewart and Ebony Haith as featured in “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.”

(Courtesy of Netflix)

“Reality Check: America’s Next Top Model” (Netflix)

“We were all rooting for you!” was the cry heard ‘round the world from Tyra Banks, the host and creator of the reality TV series that aimed to find the next fresh face of magazine covers and fashion runways. But viewers learn in this docuseries that what we saw on screen didn’t tell the whole story. From allegations of sexual assault to discord among the judges, “America’s Next Top Model” had a lot of problems, many of them relating to the fact that a show like it hadn’t been done and producers were inexperienced in handling serious issues on set. “Reality Check” features candid interviews with former contestants including Shandi Sullivan, Keenyah Hill, Tiffany Richardson (recipient of that famous “rooting” speech) and Banks herself. — Maira Garcia

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Paul Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr. in “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.”

(FX)

The latest anthology series produced by Ryan Murphy dramatizes the true-life romance between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette that gripped the culture in the ’90s. Nearly three decades after their tragic deaths, FX’s “Love Story” revisits the tumultuous seven-year relationship between the pair. JFK Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) spent his life navigating the public spotlight as the son and namesake of an assassinated (and beloved) president, and Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) was a publicist working at Calvin Klein. Inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s book “One Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy,” the nine-episode series chronicles the couple’s whirlwind romance and their struggle to maintain their relationship under intense media scrutiny before their deaths in a 1999 plane crash. The first four episodes are streaming now on Hulu and Disney+, with new episodes released weekly on Thursdays. Connor Hines, who created the series, stopped by Guest Spot to discuss what intrigued him about the couple’s plight and the early aughts rom-com that he admires. — Yvonne Villarreal

You were a child when the love story of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette — as well as that fateful flight — generated intense media attention. What do you remember about their story? What stood out then?

My father commuted into Manhattan every day for work and always brought home the New York Post. I have vivid memories of seeing photos of them splashed across the cover. I knew about the Kennedy family, of course, but I couldn’t fully grasp the choke hold John F. Kennedy Jr. had on the country at the time. The scale of the fascination was something I only truly understood later.

Why does this story feel worth revisiting now? And did any modern couples in the spotlight become reference points as you unpacked questions about public fascination while weaving together this story?

We’re living in an attention economy, so a couple beset by obsession and scrutiny feels especially resonant right now. There are, unfortunately, far too many examples of women who marry high-profile figures only to be harangued for expressing anything other than gratitude and graciousness. That dynamic hasn’t disappeared — it’s simply evolved.

The series grapples with the media invasion that swirled around them. Some critics contend that dramatizing their story for television reignites it. How do you see it? And how did that inform your approach to telling this story?

They’ve been memorialized as these beautiful, one-dimensional fashion figures whose marriage buckled under immense pressure. The series felt like an opportunity to course-correct a dated and misogynistic narrative, especially surrounding Carolyn — and to add dimension to two people who were far more complex than the images and tabloid stories written about them.

You seemingly had a lot of material to draw from and public moments in their relationship timeline to focus on. What was a moment that most fascinated you?

I was personally drawn to Carolyn’s rich life before she became a public figure. She was incredibly sharp, savvy and dynamic — she ascended from folding sweaters at a Calvin Klein store in the mall to becoming a muse and trusted advisor to Calvin Klein himself. I don’t think people fully appreciate how much she gave up to be with John.

What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?

“Dying for Sex” [Hulu, Disney+]. “Adolescence” [Netflix].

What’s your go-to “comfort watch,” the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?

“Something’s Gotta Give” [Tubi], or anything by Nora Ephron. I’m also an unapologetic champion of the Bravo network.

Not only is Betye Saar a living legend, but the prolific L.A. artist continues to add to her impressive oeuvre day by day.

She’s been creating powerful, thought-provoking artwork since the ’60s and her pieces have been shown at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and LACMA, as well as museums and galleries around the world.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

As her centennial birthday approaches this July, Saar shows no signs of slowing down. She still routinely creates art and continues to garner headlines and accolades. Last year, she was honored with the distinction of “Icon Artist” at the Art Basel Awards. During the upcoming Frieze Los Angeles art festival, which opens Feb. 26, she will be the subject of the photography installation “Betye Saar Altered Polaroids.” And this May, “Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar” will debut at Roberts Projects, the gallery that represents her. The exhibition will feature pieces from her early career as a costume and jewelry designer.

Though she’s skilled at painting and photography, she’s most widely known for assemblage, the art of juxtaposing miscellaneous items to form a single cohesive work. Her dioramas, sculptures and large-scale multimedia installations explore the legacy of American slavery, confront racial injustice and celebrate the strength and resiliency of African American women.

“I work with found objects that had another purpose before they came to my hands,” Saar says while seated at a patio table in her succulent-filled tiered garden. “The hardest part of it is going to a flea market, secondhand stores, an estate sale or even just going behind a store to see what people throw away.”

Over the years, she’s traveled by plane, train and automobile in search of usable materials. Meanwhile, admirers, colleagues and gallery workers have sent her curios from New Mexico, Tennessee, New England and beyond. Her daughters — artists Alison and Lezley, and writer Tracye, their mother’s studio director — also stay on the lookout for objects that might catch her eye.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I have quite a collection,” she says.

Indeed, Saar’s multi-level home studio in Laurel Canyon is bursting with dozens of old empty picture frames, discarded window panes, wooden chests, antique chairs and vintage clocks. But there’s always room for more.

Her idea of a perfect Sunday includes foraging for new items (or old ones, as the case may be) to use in her daily art practice. And she’d return to her roots to do it.

“Pasadena is my hometown and I still have a few relatives that live there,” she says.

While visiting her old stomping grounds, she’d embark on a multi-stop shopping spree and wander through a longtime favorite San Gabriel Valley attraction (where her work just so happens to be on display).

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

10 a.m.: Search for hidden treasures

Pasadena Community College Flea Market is something that’s part of “the hunt.” Alison usually drives, sometimes Tracye. Some people are there early to get the deals; we’re not like that anymore. I like to look around and sometimes I find interesting fabrics, scarves to wear and strange-shaped succulents for my garden. I hardly ever find really good antiquing things there, because those are at antique stores and they’re usually pretty pricey. But I bought an old, rusty metal birdcage the seller said was from France. I like rusty stuff for my art. I also found an indigo blue kimono to wear at an art event later this year.

1 p.m.: Replenish with Thai food

I’d go down Fair Oaks Avenue — there’s some secondhand stores. Usually, it’s nothing I can use, but I still can’t say no. I have to go see for myself. Then, lunch at Saladang Garden. I always order chicken sate and the green papaya salad. Last time I went, we tried the Thai corn fritter which was really good and crispy. If food is too spicy, I can’t eat it. But somebody in my party would always have something spicy and I can have a spoonful to add to mine.

2:30 p.m.: More shopping

I am attracted to all the odd things at Gold Bug. Notepads and trinkets, curious vintage-y things with animals or interesting patterns, strange candles. Sometimes I surprise myself by buying something. They have a mixture of things that — whether it’s for the color, or the texture — I feel that I can recycle and fit into an art object that I’m making.

3:30 p.m.: Visit a childhood haunt (with a side of more shopping)

I really like the Huntington’s gardens. I remember the first time I went there was with my mother and a friend of hers, and we walked around. All the paths were dirt, you know, they hadn’t even gotten around to paving it yet. But I just fell in love with it. And I really like their gift shop.

6 p.m.: Head west for a culinary classic

If I go someplace to eat for lunch, I usually have leftovers to warm up. Nothing wrong with leftovers — if you liked it the first time, you’ll like it again! But if I had to go out to dinner, the Apple Pan. I would go there in the ’80s with my daughters. I like their sandwiches, or the hickory burger with cheese, and there’s good French fries.

8 p.m.: Tuck into some wind-down watching

Before bed, I like to watch the news because, otherwise, I don’t know what’s going on. I also like a lot of shows on PBS. “Finding Your Roots,” or dramas like “Sister Boniface Mysteries” and “Call the Midwife,” which has been going on forever!