“KPop Demon Hunters” creator Maggie Kang thinks there’s potential for more Huntr/x stories in the future, but only in animation.
In a recent interview with the BBC, the co-director of the Netflix phenomenon said there is nothing officially in the works, but she thinks “there’s definitely more we can do with these characters in this world.” Kang and her co-director Chris Appelhans also assured fans that if another “KPop Demon Hunters” were to happen, “it will be a story that deserves to be a sequel, and it will be something that we want to see.”
Produced by Sony Pictures Animation, the movie follows a popular K-pop girl group whose members use their music and dance moves (and magical powers) to fight demons and protect the world. But Huntr/x’s leader Rumi is keeping a secret from her bandmates Mira and Zoey that could lead to their downfall.
With Hollywood’s current trend of sequels and remakes, it’s easy to believe that “KPop Demon Hunters” could spawn its own franchise. But Kang and Appelhans both insist that a live-action adaptation should be off the table.
“It’s really hard to imagine these characters in a live action world,” Kang told the BBC, pointing to the tone and comedic elements in “KPop.” “It would feel too grounded. So totally it wouldn’t work for me.”
Appelhans agreed that the characters in “KPop Demon Hunters” are best suited for animation and worried a live-action version of them could feel too “stilted.”
“One of the great things about animation is that you make these composites of impossibly great attributes,” Appelhans told the BBC. “Rumi can be this goofy comedian and then singing and doing a spinning back-kick a second later and then free-falling through the sky. The joy of animation is how far you can push and elevate what’s possible.”
For now, it seems that Huntr/x will keep shining only in the medium they were born to be — in animation.
Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner kicked off his campaign for mayor on Monday with a video launch that hits not just Mayor Karen Bass but President Trump and his immigration crackdown.
Beutner, a philanthropist and former investment banker, uses the four-minute campaign video to describe L.A. as a city that is “under attack” — a message punctuated by footage of U.S. Border Patrol agents.
“I’ll never accept the Trump administration’s assault on our values and our neighbors,” says Beutner, a Democrat, as he stands on a tree-lined residential street. “Targeting people solely based on the color of their skin is unacceptable and un-American.”
“I’ll counter these injustices and work to keep every person safe and build a better Los Angeles,” he adds.
The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Times about Beutner’s video.
The video opens by describing a major biking accident that upended Beutner’s life about 17 years ago, leading him to enter public service and “take a different path.” Not long after, he became Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s “jobs czar,” taking on the elevated title of first deputy mayor and striking business deals on the mayor’s behalf.
The video casts Beutner, 65, as a pragmatic problem solver, focusing on his nonprofit Vision to Learn, which provides eye exams and glasses to children in low-income communities. It also highlights his work shepherding L.A. Unified through the COVID-19 pandemic and working to pass Proposition 28, the 2022 measure supporting arts education in California public schools.
Beutner, on his video, also turns his aim at City Hall, high housing costs, rising parking meter rates and a big increase in trash pickup fees for homeowners and smaller apartment buildings. Calling L.A. a city that is “adrift,” Beutner criticized the mayor’s push to reduce homelessness — one of her signature initiatives.
“The city spent billions to solve problems that have just become bigger problems,” Beutner says.
Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman pushed back on the criticism, saying the city needs to “move past divisive attacks.” He said violent crime is down across the city, with homicides falling to their lowest levels in 60 years.
“When Karen Bass ran for mayor, homelessness and public safety were the top concerns of Angelenos. And she has delivered in a big way,” he said in a statement. “Today, homelessness has decreased two consecutive years for the first time in Los Angeles. Thousands of people have been moved off our streets and into housing.”
“There’s more work ahead, but this administration has proven it can deliver,” Herman added. “Mayor Bass is committed to building on this historic momentum in her second term.”
Beutner’s video posted two days after he confirmed that he’s planning to run for mayor, leveling blistering criticism at the city’s preparation for, and response to, the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.
Beutner’s criticism of Trump’s immigration crackdown in many ways echoes the messages delivered by Bass several months ago, when federal agents were seizing street vendors, day laborers and other workers in L.A.
In June, Bass said the Trump administration was waging an “all-out assault on Los Angeles,” with federal agents “randomly grabbing people” off the street, “chasing Angelenos through parking lots” and arresting immigrants who showed up at court for annual check-ins. Her approach to the issue helped her regain her political footing after she had faltered in the wake of the Palisades fire.
In early September, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration, agreeing that immigration agents can stop and detain individuals they suspect may be in the U.S. illegally merely for speaking Spanish or having brown skin.
The high court ruling set aside a Los Angeles judge’s temporary restraining order that barred agents from stopping people based in part on their race or apparent ethnicity.
Big Brother fans believe they have worked out that Elsa is heavily encouraging a narrative of love between her and Marcus in a desperate bid to land brand deals on exit from the show
Fans think they have worked out Big Brother’s Elsa Rae game plan(Image: ITV)
Big Brother fans are convinced that Elsa is desperate to force a love narrative between her and fellow housemate Marcus in order to secure couple brand deals. The blonde housemate revealed following this week’s eviction, that she was prepared to drop a love bombshell on Marcus if she was evicted from the show.
She told her housemates that she was prepared to tell him that she loved him, leaving her housemates in utter shock. And this has caused a stir among fans on X, who now believe that she entered the house with an agenda.
One person wrote: “Elsa was going to tell a dude she’s known for two weeks she loves him. She wants those couples brand deals BAD #BBUK.” Another person said: “I’ve had ‘relationships’ in primary school more realistic than Marcus and Elsa #bbuk.”
Meanwhile a third person added: “if i was gonna go i was gonna tell marcus i loved him” ..elsa girl please chill you bunny boiler you’ve known him less than 3 weeks #bbuk.”
And a fourth person chimed in saying: “marcus please your not going to get with elsa your just saying that to make good tv but we don’t care this is big brother not love island.”
A fifth said: “Marcus has no intentions of seeing Elsa after this. You can see it on his face #bbuk.”
In a private conversation her fellow housemate Zelah, Elsa confessed that she was in love with him, leaving the wannabe star in utter shock. A coy looking Elsa simply smiled.
However, further into the evening shown in tonight’s show Zelah and Marcus found themselves in a conversation in the garden where the pair were talking about his feelings for Elsa. And it seems he does not share the same feelings for the reality TV star.
When asked if the location between the two would be an obstacle that they would have to overcome, Marcus made it clear that his doubts were more focused on the dynamics within the house.
Marcus appeared concerned that the feelings the pair have for one another in the house may change in the outside world when the reality of their situation is put to the test.
The couple have been heavily flirting with one another since entering the iconic Big Brother house. At one point, Caroline is seen telling Marcus: “I think she’s in love.”
Marcus then quipped: “I know, I don’t blame her.” Beckoning for her to come over to him he shouted out “come here Elsa.” And Caroline then joked: “The romance is coming.”
An immigrant drama by Rudi Goblen about two brothers born in Nicaragua, “littleboy/littleman,” now receiving its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, is an American story at its core.
Lest we forget our past, America is the great democratic experiment precisely because it’s a land of immigrants. Out of many, one — as our national motto, E pluribus unum, has it. How have we lost sight of this basic tenet of high school social studies?
Our tendency to ghettoize drama — along racial or immigrant lines — reflects the failure to understand our collective story.
Goblen, who (like a.k. payne, author of “Furlough’s Paradise”) was a playwriting student of Geffen Playhouse artistic director Tarell Alvin McCraney at Yale, has created not a conventionally worked out two-hander, but an intuitively structured performance piece. Infused by live music and inflected with hip-hop style poetry, “littleboy/littleman” crashes through the fourth wall to make direct contact with theatergoers, who are seated on three sides of the playing area and always just a high-five away.
Marlon Alexander Vargas, the dynamic, sweet-faced performer who plays Fito Palomino, the more creative and mercurial of the two brothers, is on stage interacting with the audience before the play begins. As the musicians — music director Dee Simone on drums and Tonya Sweets on bass — warm up the crowd from their platform at the back of the playing area, Vargas, ever-in-motion, greets theatergoers and counts down to the start of the show.
Rules are spelled out at the top that make clear that this isn’t one of those docile theatergoing experiences, in which the audience is expected to keep mum as the actors do all the work. Spectators are encouraged to make some noise — to show love when they want to show love and to show it even when they don’t.
These friendly instructions are impishly delivered by Vargas, whose performance outside the play has an effect on our experience of his character inside the play. The fate of Fito is the emotional crux of the drama, and what happens to him matters all the more to us because of our theatrical connection to Vargas, our de facto host and impromptu buddy.
Goblen sets up a drama of fraternal contrasts. Bastian Monteyero (Alex Hernandez), the older and more straitlaced of the two brothers, has a tough, no-nonsense demeanor that’s all about discipline and conformity. He’s a bit of a recluse, but he plays by the rules and demands the same from Fito.
A street performer, Fito dreams of opening a vegan restaurant that will offer his community access to affordable, healthful meals. This idea seems far-fetched to Bastian, and he tells Fito that if he wants to continue living with him, he’s going to have to get a real job.
Bastian hooks Fito up with a friend who’s employed at a cleaning service. But scrubbing public toilets isn’t Fito’s idea of an alternative course. Bastian wants his brother off the streets. There are dangers afoot in Sweetwater, Fla., far worse than unpleasant paid work.
A law officer in town, a sadist who demands complete subservience, has it in for Fito, who describes this menacing figure as “a gangster with a badge.” He also calls him “brown on the outside, white on the inside,” and bemoans to his brother the Latino infighting (“the worst thing they ever did was give us all flags”) that only divides people who have political reason to be in solidarity.
Bastian, who affects a white-sounding Midwestern voice when he hustles donations in his telemarketing job, can’t help taking the latter comment personally. He’s made no secret that he wants to change his name so his resume won’t be ignored when he applies for management jobs.
The two brothers have different fathers, and Fito doesn’t have the option of passing. In any case, he’s more embracing of his identity as a person of color than Bastian. What both of them have in common is that they survived both their harrowing childhoods in Nicaragua and their unrelentingly challenging journeys in America, having been raised by a single mother, whose death still haunts them.
Bastian and Fito love each other, but don’t always like each other. Hernandez’s Bastian is a formidable presence, angry, strict and domineering — the qualities he’s needed to navigate a bureaucratic system that has little concern for the feelings of immigrant outsiders. Vargas’ Fito, by contrast, has his head in the clouds and his heart on his sleeve. Goblen never loses sight of their affection even as their conflict grows louder and more bruising.
Bassist Tonya Sweets, from left, Marlon Alexander Vargas and drummer Dee Simone in “littleboy/littleman” at Geffen Playhouse.
(Jeff Lorch)
“littleboy/littleman” is tricky in its theatrical rhythms. It’s like a piece of music that keeps switching harmonic structures, not wanting to get stuck in the same groove. Goblen’s manner of writing is closer to free jazz or freestyle hip-hop than traditional drama.
Director Nancy Medina’s staging, circumnavigating a theatrical circle, lifts the audience out of its proscenium passivity into something almost immersive and definitely interactive. Tanya Orellana’s scenic design and Scott Bolman’s moody lighting create a performance space that is well suited to a work composed as a series of riffs. The influence of McCraney’s “The Brothers Size” is palpable not only in the thematic architecture of the play, but also in how the piece moves on stage.
The staccato nature of the writing is helped enormously by the entrancing acting of both Vargas, who breezes through different theatrical realms as though he had wings, and Hernandez, who locks realistically into character. It’s a credit to the play and to the performers that, by the end of “littleboy/littleman,” the differences between the two brothers seem less important than what they have in common.
Not all the dramatic elements are smoothly integrated, but the production ultimately finds a coherence, not so much in the music (composed by Goblen himself), but in the emotional truth of the brothers’ pressure-cooker lives. Vulnerability unites not only Bastian and Fito, but all of us witnessing their story who hope against hope that compassion will somehow win the day.
‘littleboy/littleman’
Where: Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles
Diane Keaton, who died Saturday at 79, is one of cinema’s most legendary actors. She played some of the most recognizable roles of the late 20th century, and blazed a trail for generations of women to come. Here’s a list of Keaton’s 10 most important films, presented in alphabetical order. We’ll leave the ranking to her devoted fans.
‘Annie Hall’
Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in a scene from the movie “Annie Hall” from MGM / UA Home Video.
(MGM / UA Home Video)
Keaton’s role in Woody Allen’s 1977 romantic comedy was written just for her. Her portrayal of the feisty, eccentric, charming title character would define Keaton as an actor for the rest of her career. Her signature bowler hat and ties became a fashion staple, and fans still can’t think of the song “Seems Like Old Times” without sobbing. The film about the bittersweet nature of lost love was a critical success, and Keaton won her only Academy Award for her work in it.
‘Crimes of the Heart’
Keaton plays Lenny McGrath — the oldest of three sisters — in this 1986 black comedy also starring Diane Lange and Sissy Spacek. The actresses are at the height of their powers in the film, which finds a trio of siblings reuniting at their family home in Mississippi after Babe (Spacek) shoots, and seriously injures, her abusive husband. Spacek won a Golden Globe for her work, and was nominated for an Oscar, but Keaton shines as the less ostentatious of the sisters — an unassuming, terminally single woman who believes a shrunken ovary is the reason for her failure to launch.
‘The Godfather’ parts I and II
Keaton plays Kay Adams Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic crime family trilogy. As Michael Corleone’s second wife, and the mother of his children, Kay is one of the few fully realized women in the films. Many fans love Keaton’s performance in the second film best because Kay is the only one to stand up to Michael. When the ruthless mafia boss confronts her about an abortion she has had, Kay lets loose and confronts him about his vicious nature and many lies, vowing to never bring another Corleone into the world.
‘Looking for Mr. Goodbar’
Richard Gere, left, and Diane Keaton in a scene from the 1977 movie, “Looking For Mr. Goodbar.”
(Paramount / Getty Images)
This 1977 crime drama written and directed by Richard Brooks is perhaps Keaton’s most tragic film. She plays a lonely schoolteacher named Theresa Dunn who engages in increasingly risky behavior with strangers in pursuit of love. The film also stars Richard Gere as a controlling, abusive, drug-addicted boyfriend in his first major role. Keaton’s sorrow and desperation in this dark, gritty movie is palpable, making this a defining and heartbreaking part of her ouvré.
‘Manhattan’
Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton) and Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) in the shadow of the Queensborough Bridge in the movie “Manhattan.”
(United Artists)
This 1979 Woody Allen film is now one of the director’s most controversial due to its subject matter. Allen stars as a 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl, but ends up falling in love with his best friend’s mistress. Keaton plays that mistress, Mary Wilkie, and her depiction of the witty, wry, journalist with a robust social calendar and strong opinions that she never hesitates to express, is among her most seminal performances.
‘Marvin’s Room’
Keaton stars alongside Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro and a young Leonardo DiCaprio in this 1996 family drama. Keaton was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Bessie Lee, a woman who has been caring for years for her bedridden father when she is diagnosed with leukemia. She turns to her estranged sister, Lee, for help finding a bone marrow transplant match — an endeavor that finds the family once again under the same roof. The tender story of loss and redemption showed that Keaton had staying power decades into her career.
‘Radio Days’
This nostalgic, charmer of a dramedy written and directed by Woody Allen takes place in Rockaway Beach in the 1930s and ‘40s during the golden age of radio. Keaton is part of an ensemble cast in a film filled with vignettes, and she appears in what is essentially a cameo as a New Year’s Eve singer. Wearing a a long-sleeved white dress with her hair pulled back in a bow, she sings a lovely rendition of Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” proving that when you’re a star of her caliber, you can shine no matter how small the role.
‘Reds’
Warren Beatty co-wrote, produced and directed this historical drama about John Reed, a journalist who chronicled Russia’s 1917 October Revolution. Keaton plays Louise Bryant, a married journalist and suffragist who leaves her husband to move to Greenwich Village with Reed where she becomes part of a robust group of artists and activists, including playwright Eugene O’Neil (Jack Nicholson). The 195-minute film opened to critical acclaim and was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including best picture. Keaton received her second nomination for best actress but ultimately did not win.
‘Sleeper’
Keaton plays Luna Schlosser, a poet from the 22nd century, in Woody Allen’s 1973 madcap science fiction comedy about a jazz musician named Miles Monroe who owns the Happy Carrot health-food store before being cryogenically frozen for 200 years. Miles wakes in 2173 after being clandestinely revived by a group of rebels and is later delivered — disguised as a robot — into Luna’s home. Hilarious bickering ensues when Luna discovers Miles’ true identity, but she ultimately comes around to his cause. Keaton’s fabulous feathery silver outfits, her ability to utter lines like, “it’s pure keen,” with a straight face, and her substantial use of the “orgasmatron” made the role an instant classic.
‘Something’s Gotta Give’
Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson in the Columbia Pictures romantic comedy movie, “Something’s Gotta Give.”
(Bob Marshak/Columbia Pictures)
Keaton again paired with Jack Nicholson in this 2003 romantic comedy about a pair of mismatched professionals who fall in love in late middle age despite their best efforts to the contrary. The stars have the undeniable chemistry of two acting legends whose work appears absolutely effortless at this stage in their careers. The film was not a critical home run, but Keaton fans think of it as one of her best later roles.
A former Strictly Come Dancing professional has revealed they wanted to return to the BBC One show after leaving in 2012 and being a part of the show for seven series.
A former Strictly Come Dancing professional has admitted they wanted to return(Image: BBC)
Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Vincent Simone has revealed he wanted to return to the BBC One show but “it didn’t work out”. The dancer joined the show in 2006 for the fourth series and did seven series before leaving it behind in 2012.
Now he’s opened up about his exit as he said: “The year I left Strictly Come Dancing, there were going to be big changes.
“Bruce Forsyth was leaving, and the show was moving from Shepherd’s Bush where we were there for seven years, and we were moving to Elstree Studios, which was a big change. It got to a point where I got to the final, and although I didn’t win, I was fully satisfied with how I’d done in the show.”
However, Vincent only intended on taking a short break from the show but he got to busy doing his other work that it didn’t end up materialising.
He continued to Daily Star: “Ideally, what I wanted was to take a year or two out of the show, and then to come back, but we all know that’s rare.
“If I could’ve had that chance to leave Strictly for a few years and then come back, that would’ve been ideal. I would’ve gone back, but those years after Strictly, I was fully committed to West End shows and my own shows.
“Then I went onto I’m A Celebrity, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I was on Strictly. My career in touring and performing has made me feel very blessed.”
During his first series, Vincent was partnered with EastEnders actress Louisa Lytton and the pair made it all the way to the final four and were eliminated two weeks before the final.
The following year, the dancer was paired with actress Stephanie Beacham with the two being eliminated on week two but in 2008 he made a triumphant return when he came second with S Club 7 singer Rachel Stevens.
His next partner was EastEnders actress Natalie Cassidy, who he came fifth with, followed by his partnership with Felicity Kendal resulting in them being voted off in week seven.
In 2011, it was disappointment all around as he and Conservative party politician Edwina Currie were the first pair to be eliminated from the competition.
In Vincent’s final year, the performer and his partner, Tracy Beaker star Dani Harmer got eliminated a week before the final, ending their run in fourth place.
After quitting the show, he and dance partner Flavia Cacace continued to perform with stage shows and live tours.
In 2013, he took part on the thirteenth series of I’m A Celebrity, arriving as a late entrant to camp with actress Annabel Giles.
He finished in tenth place, being the third celebrity to leave in a double elimination with Matthew Wright.
The current series of the BBC One show is airing at the moment, with celebrities including Vicky Pattison, Alex Kingston, Amber Davies and Chris Robshaw attempting to lift the glitterball trophy.
The Apprentice star Thomas Skinner and his partner Amy Dowden became the first pair to leave the competition after landing in the bottom two with Chris and Nadiya Bychkova.
In his exit interview with Tess Daly, he said: “Thank you, Amy – sorry that we haven’t done too good, ’cause you’re a different class.
“I’ve never danced before and my stay was short, but Amy’s amazing. It’s been great fun and I’ve enjoyed it. I can’t really dance that well but I’ve had fun!”
Strictly Come Dancing continues tonight at 6:05pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
Big Brother’s AJ and Will announced the biggest game changing twist yet, as they revealed two new arrivals will be entering the house in a game changing twist
22:23, 10 Oct 2025Updated 22:55, 10 Oct 2025
Tonight, the Big Brother house saw it’s second live eviction as Cameron B was evicted. However, it wasn’t the only huge event tonight, as AJ Odudu and Will Best announced at the start of the live show that Big Brother would see yet another huge twist.
The 25th anniversary show started off with a bang, as the evil eyes continue to cause chaos around the house. The first shock twist came during launch night when Emily was the first housemate to be evicted in a short but sweet stay.
Now, AJ and Will have made the shock announcement that the show will gain two new arrivals next Friday – but they’re not any old arrivals.
In fact, Will and AJ announced that the two new arrivals were people that had left the Big Brother house too soon – but who will they be?
They won’t be alone, as one current housemate will be with them. On Big Brother’s Late and Live tonight, Will and AJ announced housemates would be nominating on Monday. Housemates will believe viewers are voting to evict – but the evicted housemate won’t leave.
Instead they’ll be whisked away to a secret room with the two former housemates. But who will they be?
Tonight, Will gave away a huge clue, revealing that the housemates are one’s that “left too soon.”
While many think Emily from this series are returning, others are convinced Farida Khalifa from ITV’s first series in 2023, will be returning. Farida was the first housemate to be evicted, with many fuming with her early departure.
But could it be her time to return? Fans think so. Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, one penned: “I’m glad to see i’m not the only one who INSTANTLY thought of farida when they said gone too soon housemates were returning”.
Another agreed: “Omg the fact that godly Farida may be reentering the Big Brother house!!” while a third said: “Farida’s last TikTok was September 24th… get her back in!”
Despite being the third to be evicted, Cameron was the first to leave through the front door. Last week, Gani was forced to have a back door eviction due to Storm Amy, and Emily left through the back door on the first night.
Tuesday, Oct. 14, would have been the 32nd birthday of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing political influencer murdered last summer. It is a birthday shared by George Floyd, Jr., asphyxiated by arresting police in 2020 and who would have been 52. The horror of these tragedies has roiled a divisive society, but must they now demand a political battleground of opposing memorials?/
The concept of a civic memorial has long and often been, in Western culture, the privilege of classical music. Music may be permitted to speak not of specifics but the essence of grief, a collective cherishing of existence.
There happens to be another anniversary, Tuesday, to acknowledge. Leonard Bernstein, a great gatherer of differences in his music, died Oct. 14, 1990, at 72. And all around us, as we approach the 35th anniversary of his death, are reminders of Bernstein as the megastar memorializer of the 35th president of the United States, and what those tributes to John F. Kennedy might mean for us today.
The must-see Los Angeles Opera production of “West Side Story,” which closes Sunday, is by Francesca Zambello, who heads Washington National Opera at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and where she is slated to mount her production of Bernstein’s classic musical in May. Saturday night at the Soraya in Northridge, Martha Graham Dance Company gave the world premiere of “En Masse,” which is based on Bernstein’s “MASS,” written to open the Kennedy Center, where “En Masse,” too, is headed in the spring.
Along with all that, Gustavo Dudamel caps his three fall weeks leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic this weekend with four performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Bernstein chose this epic score, known as the “Resurrection,” to memorialize Kennedy two days after his assassination in 1963. A large New York Philharmonic, vocal soloists and chorus assembled on a CBS sound stage for a live national television broadcast.
It was a Sunday and untold millions (there were no Nielsen ratings) gathered in their homes to watch a somber Bernstein begin Mahler’s symphony with gut-wrenching intensity and end it with an overwhelming sense of triumph 90 minutes later. As a legendary act of national healing, the broadcast riveted a shocked nation.
It still does. The following year, Bernstein channeled that Kennedy spirit into a famous performance of Mahler’s symphony at London’s Ely Cathedral that was televised in Britain and released on commercial video. It is that Mahler Second performance that Bradley Cooper chose as the musical centerpiece of his Bernstein 2023 biopic, “Maestro.”
Bernstein further memorialized JFK in the dedication of his Third Symphony, “Kaddish.” And then there was the Kennedy Center opening in 1971, with Bernstein doing the shocking. At the time and for the occasion, “MASS” seemed a bizarre mashup of pop, schlock, jazz, 12-tone, electronics, grand symphonic utterances, hippie currency, mysticism, traditional Catholic Mass, Jewish Sabbath service, anti-Mass climaxing with a psychotic and psychedelic breakdown of Mass’ celebrant and Vietnam War protest.
The general reaction to “MASS” was that of appall, no matter whether you worshipped Bernstein or couldn’t bear him, whatever your political or cultural orientation. President Nixon — who as vice president in the 1950s had attended a Bernstein festival of American music at the Hollywood Bowl and had accompanied Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on a cultural tour to South America — stayed home.
In fact, “MASS,” after years of puzzled neglect, ultimately came to be heralded as a Bernstein masterpiece, a work that freed contemporary music of genre-fication. It gives permission not for anything goes but for anything goes together if you can find the right context. A slow awareness of the score’s genius has empowered a new generation, such as the conductor and composer Christopher Rountree, who made the new arrangement of parts of “MASS” for his genre-breaking orchestra, Wild Up.
The Graham company based “En Messe” on a flimsy premise, the discovery of a page or two of sketches that Bernstein made for a proposed score he meant to write for Graham in 1988. The discovery is minor. Bernstein and Graham knew and admired each other, but she was a footnote in his career.
In the end, Rountree wrote a short series on variations on two themes he extracted from the sketches that serve as an epilogue to the “MASS” suite. The themes are hard to discern and don’t matter. Rather, Rountree makes a gripping case in his variations for a way forward from Bernsteiniana to today.
The intent of “En Messe” was meant to cap a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Graham company, the oldest dance company in America. Graham 100 began a year ago with a revival of “Appalachian Spring,” Graham’s most famous piece, which also gave us Aaron Copland’s iconic score (the popularity of which was greatly helped by Bernstein’s recording).
The company has also revived another of Graham’s most important (and severe) dances, “Night Journey,” based around the last moments of the life of Jocasta (the mother of Oedipus in the Greek tragedy). The revival with Anne Souder as an imposing Jocasta, Lloyd Knight, an enthralling Oedipus, and Ethan Palma, a haunted Tiresias (the seer), retained all the work’s stunning power. William Schuman’s mostly forgotten score received a revelatory performance by Rountree and Wild Up.
“En Messe,” itself, did not serve its purpose to cap a centennial closer to the work of a seminal choreographer. It accomplished something more important by heralding a path forward. The company can’t live forever reviving Graham’s work or doing showy new dances such as “We the People” (also on the program).
Instead, Hope Boykin’s choreography added a dark intensity to Bernstein’s brightness. The stage was dim. Each dance featured a soloist in seeming personal meditation with the music, its rhythms and its spirit, and with the company’s other dancers, who appear ghostly figures in the misty distance.
Movement didn’t match music but brought you into it, while the music seemed to demand movement. It began with the score’s hit, “A Simple Song,” Bernstein at his most tuneful, even saccharine. Jodie Landau didn’t buy into its surface simplicity but sang with a fresh, cool, contemporary edge that immediately told you we were headed into unknown territory. Every discovery that followed proved her right on.
“En Messe” will tour the country and beyond over the next year with, unfortunately, a recording of Wild Up, not live performance. If the company gets over its overamplification, which cheapens everything it presents, that need not disastrously lessen the impact.
Will “En Messe,” or “West Side Story,” actually reach the Kennedy Center, which the federal government is attempting to turn it into who-knows-what, this spring? Both Bernstein works are exactly what the new overseers say they want — more populist art, inspirational attempts to make American art great. But they are also works that make us look inside ourselves, discover what matters beyond self-interest. That’s become a hard sell.
Thirty paintings by the late artist — and PBS staple — Bob Ross are heading for auction beginning Nov. 11. American Public Television, which syndicates programming to public stations across the country, is staging the auction in Los Angeles through Bonhams. APT has pledged to donate 100% of the profits to beleaguered public television stations nationwide.
“Bonhams holds the world record for Bob Ross, and with his market continuing to climb, proceeds benefiting American Public Television, and many of the paintings created live on air — a major draw for collectors — we expect spirited bidding and results that could surpass previous records,” said Robin Starr, general manager, Bonhams Skinner, in a statement.
The auction house established its record in August when it sold two of Ross’ mountain-and-lake scenes from the early 1990s for $114,800 and $95,750, respectively. Bonhams said it could not yet provide an estimate on the worth of the 30 works coming up for auction.
The first three paintings will go on the block at Bonhams in Los Angeles as part of its California & Western Art auction. The remaining 27 will be sold throughout 2026 at Bonhams salesrooms in New York, Boston and L.A.
The news comes as public broadcasting faces unprecedented challenges to its survival. In July, Congress voted to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which was founded in 1968 and helps fund PBS, NPR, as well as 1,500 local radio and television stations. The cuts were encouraged by President Trump, who derided the organization for spreading “woke” propaganda.
The private, nonprofit corporation soon after announced that it would close. The majority of its staff was dismissed at the end of last month, and a bare-bones transition team remains through January to wrap up unfinished work.
Without CPB, educational programming like “The Joy of Painting” with Bob Ross will have an uphill battle finding the support it needs.
Known for his cloudlike halo of curly brown hair, soothing voice and infectious love of the art form as shown on his signature show, the artist became a mainstay in American households across 400-plus episodes and more than a decade on the air.
With its wholesome content and relaxed pace, his was the kind of show that defined PBS. Hopefully, his work can help keep the lights on at the stations that helped gain him a cultlike following.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, and I’m the proud owner of a Bob Ross Chia Pet head. Here’s your arts and culture news for the week.
On our radar
Kai A. Ealy stars in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at A Noise Within
(Daniel Reichert)
Joe Turner’s Come And Gone Gregg T. Daniel continues his reinvestigation of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle with a production of what is arguably the finest work in the playwright’s 10-play series. Set in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse in 1911 during the Great Migration, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” focuses on the spiritual crossroads of Black Americans who are being reminded at every turn that their freedom comes with a prohibitive cost. The sixth Wilson production at A Noise Within in this seasons-long retrospective should be a standout: It’s one of the great American plays of the 20th century. — Charles McNulty Previews, 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Oct. 17; opening night, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18; through Nov. 9. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org
Tavares Strachan, “Six Thousand Years,” and “The Encyclopedia of Invisibility,” 2018, mixed media
Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Began Bahamian-born New York artist, whose immersive solo exhibition “Magnificent Darkness” filled the Hollywood branch of Marian Goodman Gallery last year, makes multidisciplinary art that seeks to amplify notable events and people — especially related to exploration, from deep-sea diving to outer space — that are often sidelined in standard cultural histories. Strachan, a 2022 MacArthur Foundation fellow, once shipped a 4.5-ton block of ice from the Arctic to the Bahamas via FedEx. We’ll see what might arrive at Wilshire Boulevard. — Christopher Knight 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; closed Wednesday; through March 29, 2026. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, BCAM Level 2, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Alexander Shelley conducts the Pacific Symphony Friday-Sunday in Costa Mesa.
(Curtis Perry)
Alexander Shelley conducts the Pacific Symphony At 45, the British conductor has a seemingly full and far-fledged plate: music director of the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa; principal associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London; and artistic and music director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. Next year, the plate becomes fuller and further-fledged when he becomes music director of the Pacific Symphony. This fall, however, Shelley makes his debut as music director designate by showcasing works bursting with color — Mongomery’s “Starburst”; Arturo Márquez’s “Concert for Guitar Mystical and Profane” with Pablo Sáinz-Villegas as soloist; and Rimsky Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.” Shelley returns in November with Ravel’s glorious ballet score “Daphnis and Chloe,” the perfect enchanting complement to San Diego Symphony’s “L’Enfant,” for wrapping up the Ravel year, the 150th anniversary of the French composer’s birth having been in March. — Mark Swed 8 p.m. Thursday-Oct. 18. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. pacificsymphony.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
The American Contemporary Ballet dances to Shubert’s score for “Death & the Maiden.”
(Victor Demarchelier)
Death and the Maiden American Contemporary Ballet, under the direction of Lincoln Jones, dances to a live performance of Schubert’s score, complete with opera singers; plus “Burlesque: Variation IX.” 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; Thursday performances Oct. 23 and 30; through Nov. 1. ACB, Bank of America Plaza, 330 S. Hope St. #150, downtown L.A. acbdances.com
Nightsong Times video intern Quincy Bowie Jr. recently visited artist Derek Fordjour’s sensorial experience at Mid-City’s David Kordansky Gallery. “In a time where many feel silenced, and afraid to speak up, Fordjour creates a space of darkness where truth can be revealed, heard and felt,” wrote Bowie. “‘Nightsong’ creates a unique space where the Black voice and its many songs are centered.” The free exhibit closes tonight. 6-10 p.m. David Kordansky Gallery, 5130 W. Edgewood Place. davidkordanskygallery.com
Mexican singer Lucía performs Friday at the Nimoy.
(Shervin Lainez)
Lucía The enchanting Mexican singer mixes traditional American jazz and Latin folk in her eponymous debut album, released earlier this year. 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Mascogos Jose Luis Valenzuela directs the world premiere of playwright Miranda González’s drama revealing the untold stories of Mexico’s Underground Railroad. Final preview, 8 p.m. Friday; opening night, 8 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday, through Nov. 9. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown L.A. latinotheaterco.org
People in the Dark: An Immersive Ghost Story A Lost Legends Ghost Tour goes frighteningly awry, placing the audience face-to-face with Hollywood’s haunted past in this enveloping theatrical experience from Drowned Out Productions. 7-11:40 p.m., with start times every 20 mins. Friday; 6-10:40 p.m., with start times every 20 mins. Saturday and Sunday (also Thursday, Oct. 16), through Oct. 31. 1035 S. Olive St., downtown L.A. tickettailor.com
Grand Kyiv Ballet performs “Swan Lake” Friday at the Ebell Wilshire.
Grand Kyiv Ballet This touring company of Ukrainian dancers is temporarily based out of the International Ballet Academy in Bellevue, Wash., while Russia continues its war with Ukraine. The troupe brings Tchaikovsky’s timeless ballet “Swan Lake” to Mid-City in a graceful performance sure to soothe even the most restless soul. (Jessica Gelt) 7 p.m. Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 W 8th St, Los Angeles. ebellofla.org
SATURDAY Corey Helford Gallery A trio of strikingly distinct shows with a global sweep opens Friday. In the main gallery, “The Weight of Us,” a duo exhibition featuring solo works from Nigerian artists Arinze Stanley and Oscar Ukonu explores interconnectedness, and the complex interplay of individual and collective narratives. “Where Petals Dance,” features the work of Japanese artist aica in Gallery 2. The major exhibition featuring Latvian-born contemporary surrealist painter Jana Brike, “When I Was a River,” debuts in Gallery 3. Noon-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Nov. 15. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St. #1, Los Angeles. https://coreyhelfordgallery.com/
Vicky Chow CAP UCLA and Piano Spheres present new music pianist Vicky Chow performing the West Coast premiere of Tristan Perich’s “Surface Image.” 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Gracias Gustavo Community Block Party Hosted by Aundrae Russell of KJLH, this outdoor celebration features performances by DJ Aye Jaye, live art by Hannah Edmonds and Israel “Seaweed” Batiz, Mariachi Tierra Mia, poet Aletha Metcalf-Evans, Versa-Style Street Dance Company, YOLA at Inglewood Jazz Ensemble, Sherie, muralist ShowzArt — “The Art Jedi,” D Smoke and the Inglewood High School Marching Band, plus activities, food trucks and more. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center, 101 S. La Brea Ave., Inglewood. laphil.com
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles An open house kicks off four new exhibitions: Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, “The Awake Volcanoes”; Samar Al Summary, “Excavating the Sky”; Liz Hernández, “Donde piso, crecen cosas (Where I step, things grow)”; and AoA x IAO, “I Smell LA.”
4-8 p.m. Friday. Noon-6 p.m. Wednesday; Noon-7 p.m. Thursday; Noon-6 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; closed Mondays, Tuesdays and public holidays. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1717 E. 7th St., Arts District, downtown L.A. theicala.org
Sleep Token performs at the Reading Music Festival, England, in 2023.
(Scott Garfitt / Invision / Associated Press)
Sleep Token Sleep Token is by some measures the biggest heavy-rock band in the world right now. Its 2025 LP, “Even in Arcadia,” demolished streaming records for a metal act, reaching well beyond the genre’s cantankerous core fan base, which has mixed feelings about Sleep Token’s pop chart success, to say the least. (No one is more skeptical about the band’s new fame than its cryptically anonymous front person Vessel: “Right foot in the roses, left foot on a landmine,” he sings in “Caramel,” “They can sing the words while I cry into the bass line.”) The band’s high-drama live shows are where Sleep Token really shines, though, as in this return to L.A. for a set that finally provides the scale its runic masks, robes and necrotic body paint have always called for. (August Brown) 8 p.m. Crypto.com Arena, 1111 S. Figueroa St., downtown L.A. cryptoarena.com
SUNDAY Paul Jacobs The Grammy-winning organist performs Bach’s “The Art of Fugue.” 7:30 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and the Von Trapp family in a scene from the 1965 film “The Sound of Music.”
(20th Century Fox)
The Sound of Music A 70mm screening of the 1965 Robert Wise-directed movie musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer that won five Oscars, including best picture. 3 p.m. Sunday. Academy Museum, David Geffen Theater, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. academymuseum.org
TUESDAY L.A. Phil Gala: Gustavo’s Fiesta Gustavo Dudamel conducts the orchestra in a few of his favorite things: De Falla’s “Three-Cornered Hat,” selections from Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony (featuring musicians from YOLA, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), Beethoven’s Seventh, “Fairy Garden” from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Revueltas’ “Night of Enchantment.” 7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
THURSDAY Draw Them In, Paint Them Out Trenton Doyle Hancock confronts the work of painter Philip Guston in this dual exhibition that examines the role the artist plays in the pursuit of social justice. Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday–Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday–Sunday. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. skirball.org
Yunchan Lim For his Disney Hall debut, the youngest-ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition performs Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” alongside “…Round and velvety-smooth blend…,” a new piece, written especially for the pianist, by Korean composer Hanurij Lee. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
San Cha, photographed in 2020, performs Thursday-Saturday at REDCAT.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
San Cha The L.A.-based composer, musician and performance artist presents “Inebria Me,” a new experimental opera that reimagines the melodrama of telenovelas through a queer, genre-bending lens as adapted from her 2019 album, “La Luz de la Esperanza.” In Spanish with English supertitles. Postshow Q&A with San Cha on Oct 17. 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct.18. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Bisserat Tseggai, Claudia Logan, Victoire Charles and Jordan Rice, clockwise from top left, of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Currently staging its L.A. premiere at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum, “Jaja’s” is an uproarious workplace comedy that packs a serious political punch. I had the pleasure of interviewing four of the lead actors during a roundtable at a downtown rehearsal room a few days before the run started. The women talked about their love of the show and of the playwright, Jocelyn Bioh. They also discussed the country’s fraught political climate and how it’s laying waste to the idea of the American Dream — the one that has attracted immigrants seeking a better life for their families for hundreds of years. Their thoughts have a direct throughline to the show, which takes place on a single hot day at a West African salon in Harlem.
Times theater critic Charles McNulty caught the opening Sunday night and wrote a glowing review of the touring production, which he noted was “bursting with gossip, petty fights, audacious fashion, dazzling hair styles, full-body dancing and uncensored truth about the vulnerable lives of immigrant workers.”
Hammer biennial Made in L.A. 2025 has officially opened at UCLA’s Hammer Museum and I recently toured the highly anticipated seventh edition of the biennial exhibition in the company of curators Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha. The pair told me interesting backstories about the 28 participating artists, including that the four large sculptures of doors made by Amanda Ross-Ho represent a door at the nursing home where her father lived.
Artist Alake Shilling stands in front of a 25-foot inflatable psychedelic bear driving a convertible titled “Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A,” at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
I also ate lunch with the charming and kind artist Alake Shilling, whose adorable sculptures of cuddly animals featuring melancholy faces are part of the show. I trailed Shilling as she watched a test inflation of a 25-foot sculpture titled “Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A.,” which will be on display on an outdoor pedestal on Wilshire Boulevard through March. I made this fun video with the help of video editor Mark Potts.
LACMA Gifts Big news keeps coming out of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which announced Wednesday that it had been gifted more than 100 works of Austrian Expressionism worth “well over” $60 million by the family of Otto Kallir, a renowned art dealer who immigrated to America in 1938 after the German Reich annexed Austria. The art will be transferred to the museum over the next several years and includes the museum’s first paintings by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl. The exciting news comes two months after LACMA was gifted its first paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Édouard Manet by the Pearlman Foundation.
Best Friends Forever Finally, I got an update from the “satirical activist” artists with the Secret Handshake. They told me they had once again received a permit to reinstall their controversial Trump-Epstein statue (dubbed “Best Friends Forever”) on the National Mall. “Just like a toppled Confederate general forced back onto a public square, the Donald Trump Jeffrey Epstein statue has risen from the rubble to stand gloriously on the National Mall once again,” a rep for the Secret Handshake wrote in an email.
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“Arabesque over the Right Leg,Left Arm in Front,” by Edgar Degas
(Norton Simon Museum)
Norton Simon acquires sculpture The Pasadena museum announced the acquisition of a bronze sculpture by Edgar Degas titled “Arabesque over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Front.” The museum already holds more than 100 pieces by Degas in its collection, which is known as one of the largest public collection’s of the artist’s work in the world. “This significant acquisition, long sought after, completes a critical gap in the Museum’s renowned Degas collection,” a rep for the museum wrote in an email. The sculpture went on view in the museum’s 19th century wing late last week.
Mushroom Boat Ever heard of a boat made out of mushrooms? Neither had I until someone told me about an exhibition at Fulcrum Arts in Pasadena called, “Sam Shoemaker: Mushroom Boat.” As the title implies, the artist built a kayak out of mushroom mycelium. He then proceeded to use the unusual vessel to cross the Catalina Channel — a total of 26 nautical miles. He chronicled his journey the whole way, and the results of that work are on display alongside the boat. It includes large-scale projections, time-lapse videos, and soundscapes from his sometimes wild and turbulent journey.
Los Angeles Ballet dancers in pointe shoes stretch before beginning rehearsals in 2015.
(Los Angeles Times)
An anniversary for Los Angeles Ballet Los Angeles Ballet announced its 2025-26 season, which also happens to mark the company’s 20th anniversary, and its Music Center debut — “Giselle” at the Ahmanson Theatre in the spring. The season launches in December with LAB’s acclaimed annual presentation of “The Nutcracker” at Royce Hall and the Dolby Theatre. This season the company continues its residency at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and is set to stage a triple-bill anniversary production, “20 Years of Los Angeles Ballet,” featuring George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” Hans van Manen’s “Frank Bridge Variations,” and a third new work by Artistic Director Melissa Barak, who assumed her position in 2022.
K.A.M.P. fundraiser The Hammer Museum is back this Sunday with its annual fundraiser — Kids Art Museum Project, better known as K.A.M.P. Tickets support the Hammer’s free year-round family programming. Each year, the museum shuts down on a Sunday and presents an art-filled wonderland for children and families, with interactive art stations created and helmed by participating L.A. artists, as well as a special reading room featuring well-known actors. This year’s readers will be actor Justine Lupe and baseball star Chris Taylor. Artists include Daniel Gibson, Sharon Johnston & Mark Lee, Annie Lapin, Ryan Preciado, Rob Reynolds, Jennifer Rochlin, Mindy Shapero, Brooklin A. Soumahoro and Christopher Suarez.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Everybody, it seems, loves Cyndi Lauper. Readers have been going absolutely bananas for Times pop music critic Mikael Wood’s engaging profile on the iconic, red-haired pop star in advance of her induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Iran is seeking to work on a broader Middle East peace deal after lending its support to his plan to bring a ceasefire to the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.
“Iran wants to work on peace now. They’ve informed us, and they’ve acknowledged that they are totally in favor of this deal. They think it’s a great thing, so we appreciate that, and we’ll work with Iran,” Trump said as he prepares to head to the Middle East this weekend.
“As you know, we have major sanctions on Iran and lots of other things. We would like to see them be able to rebuild their country too, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Trump was alluding to strikes he authorized on Iran’s nuclear program in June, which he and his senior officials have maintained completely destroyed any Iranian nuclear capability.
The US president said during a Fox News interview Wednesday evening that Tehran was “about one month, maybe two months, away from having a nuclear weapon” when he launched the attacks during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.
Trump earlier announced that Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a 20-point plan he laid out Sept. 29 to bring a ceasefire to Gaza, release all Israeli captives being held there in exchange for around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the entire Gaza Strip.
A second phase of the plan calls for the establishment of a new governing mechanism in Gaza without Hamas’ participation, the formation of a security force comprising Palestinians and troops from Arab and Islamic countries, and the disarmament of Hamas. It also stipulates Arab and Islamic funding for the new administration and the reconstruction of the Strip, with limited participation from the Palestinian Authority.
Arab and Muslim counties have largely welcomed the plan, but some officials have also said that many details in it need discussion and negotiations to be fully implemented.
STOCKHOLM — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”
The Nobel judges praised his “artistic gaze which is entirely free of illusion, and which sees through the fragility of the social order combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art,” Steve Sem-Sandberg of the Nobel committee said at the announcement.
“László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through (Franz) Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Nobel judges said.
The work that won the Nobel Prize in literature
Zsuzsanna Varga, a Hungarian literature expert at the University of Glasgow, said Krasznahorkai’s apocalyptic and surreal novels probe the “utter hopelessness of the condition of human existence,” while also managing to be “incredibly funny.”
Varga said Krasznahorkai’s near-endless sentences made his books the “Hotel California” of literature – once readers get into it, “you can never leave.”
Other books include “The Melancholy of Resistance,” a surreal, disturbing tale set in a small Hungarian town, and “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming,” the sprawling saga of a gambling-addicted aristocrat.
Several works, including his debut, “Satantango,” and “The Melancholy of Resistance” were turned into films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr.
Varga suggested readers new to Krasznahorkai’s work start with “Satantango,” his debut, which set the tone for what was to follow.
“Satan who is dancing a tango — I mean, how surreal can you be?” she said.
Krasznahorkai has also written several books inspired by his travels to China and Japan, including “A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East,” published in Hungarian in 2003.
How Krasznahorkai came to win
Sem-Sandberg said that Krasznahorkai had been on the Nobel radar for some time, “and he has been writing and creating one outstanding work after another.” He called his literary output “almost half a century of pure excellence.”
Krasznahorkai, 71, couldn’t immediately be reached for his reaction. He didn’t speak at the announcement.
He was born in the southeastern Hungarian city of Gyula, near the border with Romania, and has since traveled the world. Throughout the 1970s, he studied law at universities in Szeged and Budapest before shifting his focus to literature.
Krasznahorkai has been a vocal critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially his government’s lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.
But in a post on Facebook, Orbán was quick to congratulate the writer, saying: “The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, László Krasznahorkai. Congratulations!”
In an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet earlier this year, Krasznahorkai expressed criticism both of Orbán’s political system and the nationalism present in Hungarian society.
“There is no hope left in Hungary today and it is not only because of the Orbán regime,” he told the paper. “The problem is not only political, but also social.”
He also reflected on the fact that he has long been a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, saying: “I don’t want to lie. It would be very interesting to get that prize. But I would be very surprised if I got it.”
Previous awards for Krasznahorkai and the other Nobels this year
Krasznahorkai has received many earlier awards, including the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. The Booker judges praised his “extraordinary sentences, sentences of incredible length that go to incredible lengths, their tone switching from solemn to madcap to quizzical to desolate as they go their wayward way.”
He also won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the U.S. in 2019 for “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming.”
The American writer and critic Susan Sontag once described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse.” He was also friends with American poet and writer Allen Ginsberg and would regularly stay in Ginsberg’s apartment while visiting New York City.
He’s the first winner from Hungary since Imre Kertesz in 2002. He joins an illustrious list of laureates that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.
The literature prize has been awarded by the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy 117 times to a total of 121 winners. Last year’s prize was won by South Korean author Han Kang for her body of work that the committee said “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”
The literature prize is the fourth to be announced this week, following the 2025 Nobels in medicine, physics and chemistry.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The final Nobel, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, will be announced on Monday.
Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes.
Each prize carries an award of nearly $1.2 million, and the winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma.
Manenkov, Lawless and Corder write for the Associated Press. Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Lawless from London. Justin Spike contributed to this report from Budapest, Hungary.
“Grounded,” the newly opened exhibition of relatively recent acquisitions of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, starts out setting a very high bar. It’s a compelling launch, even if the spotty show that unfolds in the next several rooms falls apart.
Grounded, it isn’t.
“Land Deeds,” a 1970 work by Iranian American artist Siah Armajani (1939-2020), is the opener, and it’s terrific. The piece is composed of 50 documents recording real estate purchases that the artist made in all 50 U.S. states, spending less than $100 on each. Sometimes, I’d guess, much less: Armajani only bought a single square-inch of land in each place, so the properties were cheap. Maybe that would cost a hundred bucks in Beverly Hills or Honolulu, but a square-inch of Abilene, Kan., or Whitefish, Mont., would be lucky to get a buck.
In true Conceptual art form, the notarized documents confirming the transactions are lined up on the wall in alphabetical order, from Alabama and Alaska to Wisconsin and Wyoming, in two rows of 25. Visually dry, they nonetheless quickly pull you in. These are warranty deeds, a legal document used to guarantee that a property being sold is unencumbered and the transfer of ownership from seller to buyer is legit. In good Dada and Pop art-style, the work’s title turns out to be a pun: A deed is not just a real estate certificate but an endeavor that one has undertaken.
Siah Armajani’s 1970 “Land Deeds” records his purchase of one square-inch of all 50 U.S. states.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
Other artistic resonances unfold. Land art was then at the cutting edge of avant-garde activity.
By 1970, sculptors Christo and Jeanne-Claude had just wrapped a million square-feet of coastal Australia in tarpaulin lashed with rope. Robert Smithson had bulldozed dirt and rocks to build a spiral jetty coiling out into Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Michael Heizer had dug a huge trench across Mormon Mesa near Overton, Nev., making a sculptural object out of empty space. Armajani’s unusual earthwork joined in: Embracing a legal, bureaucratic form, he pointed to land as a decidedly social structure.
The document display is droll but serious. It may be a layered example of up-to-the-minute Conceptual art, deeply absorbing and surprisingly suggestive, but the deeds are also lithographs, a perfectly traditional medium. They’re signed by administrative officials — one Julian Allison, warranty trustee, and notary public Brenda J. Hord — rather than being autographed by the artist. An art experience is a social transaction.
Armajani, an immigrant working as an artist in New York but not yet a U.S. citizen, was profoundly committed to democratic principles. (His citizenship would come in the wake of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which installed a disastrous theocracy from which the Middle East still suffers.) With “Land Deeds,” he put his finger on a critical real estate context: From the get-go, full participation in American democracy had been limited to white male landowners. The explanation was that they had a vested interest in the community.
The deeper reasons, however, were profoundly anti-democratic — the noxious intransigence of patriarchy and white supremacy in Western culture, which drastically narrowed the eligible land-owning class. Women and people of color, except in limited instances, need not apply. (And suffice to say that warranty deeds for land transfers from Indigenous people were in rather short supply.) Gallingly, this autocratic check on egalitarian participation was also spiked with an element of informed equanimity: An educated populace is essential to democracy’s successful functioning, but in the 1770s, that mostly meant white male landed gentry, since they were likely to have had formal schooling.
At LACMA, Armajani’s marvelously revealing “Land Deeds” sets the stage for “Grounded.” The show was organized by LACMA curators Rita Gonzalez and Dhyandra Lawson, and deputy director Nancy Thomas. Entry wall text — there is no catalog — says it “explores how human experience is embedded in the land, presenting the work of artists who endow it with meaning.”
But, collectively, the 39 assembled contemporary paintings, sculptures, photographs, textiles and videos by 35 artists based in the Americas and areas of the Pacific underperform. Sometimes that’s because the individual work is bland, while elsewhere its pertinence to the shambling theme is stretched to the breaking point.
Familiar photographs of figures in the landscape by Ana Mendieta, left, and Laura Aguilar, center, offer background for the theme explored in “Grounded.”
(Museum Associates / LACMA)
The land theme is so loose and shaggy that, without the contemporary time frame, the show could start with prehistoric cave paintings, toss in a Chinese Song Dynasty scroll whose pictures follow a journey down the Yangzi River, add a Central African Kongo spirit sculpture filled with grave dirt and, for good measure, suitably hang a Jackson Pollock drip painting solely because it was made by spreading raw canvas flat on the ground.
Superficial bedlam, in other words.
Some work does stand out. Across from the Armajani is Patrick Martinez’s “Fallen Empire,” which takes a sly commercial real estate approach. The poignant mixed-media painting doubles as a large shop façade of crumbling, graffitied ceramic tiles with signage attached on a tarp. The name “Azteca” evokes a long-gone historical realm, here attached to a shop now falling into ruin. Martinez scatters ceramic roses across the painting, a mordant honorific to past glory and current hopes.
In the next room, Connie Samaras’ serendipitous landscape photograph unshackles whatever might be meant by being grounded. Shot from her L.A. home in the hills, what at first appears to be a strange cloud in the night sky over the twinkling city below turns out to be the vapor trail of a Minuteman missile deployed one night in 1998. A tangle of light above a black silhouette of a palm tree emits a sulfurous glow, its nauseous beauty balanced on the tip of potential annihilation.
Also among the more engaging works are two well-known photographic excursions into the landscape. Laura Aguilar’s “Grounded #111,” from a large series that likely gave the show its name, poses her corpulent nude body before a majestic boulder in the Joshua Tree desert, as if a secular saint enclosed within a sacred mandorla.
Six adjacent photographs in Ana Mendieta’s “Volcano Series no. 2” record a performance type of Land art in which a female form seems to erupt from within the Earth, spewing a volatile shower of flaming embers and smoke. Forget placid if repressive fantasies of Adam’s rib. The volcanic explosion provides a theatrically dramatic precedent for Aguilar’s contemplative composition.
Other impressive works include Mexico City-based Abraham Cruzvillegas’ exceptional sculpture, “Autoconcancion V” — the title’s made-up word translates to “auto with song” — which upends conventional L.A. car culture. An old automobile’s beat-up rear bench seat becomes the launching pad for a wooden box holding a small fan palm, held aloft on buoyant metal rods and exuding a witty mix of aplomb and high spirits.
A 70-foot video projection by Lisa Reihana reimagines a famous scenic French wallpaper.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana, who is of Māori British ancestry, transformed a famous early 19th century French scenic wallpaper designed by Jean-Gabriel Charvet into an equally extravagant, 70-foot-wide projection of video animation. The showily exoticized wallpaper, sold throughout Europe and in North America by celebrated manufacturer Joseph Dufour, was the culmination of Western public fascination with British Royal Navy Capt. James Cook’s three voyages to the Pacific. In a big, darkened room, Reihana redecorates.
Amid dreamy island landscapes, “in Pursuit of Venus [infected]” beautifully mixes interactive scenes of playful harmony and brute conflict between red-uniformed colonizers and colonized Polynesians. She maintains a nuanced sense of humanity’s transgressions and innocence, without demonizing or idealizing either side. Emblematic is a wickedly funny episode where a British plein-air painter at his easel bats away pesky tropical insects, invisible to a viewer’s naked eye, as he attempts to render a still life of a dead fish.
What either the Reihana video or the Cruzvillegas sculpture has to do with how human experience is embedded in the land — “grounded” — I cannot say, except in the most superficial ways. The land is certainly not a major focus of either one. The Cruzvillegas sculpture celebrates varieties of youthful play, while the Reihana animation ruminates on dimensions of cultural collision. The exhibition’s purported theme unhappily narrows perspectives on the assembled works of art, rather than opening wide their myriad readings.
Lisa Reihana, “in Pursuit of Venus [infected],” 2015, projected video animation.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
Essentially, “Grounded” is an old-fashioned “Recent Acquisitions” show, with most works entering LACMA’s collection in the last half-dozen years or so. (The big exception is Mendieta’s “Volcano” series, easily the show’s most famous work, purchased a quarter-century ago; it’s apparently included here as a benchmark.) Six pieces are shared with the UCLA Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the new MAC3 (Mohn Art Collective) program, and the Aguilar is shared with the Vincent Price Art Museum at East L.A. College.
The exhibition is on view in LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum for eight months, until late June 2026. The unusually lengthy run will put recent art on par with LACMA’s historical departments, when the new Geffen Galleries building opens in April. Those rooms are also expected to thematize the museum’s diverse permanent collection of art’s global history.
But “Grounded” would have been better left without its imposed topic, which inadvertently casts much work as ugly stepsisters unsuccessfully trying to jam their feet into Cinderella’s glass slipper. Skepticism over the coming Geffen theme idea mounts.
Newcomers Reiss Boyce and Leisha Lightbody tied the knot in Tuesday night’s episode
22:39, 07 Oct 2025Updated 22:59, 07 Oct 2025
A groom from Married at First Sight has revealed the heart-wrenching reason why he believes the show’s matchmaking “has to work”.
Tuesday’s episode (7 October) introduced us to newbies Reiss Boyce and Leisha Lightbody, who said their vows. The pair joined the programme on Monday, along with four other latecomers.
The couple were matched by experts Paul C Brunson, Charlene Douglas and Mel Schilling, and are now set to experience married life over the next few weeks.
Before his nuptials, 33-year-old decorator Reiss confessed that people often perceive him as a “pretty boy”. However, the lad from Essex was quick to point out that there’s much more to him than meets the eye.
Discussing his dream relationship, Reiss stressed the importance of family to him. He then revealed that he found out his dad wasn’t his biological father when he was just seven years old, reports OK!
Reiss stated: “When I get married, I don’t want to be having kids and breaking up. No way!”
He went on to say: “I want to do my best to keep it that [his family] all bonded and sealed together forever. When I was seven years old I found out that my dad wasn’t actually my real dad.”
Reflecting on this tough revelation, he added: “Looking back, at the time, I was only a young nipper. I didn’t really know what was going on. It was just a bit of a whirlwind, it was a lot to take in.
“That’s why I’ve got to do it properly. I’ve got one shot here, it’s got to work.”
Despite this, the new groom appears to share a close bond with his grandparents and is searching for a love story similar to theirs.
Sadly, Reiss’ MAFS experience has got off to a bumpy beginning.
Whilst he’s physically drawn to his new bride, the groom considers her “quite loud” and “a little bit over the top”.
The pair even clashed following the ceremony when Leisha challenged her new spouse for only pecking her on the cheek in front of their wedding guests.
They subsequently shared a kiss that Leisha appeared to relish but Reiss criticised because “there was no passion”.
Married at First Sight UK continues on E4 tomorrow night at 8pm
Christopher Soto, the founder of the Center for California Literature.
Los Angeles is, historically, a haven for writers and poets. In its city sprawl and California light, L.A. has fostered legendary writers from Joan Didion to Octavia E. Butler, created countercultural literary communities like the Watts Writers Workshop, and inspired Raymond Chandler’s “The Long Goodbye” and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.”
Despite Los Angeles’ contributions to a rich literary history, the literary community struggles to stay rooted in place as writers’ spaces and financial support move elsewhere.
Take the National Endowment for the Humanities, which canceled over $10.2 million in humanities and arts funding to already-awarded projects in California. Or the devastating Pasadena and Altadena wildfires that decimated historic libraries and cultural archives.
For writers across the city, L.A. can feel like shaky literary ground. That’s where Christopher Soto has stepped in.
The Center for California Literature is Soto’s hopeful initiative for connecting writers across L.A. through readings, conversations and advocacy. In a period in which writers feel unsupported and concerned about the state of the arts, Soto says that the center is needed in L.A. more than ever.
The inspiration came about after Soto was commissioned by the L.A. Times to write a piece titled “Writers on Loving and Leaving Los Angeles,” about writers having to move out of L.A. due to a lack of opportunities. He says right as he was working on the article, it was decommissioned. The reason? The books editor who would have worked on it was laid off and subsequently had to leave L.A.
“It was so ironic. That article and the research I did for it really led me to see that there is a need for a structural solution. People shouldn’t have to choose between having a thriving arts life and having to leave their home,” Soto says.
Soto knew that waiting would only exacerbate the literary loss; if he wanted change, he said he needed to make it. He reached out to inspiring writers in his community for their support and found that people were searching for a place to gather and organize themselves. Roxane Gay, renowned author of the New York Times bestselling novels “Bad Feminist” and “Hunger,” is one of the center’s biggest supporters.
“There’s a lot of stories that literature is dead, or that literary communities are dying, but clearly they’re not. They’re alive and they’re well and we have to remember that,” Gay says. “Writing is a very solitary endeavor, but while we might write alone, we don’t exist as writers in the public sphere alone. We need community, whether it’s people to share our work with, people who understand our frustrations, or having people who will read our work.”
Soto and Gay imagine a future where the center is shaped by writers’ needs. With community as a centerpoint, the organization aims to serve poets and authors by giving them a platform to share their work, attend workshops and create connections among peers.
Gay joined a collective of notable speakers the night of the center’s official launch, which took place at Central L.A. start-up gallery Giovanni’s Room and was co-hosted with the Los Angeles Review of Books. Outside the launch, pupusas were sizzling and poets and book nerds stood in line for a bite or a read from a nearby Libros con Alma pop-up book cart.
The long line approaching the door was full of chatter and reunited friends, who stepped into the lobby and talked closely over the music mixed by DJ Izla. Although the gallery itself filled up quickly, growing warm and pupusa-scented, the energy was one of excitement and anticipation for people’s favorite authors and for a new beginning in the L.A. writers world.
In a corner of the gallery, in front of a paper backdrop and lush potted plants, Grammy-nominated contemporary poet aja monet stepped before the mic to open the night. She was assertive the moment she spoke, clarifying the pronunciation of her name (ah-ja) and simply introducing poems from her time as a political organizer in Florida.
As monet delved into her work, her voice was serious, contained and bursting with emotion. With every stanza, she settled into a musical rhythm that was satiric and bitingly honest. Her poems ranged from swampy oppressive memories of Florida to the nature of poetry to musings on hypocritical activists.
“A poem can rinse, reflect and reveal us / I give thanks for the intimacy of planting poems / the living that brings poems into being,” monet read.
The crowd hummed and swayed in agreement and cheered in recognition of the feelings that she captured. After her moving set, Viet Thanh Nguyen picked up right where she left off. Nguyen is best known for his debut Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Sympathizer,” which discusses the Vietnam War’s impact on the U.S. through the lens of a Vietnamese American immigrant who navigates Hollywood social politics, integration and racial tension.
In the section Nguyen read that night, the main character challenges stereotypes of Vietnamese characters in a film, an attempt that is quickly shut down by a Hollywood executive. Nguyen chuckled as he finished — “The Sympathizer” was adapted into an HBO show, placing Nguyen into the very Hollywood spaces he criticized. He acknowledges this and affirmed that “after spending a lot of time in Hollywood, nobody has disputed this characterization.”
Author, actor and television writer Ryan O’Connell added to the conversation with a lengthy reading of “The Slut Diaries,” explorations of rediscovering sexuality in his 30s as a gay man with cerebral palsy. His reflections on sex and dating through the lens of gay and disabled identity, and the hilariously vulgar encounters that ensued, drew hoots and hollers from the crowd.
Camille Hernandez, a writer and poet laureate of Anaheim, was among O’Connell’s laughing audience.
“I love being from here, and I want to lift up the literature from here. It is really beautiful that you could be from some place with such a rich literary heritage, but it’s such a travesty that not many people know about it, so efforts like this are so important to uplifting writers like us, who can be funny and honest like Ryan O’Connell or inspiring like Roxane Gay once they have the community to support them,” Hernandez says. “We deserve this.”
As Gay closed the night, her brief statement encapsulated the promising energy of the center’s first gathering.
“We deserve the material and creative resources to practice our craft. We deserve an abundant community that is mindful of the past and active and engaging the present and able to imagine a radical and expansive future,” Gay said. “And so I hope that everyone here will join us in that work.”
As authors, poets and hopeful writers filtered out into the crisp night, conversations abounded about what was next. Some were excited for an afterparty rumored to feature Erykah Badu. Others projected a next reading presided by an even bigger crowd, feeding the hunger for the literary arts that the center aims to feed. Whatever comes next, the literary community of L.A. has a new home to gather in.
Charlotte Church was once one half of Wales’ most high-profile power couple – now she is taking on Celebrity Traitors
17:26, 07 Oct 2025Updated 17:31, 07 Oct 2025
Church and Henson were together for five years
Few players have transcended the game of rugby quite like Gavin Henson, with the former Wales international earning comparisons to David Beckham for the talent he showed on the pitch and the life he lived off of it.
The flamboyant back was one of the most naturally talented players of his generation and few could take their eyes off him as he shone on the international stage and for his many clubs, single-handedly turning games on their head on more than one occasion.
In addition to winning 33 caps for Wales and touring with the British & Irish Lions in 2005, Henson represented three out of the four Welsh regions – the Ospreys, Dragons and Cardiff – while he also played in England with Saracens, Bath, Bristol and London Welsh, as well as in France with Toulon.
He tasted glory with Wales, being part of two Grand Slam campaigns in 2005 and 2008, while he also won two domestic titles and the Anglo-Welsh Cup with the Ospreys. But for all the headlines he made for his success on the pitch, he would make just as many off it, sometimes for the wrong reasons.
He would later have stints on reality TV shows including Strictly Come Dancing but things now look very different for the former rugby star, who is now 43-year-old. From his romance with Church to running his own pub, here’s what you need to know about Henson’s life away from the pitch.
Relationship with Charlotte Church
Henson and Church – who rose to fame as a classical singer before pursuing a pop career – sparked a media frenzy when they were first seen in public together in April 2005, shortly after she split up with her previous boyfriend Kyle Johnson.
On her BBC podcast, Kicking Back With the Cardiffians, Church said she went looking for the rugby star after watching him play on TV, explaining: “I remember watching on this television, Wales vs England, when Gavin kicked the kick over.
“Then that night – I didn’t know Gav before that – I was like, I’m going to go out and find him in town. He is nice. Actually I was going round asking everybody, ‘Do you know Gavin Henson? Where will he go out drinking afterwards?’ Nobody knew – but I did find him.”
The Welsh power couple moved in together the following year, while in March 2007, Church revealed that she was pregnant with the couple’s first child. They welcomed a daughter, Ruby, later that year, with their second child, a son, Dexter, born in January 2009.
They looked to be going from strength to strength, with Henson proposing to Church on her 24th birthday in February 2010, the same month she landed a big TV gig on BBC singing show Over The Rainbow. However, it all fell apart just six weeks later, as the couple confirmed they were splitting up after five years together.
It was later confirmed that the decision was a joint one, with Church explaining: “When he proposed, I was overjoyed. It was amazing. I really was going to marry Gav and spend the rest of my life with him. But then he came back from Norway, and he’d changed, and I’d had time to think. We had both had a change of heart – so we were both of the same mind.”
Church later hit out at the “insane” media intrusion she had to deal with before and during her relationship with Henson, having also claimed that her phone was hacked by the News of The World, for which she later received an apology and substantial damages.
“The press intrusion was insane, there was all sorts of dark stuff going on,” she said. “There were stories in the papers all the time and lots of things were blown up, misconstrued and made seedy – when they really weren’t.
“There was a lot of shame being thrown at me, with the press desperately trying to make me a figure of sin and push this ‘fallen angel’ narrative. If I had let that shame in, or internalised it, my life could have gone in a very different way.”
Today, Henson and Church maintain a good relationship and co-parent Dexter and they have both found love again. While the former rugby star married long-term partner Katie Wilson Mould in 2019, Church tied the knot with musician Jonathan Powell in 2017, having asked Henson for his blessing before they started dating.
Past controversies
Aside from his relationship with Church, Henson found himself making headlines for all the wrong reasons on more than one occasion, sometimes landing himself in trouble with the law and his clubs.
In 2007, he and three other men were charged with disorderly conduct for drunken behaviour on a train between London and Cardiff, only for the case to be dropped due to insufficient evidence. In 2009, he was also given a police caution over his behaviour on a night out in Cardiff following Wales’ Six Nations win over England.
Henson also landed himself in hot water after some drinking sessions went too far, as he was sacked by Cardiff after playing just eight games for them following his “inexcusable” and “inappropriate” drunken behaviour on a flight back from Glasgow in March 2012.
A year later, a drunken comment he made to new Bath teammate Carl Fearns led to the two-time Grand Slam winner being knocked out by the flanker during a team bonding night, with the incident caught on CCTV.
However, Henson has since opened up on his past behaviour and revealed he has been able to understand himself better after discovering the ‘chimp’ that had been running his mind, leading him to put boozing behind him.
Having “battled for a long time” with his own mind, Henson was captivated by Professor Steve Peters’ mind-management book The Chimp Paradox, which outlined how to control the ‘chimp’, or “the voice which tells you to do things you maybe shouldn’t.”
“I didn’t understand the thoughts I was having after games where I wanted to go out and drink,” he explained in an interview with MailOnline. “They were a million miles away from my core values and goals in rugby.
“Now, having read the book, I understand that for most of my rugby career, the chimp was controlling me and running my life more than I was. If I’d found the book while I was still playing rugby, I’d 100 per cent have been a better player and maybe I wouldn’t have made the mistakes I did.”
“In social interactions, I probably need a drink because I’m an introvert,” he continued. “If I have a drink, I become more of an extrovert and the chimp has more confidence! I can be good fun on a night out! But now I choose not to go into those environments. I’m not tee-total. In the last year, I’ve probably had one good drink. There’s a place in rugby for sharing a drink with your team-mates”.
New life as pub landlord
While Henson has cut down on his drinking habits, these days he can be found pulling pints, having become the landlord of The Fox & Hounds pub in St Brides Major, Vale of Glamorgan in 2019.
After carrying out an extensive refurbishment and restaurant upgrade, the former Wales international shortened the name of the pub to The Fox and manages the venue with his wife Katie.
Speaking to The Times about the venture, Henson said: “I was coming to the end of my career, and it [the pub] had been sat here for 18 months, two years. It was not nice for the village, and I needed something to do after rugby and to be busy, not to mourn rugby and get depressed, as they say everyone does.
“But be careful what you wish for because this is so full-on. We want to feel like we’ve achieved something with the pub. We’re perfectionists. We’re all about the detail.”
Henson – who is believed to have a net worth of around £800,000 after once earning roughly £120,000 a year at the height of his career – has also recently pulled his rugby boots back on again.
In September last year, he returned to the field with his boyhood club Pencoed and he is now into his second season in League 2 West Central, in the fourth tier of Welsh rugby.
Speaking to BBC Scrum V, Henson admitted he is “loving” being back in rugby, explaining: “I’m 43 now, so a bit old, as my wife tells me. But I’ve missed it, I’ve missed the physicality of it, and being in a team environment again and trying to win.
“I’m very competitive, I like trying to win, that’s the main thing. We have a good group of boys. We’re aiming for promotion, so hopefully it will be a good season and great for the club.
“I’m playing 10, I would like to play 12 but I am just not quite big enough yet. So I’ll still try to aim to get there but 10 at the moment.”
1 of 4 | A trio of U.S. scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries in quantum mechanics. Photo by Christine Olsson/EPA
Oct. 7 (UPI) — Three U.S.-based scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics for their work in quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale, the Nobel Foundation announced Tuesday.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded British-born John Clarke (University of California, Berkeley), French-born Michel H. Devoret (Yale University and UC Santa Barbara) and American John M. Martinis (UC Santa Barbara) the prestigious award. It comes with a $1.17 million prize the three men will split evenly.
The scientists are being recognized for creating an electrical circuit system large enough to be held in the hand that demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunneling and quantized energy levels, or specific, measurable amounts of energy.
Tunneling is the ability for particles to move through a barrier. Once a large number of particles are involved, they’re typically unable to move through this barrier, also called a Josephson junction.
“The laureates’ experiments demonstrated that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale,” a release from the Nobel Foundation said.
Olle Eriksson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, applauded the work by the three scientists.
“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises,” he said. “It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation for all digital technology.”
Wayne Rooney, Kelly Somers, Kae Kurd and John Gibbons from The Anfield Wrap discuss Liverpool’s loss of form, and why their talisman Mohamed Salah looks “lost”.
UC Irvine has officially acquired Orange County Museum of Art, bringing the two organizations together under a new name: UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. I first reported on the possibility of the merger in June when the two entities first signed a nonbinding letter of intent that needed approval by the University of California Board of Regents.
With the legal details now set, UC Irvine is absorbing OCMA’s 53,000-square-foot, $98-million Morphosis-designed building on the eastern edge of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus. According to UC Irvine, no money changed hands in the acquisition, which also finds the university taking over OCMA’s assets, employees and debt.
Just how much debt the Costa Mesa-based museum was in has not been disclosed by either organization, and a rep for UC Irvine declined to comment on that number.
OCMA’s board has been dissolved, and CEO Heidi Zuckerman, who announced her intention to step down in December, vacated her role. She had been planning to stay until her successor was found, but UC Irvine is now that successor and has launched a search for a new leader to take over the merged museums. A rep for the university said it is hoping to announce a candidate by early next year.
UC Irvine had long planned to build a museum for its California art collection, including its celebrated Gerald Buck Collection, but it now intends to move it to OCMA when the lease on its current off-campus space, on Von Karman Avenue, expires in late 2026. The Buck Collection, bequeathed to UC Irvine by Gerald Buck when he died in 2017, is the museum’s crown jewel, consisting of more than 3,200 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by some of the state’s most championed artists, including Joan Brown, Jay DeFeo, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney and Ed Ruscha.
OCMA opened to much fanfare in 2022 and its expansive contemporary art collection drew museum-goers from across the country. More than 10,000 visitors arrived in its first 24 hours, and admission was to remain free for the first decade of operation thanks to a grant from Newport Beach’s Lugano Diamonds.
All did not seem well at the new museum, however. Times art critic Christopher Knight and former Times architecture columnist Carolina Miranda wrote that the highly touted building remained oddly unfinished. Murmurs about the museum’s financial problems persisted when Zuckerman announced her departure three years later.
According to a rep for OCMA, the museum had a $7.7-million annual budget and had attracted 600,000 visitors since 2022, which is a healthy number by industry standards. Still, questions circulated among museum insiders about what OCMA’s long-term financial plan was, and how much it might have been struggling toward the end.
A rep for UC Irvine would say only that the museum had done its due diligence before the acquisition.
“UC Irvine is committed to ensuring that the region benefits from a world-class art museum that enriches the cultural fabric of Orange County, advances groundbreaking scholarship, nurtures the next generation of creators and thinkers, and inspires curiosity and connection across diverse audiences,” said Chancellor Howard Gillman in a news release.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, looking to acquire a healthy breakfast in a few minutes. Here’s your arts news for the week.
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Martha Graham Dance Company performs “Night Journey” and other works Saturday at the Soraya.
(Brigid Pierce)
Martha Graham Dance Company Centennial The Soraya continues its celebration with Graham’s 1947 ballet “Night Journey,” which is based on the Oedipus myth and has not been widely performed; a 2024 piece titled “We the People,” featuring folk music by Rhiannon Giddens; and the world premiere of “En Masse,” which builds on the Soraya’s exploration of Graham’s collaborations with various composers. The last — a new commission choreographed by Hope Boykin — marks the first time Graham’s work has been paired with the music of Leonard Bernstein. The posthumous partnership was inspired by a musical excerpt that was found in correspondence between the two arts legends. Christopher Rountree’s experimental classical ensemble Wild Up will perform a new arrangement of Bernstein, as well as William Schuman’s score for “Night Journey.” — Jessica Gelt 8 p.m. Saturday. The Saroya, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. thesoraya.org
Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism tour hits town for five shows at the Forum in Inglewood.
(Katja Ogrin / Getty Images)
Dua Lipa Lipa has found a formidable second life as a public intellectual with her fantastic book club, Service95. (This month’s suggestion: David Szalay’s novel “Flesh.”) But on the heels of last year’s (unfairly!) slept-on “Radical Optimism,” the singer returns to SoCal for five nights at the Forum, where that record’s exquisite catalog of disco-funk effervescence will hopefully get its due on the dance floor. — August Brown 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday. Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. thekiaforum.com
Pat O’Neill, “Los Angeles — From Cars and Other Problems,” 1960s, gelatin silver print
(Graham Howe)
Made in L.A. 2025 UCLA Hammer Museum’s seventh biennial survey of mostly recent art from the sprawling region will include 28 artists and collectives — including influential elder statesman Pat O’Neill, 86. The artists work in every imaginable medium, from traditional painting and sculpture to theater and choreography. The always much-discussed result will reflect the diverse artistic interests of the changing curatorial team, which this time is composed of independent curator Essence Harden, Art Institute of Chicago (and former Hammer) curator Paulina Pobocha and Hammer curatorial assistant Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow. — Christopher Knight Sunday through March 1, 2026. Closed Mondays. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu
The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY 🎭 Family Meal A famous chef serves his last meal, and you’re invited to this immersive theatrical experience that seats the audience at the dinner table for a round of foodie “Succession.” 7 p.m. Friday-Sunday; Oct. 10-12; Nov. 7-9; 14-16. Rita House, 5971 W. 3rd St. speakeasysociety.com
🎶 🎤 Ledisi: For Dinah The Grammy-winning singer’s new album pays tribute to Dinah Washington, “The Queen of the Blues.” 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Untitled, 2025, by Calvin Marcus. Oil on linen, 48 by 72 inches, 49 by 73 inches framed.
(Karma)
🎨 Calvin Marcus Building on a coat of deep umber, the artist adds layers of lime, Kelly, forest and other shades of green to mimic the growth cycle of his subject in the Grass Paintings. This isn’t the type of nature you can touch, but the vivid compositions of the series may offer their own sense of the sublime to the viewer. 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday through Nov. 1. Karma, 7351 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. karmakarma.org
🎹 🎺 🎶Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance presents an evening with the Grammy-winning octet, featuring pianist and composer O’Farrill, son of the late Cuban jazz pioneer Chico O’Farrill. 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Music director Rafael Payare and the San Diego Symphony open their new season Friday.
(Courtesy of Gary Payne)
🎼 French Fairytales: Ravel and Debussy San Diego Symphony music director Rafael Payare opens his orchestra’s second season in the brilliantly renovated Jacobs Music Center by staging Ravel’s one-act opera, “The Child and the Magical Spells” (commonly known by its French title, “L’enfant et les sortileges”). A kind of French “Alice Wonderland,” this is the most enchanted work by a composer for whom enchantment was bedazzling second nature. The stellar cast is headed by mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and soprano Liv Redpath. The stage director is by the orchestra’s creative consultant, Gerard McBurney, who recently created for Esa-Pekka Salonen a new version of Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina,” which was the hit of this year’s Salzburg Easter Festival. Plus Debussy’s “The Joyful Isle (L’isle joyeuse)” and “The Box of Toys (La boîte à joujoux).” (Mark Swed) 7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Jacobs Music Center, 1245 Seventh Ave, San Diego. sandiegosymphony.org
SATURDAY 🎼 🎤 Current: Reflections in Song Countertenor John Holiday, pianist Lara Downes and an 18-piece Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra lineup glide through Chris Walde’s arrangements of Gershwin, Ellington, Strayhorn, Korngold, Chaplin and more in a program that unites cinematic romance with the elegance of jazz. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Cicada Restaurant and Lounge 617 S Olive St., downtown L.A. laco.org
🎨 The HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours For a 24th year, High Desert artists open their studios and share their work for three weekends of free self-guided tours. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; Oct. 11-12 and 18-19. Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms and surrounding areas. hwy62arttours.org
🎭 Public Assembly’s Soirée “Everything Everywhere All At Once” director Daniel Scheinert, actor Jena Malone and other celebrities gather for this fundraiser for the non-profit theater company featuring staged readings of the group’s earlier works. 6 p.m. VIP-only cocktail party; 7:30 p.m. staged readings. Eagle Rock (location to be sent along with ticket purchase). publicassembly.us
📚Rare Books LA Union Station This year’s fair features antiquarian books, maps, fine prints and book arts, while celebrates Guillermo Del Toro’s new film adaptation of “Frankenstein,” streaming on Netflix this November. (A Frankenstein Fundraiser, hosted by Netflix in association with Rare Books LA and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, is scheduled Friday night in Hollywood). 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Union Station, 800 N. Alameda Street. rarebooksla.com
🎨 🚘 🎶 Venice Afterburn This official Burning Man Regional brings art cars, installations, theme camps and music to the beach. Noon-10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Windward Plaza, Venice Beach. veniceafterburn.com
SUNDAY
Jiji performs Sunday at BroadStage.
(BroadStage)
🎼 🎸 Jiji: ‘Classical Goes Electric’ The Korean guitarist and composer who goes by Jiji Guitar and is a member of the L.A. new music collective Wild Up exchanges her acoustic guitar for electric in a solo recital program that ranges across centuries as part of the endearing Sunday morning series at BroadStage (bagels and cream cheese included). Jiji begins with an arrangement of a vocal piece by the mystical 12th century abbess Hildegard von Bingen, who happens to be the subject of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s new opera, “Hildegard,” that L.A. Opera presents Nov. 5-9 at the Wallis. Elsewhere on the program, the guitarist electrifies a neglected Baroque composer, Claudia Sessa (all women Baroque composers suffer obscurity), with Max Richter and new music including neglected electronic music pioneer Laurie Spiegel. (Mark Swed) 11 a.m. Sunday. Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St. broadstage.org
🎼 Two Titans: The Music of Beethoven and Verdi The Los Angeles Master Chorale performs the epic works “Mass in C” and “Four Sacred Pieces” by Ludwig Van Beethoven and Giusseppe Verdi, respectively. 7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
Claude Monet, “The Water Lily Pond (Clouds),” 1903, oil on canvas
(Brad Flowers/Dallas Museum of Art)
🎨 The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse Is there anyone who doesn’t like Impressionist paintings and sculptures? As the Dallas Museum of Art renovates and expands its building, a selection of 50 Impressionist and early Modern works from its permanent collection, dating from the 1870s to 1925, has embarked on a three-year, five-city tour. Six paintings by Claude Monet and four by Piet Mondrian are featured. (Christopher Knight) 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; Oct. 5 through Jan. 25, 2026. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State St. sbma.net
TUESDAY 🎨 Glass Sukkah: This Home Is Not a House Sukkot, an ancient Jewish harvest festival, and its messages of the temporary nature of shelter, the value of welcome and belonging, the importance of honoring ancestors and the preciousness of the natural world are themes of artist Therman Statom’s work, including glass face jugs and paintings. Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday–Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, ongoing. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. skirball.org
🎵 🎭 Les Misérables Cameron Mackintosh’s evergreen production of Boublil and Schönberg’s Tony Award- winning musical – billed as “the world’s most popular” – arrives for a two-week run. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, through Oct 19. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. broadwayinhollywood.com
🎼 Strauss, Pärt & Glass Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform 20th century chamber music. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
THURSDAY 🎼 Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ The conductor’s “Second Symphony” is performed by Soprano Chen Reiss, mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the L.A. Phil, under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel, for only the second time in the maestro’s tenure. 8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m. Oct. 10; 8 p.m. Oct. 11; 2 p.m. Oct. 12. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
🎭 Paranormal Inside Playwright Prince Gomolvilas’ latest is a sequel to “The Brothers Paranormal,” which had its Los Angeles premiere at East West Players in 2022. In returning to the ghost-hunting business launched by two Thai American brothers, the author continues his examination of intergenerational trauma through the lens of the occult. Jeff Liu directs what sounds like a wild ride into the Freudian uncanny, where the repressed makes a startling return. (Charles McNulty) 8 p.m. Thursday, through Nov. 2; check days and times. David Henry Hwang Theater, 120 N Judge John Aiso Street, Little Tokyo. eastwestplayers.org
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Francesca Zambello’s staging of “West Side Story.”
(Todd Rosenberg / Lyric Opera of Chicago)
The legendary Broadway musical “West Side Story” is getting the L.A. Opera treatment as it opens the company’s 40th anniversary season at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught a show and gives a bit of history in his review — namely that when choreographer Jerome Robbins talked with Leonard Bernstein in 1949 about the idea of updating ‘Romeo and Juliet’ into a contemporary musical, “Robbins didn’t know what it would be, but he knew what it wouldn’t be: An opera!” Nonetheless, the show is operatic, Swed notes, and redoing it as an opera means one important thing: more attention is given to the music.
Gustavo Dudamel is currently straddling two worlds as he kicks off his final season at the Los Angeles Philharmonic while at the same time assuming the role of music director designate at the New York Philharmonic, prior to becoming the orchestra’s artistic director in 2026. The opening concerts for both orchestras were a mere two weeks apart, with New York coming first. Swed invokes Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” to explore the new state of affairs that finds one city losing a beloved figurehead to another. In both cities, however, Dudamel is making superb music.
I spoke with a member of the anonymous “satirical activist” group the Secret Handshake, which recently installed a 12-foot-tall statue of President Trump holding hands with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The statue was removed less than 24 hours later by the National Park Service despite having a permit. The NPS claimed the statue had violated height restrictions, but the Secret Handshake rep said that it should have been given 24 hours to fix the problem before the statue was removed. The following day the group again tried to get a permit to reinstall the statue, and was denied without explanation. On Thursday afternoon, however, the statue was reinstalled for a limited time. Stay tuned.
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A brand new mural of ballet star Misty Copeland by the artist El Mac is being unveiled on Oct. 5 in San Pedro. The colorful painting takes up an entire outside wall of San Pedro City Ballet at 13th Street and Pacific Avenue, and was made possible by Arts United San Pedro. The unveiling also includes the renaming of the building in homage to donor Dr. Joseph A. Adan. “I’m incredibly honored to be featured in this stunning mural by El Mac at San Pedro City Ballet, my very first ballet studio and a place that will always feel like home,” Copeland said in a news release. “What he’s captured through my image is so much bigger than me, it represents every young person from this community and beyond who deserves access to the arts. This is such a beautiful tribute to where it all began for me.”
Long Beach Opera has named former L.A. Opera Production Director Michelle Magaldi its new chief executive officer. While at L.A. Opera, Magaldi oversaw the company’s popular Santa Monica Pier simulcasts; helped guide operations for L.A. Opera Off Grand; was responsible for hiring and training various producers and technical staff and also helped spearhead the world-premiere production of Ellen Reid’s “Prism,” which later won a Pulitzer Prize. Magaldi has a long working history with LBO’s Chief Creative Officer and Artistic Director James Darrah. Magaldi succeeds Marjorie Beale, who served as interim managing director since 2024.
Doja Cat will be the musical guest for Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Art+Film Gala, the museum announced earlier this week. The always glitzy soiree is set to take place on Saturday, Nov. 1, and will honor artist Mary Corse and filmmaker RyanCoogler. It’s co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Christine Vendredi has been apponted Palm Springs Art Museum’s new executive director, the board of trustees announced Monday. It’s a role Vendredi has occupied on an interim basis since April 2025. Prior to that she served as chief curator — a role she took on after serving as global director of art, culture and heritage at Louis Vuitton.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Join me in a moment of silence for Jane Goodall. She communicated across species, showing the world that we have more in common with all living creatures than we think. It’s a lesson we would do well to remember in these trying times.
Those were among the visceral reactions this week from Emily Blunt, Whoopi Goldberg, Natasha Lyonne and many other actors and filmmakers over the sudden fame of Tilly Norwood.
Norwood isn’t real — the brunette who appears in a comedy sketch on her Instagram page is in fact a computer-generated composite.
“I may be AI, but I’m feeling very real emotions right now,” states a message on Norwood’s Instagram page. “I am so excited for what’s coming next!”
The sentiment was not widely shared, at least in Hollywood, where anxieties about the use and abuse of artificial intelligence replacing actors runs deep.
Norwood’s creator ignited a furor after she announced that the digital actress would soon be signed by a talent agency.
This week, SAG-AFTRA weighed in with a withering response. Two years ago, the union’s members engaged in a 118-day strike to fight for more AI protections in their contracts with major studios.
“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation,” the guild said. “It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”
Norwood was created by AI through Xicoia, a London-based AI talent studio launched by Dutch actor Eline Van der Velden. Xicoia is working with estates and Hollywood stars who want to appear as their younger selves on screen, according to Deadline, which first reported talent agency interest in Norwood.
Van der Velden, who is also the founder of AI production company Particle6, was not available for comment on Wednesday. But in a statement posted on Instagram following the backlash, Van der Velden stressed that Norwood is “a creative work — a piece of art.”
“I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool — a new paintbrush,” Van der Velden said. “Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories.”
SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin disputed the claim.
He said in an interview with The Times that the material used to create Norwood was “improperly obtained” from SAG-AFTRA members’ work without permission, compensation or acknowledgment.
“It manipulates something that already exists, so the conceit that it isn’t harming actors — because it is its own new thing — ignores the fundamental truth that it is taking something that doesn’t belong to them,” Astin said.
“We want to allow our members to benefit from new technologies. … They need to give permission for it, and they need to be bargained with.”
Norwood has 44,000 followers on Instagram and is portrayed as an aspiring young actor based in London who enjoys shopping and iced coffee.
The social media page depicts Norwood in various scenes. In one, she’s armed and ready to battle a monster; in another, she’s running away from a collapsing building in a futuristic city.
At an industry panel in Zurich on Saturday, Van der Velden touted her creation.
“With Tilly, you know, when we first launched her, people were like, ‘That’s not going to happen,’” Van der Velden said. “And now, we’re going to announce which agency is going to be representing her in the next few months. It’s all changing and everyone is starting to see the light, fortunately.”
Talent agencies have represented digital characters used in ad campaigns. And seeing such avatars in the mainstream has become increasingly common — in 2024, Japanese digital character Hatsune Miku performed at Coachella and an AI model was featured in the August issue of Vogue magazine for L.A. brand Guess.
And some studios, including Lionsgate, have partnerships with AI startups to explore using the technology in areas such as storyboarding. Others, such as Netflix and Amazon MGM Studios, have series that use AI in visual effects.
Tech companies have argued that they should be able to train their AI models on content available online and bring up relevant information under the “fair use” doctrine, which allows for the limited reproduction of content without permission from the copyright holder.
But the proliferation of AI has also fueled concerns that AI companies are using copyrighted material to train their models without compensation or permission. Earlier this year, Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery sued AI companies over copyright infringement.
Some actors called for a boycott of any agents who decide to represent Norwood. “Read the room, how gross,” “In the Heights” actor Melissa Barrera wrote on Instagram.
“Our members reserve the right to not be in business with representatives who are operating in an unfair conflict of interest, who are operating in bad faith,” Astin said.
Chaminade Prep in West Hills expects to begin demolition soon of the 4.8 acres of buildings it acquired in 2018 that will become its.sports fields. Next year construction will begin on a baseball field, pool and training fields that could be completed by 2027, according to athletic director Todd Borowski. Both projects need final approval from the city before work can begin.
Buildings from the old shopping center have been abandoned and the property is fenced.
Chaminade has phases planned for construction that will include a pedestrian bridge to link its main campus across the street with the new fields. A new softball field will replace the current baseball field. There will be new campus classrooms and a new school entrance.
Chaminade is the second Mission League school adding new sports fields. Harvard-Westlake is scheduled to open its River Park complex next year that includes a gym, fields, pool and parking.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
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