The radio broadcasters reminded listeners of the final score, invited them to tune in again the next day, and signed off. The Dodgers had lost Saturday, so the sounds of “California Stars” wafted through Dodger Stadium.
“Well,” Charley Steiner said to his colleagues in the broadcast booth, “they’re still playing this song.”
The little things can be the ones we remember the most. On Saturday, for the first time in three years, Steiner called all nine innings of a Dodgers game.
In 2024, he beat cancer into remission. The first sign was back pain. He later suffered three back fractures, and to this day the pain is still there.
“It’s gone from intolerable to tolerable,” Steiner said.
He left Dodger Stadium in a wheelchair Saturday. He can walk, but the trek from the broadcast booth to the parking lot is too much, at least for now.
Yet he was in the booth, and on the air for nine innings, so Saturday was a very good day indeed.
Steiner returned for opening day in 2025, but he wore down and left midway through the game. He has called a few games this season, for a few innings each time, building up his workload as if he were a pitcher in spring training.
On Thursday, after Steiner called six innings, he said he would like to try seven the next time. Duane McDonald, the Dodgers’ radio producer, encouraged him to try the full nine.
And so Steiner did, his voice sounding raspy and rusty in the early innings but getting stronger with each successive inning.
He called the statistics put up by Milwaukee Brewers prodigy Jacob Misiorowski “Koufaxian numbers.” He translated an infield single with an exit velocity of 37 mph into everyday language: “That’s driving in the school zone.”
And, on an afternoon Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski gave up two home runs — that’s 11 homers surrendered in his last 19⅔ innings — Steiner did not miss a beat when reading an advertisement: “Toyota dealers: they make it easy. Wrobleski makes it hard.”
The Dodgers have consistently and graciously told Steiner to take all the time he needed to get better, but recovery is slow, uneven and ongoing.
“Who would have ever thought that sitting could be painful?” Steiner said.
“I get home after a game, and I’m sitting with three ice packs on my back. It’s like I’ve completed playing.”
In the broadcast booth, he sometimes alternates between standing and sitting, or puts his feet up on a table, anything to avoid sitting for hours on end.
The happiest person next to Steiner on Saturday was the one who has been next to Steiner for two decades in the booth: Rick Monday, who checked on Steiner almost every day the past three years and who teased him unmercifully on Saturday, at times using words best left out of a family newspaper.
“You can’t invent chemistry,” Steiner said.
You also can’t invent what is now a lifelong bond.
“I had fun watching him, because I know he has gone through hell,” Monday said. “His world shrunk. We’re used to 50,000 people and you saw, what, one or two a day?”
Steiner nodded.
“Housebound,” Monday said.
“The last three years have been P.T. [physical therapy],” Steiner said. “Every day. Social life? Scratch that.
“If I want to go out to eat, it’s not necessarily where, but what’s the seating like? I can’t sit in a wooden chair.”
It’s too uncomfortable, he said, without cushion or support for his back.
Steiner is 77. He does not have to endure discomfort in the booth. He does not have to be here.
Or, perhaps, he does.
“It’s just nice being back at the park,” he said.
“It’s home.”
He is still building back his strength, no pun intended. His next goal: call a game on consecutive days, just as a relief pitcher has to prove he can pitch on consecutive days.
“But there ain’t going to be no Timmy Trumpet for me,” Steiner said.
That second consecutive day won’t be Sunday. From his home, he’ll do a segment with Monday for the pregame show.
And when might he be back in the broadcast booth on a regular basis? He had a twinkle in his eye, and seven of the most famous words in Dodgers broadcasting lore at the ready.
LA28 hopes to raise the bar for the Paralympic movement when the Paralympic Games open in SoFi Stadium on Aug. 15, 2028. The city that already changed the Olympic movement by hosting the most commercially successful Games ever in 1984 could leave an equally indelible mark on the Paralympic movement.
“In the opening ceremony in two years’ time, we will be about to witness the Paralympic Games that can really put our movement in a higher step,” International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons said, “in a higher position as a sport movement.”
While the Olympics were blossoming in L.A. in 1984, the Paralympics that year were hosted in New York and Stoke Mandeville, England in a patchwork plan that came to be known as the “Last-Minute Games” because a U.S.-based organizing committee failed to secure funding to host the Paralympic Games at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The LA28 Olympics and Paralympics logos are featured on a sign outside an event in 2024.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Forty years later, the Paris Paralympics solidified the movement’s position as one of the largest sporting events in the world. The 2024 Paralympics sold 2.5 million tickets, the most for a Paralympic Games, and had a record 12,941 global broadcast hours. The overall live audience for the Paris Paralympics grew by 40% compared to 2021 and 117% from 2016.
Seeing the Paralympics leaves a lasting impression on fans. A Nielsen Sports study commissioned by the IPC found that 73% of people thought the Paris Paralympic Games positively changed their attitudes toward people with disabilities.
LA28 wants to build on that momentum.
“I really would love to see the change of perception of what people with disabilities can do, but also most importantly see the athletes perform,” said Ileana Rodriguez, the LA28 vice president of Paralympic strategy and relations and a 2012 Paralympic swimmer. “Because oftentimes we forget the sport side of the athletes and put the disability in front, and I really hope that this is reversed in our Games.”
American Alexandra Truwit competes during the women’s 400-meter freestyle during the Paralympics on Sept. 5, 2024, in Nanterre, France.
(Adam Pretty / Getty Images)
It didn’t take long for Ali Truwit to see the Paralympic standard. The former Yale swimmer had always respected Paralympians for their grit, courage and strength, but after she lost the lower part of her left leg in a shark attack in 2023, Truwit had her own Paralympic awakening.
She realized that to even make the U.S. team for Paris, she needed to swim faster with one leg than she did with two.
“A lot of people would come up and say, like, “Oh well you could do the Paralympics,’” said Truwit, who had 15 months between having her leg amputated on her 23rd birthday and the opening ceremony of the Paris Paralympics. “I’m like, ‘Well, you can’t just do the Paralympics actually!’ It’s elite and it’s fast.”
Her American record time of 1 minute, 8.98 seconds seconds in the S10 100-meter backstroke at the 2024 U.S. Paralympic swimming trials was faster than the times she was putting up to be recruited for Division I schools. Also the U.S. record holder in the S10 400-meter freestyle (4:31.39), Truwit won silver medals in both races in her first Paralympic Games.
But as she starts training for 2028, Truwit knows even her national record times might not be enough to get on the podium in L.A.
In Paris, 175 world and 218 Paralympic records were broken across 22 sports. The quality of the performances are better than ever, Parsons, the Paralympic president, pointed out. Athletes have become more refined with their training techniques.
“If you raise the expectations for what high performance is, for what an athlete is, then gosh, that’s just going to open up so many more opportunities,” said Brent Hardin, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Alabama and director of Alabama Adapted Athletics. “The Paralympics has the ability to do that like no other sporting event in the world for athletes with disabilities.”
The last time the Summer Paralympics were in the United States, in 1996, the event was run by a separate committee from the Olympic organizers. Disorganized and under-publicized, the event was underwhelming, Hardin said. Since 2002, organizing committees have been required to put together joint bids to host both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, using the same venues, facilities and infrastructure.
LA28 will rely on mostly existing venues for both the Olympics and Paralympics, relieving many of the biggest headaches that have plagued previous organizing committees. But hosting 4,480 Paralympians in one village is an especially unique challenge.
UCLA students walk up and down stairs on a campus that features many hills. The school is scheduled to host the athletes’ village for the 2028 Paralympics.
(Al Seib/For The Times)
LA28 will host the Olympic and Paralympic villages at UCLA. While renowned for its red brick buildings and lush green lawns, UCLA’s campus is also notorious for its steep hills. In 2025, two students who used wheelchairs sued the university and the UC Board of Regents for discrimination, citing, in part, elevators that are often out of service, insufficient signage and dangerous conditions in pedestrian paths of travel.
Rodriquez recognized the campus’ geographical challenges that organizers can’t change. LA28 said in a statement it is focused on building upon UCLA’s existing accessibility foundation while exploring additional modifications and services to support Paralympic athletes and team officials, such as temporary ramps and modified restrooms. Construction is expected to begin this year, trying to minimize impact on normal campus activities.
“One solution is not going to solve it for everyone, but a system of different ones hopefully will for most of them,” said Rodriguez, an architect consulted on previous Games before working with LA28. “We’re aiming, of course, for 100% of the users, but it doesn’t mean that there might be challenges in some points.”
The Games will also need to accommodate millions of fans traveling around Southern California. The FIFA World Cup tested the transportation system and it was largely a success, but it presented problems for some fans.
Kate Scott, founder of Only Everywhere, a directory providing accessibility information about more than 400 venues in California, heard from fans who paid hundreds of extra dollars for accessible parking and a shuttle to the stadium only to learn later that a free shuttle option was available. Fans struggled to secure wheelchair accessible seats, especially after they were sold at astronomical resale values, and couldn’t get clear answers about what accommodations would be available in the stadium.
Fans pack SoFi Stadium during a World Cup match between the United States and Paraguay on June 12.
(Kelvin Kuo/Los Angeles Times)
SoFi Stadium aced the physical infrastructure with working elevators, wheelchair escorts and accessible seating with clear sightlines on every level. It was mostly an information gap that left fans wanting.
“It’s not a problem if you say there’s no way to get to the cafe on the second floor. It is a problem if they find that out at the bottom of the stairs,” Scott said. “They can plan ahead if you just give them the information. It’s not about perfection. It’s about telling people what to expect.”
Of the 400 California venues Scott has added to Only Everywhere’s directory, more than half don’t publish anything online about accessibility. Only 7% cover accommodations for mobility limitation, hearing disability, vision impairment and sensory disabilities.
Disability advocates hope the Paralympics can lead to improved access to social services and structures for people with disabilities during and after the Games.
“Not just a one-in-every-four-years kind of event,” said Juliann Anesi, an associate professor of gender studies at UCLA and an affiliate faculty member with the disabilities studies department.
After the 1984 Olympics helped fund youth sports in L.A. for decades with a $230-million surplus, the 2028 Games have already jump-started adaptive sports opportunities as part of the PlayLA program.
Hunter Woodhall from the U.S. wins the men’s 400-meter T62 final at the 2024 Paralympics on Sept. 6, 2024, in Paris.
(Thibault Camus / Associated Press)
The program is run by L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks and will have 12 adaptive sports (adaptive archery, athletics, kayaking, skateboarding, lacrosse, pickleball, para swimming, blind soccer, goalball, para surfing, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis) for the 2026-27 season. The program is on track to reach 5,000 total adaptive sports program enrollments in 2027, LA28 said.
“LA28 is an opportunity not only to think about people with disabilities as part of [society], but instead to really reshape the conversation around disability, especially in sport,” Truwit said. “… We don’t look at Paralympians as an inspiration or as something where they’re overcoming a limitation, but rather as just part of human diversity and potential.”
At the halfway mark of the Olympic quadrennial, Truwit is already dreaming about L.A. The Connecticut native can picture the opening ceremony in SoFi Stadium, where she will be flanked by her fellow American Paralympians. That group could even include several athletes who received grants from her nonprofit Stronger Than You Think, which helps provide prosthetics to girls and women experiencing limb loss. Being at the Paralympics together would be a dream, Truwit said.
Parsons will open what will be the final Paralympic Games of his IPC presidency. He envisions going out on a high note.
“The best Paralympic Games,” Parsons said of his 2028 expectations, “ever.”
POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE — For nearly 60 years, warring camps have battled one another for the soul of a wind-swept peninsula with breathtaking hills, rugged cliffs, granite outcroppings, oak forests and wide expanses of pasture land and beach.
Jutting off the coastline like an upside-down ice skate, the Point Reyes National Seashore is separated from the mainland by the San Andreas fault, which runs like a skate’s blade edge separating the Pacific and North American plates. The peninsula covers about 110 square miles — roughly five times the size of Manhattan.
Elephant seals and sea lions bark and breed on its sandy coves. Whales and sharks breach and hunt in the waters beyond the thick kelp forests that tickle its edges. And in its forests and on its grasslands, tule elk and mule deer graze, while bobcats and coyotes hunt for rabbits and mountain beavers.
But the peninsula 20 miles north of San Francisco also has been home to agriculture since the 1800s and is the site of one of the state’s fiercest land disputes — one that, contrary to the usual red-versus-blue scenario, pits Northern California liberals against other Northern California liberals.
On one side: beef ranchers and dairy operators who advocate sustainable and organic food and land practices; they note the seashore was established, in part, to preserve their way of life.
On the other: environmentalists who say the taxpayer-funded park is no place for commercial farming, and that the seashore should protect its rare and diverse wildlife and welcome the visitors who bicycle, hike and camp on its beaches, oak forests and grasslands.
For seven weeks last year, it seemed the interminable battle over the seashore had finally come to an end.
The family dog guards poultry at Niman family farm at the Point Reyes National Seashore.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
In January 2025, a settlement was announced with the National Park Service laying out how the park would function going forward. Natural landscapes and wildlife would take priority over agriculture. Eleven of 13 historic ranching families would leave and be made whole for their losses.
While no one involved really loved the deal or got everything they wanted, many were satisfied, said Jeff Miller, senior conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups involved in the settlement. “The ranchers walked away with a few million dollars and the tule elk get to stay.”
Then this year, the two remaining ranch and dairy families sued. The goal: to upend the deal announced in the waning days of the Biden administration.
The Trump administration, with its pro-meat, pro-cattle agenda, is taking notice.
Since 1962, when the seashore was established, there have been grumblings. The ranchers said the park service saddled them with excessive rules and regulations. The environmentalists said the ranchers brought in invasive plants with their feed, and that cattle fouled the soil and waterways.
But nearly everyone agrees that it was in 2012 when things really began to boil over. That year, the park service moved to shut down a local oyster farm, whose lease was expiring. In his decision to shut it down, Ken Salazar, then secretary of the Interior, promised the ranchers they could remain.
“These working ranches are a vibrant and compatible part of Point Reyes National Seashore,” he wrote in a memorandum, “and both now and in the future represent an important contribution to the Point Reyes’ superlative natural and cultural resources.”
But four years later, environmentalists sued the park service. They argued the cows had degraded the seashore with manure pollution and soil erosion, harming the native wildlife. The iconic tule elk, some of which were fenced in on the northern part of the peninsula to keep them from competing for grassland with cows, were dying off.
The environmentalists demanded the park service establish a new management plan.
They won. But the new plan, issued in 2021, favored the ranchers, extending them 20-year leases, and allowed for the killing of elk if they interfered with cattle.
A tule elk calf is seen with its herd along the Tomales Point Trail, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
Once again, the environmentalists — the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project — sued.
That’s what led to the settlement and the departure of the 11 ranch families and their workers. Each family is believed to have received between $2.5 million and $3 million, but exact amounts have not been divulged because of a nondisclosure agreement.
The 17,000 acres they vacated would be dedicated to conservation and ecological restoration — with a few cattle remaining to feast on invasive species.
But the two litigious families that did not join the settlement — the Evanses and the Nimans — have a different vision.
David Evans, who declined to be formally interviewed, told The Times while moving cattle in the seashore on his ATV that he hadn’t known anything about the settlement. The Evans clan has been running cattle on the peninsula for 150 years.
The other family, headed by Bill Niman and Nicolette Hahn Niman, came to their land comparatively recently.
Born in Minnesota, Bill Niman found himself in Bolinas in 1969, where he befriended lefty intellectuals who were critical of factory farming. In 1978, he and Orville Schell — who later became the dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism — bought land and co-founded the Niman-Schell Ranch. They dedicated their business to raising pigs, and then cattle, in a humane and environmentally sound way.
Niman said he and Schell also wanted to preserve the land from developers and “wealthy people from the Central Valley,” who were moving to the area to build second homes, golf courses and four-lane highways.
In 1984, Niman and Schell sold their 206 acres to the National Park Service for $1.3 million and the promise that they could stay on the property until Niman, Schell or Niman’s older sister all died. They’re now at ages 81, 86 and 90.
Schell did not respond to a request for comment.
“Orville and I concluded that mortals should not own land like this,” Niman said. “It belongs in the hands of the people, because it’s too valuable to cut up and develop.”
The business, which Schell left in 1997, flourished: Alice Waters, at Chez Panisse, bought pork exclusively from Niman, as did Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. In 2009, he merged his company into Natural Food Holdings, which was later bought by Perdue Farms.
Bill Niman and Nicolette Hahn Niman sued the federal government to upend a settlement that paid other ranchers and dairy owners to leave Point Reyes National Seashore.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
In 2007, Niman and Hahn Niman started BN Ranch, specializing in organic, grass-fed beef and heritage turkeys. The company, which was bought by Blue Apron in 2017, has operations across the world. Niman later founded Bill Niman Farm LP, which raises grass-fed cows and chickens.
On a recent afternoon, sitting on the back porch of the Bolinas ranch house that Niman built, with a view of the Pacific in the distance, Niman and Hahn Niman — who is 22 years his junior — spoke about their decision to file the lawsuit, which argues the park service was negligent in its rule making.
The Nimans say the seashore’s founders explicitly included agriculture in their vision of the park. They noted that, according to the original charter, Congress could not take the land without the consent of landowners “so long as it remains in its natural state, or is used exclusively for ranching and dairying purposes.”
Hahn Niman also noted, at least five times over two interviews, that Point Reyes is a “seashore” and not a “park,” and therefore doesn’t have as many rules governing preservation. For instance, you can drive an off-road vehicle at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, but off-roading in Yosemite could land you in jail.
The Nimans hope that, should they win or settle, farmers and ranchers would again be allowed in the seashore. Their vision: a test kitchen of sorts that models how farming can, and should, be done.
“We’re really talking about a kind of agrarian model and a use of land that basically keeps this land in its natural state, where agriculture is practiced in harmony with wildlife and nature’s cycles,” said Hahn Niman, who wrote three books, including “Righteous Porkchop” about her work in the early 2000s as an environmental attorney for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance.
The view from Chimney Rock at Point Reyes National Seashore, which covers about 110 square miles and includes a variety of habitats.
(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)
Elephant seals gather below Chimney Rock in Point Reyes.
(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)
Hahn Niman said she has spoken with Kennedy about the park, and he supports agriculture in the seashore. She added that Albert Straus, a private equity-backed organic dairy processor in Petaluma, also reached out to Kennedy.
“Straus made efforts to involve [Kennedy], because he was really trying to get help anywhere … and he knew Bobby and I had this connection,” Hahn Niman said. It was Straus who believed legal action might keep agriculture on the peninsula and suggested the Nimans consult an attorney.
According to media reports, Kennedy directly reached out to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy heads, did not respond to requests for comment on Kennedy’s involvement.
The more important contacts, Bill Niman said, have been political appointees in the Interior Department, including Karen Budd-Falen, the agency’s No. 3, who built her legal career advocating for western ranchers, and Brenda Younkin, a senior advisor to the Bureau of Land Management who worked closely with western ranchers on federal livestock grazing issues.
“We were able to have deep and meaningful conversations because the two people that are on the point of this effort, Karen and Brenda, they understand ranching, pastoral relationships, and how to manage government lands in the best of ways,” he said.
Early this spring, a town hall was held at an elementary school at Point Reyes Station. Hundreds of people crammed into the school gym that April evening, and the debate over Point Reyes agitated into a low boil.
There was no agenda or presentation. Instead, the park service, Nature Conservancy, the Nimans’ and Evanses’ lawyers, a representative from the Coast Miwok tribe — the people who lived on the land before the ranchers — and about a dozen other interest groups handed out pamphlets, answered questions and displayed maps at folding tables ringing the hall.
It was hard to hear above the din. Apple Watches around the room warned of “dangerous” noise conditions.
Foodies and farmers railed against the settlement, saying the park’s new plan would destroy the food scene in west Marin County and kneecap the already struggling agrarian community.
“These aren’t factory farms. This is real amazing quality local food,” said Bronte Edwards, a Sonoma County-based sheep farmer. And she made this observation, Edwards said, “as a liberal-facing queer person that believes in climate science.”
Settlement critics noted that the pact meant that ranch employees, many of them Latinos with moderate incomes, lost their homes along with the ranch owners.
They also complained that the settlement was negotiated in secret among the park service, environmental groups and ranch families.
A male tule elk is seen along the Tomales Point Trail, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
“It was all hush-hush,” said Stephanie Moreda-Arend, an ag-aligned podcaster.
Others at the town hall, however, expressed fury that the two remaining ranching families were now trying to upend the deal.
“I understand people have been here a long time. People fear change. I understand that feeling,” said Center for Biological Diversity’s Miller. But the settlement, he added, is done. The seashore is “not their property.”
As residents, activists, farmers and journalists squeezed and jostled through the crowd, holding court in one corner was Budd-Falen, the high-ranking official with the Interior Department.
Budd-Falen, a rancher from Wyoming, has stated publicly that grazing regulations are her passion and that she aims to increase the number of grazing allotments handed out to western ranchers on BLM land, and to no longer declare areas as critical habitat for endangered species.
Though she described the settlement as a done deal, she obliquely suggested changes might still be afoot. “How is it managed from this point forward?” she said of the pact. “You can’t create a good management idea unless you talk to the citizens and see what people want.”
She did not answer questions about the Nimans’ and Evanses’ suit, but when asked why she came to the gathering, she said, “I started hearing about the controversy. Then I started making calls to lands [the Bureau of Land Management] and then to the park service and saying, ‘You know, there’s lots of grumbling, what is going on?’
“And they told me, and I was like, ‘Oh, this sounds like an interesting project, something that we ought to be involved in, and really listen to these locals. And how can I help?’”
Backing the remaining ranchers in Point Reyes and their organic beef, cheese and butter is consistent with an administration that places the commercial cattle industry at the center of its public lands agenda and meat at the center of nutrition policy.
But local politicians and parties to the settlement say scrapping the Biden-era pact would require years of federal review and public engagement. Even if the ranchers have some political pull right now, incarnating their vision within the seashore “would be really difficult,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael).
“They would have to change the law” that established the park and the park system, Huffman said, or “find many millions in funding to subsidize” a new process or management plan that would take on the Nimans’ and Evanses’ vision of model farm.
Given the administration’s zeal to push legal boundaries, especially when confronting perceived enemies — such as California environmentalists — he said, “You don’t want to put anything past them.”
Theresa Harlan, a Coast Miwok descendant who runs the Alliance for Felix Cove — an area in the park where her family had a home until ranchers kicked them out in the 1950s — said the effort to upend the settlement “is just opening up the wound” that had finally started to heal.
Rancher Bill Niman walks along his property at his ranch in Bolinas, Calif.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
Now that the cattle are gone, she’s seeing all kinds of native plants, such as coastal strawberries, Yerba Buena Blue-eyed grass and the Douglas iris with their stunning lavender petals. Some of them she hadn’t seen since she was a child.
Ken Boulay, the CEO of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, said it’s time to move forward and imagine what the park could be like without cattle and private ranches.
He noted the peninsula had once been home to animals such as pronghorn, sea otter, North American porcupine, Humboldt marten, gray wolf, American black bear, grizzlies, northern fur seal and Steller sea lion.
And it could be again — well maybe not the grizzlies or wolves. His organization is already restoring native plants and rebuilding natural waterways in parts of the peninsula.
“It’s time to stop thinking about cheese and yogurt,” he said.
Niman, driving his Rivian across the golden, wind-swept fields, said he has some concerns with the way Trump is dealing with foreign policy, immigrants and some broader environmental issues. But the administration “gets it” when it comes to Point Reyes and public lands.
And he’s heard they’re going to do something about it soon.
In this week’s episode of The Envelope podcast, Chase Infiniti discusses her meteroic rise, her Emmy nomination for “The Testaments” and nurturing the ambition to become an actor since age 10.
Kelvin Washington: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Envelope. You have myself, Kelvin Washington, alongside my usual suspects, Yvonne Villarreal, Mark Olsen as well. It’s been a week, so I’m trusting everybody’s good. Yvonne, we’re coming to you here because you’re going to help us break this down. Don’t bug the eyes. Yes, we’re coming to you. The [TV] Academy, they’re making some changes when it comes to the live broadcast, and it can be a little bit confusing. That’s why we got you here. Tell us more.
Yvonne Villarreal: They announced that they will be moving five categories that are usually handed out during the ceremony, the Primetime [Emmys] ceremony, to a week prior and handing them out during the Creative Arts Emmys’ weekend. They say the decision is sort of to make space to innovate the live show and incorporate new things. You know, viewership is always something that they’re after. But it’s causing a stir in Hollywood because we’re losing some mainstays of the show, and that’s writing for a variety series, but also taking a big hit is the limited series or movie categories. We’re losing supporting actor, supporting actress, but also writing and directing. And people have a lot of thoughts. Mark, I want your thoughts. Kelvin, I want your thoughts.
Mark Olsen: I feel like there’s a disconnect between the people who watch award shows and the people who make and produce award shows, where I feel like those of us who watch them, we just want more sort of genuine moments from the talent, from the nominees. I want more speeches! And so taking away five categories, there’s going to be that much fewer speeches. I just can’t help but think of like Linda Cardellini, who’s one of the people nominated, she was on our roundtable earlier this year and just like a great presence, a stalwart TV actor, and to have to take away that chance for her to potentially get up onstage be really genuine, why would you not want that as part of your show instead having these kind of like canned comedy bits or, you know, hacky reunions plus canned comedy bits that nobody particularly wants.
Villarreal: It’s an awards show.
Washington: True, but maybe I’m Nobody in this case. We were talking about this a little bit earlier, you guys were making fun of the 1990s reunions there. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing, I think it was maybe two years ago, when they had “Martin” up there and they had never been invited; they were kind of joking, “Oh, we never got invited” or “We never won an Emmy.” And so I think it’s been pretty cool. And I will say that this is the challenge for productions, when you’re trying to appease everyone. Is it about the awards? It is about the length of time — just speed this thing up? Is it about having the magical moments? And then you see the Grammys try to get these things right as well. You’re never gonna be able to please everyone. So I think it’s always a difficult balance. So we’ll see how it works out this year. But I’m looking at you, Mark, some people might enjoy those. And you too, those nerdy little reunion shows.
Villarreal: But in a time when it’s already hard to get a show visibility in this marketplace, and so many people don’t know what’s nominated anymore, when you’re taking away an access point for them to discover something or not tell them about a show, it’s a short-sighted change I think.
Washington: The only response I would add to that is that’s kind of where we are. Even if you keep up with television, movies and music, it seems to be a lot more word of mouth than historically where things are plastered everywhere. And even if you didn’t care about the particular thing, you saw it, you heard it. Now it’s like word of a mouth and just watercooler or just the algorithm telling you what to like.
With that being said, somebody who’s having a great run right now, Chase Infiniti. I know you had a chance to speak with her. Of course, “Handmaid’s Tale” did so well. Then there’s the spinoff, “The Testaments.” Tell me a little bit more about your chat with her.
Villarreal: Talk about, like, a breakout nomination this year. Chase has really been a star on the rise. She made her debut in Apple TV’s adaptation of the legal thriller, “Presumed Innocent” playing Jake Gyllenhaal’s daughter. And in recent projects, she’s played this young revolutionary, both in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and now in “The Testaments,” which takes place after the events of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” She’s the daughter of a high-ranking commander, but she’s also the biological daughter of June, who’s Elisabeth Moss’ character. And this show is really about seeing the rebellion of young teenage girls and how they are sort of key to the inside resistance of toppling this regime. And so we talked a little bit about that.
Washington: All right, well, you got me a little nervous. You’re talking about the rebellion of teenage girls. You know, I’ve got a 9, a 7, and a 5-year-old, so that could be my future.
Villarreal: Let’s hope it is. They’re the future.
Washington: You’re right, you’re right. Yvonne and Chase, here they are now.
Chase Infiniti, photographed in late March ahead of “The Testaments” premiere.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Yvonne Villarreal: Chase, thanks so much for being here. Congratulations on your Emmy nomination. What do you want to remember about this moment, this feeling?
Chase Infiniti: Oh. I don’t know. I’m trying to take little pictures in my brain of everything and remember all of the influx of emotions that I felt that entire time, but also throughout the whole journey of making Season 1 of “The Testaments.” There’s so many things about it that I’m like — I just never want to lose that feeling. There’s a lot of [memorable] moments I had on set and also during the press tour and then even finding out about the Emmy nomination, which feels very crazy to say. But even finding out about that, there’s so many little things that I’m like, “I never want to lose that feeling. I want to keep it in my brain forever.”
Villarreal: Is it as thrilling as what you remember feeling when you booked that first role in a local production of “Hairspray,” when you were 10?
Infiniti: It definitely does. I also feel very grateful that with my job and with everything I get to do, I really try to keep intact how much I love the work and how much I love creating. That’s what helps it keep that same energy as me finding out I’m playing Crystal in “Hairspray” versus me finding out that I have an Emmy nomination.
Villarreal: Were you on Cloud 9 getting the news of Crystal?
Infiniti: Oh, yeah. I was so happy because I was it was the first time I ever had a name in a musical. And I remember when I was a kid, I watched the movie version of it every night for six months. Not a lie. Me and my sister would turn it on religiously after school and we would start singing “Good Morning, Baltimore.” It got to the point where we knew almost every line in the movie.
Villarreal: I feel old asking which version of “Hairspray”… Zac Efron? What was it about it?
Infiniti: It’s just catchy — everything about it. It just makes me happy, When I hear “Run and Tell That,” I just want to do twirls in my room. I love musicals so much and they make me so happy. If I’m ever down or need a little pick-me-up, I’ll literally just blast that soundtrack. I blast the soundtrack to “Pippin” or … “Shrek: The Musical.” I remember being in the production and it kind of brings me back to those happy memories I had ,or productions that I saw that I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this really makes me want to work towards being in something like that.” I love musicals.
Villarreal: It was just two years ago where the general public was starting to learn your name with your debut in Apple TV’s “Presumed Innocent.” Since then, you’ve navigated the film award season with “One Battle After Another,” and now the TV awards season with “The Testaments.” How do you make sense of what this moment is? Are there still things you’re getting used to? What have you enjoyed about this part of the job?
Infiniti: There’s a lot of things I’m still getting used to. Especially with “One Battle,” I think the biggest adjustment I had was people knowing me before I walked up to them — people that I’m massive fans of. I met Angela Bassett at something, and she came up to me and said my name, and I was like, “You’re Angela Bassett, and you know who I am?” That was like an “Oh, my gosh” [moment]. I’m still really adjusting to that. I feel like there’s a disconnect in my brain between like what I think people know of me versus what reality actually is. And my friends bring it up all the time and they’re like, “Chase, these people know who you are.” But I can’t wrap my head around that. It’s very strange, especially going from like a 0 to 100 situation. That’s something that I’m still trying to find an adjustment on in my brain.
[What have I] enjoyed about it? I’ve gotten to meet all of my superheroes, in a way. All the people that I’ve grown up watching on the screen and on the stage, [I’ve encountered at] all of these different events and in passing, and everyone could not be kinder and just getting to meet them and just pour into them how much they’ve shaped my life and shaped the creative work I want to do. Another adjustment thing is hearing them pour back into me too. That’s something that I’ve been getting used to. But meeting the superheroes of it all in my brain has been something I’ve really loved. Also getting to meet people who’ve watched “The Testaments”; like younger girls who’ve watched it and then really found a connection point with it, and it’s had an impact on them and their friends. That’s something I really cherish about getting to do what I get to do. I had it with “One Battle.” It’s really cool to see it happening again with “The Testaments.” That’s a very wonderful gift.
VIllarreal: Before we delve further into “The Testaments,” I do want point out this moment onstage at the Academy Awards. When “One Battle After Another” won best picture, Paul Thomas Anderson singled you out, calling you “My American girl” and the “heart of this movie.” Place me in that moment as Chase.
Infiniti: Well, I didn’t hear him. I just heard him say my name. I remember he was going down the list and saying names of different people, and I thought that it was something like that. I was touched that he even mentioned me onstage. Obviously, that movie has quite literally changed my life and that entire cast. And I love Paul so much. So I didn’t hear him onstage, and it wasn’t until afterwards that my parents had sent me a screenshot of the [closed] captions from that night. They were like, “This is what Paul said about you.” I just remember feeling so honored that I got to be a part of something that changed my life, but [it was a film that] also really, I think, changed a lot of people’s lives as well; they connected with it. I can distinctively remember every single day on that job. I just remember feeling such a rush of emotions after reading [what he said] because I love that movie and I love Paul so much. I could not be more grateful for that opportunity and for the opportunity to play Willa, let alone get to be a part of the crazy world that is a Paul Thomas Anderson set. But I learned so much. There’s so much I could say about it.
Villarreal: How did playing Willa inform how you thought about Agnes, who’s also this young revolutionary in the making, as you were putting yourself on tape for “The Testaments”?
Infiniti: I signed on to it with one script in mind. Obviously, I had read the book beforehand, so I had an idea of what she was going to go through, but I didn’t necessarily know how it was going pan out onscreen. The biggest help Willa [provided] beforehand going into that is, I feel like I, by nature, have a little bit of a rebellious spirit, but I really had to turn it up with Willa. I think that being able to access that through Willa and then shape it differently for Agnes, given the circumstances of where she is, was the biggest key between the two. They do share the strong sense of rebellion. Granted, Agnes doesn’t know where it comes from. She doesn’t really know how to handle it, necessarily. But I think that that was a nice way into Agnes and creating her world mentally of where she is and also the inner turmoil of, “I know that there’s this thing happening inside me, but I don’t really understand it.” I think [that] was the biggest cheat code from Willa to Agnes.
Villarreal: What was it about “The Testaments” that spoke to you and made you want to tackle the material?
Infiniti: Just from that one script alone that I read before I signed on, it was hidden that it was “The Handmaid’s Tale,” but you can get a sense of what the world is based off of that initial script. I just fell in love with how detailed it was. It didn’t feel like there were any question marks in the world, and I think that diving into something [like] that felt very interesting because it’s not otherworldly but it feels otherworldy in the sense of the way that they speak and the way Gilead itself looks on paper versus on the screen. That was something that I found to be very interesting. But I think with Agnes specifically, I really love the amount of love that she has for her friends, because that’s something that I feel very strongly about. My friends and my family, but especially my friends, are the people I cherish most in my life. My loved ones are near and dear to my heart, and I will do anything for them. That’s something that I really loved about Agnes. That makes me very happy to see, that even in a world that’s so dark and so dim — even if she doesn’t view it as that, it is dark and it is dim for a young girl in Gilead —she still has so much love and so much hope for her friends. And I found that to be very inspiring.
Villarreal: Did you have any hesitation about the heaviness of this fictional world?
Infiniti: I don’t think that that necessarily terrified me, because I think that I have this very privileged ability to step into this world that seems like it’s so far outside of what we are, I guess, used to — but it’s really not. Nothing that Margaret Atwood writes is fiction. It is all based off of history or things that are happening at the time that she’s written it. I knew that it was going to be very relevant. I’m in this very privileged position where this isn’t my reality, but this is the reality of so many women around the world. And I thought when I read this script that this was a way for people to not, I guess, become desensitized to seeing these things, because I think that we’re in a world where it’s so easy to just turn off your phone, scroll past something, and just ignore what’s actually really happening. With “The Testaments” and with the things that these girls go through, I truly feel heartbroken. But if this in any way can wake people up, can help people continue to ask questions and really question their own environments, that was something that I wasn’t scared of. And I really felt empowered to join something that was doing that. And I am also grateful that on that set, it never felt like the material was too heavy for a day because our entire cast and our entire crew kept the energy on set very light. And if there was ever a point where a day was extra heavy, I knew that I could turn to Lucy [Halliday, who plays Daisy] and she would always be there for me. I know that I can turn to one of the directors and they would always be there, or even one of the [production assistants]. Everybody on set was very forthcoming with kindness and always very open. That was something that helped to keep the heaviness of the subject matter [from] going home with us.
Villarreal: Agnes has only known obedience and repression. She’s very controlled with her emotions. As somebody with roots in musical theater, did you have to curtail some of those instincts that you might’ve had to be a little more expressive? How was it settling into Agnes?
Infiniti: It was honestly pretty easy because you get into the space, you get into the world, and you instantly are transported and you get little context clues based off of the things that you see in Agnes’ room versus the things that you’ve seen in the school — or the absence of things. The absence of things really helped to start to put me in a box in a way — not the negative connotation of that — like putting the costume on. It really helped for me to feel the restriction of the world to understand what Agnes’ mind is, and getting to see that from the outside and then getting to step into it. It wasn’t that hard to shut off that part of my musical theater brain, but I think part of that is also I’ve learned how to maneuver through that just based off of “Presumed Innocent” and “One Battle,” because both of those parts are also very, very much so not musical theater-y at all. So I think that was also something that I had the privilege of learning on both of those sets.
Villarreal: Something that stands out with Agnes is we’re witnessing her awakening. Gilead is all she’s ever known. And she’s very dutiful to the practices of that society. But she’s grappling with coming into her identity and feeling this gap of her internal thoughts and feelings and what society tells her to be. What was important to you in having those two realities live side by side?
Inifiniti: The one thing I never wanted her to lose was her sense of love. She is a character who that is at the root of most of her decisions, especially when it comes to the final episodes with Becka [played by Mattea Conforti]. I think the love that Agnes has in this world is something baseline I never want to lose. I really tried to maintain that throughout.
There’s so much that you keep to yourself — your inner thoughts, your inner personality in a way — versus what you outwardly show the world. I just had to turn up the extremes when it came to Agnes, and really make sure to keep those things that she keeps close to her heart guarded. And put on this almost armor in a sense of what she views to be the most perfect version of herself for the outside world. And then watching that kind of crumble, those layers are peeled apart based off of what happens to her and what she sees happen to her friends. But also, there’s a point in everyone’s life where they realize, “Oh, what I had been raised under the belief of is actually not the reality. Whether it be something like that or whether it be an idea or an ideal that you have about the world or about yourself or your morals, just based off of what you’ve been raised with. I think that everybody has a point in their life where they have to face a version of reality that they’ve been told versus what actually is reality. There’s things that I’m still learning, and there’s still things that I’m questioning just based off of what I see in my personal life, and then also with my friends or what my family goes through.
Villarreal: A key character in the show is menarche and the menstrual cycle. We see how it’s weaponized, but we also see how it gives these young girls their power. What was it like to explore that?
Infinti: The thing I honestly really enjoyed about it is the openness of it. Like, you know when you go to the bathroom — and this is perfect podcast talk — and you’re taking your pad or your tampon to go change, but you’re hiding it because you’re like, “I don’t know if I want anybody to see it” [or hear] the crinkling of everything. But I think that the openness of everything in the show — granted, circumstances are completely different — but the openness that they have with it, I found to be very freeing and refreshing in a way. That was something, especially when we started shooting, that we all talked about, because we were like, “We’ve never been in a place where it didn’t feel like there was a stigma against it.” It felt like we were almost encouraged to talk about it. Getting to put this show out into the world and letting girls see that there isn’t something that they should be afraid of, but also letting them see that this is normal. This is not something that we should be scared of, let alone try to hide, because it’s a part of womanhood. It’s also a part of girlhood and a point of connection between younger girls. Getting to see it on the screen and see the way that these girls talk about it, ignoring the society of Gilead and the amount of pressure that the men put on them in this society, that connection that they have with those few things that span across culture, that is something that we were all very happy to kind of have that openness with something that we’ve felt so scared to talk about, especially at like 14 and 15.
Villarreal: Scared to experience too.
Infiniti: I remember when I got my period for the first time I was like, “What is happening? I don’t know what is going on.” The first person that you call, if it’s not your mom or another maternal figure in your life, is your friends. Because they’re normally the person closest to you in proximity if you’re at school or if you were at an after-school activity or something like that. Getting to have that openness felt very refreshing to have on set.
Villarreal: There was so much openness that there was a menarche playlist curated by director Mike Barker. Tell me the backstory on this.
Infiniti: We did. I’m trying to remember how we found out about this playlist. We were doing a camera test for the costumes, and I remember Mike just putting on this playlist and he’s like, “I like putting up these songs for everyone to listen to” because there was no dialogue in this little camera test between me, Mattea, Rowan [Blanchard], Lucy, Brad [Alexander], Amy [Seimetz] and Mabel [Li] — I can’t remember if I might be forgetting somebody else, and I’m so sorry if I am. But it was a bunch of the cast and then there was also some pinks in there just to see how everything looks on camera. And we were hearing all these different songs playing. We’re like, “Wow, this is great. Thanks for putting together a playlist, Mike.” At some point, Lucy went to grab his phone to look at what the song was and his playlist was open, and she’s like, “Why is the playlist called ‘The Menarche Playlist’? And after that, it just became us trying to get him to approve a song that we would suggest.
Villarreal: I remember you telling me Britney Spears’ ”… Baby One More Time” was on it. But I had wondered who else made the cut.
Infinti: “… Baby One More Time” was on it. I think that was the first song on it, but there would be points in lunch — we’d all eat lunch together — and we’d be like “OK, Mike, what about this one for the menarche playlist, or what about about this one?” We would all secretly hope that they would get added to the show.
Villarreal: Did one of your suggestions get added?
Infiniti: There are songs on there that I don’t even remember. So one of them probably did get added. I just don’t remember what it was.
Villarreal: Agnes is somebody that doesn’t really experience culture. We don’t know what kind of music she likes, what kind of TV or film she likes. And you’re someone that’s very much into culture, at least from what I’ve seen. Were you thinking about what she might like? How did you think about her backstory with that kind of absence?
Infiniti: I was really just relying on what you saw of her in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and that was the extent of what I would let a part of her backstory be because she doesn’t remember much about her childhood. Once she becomes conscious, in a way, in Gilead, all I did was rely on the things that I knew that she liked and really try to remind myself, “She doesn’t know what a movie is. She knows what ‘Jaws’ is, but she doesn’t really have an understanding of what watching a movie is like. She doesn’t know what YouTube is, she doesn’t know what a phone is.” I had to keep reminding myself, especially at the beginning, to not put those things in the forefront of our minds, unless, of course, like you’re a Pearl girl who has prior knowledge of everything. A lot of it was just reminding myself, “You don’t know what this is, she doesn’t know what this is.” If I were to meet Agnes right now, she would probably think I was crazy because she just doesn’t understand a lot the things I’ve seen, and the things that we use in our day-to-day life, and I really tried to make sure to keep that intact, but also relying on the bits of information that I had from “The Handmaid’s Tale” going back to the show. And also, of course, we had Bruce Miller, so I could ask him anything.
Villarreal: What would you, Chase, expose her to? If she were to come to you, what she should be listening to or watching, what’s the guide you’d give her?
Infiniti: The crash course to being 14? I would show her One Direction. I’m sorry. That is something that is so quintessential to being a 14-year-old, especially me being 14. I would be like, “Agnes, I see the things that you love and you’re obsessed with. I’m going to show you the thing that I was in love and obsessed with when I was your age.” I would be very curious to see how she would react to hearing One Direction for the first time; hearing “What Makes You Beautiful,” that would be interesting to see. I would show her something that is representative of me being her age. I still am a fan. I’ve always been a fan my whole life, but especially One Direction, that’s probably something I would show her.
Villarreal: Who was Chase at 14? You talked earlier about having a little bit of that rebellion in you. And after playing these two characters back to back, what have you sort of learned yourself, about your power or finding your voice, especially in an industry like Hollywood?
Infiniti: Something that I realized when I was probably about 13 or 14 is, I used to be very upset when people would underestimate me. I found a way to, I guess, not make it my superpower … but use it as opposed to [letting it be] something that would defeat me. [I would] use it as something to continue to motivate me to work towards the goal that I already had because there’s always gonna be people that underestimate you. There’s always going to be people in the world that want to pour negativity into you when you’re truly just living your life, working towards the things that you want. That was something that I realized pretty young because I knew at 10 that I wanted to be an actor. And so at that point, I kind of made a shift in my mind where I was like, “OK, I need to start working towards the thing that I want to do.” At 13, people were like, “Why are you so motivated to do this? It’s a bit embarrassing that you want to be an actor. What makes you think you can do that?” And I was like, “Because I want to do it.” I never had a doubt in my mind that this would be the thing that I would get to do because that was something that my parents always told me. They were like, “Dream big because the dreams that you’re imagining can be your reality, especially if you work hard enough towards it.” And I feel very lucky that I get to do the thing I’ve always dreamed of doing.
Villarreal: How does that live side by side with also learning how to deal with rejection so young?
Infiniti: It’s a lot of tears, a lot of sad days, sad weeks, conversations with my friends, conversations with parents. But from being underestimated, I remember my dad being like, “You have to get comfortable with ‘no.’ And it’s not going to be fun. It’s not gonna be something that you’re excited to hear, because no one’s excited to hear that they didn’t get something that they really wanted.” Now I’m at a point where I’ve really learned how to process it and not let a no or a rejection affect my view of myself or affect my view of a performance or my abilities to do anything. It took a long time to learn, and I’m still nowhere near perfect, but I’m definitely at a place that’s better than when I was 13 because it is hard for somebody that young to get that amount of rejection. It’s also hard for somebody at my age to handle that level of rejection, especially when you get so close to something. I have to give that credit to processing those things to my parents because that is all them. I had many tear-filled nights when I was a kid because I was so sad that I didn’t get a solo in something, and they’re like, this doesn’t mean that you’re not talented. I’m also somebody who believes the right things will find you. And they’re [my parents] also the people that kind of instilled that in me too.
Villarreal: Does that reframing of no also give you the confidence to approach Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro and say, “Will you make a TikTok with me?”
Infiniti: It honestly was like a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I was very specific. I did lots of research because I also was like, “I want it to be something that they can look at and also laugh at.” They can enjoy it.
Villarreal: Do you think you’ll get there with Ann Dowd? A TikTok?
Infiniti: I would love to. I don’t know what it would be, but I would love to make a TikTok with Ann Dowd one day. If it could be like all the girls on set making a TikTok, I would be very happy. I do have some planned. So, we’ll see.
Villarreal: Margaret Atwood makes a cameo in the finale of Season 1. How do you even talk to Margaret Atwood when you meet her? What was that experience like for you?
Infiniti: The person who was probably the most shocked was Lucy because Lucy Halliday is the biggest Margaret Atwood fan I think I’ve ever met. I had the gift of getting to witness Lucy meeting Margaret for the first time. But meeting her — she’s so kind. [Producer] Warren Littlefield says this all the time where he’s like, “You can’t talk to Margaret Atwood and not learn something with every conversation.” I just remember being very quiet and listening to her talk and listening to her ask questions of me, ask questions of Lucy, but we would just pour into her and be like, “Thank you so much for your work because you truly have touched millions.” She’s also so funny and so witty and very charismatic. I remember being very nervous beforehand, but she made it very easy for our nerves to go away. The highlight was getting to see Lucy meet Margaret.
Villarreal: You’re about to head out to Canada to start production on Season 2. You’ve seen two scripts. What do you hope to see for Agnes in Season 2?
Infiniti: I hope Agnes is happy, and I hope that she can continue to push and find her happiness. I hope that she doesn’t lose her spark, and I hope that’s something that she continues to explore and understand why she is the way that she is. Those are two hopes that I have.
