NEW YORK — “Feud: Capote vs the Swans” is a story set in New York City during the 1960s and Wednesday’s episode on FX recreates writer Truman Capote’s legendary Black and White Ball.
The feud between the author and his elegant friends was still years away when Capote invited hundreds of his friends to dress up for a masked ball at the Plaza Hotel in 1966.
The series features stunning costumes, as expected from a show about women who prided themselves on their appearances — and that’s the focus of the story.
In French, high fashion is called “Haute Couture” and it was definitely on full display at the famous Black and White Ball. Capote was at the height of his fame when he threw the event.
“He would’ve obviously loved being fictionalized in this way, he would’ve loved the attention,” said Tom Hollander, who plays Capote.
Capote’s female friends, the ladies he called his “Swans,” were very particular about what they wore.
Costume designer Lou Eyrich was in charge of recreating their look and had to make 800 costumes for the ball alone.
“It was all about presentation, that’s the best way I can put it,” Eyrich said. “It’s like hundreds of things that you don’t think about when you watch it.”
Fashion designer Zac Posen was enlisted to create gowns for the Swans to wear at the ball.
“This was a totally new challenge for me,” Posen said. He explained that executive producer Ryan Murphy told him to imagine the ball needed to be an “exaggerated bigger version of what historically happened.”
“I felt like I was living in the time period in the making of these pieces,” Posen said.
Posen said the final result blurs fantasy with history and the result is spectacular.
Episode 3 of “Feud: Capote vs the Swans” airs Wednesday night on FX and streams Thursday on Hulu. Both are owned by the same parent company as this station.
Much ink has been spilled over the rise and fall of Truman Capote. The brilliant and troubled author of groundbreaking books like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood has been the subject of multiple biopics, including Capote, which won Philip Seymour Hoffman a best actor Oscar in 2006. Almost 20 years later, Capote returns to the zeitgeist as the bleeding and bloated heart at the center of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, which premieres on FX January 31. This time, as portrayed by British actor Tom Hollander, Capote is at war with Manhattan’s elite—the “It” girls of his generation—after infiltrating their tightly guarded inner circle, then exposing their secrets in a salacious magazine story. Titled “La Côte Basque, 1965,” the piece was named after the chic restaurant the ladies would lunch in and was published in Esquire in November 1975.
“La Côte Basque, 1965” was intended to serve as an excerpt from a much larger work: Capote’s final novel, Answered Prayers, a roman à clef about the wily ways of New York’s upper echelon. The book was inspired by Capote’s close friends, including Lee Radziwill, C.Z. Guest, Slim Keith, and Babe Paley—all of whom he immortalized in print under thinly veiled aliases. But after Capote revealed their secrets, the women cut him out of their lives, hastening his descent into alcoholism and despair.
We all know Truman Capote. But who, exactly, were his swans? “They were very soignée and very rich and also his best friends,” wrote Sam Kashner for Vanity Fair in the 2012 “Capote’s Swan Dive.” Below, VF takes a deep dive into the life and time of Capote’s beloved swans. Warning: spoilers on material covered by the series abound.
Left, from Getty Images; right, Pari Dukovic/FX.
The most dazzling swan of all, Babe Paley was, perhaps, Capote’s one true love. Born Barbara Cushing in Boston on July 5, 1915, Babe was the daughter of Harvey Cushing, a pioneering neurosurgeon and Harvard professor, which afforded her all of the creature comforts of a WASPy, blue-blood life. Her elder sisters, Mary and Betsey, went on to marry an Astor—Vincent Astor—and a Roosevelt—FDR’s son James Roosevelt—respectively. The trio were known in high society as “the fabulous Cushing sisters.”
That’s not to say Babe’s life was without hardship. Around the time of her debutante ball, Babe was in a devastating car accident in Long Island that required her to undergo extensive cosmetic and dental surgery on her mouth and jaw. Many would argue that post-surgery, Babe was even more beautiful than she had been before the accident. Some girls have all the luck.
Babe would take her gorgeous new face to New York City, where she’d land a job at Vogue as a fashion editor, marry oil heir Stanley Grafton Mortimer Jr., and become a mainstay of the best-dressed list. (In 1941, Time named her the second-best dressed woman in the world, following Wallis Simpson.) Babe had two children with Mortimer, Stanley and Amanda, before getting divorced and falling for the chairman of CBS, William “Bill” Paley. With him, she’d have two more children, William and Kate.
The family of six resided on Fifth Avenue in New York City, and built a summer home, Kiluna North, on Squam Lake in New Hampshire—partially because Bill, who was Jewish, was not allowed into Long Island’s country clubs. They were major players in New York society all the same.
While their life may have seemed idyllic, Bill and Babe’s marriage was far from perfect. Well before his marriage to Babe, William Paley was notorious for being a cheater. The extramarital shenanigans continued during his marriage to Babe, with Paley cheating on her with Happy Rockefeller, the wife of New York governor and 41st vice president of the US, Nelson Rockefeller.
Paley’s affair with Rockefeller was so salacious that it served as the central event of “La Côte Basque, 1965,” the Answered Prayers excerpt that catalyzes the action in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. The Esquire story included all the sordid details of the Paleys, renaming them Cleo and Sidney Dillon. Its publication created a rift between Babe and Capote that would never mend. Three years later, she died after a battle with cancer. Capote was not invited to the memorial service.
Even after her death, Babe and her legacy live on. (Fun fact: former Real Housewife of New York City and tabloid mainstay Tinsley Mortimer married into the family of Babe’s first husband.) As Vanity Fair put it in “Capote’s Swan Dive,” Babe was “the tall, slim elegant society doyenne widely considered to be the most beautiful and chic woman in New York.” Capote may have put it even better: “Mrs. P had only one fault: she was perfect.”
Left, from Getty Images; right, Pari Dukovic/FX.
And then there was Slim. Born Mary Raye Gross in Salinas, California in 1916, Keith’s mother changed her name to Nancy when she was a child. Keith would opt to change it again, going by the nickname “Slim,” when she fled the coop. From a well-off family yet considerably outside the blue-blood bubble, Keith had to hustle to make it in high society. She dropped out of school at 16 and, after meeting William Randolph Hearst and his mistress actress Marion Davies, found herself enmeshed in the world of entertainment. She became a Hollywood socialite, frequently partying with the likes of Clark Gable and Cary Grant. By 22, she was on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and, like her pal Babe, became a mainstay of the best-dressed lists of the time.
Keith was married not once, not twice, but thrice. Her first marriage, in 1941, was to Howard Hawks, director of classic films, including His Girl Friday and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. They divorced in 1949, but not before Keith effectively discovered legendary actress Lauren Bacall by showing Hawks a magazine with Bacall’s photo on it, leading him to sign her to a seven-picture deal. After an alleged fling with Ernest Hemingway, Keith would meet and marry her second husband, Leland Hayward, a movie and theater producer responsible for bringing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Sound of Music and South Pacific to Broadway. Ten years into their marriage, Hayward left Slim for political activist and socialite Pamela Churchill. “Yes, I made a life for myself; I even remarried,” Keith wrote in her memoir, excerpted in VF as an article called “Forever Slim.” “But when I lost Leland, I lost the best part of my life.” But Keith wouldn’t be down and out for long. She soon snatched up British banker Kenneth Keith, who also happened to be Baron Keith of Castleacre. Thus, Lady Slim Keith of Castleacre was born.
In Capote’s book, Keith’s avatar was Lady Ina Coolbirth, whom Capote described as “a much married and divorced society matron.” In real life, he affectionately referred to Keith as “Big Mama”—but that well of love ran dry after he published “La Côte Basque, 1965.” Keith never spoke to Capote again and, by some accounts, was considered the chief organizer in keeping the Swans at war with Capote until the end. As for Keith, she died of lung cancer in 1990, at the age of 73.
C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny)
Left, from Getty Images; right, Pari Dukovic/FX.
The bluest of the bloods, C.Z. Guest was born Lucy Douglas Cochrane in 1920. The daughter of a prominent investment banker, Guest had an incredibly WASPy upbringing in Boston, à la her friend Babe. (Proof: She went by the nickname “C.Z.” because her brother used to call her “sissy” instead of sister.) Befitting her privileged upbringing, C.Z. had appropriate hobbies including horseback riding, gardening, and fox hunting; like her friends, Babe and Slim, C.Z. was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. However, C.Z. had a bit of a wilder side than her clean-cut appearance would suggest. She appeared as a stage actress in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1944. She was also painted by Diego Rivera, Salvador Dalí, and Andy Warhol.
In 1947, C.Z. married Winston Frederick Churchill Guest, a British-American polo champion and, as his name indicates, a relative of Winston Churchill. Ernest Hemingway was the best man at their wedding. The couple had two children, Alexander and Cornelia Guest, and quite shockingly for the swans, they stayed married until his death in 1982. Guest would go on to have a popular gardening column in the New York Post before her death in 2003. She was the only swan to forgive Truman after “La Côte Basque, 1965.” It seems Guest really was the stand-by-your-man type.
Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart)
Left, from Getty Images; right, Pari Dukovic/FX.
Arguably the most famous of all the swans, Radziwill was best known for being the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, fashion icon and first lady to JFK. While she could have spent her entire life in her sister’s shadow—and, perhaps, she felt that she did—Radziwill was also a society figure in her own right. A New York City native, Radziwill, born Caroline Lee Bouvier in 1933, became a literal princess, marrying Polish royal Prince Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill in 1959. They had two children, Anthony and Christina, before they divorced in 1974. (And yes, there’s another Real Housewives of New York City connection here: Radziwill’s son was married to former RHONY cast member Carole Radziwill.) In 1988, she married Oscar and Tony-nominated director and choreographer Herbert Ross; they divorced in 2001.
Even before “La Côte Basque, 1965,” Radziwill had a rocky relationship with her friend Truman Capote. He promised to make her a star, helping her get cast in the television play Laura, based on the 1944 movie of the same name. Radziwill, unfortunately, didn’t have the goods as an actress and was critically panned for her performance in Capote’s script. She never acted again. Yet Radziwill made it out of “La Côte Basque, 1965” relatively unscathed, especially when compared to her friends Babe and Slim.
FX has dropped a brand new Shōgun red band trailer for its upcoming epic drama, which takes place during Japan’s Edo period.
The video highlights the show’s action-packed and thrilling fight sequences, as the main characters prepare to go to war. The series is scheduled to make its debut on February 27 on FX and Hulu.
Shōgun is created by Rachel Kondo and showrunner Justin Marks. It stars Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Yoshi Toranaga, Cosmo Jarvis as Pilot Major John Blackthorne, Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko,Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabushige, Hiroto Kanai as Kashigi Omi, Takehiro Hira as Ishido Kazunari, Moeka Hoshi as Usami Fuji, Tokuma Nishioka as Toda Hiromatsu, Shinnosuke Abe as Toda Hirokatsu (Buntaro), Yuki Kura as Yoshii Nagakado, and Fumi Nikaido as Ochiba No Kata (Lady Ochiba).
“When a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village, its English pilot, John Blackthorne, comes bearing secrets that could help Toranaga tip the scales of power and devastate the formidable influence of Blackthorne’s own enemies — the Jesuit priests and Portuguese merchants,” reads the synopsis. “Toranaga’s and Blackthorne’s fates become inextricably tied to their translator, Toda Mariko, a mysterious Christian noblewoman and the last of a disgraced line. While serving her lord amidst this fraught political landscape, Mariko must reconcile her newfound companionship with Blackthorne, her commitment to the faith that saved her and her duty to her late father.”
The 10-episode series is executive produced by Marks, Kondo, Michaela Clavell, Edward L. McDonnell, and Michael De Luca, with Sanada also serving as a producer. It hails from FX Productions.
Fresh off of winning three Golden Globes, the cast and creators of The Bear were front and center at the annual FX and Vanity Fair Emmy party. The event, held Saturday night, celebrated the network’s nominees and acclaimed shows ahead of Monday’s 75th annual Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony—a show that was originally scheduled for last fall, but postponed due to the actors and writers strikes. The Bear is heading to television’s biggest night with 13 nominations, including outstanding comedy series, writing, directing, and numerous acting nods for its first season.
Jeremy Allen White arrived at the celebration, held at the historic Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood, with his mother, Eloise, a former theater actor. “It’s really nice and it’s the best” to share all of his success with his mom, White said. She traveled from New York to LA to be with her son for his very first Emmys.
“My folks were both actors when they were young. I’ve been at this for a long time, since I was 14 years old, and they have always supported me,” he continued. “That’s a crazy thing, to support your kid when he’s 14 and says ‘I want to be an actor.’ But, they’ve supported me ever since, and it feels really special to have her here tonight and go through all of this with me.”
White is the favorite to win the Emmy for lead actor in a comedy series. As Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a Michelin-starred chef forced to return home following the unexpected death of his brother, White delivers an intense portrayal of grief, family trauma, and the extreme challenges of running a restaurant.
“I’m so lucky to play Carmy. He’s a character that I admire. I admire his focus, his work ethic, his determination,” said White, who collected his second Golden Globe for best comedy actor last week. “Those are all things I feel like I can have more space for in my own life.”
Newly minted Golden Globe winner Ayo Edebiri made a grand entrance at the cocktail party dressed in a chic, voluminous pink gown. Immediately upon her arrival, she was greeted by Bob Odenkirk, who guest starred as Uncle Lee in the explosive Christmas episode that was featured in the second season of The Bear. Odenkirk, nominated for lead actor in a drama series for Better Call Saul, wished Edebiri good luck. She’s set to attend her first Emmy ceremony, competing in the supporting actress in a comedy series category for her turn as sous chef Sydney Adamu.
“I’m just going to try my best to chill out. It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind, so I’m just going to try to chill as much as I can,” said Edebiri about her preparation for the Emmys on Monday. “For me, chilling out, I just do nothing—I just sort of sit. It’s the chill out vibe these days. Zone out and meditate.”
Edebiri is thrilled that her work on The Bear is being recognized. She enjoys playing a character that audiences can see themselves in—even if our families aren’t quite as dysfunctional or our workplaces are not as chaotic as those on the show. “She has a tricky and stressful time at work. It’s a very relatable feeling, and I think that’s why everybody can relate to her. We’ve all been in that situation. I have for sure,” said Edebiri. “I like that she’s complicated and she’s flawed. As an actor that’s just fun. You get to play in those spaces. No one wants to play anybody who’s perfect.”
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The majority of The Bear’s acclaimed ensemble cast, including Ebon Moss-Bachrach—nominated for supporting actor as Cousin Richie—Liza Colón-Zayas, Edwin Lee Gibson, Gillian Jacobs, Lionel Boyce, Oliver Platt—nominated for guest actor for playing Uncle Jimmy—Matty Matheson, Ricky Staffieri, and Abby Elliott, who earned a nomination at the Golden Globes for portraying Carmy’s sensible sister Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto, were spotted socializing at the soirée. “I really love the group of people that I’m with. They are unbelievably talented,” said Elliott. “You feel like you have to rise to the occasion when you’re with them because they set the bar so high.”
The boisterous party also attracted the FX network’s most buzzed-about stars, from Fargo’s Jon Hamm and Jeff Bridges, nominated for lead actor in a drama series for The Old Man, to TV veterans like Ed O’Neill—he stars in Clipped, the upcoming limited series about the downfall of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling—and Danny DeVito from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, one of the longest-running shows on television. Other guests in attendance included Jennifer Jason Leigh and her Fargo costar Richa Moorjani,Charlie Day, and three-time Emmy winner Claire Danes, nominated once again for her supporting role in the divorce drama Fleishman is in Trouble.
Acclaimed actor Timothy Olyphant was revealed to have joined the cast of Noah Hawley‘s upcoming Alien series.
Deadline reported that the Deadwood lead will be starring opposite Sydney Chandler in the forthcoming show. No official details involving his character have been made known, but the outlet’s sources suggest that he is playing a synth named Kirsh who serves as a mentor to Wendy — Chandler’s meta-human character. This isn’t Olyphant’s first time working with FX, as the actor previously played a recurring character in Fargo Season 4.
The FX Alien series will be the first-ever Alien story set on Earth. According to Hawley, the series will explore the more grounded aspects of the franchise. The director also touched on the inclusion of Weyland-Yutani — the massive corporation that’s found in nearly every Alien property — and how he plans to deliver a series that both captures the horror-action aspect of the Alien franchise and explores other themes established in the world.
Who is writing the Alien FX series?
The untitled Alien series is written and directed by Hawley and stars Alex Lawther, Sydney Chandler (Don’t Worry Darling), Kit Young (Shadow and Bone), Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, Essie Davis (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) as Dame Silvia, and Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger) as Slightly. Further details about its plot are still being kept under wraps, but it was reportedly developed as a prequel story set before the Sigourney Weaver-led movies.
The project is executive produced by Hawley, Ridley Scott, and Dana Gonzales, with Chris Lowenstein production. In addition to the upcoming FX series, 20th Century Studios is also set to release a brand new installment to the Alien film franchise titled Alien: Romulus, which hails from director Fede Álvarez.
In a recent interview with Deadline, FX’s Alien series creator Noah Hawley finally provided a new production update about the upcoming sci-fi drama spin-off, after filming was temporarily shutdown last August. Now that the SAG-AFTRA strike is over, Hawley confirmed that they’re currently planning to resume the Alien series production in Thailand around January or February of 2024.
“We’re getting back into production as quickly as possible,” Hawley said. “We’re shooting in Bangkok, a half a world away; shooting again in the New Year.”
In addition, the Fargo creator revealed that he was able to start editing some of the footage they got before production was halted. “I got some footage. Some of the first hour was shot before we had to shutdown. It’s stuff to play with and edit.”
Who’s involved in FX’s Alien series?
The untitled Alien series is written and directed by Hawley and stars Alex Lawther, Sydney Chandler (Don’t Worry Darling), Kit Young (Shadow and Bone), Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, Essie Davis (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) as Dame Silvia, and Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger) as Slightly. Further details about its plot are still being kept under wraps, but it was reportedly developed as a prequel story set before the Sigourney Weaver-led movies.
It will be the first-ever Alien story set on Earth. According to Hawley, the series will explore the more grounded aspects of the franchise. The director also touched on the inclusion of Weyland-Yutani — the massive corporation that’s found in nearly every Alien property — and how he plans to deliver a series that both captures the horror-action aspect of the Alien franchise and explores other themes established in the world.
The project is executive produced by Hawley, Ridley Scott, and Dana Gonzales, with Chris Lowenstein production. In addition to the upcoming FX series, 20th Century Studios is also set to release a brand new installment to the Alien film franchise titled Alien: Romulus, which hails from director Fede Álvarez.
FX has released the first trailer for Shogun, a series about a European sailor who survives a shipwreck in Feudal Japan. Based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name, Shogun is a period drama that takes place right before the start of Japan’s isolationist policy, which effectively closed it off from trade or immigration with most other countries.
The 10-episode series is currently slated for a premiere in February 2024, though the exact date has not been confirmed. It will be available to stream on Hulu and FX.
The official synopsis for Shogun reads: “The collision of two ambitious men from different worlds and a mysterious female samurai: John Blackthorne, a risk-taking English sailor who ends up shipwrecked in Japan, a land whose unfamiliar culture will ultimately redefine him; Lord Toranaga, a shrewd, powerful daimyo, at odds with his own dangerous, political rivals; and Lady Mariko, a woman with invaluable skills but dishonorable family ties, who must prove her value and allegiance.”
It’s hard to tell if or how the show will reckon with its source material being written by an Australian man. It definitely seems like Shogun is working to be more accurate than the 1980s iteration, but still falls into the trap of needing a white protagonist to appeal to the western audience.
Shogun has a stacked cast: Cosmo Jarvis plays Pilot Major (Chief Navigator) John Blackthorne, Hiroyuki Sanada plays Lord Yoshi Toranaga, and Anna Sawai plays Toda Mariko.
The cast also includes Tadanobu Asano as Kashigi Yabu, Fumi Nikaido as Ochiba No Kata (Lady Ochiba), Tokuma Nishioka as Toda Hiromatsu, Takehiro Hira as Ishido Kazunari, Ako as Daiyoin Lady Iyo, Shinnosuke Abe as Toda Buntaro, Yasunari Takeshima as Mura, Hiroto Kanai as Kashigi Omi, Toshi Toda as Sugiyama, and Hiro Kanagawa as Igurashi
Development of Shogun began in 2018. Principal photography was originally slated to begin in March of 2019, but was delayed for rewrites. Due to the rewrites and the COVID-19 pandemic, filming for the show didn’t start until September 2021 and didn’t end until June 2022, a whole two months behind schedule.
Jonathan van Tulleken, Charlotte Brändström, Hiromi Kamata, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, and Takeshi Fukunaga are all confirmed to be directing episodes of Shogun. Nigel Williams, Emily Yoshida, Matt Lambert, Maegan Houang, Shannon Goss, Rachel Kondo, and Caillin Puente all serve as writers on the show.
“I frigging get home, get Uber Eats, and go to bed,” Matty Matheson, a real-life chef and culinary consultant on The Bear, says of his mid-production eating habits, a far cry from the fine dining his show depicts. “We try to eat out as a group every once or twice a week to stay level. You would think that it’s this glamorous thing, but you’re torched by the end of the night.”
He does, however, admit to a newfound appreciation for hot dogs, which he doesn’t dress with ketchup anymore. “Even though I own a burger shop, I’m definitely more of a hot dog person than a burger person now,” Matheson tells Vanity Fair. “Gene & Jude’s in Chicago, I love their hot dogs so much. They have a long line, but it’s worth it. Being in Chicago for three to almost four months a year now, for the last two years, I’ve turned into a big glizzy boy.”
Despite being a renowned Canadian restaurateur, Matheson plays one of the only characters who is not in the kitchen to cook. He stars as handyman Neil Fak, the type of character who wears a suit to the restaurant’s opening but still keeps a screwdriver in his lapel just in case. Matheson is also a coproducer and culinary lead alongside show creator Christopher Storer’s sister Courtney. Together, the pair advise Storer and showrunner Joanna Calo on everything from the build of The Bear’s kitchen to its menu. “We’re building a real restaurant,” Matheson explains. “Designing a kitchen, what do we need? Nice plans, this, that. The kitchen is set up to cook that food too,” he adds. “We could go in there, and, if we really could have fire and gas, we would have the right equipment to execute the menu that we wrote.”
Their dynamic often echoes—and inspires—that of The Bear’s two lead characters. “We’re doing what Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are doing,” Matheson says. He and Courtney will hash out menu ideas in front of Storer and Calo in order to both generate menu items and demonstrate the cadence with which chefs speak to one another. “The synergy needs to be really going,” Matheson says of crafting a menu that reflects its executive chefs. “We really wanted to think about, Where does Sydney come from? What are her technique-driven ideas? What is her heritage—what are the flavors? Carmy, what are his flavors, his lineage, and culinary sense? And how do you take those ideas and who they are and create a culinary voice for each of those characters?”
Chasing the authenticity of an actual restaurant is sometimes at odds with the constraints of making a TV show, Matheson concedes. Sometimes they’re doing something, and me and Coco are stressed out, and Chris is like, ‘Look at the frame. We literally are not seeing it.’ If it’s not in the shot, it literally doesn’t exist,” he says, adding, “We only know how to do it the real way, the hard way. A lot of people are like, ‘It’s just for TV, it doesn’t have to be so precise.’ No, because the actors are going to have to move, and if they’re making the Feast of the Seven Fishes, they have to turn around and the equipment needs to be there.”
That brings us to the season’s starry sixth episode, a very Berzatto Christmas that introduces family members played by Jamie Lee Curtis,Bob Odenkirk,Sarah Paulson,Gillian Jacobs, and John Mulaney. Matheson smiles when recalling the original cast members mixing with the new arrivals, all crammed under one roof. “Jamie Lee’s getting in there with the garlic butter all over her hands,” he laughs. “She just came up and kissed me on the cheek right away. It was truly chaos.”
How to create something beautiful and delicious out of panic and mayhem? That’s the sticky question at the heart of The Bear’s second season—one that applies equally well to the task faced by the writers of this FX/Hulu show.
The first season was a surprise hit last summer; even if you didn’t watch The Bear, you couldn’t avoid the “Yes Chef!” memes that haunted social media for months. The manic, sweet-hearted series initially revolved around Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), a hot-shit chef drowning in grief and debt after inheriting his late brother’s old-school Chicago sandwich spot. White was mesmerizing as the emotionally wounded wunderkind struggling with self-loathing and family baggage. But just as his character yearned to escape the culinary cult of personality and build a new restaurant full of strong supporting players, the series itself had an incredible ensemble cast just waiting to break out of bit-part jail and get some time in the spotlight.
That mass breakout is achieved in season two, and it mostly works. (There are some spoilers for the 10-episode second season, now streaming in full, ahead.) Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) has moved to center stage as head chef and creative partner of The Bear, the fine-dining restaurant she and Carmy are trying to conjure out of their rundown old sandwich shop. Determined to nab a Michelin star, she spends days sampling Chicago’s finest food, getting advice from local chefs, and perfecting dishes. Carmy’s sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) gets sucked into service on the business side of things, where she finally gets to shine. Meanwhile, line cooks Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and Ebra (Edwin Lee Gibson) enroll in culinary school so that they can play a more active role in the new restaurant kitchen, while Carmy sends aspiring pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) to Denmark to learn from a desert master. Workers who once had a gig now have a purpose.
The search for inspiration simmers throughout this season. One lovely episode focuses on Marcus’s creative journey in Copenhagen. His new mentor, Luca (played by Will Poulter) tells him that at a certain point, being a great chef is “less about skill and more about being open”— to the world and other people. Marcus puts that advice into action as he drifts through the city, soaking up sights and tastes that he will later transform into new treats for The Bear. Later in the season, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) similarly undergoes a conversion experience while “staging” in a high-end restaurant, where everyone around him takes pride in the tiniest of tasks. “Every day here is the freaking Super Bowl,” his guide tells him. “I don’t need you to drink the kool aid, Richie. I just need you to respect me, I need you to respect the diners, and I need you to respect yourself.” Respect is a concept Richie understands, and by the end of his stint there, he is shouting things like, “Micro basil, fuck yeah!”
The Bear’s self-improvement theme occasionally veers dangerously close to Ted Lasso territory, with regular hits of heartwarming uplift and teamwork. Sometimes that connection feels literal: Sydney’s bible this season is a leadership guide by real-life sports coach Mike Krzyzewski, who offers gems like “surround yourself with good people” and “learn how to listen.”
Luckily, Richie is to The Bear as Roy Kent was to early Ted Lasso—someone who can puncture any scene that threatens to grow too cloying or sentimental. And he’s always reliable for gags based on obnoxious white male overconfidence. When he insists that there’s no mold in the ceiling, you know it will only be a few moments until the ceiling collapses, leaving Richie coated in moldy dust. But he also admits when he’s wrong, and with every episode, his stubborn machismo peels away a bit further, revealing a melancholy character who is trapped in his old ways, scared of being left behind.
Are you hungry? The trailer for season two of FX’s critically acclaimed series The Bear just dropped, and it’s filled with both mouthwatering meals and a whole lot of delicious restaurant drama.
“This is coming from a place of wanting to start fresh and clean,” says Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) at the top of the trailer. After shutting down his rough-and-ready sandwich shop, The Beef, at the end of season one, Carmy and his crew—including sous-chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), “cuz” Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and sister Sugar (Abby Elliott)—have big dreams for their new restaurant, The Bear. “This is going to be a destination spot,” says Sydney.
But according to the trailer for season two, creating one from scratch may be harder than it looks. “It’s gonna take six months to open,” Sugar says as Richie and his gang get to work on rehabilitating the space. Over in the kitchen, Sydney and Carmy take The Bear’s notorious frenetic energy and infuse it straight into their cooking. “Still thinking chaos menu?” Sydney asks Carmy as they come up with new recipes for the restaurant. “Yeah, chaos menu but thoughtful,” says Carmy, before promptly spitting out one of the new recipes.
Sydney and Carmy aren’t the only Beef alums trying to step up their game, as veteran line cooks Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) and Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) get sent back to culinary school. Even Richie is trying to level up at the new restaurant, declaring himself “the supervisor.” (“Supervisor of what?” asks Lionel Boyce’s pastry chef, Marcus.) Unlike Richie, Sydney is certainly in a position of power as a chef at The Bear, but she finds it difficult to exert her authority when looking to hire new staff. “When can I talk to the chef?” asks a potential employee during a job interview shown in the trailer. “You are,” replies Sydney, before giving him a withering look.
Outside of the restaurant, things are heating up for Carmy as well. In the trailer, we get our first glimpse at season two addition Molly Gordon, whose still-unknown character seems to have something of a history with the troubled chef. “How has your life been, Berzatto?” Gordon’s character asks after bumping into Carmy in a supermarket. Could Carmy have to juggle opening a new restaurant and reigniting an old flame? You’ll have to wait and see when season two of The Bear serves up all 10 of its episodes exclusively on Hulu on June 22.
Lentz was for years the New York pastor and face of Hillsong, a global megachurch that counted Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez among its followers at the peak of its cultural power. That came to a halt for Lentz in 2020 when his extramarital affairs came to light and the church’s image was thrown into disarray.
As Vanity Fair contributing editor Alex French and staff writer Dan Adlerreported in their 2021 Hillsong feature for the magazine, Lentz’s misdeeds were symptomatic of a church culture that often covered up its leaders’ transgressions while leaning hard on its congregants for financial support and free labor.
The Secrets of Hillsong—which will feature the first interviews with Lentz and his wife, Laura, since their public ouster—picks up from there, as the church faces a growing series of scandals involving its founder and Lentz’s mentor, Brian Houston. Through conversations with former leaders, victims, and experts including ex-worship pastor Geoff Bullock, author Tanya Levin, congregants Ashley and Mary Jones and Janice Lagata, Frank Houston survivor David Cowdrey, onetime Hillsong NYC choir director Josh Canfield, and Australian senator David Shoebridge, the four-part investigative docuseries presents the most comprehensive study yet of an institution in crisis—and the faithful who are left to suffer the consequences.
Directed by Lee (Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U; Underplayed), the series, produced in partnership with Scout Productions, will premiere on Friday, May 19, exclusively on FX at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
As a white woman I know I’m probably experiencing episodes differently than some Black viewers watching the show. Did you discuss those different audiences while making the show?
That’s kind of the great thing about making this show is you’re hovering at this intersection of different cultural gazes. It’s scripted and created by two guys who grew up in Atlanta in a very Black neighborhood, and a lot of that stuff is presented very matter-of-factly in the show—it’s not presented for white viewers, and it is put in there without any ceremony or explanation. This show’s also very aware that a big chunk of the audience, we’re not accustomed to Southern Black culture, and I think we try to construct it in a way where the show feels welcoming to anyone who walks into the room, whether they understand the context or not. That’s in the tone of the show, and also just in the performances and the warmth of these characters.
As a non-Black director, presumably there were times when you’ve had to try to understand the implications of something unfamiliar to you.
It’s a conversation that me, Donald, and Steve have all the time. Sometimes I’ll get the context of something wrong and present it in a weird way and then they end up liking it! That’s the combustible, exciting thing at the center of the show, like an overlap of multiple perspectives. All of our hands are on the Ouija board in some way, and we trust each other enough that we just tend to let it take us wherever it wants to go.
You just talked about getting the context wrong sometimes. So manyAtlantaepisodes dig into how white people project things onto Blackness, or depictwhitenessand wrestle over cultural co-optation.
That’s absolutely true. And also, in the pilot, Earn was an outsider. He’s a Princeton dropout who walked into this world where his cousin was an upcoming rapper and he got roasted by people in this world for not understanding the culture, you know? So I think it’s always been about people who are slightly outside looking in.
In the finale, there’s the scene where the Black sushi chef is lecturing the gang about how Popeyes sells a fake version of Black culture back to the community. But the chef is a pretty terrifying figure, so the viewer is being pulled in multiple directions.
Yeah, I think the Atlanta code is that everybody’s right and everybody’s wrong at the same time.
You’re continuing your collaboration with Donald Glover, working on his new showMr. & Mrs. Smith.Does it require a completely different kind of visual vocabulary?
Yeah, it’s a completely different thing. The incredible thing about Atlanta is, it doesn’t promise you anything other than that you’ll be with these people for 30 minutes. There’s no set expectations for language or genre or how much comedy or drama should be in it. But you expect certain things out of a spy-related story, so it becomes a conversation about when do we lean into those, and when do we subvert them?
So what are the chances of bringingAtlantacharacters back to life in the future? Between Alfred’s dancing in “Crank that Killer” and his and Earn’s rendition of “Old MacDonald” in the finale, I’d like to see a special Broadway musical episode ofAtlanta.
The only way this show comes back is as a Broadway musical! [Laughs.]
So a future season or one-off is not something you’ve toyed with?
We often joke that we’ll come back when we’re all 70. It’ll be called Atlanta: Lottie’s Revenge. If there’s a good story to tell, I think we’re all open to the idea of reopening the door. But it feels right to have this [finale] as a punctuation point.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
