This post contains spoilers about the sixth episode of The Penguin, “Gold Summit.”
“People will tell you where they’ve gone / They’ll tell you where to go / But till you get there yourself, you never really know,” Joni Mitchell sings in 1976’s “Amelia”—words that Cristin Milioti found herself sobbing to at the 80-year-old’s triumphant recent Hollywood Bowl concert.
“I feel like I’m still recovering, because I cried for the entire three hours,” she tells Vanity Fair from her New York apartment. “‘Amelia’ is my favorite, and I couldn’t believe she sang it—I completely fell to pieces.”
Milioti wasn’t alone in her rapture. “Everywhere you looked, there was someone crying. Then you would catch each other’s eyes, touch your heart, and give each other a nod. It feels like witnessing a miracle—someone who changed music and has certainly whispered in my ear throughout my entire life helped me understand myself and the world. It felt very holy.”
While at the star-studded concert, Milioti received some admiration of her own. “I had a lot of really lovely interactions at that show from people who really are loving The Penguin,” the actor says of her lauded performance in the HBO series as Sofia Falcone, a mobster princess turned murderous villain facing off against an unrecognizable Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb. “I feel very protective of her,” Milioti says of Sofia, who after being tortured for more than a decade in an Arkham prison for a crime she didn’t commit, kills the family members who lied to keep her confined. Homicide aside, “I am just in love with her.”
Bringing the role to life has been a dream assignment for the 39-year-old actor, who long before she ever auditioned for a comic-book film, dressed as Catwoman for Halloween. The idea of Sofias running around this year makes Milioti’s face light up. “I get emotional just talking about it. I would be so blown away,” she says. “That would be a lot to take in, but I would gladly take it in.”
Just as Joni sings of a winding journey in “Amelia,” Milioti has been charting her own path since dropping out of New York University after a single year. She launched herself into a Tony nomination for 2012’s Once, the Broadway musical based on the Oscar-winning Irish film. That star-making turn led to roles big (the titular mother in How I Met Your Mother) and small (30 Rock’s “Very Sexy Baby”), but always memorable. Juicy parts alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, Andy Samberg in Palm Springs, and Jesse Plemons in an episode of Black Mirror followed. It’s all led to the most high-profile project of Milioti’s career—no false alarms in sight.
In just a few short weeks, it’ll be nothing but Hallmark movies and Lindsay Lohan rom-coms, but right now it’s spooky season and if you’re looking to relax with a chainsaw-wielding serial killer, a telekinetic teen hellbent on revenge, or a homicidal merman, we’ve got you covered.
Just in time for Halloween, we’ve pulled together a list of dozens of the best horror movies you can stream right now, from tried-and-true classics that never get old to more recent scare-fests that you might not know exist. The only decisions you have to make is which one to watch first and whether you actually want to share that bag of fun-size candy.
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Suspiria
If you’re not familiar with the work of Dario Argento, prepare for your eyes to be dazzled and your brain to melt. Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) is an American ballet student who hops a plane to Germany after being invited to study at the prestigious Tanz Akademie. From the moment she arrives, however, Suzy suspects that all is not what it seems. Especially when her fellow students start disappearing. Turns out Suzy was right to be suspicious, as the school is more of a front for a coven of powerful witches. While much of the script is admittedly nonsensical, it doesn’t even matter. With its breathtaking production design, innovative camerawork, and an earworm of a theme song by Goblin, Suspiria is the kind of film that will never leave your head. (If you find yourself wanting more, Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 reimagining of the film, starring Dakota Johnson, will scratch that itch.)
The Babadook
Ten years ago, Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent turned the horror genre on its head with this gem of a “creepy kid” film. Amelia Vanek (Essie Davis) is a young widow and mother to 6-year-old Sam (Noah Wiseman), who is acting out in increasingly violent ways. Sam blames his behavior on The Babadook, a monster he claims lives in his pop-up book. Slowly, as weird things continue to happen around the house, Amelia starts to believe that her son might be telling the truth. Now if only she could get someone else to believe her. In the hands of a less talented filmmaker, The Babadook could have been a one-note story. But Kent, Davis, and Wiseman manage to turn it into a compelling and moving psychological thriller, where the real villain turns out to be grief.
Barbarian
Between Uber and Airbnb, the collaborative consumption era has led us to regularly put our trust—and lives—in the hands of complete strangers. Zach Cregger’s Barbarian may convince you that such transactions require much more thought. Tess (Georgina Campbell) rents an Airbnb, only to discover that it’s been double-booked and there’s already a guest staying there. Fortunately for Tess, Keith (Bill Skarsgård)—the current occupant—seems like a kind enough guy who is happy to go out of his way to help accommodate her. Which should have been her first indication that something was amiss.
Late Night With the Devil
Siblings Colin and Cameron Cairnes cowrote, directed, and edited this new(ish) found footage flick, where a late-night talk show host named Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) decides to boost his ratings by hosting an occult-themed episode for his Halloween night broadcast. Among the invited guests are a psychic (Fayssal Bazzi), a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon), and a teenage girl (Ingrid Torelli) who is purportedly possessed by a demon. When Jack accidentally unleashes the demon on his audience, he realizes that there’s nothing “purported” about it.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Leatherface may have just turned 50, but he’s still got the upper body strength to swing around his beloved chainsaw just as he did in the 1970s. There are now nine films in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise, but not one of them can hold a candle—or a chain saw—to the original. A group of teens take a road trip through Texas, in part so that siblings Sally (Marilyn Burns) and Franklin (Paul A. Partain) can visit the cemetery where their grandfather was laid to rest after reports of grave-robbing in the area. Then, wouldn’t you know it, they run out of gas on their way home … and find themselves contending with a family of cannibals. Hey, it happens. The movie, which is partly based on the life of grave robber Ed Gein, remains as potent today as it did when it was originally released.
Halloween
Is it really Halloween without Halloween? While you have plenty of sequels, reimaginings, and reimagined sequels to choose from today, there’s a reason why horror fiends still make a point to watch the original—and utterly perfect—1978 original today. John Carpenter’s tale of a babysitter (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends being stalked by an escaped killer set the bar for every slasher film that has ever followed, and very few have managed to even come close to it. If you want to keep the Michael Myers theme going, there are now 13 films in the franchise—including Rob Zombie’s gritty reboot and its sequel (which are both streaming on Peacock) and David Gordon Green’s recent book-end trilogy, which kicked off with 2018’s Halloween (which you’ll find on Netflix).
The Exorcist
Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) may be the precocious 12-year-old daughter of a well-respected Hollywood actress (Ellen Burstyn), but that means nothing to Pazuzu, the hell demon who comes to inhabit this could-be nepo baby’s tween body. You’ll never want to eat pea soup again. After tinkering with Halloween, David Gordon Green took a stab at resurrecting The Exorcist with last year’s The Exorcist: Believer, which didn’t fare as well (it’s a “skip” for us but is streaming on Amazon Prime Video if you want to give it a watch).
Hereditary
Ari Aster achieved instant icon status with Hereditary, his feature directorial debut, which makes a compelling argument against rolling down the windows on your car—ever. An artist (Toni Collette) and her shrink husband (Gabriel Byrne) seem to be living the American Dream with their two teenagers, Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Until a series of tragedies turn the family’s life upside down and all hell breaks loose—seemingly literally.
Carrie
“Creepy” Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a teenage pariah who is brutally mocked by her high school classmates and doesn’t find much solace at home with her totally unhinged mom (Piper Laurie). Sometimes a girl’s just gotta let loose, and sometimes that means using telekinesis to burn your bullies down to the ground, along with the high school gym in which they’re dancing. Make sure to keep watching all the way to th end!
The Blair Witch Project
Nearly a quarter-century after Jaws became a masterclass in doing more with less, Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick did much the same with this found-footage flick that had many people believing the film’s own backstory: that a group of film students got lost in the woods while attempting to make a documentary about the Blair Witch, who supposedly trolls the area near Burkittsville, Maryland, looking for youngsters to murder. That people believed the story, and believed that the footage they were watching was indeed only later discovered, is a testament to just how effective the found-footage format can be when employed in just the right way, as well as the filmmakers’ brilliant marketing acumen.
Get Out
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Jordan Peele went from being one half of the hilarious Key & Peele to a modern horror icon. And it all started with Get Out, Peele’s stunning directorial debut, in which a young couple have gotten serious enough that Rose (Allison Williams) invites new love Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) to leave the city for the suburbs to spend the weekend with her family. While Chris seems more concerned that he is Black and Rose is not, she assures him it doesn’t matter … until he realizes that’s kind of the point. Peele brilliantly blends elements of horror, comedy, and psychological drama with a pulsing commentary on racism, and won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his efforts. The film also received nods for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Kaluuya—all massive achievements for a horror movie. Make it a twofer by pairing Get Out with Peele’s impressive follow-up, 2019’s Us, which is streaming on Hulu.
The Fly
David Cronenberg’s mind works in some truly demented ways, which is a blessing to horror movie fans. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is a scientist who is much cooler than he should be; Ronnie Quaife (Geena Davis) is a science journalist tasked with interviewing Brundle but quickly falling for him. If only he hadn’t decided to use himself as the subject in a teleportation experiment gone horribly wrong, these two kids could’ve maybe had something. Instead, Brundle slowly morphs into a housefly with some pretty putrid habits and a tendency to randomly lose body parts.
It Follows
For decades, young women in horror films who dared to be sexually active—and actually enjoy it (gasp!)—could usually be counted on to be the killer’s next victim. But in this smart indie from writer/director David Robert Mitchell, doing the deed is the conduit by which the supernatural spirit that’s haunting Jay (Maika Monroe) is able to move from one host to the next. Which is bad news, as she just slept with her new beau, who just happened to be infected and has now passed it on to her. While she could just fuck some guy and pass it on, Jay’s a much more complicated heroine.
The Witch
Puritanism in and of itself is pretty creepy. Add in the bizarre disappearance of a child and it gets even scarier. Robert Eggers, who went on to make The Lighthouse and The Northman, deftly balances what is essentially a period piece/supernatural horror film hybrid about a family that ends up living in the woods, secluded, after being banished by their Puritan community. This is when even creepier things start happening, all building up to an unforgettable climax (though it’s admittedly a bit of a slow burn).
The Shining
Stephen King just may be the only person who didn’t love Stanley Kubrick’s take on The Shining. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), a writer looking for some quietude so that he can finally finish writing the novel he’s been working on, agrees to take a gig hotel-sitting the Overlook, an enormous resort, while it’s closed down for the winter, bringing his wife (Shelley Duvall) and young son (Danny Lloyd) in tow. For Jack, the Overlook feels like home, and he quickly settles into a work routine; his wife and son aren’t as enthralled, especially when they begin to suspect that malevolent forces didn’t vacate for the winter along with the rest of the guests.
The Strangers
What’s more terrifying than a masked psychopath on the loose knocking off victims as revenge for a childhood trauma? How about a handful of masked sociopaths on the loose knocking off victims at random? James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) are a couple who find themselves at an unexpected crossroads while spending the night at a secluded vacation home. (Is there any other kind?) But they don’t have much time to wallow in what the future of their relationship looks like, because there are people at the door. And in the house. And on the swing set. You get the picture. Creepy imagery abounds in this vastly underrated film, which saw its storyline continue this year with Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 1.
Paranormal Activity
For better or worse, The Blair Witch Project kicked off a found-footage movie flood, which has really yet to end (though they’re definitely in much shorter supply these days). For all the mediocre efforts we had to suffer through, there was also Paranormal Activity, a beyond solid effort that was made on virtually no budget. Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) are a young couple in love, looking forward to spending their lives together. But when they move in together, so does the evil spirit that’s been trailing Katie for most of her life. Katie wants to rid the house of it once and for all; Micah wants to videotape it (which only seems to embolden the angry spirit).
Scream
The meta horror movie to end all other meta horror movies, the original Scream might have outgrown some of its more garish fashions (most of them worn by Courteney Cox’s Gayle Weathers), but the story is still solid. And the many nods and winks to modern horror tropes are still true. High schooler Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is a teen spiraling from the recent murder of her mom but who suddenly finds herself in the crosshairs of a new hatchet-wielding serial killer who keeps picking off her pals.
The Nightmare Before Christmas
OK, so maybe it’s not a straight-up “horror” movie. But if you’re looking for something kind of creepy that the whole family can get in on, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better choice than this stop-motion classic that works equally well as a Halloween film or a Christmas movie. Jack Skellington is the pumpkin king of Halloweentown, a place where it’s Halloween—hijinks and all—24/7. But when Jack accidentally discovers Christmas and its holly, jolly traditions, he decides to co-opt both holidays with the help of the hooligans of Halloweentown. (Kidnapping Santa is all part of the plan.)
An American Werewolf in London
Horror-comedy is not an easy genre to pull off—especially when a movie like John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London has been around for comparison for more than 40 years. American pals David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) get slightly lost as they backpack their way through England and end up being attacked by a werewolf. While Jack is torn to bits, David survives but wakes up weeks later in a London hospital with little recollection of what happened. Fortunately, his old pal Jack—looking very much worse for the wear—shows up to warn David that a full moon is coming and if he doesn’t kill himself before it arrives, he too will transform into a flesh-craving canine. Landis expertly balances laugh-out-loud humor with genuinely terrifying frights—most of them courtesy of special effects makeup wizard Rick Baker, who won a much-deserved Oscar for his work on the film. (The werewolf transformation scene is iconic for a reason.) Throw in a killer soundtrack and one of cinema’s most satisfyingly efficient endings and you’ve got a horror-comedy for the ages.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
When she reviewed it for WIRED, senior writer Kate Knibbs called this horror flick a “coming-of-age creepypasta.” It’s all that and more. Director Jane Schoenbrun’s debut feature is about a young girl named Casey (Anna Cobb) who becomes increasingly obsessed with an online role-playing game that asks players to do a series of rituals that over time summon a supernatural force that ultimately overtakes them. Less jump-scare-y than mind-bend-y, We Are All Going to the World’s Fair is the kind of horror that sits in the back of your brain, just waiting to scare you again long after the credits roll.
Jaws
Jaws is to horror movies what Star Wars is to sci-fi films. It’s just hard to believe there are people who haven’t seen it. Still, whether you’ve never seen it or have watched it 100 times (Steven Soderbergh claims to have seen Jaws28 times in theaters alone!), the story of a water-phobic police chief living on an island who sets off to sea in pursuit of a ginormous great white shark that’s killing his residents and scaring off the tourists never gets old. It’s also a masterclass in less-is-more filmmaking—even if that approach was more the result of a perpetually busted machine shark than anything else. While the film’s sequels in absolutely no way live up to the original—and get worse with each successive entry—all four Jaws movie (including the charmingly cheesy Jaws 3-D) are currently streaming on Netflix).
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Bodies Bodies Bodies is, bluntly, a slasher for the TikTok generation. Beginning with a very old-school premise—a group of friends goes to a secluded house for a fun getaway—it quickly surfaces the horrors of the very online: no cell service, toxic friends. But just because it’s full of hip actors—Pete Davidson! Amandla Stenberg!—and very-now dialog doesn’t mean it won’t also freak you the hell out. And maybe even make you laugh.
Night of the Living Dead
Had George A. Romero only ever cowritten and directed this one movie, his feature directorial debut, he’d still go down in history as a horror pioneer. Because even though the word zombie is never uttered in Night of the Living Dead, it’s clear to the audience that that’s what his half-living monsters are. It all kicks off when siblings Barbra (Judith O’Dea) and Johnny (Russell Streiner) pay a visit to their father’s gravesite and are subsequently attacked by a strange man. Barbra, seeing a farmhouse nearby, runs there for help—only to discover the dead body of the home’s owner—and many slow-walking creatures coming her way. That’s when the ever-resourceful Ben (Duane Jones) shows up to help. Though many critics of the time attempted to declare Night of the Living Dead DOA because of its extreme gore, its reputation as a game-changer in the genre has given it continued life, with several sequels and even a couple of remakes, including Tom Savini’s 1990s redux, with Tony Todd in the role of Ben.
Nosferatu the Vampyre
Over the course of his near-60-year career, Werner Herzog has proven that there’s nothing he can’t or won’t at least try to do for the love of filmmaking (eating his own shoe included). Over the years, he has long maintained that F. W. Murnau’s original Nosferatu is the greatest film to ever come out of his native Germany. So on the very day that Bram Stoker’s Dracula entered the public domain, Herzog set about creating his own version of the film—one that, unlike the 1922 original, could legally use parts of Dracula without any legal headaches. What Herzog did, however, was create one of the most human versions of the legendary bloodsucker we’ve ever seen, as portrayed by Klaus Kinski. In Herzog’s mind, Dracula’s immortality and vampirism are burdens that make him a more sympathetic character. “He cannot choose and he cannot cease to be,” Herzog toldThe New York Times in 1978. If you want to expand your understanding of Dracula’s cinematic arc, pair this with a screening of Murnau’s original Nosferatu. Then take it one step further by adding to the mix with My Best Fiend, Herzog’s 1999 documentary about his tumultuous relationship with Kinski.
The Cabin in the Woods
Much like Scream before it, Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods takes a meta approach with its material, turning what could otherwise be a by-the-numbers horror movie into an immensely clever take on the “a group of attractive twentysomethings end up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere that just so happens to be surrounded by malevolent forces” sub-genre. All of the standard tropes are set up—the weird old townie who tries to warn the kids off, a creepy old basement filled with bizarre and ominous paraphernalia, etc.—though maybe they’re set up just a little too perfectly. The Cabin in the Woods is a loving wink to serious horror movie fiends and goes off in surprising directions that you’ll never see coming.
Fright Night
We’ve been through enough vampire crazes over the years that there are times when some moviegoers would happily agree to never see another bloodsucker in their lives. Then they remember Fright Night, Tom Holland’s iconic love letter to the golden age of horror movies and late-night television schlock jocks who entertained us with tales of blood and guts. Like Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon)—the glowing-eyed vampire in serious need of a manicure living next door to teenager Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale)—Fright Night doesn’t really seem to age. It still stands out as a perfectly subtle horror-comedy with just the right balance of both genres to make it as seductive as Vampire Jerry on the dance floor. (Its 2011 update, starring Colin Farrell and Anton Yelchin, which is streaming on both Hulu and Peacock, is one of the few horror remakes that is worth your time.)
The House of the Devil
In 2002, Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever brought the horror genre back to its 1980s heyday. Ti West managed to successfully recapture that same spirit at the end of the decade with The House of the Devil, which sees a broke college student (Jocelin Donahue) in need of cash to pay her rent reluctantly agree to “babysit” an allegedly frail old lady for a few hours. You know something’s going to happen, but you’re not quite sure what: Is the house haunted? Is there someone outside stalking the babysitter? Is it all in your head? Is it all of the above? While you wait for the other shoe to inevitably drop, West takes advantage of his very clear time frame—the satanic-panic-ravaged ’80s—to showcase a treasure trove of horrifying cultural relics of the past, including one particularly high-waisted pair of jeans.
The Host
South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho became a household name, and a force to be reckoned with, in 2020 when he stormed the Oscars with Parasite (which is streaming on Max, by the way). If that was your first introduction to his work, you should immediately seek out all of his previous films, including The Host. Like Parasite, it’s a horror movie with a social message. In this case, more of an eco-minded one where the pollution in Seoul’s Han River leads to the creation of a gigantic sea monster with a taste for humans.
Let the Right One In
Having a vampire as a BFF just might be the greatest thing a bullied kid could wish for. But the relationship that picked-on tween Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) builds with his neighbor Eli (Lina Leandersson)—who does just happen to crave human blood—is much deeper than a simple revenge fantasy in this Swedish slow burn. In fact, Eli being a vampire is really secondary to the story. Like Werner Herzog with Nosferatu, Tomas Alfredson puts character-building first and paints Eli with a kind of sadness, which is what connects her with Oskar. Sure, it’s bloody, but it’s also kind of sweet.
“To mark the Oct. 7 anniversary, we must launch a campaign to educate young Americans about the Middle East,” said Maher. “And the way I’d like to begin that process is by addressing an open letter to Chappell Roan. Now, to those viewers who aren’t watching this while also looking at your phones, let me explain. … She’s actually a great new recording artist, who, like a Hezbollah pager, is really blowing up.”
Although Maher praised Roan for criticizing both sides of the political aisle, he chalked her perceived support of Palestine up to TikTok “propaganda.”
“Chappell, if you think it was repressive growing up queer in the Midwest, try the Mid East,” he mused. “You’re a female drag queen and you sing, ‘I f—ed you in the bathroom when we went to dinner, your parents at the table.’ Yeah, that wouldn’t fly in Gaza. Although you would, straight off a roof. The same goes for ‘knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out.’ Yea, my guess is the morality police would figure out that one’s not about the drive-thru and kill your feathered boa-wearing ass. You know when you sing that ‘LA is where boys and girls can all be queens every single day’? You’re welcome, but offer not good in the West Bank.
“Chappell, you’re not wrong that oppression is bad, or that Palestinian and many other Muslim populations are oppressed and deserve to be freed. You just have it completely ass-backwards as to who is doing the oppressing. Hamas is a terrorist mafia that took over Gaza … these are the oppressors. And when you make it all about Israel, you take the pressure off of them. You enable them,” said Maher.
Maher’s comments that Roan would be thrown “off a roof” in Gaza echo a common narrative known as “pinkwashing,” the practice of propping up Israel’s LGBTQ progress to distract from the ongoing violence and repression against Palestinians.
“You’re a singer, and you’re advocating for a place and a culture you would never want to live under. Gender may not be binary, but right and wrong is,” Maher concluded.
Although Roan has kept her political stances mostly to her chest, she previously told Rolling Stone she planned to read “poems from Palestinian women” when she was invited to the White House, but her publicist advised her against it.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel — in which Hamas took more than 250 hostages and killed around 1,200 people — more than 42,000 Palestinians have died and nearly 2 million have been displaced in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
I’m sitting in the green room of StyleCaster’s studio on 5th Avenue, Manhattan, but there’s a tinge of desperation in Rhenzy Feliz’s voice, “Can we speak anywhere else?” he asks. You see, his mom, Joelis Vallejo is also his groomer, and when I say we’re here to talk about spoilers for The Penguin, he panics. “She doesn’t know what happens,” he says. It’s OK, she insists, she’ll put on headphones and listen to Karol G while we do the interview and she lays out her hairstyling tools. It takes a second more convincing, but he agrees.
Feliz has had a handful of acting roles before this one. His breakout role came in the young adult series Runaways for 33 episodes, but you get the strong feeling that HBO’s gritty mob drama—a spinoff of Matt Reeve’s The Batman—will push him into the big leagues. Colin Farrell, with whom Feliz spends the majority of his screentime, reprises his role as Oswald Cobb, a middle management mobster with ambitions for grandeur.
Feliz plays Victor Aguilar, a teenager from a low-income neighborhood in Gotham. In episode one, he and his friends try to steal the rims off the wrong guy’s purple—sorry, “technically it’s plum”—Maserati. Shots are fired, and Vic’s buddies flee, but Oz has him cornered. In exchange for his life, Vic offers to help Oz with whatever he needs, and his apprenticeship in the world of organized crime begins. “Oz loves this idea of being revered, being admired. He wants it,” observes Feliz, “and so I think he finds that in Vic. He likes having him around because of what it does to his ego.”
While there’s certainly a power imbalance between them, Oz and Vic share a few fundamental similarities. Both are from modest backgrounds and both are often underestimated because of their impediments. For Oz, it’s his limp; a symptom of a birth defect known as Club Foot. For Vic, it’s his stutter. Feliz worked extensively with fluency consultant, Marc Winski, who grew up with a stutter himself and is an advocate in the community, as a key part of Victor’s character development. “I would either make phone calls to delis in a stutter, or I would go to I would go to grocery stores and order stuff in a stutter. You can feel embarrassed and ashamed to speak because you feel like you’re taking up someone’s time,” he says. “The stutter had 75 to 80% of understanding who Victor was because it really shapes who you are as a human being.”
Photographer: George Chinsee. Designer: Stephanie Cui
What has struck so many viewers in the opening few episodes of The Penguinis how, unexpectedly, it’s made them laugh. Between Oz and his new protégé, some touching moments will also catch the viewer off-balance. One in particular from episode 3, which we spoke about in great detail, reduced Winski to tears.
I want to start off by asking you what elements of Vic’s character you can empathize with. I also didn’t grow up with much.
Where did you grow up? I spent five years up in the Bronx. When I was five, I moved out of the Bronx. We lived up in the projects on 183rd St. Then we moved to a housing community in Florida. Then when I was 15, we moved to LA, and that was when my mom met my stepdad, so they joined the family, and we moved out to LA, and that was when it started getting a little more middle-class, and it was decent. But until I was 15, I lived in not the greatest circumstances. And I think that growing up that way, I can understand why Victor might go down this path.
Oz loves this idea of being revered, being admired. He wants it. And so I think he finds that in Vic. He likes having him around because of what it does to his ego
Rhenzy Feliz
At the beginning of episode 3, Victor’s family is killed in a flood caused by the Riddler’s bombs. He and his girlfriend Graciela have nothing left. His home is destroyed. She offers him an out, to go to California. Why do you think he chooses not to leave with her? To not just get on that bus in episode three and leave with Graciela, money is a massive motivating factor. He hasn’t had a lot of agency or a lot of power in his life. He has been able to do much. He’s never been looked at like he’s able to accomplish much. I think that’s one of the things in episode one, where he goes, “I got ambition, and I’m not a waste.” I think at that moment in episode three he realizes, “This is my chance to get things I want things. I want to be someone, I want to be part of something.”
That’s what Oz sees in him too, right? Both of them want something more out of life. Do you think his affinity for Vic is genuine? That’s probably more of a question for Colin, but do I think it’s real? I think at the beginning, he does feel like he can help this kid, he’s like, “This kid needs me.” I think it’s an ego boost. I think he likes the fact that this kid is looking up to him and that he’s helping him.
I loved the scene in the French restaurant where Vic and Oz are having lunch. Vic’s ordering the steak frites but because of his stutter, he can’t quite get the “frites” out right away. The waiter interrupts and Oz tells the waiter off. Can you walk me through that scene? That scene is really nice because it takes some dips and valleys. I’m telling Oz a story, and then it becomes this whole, “Hey, stand up for yourself, take up space. Stop fucking cowering.” I remember Marc pulling me aside when he read the scene, and he said, “The scene is going to be really special for a lot of people.”
Once we shot it, he said, “You guys were shooting and I had tears in my eyes.” I think that, hopefully, one of the things that can come to that scene is this idea that it’s okay to take up time and to take up space, that people can just give you an extra second and get the word out.
Photographer: George Chinsee. Designer: Stephanie Cui
There’s another moment where Oz tells Vic his dad would be proud of him when we know from meeting his dad briefly that that wouldn’t be the case. Yeah, exactly. Vic knows who his father is, and knows he would not want him chopping off pinkies and stuffing dead bodies in the trunks of cars. But it’s one of the things that I think human beings do; push things to the side when deep down we know we’re doing something wrong. I think that’s what Vic has been doing, he’s been shoving it down and Oz brings it all back up. It’s a reminder that he’s not doing the right thing.
I love it when Oz starts Vic on $1,000 a week and Vic asks for two. Oz loves that. You can see the allure for sure. Yeah, I think Vic sees Oz, and he admires how Oz is. He’s got this face with a big scar, and he’s got this limp, and yet he’s the loudest guy in the room. He comes in and he can harm anybody, but he comes in and makes a joke, makes people laugh. And I think Victor admires that. I think that there’s also this idea of power that Oz has, he’s got people working for him, and he’s a smart dude. He’s playing chess, and everyone else is playing checkers.
You and Colin have such great chemistry and he’s been in the industry for a long time. Did he offer you any advice? I would ask him questions every now and then. I’d ask him sometimes, like, “Is it too far in one direction? Is it not enough?” He would give me advice on that, but only when I asked. He was very careful not to make it feel like there was this sort of hierarchy, even though he, deservingly, is up on a bit of a pedestal, but he was very aware to not make it feel like that.
There were a couple of times when, artistically, I didn’t want to do something. Maybe they’d ask me to say something, and I’m like, “I didn’t feel right.” I think he’d see it on my face, and a couple of times he pulled me aside to say, “Hey, if you don’t want to say it, don’t say it. Your instincts are good. I’ve seen you.” Those moments where I’d be afraid to speak up because I’m the younger actor on set, and he’s telling me to trust my instincts. It’s funny, it’s really similar to what Oz says to Victor.
Editors note: After we wrapped the interview, we checked to see if Rhenzy’s mom had heard anything. Rest assured, she hadn’t.
The Penguin airs each Sunday on HBO at 9 pm ET.
Photographer: George Chinsee Entertainment Editor: Sophie Hanson Grooming: Joelis Vallejo Styling: Raziel Martinez Rhenzy wears Ferragamo
When Aya Cash first auditioned for The Franchise, she didn’t get the part. The You’re the Worst and The Boys star had experienced such rejection plenty of times before, but this particular project—of a pedigree including Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes and Emmy-winning Veep producer Armando Iannucci—proved hard to let go of. So hard, in fact, that she jumped at the chance to try again. “They ended up getting rid of that role that I had auditioned for and not gotten…and so they wrote [a new] role,” she tells me over Zoom. “Then an audition came my way again—and I’m a glutton for punishment, so I thought, Well, let’s go get another rejection!” Instead, Mendes personally offered her the part on a video call.
It’s the kind of Hollywood whiplash that The Franchise (premiering Sunday on HBO) depicts rather unsparingly. The series, created by Succession alum Jon Brown, is told through the eyes of a beleaguered crew working on a big-budget, green-screen-heavy comic book adaptation. The production is stuck in a crammed assembly line of releases planned by the fictitious Maximum Studios, whose problems resemble those of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe: diminishing box office returns, overworked visual-effects artists, auteur directors getting in over their heads. Cash portrays Anita, a producer who replaces her fired predecessor on the project and is swiftly placed in the impossible middle ground between executives and creatives. She dreams of using the project as a springboard to launch a boutique company and finally move on from the “franchise bullshit.”
The Franchise takes direct, satirical aim at the state of modern filmmaking, leaving no perspective behind. This includes its depiction of the movie’s stars (played by Billy Magnussen, Richard E. Grant, and Katherine Waterston), who navigate their dysfunctional industry’s enduringly warped understandings of everything from gender politics to set conditions to artistic value. Soon to be entering her third decade as a professional actor, Cash knows a thing or two about all of that too—perhaps that’s why her weathered, biting take on Anita rings so true. She had a lot of material to draw from—beginning, of course, with her rocky start on this very project.
Vanity Fair: I’m not sure how you generally take rejection, but did you feel any reluctance about jumping back in to audition for The Franchise again?
Aya Cash: To be brutally honest, I take all rejection horribly. It’s part of my job to be rejected, and yet I’ve never gotten good at it. I always take it personally. I’m always convinced it’s completely my fault, and I’m devastated. Going where you’re wanted is also a good MO. But sometimes with these jobs, you have to prove it. And the job that changed my entire life, You’re the Worst, I also didn’t get the first time around—I had been rejected by the network, and then Stephen [Falk] really fought for me. So I auditioned again and got it. I was never made to feel second-class or [like] I didn’t deserve to be there by the network, so it had worked out. Maybe that experience helped me go, Okay, well, let’s do it again.
By Griff Lipson.
As someone who’s worked in Hollywood for many years, what struck you about the content of this show as feeling particularly honest? What were you excited to dig into?
If you play tennis, you were super excited when Challenges came out. If you’re a potter, the Kelly Reichardt movie with Michelle [Williams],Showing Up, you’re like, Oh, it’s my thing! So to explore how the sausage gets made in Hollywood, you just feel like, Oh, I’m actually already the expert on this. People would not believe the craziness that goes on behind the scenes. It’s pure magic what you see on camera; it’s so composed and makes so much sense because behind the scenes it’s hundreds of people making this thing happen. It felt really special to also honor those people. You spend more time with crews than you do with your family often, because you’re working 15, 16 hours a day. To get to see those people represented also felt very special and exciting.
It also pinpoints many silly things actors have to do. What felt most familiar?
We’re firmly in the era of the video-game-to-prestige-TV-adaptation pipeline, and you know what? It might not be all that bad. Coming off the impressive results of HBO’s The Last of Usand Amazon Prime’s Fallout TV show, we now have the first full trailer for Like a Dragon: Yakuza and it’s looking really good so far.
Total Recall: Why Yakuza Is So Much More Than A Japanese GTA
Out on Prime Video on October 24, Like a Dragon: Yakuzaadapts the hit Sega sandbox action series beloved for mixing criminal underworld drama with fun open-world gaming hijinks. While we don’t get a ton of the off-kilter humor and quirky flamboyancy of the Like a Dragon games (previously known as Yakuza in the West) from the first extended trailer, we do get an introduction to some slick action and high-stakes dialogue.
Here’s a look:
The show will follow former yakuza Kazuma Kiryu, played by Ryoma Takeuchi of Kamen Rider fame, as he’s drawn into a conspiracy of rival factions and conflicting allegiances on the streets of Tokyo. Drawing mostly from the original 2005 Yakuza game, the first trailer shows a lot of familiar faces, including the Shimano Family mad dog Goro Majima. About a minute into the trailer, longtime fans are rewarded with his iconic “Kiryu-Chan!” line delivery.
The timing of Like a Dragon: Yakuza’s arrival has been surprisingly fortuitous. While the streaming wars appear to be losing gas, video game adaptations have helped breathe some new life into online TV. And while a subtitled Japanese thriller might have previously seemed like a tougher sell, Hulu’s Shōgun stole the show at the recent 2024 Emmy Awards, and Sony has already doubled-down on further adaptations of its Ghost of Tsushima series, including for its upcoming sequel, Ghost of Yōtei.
And for anyone who’s somehow managed to remain on the periphery of the Like a Dragon/Yakuza games these last several years, there have never been more ways to dip your toes into the Kamurochō district, from the Yakuza Kiwami remakes of the early games to recent turn-based spin-offs like Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. And another game in that lineage has already been announced, with Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii starring Goro Majima arriving early next year.
In the volatile universe of Industry, all debts must be paid.
No one understands that better than Rishi (Sagar Radia), whose gambling addiction finally caught up with him in Sunday night’s season three finale, “Infinite Largesse,”
(Spoiler alert:The following includes spoilers for Industry’s third season finale.)
Rishi, for the uninitiated, spent much of the last season falling deeper into debt. As the finale concluded, Industry gave him one of the revelation-packed episode’s biggest twists when his bookie, Vinay, showed up and killed Rishi’s wife over £600,000 in unpaid gambling debts. It was the kind of gut-wrenching moment that has made HBO Sunday-night appointment TV—and, according to cocreators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, HBO almost nixed it.
“There was a conversation about Rishi’s wife’s death, which HBO balked at,” Kay says.
Early on, as Down and Kay outlined season 3, they knew they wanted to do a Rishi episode, which fans were treated to in episode 4, “White Mischief.” Shot as a kind of homage to Uncut Gems, it was there viewers got a taste of the real Rishi, who, it turned out, was a gambler with a dangerous appetite for drugs, women, and thrill-seeking.
“We first wrote it with a bow at the end of it,” Down says. “He gets out of his position, he’s saved by the market. He then gets his wife to pay back his debt and then he makes his phone call, doubling down on it. We really didn’t think we were going to return to this. We thought, OK, are we going to show the repercussions of this in some way?”
But HBO saw the potential in it and advised the creators to return to the repercussions of “White Mischief” later in the season. “They said, we have to show what happens to him.” It presented a unique challenge for Down and Kay. “How can you actually show that there are consequences to your actions in this world and that you can’t just talk your way out of everything?”
When they landed on the idea that it would be Diana, Rishi’s wife, who ultimately paid for his financial misfortunes, HBO pushed back. But Down and Kay knew better.
“At the script stage, HBO wanted to get rid of it,” Kay says. “Then we said, look, let us shoot it and show it to you. And we shot it and cut it and showed it to them. And they were like, ‘This is fantastic.’ We got very few notes. What you see in the season finale is pretty close to the first cut of that episode.”
Originally, the scene played out differently. “We were like, what if the guy shot Rishi?” Down continues. “Personally, and practically, we wanted Rishi in season four. But it’s more heartbreaking that his wife, who is a victim of all of this, is the person that bears the brunt. And those are consequences that he then has to live with.”
But by killing Diana, Down and Kay felt it would provide the perfect setup for next season. (HBO renewedIndustry after WIRED’s interview with the showrunners.)
Their instincts proved right. As the finale aired on Sunday, reaction online was swift, with fans posting Succession-esque responses to the show’s many turns of fortune.
“Industry is so good because they just keep moving forward. Mickey and Konrad are completely unafraid to put characters on paths they can’t easily undo for the sake of plot convenience. This is peak storytelling,” @lesliezye posted on X following the finale.
Added @cinnaMENA, “From Rishi’s sad bachelor pad scene to Yasmin’s country house breakdown I—I have emotional whiplash.”
For Down and Kay, it was all about elevating the storyline into new heights. “That core is shaken when something sort of seismic happens,” Down says of his scheming characters. “And your wife being shot in front of you to settle the gambling debt is a seismic thing, which means that Rishi in season four will be a totally different character than he was in season three and before.”
When the creators of Industry wrote the show’s third season, they didn’t know whether HBO would greenlight more episodes—so they made sure to throw everything they had into it. By the end of Industry’s season three finale, the stakes for the show’s beautiful fuckups—and for the bank itself—are fairly existential.
Yasmin (Marisa Abela) lands in the deepest water by the end of season three, literally and figuratively. While dealing with the scandalous aftermath of her father’s drowning, she finds herself locked in a love triangle between her lovelorn friend, Robert (Harry Lawtey), and Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington), a man with enough money and power to both protect her from the world and provide her with life’s not-so-little luxuries. “Robert really does make Yasmin feel very safe in a way that definitely the other men in her life don’t,” Abela tells Still Watching. “He really sees her and loves her, whereas Henry or her father or Eric—I don’t think she feels that they really see her.”
On the latest episode of Still Watching, both Abela and Lawtey stopped by to talk about their onscreen chemistry and their offscreen friendship. (Listen or read below.)
Vanity Fair: Your characters both had a very emotionally intense season. When you read the season three scripts, were there any moments or revelations that surprised you?
Harry Lawtey: Yeah, it’s par for the course now with this show. Every page is a bit of a surprise, to be honest. But I agree. In this [season] especially, a lot of the arcs and journeys of these characters are very much reaching boiling point. That’s certainly the case for Robert. I remember saying to Mickey [Down] and Konrad [Kay] a while back that he’s someone who’s been wanting to cry for about five years now, and hasn’t felt able to show his feelings in that way. It feels like once the dam is broken, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. It’s all on show now.
Marisa Abela: This was the first year that I felt it was really necessary to have a sit-down about what had happened, what was going to happen, where everything was heading. And that was very different to play, holding knowledge that was hers and no one else’s. And also, the relationship between Robert and Yasmin this season—it was the first time that it really, really mattered whether or not Yasmin knew what she wanted, and knew what she was getting into.
Your characters have been circling each other through the whole series, and Robert has been pining for Yasmin since the beginning. How do you see their relationship at this point?
Lawtey: The relationship has so much more substance and integrity than it did at the beginning. Robert’s attraction to Yasmin was always socioeconomically informed. He found the idea of a relationship with her aspirational…. They’re at a stage now, at the end of this season, where I think there’s very genuine love there. It doesn’t mean they can necessarily express themselves and share how they feel, but they know what’s going on. In the last two episodes, part of their journey is to try to get rid of all the nonsense.
Winter may never come — if HBO‘s release schedule continues to gestate at a glacial pace.
That’s among the running gags in the Saturday Night LiveCut for Time sketch titled “Blonde Dragon People,” which pokes fun at the network-streamer and its star prestige series House of the Dragon. In the six-minute-long video, a group of friends become increasingly confused with the show’s short runtime and long shooting schedule, extraordinarily similar-sounding names and continuity errors.
Dorgos, Dormos, Dargomos, Dorgon and Dorman are just a handful of the names that confuse the group, which comprises SNLstars Andrew Dismukes, Heidi Gardner, Devon Walker and newcomer Jane Wickline.
As they watch the show’s recap — as played by Chloe Fineman, Kenan Thompson, Bowen Yang and a heavily accented and nonsensical James Austin Johnson (clearly parodying Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen in HOTD) — the friends start to lose track of plot points, wondering why there’s a dog with “blonde dreads,” a stock video of a bat in place of a dragon and why “every person and city” has the “same weird name.”
“I mean even in Game of Thrones they gave us one guy named John,” Dismukes’ character remarks.
However, the host of Season 50’s premiere, Jean Smart, is given the most ridiculous lines yet, stating regally: “Yes, it is I, Dorgos, daughter of Doremos and sister of Daragmos, ruler of the seven five lands and keeper of the 11 three keys. Only I can reclaim the kingdom stolen from Doregmon, by the usurper Dormegon.”
She adds at another point, “You will never silence the people of East New Westersouth, from the isles of Rizzoli to the ranches of Hidden Valley,” referencing the drama show Rizzoli & Isles and popular ranch brand.
To further confuse matters, in comes surprise guest Andy Samberg (who appeared earlier in the night as the Douglas Emhoff to Maya Rudolph’s Kamala Harris during the Cold Open) and musical guest Jelly Roll, who appear as Orlando Bloom’s Legolas and Sean Astin’s Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings, respectively.
As such, the sketch turns to poking fun at the streaming wars, with Smart remarking that their show is on Amazon Prime instead. Thompson then goes on a short historical tangent as he outlines the transition of HBO from HBO Now, then HBO Go, then HBO Max and now just Max, which Samberg’s character says “sounds bad.”
With the recap concluded, the television announces — in signature Westerosi font — that the new season has concluded. “I just looked it up. The next season doesn’t air until 2028. It’s like the Olympics,” Gardner bemoans.
But that’s OK, since fans can watch something called “Dragging Dragons” in the meantime, about drag queens dragging the costumes from the show “only on, weirdly, HBO Latino.”
About the fractured House Targaryen and taking place nearly 200 years prior to the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon — which just completed airing its second season Aug. 4 after eight episodes — has been renewed for two more seasons for a total of four overall. A following installment is set for release in 2026, with production commencing early next year.
The exterior of the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven is constructed in a quarry near Ballymena, Northern Ireland—an almost perfect bowl-shaped hollow now filled with scenery, tents, and cabins. The cave’s interior and its various tunnels have been constructed at the studio in Banbridge, and it’s there where we’ll spend the majority of our time. The walls have been covered in moss and the floor strewn with real animal bones. On our first day, we’re also joined by the 85-year-old actor Max von Sydow who plays the Three-Eyed Raven—one of the old guard of actors I love to watch so much. Physically, Max seems more frail than even Margaret John had been, and I worry about him sat for hours in the cold. But just like Margaret did, he can snap into character like an old pro.
Since I’ve returned to the series, this is the first scene where Hodor has to interact. Meera will talk with him about the food she’s been dreaming of when they reach home. The mention of home and sausages lights up Hodor’s face.
It’s supposed to be a lovely, lighthearted moment before all hell breaks loose and the undead descend on us, but I just can’t relax. In fact, I feel suffocated by the enormity of everything that’s expected of me. Jesus fucking Christ, Kristian. You need to be on your A game, I tell myself, but I’m agitated, so much so that Jack notices I’m struggling.
“Are you OK?” he asks after a few takes, which I’ve barely managed to get through. “Are you having difficulty?”
“Yes, it’s awful,” the words tumble from me. Hodor’s subtle tics used to come easily to me, but now I’m tying myself in knots trying to express them. I explain to Jack the mad journey I’ve been on for the past year, and the personal journey I’ve been on, too. I’m finding stepping back into inhabiting someone other than myself very hard. Then I stop. Did I just say all of that … to a director I don’t know? I think. Years ago, I would have kept silent, like when my back was breaking in the Great Hall. I stop talking and watch Jack’s eyes carefully. Is he going to understand? Help me work this out? Or dismiss me and move on?
“OK, just take it easy,” he smiles.
“I’ll be fine, but everyone might need to be a bit patient,” I say quickly. Jack gives me a shoulder squeeze.
“Just relax. It will all come flooding back,” he reassures me.
Jack is right, just like John Ruskin had been years ago. And after a while, I do start to remember: Do not overthink Hodor; do not overthink your performance. As the morning wears on, Hodor reappears like an old friend.
[My stunt double] Brian is also worth his weight in gold. As soon as the magical shield keeping us safe in the cave vanishes and the wights and White Walkers come for Bran, we need to hotfoot it out. This means take after take of me pulling Isaac on the sled, which is attached on runners to the tunnel floor. Thankfully, Brian will take the reins on many of these shots—the shots where my face is not in view. My back hasn’t yet completely recovered, and this also gives me the chance to concentrate on what’s ahead. Besides, Isaac has gotten even heavier in the intervening years.
Years ago, a writing instructor told me writers should avoid party scenes. They’re often chaotic, introduce too many characters, and, in general, are very, very hard to do well. That’s why I’ve always taken Industry’s party scenes as proof of the show’s excellence. Some of my favorite episodes are party episodes: Seb’s failed sushi dinner party, the Christmas party where Greg ran into the doors, and Harper and Yasmin in the club in Berlin. In Industry, parties are opportunities to showcase subterranean tensions alongside ludicrous set pieces. “Useful Idiot”is no exception, though no one is at the actual party in this episode.
It’s Pierpoint’s 150th birthday, and the traders are supposed to be celebrating. But no one is celebratory because Pierpoint’s share price has plummeted. The end is nigh. The bell is tolling, etc etc. Eric is telling Rishi (who has a broken arm and Vinay breathing down his neck) to sell everything he can and make money wherever possible. The light on the floor is flickering and hellish, like a real-life version of Robert’s hallucinatory trip.
The mood is even grimmer on the 13th floor, where Eric and Bill Adler are summoned for a summit on how to save Pierpoint. It’s a curious scene. As a viewer, I’m so used to seeing last-ditch hail-Mary attempts to save this or that thing, and usually, I am meant to care if the thing is saved. (Westeros from frozen zombies, the known world from an alien who got rid of half the population by snapping.) In this case, I do not care if Pierpoint lives or dies. Instead, I’m watching these scenes for pure drama. I want to see building tension and release. I want to see Eric shake off his sticky midlife mess. I want to see the ruthless, wide-grinned man from season one who out-maneuvered Daria to return in the final moment.
And at first, Eric sort of waffles. He’s confused about why he’s at the illustrious table, as is the new Pierpoint CEO, Tom. Eric is a bit of an ingenue, blinking in the bright lights as the head honchos of Pierpoint look for someone, anyone, to infuse the bank with enough cash that it doesn’t completely unravel. Their first stop is, of course, the government. It’s an American bank, so they call the assistant secretary to the U.S. treasury, who is hilariously wheezing away on the phone, flatly rejecting Pierpoint’s pleas. Thank goodness — I just remembered that I do care if a big bank survives or fails if it means the little guy (a.k.a. us) has to pay for a government bailout of said bank.
As the group moves on to other possible sources of cash, Bill Adler pitches his big idea. He’s been warming up a relationship with Mitsubishi and wants to bring the Japanese bank in to solve Pierpoint’s problems. There’s a manic glint in his eye, and it’s clear that Adler sees this move as his way to the top. To me, it sounds like the ravings of a very ill man, which is deeply sad.
Maybe Eric has been so lackluster and gross all season because there wasn’t anyone exciting enough to knife in the back. In the conference room, watching Adler and Wilhelmina battle over their succession in the bank, something starts to flicker back to life in Eric. He’s assessing the room, seeing what cards he could play. This horrible moment in the bank’s history could be just the opportunity for him to launch his career forward. But who will he screw over? Wilhelmina or Adler?
When a Barclays acquisition backed by Wilhelmina falls through, it looks like Adler’s suggestion of bringing the Japanese in is the only viable option. Before they arrive, Eric meets Bill in the bathroom to review the proposal deck, which has a discrepancy that Eric notices. He chooses to say nothing about the deck — Nature is healing, Eric is being underhanded for his own gain again. When Mitsubishi is at the table, Eric throws Adler under the bus, apologizing for the inaccuracy on page 12. It’s not something that could throw the deal itself off, but it’s enough to throw Adler out of his game. Eric gaslights Adler into thinking that they talked about this in the bathroom, which causes Adler to unravel, confessing his brain tumor at the table. Of course, the Mitsubishi deal falls through, but more importantly, as Bill is sent home to convalesce, Eric twists the knife, dropping the act. This elicited a complex set of feelings in me. On the one hand, I’m happy to see Eric stop messing around with his incestuous psycho-sexual drama with Yasmin and turn his attention to more grown-up matters at hand. On the other, I think he may have just killed Bill Adler, which, uh, does not say great things for his personal growth.
No matter! Eric has a backup plan to save Pierpoint, which involves calling up Ali, the Arabic-speaking trader plopped unceremoniously on his desk this season. He turns out to have ties to the Egyptian royal family. In a graceful series of moves, Eric maneuvers a deal where Ali’s family floods Pierpoint with cash for a controlling stake in the bank. It’s not lost on me that Eric’s idea was simply Bill Adler’s idea, just dressed up in a different kind of sovereignty. That is to say, it’s not that Eric won because he had a better idea, but because he was more willing to play dirty than Adler was. Am I happy for him? I don’t know.
Braided into this storyline of Pierpoint’s possible failing is Rishi struggling to survive by essentially selling himself out to Harper, saying he’ll act as her mole on the inside to help time when she sells and buys back the Pierpoint stock she’s hoping to short. There’s also a storyline of Harper being chewed out by Petra when Petra finds out how Harper actually got the information necessary to short Pierpoint, i.e., illegally. I must confess these two storylines felt like mere threads to me, which indicates just how un-Harper focused this season has been. We’re in the penultimate episode, and Harper is a blip who barely gets her comeuppance. I don’t even care about what’s happening with her! I am sad because I want to see more of Myha’la, but I am not sad because this episode’s second half is about Rob and Yasmin.
Where to even begin with these two. At first brush, it seemed like a case of garden variety workplace horniness, but over the course of three seasons, these characters and their will-they-won’t-they-mostly-won’t-they have developed a complex, cynical tragedy. Robert never seems to feel man enough to make a move on Yasmin. Yasmin can’t see Robert as a viable romantic option because he isn’t deeply awful to her. Not to mention the giant chasm of class that separates the two of them and the way they see the world.
Yasmin, unemployed, is blindsided by yet more horrible news. Though Hanani Publishing is willing to take care of all of the damages caused by her father’s embezzlement, they want Yasmin to be the public fall person for Charles’ inappropriate (dare I say abusive) relationship with women who he paid off across his lifetime. Sins of the father, sins of the daughter, etc etc. Ought Yasmin take their urging and accept culpability for her family? While I am in favor of Yasmin facing the music and growing up, this seems cruel to me. She isn’t Charles. In fact, she is a victim of Charles. Even after she “killed” him, he seems to keep on winning.
To take Yasmin’s mind off of the new clusterfuck, Robert invites Yasmin along with him to Wales, where he is interviewing for a job as the finance guy for a hallucinogen startup. That passing moment two episodes ago where Henry said someone should monetize tripping — well, Robert seems to have taken that to heart. While the two are on their road trip, Yas gets a call from Maxim, who you may remember from last season as her sometimes-fuck-buddy/family friend who handles the Hanani family assets. Hi Maxim! Maxim is calling from a retreat in San Francisco (??) to tell Yasmin he somehow knows about the blackmail ploy the Hanani Publishing people are pulling, and he wants to give her leverage: Hanani Publishing was in on Charles’ payouts to the women. Yas could potentially blackmail Hanani Publishing into covering her father’s embezzlement damages if she were willing to throw the women Charles/Hanani Publishing paid off under the proverbial bus.
Before Yas can do anything with this information, she and Rob get to their destination, a quaint little bed and breakfast. I am reminded of season two Yas, who sneered at staying in a Marriott; oh, how times have changed! After checking in, they get a bite to eat, or rather, Robert gets a battered sausage for them to share, which he declares perfect. Oh, Robert! Your definition of perfect is not Yasmin’s definition of perfect! She needs Michelin stars and luxury oozing out of every pore; you are a humble man happy to eat carby meat on a nice night. It’s never going to work.
Yasmin gets coy with Robert and says there will be no room hopping, to which Robert calls her on her weird sexual mind game. For once, Yasmin gets honest with him, saying that her first instinct with love is to make it ugly as quickly as possible. I mean, yeah, I get it. Your dad weaponized intimacy. Of course, you want to transform love into something despicable. It’s what Yasmin knows best, and what she imagines keeps her safe.
When the pair share a clandestine kiss in the hallway between their rooms and no room swapping indeed occurs, the lack of sex between them is somehow the most intimate, romantic thing. But Yasmin ruins it all by taking way too many mushroom pills and cutting her hand open, requiring Rob to come in and clean up her mess as she moans about wanting to be a good person. Yasmin! WHY! ARE! YOU! LIKE! THIS!!!
The next morning, Yasmin decides not to take the high road. She will throw those women under the bus if it means her hide is saved. I am disappointed by this decision. Sure, Yasmin might not be popular if she takes the face of the Hanani Publishing scandal, but how many people are aware of the publishing house scandals? Surely her money would have insulated her from any real harm? Rob, on the other hand, kind of gets the job and kind of doesn’t. The University associated with the psilocybin startup has put the kibosh on funding, which sounds like it might be bad news but instead means Rob now has a job looking for funding from venture capitalists. The two of them in the car is a study in opposites. Yasmin has firmly mired herself in her father’s mess, engaging in the sort of selfish tactics that he might have. Robert, on the other hand, has found something to lift him out of Pierpoint and into another life. I can’t imagine these two will end up together.
• Shout out to the Pierpoint bathrooms. Seriously, these stalls have seen nearly all of the vital drama of this show, from Hari’s death in season one to Harper and Yasmin’s small power struggles. I like the way they are used by the series, such as de facto confessionals, a place where the traders are stripped down under harsh LED lighting.
• I must confess I was afraid when I learned Yas and Robert were going on a road trip. There have been so many allusions made to Princess Diana this season when it comes to Yas and her being hounded by the paparazzi (for example, her charity day costume); once she and Rob got in their car, I felt sure they were both going to die in a horrible pap-driven accident. I am happy to report that this was merely a case of me looking way too far into the subtext.
• In EXTREMELY important news, Industry was renewed for a fourth season! I was beginning to thinkthis was the final season based on how these character storylines were shaping up, so I am surprised. My face is the surprised Pikachu meme. I can’t believe I read this so wrong!
• While I, too, found the check-out girl at the bed and breakfast annoying, Yasmin was so condescending and awful to her. I suppose it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she decided to do the un-feminist thing with HP.
While the Penguin has been a long-standing supervillain in the Batman comics since 1941, Oswald Cobb was creatively birthed in a simpler time when we didn’t care so much about villain origin stories. HBO‘s limited The Penguin series sets to change all of that, including providing the reason for what happened to his foot that causes his limp.
In episode one, we see the reason for Oz’s waddle, so to speak, as he arrives home and removes his shoes (and let’s point out that he most certainly does not appreciate the nickname, Penguin). “I had sculpted like 20 minutes before [Colin] came—a foot that I thought was crazy,” Mike Marino, prosthetic designer, told The Wrap. “He sat in the chair and I was working in the corner and I showed him and I was like, ‘What do you think of this thing?’”
Farrell was a fan instantly. “It’s so lo-fi and yet so highly brilliant. It’s real hands-on art the way artisans envision it,” he said. “Not to deny the advent of technology and the benefits of it as well in all sorts of realms of experience—but the hands-on makeup that this guy designs and applies, what Dick Smith did, what Rick Baker did, all these geniuses. I just hope that all filmmakers choose to use practical, in-camera stuff.”
As showrunner Lauren LeFranc explained to IGN it was important to show why he limps—due to having clubfoot, a congenital foot deformity—in the first episode of The Penguin to, rather poetically, “firmly establish why and to show the level of pain that he puts himself through, but doesn’t speak about it.”
She continued, “This is nothing that we’ve ever put on camera but in my mind, because if you have a clubfoot, now there’s a surgery you can get, and that often people do. And so, for my reasoning as to why he doesn’t, he grew up with very little money. He didn’t come from anything, and his mother didn’t decide to spend the money on a surgery like that,” she said. (According to Mount Sinai, clubfoot is rather simply corrected through lengthening or shortening the Achilles tendon.)
“Also, because she doesn’t see it as a disability. She doesn’t see it as a problem. She sees it as a way for him to strengthen himself. Something I was conscious of are the sort of comic book tropes that have come before, of those who are other, those who have disabilities, those who have scars on their face. They’re often easily depicted as the villain, and I think it’s just an unfortunate thing in our comic book history, and I wanted to try to disrupt that as much as possible.”
“So for me, it was important to show that Oz, psychologically, is a damaged person. Who he is inside is what informs the choices and the darker choices he makes. It’s not because he has a disability. It’s not based on the way that he looks. Of course, that’s an aspect of his character, but that’s not solely and predominantly why. So that was something that was always very important to me.”
The Penguin premieres on MAX on Thursday, September 19, and then airs episodically each Sunday from September 29.
Carmine Falcone is a key antagonist in The Batman, both in the film directed by Matt Reeves and the comics on which the film is based. A mob leader and supervillain, his murder kicks off the events depicted in HBO‘s gritty drama The Penguin—and sets up a power struggle between the families of Gotham’s underworld, just ripe for Oswald Cobb (not Cobblepot as he’s known in the comics because that would be far too whimsical) to take advantage of.
Episode 1 of the limited series is set a week after Carmine’s death. Oz (Colin Farrell, yes, it’s him) eyes young Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz) as a potential recruit; and Sofia (Cristin Milioti) and Alberto Falcone (Michael Zegen) work to unite their family and find new, ahem, revenue streams after their father’s death.
Who killed Carmine Falcone?
In the closing scenes of The Batman, Carmine Falcone is arrested and escorted by Batman and Commissioner Gordon. Oz confronts Carmine, accusing him of being a rat and threatening him, saying, “Enjoy your night at Blackgate Carmine, it’ll probably be your last.” (Unlike Arkham Asylum, Blackgate is where non-insane criminals such as Catman, David Cain, Monsoon, Ernie Chubb, KGBeast, and various henchmen, mobsters, and mafia bosses are incarcerated.)
“To me, Oz, you were always just a gimp in an empty suit,” provokes Carmine, and Oz whips out a gun from his jacket pocket. Shots are fired, but not from Oz’s gun. Falcone is, instead, shot by the Riddler with a sniper rifle and he dies in Batman’s hands.
It’s a slightly different scenario portrayed in The Penguin because, in the opening montage of news reports, Carmine lies dead outside The Iceberg Lounge—a posh nightclub and Oz’s base of operations—with a sheet draped over his body. Carmine is also played by a different actor in flashbacks.
Why isn’t John Turturro in The Penguin?
John Turturro played Carmine in The Batman but was unavailable to return for The Penguin so he was recast with Mark Strong. “Practically, John was just unavailable to us. He had scheduling conflicts, and we couldn’t make it work, but honestly, I’m so thrilled that we brought Mark Strong on,” showrunner Lauren LeFranc told IGN.
“I think he’s really good. Even though, maybe in the beginning when you first meet him, you might think, ‘Oh. Well, for fans of The Batman, I’m so used to John Turturro,’ and obviously, John’s a great actor, but I feel like the gravitas that Mark brings, it’s different. It’s very specific, and I hope, by the end of that episode, you’re just thinking, ‘That’s Carmine Falcone,’ and you’re engaged in what Mark brings to it.”
The Penguin premieres on MAX on Thursday, September 19, and then will air episodically on Sundays from September 29.
The Penguin arrives this week on HBO, expanding the gritty crime world of Matt Reeves’ The Batman movie into a spin-off series focused on Colin Farrell’s villainous character. Though his rogues’ gallery moniker remains the same, the Penguin’s real name was changed in the 2022 movie from Oswald Cobblepot, his name since his 1941 Detective Comics debut, to “Oz Cobb.” At long last, we have some details about why that happened.
As reported in SFX Magazine (via Comic Book Movie), “Oz Cobb” should not be interpreted as the character having shortened his admittedly sort of goofy last name.This guy is Oz Cobb, full stop. Speaking to the magazine, producer Dylan Clark explained what happened, pointing first to an earlier Batman villain name change as a precedent. “They never got around to changing his name in the comics like they did with the Riddler, going from Edward Nigma to Edward Nashton, from an unreal name to a real name. By doing that they grounded the character,” Clark said.
The Penguin team got what sounds like an enthusiastic go-ahead from DC Comics boss Jim Lee. “They had thought about changing his name at some point but had never done it. Matt asked, ‘Can I call our character Oz Cobb?’ And Jim said, ‘Absolutely!’ So we got a blessing from the king himself. That small change of the name allowed us to look at this character in a grounded way.”
Lauren LeFranc, The Penguin showrunner and creator, explained that like The Batman, the show is “creating new canon,” bringing its own flavor to familiar characters. “It felt like in the Gotham City that Matt created in his film, Cobblepot seemed less of a real person in the way that Cobb is a real last name. He’s a gangster and it just kind of felt more correct.”
“Cobb” may roll off the tongue a bit more sharply, but isn’t it actually more terrifying to have a ruthless guy after you who answers to “Cobblepot”?
DC Comics fans will get to know a lot more about Farrell’s breakout character when The Penguin, which also stars Cristin Milioti (as Sofia Falcone), Rhenzy Feliz (as Victor Aguilar), Michael Kelly (as Johnny Viti), Shohreh Aghdashloo (as Nadia Maroni), Deirdre O’Connell (as Francis Cobb), Clancy Brown (as Salvatore Maroni), James Madio (as Milos Grapa), Scott Cohen (as Luca Falcone), Michael Zegen (as Alberto Falcone), Carmen Ejogo (as Eve Karlo), and Theo Rossi (as Dr. Julian Rush), arrives September 19 on HBO.
Ambition is a curse in the arena of high finance. At the prestigious London investment bank Pierpoint, which doubles as the backdrop for the Gen Z banking drama Industry, a cohort of university graduates vie for money and power. Harper (Myha’la), Yasmin (Marisa Abela), and Rob (Harry Lawtey) are desperate to prove they belong, that they’ve got the mettle to survive the battleground of the trading floor, but Pierpoint is a special kind of hell: Ambition is only as useful as your will to lie, cheat, and outmaneuver your way to the top. As easily as it opens doors, it just as easily gets you stabbed in the back.
“When you go down the laundry list of what they’ve done and what they did to get there,” cocreator Mickey Down says of his beloved characters, “they can be considered pretty heinous individuals.” But their savory deceit is why we watch. It’s why Industryhas become The Show of the Season, the internet’s new meme-machine, drawing expected-but-flawed comparisons to Succession, another HBO supernova. Industry is a beast all its own.
Now in its third season, its most audacious and anxiety-riddled, Industry occupies the esteemed Sunday night 9 pm slot that Games of Thrones and The Sopornos made famous. The show is still the show many of us fell in love with when it debuted in 2020: all ego and heart and reckless ambition. Only, Down and cocreator Konrad Kay have upped the stakes even more this time around, illustrating how sinister and deep relationships run across media, politics, and finance for London’s privileged class.
This week’s upcoming episode—deliciously-titled “White Mischief”; fans of Uncut Gems rejoice, this one’s just for you—marks the season’s halfway point. Over Zoom from their respective residences in London, Down and Kay spoke with me about where the show has been and where it’s possibly headed next.
JASON PARHAM: I read that the initial pitch for this season was “coke and boats.” What was HBO’s response?
MICKEY DOWN: We had a 30,000-foot view of what the season was going to be in terms of the business story. And then we thought, look, we shouldn’t be scared to have a slight genre element to the show. We were already talking about Yasmin’s father, which we thought was one of the most interesting parts of the second season. We had the idea that her dad’s gone missing, and she’s been bearing the brunt of that in the media. We had all of that. We just hadn’t decided how to show it yet. So we said, what if we have a secondary timeline that has a bit of a mystery element to it? And what if we start the show from there? So we sent an email to HBO with the header “coke and boats” and said this is where we want to start the show.
Incredible.
MD: We told them that we want to dip back into this timeline when we feel like it’s good punctuation. We wanted to have this slow drip feel of what actually happened on the boat. And their response was very positive.
The show is continually testing its limits. Erect penises. Cum scenes. Crazy yacht parties. All kinds of drugs. Did HBO ever ask you to reel it in?
The stars of Game Thrones had people really chill with this trend.
While HBO’s Game of Thrones is currently over, the spin offs continue. The next Game of Thrones (GoT) spin-off isn’t until 2025. George RR Martin has confirmed A Knight of Seven Kingdoms will continue the story. Aside from the merch and memes, it has also spun on “experiences”. But one of the most chill things is did Game of Thrones stars help this weed trend to chill out? Playing characters on GoTcould be tense, but it helped bond the cast. Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams become good friends and to relax from long days of filming Sansa and Arya Stark, they would get stoned and take a bath.
Now they are two ways to take a weed bath. One, like Sophie and Maisie, you can consume some gummies, use a vape or go old school and smoke or you can take one and use a bath bomb. The goal is to relax and chill, so fold in some music and just let the warm water wash over you. Social media extolls the benefits of a relaxing bath, especially if marijuana is blended in.
A THC bath bomb is the same thing as a normal bath bomb, but with THC. They contain essential oils, extracts, and of course, cannabinoids, which dissolve when they are dropped into your bathwater. They use the same science as a cannabis topical. Your endocannabinoid system consists of an intricate network of receptors that are activated both by our body’s own endocannabinoids and by the marijuana plant’s phytocannabinoids.
When you submerge your body into water enhanced by a THC bath bomb, you’re coating the receptors in your skin with the cannabinoids inside the bath bomb. While you mentally might get high, it can create a full body effect similar to if you rubbed THC oil all over yourself. This “body high,” as it is sometimes called, can be different for everyone, but most people find it to be relaxing.
Sophie Turner shared “We’re kind of like loners on Game of Thrones, just because the past few seasons Maisie and I have sleepovers every night when we’re shooting. Or every night whenever both of us are in town. We just used to sit there and eat and watch stupid videos and smoke weed. I don’t know if my publicist will kill me for saying this. We’d get high and then we’d sit in the bath together and we’d rub makeup brushes on our faces. It’s fun.”
Sometimes celebrities have more in common with their fans than one might think, and such is the case for Zoë Kravitz, who — like impatient HBO viewers everywhere — is “waiting by the phone” for news on the timeline for the long-anticipated third season return of David E. Kelley‘s Big Little Lies.
“I’m waiting to see, like everybody else, the third season that’s happening,” the Blink Twicedirector told People in a new interview. “Waiting by the phone, waiting for the script to be done.” The actress-cum-filmmaker said she knows “nothing” about the forthcoming installment but is “excited” to take part in it.
While Kravitz has yet to reunite with co-stars Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern onscreen, in the gloomy rolling hills of Big Sur, the powerhouse actresses came out to support her at the premiere for Blink Twice, held in Los Angeles at the DGA Theater on Aug. 8.
The Kimi star said she was “not surprised” the two attended the premiere, adding that it was “still just so cool that they came.” She said, “Everybody’s busy and working, and they have families, and all of that, and so I think … they don’t just talk the talk. They really show up like that, both publicly and privately.
“I can tell you that all of us who are involved in it would never imagine a better time,” Dern said at the time. “We love each other so much and would have the time of our life being back together, and we love our characters so much. I truly know what you know. But I know that it is something that [Witherspoon and Kidman] are working diligently at dreaming up, and I sure hope it comes to fruition.”
Last year, executive producer Kidman also renewed hopes of a third season, with a casual remark, stating, “We will be bringing you a third one, just FYI.” By now, five years have passed since the premiere of the criminal drama’s second season.
Big Little Lies unfolds the seemingly perfect lives of a group of upper-class mothers whose children are all students at a prestigious elementary school in a sleepy California seaside town.
Joel Kim Booster is well aware that showing skin is part of his personal brand. In his 2022 Netflix comedy special, Psychosexual, Booster jokes about having his nudes readily available on the internet, quipping that he still sends naked photos of himself out “with reckless abandon.” However, the Loot and Fire Island star didn’t expect that his reckless abandon would lead to a steamy guest-starring role on the third episode of the third season of HBO’s breakout series Industry,created by Konrad Kay and Mickey Down.
“This never happens to me, but they came to me with this role,” Booster says. In episode three, “It,” Booster guest stars as Frank Wade, a Pierpoint employee in the equity research division who has to publish a buy-or-sell recommendation on Lumi, the green energy company run by Kit Harington’s Henry Muck, which recently IPO’d.
A fan of Industry since it premiered in 2021, Booster tells me that he’s “never had an easier time” booking an acting role than on the series. “The boys are apparently fans,” Booster says, of Kay and Down. “They had this part written and they came to me and said, ‘There’s this creep in a steam room and we immediately thought of you.’ I guess the brand is strong.”
The steam room wound up becoming a sauna, where Pierpoint banker Rob, played by Harry Lawtey, flirts with Frank in the hopes of influencing his buy-sell recommendation. Their cackling chemistry is reminiscent of the sauna scene in Challengers between Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor except for one major difference—Booster is completely naked. “They said very early on that this would be a requirement,” he says. “It was included with the offer, like, ‘Are you cool with that?’”
He was so cool with it, in fact, that Booster says it wasn’t even the most nerve-wracking part about the shoot. “I was more nervous about stepping into a prestige HBO drama than I was about the nudity, because the nudity is pretty par for the course for me in my everyday life,” says Booster. “Professionally, this was a big deal for me to be taken seriously as an actor and have people believe that I can do a pretty grounded, dramatic, serious part that’s not comedy heavy. I’m really grateful for that opportunity.”
Over the phone, Booster chats about the trickiness of looking hot while sitting, working with Lawtey, and what he believes really went down in the sauna.
Vanity Fair: So, let’s talk about your big scene, which happens to take place in a sauna when you’re butt naked.
Joel Kim Booster: You know what’s so funny to me? This is not the first interview I have done about my brief appearance on Industry, and you are the only person who’s asked about this scene in particular, explicitly. It’s like, ‘Guys, I’m a one-episode guest star. I have a one episode arc on this show where I’m in approximately three scenes and you are not going to ask me about the reason you really want to interview me about this episode?’ The reason it’s a big deal is because I’m doing full-frontal for the first time. Let’s be real.
Did you have to think about whether to say yes at all?
I didn’t think about it at all when I initially said yes. It was an exciting opportunity to do something really different. And as I famously said in my Netflix special, my nudes are out there. If you want to see me naked, it’s readily available if you know the correct search terms and dark web websites to visit. And I continue to this day to send out my naked pictures of myself to random strangers frequently. So it didn’t seem like that big a deal at first to do it, at first I would say.
Take me to the actual moment where you’re on set, and it’s time, and the camera’s about to roll. How did that feel?
It is crazy because it didn’t really dawn on me until right before we shot. All of my nudes that have leaked online previously, it is my hard penis, okay? With a flaccid penis, there’s a lot of variables at play. It can look a lot of different ways. Stress is a big factor in that. I woke up and I was like, ‘I cannot think about this because the more I think about this, the more I will spiral.’ And then you lose control of what’s going on down there. I will say Harry Lawtey, who plays Robert on the show, is who I filmed the bulk of my scenes with. [He was] so nice, so welcoming, made me feel truly a part of the team at Industry. He has also been in my position doing full-frontal, and I couldn’t have had a better scene partner who put me at ease and just really made me able to focus on actually doing that scene and not be thinking about what’s going on downstairs.
The end of summer can be a barren landscape for TV, whether it’s because vacationing cuts into couch time or networks and streamers tend to stash their best new releases for the fall.
But late August is as good a time as any to try out some shows and movies that might have been overlooked during other parts of the calendar.
Now in its third season, BBC’s wildlife documentary narrated by actress Lupita Nyong’o weaves dramatic storytelling into the time-honored natural history format. For viewers grounded in hard science and people who will only take their animal lessons from David Attenborough, “Serengeti” requires a bit of a leap of the imagination. Filmed on a private reserve in Tanzania, one of East Africa’s most biodiverse savanna regions, the show captures stunning footage of numerous species. Its real selling point is the innovative use of drones and other camera techniques to get rare glimpses of animal behavior. The stories can get a bit heavy-handed to drum up emotional reactions, but the drama is meant to foster empathy with the trials of life and survival the animals face.
The third season of the series hits Max on Aug. 25.
Room
It’s a bit unfortunate that 2015’s “Room” is so near in name to “The Room,” Tommy’s Wiseau’s cult classic melodrama that’s known for being endearingly horrible. In 2017, “The Room” went mainstream with a film adaptation of the book “The Disaster Artist,” making it easy to get it jumbled with “Room.”
In this gripping drama starring Brie Larson, viewers must imagine how motherly love and hope could persist amid the claustrophobia and trauma of captivity. Larson plays a woman who’s been held in a filthy shed for seven years, including five she spent raising a son she had as a result of being raped by her captor. Based on a novel by Emma Donoghue, “Room” paints a believable picture of how a mother and growing child would find ways to cope in this situation — and how they eventually might plot an escape.
“Room” is now streaming on Netflix.
Untold: The Murder of Air McNair
In 2000, Steve McNair and the Tennessee Titans came within a yard of winning Super Bowl XXXIV in a game remembered for one of the most thrilling championship finishes in NFL history. McNair was a perennial star who was named co-MVP with Peyton Manning in 2003. His life was tragically cut short in a shooting that was ruled a murder-suicide on the Fourth of July in 2009.
Fifteen years later, the investigation into McNair’s death is examined in a new volume of Netflix’s “Untold” documentary series. McNair was 36 when he was killed by his 20-year-old girlfriend, Jenni Kazemi, who had purchased a gun the night before the shooting at a condo in downtown Nashville. The documentary looks at various circumstances surrounding the shooting and pays tribute to McNair through interviews with those close to him, including former Titans head coach Jeff Fisher.
The documentary is now available to stream on Netflix.
I May Destroy You’sMichaela Coel is teaming up with HBO and the BBC on her next drama series.
Coel is writing and starring in First Day On Earth, a ten-part series that she describes as “another very personal story for me”.
It comes four years after I May Destroy You launched on the WBD network and the British public broadcaster.
Coel will star as British novelist Henri, who is stuck. Work has dried up, her relationship is going nowhere. So, when she’s offered a job on a film in Ghana, West Africa – her parents’ homeland, where her estranged father lives – she can’t resist the chance to reconnect with him and the country of her heritage. But when she arrives neither the job nor her father turn out the way she expected, and soon Henri has to deal with danger and hypocrisy, form new friendships, lose her illusions, and create a new sense of identity – one that might leave her stronger, but could also break her.
The series comes from Various Artists, which was founded by Succession’s Jesse Armstrong, his PeepShow collaborator Sam Bain and former Channel 4 commissioners Phil Clarke and Roberto Troni, and A24.
Various Artists (VAL) produced I May Destroy You and Coel has worked with A24 on upcoming film Mother, Mary.
Coel will exec produce the series alongside Armstrong, Clarke and Troni as well as Jo McClellan for the BBC, and Piers Wenger for A24. Filming begins next year.
Coel said, “I am delighted to be working with VAL, HBO and the BBC again, and to partner with A24; thanks to all of their combined taste, care and expertise, I feel our show is in great hands. First Day On Earth is another very personal story for me which I hope will engage viewers from all over the world, and I can’t wait for audiences to go on Henri’s journey with her.”
Amy Gravitt, EVP, HBO & Max Comedy Programming, said, “Michaela’s words have the ability to transport the reader like no other. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to continue the conversation that began with I May Destroy You, alongside our close collaborators at VAL, A24 and the BBC. With Henri as our guide, First Day On Earth is as lyrical as it is visceral in its excavation of the idea of home. “
Lindsay Salt, director of BBC Drama, added: “Michaela is one of those exceptional talents whose work I have long admired. I May Destroy You is one of the reasons I wanted to join the BBC. In First Day On Earth, Michaela has created another unmissable series – truly original, heartfelt, hilarious, poetic storytelling and told in a way that only Michaela can. I can’t wait for everyone to see it.”
