By the time I reached the fourth grade, Diane Keaton had already cemented herself as my preferred romantic heroine. Snow White and The Sound of Music’s Maria von Trapp paled in comparison to Erica Barry, the 50-something divorced playwright at the center of Nancy Meyers’s Something’s Gotta Give (2003)—coincidentally, one of the four DVDs my now 80-year-old grammy owned in the pre-streaming era.
Even in my prepubescent state (or perhaps because of it), something about Keaton’s version of falling in love in the movies resonated. Maybe it was the way she so openly resented Jack Nicholson’s aging playboy, Harry. While laid up in her Hamptons home after a heart attack, Harry asks Erica, “What’s with the turtlenecks?” She curtly replies: “I like ’em. I’ve always liked ’em, and I’m just a turtleneck kind of gal,” flippantly waving her hands in a way that’s always stuck with me. He then wants to know if she ever gets hot—and all that implies. “No,” Keaton’s character snaps, dismissively adding, “Not lately.” But there is also a hint of possibility—something Erica allows herself to express in the play she’s writing, but not the life she’s living.
Later in the film, the shedding of that same article of clothing signifies Erica’s sexual reawakening. “Cut it off,” she tells Harry, handing him a pair of scissors so he can slice open the beige turtleneck from navel to neck. With each inch of skin revealed, she breathes a little easier. “Erica, you are a woman to love,” Nicholson’s character rasps. And so was the woman who played her. “Diane Keaton, arguably the most covered up person in the history of clothes, is also a transparent woman,” as Meryl Streeponce put it. “There’s nobody who stands more exposed, more undefended, and just willing to show herself inside and out than Diane.”
The fifth season of Only Murders in the Building premiered on Tuesday, September 9th, with three new episodes chronicling the latest mysterious death to occur at the fictional Arconia. (Further new episodes will be released weekly on Tuesdays until the season finale on October 28.) In the latest installment, crime solving trio and podcast co-hosts Charles-Haden Savage, Oliver Putnam, and Mabel Mora, played by Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez respectively, will have to join forces one again to figure out who murdered their beloved doorman, Lester (Teddy Coluca).
Outside of the show, the trio has a wedding to prepare for. Gomez is planning to wed music producer Benny Blanco, and though a wedding date hasn’t been set yet, both Gomez and Blanco have gone on bachelorette and bachelor parties—Gomez to Mexico and Blanco to Vegas—according to People. While appearing on The Tonight Show to promote the new season of Only Murders, Gomez, flanked by Short and Martin, fielded questions about her upcoming nuptials from host Jimmy Fallon. “It’s wonderful, I’m very lucky, everything is going well,” she said. “I’m sure our invitations will be arriving any day now…”, quipped Martin, leading Fallon to ask if she invited her elder co-stars.
“Of course they’re invited. Marty will be the ring bearer”, said Gomez. In true Short fashion, the SAG Award winner broke out a Gollum impression. “Here’s your ring Selena! Take it,” joked Short.
John Candy is having a bit of a moment. While it has been more than three decades since the beloved Canadian comic actor died tragically too soon, at the age of 43, of a heart attack, his legacy continues to burn brightly. Last year marked the 40th anniversary of Splash, the film that really jump-started Candy’s big screen career; next month sees the release of the biography, John Candy: A Life in Comedy, penned by Paul Myers (brother of Mike); and this week the Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its 50th anniversary edition with the premiere of John Candy: I Like Me, a big-hearted documentary that’s as embracing and generous of spirit as the man himself. It launches on Amazon Prime Video starting October 10.
Directed by Colin Hanks, and featuring testimonials and reminiscences from those who knew him best — family, friends and colleagues including Dan Aykroyd, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Andrea Martin, Bill Murray and Hanks’ dad Tom, who played his brother in the aforementioned Splash — the assessment of Candy’s life and legacy provides ample cause for laughter while also provoking plenty of tears. Residing just beneath that easygoing, eager-to-please, everyman exterior was a chronic anxiety that reached a crippling peak during his final years.
John Candy: I Like Me
The Bottom Line
The affection is infectious.
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations) Airdate: Friday, October 10 (Prime Video) Director: Colin Hanks
1 hour 53 minutes
As Hanks charts Candy’s career trajectory from the Second City stages in Chicago and Toronto to cult sketch series SCTV to serving as John Hughes’ muse in eight collaborations — including Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, from which the documentary derives its title, and Uncle Buck — he never loses sight of that nagging undercurrent of insecurity that would haunt the actor despite those successes. As O’Brien puts it, “This industry is very unhealthy for people-pleasers.”
Toronto-raised John Franklin Candy was a shy, introverted big kid who was all of 5 years old when his own father died at age 35, also from heart disease. He’d gain confidence performing improv and sketch comedy, but it was his character work on SCTV, including his inspired takes on Pavarotti, Julia Child and Orson Welles, that made industry folk sit up and take notice.
Spielberg would come calling with a part in 1941. Mel Brooks, on the high praise friend Carl Reiner had for Candy after directing him in Summer Rental, proceeded to cast him as the half-man, half-dog Barf in Spaceballs. “He stuck acting in his back pocket and behaved like a human being,” says Brooks of Candy’s professional ethic.
Despite all that good stuff coming his way, there was still that stubborn undercurrent of melancholy. In response to news of John Belushi (who had tried to persuade his old Second City buddy to join him on Saturday Night Live) dying of a drug overdose in 1982, SCTV colleague Dave Thomas tearfully recalls a despondent Candy saying, “Oh God, it’s starting.” As Thomas elaborates, he carried the weight of his father’s passing every day.
Ironically, eating and drinking would become Candy’s coping mechanism, even as he was aware of his family history. And while his wife Rose shares he would often work out with a trainer and go on extreme diets, she adds that “the industry wanted him big” and his representation wasn’t exactly thrilled when he once shed close to 100 pounds.
By the early ’90s, when he was no longer picking the hits — as one interviewer not-so-gingerly puts it, “You’ve been in more turkeys than a stuffing mix” — Candy embarked on a second career as co-owner of the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, along with Wayne Gretzky and Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall.
By then increasingly plagued by panic attacks, he’d die in his sleep on March 4, 1994, while on location in Durango, Mexico, filming the ill-fated comedy Wagons East.
Hanks — who previously directed a pair of music-themed documentaries, including All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records — knows to give the assembled wealth of comedic talent, along with Candy’s widow and two adult children, all the space they need to share the many lively and affecting anecdotes. He accompanies those with a generous sampling of memorable movie and TV clips, archival interview and home movie footage, not to mention a stirring Cynthia Erivo cover of “Every Time You Go Away” by Daryl Hall & John Oates.
When it comes to wanting to emulate a certain screenwriter, the biggest “douchebag cliché” veers toward Charlie Kaufman worship. In the screenwriting world, it almost amounts to the same thing as a literary writer worshipping David Foster Wallace—who, yes, is mentioned within the first two minutes of Only Murders in the Building’s fifth episode in season four, “Adaptation.” (Specifically, “I can quote David Foster Wallace AND Ace Ventura.” Which is not exactly something to be proud of.) Obviously named as such in honor of Kaufman’s grudging homage to the masochism of screenwriting in the 2002 film of the same name.
To convey the masochism and imposter syndrome that’s particularly unique to screenwriting, Marshall P. Pope (Jin Ha) opens the episode with the age-old question, “What makes a writer a real writer?” For most, whether writers or not, the answer, tragically, remains: being paid for it. Because being paid for things is what’s supposed to make you feel like a “real person” in general. But that sensation magnifies tenfold when you’re a writer—and, unfortunately, just one of many in the competitive cesspool of overall mediocrity that often actually allows only the mediocre to rise to the top.
After selling his script to Paramount (with producer Bev Melon [Molly Shannon] at the helm), Marshall fears that he might be just that sort of “success story” as he applies a fake mustache and beard in front of the mirror (an Antonioni poster looming in the background for added pretentious, pseudointellectual flair) to make himself appear more “writerly.” More “worldly,” as he calls it. And, as most people in New York will maintain, “It’s about convincing the world and, honestly, yourself that you have the goods.” The old “fake it till you make it” chestnut. A vexing platitude that was much easier to execute back during a time when absolutely every embarrassing and/or compromising detail about your past couldn’t be dredged up somewhere on the internet and used against/to discredit you.
Even so, Marshall tries his best to evoke the “Kaufman look” (a picture of Charlie tacked to the mirror, in what could be called Single Asian Male-style) in the hope that said screenwriter’s own “brilliance” might rub off on him. Because, as Marshall also adds, “The look only gets you so far.” Theoretically, you’re supposed to have some talent, too. But that theory seems quaint now, rooted in the days before the Kardashians landed onto the scene. Marshall then instructs, “It comes down to what’s on the page.” Alas, if that were truly the case, movies like Madame Web would never be made.
While OMITB’s “Adaptation” never bothers with getting meta in quite the same intense, envelope-pushing way as Kaufman’s movie (though, on a related note, Meryl Streep was in Adaptation just as she’s in season four of OMITB), the episode’s own writers, Steve Martin, John Hoffman and J.J. Philbin, are sure to drive home the meta aspect that stems from Charles-Haden Savage (Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) being forced by the studio turning their podcast into a film (rather than the movie-within-a-movie genre, OMITB seeks to embody the less-trodden movie-within-a-TV-show genre) to be photographed with their so-called doppelgangers: the actors playing them. For Charles, it’s Eugene Levy; for Oliver, it’s Zach Galifianakis; for Mabel, it’s Eva Longoria (who tells Mabel she’s been “aged up” to make her relationship with two old men seem less creepy). This serves only as more creative fodder for Marshall as he delves into additional rewrites on the script after spending more time with the trio (thanks to being questioned by them as a suspect).
As Mabel and Charles wrap up their questioning of their “suspect,” Mabel can’t resist the inclination to ask, “Is your beard…fake?” An embarrassed Marshall replies, “Oh god, is it that obvious? This is supposed to be costume-grade human hair.” When Mabel continues to probe about why he has it, Marshall admits, “I can’t really grow facial hair and… I wanted to sell myself as a ‘real writer.’ This is the look, right?” Charles and Mabel both regard him as though he’s the saddest creature in the world before Charles gently inquires, “How could a writer of your talent have imposter syndrome?” Mabel, however, can immediately relate to knowing what it’s like to be good at what your passion is, yet still not really believe in that talent even after being accepted by the Establishment. Indeed, for Mabel, Establishment acceptance seems to be another sign, to her, that she’s an imposter. Particularly after Bev laps up every half-cooked idea she offers as Bev’s next adaptation-from-a-podcast movie.
As for Martin (even if playing Charles while saying it) asking the abovementioned question, he’s no doubt speaking from his own experience in the screenwriting field, a métier that makes most of its pursuers feel like a fraud. Especially if they’ve never even sold a script. That one-in-a-million chance befalling only so many aspirants—and it’s typically only the most annoying, least talented ones who are willing to openly say, “Yeah, I’m a screenwriter” despite having no evidence other than an ego and a spec script to back it up.
But what this episode of OMITB aims to do (apart from introducing a pair of new lead suspects) is assure those billed as “amateur” artists that said word is not a bad thing. That, in fact, it proves one is doing it for the love of the art rather than the quest for commercial “glory.” Marshall initially serves as a representation of both sides of that coin, albeit one who only really wants “success” because he’s been conditioned his entire life, like everyone else, to believe that art has value solely if it’s being in some way corporately subsidized. Therefore, “sanctioned” by a “higher power.”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The 76th annual Emmy Awards were handed out Sunday at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
“Shogun” set a single season record for most wins with 18. “Shogun” won best drama series, and Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai won acting awards for their roles.
“Hacks’’ won the award for best comedy series. ”Baby Reindeer” and “The Bear’’ won four awards apiece.
Early winners included Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jeremy Allen White and Liza Colón-Zayas, who won awards for their work in the comedy series “The Bear.”
Stars presenting Emmys to their peers included: Billy Crystal, Viola Davis, Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, Maya Rudolph and Martin Sheen.
Several actors and shows, including Rudolph, won last week. Rudolph won her sixth Emmy Award at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys for her voice work on “Big Mouth.” Jamie Lee Curtis also picked up a supporting actress Emmy last weekend for her appearance on “The Bear.”
Here’s a list of winners at Sunday’s Emmys:
Drama series
“Shogun”
Comedy series
“Hacks”
Limited, anthology series, movie
“Baby Reindeer”
Actor in a drama series
Hiroyuki Sanada, “Shogun”
Actress in a drama series
Anna Sawai, “Shogun”
Supporting actor in a drama series
Billy Crudup, “The Morning Show”
Supporting actress in a drama series
Elizabeth Debicki, “The Crown”
Actor in a comedy series
Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”
Actress in a comedy series
Jean Smart, “Hacks”
Supporting actress in a comedy series
Liza Colón-Zayas, “The Bear”
Supporting actor in a comedy series
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”
Actor in a limited, anthology series or movie
Richard Gadd, “Baby Reindeer”
Actress in a limited, anthology series or movie
Jodie Foster, “True Detective: Night Country”
Supporting actress limited, anthology series or movie
Jessica Gunning, “Baby Reindeer”
Supporting actor in a limited, anthology series or movie
Lamorne Morris, “Fargo”
Reality competition program
“The Traitors,” Peacock
Scripted variety series
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
Talk series
“The Daily Show”
Writing for a variety special
Alex Edelman, “Just for Us”
Writing for a comedy series
Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, “Hacks”
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” returning for its second season and Adam Sandler’s first comedy special since 2018 are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.
Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: John Legend offers his first-ever children’s album, season four of “Only Murders in the Building” shifts to Los Angeles and DJ and dance producer Zedd is back with an album after nearly a decade.
NEW MOVIES TO STREAM
— “The Fall Guy” is finally coming to Peacock, where it will be streaming starting Friday, Aug. 30, alongside an “extended cut” version. It might not have reached the blockbuster heights the studio dreamed about during its theatrical run, but it’s pure delight: A comedy, action, romance that soars thanks to the charisma of its stars. Based on the 1980s Lee Majors television series (he gets a cameo), the film features Ryan Gosling as a stunt man, Emily Blunt as his director and dream girl, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as an egotistical movie star and “Ted Lasso’s” Hannah Waddingham as a Diet Coke slurping producer.
— Ishana Night Shyamalan’s thriller, “The Watchers,” in which Dakota Fanning plays an artist stranded in western Ireland where mysterious creatures lurk and stalk in the night, begins streaming on MAX on Friday, Aug. 30.
— Emma Stone gives a performance (and interpretive dance) worth watching in “ Kinds of Kindness,” her latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos fresh on the heels of her Oscar-winning turn in “Poor Things.” The film, streaming on Hulu on Friday, Aug. 30, is a triptych with a big ensemble cast including Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons (who won a prize for his performance at Cannes), Hong Chau, Margaret Qualley, Mamoudou Athie and Joe Alwyn. Jocelyn Noveck, in her Associated Press review, described it as “a meditation on our free will and the ways we willingly forfeit it to others — in the workplace, at home, and in religion.” Noveck wrote that the “Stone-Lanthimos pairing… is continuing to nurture an aspect of Stone’s talents that increasingly sets her apart: Her fearlessness and the obvious joy she derives from it.”
— Somehow the Yorgos Lanthimos film is not the most eccentric new streaming offering this week. That title goes to “ Sasquatch Sunset,” Nathan and David Zellner’s experimental film about a family of sasquatches just living their lives. Starring an essentially unrecognizable Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough (in addition to Nathan Zellner), this Sundance curiosity begins streaming on Paramount+ on Monday. In his review for the AP, Mark Kennedy wrote that it is “a bewildering 90-minute, narrator-less and wordless experiment that’s as audacious as it is infuriating. It’s not clear if everyone was high making it or we should be while watching it.”
— DJ and dance producer Zedd is back with an album after nearly a decade, “Telos.” The first single is the appropriately titled “Out of Time” featuring Bea Miller, a dreamy tune with atmospheric strings that builds into a dancefloor banger. Zedd has revealed that he started writing “Out Of Time” way back in 2015 but was never able to finish it. That changed with Bea — “her voice added an emotional depth that completed the song. ‘Out Of Time’ really encapsulates the DNA of the Telos album, which is why I chose it to be the song that introduces this new era,” he says.
— If you’re into a slower change of pace, check out John Legend, who releases his first children’s album, “My Favorite Dream,” on Friday, Aug. 30. It’s produced by the chamber pop polymath Sufjan Stevens and centers on universal themes like love, safety, family and dreams across nine original tracks, two covers, a solo piano track and three bonus covers of Fisher-Price songs.
— Get ready for a blast of K-pop — on your television. Apple TV+ has the six part documentary “K-Pop Idols,” a behind-the-scenes look at the highly competitive reality of K-pop stardom, starting Friday, Aug. 30. It features Jessi, CRAVITY and BLACKSWAN as they learn choreography and pull everything together to seize the stage. Producers say the series “follows the superstars through trials and triumphs, breaking down cultural and musical barriers in K-pop with passion, creativity and determination as they chase their dreams.”
— RZA takes a sharp turn as a classical composer with the album “A Ballet Through Mud.” The composition made its debut in the form of a ballet last year, performed by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Composed and scored by the Wu-Tang Clan star, the piece mirrors his journey from growing up in the projects in New York City to famous artist, “weaving in tales of love, loss, exploration, Buddhist monks, and a journey ‘through mud.‘” RZA says he began the project early in the pandemic after rediscovering notebooks full of lyrics he had written as a teenager. “The inspiration for ‘A Ballet Through Mud’ comes from my earliest creative output as a teenager, but its themes are universal — love, exploration, and adventure,” he says.
— Adam Sandler has the feels in his new Netflix special “Adam Sandler: Love You” featuring his standup and trademark comedy songs. It’s directed by Josh Safdie who — with his brother Benny — co-directed Sandler in the 2019 movie “Uncut Gems.” “Love You” is Sandler’s first comedy special since 2018. It premieres Tuesday on Netflix.
— Charles, Oliver and Mabel (Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez) head to Los Angeles in season four of “Only Murders in the Building,” because their podcast is being turned into a film. Their Hollywood life is interrupted when another murder occurs, meaning the trio has a new case to cover. Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis and Eva Longoria join the cast. “Only Murders in the Building” premieres Tuesday on Hulu.
— A new animated series in the “Terminator” universe comes to Netflix on Thursday. It follows new characters voiced by “House of the Dragon” actor Sonoya Mizuno, Timothy Olyphant, André Holland Rosario Dawson and Ann Dowd.
— Luke Skywalker may get the headlines, but the true MVPs of the Star Wars franchise are rascals like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian. Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws introduces a new scoundrel: Kay Vess, a young thief who’s trying to work her way up the galaxy’s crime syndicates and make the big score. She isn’t a Jedi or a Sith, but she knows how to fire a blaster and fly a spaceship. Outlaws comes from Massive Entertainment, the developers of Tom Clancy’s The Division, and it aims to spread Ubisoft’s brand of open-world adventure across multiple planets. It launches Friday, Aug. 30, on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.
— Many gamers who grew up with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System remember 1993’s Secret of Mana as their introduction to a particular type of high-fantasy role-playing. It’s been 15 years since we’ve gotten a new chapter in the marquee Mana series, but Square Enix is finally delivering Visions of Mana. A youngster named Val is chosen to accompany his friend Hinna on a pilgrimage to the life-sustaining Mana Tree, and they’ll need to use magic and swordplay to fight all the monsters along the way. The lush, anime-style graphics are bound to stir memories in old-school RPG fans, starting Thursday, Aug. 29, on PlayStation 5/4, Xbox X/S and PC.
LOS ANGELES — Steve Martin’s next role will not be the Midwestern politician the internet hoped he’d portray.
With Maya Rudolph’s wildly popular impression of Kamala Harris on “Saturday Night Live,” fans clamored to see who the late-night comedy show would pick to play Harris’ new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
With similar hairstyles and their signature glasses, many fans quickly drew comparisons between Walz and Martin, who’s been a frequent “SNL” guest but never a formal cast member.
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels called Martin to offer him the role on the upcoming 50th season, premiering Sept. 28, which he declined.
“I wanted to say no and, by the way, he wanted me to say no,” Martin said. “I said, ‘Lorne, I’m not an impressionist. You need someone who can really nail the guy.’ I was picked because I have gray hair and glasses.”
Steve Martin is seen at “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on June 24, 2024 in Los Angeles.
PG/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty Images
Although Martin initially leaned into the fun, writing on social platform Threads that he “just learned that Tim Walz wants to go on the road with Marty Short,” he also noted the impression comes with a long-term commitment of performing on the show.
“It’s ongoing,” Martin told the Times. “It’s not like you do it once and get applause and never do it again. Again, they need a real impressionist to do that. They’re gonna find somebody really, really good. I’d be struggling.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks during a press conference on Aug. 1, 2024 in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Stephen Maturen / Getty Images
Rudolph, for her part, will reportedly reprise her Emmy-winning role on the show as Kamala Harris, and she seems to understand the undertaking. Deadline reported that Rudolph pushed the shooting schedule for the comedy series “Loot” from August to January to accommodate playing the role through the election season. Rudolph executive produces and stars in the series.
The “Bridesmaids” actor first played “America’s funt” – or “fun aunt” – on “SNL” in 2019 when Harris was running for president and continued with the role after she was announced as Joe Biden’s running mate.
Walz was among a deep bench of potential running mates for Harris that included Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
Now in his second term as governor, Walz, 60, also served 12 years as a U.S. congressman before his successful 2018 run to lead the state.
NEW YORK – Steve Martin has long marveled at the many phases of his life. There’s his youth as a Disneyland performer, surrounded by vaudeville performers and magicians. A decade as a stand-up before the sudden onset of stadium-sized popularity. An abrupt shift to movies. Later, a new chapter as a banjo player, a father and, a comedy act, once again, with Martin Short.
It’s such a confounding string of chapters that Martin has typically only approached his life piecemeal or schizophrenically. He titled an audiobook “So Many Steves.” His memoir, “Born Standing Up,” covered only his stand-up years. In it, he wrote that it was really a biography “because I am writing about someone I used to know.”
“My life has many octopus arms,” Martin says, speaking from his New York apartment.
People participate in documentaries for all kinds of reasons. But Martin may be unique in making a film about his life with the instruction of: “See if you can make sense of all THAT.” Morgan Neville, the documentary filmmaker of the Fred Rogers film “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and the posthumous Anthony Bourdain portrait “Roadrunner,” took up the challenge.
Yet Neville, too, was hesitant about any holistic view of Martin. The resulting film is really two. “STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces,” premiering Friday on Apple TV+, splits Martin’s story in two halves. One depicts Martin’s stand-up as it unfolded, with copious contributions from journal entries and old photographs. The other captures Martin’s life as it is today — riding electric bikes with Short, practicing the banjo — with reflections on the career that followed.
It’s an attempt to synthesize all the Steve Martins, or at least line them up next to each other. The “King Tut” guy with the arrow through his head. The “wild and crazy guy.” The “Jerk.” The Grammy-winner. The novel writer. And the self-lacerating comic who says in the film: “I guarantee I had no talent. None.”
“I’m going to say something very immodest: I have a modesty about my career,” Martin says, chuckling. “Just because you do a lot of things doesn’t mean they’re good. I know that time evaluates things. So there’s nothing for me to stand on to evaluate my efforts. But an outsider can make sense of it.”
Neville, who joined the video call from his home in Pasadena, California, didn’t set out to make two films about Martin. But six months into the process, it crystalized for him as the right structure. Through lines emerged.
“When I look at the things Steve’s done in his life — playing banjo, magic, stand-up — these are things that take great effort to master,” Neville says. “But in a way, it’s the constant working at it. Even seeing Steve pick up a banjo, it’s never, ‘I nailed it.’ It’s always: ‘I could do that a little better.’”
Looking back hasn’t come naturally to Martin. He’s long resisted the kind of life-story treatment of a film like “STEVE!” But Martin, 78, grants he’s now at that time of life where you can’t help it. Even if reliving some things smarts.
“The first part, that’s what I really have a hard time watching,” Martin says. “When I’m on black-and-white homemade video being so not funny.”
Martin grew up in Orange County in awe of Jerry Lewis, Laurel and Hardy and Nichols and May. His first job, as an 11-year-old, was selling guide books at Disneyland. He drifted toward the Main Street Magic Shop. Stage performers like Wally Boag became his idols.
When Martin, after studying philosophy in college and writing for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” began stand-up, he drew copiously from Boag and others, filtering the showmanship of vaudeville into an avantgarde act, just with balloon animals and an arrow through his head. Donning the persona of, as he says in the film, “a comedian who thinks he’s funny but isn’t,” his routine moved away from punchlines and toward an absurd irony with “free-form laughter.”
Martin’s act was groundbreaking and, in the 1970s, when most comics were doing political material, it became wildly popular. “He’s up there with the most idolized comedians ever,” Jerry Seinfeld says in the film. Now, Martin doesn’t see much from those years that makes him laugh.
“Then there are these moments that I think of as performance glory, but they last a minute or two minutes. It was all so new. It was exciting because it was new to the audience and to me.”
Martin tends to be hard on himself. In one late scene in “STEVE!” he and Short are going over possible jokes, but most don’t make the cut for Martin.
It’s tempting to assign some of this nature to Martin’s famously critical father, Glenn, a real-estate salesman who had his own unrealized ambitions in show business. At dinner after the premiere of “The Jerk,” he pronounced his son “no Charlie Chaplin.” But Martin disagrees.
“I don’t think so,” says Martin. “It’s good to be hard on yourself. It’s just the way I do it. I just want to go over it and go over it. I realize it’s all in the details. It’s all in the timing.”
That makes Martin think of a joke that he and Short have considered for their act but thus far deemed too esoteric.
“I say, ‘You know, Marty, some comedians say funny things. And some comedians say things funny. And you just say … things,’” says Martin, laughing. “But there’s a truth in saying funny things and saying things funny. You walk the line. Our lives now are saying funny things and it used to be saying things funny.”
It’s a line, typically exact in its wording, that perfectly represents the irony of Martin’s own life. In 1981, Martin quit stand-up, he thought for good. The act had run its course and he was happy to transition to movies. It wasn’t until decades later, when Martin prepared to tour as a banjo player, that a friend convinced him audiences were going to want a little banter in between songs.
“So I had this terror and I started working on material,” Martin says. “Eventually I became what I grew up with, which is a folk music act with a funny monologist, making funny intros to songs.”
That’s bled into Martin’s unexpected return to stand-up. Martin and Short, friends since the 1986 comedy “Three Amigos!” have become the premier double act of today, starring on the acclaimed Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building” and performing on the road. They cuttingly but affectionately volley quip after quip with the finesse of Grand Slam champions.
The irony isn’t lost on Martin. The no-punchline comedian has become a lover of punchlines.
“I’ve morphed into a person who really appreciates the joy of telling jokes,” shrugs Martin. “Marty and I in our show is joke after joke after joke.”
It’s not the only reversal Martin never expected. After spending most of his life not wanting children, Martin and his wife of 17 years, Anne Stringfield, have an 11-year-old daughter. She’s seen only as a cartoon in “STEVE!” to protect her privacy.
Even more confounding for Martin: After a life riddled by anxiety he’s strangely content. Maybe even happy. “Yes, I hate to say it,” Martin says shaking his head.
Martin likes to say he has a “relaxed mind” now. He’s peeled away a lot — competitiveness, people or situations who brought him grief — and has narrowed his life down to things that matter most to him.
“I have this thing that I’ve noticed,” Martin says. “As we age, we either become our best selves or our worst selves. I’ve seen people become their worst selves and I’ve seen people who were tough, difficult people early on become better selves.”
In the film, Martin puts it: “I look back and go, ‘What an odd life.’ My whole life was backwards.”
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, StyleCaster may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Apple TV is honoring legendary actor and comedian Steve Martin with a two-part documentary about his career. To find out how the Only Murders In The Building and Father of the Bride star became one of the most significant figures in acting and comedy, read on to learn how to watch the Steve Martin documentary for free below.
STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces is an upcoming two-part documentary on Apple TV+. The first episode centers on the actor’s “early struggles and meteoric rise to revolutionize standup before walking away at 35,” while the second part follows his current life at the pinnacle of his acting career. Martin will also contemplate “the journey that brought him fulfillment in both his craft and personal life,” the documentary’s description reads.
In the trailer for the project, Martin shares that he felt at one point, “all comedy was political,” and he wanted to change that. He also touches on his meteoric rise to fame. “I was launched into the stratosphere. I was scared out of my mind,” he reveals as posters of his most popular titles, including Cheaper By the Dozen and Father of the Bride, flashes on the screen.
“My whole life is backwards,” the actor admits in the trailer. “How did I go from riddled with anxiety in my 30s to 75 and really happy?” Find out how to tune into the Steve Martin documentary for free below.
When does the Steve Martin documentary air?
The Steve Martin documentary, STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces, airs on Friday, March 29, at 12 a.m. ET on Apple TV Plus.
Where to watch the Steve Martin documentary for free
The Steve Martin documentary is available to stream on Apple TV Plus in 100 countries, which offers a seven-day free trial and costs $9.99 per month after the trial ends. Along with the Steve Martin documentary, Apple TV Plus also includes dozens of Apple Originals with new content add each month. Apple Originals include award-winning comedy and drama series such as Ted Lasso, Severance, Masters of the Air, The Morning Show and Bad Sisters, as well as original movies, documentaries, and children’s content. Apple TV Plus additionally allows users to stream on up to five devices and download content to watch offline.
How to the Steve Martin documentary for free
Read on for step-by-step instructions on how to watch the Steve Martin documentary on Apple TV Plus.
Search for “STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces” and start watching
What is the Steve Martin documentary about?
What is the Steve Martin documentary about? STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces tells the actor’s story by using never-before-seen footage and raw insights into Martin’s personal and professional successes and failures. According to Apple TV+, the first part of the documentary “chronicles Martin’s early struggles and meteoric rise to revolutionize stand-up before walking away at 35.” The second episode focuses on the present day, including Martin in the golden years of his career and “retracing the transformation that led to happiness in his art and personal life.”
The documentary will also feature a cameo from Martin’s Only Murders in the Building co-star and fellow comedian/actor Martin Short. “Why don’t I interview you as we’re driving?” Short asks while bike riding with Martin. “It’s called biking, but sure,” Martin responds to his co-star with a laugh. Tina Fey and Jerry Seinfeld will also guest star in the documentary.
Episodes 1 and 2 of STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces will be released simultaneously on Friday, March 29.
What are Steve Martin’s TV shows and movies?
What are Steve Martin’s TV shows and movies? The actor, comedian, writer, and producer has appeared in hundreds of movie and TV projects throughout his career. After quitting stand-up in 1981, he entered his film career and cemented his name in Hollywood, appearing in hits like The Jerk, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Father of the Bride. His other notable projects include Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, All of Me, Roxanne, Three Amigos, L.A. Story, and Parenthood.
“Even with a great director, a great writer and a great actor, it doesn’t mean you’re going to make a great movie,” the Emmy- and Grammy-winning entertainer revealed in an interview withUSA Today. “It’s a little bit of calculation and a lot of luck.”
Most recently, Martin has found success portraying Charles Savage in Only Murders in the Building, which he co-created in 2021. The series, which has three seasons and is returning for a fourth, quickly became Hulu’s most-watched original comedy.
After Only Murders wraps up, Martin hinted that he’ll likely slow down after more than 60 years in the business. “When this television show is done, I’m not going to seek others. I’m not going to seek other movies. I don’t want to do cameos. This is, weirdly, it,” Martin told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2022. He continued, “I’m really not interested in retiring. I’m not. But I would just work a little less. Maybe.”
Watch the trailer for STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces below.
You don’t usually associate the sound of a banjo with a view of New York City, but with Steve Martin, it all seems to work. He played for “Sunday Morning” at his apartment last month, and to everyone there, he sounded amazing.
But to him, it wasn’t quite good enough. “Oh, I blew it there!” he said.
Banjo player Steve Martin, also known to tell a few jokes.
CBS News
In some ways, it sums up how Martin has lived his whole life. And now, you can see for yourself. A new Apple TV project, “STEVE! (martin) a documentary in two pieces,” traces his path from anxious kid to the superstar we’ve come to know.
At the beginning he states, “I guarantee I had no talent, none.” And he stands by that statement: “Well, meaning I couldn’t sing, dance, or act.”
Smith asked, “So, what do you think; if you had no talent, what did you have?”
“A love of show business,” he replied.
Martin tells his story with the help of filmmaker Morgan Neville, director of the 2018 Fred Rogers documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
Neville explained he’d heard through the grapevine that Martin would be interested: “I heard that somebody in an elevator asked Steve if he was interested in doing a documentary – that is true! – and he said, ‘Maybe.’ And that was the crack in the door.”
Steve Martin and documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville, director of “STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces.”
CBS News
It’s more than just a crack: Neville got all of Martin’s early performances, his detailed diaries, and a good chunk of his time.
The director had been a fan of Martin’s since he was a kid: “When I was 12, I convinced my dad to drive me to Las Vegas to see Steve do standup at the Riviera. I actually got to see Steve do standup. I actually went to the early show and the late show, that same night!”
Martin added, “I was at both of those shows, too.”
One thing Neville discover about Martin is his modesty.
“I think you have to be [modest],” Martin said. “I remember Mike Nichols told me once, he said, ‘When I am in New York, I am Mike Nichols. When I go to L.A., I’m thinking, ‘…How am I doing?!?’“
Seems he took that to heart:
Comedian Steve Martin performs at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin, July 22, 1978.
Paul Natkin/Getty Images
By the late ’70s Martin was wildly successful beyond even his dreams: He was a fixture on “Saturday Night Live”; his comedy tours would sell out coast-to-coast; and his standup record “Let’s Get Small” was the first comedy album to go platinum.
And then, he walked away from the stage. “I was exhausted by it,” he said. “And I thought, ‘Wow. When I do standup, I have to go there. If I do a movie, I stay home, and the movie goes there.’ And also, it had a sense of permanence, like you could get the thing exactly right.”
So, Martin went from standup king to movie star. But he still had his moments of self-doubt.
In the documentary he recalls a journalist asking him, “Why aren’t you funny anymore?”
“It was a bad moment, ’cause I was thinking that myself,” he said. “You go through highs and lows in your career, you know? So, at any moment, you can be thinking, ‘Everything’s working, everything’s feeling great.’ And then, you know, a year later, you’re going, ‘Hmmmm…’”
But there have been plenty of highs, from “The Jerk” and “All of Me,” to “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Three Amigos.” Martin has made more than 40 films, some of which are now considered comedy classics.
“Sometimes, I sort of look around and go, ‘How’d this happen? Where did this come in?’” he said. “And in my most self-congratulatory moment, I go, ‘It all came out of my head!’”
At age 78, he’s on a hit TV show, “Only Murders in the Building”; he’s back doing standup with Martin Short; and he has, by his own admission, mellowed with age.
Smith asked, “One of the things you talk about a lot in the second film is that you’ve changed, and your friends talk about it, too. I think at one point you say, ‘I wasn’t mean, I was just removed.’”
“Yeah,” said Martin. “I remember Tommy Smothers said once, because I was writing on his show, ‘Talking to Steve Martin is like talking to nobody.’ No, I have changed. I don’t know how to quantify it. I’m just nicer, friendlier.
“I have this theory that as you age, you either become your worst self or your best self. And I feel like I’ve become my better self – and I can see other people becoming their worst self. They become more hostile. They become more difficult. And it’s a pretty clear line, for me.”
He says he had no talent, but with his life, Steve Martin’s created a masterpiece.
So, what did he learn about himself while going through the process of being the subject of a documentary? “Well, nothing,” he said.
Nothing? Smith asked, “Then, why do it? What was the point of doing it, for you?”
“Well, it’s part of being in show business, you know?”
“But there’s something more to it for that, because you don’t fall for these trappings of show business, you know what I’m saying? You didn’t have to do this.”
“No, it’s a fantastic outcome, to have a documentary done about you,” he said.
“So, is this kind of what you do? A documentary is just a natural progression?”
“Yeah. I used to watch – I still watch – ‘American Masters,’ thinking, ‘Wow. One day, I’d like to be a subject of a documentary.’ And then suddenly, you are.
“And I’m 78,” he laughed. “When else?”
To watch a trailer for “STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces” click on the video player below:
LOS ANGELES – M. Emmet Walsh, the character actor who brought his unmistakable face and unsettling presence to films including “Blood Simple” and “Blade Runner,” has died at age 88, his manager said Wednesday.
Walsh died from cardiac arrest on Tuesday at a hospital in St. Albans, Vermont, his longtime manager Sandy Joseph said.
The ham-faced, heavyset Walsh often played good old boys with bad intentions, as he did in one of his rare leading roles as a crooked Texas private detective in the Coen brothers’ first film, the 1984 neo-noir “Blood Simple.”
Joel and Ethan Coen said they wrote the part for Walsh, who would win the first Film Independent Spirit Award for best male lead for the role.
Critics and film geeks relished the moments when he showed up on screen.
Roger Ebert once observed that “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”
Walsh played a crazed sniper in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy “The Jerk” and a prostate-examining doctor in the 1985 Chevy Chase vehicle “Fletch.”
In 1982’s gritty, “Blade Runner,” a film he said was grueling and difficult to make with perfectionist director Ridley Scott, Walsh plays a hard-nosed police captain who pulls Harrison Ford from retirement to hunt down cyborgs.
Born Michael Emmet Walsh, his characters led people to believe he was from the American South, but he could hardly have been from any further north.
Walsh was raised on Lake Champlain in Swanton, Vermont, just a few miles from the U.S.-Canadian border, where his grandfather, father and brother worked as customs officers.
He went to a tiny local high school with a graduating class of 13, then to Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
He acted exclusively on the stage, with no intention of doing otherwise, for a decade, working in summer stock and repertory companies.
Walsh slowly started making film appearances in 1969 with a bit role in “Alice’s Restaurant,” and did not start playing prominent roles until nearly a decade after that when he was in his 40s, getting his breakthrough with 1978’s “Straight Time,” in which he played Dustin Hoffman’s smug, boorish parole officer.
Walsh was shooting “Silkwood” with Meryl Streep in Dallas in the autumn of 1982 when he got the offer for “Blood Simple” from the Coen brothers, then-aspiring filmmakers who had seen and loved him in “Straight Time.”
“My agent called with a script written by some kids for a low-budget movie,” Walsh told The Guardian in 2017. “It was a Sydney Greenstreet kind of role, with a Panama suit and the hat. I thought it was kinda fun and interesting. They were 100 miles away in Austin, so I went down there early one day before shooting.”
Walsh said the filmmakers didn’t even have enough money left to fly him to New York for the opening, but he would be stunned that first-time filmmakers had produced something so good.
“I saw it three or four days later when it opened in LA, and I was, like: Wow!” he said. “Suddenly my price went up five times. I was the guy everybody wanted.”
In the film he plays Loren Visser, a detective asked to trail a man’s wife, then is paid to kill her and her lover.
Visser also acts as narrator, and the opening monologue, delivered in a Texas drawl, included some of Walsh’s most memorable lines.
“Now, in Russia they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else. That’s the theory, anyway,” Visser says. “But what I know about is Texas. And down here, you’re on your own.”
He was still working into his late 80s, making recent appearances on the TV series “The Righteous Gemstones” and “American Gigolo.”
And his more than 100 film credits included director Rian Johnson’s 2019 family murder mystery, “Knives Out” and director Mario Van Peebles’ Western “Outlaw Posse,” released this year.
Johnson was among those paying tribute to Walsh on social media.
“Emmet came to set with 2 things: a copy of his credits, which was a small-type single spaced double column list of modern classics that filled a whole page, & two-dollar bills which he passed out to the entire crew,” Johnson tweeted. “’Don’t spend it and you’ll never be broke.’ Absolute legend.”
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
In the words of Monty Python alum and comedy icon Eric Idle, “John’s gone a bit strange.” Sadly, it’s the understatement of the year. From defending J.K. Rowling’s transphobia to sharing his own transphobic tweets, Cleese has lost a lot of the goodwill and adoration he once held among comedy fans. In response, Idle decided it was time to replace Cleese as the voice of God in the new revival of Spamalot.
“Last time we were on Broadway, John Cleese played God. Now, he’s getting on a bit, he’s getting up there, and John’s gone a bit strange,” he said during an interview on The Tonight Show. He then referred to the last time he was on the showwith Cleese, where he threw water over Idle and made a joke about the burning bush to cover it up. Idle then went on to talk about how he took over the role of God briefly, before firing himself. Idle then announced the new voice of God on Broadway: Steve Martin.
Martin and Idle have worked together in the past at events like Earth to America! Casting a legend like Martin the voice of God is not only a big undertaking, but it shows that Idle may finally be done with Cleese for good. Frankly, I’m fine with it.
As someone who loves Monty Python very dearly, watching Cleese turn into someone who whines about “cancel culture” has been upsetting and disappointing. The iconic comedy troupe, which gave us movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail (which Spamalot is based on), Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, and Monty Python’s Life of Brian, was a staple of the comedy community. Idle seemingly separating from Cleese, and doing so in a way that wasn’t flashy or tearing Cleese down, is both honorable and noteworthy.
Steve Martin is the perfect choice for God
Martin as the voice of God makes sense because of Martin’s own comedy roots and Broadway experience. A Tony Award nominee, Martin is no stranger to musicals. He’s also no stranger to good comedy. While I grew up with the work of Monty Python, I’d probably say that Steve Martin was more of a staple in my household. Still, I know all the words to “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
Martin is a song and dance man (as seen most recently in the third season of Only Murders in the Building) who loves to have a bit of fun. It’s this quality that makes him one of the best performers around. Granted, while we won’t be seeing him (it’s a voice-only role), it is still nice to add him to the already stacked line-up of Spamalot. The revival cast includes a lot of iconic comedians from Saturday Night Live and Broadway like Taran Killam as Lancelot, Christopher Fitzgerald (who was nominated for a Tony for his work in Waitress the Musical) as Patsy, James Monroe Iglehart (who won a Tony for his work in Aladdin) as King Arthur, our upcoming Boq in Wicked and star of Spongebob Squarepants the Musical Ethan Slater as the Historian, and so many more!
As a fan of both Martin and Idle, I hope we see more of them together. Maybe with a little shading of Cleese on the side.
Steve Martin on Monday clapped back at a Florida county for pulling his novel “Shopgirl” from its school library shelves.
The book is among hundreds of titles being removed from Collier County Public Schools libraries, after the Florida Legislature passed a bill earlier this year permitting schools to restrict classroom materials about gender and sexuality.
Martin reacted with mock glee.
“So proud to have my book Shopgirl banned in Collier County, Florida!” he wrote on Instagram. “Now people who want to read it will have to buy a copy!”
His 2000 novella is about a department store sales clerk who falls for an older man. Martin also adapted it into a 2005 movie and starred as the older man, with Claire Danes playing the clerk.
“Shopgirl is a work of disarming tenderness,” reads an official book description.
Martin is in some prominent literary company. Collier County is also reportedly banning a number of books by Stephen King, in addition to works by Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker and Ernest Hemingway.
One high-profile historian has said the book restrictions under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), also a 2024 presidential candidate, are reminiscent of communism.
A twice-repeated “joke” in the formulaic (for the series) season finale of Only Murders in the Building, “Opening Night,” has two of its main characters telling their current significant others, “I like LA…in small doses.” The “I like LA” said in a manner in which a person might note that they don’t mind something, but of course it wouldn’t be their first choice. As it isn’t for Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), the former being the one to utter this “quip” first while grossly kissing his leading lady, Loretta Durkin (Meryl Streep), at the after-party for Death Rattle Dazzle!’s opening night.
The subject comes up because Loretta is being approached with other offers after her performance in the musical is well-received. Offers that would inevitably take her to the place where successful actors go: Hollywood. This adding another cliffhanger-y effect (along with the predictable murder of yet another person who orbits the Oliver/Mabel/Charles-Haden trio) to the finale that will allow a dragging out of events for season four.
In another scene from the party, Mabel then repeats that exact sentiment to her cameraman boyfriend, Tobert (Jesse Williams), who is about to go to said town to work on an “indie film.” Not sure why he couldn’t just say “movie”—oh wait, it’s because he’s become a faux pretentious New York asshole who needs to make LA sound more “legit” than someone like him thinks it is. Including Mabel, who declines the offer to accompany him to said city so that they might continue their budding romance.
Instead, she would prefer to float around in misery in New York solving crimes. Even though, as Tobert points out, “You’re always talking about feeling stuck and lost. This could be different.” What he doesn’t take into account is that most people who live in New York get off on that feeling. Wouldn’t honestly know what to do without it. Until some fed-up residents finally reach their threshold and actually do move to LA, often the “only” other option for Americans who see themselves as “creative” and “liberal” (a.k.a. they can fit right in working for ad agencies and support the LGBTQIA+ community, but don’t really want the capitalistic status quo to alter). This despite how climate change is literally eroding away both options.
That aside, what is most bothersome about the dig at LA isn’t just that it’s a tired trope favored by the likes of “staunch” New Yorkers. No, what’s most bothersome is the continued commitment New Yorkers have to their delusions about the city being “everything.” This still extends to one such exemplar of rigid New Yorkerism: Woody Allen (and yes, other New Yorkers should take pause to think about how the disgraced writer-director remains one of the ultimate mascots of the city). A man who (as Alvy Singer in Annie Hall) once announced, “I don’t wanna live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light.” This said after his friend, Rob (Tony Roberts)—though both call each other Max—insists, “California, Max. Get the hell out of this crazy city. Forget it. We move to sunny LA. All of show business is there.”
Such “enticements” are no match for what Carrie Bradshaw would call “Manhattan Guy” (or, in the wake of the 90s and early 00s, “Brooklyn Guy”), the mutant strain of human who refuses to ever leave the city, not even for a vacation. Convinced that “everything you need is right here.” Rats, bed bugs, self-superior cunts, the normalization of alcoholism, trust fund babies who will always succeed at “art,” shitty apartments for the price of a limb and the constant promise that it’s all worth it for the “culture.” This increasingly consisting of nothing more than the same corporate outposts one finds in any part of America. But the delusion must persist for people like Oliver and Mabel (though it’s easier for Oliver to sustain because of his Broadway “career”) as they’ve put so many years into the endeavor.
The only one with blatant torn loyalties is Steve Martin. Whose character, Charles-Haden Savage, pronounces of the seeming exodus, “Los Angeles. A city so nice, they named it Los Angeles.” Because yes, Steve Martin is far more LA than he has ever been New York. Ergo his 1991 love letter to the city, L.A. Story. Which, funnily enough, also stars the New York icon that is Sarah Jessica Parker. With Martin himself being raised in Inglewood and Garden Grove, then attending college in the LA area, it was no wonder he brought into existence something like L.A. Story, or the far more serious Shopgirl in 2005 (an adaptation of his own 2000 novella of the same name). Both works see the good and bad in L.A., while eventually playing up the overriding positive aspects of living there.
In contrast, New Yorkers are far more adept at side-stepping (read: blinding themselves to) the manifold drawbacks to their prom king city. But, like the prom king, it’s well-known he’s a douchebag who ought to be dethroned by someone more complex and multi-dimensional. Despite this, LA is ironically the place that remains, even now, viewed as lacking in complexity. A “pretty face,” so to speak, with nothing to offer but metal (the cars) and plasticity (the reconstructive surgeries). It’s the city that serves everyone’s purpose in being easy to take a pot-shot at. This even occurred in the most-seen movie of the summer, Barbie, when our narrator, Helen Mirren, says, “Barbie left behind the pastels and plastics of Barbie Land for the pastels and plastics of Los Angeles.” Cue the audience laughter. Because, ha ha, “LA sucks and is so vapid” is ostensibly evergreen comedy gold.
But, for those willing to look beyond the stereotype and deprogram from the far shittier lifestyle available in New York, turn to the revamping of a famous quote about England in Richard II. The one that Steve Martin as Harris K. Telemacher opens L.A. Story with: “I have a favorite quote about L.A. by Shakespeare: ‘This other Eden, demi-paradise, this precious stone set in the silver sea of this earth, this ground…this Los Angeles.’” A milieu that is far more than just “likable in small doses.”
Her words eerily echo in the final moments of season three’s finale, in which Sazz Pataki, Charles’s former acting stand-in played by Jane Lynch, is shot within the Arconia’s walls. Murder is nothing new in this Manhattan apartment building, but given that the bullet was fired from across the courtyard, this killer might be close to home. As for Mabel (Selena Gomez), Oliver (Martin Short), and Charles (Steve Martin), whose apartment Sazz was standing in at the time of the murder—their podcasting days have landed them directly in the line of fire.
All of that will be uncovered in the show’s fourth season, which was officially announced on Tuesday. Cocreator John Hoffman confirms to Vanity Fair that the Only Murders writers room reconvenes this upcoming Monday following the Writers Guild of America deal. Until then, we have season three to unpack.
In the finale, it’s revealed that the death of Paul Rudd’s Ben Glenroy was orchestrated by a mother-and-son duo. But contrary to early season clues, the culprits are not leading lady Loretta (Meryl Streep) and her long-lost son, Dickie (Jeremy Shamos), with whom she reunites during the production. After obtaining an advance copy of a scathing review for Oliver’s play, Broadway producer Donna DeMeo (Linda Emond) poisons the show’s leading man in order to buy herself some time to retool. It’s her son, Cliff (Wesley Taylor), eager to prove himself as a first-time producer, who then commits the murder. Mother and son are escorted from Death Rattle Dazzle’s opening night in handcuffs, allowing our main trio only minutes to process their findings before another death blow is dealt.
Hoffman chats with VF about the personal tragedy that inspired this season’s big reveal, and Lynch’s surprising reaction to news of her character’s demise.
Vanity Fair:I want to start with the big reveal that Cliff killed Ben. In the second season, youworked backwards from the murderer’s identityin crafting the season. Did you take a similar approach in season 3?
John Hoffman: Yes, we knew early. I’m a wreck of insecurity as a writer in a lot of ways. So I need the confidence to understand how to build these stories both logistically and narratively. Then we have to ask ourselves 4,000 questions: what have we done before? What’s new about it? Do we buy it? Blah, blah, blah. You go through all of these processes to land at all this.
My mother passed away a year ago, so in the midst of writing this season, suddenly these tracks of motherhood and protection and mothers and sons became threads for the season. That felt where it was guided. So my insecurities and the confidence around that felt on the emotional level, like, oh, that’s interesting terrain for me right now to sort of process. And then the writers took over and did amazing things.
Donna and Cliff being introduced in a fairly ridiculous way felt fun for the Broadway nature of where we were going, and then to deepen that through the season and find touchstone points where you got a little more dimension. Donna wasn’t looking to kill him. She was looking to pause for the play, and everything that followed from that she didn’t control, but then was taken up by her son. That’s all being threaded through with the Dickie and Loretta story, and the ridiculous Death Rattle Dazzle story. So all three of those weave [together] by the end of a season.
Steve Martin is adamantly denying physically assaulting a fellow actor while filming.
Martin was slammed this week as “horrid” by former “Little Shop of Horrors” co-star Miriam Margolyes, who said he “repeatedly punched, slapped” and knocked her down while filming simulated punches and various other stunts.
“My memory is that we had a good communication as professional actors,” Martin told People on Saturday. “But when it is implied that I harmed her or was in some way careless about doing the stunts, I have to object. I remember taking EXTREME caution.”
The “Only Murders in the Building” actor told the outlet that Margoyles even told him she was OK after they finished filming that particular scene and claimed director Frank Oz and other crew members were actively attentive to any concerns or issues regarding the simulated acts.
“There was never any physical contact between me and her, accidental or otherwise, in this scene or any other we shot,” Martin told People, while Oz explained that he purposefully “always” rehearses scenes like this — and didn’t see anything resembling actual violence.
“The scene was supposed to include a fake punch,” Oz told People in a separate statement Saturday. “It’s puzzling what she’s talking about. It’s not the Steve I know or anyone knows. He’s always been professional and respectful of everyone on all of my shoots.”
Margolyes previously accused Arnold Schwarzenegger of farting in her face.
Yui Mok – PA Images via Getty Images
Margolyes, who recalled the alleged incident from the 1986 musical, remains most famous for her role as Professor Sprout in the “Harry Potter” franchise and as the enthusiastic Spanish Infanta from Britain’s beloved “Blackadder” series.
“I was hit all day by doors opening in my face; repeatedly punched, slapped and knocked down by an unlovely and unapologetic Steve Martin — perhaps he was method acting — and came home grumpy,” she wrote in her memoir, per The Independent.
“He farted in my face,” Margolyes claimed on the “I’ve Got News for You” podcast in July. “Now, I fart, of course I do — but I don’t fart in people’s faces. He did it deliberately, right in my face … I can’t remember the date, but it was during the filming of ‘End of Days.’”
“I was playing Satan’s sister, and he was killing me,” she added through laughter. “So he had me in a position where I couldn’t escape and lying on the floor, and he just farted. It wasn’t on film; it was on one of the pauses, and I haven’t forgiven him for it.”
Giving name to the thing we all retreat to when embarrassment or generally unpleasant/traumatizing situations take hold, Only Murders in the Building’s fourth episode, “The White Room,” ferries us on a journey to the place where angels surely would fear to tread. If for no other reason than the fact that they have their own “white space” with which to retreat to all the time. And it’s one that doesn’t involve essentially “blacking out” in order to be in said “white place” (no allusion to Texas intended). For Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), the white room arrives early on in the episode, when he’s expected to perform a rousing musical number (a.k.a. patter song) about how one of three babies in Oliver Putnam’s (Martin Short) play-turned-Brodway extravaganza, Death Rattle, is the primary murder suspect.
To set the tone for Charles’ mentally manufactured “safe space,” the episode opens with Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) entering a literal white room posing as an apartment (if one can call four hundred and sixty feet that). All the while, Cinda Canning (Tina Fey), whose role is never really over, narrates about the many pratfalls of living in New York (as Charles, Mabel and Oliver did in the series’ first episode, “True Crime”). So it is that, as Mabel enters the apartment she’s being shown by another drop in the bucket of real estate agents, Cinda muses, “New York. It’s not exactly famous for self-care. In this city, we push, we shove, we occasionally urinate on one another. But do we spend enough time loving ourselves? Maybe not. But you can create a sanctuary.” Of course, it won’t be a tangible one, because no real person can actually afford that, in New York or otherwise. So you’ll have to do the next best (/cheapest) thing and create that sanctuary more metaphorically speaking.
This includes not just tuning out unwanted sounds or “presences” in one’s living space, but perhaps especially in one’s working life. This being what Charles is forced to do when Oliver insists that he rehearses his patter song in front of the entire cast. Scandalized by the notion, Oliver reminds Charles, “You’ll be performing this in front of thousands, so you might as well get used to the eyeballs.” And so, reluctantly, Charles attempts to sing his rendition of “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” But it doesn’t take long for him to start swearing like a sailor as his mind then “fades out” the scene before him so that he doesn’t have to process how much he’s embarrassing himself. And who amongst us hasn’t done something similar in order to keep going? Keep functioning? Emotional self-preservation, after all, is at least ninety percent of survival. And that includes doing whatever it takes to stave off any encroaching memories of one’s humiliation. Ergo, “blotting them out” altogether. Or, in Charles’ case, “whiting them out” as he takes an actual paint roller while in the white room and proceeds to keep painting it whiter.
When he emerges from his white room coma after completing whatever egregious “performance” he gave, he sees that he’s left the people in the room absolutely horrified. Having no idea what he’s just done (only that his pants have been removed and he’s now sitting in one of the bassinets formerly reserved for the Pickwick triplets), he asks if he’s dead or on drugs or both. The other theater actors have to explain that he went into “the white room.” As fellow cast member Jonathan (Jason Veasey) explains it, “[It’s a] stage thing. In TV, if you screw up, you get another take. In theater, there’s no net. You blank out, that’s it. You’re a polar bear in a global warming documentary hanging on to a tiny piece of ice in the middle of the sea, waiting to die.” Charles asks how he’s supposed to stay out of the white room if it’s instinctual, to which Jonathan vaguely replies that he should try going to his “happy place” instead. But what is the white room if not its own happy place? Apparently, a little too dissociatively happy though. No, people want Charles to at least be aware of what he’s doing onstage so that he can have some modicum of control over it. Thus, his latest “lady friend”/live-in girlfriend, Joy (Andrea Martin), tells him he should try making one of his “gorgeous omelets” to decompress and unlock this alleged happy place.
Alas, Charles finds the process so soothing that he wants to keep using it as a crutch onstage. Although Joy warns him that’s “no bueno,” he tries to use the same maneuvers he does in omelet-making while singing his jaunty patter song in front of Oliver again. Only to be met with what amounts to a “hell no” from “Olly” as he tells Charles to keep his hands behind his back and sing the damn song. Obliging the request, Charles once more enters the white room, only to reemerge having offended anew the diminished audience of Oliver, Howard (Michael Cyril Creighton) and Tom (Joel Waggoner), the “Christian” pianist. Perhaps even more than the first time. Sensing that something “deeper” is going on with Charles, Oliver takes him into his office and suggests that what might be amplifying Charles’ stress level about the song is the fact that Joy has moved in so abruptly, and that Charles is “meant to be alone,” as he suddenly realizes while talking it out with Oliver. And that, all this time, his “dissociation as survival method” has ultimately been about something more troubling in his life: the notion of domesticated monogamy.
As we’ve seen with Charles’ dating history, he doesn’t do that well with women. Not only in terms of “accommodating” them, but picking them, to boot. Just from the ones we know, there was Emma, the unseen woman who had a daughter named Lucy (Zoe Colletti) that Charles seemed to grow more attached to than Emma herself. Then there was Jan (Amy Ryan)—whose name is just a stone’s throw from “Joy”—the woman that turned out to be the murderer of Tim Kono (Julian Cihi) in season one. So obviously, Charles is more “gun-shy” about women than he might have previously acknowledged. And this is why allowing one to move in with him so fast has caused something of a psychological break.
And yet, when Oliver effectively gives him “permission” to end things with Joy because he insists, “Maybe you don’t need to change. Maybe you are who you are, and that’s enough,” Charles still can’t bring himself to “perform” the breakup. Thus, he enters the white room even while trying to tell Joy that it’s over. When he comes out of it, he’s somehow managed to propose to her during the brief “white-out period.” And that’s when the “dissociative delights” of the room become the dissociative dreads in that he never even knows what he might do in his personal life while “out to sea.” And yes, the third time he goes into the white room, there are fish outside the windows…a result of Joy’s influence, as she’s set up a tank in Charles’ living room filled with sixty-two finned friends and a barrage of accompanying “decor” for them to enjoy. Charles, sadly, can’t say the same of his own “enjoyment,” nor can he account for the major life decision he made while in the white room.
Unfortunately, many need that kind of “crutch” regardless of the consequences they might wreak (including, as Jonathan said, “coming to” at a Papa John’s in Yonkers). For the pain of “staying present” just doesn’t seem worth it compared to the comfort of that soothing white room we’re all capable of creating as our “sanctuary” from the reality right in front of us.
Who murdered Paul Rudd’s Ben Glenroy? That’s the question at the center of Only Murders in the Building season three. The answer is a closely-guarded secret, withheld even from the people in charge of casting said killer—for awhile, anyway. As in seasons past, casting directors Tiffany Little Canfield and Destiny Lilly were tasked with assembling the Arconia around stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez before they’d seen all of this round’s scripts.
So, how does one arrange the pieces of a puzzle before they’ve seen the full picture? “I’ll be honest, I think it’s really important for a casting director to know how many episodes a guest is going to recur in,” Canfield tells Vanity Fair. “Not only for the business side—you certainly don’t want to lose an actor because of availability—but also [because] when we know that a character is going to have time to unfold, you might want to do something slightly different with the casting.”
Canfield and Lilly, who are Emmy-nominated for their work on the show’s second season, are sworn to secrecy about which actor is playing this season’s killer. But some clues can be gleaned from their casting approach. Those cast in early roles include Noma Dumezweni (a supporting presence in whodunnits like The Undoing and The Watcher) as Maxine, a theater critic reviewing Oliver’s play, and Adrian Martinez (known for comedic roles in American Hustle and Renfield) as Greg, an obsessed fan of Ben Glenroy who poses as a security guard. Both are performers who can make an immediate impact, says Canfield, which may be needed if, say, their characters won’t be factoring much into future episodes.
Juxtapose those characters with the role of Dickie, Ben’s brother and right hand, who currently lingers in the periphery of ensemble scenes. “It is such a mysterious part,” says Canfield. “The other characters get such an intro. It’s like, ‘I’m the Broadway producer. I’m this character.’” Dickie is different. “We see how he’s put-upon, but we don’t really see much more than that. Luckily, Jeremy Shamos”—a Tony-nominated actor from Birdman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—“came in and claimed that role, as he often does, because he’s absolutely brilliant.”
With two critically-acclaimed seasons under their belt, Canfield and Lilly had no shortage of actors clamoring to be a part of the show’s current round. “People move mountains to become available,” Canfield tells me. “Everyone wants to play.” Recurring guest stars like Jane Lynch and Da’Vine Joy Randolph have full dance cards, but still managed to pop by for appearances.
This year, the show has also welcomed two bonafide movie stars. The first is Rudd, who made his first surprise appearance in the show’s second season finale as an actor who collapses to his (presumed) death while performing in Oliver’s stage play. But that’s not the last we see of Rudd: when he took the cameo part, he also signed on for several episodes of a then-unwritten third season. “For an actor of his level to agree to be in an episode of television and commit to the following season is such an unusual ask,” says Canfield. “In fact, it’s such an ask that we thought this might be impossible.”
Only Murders might be the only show that could have made it happen. “Steve, Marty, and Selena have created such a family, that once someone gets a taste, they want to come back,” she continues. “Paul really leaned in and was such an incredible, incredible partner in making this happen. I’m getting a little emotional, because Destiny and I got to speak to him at the wrap party. His authentic enthusiasm and excitement about working with Steve and Marty and Selena, it was palpable.”
Then there’s the matter of Meryl Streep. Her character, Loretta—introduced onscreen by real-life casting director Lisa Kron—is cheekily introduced as a “vanilla, but capable” actor. In real life, the Oscar winner has a close relationship with her It’s Complicated co-star Steve Martin and an existing fandom for Only Murders. With the stars aligned, Streep signed on. “The way she commits is as if she’s Loretta and not Meryl Streep,” Canfield says, before words fail. “She is so…I don’t know, phenomenal in her work ethic, in her commitment, in her storytelling, in every aspect of what an actor does. She’s the pinnacle.”
Christmas is just around the corner, and so Martin Short and Steve Martin came together on SNL this Saturday to remind us of the true meaning of the holiday: maiming street urchins with coins! That’s right. Short, as Scrooge, and Martin, as the Ghost of Christmas Present, gave us a new horrifying and hilarious spin on the Dickens’ classic story A Christmas Carol. Except in their version, there is a lot more blood. And a lot more screaming. You can watch the entire sketch below:
In much less delightful news, The New York Times reported today that public schools have been working with the military and increasing the amount of students that they are mandatorily enrolling in ROTC classes. The goal is to increase enlistment numbers that have been steadily dropping in recent years (gee I wonder why) and ROTC classes are one tactic for bumping those numbers up because it has been proven that at least 44-50% of students in ROTC will go on to enlist after graduation. Of course, this being America, the schools that are the most targeted for both ROTC programs and mandatory enrollment are schools with a majority Black or POC student body.
Even Congressman Ted Lieu, who is a veteran himself, condemned the practice. As he should! We do not stan conscription, indoctrination, and the military industrial complex in this house! – The New York Times.
I was honored to serve on active duty in the US military. But forcing students to take military classes is wrong and anti-American. We are not an authoritarian country like Russia.
Any high school that automatically enrolls students in JROTC must rescind that policy immediately. https://t.co/CcZO9dEATg
Speaking of upsetting things, Patti LaBelle’s concert in Milwaukee was interrupted and cut short last night when someone called in a bomb threat. Security quickly ushered a confused Patti LaBelle off stage and the auditorium was evacuated safely. But still I must say, what the hell? And also, how dare they (they being whoever was responsible for this.) At least our national treasure is safe.
In adorable news, Jamie Lee Curtis and Colin Farrell interviewed each other for Variety about sobriety and their lengthy acting legacies. It’s a charming read, but the internet exploded in delight when Variety released their exchange about the famous rock scene from Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
Colin Farrell: I thought it was one of the best-written and performed scenes. Two little plasticine animated rocks talking to each other. Jamie Curtis: I don’t think they were animated, friend. Farrell: Were they Play-Doh? Curtis: I think they were rocks. https://t.co/UfTNO3YrqBpic.twitter.com/5J6aUV7qSP
This just confirms my belief that Colin Farrell is a precious cinnamon roll who must be protected at all costs. – Variety
And finally, it’s time for our dose of “How is Elon Musk Ruining Twitter Today?” And the answer is two-fold. First, he tweeted this baffling attempt at “comedy:”
What crime does he think Fauci committed? Aside from garbage anti-vaxx conspiracies… oh right. He believes those. More importantly, does anyone on the right understand what pronouns are or how to construct a joke? Methinks the answer is no.
He also confirmed a rumor that tweet lengths were going to be expanded from 280 characters to… 4000. Yes. FOUR THOUSAND.
If his goal is to make Twitter unusable, which it seems to be, that is definitely a solid step down that path. Twitter is not a blog for a reason Musk! Go buy Reddit or something and leave us alone!
