VOL.

354

NO. 13
CRITICS CHOICE

SAG AWARDS
2022
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B I Z + BU Z Z
Retreats Offer Solace From U.S. road trips to
international adventures,
these high-end hotels
beckon members of the biz

By Malina Saval

As we round the bend into year
three of the coronavirus pan-
demic, it’s impossible to pin
down how travel will shape up as
we venture into awards season.
What’s clear: we all need a break.
Especially so post-Oscars. So
whether it’s a weekend jaunt by car
or a faraway excursion via private
jet, these luxury resorts are there
to satiate your wanderlust needs.
No matter what the future holds.
Lily Collins got lavish romance of restored log
married at Dunton cabins fitted with wood-burning
Hot Springs, Colo.
stoves and artifacts plucked from
the olden days of the Wild West.
(The property’s Well House cabin
comes complete with its own pri-
vate hot spring and cold plunge.)
A blanket of sun-speckled snow
spread wide across the resort, it
boasts of outdoor activities such as
cross-country skiing, ice climbing,
dog sledding and snowshoeing.
Duntondestinations.com
• Four Seasons Resort Orlando
at Walt Disney World Resort,
• Dunton Hot Springs, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Dunton, Colo. The 50th anniversary of the hap-
“Emily in Paris” star Lily Collins piest place on earth kicked off in
got hitched to helmer Charlie October, and what better way to
McDowell at this ultra-luxe celebrate the magical legacy of
resort in September, and it’s easy Walt Disney than a trip to the Four
to see why. Nestled in the San Seasons Resort Orlando, a five dia-
Juan Mountains of the majes- mond rated resort located on the
tic Colorado Rockies, Dunton theme park’s property and offer-
Hot Springs is a remote escape ing a bounty of amenities such as a
marrying the rustic elements of lazy river, 18-hole golf course, well-
an 1800s frontier town with the ness spa and six restaurants. The
resort recently underwent a make-
over, adding to its already well-es-
tablished appeal for pro athletes
and members of the Hollywood
elite. Resort standouts: a nine-bed-
room Royal Suite, a four-bedroom
Presidential Suite and a 21-room
top floor available to book for
about $80,000 per night. There’s
even a program to “schoolcation”
one’s kids. Want to hone one’s
chocolate-making skills? Book a
class with the resort’s executive
pastry chef Rabii Saber, a 2019
James Beard Award semifinalist.
Fourseasons.com/orlando
• Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas
The Venetian Resort, Las Vegas
Sure, people head to Vegas to bet
it all on red — but there’s so much
more to this famed desert oasis
than slot machines and roulette
tables. These two resorts offer
something for everyone — espe-
cially those in search of gastro-
nomical fare rivaling authentic
cuisine from Italy itself. Brera
8 ● BIZ + BUZZ
Osteria, located in the heart of
the Venetian’s St. Mark’s Square,
offers a menu of savory home-
made pastas, bread and olive oil
and mozzarella that melts in your
mouth. For those aching to unwind
in a Vegas resort that doesn’t feel
Vegas-y, you can do no better than
the Four Seasons. There’s no on-site
casino, the atmosphere is tranquil
and upscale and the pool is quiet
and family-friendly. The resort’s
Veranda Bar features modern
American cuisine and seasonal
desserts and the best iced tea with
lemon you could ever hope to find.
Fourseasons.com/lasvegas
Venetianlasvegas.com
• The David Kempinski,
Tel Aviv
Whether you’ve binged “Hit and
Run” or “Fauda,” TV series created
and filmed in Israel have put this
Mediterranean nation on the map
in a whole new way. Which is why
the Kempinski group’s first prop-
erty in Israel, a five-star, 34-story
hotel perched on the beaches of
Tel Aviv, is sure to elevate hospi-
tality standards. Set to open in
February, the David Kempinski
boasts 250 rooms, most of them
with sea views, a three-floor pent-
house, a luxury spa and a top-floor
private lounge and pool reserved
for the hotel’s suite-category
guests. After a refreshing dip in
the Mediterranean or the hotel’s
outdoor infinity pool, guests can
kick back at the Common Bar, a
whiskey and cigar lounge with
views of the blue-green sea.
Kempinski.com/en/tel-aviv/
the-david-kempinski-tel-aviv
• The Langham Huntington
Pasadena
A famed suburban enclave just a
hop, skip and jump from down-
town Los Angeles and Hollywood
— and home to intellectual pow-
erhouses CalTech and NASA
Jet Propulsion Lab — Pasadena
has drawn the likes of celebrity
homeowners such as Meryl Streep
and Kristin Wiig. Get a taste of
Pasadena’s historic charm at this
landmark five-star luxury hotel,
complete with a heated, saline
outdoor swimming pool, tennis
courts and Chuan Spa, which
The Langham Huntington, Chaun Spa
consists of 12 treatment rooms,
including a couple’s suite and
a VIP suite. Perfect for a week-
end getaway or extended stays,
the Langham offers a selection
of elegantly decorated rooms,
suites and cottages and several
on-site restaurants serving up
a range of delectable victuals,
from California bistro-style
fare to Australian wagyu steaks.
Need a dose of serenity? Stroll
through the resort’s Japanese gar-
dens, abloom with colorful plants
and flowers.
Langhamhotels.com/en/
the-langham/pasadena
• Lotte Hotel Seattle
Designed by French industrial
designer Philippe Starck, this 189-
room downtown Seattle property,
with its floor-to-ceiling windows
offering sweeping views of Elliot
Bay, melds luxury, style and
sophistication. An easy 15-min-
ute walk from the city’s famous
Pike Place Market, this modern
glass skyscraper, which opened its
doors last summer, is a choice spot
for anyone in the biz searching for
a Pacific Northwest escape. Do not
miss dinner at Lotte’s 16th floor
Charlotte Restaurant & Lounge.
Order from a boatload of fresh
fish — popular dishes include the
wild king salmon and Kanpachi
tartare — topped off with the per-
simmon souffle dessert. Cozy up
after a day of touring with a visit to
the hotel’s spa. Ask for the Liquid
Surgery Red Carpet Treatment or
the MDR Liquid Surgery Facial.
Using ingredients imbued with
shea butter, hyaluronic acid and
vitamin E, the treatment cossets
you as if you were a movie star.
Lottehotelseattle.com
• The Newbury, Boston
Whether you’re in town to film
a movie or you’ve scored tickets
to a Bruins or Red Sox game, this
boutique Back Bay property over-
looking the Boston Public Garden
boasts deluxe touches in the way of
marble bathrooms, wood-burning
fireplaces and a private library and
fitness center. The hotel also fea-
tures original artwork by illustrator
Veronica Lawlor and custom-de-
signed furnishings by interior
designer Alexandra Champalimaud.
Contessa, the Newbury’s glass-en-
closed rooftop restaurant, offers sig-
nature Northern Italian cuisine in a
sun-soaked space. For those craving
a more casual atmosphere, pick a
window seat at the hotel’s Street Bar.
From the thick cut challah French
toast to the spicy pink lobster chow-
der to the aptly named Harvard (a
stirred cognac cocktail), this lob-
by-level eatery lay at the intersec-
tion of contemporary design and
classic New England warmth.
Thenewburyboston.com
• Park Hyatt Aviara Resort,
Carlsbad, Calif.
This coastal resort situated on
more than 200 acres recently
completed a $50 million reno-
vation on its guest rooms, suites
and eateries. A roughly 50-min-
ute drive from San Diego and an
hour-and-a-half road trip from L.A.,
the Carlsbad retreat is the perfect
01.03.2022
location for a rejuvenating week-
end jaunt. Wellness seekers can
indulge themselves at the prop-
erty’s VeraVia spa, while the more
adventurous minded can book a
session with wakeboarding icon
Shawn Watson or SoCal surfing
guru Chris Clark. End the day with
a sumptuous dinner at the resort’s
Ember & Rye steakhouse.
Parkhyattaviara.com
• Under Canvas Grand Canyon,
Valle, Ariz.
Spread across 160 acres of
piñon and juniper forest a short
25-minute drive from the South
Rim entrance to Grand Canyon
National Park, Under Canvas
(operating April 14-Oct. 24) puts
the glamour in glamping. Canvas
tents, which can fit up to four
guests are furnished with beds
and nightstands from West Elm.
An onsite restaurant features
seasonal foods and beverages
and activities ranging from Bingo
to live acoustic music to campfire
s’mores and sunrise yoga to cre-
ate a familial, upscale hippie vibe.
The property is also pet-friendly,
so Fido will be pleased.
Undercanvas.com/camps/
grand-canyon
• Vomo/ Island Fiji
The island paradise recently
hosted Rebel Wilson in Fiji’s
“Open for Happiness” campaign.
And what could be happier than
a luxe tropical resort surrounded
by the glassy, azure waters of the
South Pacific? Private beachfront
accommodations abound on this
255-acre property, where you can
while away your days snorkel-
ing, fishing or swimming to your
heart’s delight.
The Vomo vomofiji.com
10 ● G R AY ’S G O L D
Sound
Judgment
Worms Its
Way Into
‘Dune’
Sci-fi realism adds
complexity to Denis
Villeneuve’s film
By Tim Gray
GRAYS GOLD
Sound is one of the most import-
ant and misunderstood elements
in filmmaking, and sound for
sci-fi films adds another degree
of difficulty.
“Dune,” directed by Denis
Villeneuve, boasts two supervis-
ing sound editors, Mark Mangini
and Theo Green, who worked on
the film for 18 months.
“Science fiction is always com-
plex,” says Mangini. “Theo and I
called it ‘universe building.’ It’s
a blank slate because nothing
— people, machines, technol-
ogy — exists, so all of it has to be
invented. In the ‘Dune’ universe,
we have ornithopters, dream
sequences, the Voice, this palette
of unknown things that make
sound, which we had to invent
from scratch.
“Denis’s mandate was to
ground it in an organic real-
ity. He didn’t want it to feel sci-
ence-fiction-y. He wanted you to
watch film and feel those sounds
existed in acoustic reality. Theo
and I had a philosophy: FDR, or
Fake Documentary Realism.”
The duo and their team gath-
ered 3,200 individual sounds and
were working with 750 channels
of audio.
Villeneuve told them to “com-
pose with sound.” He wanted
to blur the distinction between
score and sound design. Green
says, “Mark and I, and the key
sound collaborators, are all musi-
cians as well and we see sound as
an extension of that. Where is
the dividing line? Why can’t Hans
[Zimmer, the composer] have a
finger in the sound design, and we
have a finger in the music — to
break down traditional barriers.”
Another challenge was to
differentiate sounds on vari-
ous planets. Mangini says, “The
planet Caladan has animal life
and water, so we used sounds of
nature and water dripping, for
example. That’s in contrast with
Arrakis, where there is no liquid
or water sound. As we developed
the voice of the worm, we started
with some lion-tiger-whale
growls, but Denis said there is
no moisture on this planet and
the esophagus of that worm is
the driest place on the planet;
he kept imploring us to make the
driest sound possible.”
The trickiest element for the
team was perfecting the Voice, a
tool used by Bene Gesserit, a spir-
01.03.2022
Since the planet itual-political group of women
Caladan has water, who can use their voices to get
the sound team
others to do their bidding. It
used the noise of
dripping water
had to sound other-worldly, and
to differentiate it not like something coming out
from Arrakis. of a control booth. “We spent a
full year and a half refining it,”
says Mangini.
They recorded Marianne
Faithfull and actors Jean Gilpin
and Ellen Dubin (“croaky, smoky
female voices,” says Green) saying
lines of Paul and Reverend Mother
(Charlotte Rampling) and merged
the actors’ voices with those of the
three women.
Mangini and Green each
stressed the idea that sound is
the result of teamwork. Among
the many top pros working with
them were sound designer Dave
Whitehead and re-recording
mixers Doug Hemphill and Ron
Bartlett. The result is Oscar-
Gutter Credit
Bros.
worthy work. Seriously, what
Warner
other film this year provided
sound for a worm’s esophagus?
12 ● SCENE STEALER
iris menas
‘West Side Story’
By Carole Horst
In the 1961 film version of “West
Side Story,” the “tomboy” char-
acter Anybodys is a young teen,
a stereotype you’d find on any
sitcom of the era, dressed in
dungarees and a T-shirt with a
cute pixie haircut. But in Steven
Spielberg’s “West Side Story,”
transgender nonbinary actor
iris menas (who prefers not to
use capital letters) shines as an
older Anybodys as the script by
Tony Kushner illuminates the
racism, harm of gentrification
and the frustration felt by peo-
ple on the fringes of a postwar
society that doesn’t value them
because they don’t fit in to the
American dream narrative.
Menas infuses Anybodys with
all the pain of a person who has
the confidence to know who they
are but faces ignorance and hate
on a daily basis.
Menas was working on a
Broadway show when zie (they)
got the call to audition for “West
Side Story.”
“I was like, ‘oh my gosh, “West
Side Story.” Oh my gosh, Steven.
Oh my gosh, Tony Kushner.’ …
I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m
doing it. So I went into the audi-
tion room. I read a little side for
Cindy Tolan and their assistant
Nick [Petrovich] and saw a bunch
of trans and nonbinary people
there. I was like, ‘wow, they’re spe-
cifically seeking trans and non-bi-
nary performers for the role,’ and
that was very intriguing to me.
“And at first I was apprehen-
sive because I thought, ‘well,
that’s what people are trying
these days.’ People are trying to
write trans roles and it doesn’t
always have the impact that I
think people desire, and can
end up being very harmful to
the trans community. But I’m like,
‘hey, these are masters of their
craft, I’m absolutely gonna give
this a shot.’”
Then menas put it out of mind,
until zie got a call back, and audi-
tioned for Spielberg, Kushner,
producer Christie Krieger and
other movie heavyweights.
“I walk in and honestly, it lit-
erally felt like I was walking into
my family living room. I was like,
‘this is so chill,’ ” menas says with
a laugh.
Menas’ experience was a bit
unusual. “There was nothing ever
expected or demanded. A lot of
times trans people come in and
we’re the only trans in the room
and we have no advocate. There’s
been no consultant. We end up
doing the job and the emotional
labor of a consulting team and
reliving our traumas for the pro-
cess. But that was not the case here,
they frontloaded all of the effort,
“West Side Story’s”
all of the work. I mean, not only
iris menas brought
a new dimension
historically, but obviously in a way
to the character of that aligned with a trans person
Anybodys. in the 1950s, and what the reality
01.03.2022
would’ve looked like. And so that
felt so much safer to me to be able
to come in and step into the role,
because I didn’t have the labor of
educating anyone.”
The actor “wanted to bring my
real-life lived experience as a non-
binary trans person to Anybodys,
first and foremost because we
rarely see trans people repre-
sented in the media. We rarely see
them represented correctly.
“We see how Anybodys is
treated by the gangs and how
Anybodys is ostracized from
society, which is a very real aspect,
unfortunately, that’s still going
on. We see that, but we also see
Anybodys standing up for himself,
and being true to himself in a time
where everyone was telling him
that trans people aren’t real, you
don’t exist, essentially.
“I really just honestly wanted to
bring life and reality and a ground-
edness in Anybodys understand-
ing of himself because we don’t
get to see trans people so sure of
themselves on screen. And that
was really important for me — for
Anybodys to be sure of who they
were at all times.”
Menas says the “set was a place
of joy.” Spielberg’s passion for the
material and amount of trust he
placed in the cast brought out
great performances , and the
camaraderie between cast and
crew was unique.
“We were all on text threads
outside of the set. We had such
a unique experience and it’s
Niko Tavernise/Fox
cemented in my body, in mind
as this just wonderful, uplifting,
beautiful collaboration that I
think is so exciting to share with
the world finally.”
01.03.2022 VARIETY ● 15

A W A R D S C I R C U I T

Critics
Choice
Awards

The 27th annual Critics Choice Awards will honor the best and brightest in film and
television despite being delayed due to COVID resurgence.
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The Journey of a Show

Critics highlight lesser-known films but also love popular fare

By Zoe Hewitt

Critics of the Hollywood

film and TV industry like to joke
that the business loves nothing
more than to give itself awards.
Yet industry pundits will have
the last laugh when the Critics
Choice Assn. holds its popu-
lar 27th annual awards gala.
Originally scheduled for Jan.
9, the show has been postponed
due to COVID-19 concerns. A
statement from the organiza-
tion states that they are “in reg-
ular communication with L.A.
County Public Health officials,
and we are currently working
diligently to find a new date
during the upcoming awards
season in which to host our
annual gala in-person with
everyone’s safety and health
remaining our top priority.”
What started as an untele-
v i s e d e ve n t d e c a d e s a go
during which membership
awarded their top picks in a
multitude of film categories
(television awards have only
been included since 2011), the
evening is now a full-fledged
star-studded affair that will
be broadcast on both the CW
and TBS.
Standing out in a sea of
accolade-driven evenings and
attracting top talent seems
challenging . Joey B erlin,
CEO of the association and
a longtime executive pro-
ducer of the awards, says,
“The fun factor is vital,” since
jitters are an inherent part of
Creditby Cliff Watts

any contest. SeeHer honoree

Halle Berry made
The 500-plus voting member- her directorial
ship of the CCA, comprised of debut with
hotograph

critics in the U.S. and abroad, “Bruised” this

year, in which she
Gutter

must prove reach and regu- stars as an MMA

larity of their reviews prior fighter.
P
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to joining. By routinely deliver-
ing information to widespread,
diverse audiences, the collective
critics must be up on the myriad
programming that’s churned out
on a regular basis.
“We’re in the mainstream,”
notes Berlin, “helping to winnow
down the field of [work], helping
the Academy members know
what they have to make sure to
see before they vote.”
George Pennacchio, an Emmy-
winning ABC 7 entertainment
reporter and member of the CCA,
has attended the awards since
their days as a low-key luncheon.
Back then, the organization was
called the Broadcast Film Critics
Assn. Pennacchio passes on red
carpet work duties for the night
in favor of sitting at a comfort-
able table inside as an attendee.
Here, he enjoys looking on as the
honorees visit together. “This
is the place where people who
admire each other can go up and
talk about admiring each other’s
work,” says Pennacchio of the
interactions. “It’s sweet to see
two stars that might not know
each other talk and [then] hug.”
The Critics Choice Assn. is
always looking for ways to rec-
ognize excellence. They added
the best animated feature cat-
egory ahead of the Academy,
and in more recent years have
established separate awards
events focusing on productions
[Voters are] the people who make their
living every day checking out entertainment
product, passing judgment and reporting
on it. So their collective thumbs up is really
meaningful.” --Joey Berlin
with specialized niches. The
Super Awards, for which nom-
inees will be announced later
in 2022, include the categories
best action movie, best super-
hero movie, best horror movie
and best science fiction/fantasy
movie. The CCA has also estab-
lished the Documentary Awards
and Real TV Awards, along with
the Celebration of Black Cinema
and Television event.
A newer category at the Critics
Choice Awards is the SeeHer dis-
tinction, which honors a woman
in the industry who uses her
platform to promote equality,
including by choosing roles
that go beyond stereotype. This
year’s honoree is Halle Berry,
who made her directorial debut
with “Bruised” in 2020. Prior
selections include Zendaya,
Viola Davis and Gal Gadot.
“We like to acknowledge excel-
lence, frankly,” notes Pennacchio
of the many accolades the
group bestows.
With so much television and
film product, it can be hard for
audiences to know where to
invest their money and time. The
critics try to “help people find
the good stuff,” says Berlin, add-
ing that the organization strives
to spotlight deserving projects
that don’t always get as much
attention on their own.
Set to air before the Oscars
are announced, every stop en
route to the big extravaganza
The blockbuster only helps heighten the frenzy
film “A Quiet for projects, cast and crew.
Place” was
Advertisements announcing
nominated for
three awards in big wins at the Critics Choice
2019, winning Awards inevitably appear soon
best sci-fi/horror
after. “There’s a certain cache to
movie, a category
now moved to the it that I think studios like,” says
Super Awards. Pennacchio.
Unlike at other major awards
shows, these voters are “the peo-
ple who make their living every
day checking out entertainment
product, passing judgment on it,
and reporting on it,” notes Berlin,
“so their collective thumbs up is
really meaningful.”
While it’s always gratifying
having hard work recognized
as an award nominee, the CCA
members enjoy the big night
as well. Many fly in from around
the country.
For an organization that spe-
cializes in communication, the
CCA’s seating arrangements in
particular encourage connec-
tion. Two seats for CCA mem-
bers are reserved at every table
with the honorees. “Our people
are throwing the party, hosting
the party, inviting the guests and
we make sure that we are not iso-
lated from them, and they’re not
isolated from us,” says Berlin of
the unique seating arrange-
ments. “[The evening is about]
that kind of mingling on a purely
social and celebratory basis.”
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In fact, Berlin teases that he
knows of multiple couples,
celebrity as well as critics and
publicists, who have met their
significant others at the awards.
Celebration or not, all good
things must come to an end
While some awards shows
have a reputation for running
long, Berlin credits executive
producer Bob Bain with always
coming in on time. Whether it’s
adjusting clip packages in the
moment or pulling something
else from what Berlin calls the
“bag of tricks,” remaining on
schedule while giving everyone
their moment to shine on stage
is “vitally important to us.”
Dressing up for an evening
out may be par for the course
in Hollywood, especially during
awards season, but that doesn’t
mean the night has to be overly
stuff y or formal. Adapting
with the times, whether it’s
with a bent towards inclusion
or acknowledging good work
regardless of box office grosses,
the CCA strives to put on a mem-
orable event. By the evening’s
Images
conclusion, more people will
walk away without trophies than
GutterPizzello/Invision/AP
with them after all, and having
been recognized in any form
feels good.” Says Pennacchio,
Credit
“Whatever you call the award,
I just think it’s letting someone
Chris
who works really hard know.
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Among this year’s Critics

Seasoned Pros Choice Awards TV acting nomi-

nees are “the lifers,” an assortment
of seasoned performers with long,

Steal the Spotlight successful Hollywood careers —

many spanning from the ’80s and
early ’90s, but also a few as far
Several Critics Choice Award TV nominees are back as the ’60s — who have once
longtime veterans who shine in singular work again delivered performances on
par with their finest work. And as
several actors tell Variety, they’ve
each followed distinctive paths,
By Scott Huver navigating industry changes and
career highs and lows, to keep in
the game for the long haul.
“In a way, my acting career
has been headed toward this,”
says Steve Martin, nominated
for his performance as former
TV star-turned-amateur detec-
tive and podcaster Charles-
Haden Savage in “Only Murders
in the Building,” which he also
co-created.
Martin recalls his journey from
writer and standup comic on TV
series including “The Smothers
Brothers” and “Saturday Night
Live” through his immensely
popular film career, landing now
amid modern TV’s more flexi-
ble, nuanced formats. “The artis-
tic level of television just utterly
changed, and it became actually
more desirable to be an actor on
television — and I never thought
that would happen in a million
years — than being in a movie,” he
says, convinced that TV is where
he’ll stay. “I just have no interest in
going away to make a movie — or
just even to make a movie. I really
like this. It’s the perfect thing I
should be doing for my nature
right now.”
Jean Smart says her role of
veteran standup comic Deborah
Vance on “Hacks” was “every-
thing I could have wanted in my
next job — it ticked off every
box.” Noting that even some of
the most successful actors rarely
get the chance to demonstrate
DuCree/National Geographic

their full range, Smart feels for-

tunate to have landed a string
of diverse, meaty roles, includ-
ing “Fargo,” “Watchmen” and
“Mare of Easttown” at this point
Courtney B. in her career.
Gutter Credit

Vance was “In the last 20-plus years, I’ve

nominated
Richard

for “Genius: just been offered some incredi-

Aretha.” ble roles, and I didn’t take any of
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The artistic level of television

it for granted as a gal over 40,” she
says. “I never got typecast. The first
job I was offered after ‘Designing
Women’ was a TV movie about
Aileen Wuornos, America’s first
female serial killer.”
For “Succession’s” Brian Cox, his
now-signature role of media fam-
ily patriarch Logan Roy came from
a confluence of “great script, great
role, great time, great situation —
and outliving a lot of people. That
helps,” he says with a laugh.
Cox notes that he always felt
large-scale success was inevita-
ble for him, as long as he stayed
the course. “[I thought], ‘It’ll all
come to you, but it’ll be in time.’”
years I’ve been doing this — since I
was 15 — I just felt that eventually
I would come into my time, and it
would happen gracefully and in
the best of work circumstances.
And that’s what happened: I came
into my moment.”
Broadway and TV veteran Audra
McDonald, nominated for her
role of lawyer Liz Reddick on “The
Good Fight,” credits her perform-
ing longevity to a commitment
to putting testing herself over
increasing her name recognition.
“When I look for work, I’m not
looking for fame and glory,” she
says. “I’m looking for ways that I
can evolve, and for what’s going to
just utterly changed, and it became
actually more desirable to be
an actor on television — and I never
thought that would happen in
a million years — than being in a
movie.” --Steve Martin
of matriarch and now talk show
Audra McDonald host Pat Dubek on “The Other
came to “The
Two,” believes knowing when to
Good Fight” after
a career in theater take a step back has been crucial to
and concert both career longevity and her own
performances.
peace of mind. “Too much work
makes me unhappy,” she chuckles.
McDonald’s multipronged “I love not working! And I try not to
career includes theater and con- compare myself to people that feel
cert performances and has always like you have to work all the time.
kept her plate filled with fresh “If I was feeling tired or burned
opportunities to stretch. “I’ve been out, I would just say no to a job,
able to keep it varied and challeng- because I always wanted to be
ing, and that was always the goal: happy and excited to work,”
evolution with everything that I Shannon says. “I never want to
do, and not recognition or fame, feel like, ‘Oh, I’m phoning it in.’ I
because I understand that that’s always know when to pull back,
fleeting,” she says. and I think that’s kept me happy
For Christine Lahti, fear has and positive.”
been a key motivator — not fear How one fills time between gigs
of not working, but fear about the is key for actors because they have
role at hand. “I love it when a part to know that they are “infinitely
scares the shit out of me,” she says, larger than any character,” as
noting that her current part on “Genius: Aretha” star Courtney B.
“Evil” was among those she walked Vance puts it.

CreditElizabeth Fisher/Paramount+; Succession: Macall B. Polay/HBO

That’s been the case, he says. “Sixty challenge me as an artist.” into with trepidation. “I’ve always
been attracted to things that scare
Brian Cox says his “Succession” role was a confluence of “great script, great role.” me and make me think ‘I have no
idea how to play this character.’
And inevitably you find a way and
you dig deep inside yourself.
“I just love that idea of keep-
ing that challenge — and I’m old
now, but I feel so at the prime of
my life creatively,” says Lahti, who
regularly finds new paths to stay
engaged. “Even on television, it’s
been challenging finding great
roles for women my age, so I’ve
been directing more and writing,
and trying to produce as well.”
“When people turn away from
you, as they always will — when
all of a sudden they don’t want
you anymore — what do you do
in between those times? You have
to build a life for yourself. You find
things that excite you, so when
they don’t want to hear from you
anymore, you have a legacy to
leave behind,” he says.
While Vance cites examples
such as Robert Redford with
the Sundance Institute and Paul
Newman with Newman’s Own,
sometimes the lives actors build
also lend themselves to enriching
GutterFight:

Rather than go all-in on produc- their next characters. All these

tion, Molly Shannon, nominated Critics Choice Award-nominated
Good

for the second time for her role roles are certainly proof of that.
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Giving Voice to Global Protest
Critics Choice foreign-language TV nominees highlight societal ills
and the shortcomings of capitalism
By Natalie Oganesyan
Red jumpsuits, Salvador Dalí
masks and the Italian anti-fascist
revolutionary anthem “Bella Ciao”
are no longer merely elements
that comprise the iconoclastic
Spanish caper drama “Money
Heist.” They’ve managed to bleed
out into real life as numerous pro-
testers — from the hit series’ home
country to Lebanon, Indonesia
and beyond — have infused these
motifs with their own fights
against government tyranny, cor-
ruption and wealth inequality.
“I think people needed a symbol,”
creator Álex Pina tells Variety. “We
have this show that is presented as
a resistance against governments
and against institutions, and this
combined with the entertainment,
went beyond the borders of real-
ity, and people just adopted it.
You have these anti-heroes in the
show that people actually regard
as heroes and they create personal
bonds and social and political
bonds [with them].”
This year, local-language shows
have led the charge in exploring
South Korea’s
“Squid Game” anti-capitalism and anti-estab-
shifted from lishment themes and earned
a local lens to
international Critics Choice Award noms in
appeal. the foreign language series cat-
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egory in the process. Alongside
“Money Heist” on Netflix is South
Korea’s sensation “Squid Game,”
with both series dramatizing the
brokenness of the global financial
system post-2008 in high-stakes,
fictional environments. France’s
Juhan/Netflix
“Lupin,” for the same streamer,
Credit
parses through these trends on
Gutter
a micro-scale, rooting for suave
Noh
thief Assane Diop (Omar Sy) as
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he avenges his father’s wrongful
demise orchestrated by a wealthy
family. Meanwhile, Apple TV Plus’
English- and Spanish-language
“Acapulco” offers a comedic
rags-to-riches narrative in pro-
tagonist Máximo (Eugenio Derbez
in the present-day story, Enrique
Arrizon in the 1980s-set strand),
who recounts his turbulent road
toward upward class mobility.
Contrasting with U.S.-based
shows including “Succession” and
“Only Murders in the Building,”
which follow an über-rich fami-
ly-run media conglomerate and
well-off New Yorkers, respec-
tively, these international series
champion the underdogs, all the
while painting a morally gray
picture of their protagonists. For
“Squid Game” creator Hwang
Dong-hyuk, the end result is a
profound commentary on the
ways society pits people against
each other in battles of competing
ambition and survival.
“From a society’s losers’ per-
spective, that whole system itself
is a huge violence,” he says. “If you
were eliminated from society,
that equals social death — and so
I wanted to shed light on the inten-
sity of violence of competition
itself and also the intensity of vio-
lence that is placed on the losers.”
While “Squid Game” bifurcates
human nature — and more specif-
ically, its creator’s “main strands of
personality” — into Gi-hun’s (Lee
Jung-jae) conditional empathy
and Sang-woo’s (Park Hae-soo)
desperate selfishness, “Money
Heist” finds its moral ambiguity
in the Professor (Álvaro Morte).
In the final season of “Money
Heist,” the Professor and the gang
keep the country’s gold reserve,
swapping it out for brass. It’s
unclear whether their aim is to
redistribute the wealth — as they
did in Season 3 — or keep it for
themselves. “We wanted to con-
tinue to create some kind of con-
fusion with the audience about
whether the Professor was an
honest and a fine guy, or whether
he was a dishonest thief,” Pina
says. “And we have to be ambigu-
ous in the message we conveyed.”
In “Acapulco,” the same prem-
ise abounds, as young Máximo
finds himself toeing a “gray line”
to climb the resort’s corporate
ladder. Co-creator Eduardo
Cisneros sees it as the product
of a culture of scarcity, “the idea
that it’s a zero-sum game, there’s
only so much to go around and
what we see on screen then, it’s
a comedic representation of it.”
Though lighter in tone, the
series’ beating heart is about the
sacrifice necessitated by dreams,
and its aim is to subvert the myth-
ical logic of pulling oneself up
by one’s bootstraps. “Acapulco,”
Cisneros says, is firmly rooted in
the “perspective of the servers,
the workers, the people behind
the scenes.” Beyond its cheerful
veneer — the vibrant fuchsia and
orange of the Las Colinas resort
(coincidentally reminiscent of
“Squid Game’s” larger-than-life
playgrounds) — is a stark portrait
of class disparity.
“Since day one, we wanted to
show what it’s like when you
pull back the curtain, and when
“Acapulco”
co-creator
Eduardo Cisneros
says his show
is a comedic
representation
of the need
for sacrifices.
I think we are living in a world where the many
people belonging to capitalism are just not happy.
They’re not satisfied.” --Hwang Dong-hyuk
you take something as glob-
ally known as the image of this
Mexican resort,” Cisneros says.
“That eventually grew into an
exploration of the haves and
have-nots.” The goal is to fuse
entertainment with social com-
mentary, he says, like “broccoli
with a lot of melty, gooey cheese
on it.”
In “Squid Game,” the message
is expertly woven into the show’s
twisted, adrenaline-fueling
games. Meanwhile, “Money Heist”
caches its politics in the flagrant,
Spain’s boisterous resistance of its capti-
“Money Heist” vating robberies. So, while these
resonates with
viewers beyond series’ protagonists are occa-
its borders. sionally complicit within the
system they are fighting against,
a grander, more insidious villain
looms. As countries from South
Korea to Spain plunged into eco-
nomic uncertainty and debt fol-
lowing the Lehman Bros. collapse
at the start of the global recession,
Hwang and Pina sought narra-
tives to meet the current cultural
and sociopolitical moment. And
now, as the devastation of the
ongoing pandemic and climate
change exacerbates economic
inequality, Hwang says his story,
which draws extensively from his
personal life and was more than
a decade in the making, shifted
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from a local lens to include more
international appeal.
“It’s been short of two centu-
ries since we’ve seen capitalism,”
Hwang says, “and I think it is and
it has been put to a test through
time, and I think we are living in
a world where the many people
belonging to capitalism are just
not happy. They’re not satisfied.
Rather, I think it has made their
lives more unfortunate and it’s
driving them to a dead end. And I
think through the tests that cap-
italism has been put to, we are
now seeing that the reality is it is
not capable of responding to the
many crises that humanity faces.”
Ultimately, that’s why shows
such as these have found global
audiences. Amid the imaginative,
dystopian-adjacent details of both
AppleTV+; Money Heist: Manolo Pavon/Netflix
their worlds, they’re grounded in
a reality that resonates, compels
and inspires change.
“It’s exciting when people
believe in what they are watching
and when they adopt this under-
lying message from the show,”
Pina says. “And it was totally unex-
pected for us. I think it resonated
that much due to the unhappiness
of a certain time with the society,
Gutter Credit
what was happening [was] peo-
Acapulco:
ple needed to have tools to protest
and to have a voice.”
01.03.2022 VARIETY ● 27

A W A R D S C I R C U I T

SAG
Awards

The 28th annual SAG Awards returns hoping to be live this year,
honoring the best performances from film and television, voted on by their peers.
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Acting Honors Cross Oceans
SAG Awards plan live ceremony, honor Helen Mirren
By Paul Plunkett
Despite the uncertainty that
all of this season’s awards ceremo-
nies are contending with around
the impact of the COVID Omicron
variant, the 28th annual Screen
Actors Guild Awards are forging
ahead with a Feb. 27 ceremony
with safety at the top of the list.
“Right now, we’re just continu-
ally monitoring the situation and
we’ll follow every local govern-
ment, guild, state and city guide-
line we can to make sure that
it’s as safe and healthy as pos-
sible,” says Jon Brockett, one of
two executive producers of the
SAG Awards. “Whatever shape
and form that comes in, we’re
still moving forward for an
in-person show at this point
and our goal is to create a really
meaningful experience.”
This year’s ceremony, which
honors actors in film and TV, will
be held in the Barker Hangar at
the Santa Monica Airport. It was
selected due to the site’s size and
versatility, which will help manage
COVID protocols.
Kathy Connell, Brockett’s fellow
executive producer, is excited as
everything picks up speed with
this year’s awards season. “We’re in
After a pre- the nomination phase right now,
taped, virtual
show last we have [nominating] members
year, the SAG who are spending the holidays
Awards are catching up on everything that
keeping an eye
on the COVID they can,” she says. “We’ll have
situation. nominations early in January and
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I, for one, can’t wait because there
are so many interesting projects.”
While Brockett has been with
the SAG Awards since its fifth show
in 1998, Connell has been with the
show since its inception in 1995
and notes that there’s nothing
quite like the energy in the room
at the SAG Awards.
Buckner
“It’s just such a warm room, we
Gutter Credit
always say that the actors are com-
Michael
ing home,” she says. “Everybody
in that room has had an opportu-
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nity to vote for each other. There
is a real feeling of camaraderie;
it’s where the actors party in the
actors’ house.”
“It also can be a surreal experi-
ence for some nominees who are
there,” adds Brockett. “You might
have this huge A-list actor that
runs into somebody from their
favorite TV show that they’ve just
binge-watched, and you’ve got
this actor in the ensemble of this
TV show and their eyes are bug-
ging out because, say, Tom Hanks
is saying how much he loves their
show. That’s so incredible.”
The SAG Awards stand apart
from other kudosfests for several
reasons, including that they only
honor actors and performances.
Theres is also has a stunt ensem-
ble category and ensemble awards
for film and television. It boasts the
largest voting body of awards sea-
son, with more than 130,000 SAG
members casting ballots.
“We have members from all over
the country, union members who
love the union, who love their fel-
low actors and they get to vote for
them,” Connell says. “From Miami
to Chicago, to Boston, to San
Francisco, it’s always interesting
to see what they will do. I always
say our members may surprise
me, but they never disappoint me.”
Another anecdote that illus-
trates the uniqueness of the
SAG Awards was the reception
the cast of “Parasite” received at
the 26th annual SAG Awards in
January 2020. The film made his-
tory for being the first film not in
the English language to win the
ensemble award.
Chris Pizzello/AP Images; Mirren: Mark J. Terrill/AP Images
“They came out to introduce
their cast and just in the introduc-
tion, the room stood up,” Connell
We’re getting so many different, diverse
Gutter Credit
DiCaprio:
perspectives and it’s really great to see, especially
from an awards perspective.” --Jon Brockett
recalls. “You had these actors
from South Korea getting this
standing ovation from an inter-
national audience of stars and it
blew them away.”
Streaming and the explosion of
platforms for content has trans-
lated into the SAG Awards becom-
ing more of an international event.
“We’re so happy to see this
evolution in more international
programming and I think that a
lot of that is due obviously to the
great performances, but those
performances have to be made
available,” Brockett says. “We’re
getting so many different, diverse
perspectives and it’s really great
to see, especially from an awards
show perspective.”
One honor SAG-AFTRA bestows
that predates the SAG Awards by
more than three decades is the
Life Achievement Award, which
this year will be given to Helen
Mirren, the most decorated SAG
Life Achievement recipient with
Leonardo 13 SAG Award nominations and
DiCaprio five wins, in addition to a packed
appeared to
shelf of other honors from her
present the Screen
Actors Guild Life stellar career.
Achievement “I am honored to have been
Award to Robert
chosen to receive the SAG Life
De Niro in 2020.
Achievement Award,” said Mirren
when the award was announced.
“Since I was a young actor starting
out, I have always been inspired
by and learned from American
screen acting, so this award is par-
ticularly meaningful for me.”
With a show date, venue and
Life Achievement recipient
locked in, Connell, Brockett and
their team are now zeroing in on
the awards themselves.
This year’s Life “Nominations are announced
Achievement Jan. 12,” says Brockett, with vot-
Award recepient
Helen Mirren has ing on nominations closing on
won four SAG Jan. 9. After the nominations are
Awards, including announced, final voting opens
one for her lead
role in “The Jan. 19 and then closes Feb. 25,
Queen,” in 2007. three days before the ceremony.
VARIETY ● 29
While the process is becoming
more streamlined so that ballots
and screeners can be handled
online, options are available for
voting members with any level of
technical ability.
“We keep up with or meet the
membership where they are,
which is why everything is primar-
ily on online right now,” Brockett
says. “We do have a request line for
members if they would like to be
provided a printed ballot, and we
do have an opt-out program this
year, so members can opt out of
physical DVDs, if they like to receive
everything just online. Because
it’s a lot, so hopefully that will cut
down on some of the actual phys-
ical DVDs that go out to members.”
As Connell and Brockett enter
the home stretch of the annual
awards cycle and acknowledge
that pulling off a massive event
such as this would be impossi-
ble without the tireless efforts of
their colleagues both in putting
the ceremony together and in
coordinating the awards them-
selves. Brockett gives kudos to the
SAG Awards Committee, which is
chaired by JoBeth Williams, not-
ing that they ensure the union’s
perspective and membership
interests are looked after.
“We may be in the day-to-day of
it, but they really kind of drive the
show the overall show,” he says. He
also recognized the efforts of the
awards team he works with, led by
coordinating producer Jen Coyne-
Hoerle and awards coordinator
John Bogulski, who coordinate
screenings, DVDs and streaming
for members and oversee voting.
“They really deserve a lot of atten-
tion for all the things that they do
and after we air a show, it starts all
over again.”
Connell also singled out the
efforts of producers Gloria Fujita
O’Brien and Benn Fleishman, who,
like her, have been with the show
for at least a quarter century. “They
are extraordinary, we have a have
alwawys people working on our
show for years and years that come
back to us, because the show is a
family, and the union is our family.”
The SAG Awards is set to air
at 8 p.m. E.T. Feb. 27 on both TNT
and TBS.
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Honing Special Skills
From learning to row and play tennis to using
American Sign Language, actors add to their resumes
By Nick Clement
Many SAG Award winners and
nominees speak about how the
award is special because it comes
from their peers, who understand
the nuances of the job better than
anyone. The skills that actors
attain throughout their careers
have the ability to change their
lives in ways both expected and
unexpected. Every year, some of
the best acting talent prepares
for their roles by undertaking
time-consuming lessons in a
particular trade, craft or sport, in
order to believably portray those
actions onscreen because it has
to be seamless, and you have to
believe everything you see in a
film in order for it to be fully effec-
tive. Oftentimes, it’s very evident
when someone has taken the
pains to do the required research,
and put in the dedication, so that
every part of their performance
feels true to the cinematic world
in which they live.
In writer-director Sian Heder’s
touching family drama “CODA,”
Emilia Jones delivers a sensa-
tional central performance,
with the film’s delicate narrative
centering on complicated fam-
ily dynamics that feel honest at
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every turn. Jones plays the one
hearing member of her fam-
ily, with her deaf parents and
brother relying on her to serve
as their translator as they run a
fishing business in Gloucester,
Mass. But she’s got dreams of her
own, and an incredible singing
voice to back it up, so what will
become of her life?
“This film was very special
to make, and it felt like this big
warm hug that we all need right
now. Everything I learned while
making ‘CODA’ was new to me,
and we wanted every aspect to
feel authentic,” says Jones.
In addition to mastering ASL,
Jones also learned to believ-
Isabelle Fuhrman
was up early ably navigate a fishing trawler
every day to by operating the boat and
prepare to play understanding the process of
a competitive
rower in open-water fish collection, while
“The Novice.” cementing her singing abilities.
Gutter
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“I did nine months of training
with both ASL and singing, and I
went out on a fishing boat every
day, for two weeks, at 3 in the
morning, so I could completely
understand that life,” she says. “I’d
never had a singing lesson before,
and to this day, I’m still learning
sign language. I’ll continue with it
for the rest of my life.”
Few performances this past year
have been as intense as the one
dished out by Isabelle Fuhrman in
Lauren Hadaway’s “The Novice,”
which takes a sobering, clinical
view of what it takes to operate
at the collegiate level in the sport
of competitive rowing. Fuhrman,
who turned heads back in 2009
in the hit thriller “Orphan,” dis-
plays mile-wide confidence in
her role, with the fully dedicated
performance scaling the depths of
on-screen personal obsession. “I
was intoxicated by the idea of this
challenge, and I wanted to bring
humanity to a character who can
be unlikable,” she says. “My goal as
an actress is to keep transforming
myself with each role.”
The film explores subject mat-
ter that will be new to many view-
ers, while showing the dangers of
rowing. It was new to Fuhrman as
well. “This was a completely for-
eign sport to me. I got up at 4:30
a.m. every day for six weeks before
the shoot in order to train, and I
gained 12 pounds of muscle. I got
completely obsessed with playing
the role.”
Andrew Garfield hadn’t done
any public singing before work-
ing on Lin Manuel-Miranda’s
fiercely energetic musical “Tick,
...Boom!: Macall Polay/Netflix; King Richard: Warner Bros.
Tick … Boom!” So the actor, play-
ing the “Rent” and “Boom” cre-
ator Jonathan Larson, spent a
year learning how to sing from
several voice coaches, including
industry legend Liz Caplan. The
project was also workshopped
Credit
GutterTick
I was so nervous but that’s me free-driving the
Tick,
streets of Tarzana.” --Alana Haim
like a true Broadway musical, with
group screenplay readings, and
over a week of learning the songs.
Garfield also had to learn to play
enough piano where it would con-
vincing to see him in medium shot,
getting his full musical groove on.
“For a long time, I’d been interested
in singing, and I was always curi-
ous to see how far I could take it. I’m
drawn to the potential for failure,
and what we’re all able to achieve,
and I think that’s a good fear to have
as an actor. I felt like this was where
I had to go,” says Garfield.
“This project was one of those
weird and wonderful ones where
Andrew Garfield
worked with
several vocal
coaches for
his role in “Tick,
Tick ...Boom!”
there was magic around it, simply
Saniyya Sidney because of who Jonathan was as
had never played a person, and how Lin directed it.
tennis before
Stepping outside of my comfort
signing on to
portray Venus zone as an actor is something I’m
Williams in always interested in doing.”
“King Richard.”
When Paul Thomas Anderson
offered Alana Haim one of the
leading roles in his latest Los
Angeles opus, the 1970s-set
“Licorice Pizza,” the new-to-the-
craft actor knew that she’d have
multiple learning experiences
on the horizon — one of which
included reading a screenplay.
“I had never read a script,” Haim
says. “Paul and I talked about this,
but even reading the words ‘exte-
rior’ and ‘interior,’ things like
that, I felt — oh my God, this is a
real script! I don’t think there’s
an art to reading a script. I just
read it as if it was a book. It was a
page turner.”
But one of her biggest life les-
sons was learning how to drive a
truck for the production.
VARIETY ● 31
“I went to truck driving school,
because I had to learn how to
drive a stick shift,” she recalls.
Still, when it came time to shoot,
not everything went as planned.
“It was day two, and I was so
nervous getting in that truck for
the first time with cameras and
lights. It was night time. I put the
truck into first gear for the first
time, and it was next to a curb.
Everyone was watching me. And
it immediately stalled. I looked at
Paul, and I had panic in my eyes.
Because of course I don’t want to
let him down. And this is a very
important part of the movie. And
he looked at me and he kind of did
a breathing motion, and once I got
that signal of, ‘you’re OK, you’re
OK,’ I put it into first again, and we
were off to the races. I was so ner-
vous, but that’s me free-driving
the streets of Tarzana.”
Fifteen-year- old Saniy ya
Sidney never looked back after
accepting the iconic role of Venus
Williams in “King Richard,” with
the young actor learning how to
play ace-level tennis in order to
make all the on-court action feel
totally authentic.
“Playing tennis was completely
foreign to me, as I’d only done
track and field in the past. But by
the end of the production, Demi
[Singleton, who plays Serena
Williams] and I got really good,
and about 50% of what you see
on screen is us really playing,”
says Sidney.
She started training in 2019
in order to meet the demands
of portraying an international
superstar. “It got very real very
quickly on the set, and when we
filmed Venus’ second pro match,
I was very nervous. I wanted to do
it justice.”
When production was shut
down due to COVID, Sidney was
able to get more involved in
learning all the ins and outs of
the game.
“I changed everything, from
my diet to my sleeping habits to
the way I walked. My overall daily
mindset had to be adjusted. But I
fell in love with tennis as a result
of making this film, and now it’s a
skill I can definitely say I’m com-
fortable with,” she says.
3 2 ● AB W
I ZA R Z ZI R C U I T ● S A G A W A R D S
+ DBSU C
New Medium, Fresh Empathy
Portraying public figures in scripted projects allows
actors to expand past one-sided narratives
By Danielle Turchiano
Beanie Feldstein, who was
tasked with bringing Monica
Lewinsky to life on “Impeachment:
American Crime Story” was only
5 years old when then-President
Bill Clinton was impeached.
In some ways, her age kept her
from formulating any opinions
about the players in the impeach-
ment because she was too young
to read the headlines of the
time. Her co-star Sarah Paulson
did not come out of the real-life
events as unscathed.
Paulson, who plays Linda
Tripp in the FX limited series,
recalls John Goodman’s 1997-99
portrayal of Tripp on “Saturday
Night Live” as one of the most
impressionable pieces of media
she consumed about the woman.
“I, at that time, was young
enough to not be very discerning
when it came to what I was being
fed by the media,” she admits.
“I was ready to accept that this
lurching, broad-shouldered, very
masculine woman was in fact
who Linda was.”
Things changed for both
Feldstein and Paulson years
later — and not a moment too
soon. With hindsight and some
enlightenment and education,
a new, more sensitive lens has
emerged through which to re-as-
sess notable public figures, result-
ing in documentary and scripted
projects alike offering much more
fully formed pictures of complex
individuals behind salacious
headlines. For the SAG Award
hopefuls stepping into those
roles, it is often the greatest les-
son in empathy.
Sarah Paulson Feldstein, who got a degree
plays Linda Tripp
alongside Beanie in sociology from Wesleyan
Feldstein as University the same year Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky released a TED Talk that took
in “Impeachment:
American Crime back her own narrative, knows
Story.” now that “what you would get in
X0X1 . X0 X3 . 2 0 2 0
2
two paragraphs in a history book
[is] not a person.”
“It was my job to display her
humanity, but it wasn’t my job to
only portray her good. If I did that,
it’s still two-dimensional because
it’s only showing one side of
someone,” Feldstein says. One of
the most challenging pieces of the
story to portray was Lewinsky’s
“deep, profound, all-consuming
love” for the former president
(played by Clive Owen).
“There’s a scene in episode 5
where they’re saying goodbye to
one another,” she continues. “She
says, ‘You are my whole world.’
Thorpe/FX
Gutter
Tina Credit
 XX
0 1 . 0X 3X .. 22 00 22 20
That was a very challenging scene
to portray because it was her truth
at the time and that broke my
heart because I know, as Beanie,
how it’s going to end for her.”
Feldstein had the real-life
Lewinsky, who was a producer
on “Impeachment,” to call or text
if she had questions about how
her character would react or feel
in certain moments. Paulson, on
the other hand, relied on listening
to interviews with Tripp, namely
the “Slow Burn” podcast, because
the real woman passed away only
weeks after filming originally
began (it was paused due to the
COVID-19 pandemic).
“I had plenty of time on my
hands to immerse myself in the
sound of her voice,” she says. “I
put it on the speakers that are in
my ceiling, and I could really feel
like I was sitting inside Linda, in a
way. And it was just very interest-
ing to hear her talk while looking
in the rearview mirror, without
fully apologizing for what she had
done, but I could detect sorrow
and regret in her voice.”
Goodman’s sketch show par-
ody of Tripp was so memorable
to Paulson that she knew she had
to work “from the outside in” to
capture Tripp’s physicality in a
more realistic way. “I worked with
a movement coach and walked
around my backyard as Linda
for weeks and weeks and weeks
before we started shooting,” she
says. “And so, it was trying to find
Black & White: Netflix; Hot Zone: Anthrax: Peter Stranks/National Geographic
her physicality that communi-
cated some of her internal story,
which, to me, was about a col-
lapsed chest and almost a person
with a broken heart.
“In terms of the empathy points,
it was very easy for me to con-
It was my job to display her humanity, but it
GutterinCredit
wasn’t my job to only portray her good.”
Colin
--Beanie Feldstein
nect to that inside Linda simply
[because] I think there’s not a
person on the planet who doesn’t
worry about or hope to feel seen
in the world — and I don’t mean
from a notoriety standpoint,
but from an identity standpoint
of just wanting to matter.”
Tony Goldwyn, who plays
microbiologist and anthrax
attack suspect Bruce Ivins in
National Geographic’s “The Hot
Zone: Anthrax,” was also without
the ability to get to know the real
man whom he would be playing
on screen. Ivins died by suicide in
2008, by which point he had been
relegated to many headlines as an
accused domestic terrorist.
But Goldwyn dug deep to get to
know the man behind the quick
news clips — a man who was very
smart but also troubled, both due
to trauma in his childhood and
struggles with mental illness,
Goldwyn says.
“Paranoia was a big part of
From top: Jaden Bruce’s struggle,” he says. But also,
Michael as a “Bruce had all of this repressed
teenage Colin
rage. What made sense to me was
Kaepernick in
that Bruce had a certain tolerance
“Colin in Black &
White” and Tony for his own rage and it would hit a
Goldwyn as Bruce
certain level, and when it got past
Ivins in “The Hot
Zone: Anthrax.” that red line, it was like he blacked
out; he couldn’t accept that ver-
sion of himself.”
Goldwyn was living in New York
on Sept. 11, 2001, and remembers
well those events and the anthrax
scares only a few weeks later.
“We were very alarmed and
didn’t open our mail and put Cipro
in the kids’ school backpacks,” he
recalls. Therefore, “when I did
start to read about him and see he
became the prime suspect and had
some bizarre behavior, it was hard
not to judge him at first.”
After getting his hands on a
copy of “The Mirage Man,” David
Willman’s book about Ivins,
Goldwyn’s perspective shifted.
VARIETY ● 33
“When I started to think a lot
about his relationship with his
mother and the kind of emo-
tional abuse he suffered, I just
felt so much compassion for
him,” he says. “He felt shut out
by his mother; his mother was
a very frightening figure to him.
He wanted to be let in. That was
a key for me.”
Parental figures were key
for Jaden Michael to get inside
a young Colin Kaepernick
for Netflix’s “Colin in Black &
White,” as well. While the pro
football player and activist
has been well-documented
as an adult, tapping into his
teenage years meant sifting
through Kaepernick ’s par-
ents’ home movies and photo
albums. But because this time
in Kaepernick’s life was not
splashed across magazine cov-
ers, Michael wasn’t beholden to
copy any front-page images.
“I realized that it was more
effective to work backwards and
start from something as impres-
sionable as a young teenager and
using Colin as the light to walk
towards,” Michael says. “In real-
ity, the difference in his manner-
ism during his teenage years, I
don’t remember them being
that stark. I think it was more of
a creative choice on my part. But
there definitely was maturity; he
was growing up [and] I wanted
Colin, physically and vocally, to
represent that change through
his experience, and so I started
incorporating more of Colin’s
attributes and speech and dia-
lect as he was learning to use his
voice more [in the story].”
Teenage Kaepernick’s drive
to pursue football, despite hav-
ing many more offers to play
baseball, was an important part
of how he used his voice that
shaped the man the media has
covered, Michael points out.
“It was courageous and brave
to stick to his true passion,” he
says. “He chose to speak up for
what he believed in, and ulti-
mately, those actions would
lead to being the kind of person
to be brave enough to speak up
against social injustice against
all odds and expectations.”
34 ● FACETIME 01.03.2022

Melanie Lynskey “It’s a really nice feeling to be like, ‘Oh I could

play this person for a really long time.’”

By Danielle Turchiano

• There are so many secrets son for a really long time.” It’s
in Shauna’s life, from her time really satisfying.
in the wilderness after the • She gets into a relation-
plane crash, as well as the ship with Adam without really
affair she has in the present Googling him. Do you think
day that she keeps from her that’s a sense of arrested
husband. Were these specific development versus trust?
pieces you needed to know in Completely. I think she’s made
order to play her? I’m very com- a choice not to find this Insta-
mitment-phobic with television. gram and see a million pictures
I’m very scared of signing on to of him with his hot ex who’s like
something for years and years, 25. It’s also something that she’s
which is what it was pitched as, not trying to carry on; it’s this
and not have it be something thing that just keeps happening.
that’s creatively satisfying for [But] she gets to a point with him
that long a period. So, I just really where it’s feeling nice in a way,
wanted to ask, “Do you have a and what if it is something real?
plan?” [The showrunners] told And that’s where it all starts to
me Shauna has an affair that come crashing down and her
doesn’t go well; they told me daughter’s like, “Don’t be an
what happens with that person. idiot, he’s probably not who he
They told me how it works out says he is.”
with Jeff: They wanted the arc • At the end of Episode 8,
of the season to be us getting to Shauna confronts Adam be-
know each other and building a cause she now believes he is
gradual respect for him, realiz- the blackmailer. Where is her
ing, “Oh gosh, I’ve really under- mental state when she knocks
estimated this person.” on his door? I think despite her-
• What are some of the big- self she’s fallen for him at this
gest questions you still have point, and it’s the kind of rela-
lingering about Shauna? tionship she thought she was
Embarrassingly, I’m realizing going to have in college, and I
something I don’t know is what think it feels great so she doesn’t
happens to this pregnancy. want it to end. But it’s partly this
And then I’m just interested deep embarrassment of having
to see, for older Shauna, if the fallen for it, so she goes over
Melanie Lynskey has been one of McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” and choices she makes in Season 2 there to confront him with this
the most sought-after and versa- Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.” Lyn- start getting a little more sen- shame about, “How could I have
tile television and film actors for skey recently picked up a drama sible. It’s hard to talk about believed that you would look at
years, from a scene-stealing sup- actress Critics Choice Awards without talking about the very me and find me desirable?” She’s
Michael Buckner/Deadline

porting role on sitcom “Two and nom for the latter, in which she end of the show, but there’s a lot living in this place of self-loath-
a Half Men” to a leading lady on portrays the adult version of that I’m interested in exploring. ing and shame and all these
“Togetherness.” She’s also been Shauna, a former teen athlete It’s a really nice feeling to be l horrible things. Her headspace
part of ensembles such as Adam and plane crash survivor. ike, “Oh I could play this per- going over there is not great.

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