Playwright & Screenwriter Quiara Alegria Hudes on Adapting “In The Heights” for the Big Screen

Quiara Alegria Hudes adapted her Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights for the big screen, with some streamlining and updates. As in the original, it follows the lives of a group of people in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan over a hot summer three-day period that includes a power black-out. In an interview, Hudes talked about using very specific, evocative details to tell a universal story of dreams, home, and family.

It’s often said that the more specific something is,

“In the Heights” Choreographer Christopher Scott on Dancing in The Streets

When Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda needed a director to adapt his 2008 stage musical In the Heights for the big screen, he enlisted Jon M. Chu, director of Crazy Rich Asians and mastermind behind Hollywood’s Step Up dance movie franchise. Chu, in turn, picked his go-to choreographer Christopher Scott to create the movie’s elegantly gritty dance sequences, performed to riveting effect by star Anthony Ramos and his castmates.

“Mare of Easttown” & “The Underground Railroad” Hair Department Head Lawrence Davis

It’s rare enough to get an opportunity to work on one really good show in a year, but for hair department head Lawrence Davis, his handiwork can currently be seen on two of the best shows on television. One is Barry Jenkins’ achingly cinematic The Underground Railroad, his adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Davis was tasked with helping sustain the looks of characters,

Production Designer Amy Williams on the Ample Easter Eggs in “Master of None” Season 3

Director Aziz Ansari only appears briefly in the third season of Master of None, which turns its attention to the relationship between Denise (Lena Waithe) and Alicia (Naomi Ackie). At first blush, the pair’s marriage appears to have blossomed away from Brooklyn, in their new rambling, historic upstate home. Life seems as full as their charmingly eclectic abode — Denise is working on her second book, Alicia is getting into the antiques business,

“Solos” Creator David Weil on the Power of the Monologue

“It was funny, on lunch breaks, to see Ewoks running around.” That observation, from showrunner David Weil, who created the current series Solos for Amazon, might evoke a couple of different responses: “Ewoks? Running around at lunch? There has to be a good story behind that.” And: “Lunch breaks? Were there still formal ‘lunch breaks’ during lockdown?”

Both observations speak to the genesis of the show, which Weil, who previously created Hunters for Amazon,

Giancarlo Esposito on Breaking Good in “Godfather of Harlem”

Giancarlo Esposito has gravitas to spare. On the big screen, early on in his career, he appeared in a slew of Spike Lee’s seminal films, including a commanding performance as Dean Big Brother Almighty in School Daze (1988), which led to roles in Do The Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990) and Malcolm X (1992). On TV, Esposito’s charisma made him a natural fit for characters on both sides of the law,

“A Quiet Place Part II” Composer Marco Beltrami on Making a Menacing Score

The first box office hit of this summer’s return to in-person theater-going, A Quiet Place Part II picks up a few moments after its predecessor left off. Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) is now on her own with her three children, her husband, Lee (John Krasinski, the film’s director and writer) having been killed by the monsters with hypersensitive hearing that now stalk the Earth. With the baby packed into a box, she and her two older kids,

How The “A Quiet Place Part II” Sound Team Turns the Viewer Into Prey

Don’t make a sound. The utterly frightening creatures of A Quiet Place are back in a terrifying sequel thirsty to tear your body apart. In this new chapter, the story picks up right where it left off with the Abbott family having destroyed their home in order to stay alive. Well, almost everyone. The tragic events force Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and Marcus (Noah Jupe) to leave their safety net and look for refuge in a treacherous journey that keeps them guessing what could be lurking around the corner.

Production Designer Fiona Crombie on the Luxe World of “Cruella”

Cruella de Vil is eternally wicked, but she’s also a villain who knows how to have a riotously good time—certainly more than the original heroes of Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, anodyne dog lovers Anita and Roger Darling. And that’s why it’s this id-driven, luxury-loving, would-be dalmatian coat-wearing scoundrel who gets her own live-action origin story. In director Craig Gillespie’s Cruella, she begins life as little Estella,

Behind the Costumes, Wigs, & Makeup of the Deliciously Punk “Cruella”

When it comes to devilishly wicked Disney villains, Cruella de Vil is near the top of the list. So when the studio released the first trailer for Craig Gillespie’s live-action film Cruella and ensuing soundtrack featurette that plays like a must-have compilation of popular music from the mid-1960s to early ‘80s, we laid eyes on a mischievous title character that’s wholly reimagined and “ready to make a statement.”

Cruella is an origin story that follows Estella (Emma Stone) from her tragic childhood as an orphan to an ambitious,

“Army of the Dead” and “The Forever Purge” Star Ana de la Reguera’s Big Summer

Actress, writer, and producer Ana de la Reguera is having quite the start to her summer. She has a meaty role in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, which bowed on Netflix on May 21, and in which she plays Maria Cruz, a ferociously competent mercenary and the right-hand woman to Dave Bautista‘s Scott Ward. The role finds De La Reguera, a warm and funny presence in comedies like HBO’s Eastbound &

How the Creative Team Behind “Army of the Dead” Built An Apocalyptic World

In Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, a ragtag group of mercenaries embarks on a life-changing $200 million dollar heist. The problem isn’t that the money is hidden in a vault underneath the Las Vegas strip—although that’s not an insignificant detail—but rather the tens of thousands of zombies lurking in their path as an outbreak has turned the vibrant lights of Sin City into a desolate wasteland overtaken by the undead.

“WandaVision” Production Designer Mark Worthington on Creating Wanda’s Ever-Changing Worlds

Unlike WandaVision director Matt Shakman or series creator Jac Schaeffer, production designer Mark Worthington does not consider himself a Marvel expert. “I’m not really a big Marvel person,” he says, “but I was curious when Matt first called me about the show. He described the basic story as it being about Wanda’s grief and how the whole series is motivated by that.”

At first blush, WandaVision would seem like an almost straightforward challenge for someone with Worthington’s skillset.

“WandaVision” Director Matt Shakman on Landing His Dream Job

So many of director Matt Shakman‘s worlds collided when he took on Marvel Studios WandaVision. “I come at it from this bizarre perspective, as I’ve been a lifelong Marvel fan, a comic book fan, I’ve been in the audience for all of Marvel’s movies, but I’m also a sitcom kid, I grew up in Hollywood as an actor on sitcom sets,” Shakman says of his fortuitous role as the series director.

Justine Seymour on Outfitting the Fleeing Foxes of “The Mosquito Coast”

Clothing isn’t a primary concern for The Mosquito Coast’s misfit Fox family. Broke patriarch Allie (Justin Theroux) invents unsuccessful machines to save the world while scraping by as a handyman/asparagus farmer. His suffering, formerly wealthy wife, Margot (Melissa George), is his primary enabler. Their teenage kids, Dina (Logan Polish) and Charlie (Gabriel Bateman) tolerate their unorthodox home life to varying degrees. In Stockton, where the Foxes live mostly off the grid, the household seems about 15 years behind the times,

Taking Flight with “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” Creator Malcolm Spellman

The success or failure of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier laid heavily upon many folks, but perhaps none as specifically as creator and showrunner Malcolm Spellman. Spellman succeeded in delivering not only a thrilling, six-episode season with cinematic-level action but also a character study of one would-be Captain America in Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier absorbed the narrative traumas Sam had already endured as well as the real-world traumas that Black Americans have been dealing with forever.

Cinematographer Alicia Robbins on Filming the “Grey’s Anatomy” Covid Season—During Covid

While there’s little in the way of “good luck” that can be attributed to an ongoing pandemic, there is perhaps a little good timing, in the speedy arrival of a vaccination. For cinematographer Alicia Robbins, she chalks up her arrival as one of the two people chronicling the struggles in Seattle’s fictive-yet-storied Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, from behind a pretty active lens, to both “a stroke of good luck, and good timing.”

“I was working on For The People,

Costume Designer Laura Montgomery Gets Noir on “Spiral: From the Book of Saw”

The ninth installment of the Saw film franchise, Spiral: From the Book of Saw, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and in theaters now, takes the series in unexpected new directions. Chris Rock shelves his comedic side for the brash but grim role of Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks, a divorced detective who winds up leading an investigation into a grisly series of murders, wherein the dead are all Zeke’s fellow cops.

Future Critics: Abby Alben on Working at Mother & Daughter Entertainment

Abby Alben graduated from UCLA and, like so many people, was eager to find a job in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. What she ended up finding was a career. Alben, our latest Future Critic (although really, she’s more of a Future Producer) began working at the independent production company Mother & Daughter Entertainment. Right before we were set to publish our video interview with her, she was promoted to Head of Digital Media.

Director Barry Jenkins Mixes Beauty and Brutality in “The Underground Railroad”

The Underground Railroad has been a long time coming in Barry Jenkins‘ imagination. As a kid growing up in Miami’s rough Liberty City neighborhood, the writer-director pictured literal railroad tracks running beneath the earth. Fast forward to 2014, when Jenkins thrilled to Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and secured adaptation rights even before he’d finished promoting his Oscar-winning Moonlight movie.

After completing If Beale Street Could Talk,