From Indie Darling to Action Hero: Katy O’Brian on Her Leap from “Love Lies Bleeding” to “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning”

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If there’s a performer well-suited for the world of Mission: Impossible, it’s Katy O’Brian. The films are wildly ambitious technical endeavors – hugely physical and highly creative. Those are just a few of the characteristics that define O’Brian’s work, both on and off screen. On screen, she’s appeared in a galaxy far, far away in the world of Star Wars (The Mandalorian), mixed it up with superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania), and chased tornadoes in the most recent Twisters. Imbuing her performances is a work ethic honed in bodybuilding and martial arts. 

Last year, she gave a powerhouse performance in Love Lies Bleeding – both richly cinematic and personal. Now, in Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, she plays Kodiak, one of the colorful supporting characters helping Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, of course) save the world from nuclear destruction. It’s a role O’Brian couldn’t disclose much about during our interview, but one she worked closely with Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie in shaping. 

Recently, O’Brian spoke with The Credits about earning a role in what is possibly the final installment (for now, at least) in the Mission: Impossible franchise and making the stories she wants to tell. 

 

When you’re reading a Mission: Impossible script, what are you looking for?

[Laughs] Script? That’s funny. By the time I was about to fly out, I asked, “Hey, can I know anything about my character?” And McQ [writer/director Christopher McQuarrie] is like, “We’ll work on it when you get here.” They’re focused on making the words that come out of your mouth authentic to you as a person and authentic to you as a character. They want to hear how you’re saying things, and how you move, act, and work before they even mold the words for you. What I loved about that was that Tom and McQ were there. It was intimate. Tom doesn’t have someone reading lines other than himself, and for the biggest movie star in the world, that’s incredible. He was so passionate, not just for his performance, but with every single person’s performance.

Katy O’Brian plays Kodiak in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

Being on a Mission: Impossible set, how deep do you dive into the technical side of making one of these movies?

They want you to understand the lens they’re using. They want you to understand why they’re doing a scene a certain way and having you be more static than you’re used to. This is going to be an acting style based on the lens. They encouraged us to ask the crew questions if we weren’t working. Like, “Hey, can you explain the lighting setup?” They want you to understand how the entire team works, how the entire set works. They break it down: “This is this set, this is how we built it this way, this is why we built it this way. This is the effort that it took and the reason it’s unique.”

What did you appreciate most about the practical sets and stunts?

They’re trying to do as much as they can practically. Also, as an artist, appreciating the creativity and effort that goes into finding out how to do something on a grand scale practically is incredible. It shows a great appreciation for human beings and artists. 

 

How does your life as a martial artist inspire you when you’re working on a Mission: Impossible or other projects? 

It’s such a stress reliever. It’s also a way to keep the brain going outside of memorizing lines and everything like that. Jiu-jitsu, for instance – it’s such a fun game of chess. Muay Thai is physically exhausting, but also, there’s strategy and constantly remembering techniques. It’s mostly a way to relax, because I don’t often get to use it on screen, which has been such a bummer. I’m actively looking to do that now while I still have a functioning body. My shoulder’s already giving out, so I’m trying to take these 31 years of martial arts and put them on the screen. But there are so few action movies centered around fighting that allow for a woman lead that aren’t sci-fi, horror, or fantasy. I’m trying to find a grounded action or action-comedy that’s not all guns and explosions. It’s something I’ve discussed on sets with Tom and Glenn [Powell], just brainstorming, “What is a world where you see this being possible?”

(L-R) Katy O’Brian, Kristen Stewart. Credit: Anna Kooris

You’re writing more these days. Are you looking to create those roles and projects for yourself?

I’m in this weird, slow time in the business, where everyone’s almost afraid to pull the trigger with productions. I’m taking this as a time to pretend that I’m back in school. I’ve got my Japanese book to try to learn a little Japanese, and then I’ve got a book on fitness that I’m downloading because I’m working on a little project. I’m doing all that on the side, trying my own stuff. Once I finally put social media down for a while and stopped constantly doom-scrolling, I became so much more productive. My brain is functioning normally again, and the creative flow is coming. It’s been great because I overcame the hurdle of perfecting the first draft. Now I’m just doing this complete vomit draft of the story I want to tell.

Arnold [Schwarzenegger] has great acting advice about treating lines and projects like bodybuilding and reps. In terms of discipline, do you feel similarly about your approach to acting? 

If you don’t train, then you don’t get better. An athlete can definitely understand that. One of my first big gigs was a series regular on this silly zombie show. The auditions were 14 pages long. They kept making me do it over and over again. I finally asked the showrunner, “Why did you book me for the job?” He’s like, “I saw in your résumé: black belt, and that says discipline. I saw bodybuilding competitor, and that says significant discipline. Those are necessary for someone who’s going to have to come in every day, know their lines, know their role, and be able to handle the stress. That gives, even on the production end, people more confidence that someone will be able to handle it.”

(L-R) Katy O’Brian. Credit: Anna Kooris

In addition to the work ethic, understanding the countless nuances of an art form is also important, right?

Bodybuilding is an art – you’re sculpting your body, seeing what you need to improve, and fine-tuning sometimes really small things. The same with martial arts – it’s very technical. It’s called martial arts. There’s beauty and craft to it. You’re constantly redefining and understanding the technique. A lot of that is introspection and seeing, “What am I failing at? What do I need to improve?” and having the self-awareness to focus on that improvement. It’s crazy how many actors are like, “I’m not booking anymore, I’ve hit a plateau,” and don’t change anything. They don’t say, “Maybe I need to go back to class and learn how to breathe,” or “I need to learn how to move and take a movement technique, like an Alexander Technique,” or “I need to work on breaking down a scene better.”

(L-R) Katy O’Brian. Credit: Anna Kooris

Even when you’re not working, you are working.

[Acting coach] Larry Moss says in his book and chats with him too: you have to treat it as a full-time job. You should read multiple plays a month and memorize a monologue here and there. Then, when you get one in real life for a scene, you should pick it up quickly and know what memorization techniques work for you.

 

You worked with Larry Moss on Love Lies Bleeding. The emotions in that movie are so visceral and, as you’ve stated, provided you with new opportunities as a performer. What about that script or part of your life helped you perform at that level? 

I was frustrated because for the longest time, I didn’t think anybody was willing to give me those challenges. It’s easy to get pigeonholed into a genre as an actor – especially as a queer actor. Or women in general. Even when I read the script breakdown, I was like, “That’s me – queer woman, bodybuilder from the Midwest. I don’t know any other actors matching the description.” I’ve often been overlooked for roles because of my body, so I thought, “This is a great opportunity to put it on screen in the way I want to show it.” There’s nothing embarrassing or weird to me about having a muscular physique on a woman.

It’s such an intense film.

When I read the script and saw how deep and complicated the relationships were – they weren’t just cookie-cutter, perfect, or morally superior – it was exactly what I’d been craving and hungering Knowing that it would be with Rose [Glass], something intimate with a female lens, I was like, “This is going to be such an amazing project. It’s going to challenge me. It’s the role that I need to take in order to take that next step and have people be able to trust me in bigger projects.”

Featured image: Katy O’Brian. Credit: Anna Kooris

Building the First “Black Mirror” Sequel: How Production Designer Miranda Jones Upgraded the USS Callister Universe

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Back in Season 4 of Black Mirror, an enthusiastic programmer, Nanette (Cristin Milioti), gets trapped in a virtual-reality game by its creator and her boss, Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons). Shy and self-minimizing in real life, Nanette’s in-game clone is creative and confident enough to lead the rest of her colleagues, also trapped as crew by Daly on the starship USS Callister, out through a wormhole. Black Mirror picks up the thread with a sequel in Season 7, “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” with Daly dead and the starship’s crew fighting to survive against the multiplayer game’s millions of other players.

 

For production designer Miranda Jones (Trigger Point, Breeders), the sequel brought the chance to upgrade and further explore Daly’s starship, the in-game world, and Infinity’s offices, now taken over by Daly’s megalomaniac co-founder, Walton (Jimmi Simpson). Some of the show’s visual elements were inherited, like the characters’ improbably slim cell phones and the prevalence of clear Perspex details throughout the office’s hardware. But while the original episode’s design was rooted in loving Star Trek references (co-creator William Bridges is a fan), the sequel sees Nanette and her crew make it off the starship and onto the Infinity game’s multifarious planets. For Jones, that meant considering what Daly’s creations would look like, as well as imagining the garage locale where he first made it all happen.

Jones spoke with us about mirroring Nanette’s two worlds, incorporating practical elements into the props and builds, and using retro technology to make the future believable.

 

The ship and the office seemed to mirror each other. Was that intentional?

We directly connected things like the lifts and the movement around them. Charlie [Brooker] had inspired us in the script, and Toby [Haynes], the director, also loved those connections. But we did that deliberate echoing with all sorts of things, particularly when we saw Nanette in both places. And we’d done quite a lot with the upgrade of both spaces. The ship had been upgraded through Infinity, and the office had been upgraded through Walton’s ego.

Cristin Milioti is Nanette Cole in “Black Mirror.” Production Still Image. Courtesy Netflix.
Cristin Milioti is Nanette Cole in “Black Mirror.” Production Still Image. Courtesy Netflix.

How did you want to change or update the locations from the Season 4 episode?

There’s a sort of homage to Star Trek in that first one, but we were very much into a game aesthetic in this one. But it was a game that had been created by someone working for years. You can look at some of the games out there, and they’re not as, perhaps, detailed as ours. We wanted to believe Infinity could really go for it. We wanted to add a lot more detail and finesse. We also had some extra things, like a weapons drawer, that didn’t exist before. The consoles had working parts to them this time. We spent quite a lot of time, partly to make the actors really enjoy it. I was standing on the shoulders of what had been done before, so great credit to Joel [Collins] and Phil [Sims, previous production designers], who had done the first one. But we had a lot of freedom to really, really upgrade it.

Milanka Brook in “Black Mirror.” Courtesy Netflix.

And how did you upgrade the office?

The first time round, it still felt like a startup, and I thought Infinity was making money, and Walton had a massive ego. My idea was to make it familiar to the audience so you knew we were still in Infinity’s offices, but Walton had knocked through to Daly’s office. We upgraded the lighting, and we just really went for it.

Jimmi Simpson in “Black Mirror.” Courtesy Netflix.
Jimmi Simpson in “Black Mirror.” Courtesy Netflix.

What was the approach to incorporating practical elements that function?

The ship took three months to build, so we had quite a lot of time to think about things. We had the consoles laid out in our offices in Ealing, and we kept bringing different things in to play with, and everybody had a go. The more we did, the more ideas popped out. It was very intentional, but as the ship was built, we all walked round it and more got added. Sometimes on the day, Toby would have an idea, and there’d be this mad scramble around trying to fulfill that great idea. It was a real mix. The guns this time really lit up. As you upgraded through the weapons, they were full of LEDs, and the triggers worked. Instead of adding them in post, the actors could see that happen. We definitely wanted to improve the functionality of everything.

Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson. Courtesy Netflix.

How did you approach the in-game locations?

Charlie would describe them, but then there was the matter of what’s available. We went down all sorts of different routes in how gamey to make them feel, how super real to make them feel. We went somewhere between the boundary of sci-fi and games. There was always an ice planet at the beginning of the script. At one point, we were going to go to Iceland, and then we looked at a slate mine in Wales that was possibly quite dangerous to film in at night. In the end, we built it. It changed so many times before we got to where we were. Then we always knew we wanted to do something green, and again, we thought about going abroad, but what we ended up doing was we went to Black Park and filled it with exotics and smoke. Then we needed a contrast, so we went to a copper mine in Wales. You didn’t need to punch the colors much to make it just look otherworldly, because it really is orange. We wanted to introduce a really contrasting color, so we made the creature’s blood blue. The aim was to make three very different planets for each character.

Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson. Courtesy Netflix.

How did you approach Daly’s garage?

We obviously needed an exterior. We knew we then needed to match it to an interior that was very slightly bigger, and walls had to be removed for the stunts and things like that. So we spent quite a lot of time looking for something that could be California, and we ended up outside London in an estate with that style of house. We particularly liked the one on the sweep of the curve, but of course, that did not have the garage doors that we wanted. We had to put them in because we wanted the particular movement of that garage door, like a spaceship. And it needed to be that way, so that when Daly clicked his fingers, it ominously started to come down again.

Jesse Plemons. Courtesy Netflix.

There are so many subtle signals that show that it takes place just into the future, but there are also retro elements. What was the approach there?

This comes from Charlie’s brain, the way we look at five minutes into the future. We can be quite linear with our decisions on things, and Charlie always brings in these different ways of looking at it. By introducing some of the more period items, it was a way not to explain exactly how Daly’s doing this, because that’s bonkers. It’s a floppy disk. Therefore, you accept it because if we had tried to invent the technology that can do that, we would have asked too many questions. When he was working in the real world, it was a bit like Warhammer, we had all sorts of little paints. And then he just expanded that to how he’d make planets. But it would still be very physical, even if he’s just doing it.

Black Mirror season 7 is streaming now on Netflix. 

Featured image: Cristin Milioti is Nanette Cole in “Black Mirror.” Production Still Image. Courtesy Netflix.

Fire Drill: “Final Destination Bloodlines” DP Christian Sebaldt & VFX Supervisor Nordin Rahhali on Creating a Scorcher

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A quarter of a century after the first Final Destination movie landed in theaters, the beloved franchise is back with a vengeance. Final Destination: Bloodlines leans into two things: using practical effects wherever possible and paying homage to the franchise’s core concept—Death can’t be cheated. 

Final Destination: Bloodlines, now in theaters, follows college student Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) as she is plagued by a recurring nightmare that leads her to discover her family on Death’s list. Her only way to try to save them is to find the one person who can break the cycle.

Cinematographer Christian Sebaldt, ASC, whose work includes Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and visual effects supervisor Nordin Rahhali, known for San Andreas and the Fantastic Beasts films, collaborate to breathe new life into the franchise’s trademark iconic set pieces. Here, they break down how they made the best of Vancouver’s creative talent pool, how they constructed the film’s creatively brutal sequences, and what they think needs to be done to bring more films like this back to Los Angeles, where they both live. 

What can you tell me about your creative partnership?

Rahhali: The restaurant set piece at the beginning of the movie is a great example. That came from the script, it went to storyboards, then a very heavily prevised sequence so we could work out all the major shots ahead of time. That was important for Christian and me, because we could figure out which ones would be challenging even before the set was built. I was also able to do some techvis so we could figure out how to film it. We had limitations on the stage space and how the build was going to be. We also gave some leeway for the art department to put flyways in the ceiling so we could get cranes in, and all of that had to be planned way ahead.

Caption: New Line Cinema’s “Final Destination Bloodlines,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Eric Milner

How much prep time did you have? 

Rahhali: We prepped twice for this film because we were a week away from filming, and SAG-AFTRA members went on strike, which shut the production down. When they came to an agreement, we went back to film, but not everyone was available, so we had a partially different team. We managed to keep the core intact, but had to do prep again. We benefited from it because our script had evolved and improved. The writers were on strike, too, but we had a locked script, so when they agreed, they could work on it, and lo and behold, it was better. The whole film benefited from that. 

Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

When setting pieces and effects, what was the one you knew you needed to get right first to set the bar?

Rahhali: We wanted to have the first scene in the film at the end of the schedule because it was the most complicated. However, due to money, scheduling, and other things, it ended up fitting at the head of the schedule. I think that also benefited the film because sometimes you need to be thrown into the fire and get the hard thing out of the way.

Sebaldt: One thing that has always been important to me, no matter what type of project it is, is to deliver first dailies that are really good, because the first few days, maybe even the first week or so, the studio or the network, wherever the money is coming from, are watching them closely. It was the right way to start because the moment the dailies came in, everybody said, ‘Oh, my God. Incredible.’

Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

What are your favorite effects from the film?

Sebaldt: My favorite scene is when our lovely couple gets in the elevator in the first scene as the premonitions start. The audience sees them arrive at the restaurant, but the elevator doesn’t actually arrive because it was built into the set and didn’t move at all. It’s just a gag, but everybody wiggles in sync, and now it’s my favorite effect in the movie.

Rahhali: There’s a really great shot right after the explosion in the restaurant. It’s a tracking shot. Iris enters the frame, the restaurant is on fire, people are in the background, and there is all this smoke. It’s the first shot where you see the mayhem and feel it on her face as she runs towards us. It’s not the most extravagant shot, but it looks beautiful and merges all the disciplines. It’s the type of shot that, if done wrong, you don’t buy anything after it.

Final Destination: Bloodlines leans into practical effects. What were the creative benefits of that?

Rahhali: I’m a big advocate for building off a good base. The visuals look the best when they’re built off of something real, or if there’s a great reference, so I worked with our SFX head, who was game for putting as much fire everywhere as possible, which is why we fireproof the set. We had the fire department there every day. It was a very safe and controlled environment, but they could put fire everywhere. With that base, even though we added a lot more fire, that fire was a lighting reference and a physical reference for the actors to act against. Practical effects like the degloving of the hand and the lawnmower to the face are incredible. That was a beautiful maquette, and we took a lawn mower, went for the face, added blood, and enhanced it, but it was a base to work off.

Caption: Brec Bassinger as “Iris” in New Line Cinema’s “Final Destination Bloodlines,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

You are both based here in California. Final Destination: Bloodlines was shot in Vancouver, Canada. Did you use a lot of local craft talent?

Sebaldt: I rely on the camera, lighting, and grip departments to save my butt, and fortunately, when we started both preps, the talent pool was unbelievably strong. There was a hole in the schedule where the big movies and TV shows were not shooting, so we had the best crew available in Western Canada at that time.

Rahhali: Vancouver has a world-class crew and a great talent base, both for production and post. Years and years of rebates will do that for you. Everyone migrates up there.

Sebaldt: I worked there on the show Lucifer for Jerry Bruckheimer for a few months. I was replacing another DP, and I met a gaffer with whom I worked well, called Sean Rooney. When this project came along, Sean was available. He’s extremely experienced, can handle the most complex settings, and he’s unbelievably prepared. He brings the right rigging gaffers and so on, so we never have issues or delays. If I have an inexperienced crew, I deliver a mediocre product. There’s no question about it.

There is a huge move to improve incentives and bring more filming back to California, especially Los Angeles. What do you think needs to be done to help with that?

Rahhali: It’s dollars. That’s all it is. If a market offers a studio a rebatable percentage of 30 percent or more on their dollar, that’s where they will want to film, especially if that market is strong and has a great team. Vancouver, Toronto, London, and the Gold Coast in Australia have built up. This is just my opinion, but until all those rebates go away, the studios will keep going for that. I don’t see things coming back unless California has comparable rebates or incentives. I want it to because I live here. I know they’re trying, but they haven’t gone far enough. Some films will take advantage of those, but I don’t think it will bring it all back until it is close to the level of other locations.

Sebaldt: I pay attention to where I shop. If there are four stores, and they all have the same product, and in this case, it’s a good crew, I’ll go to the place that saves me 15 percent. The problem with California is that we don’t have anything comparable, even to other states. We have got to look around this country, and say, ‘Who gives the best rebates? Let’s beat the best rebates in the rest of the country to bring projects here.’

Rahhali: Make Hollywood what it was. I’ve lived here for 21 years. I can count on one hand the films that I’ve worked on here in terms of production. I’ve always flown everywhere else to film. I’ve done pickups on films here, or reshoots in some cases, but it’s very sad that Hollywood, the hub of all cinema exports worldwide, doesn’t shoot films as much as it used to. I would love to film here entirely, but I’ve never done it.

Final Destination: Bloodlines is in theaters now.

Featured image: Brec Bassinger as “Iris” in New Line Cinema’s “Final Destination Bloodlines,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo credit: Eric Milner/Warner Bros.

Crafting Continental Studios: How Julie Berghoff Built Seth Rogen’s Fictional Production Powerhouse in “The Studio”

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In The Studio, the fast-talking movie executives who make and sell motion pictures to mass audiences might use “on the nose” as a pejorative. But sometimes, the obvious solution can’t be denied. For show creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, there was only one place to set their behind-the-scenes look at how cinematic sausage gets made: Warner Bros. Studios.

The Burbank, California backlot serves as headquarters for the fictional Continental Studios. Run by Rogen’s Matt Remick and his fractious minions (Ike Barinholtz, Catherine O’Hara, Patty Leigh, Chase Sui Wonders, and Kathryn Hahn), the studio co-exists in an alternative universe alongside the “big five” Hollywood dream factories that originated in the 1920s. Rogen and his team enlisted production designer Julie Berghoff to make his imaginary fiefdom seem authentic. “What I was trying to do is to create a space that allows the audience to feel the lushness and the history of a real Hollywood studio,” says Berghoff, who won a 2017 Emmy for designing The Handmaid’s Tale.

Speaking from Atlanta, where she’s working on an Amazon Prime project, Berghoff explains how Frank Lloyd Wright, mid-century modern master John Lautner, and a 9,000-square-foot soundstage served as the foundation for a 2025 incarnation of old-school glamour.

 

In designing Continental Studios, you basically created a home base for the entire series. How did you arrive at the look?

I researched the Big Five [Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Disney, and Sony Pictures], looked at where they came from, and how their backlots were set up. We needed to know what already existed out there and then figure out how Continental fit in with the Big Five.

Chase Sui Wonders, Seth Rogen, Kathryn Hahn and Ike Barinholtz in “The Studio,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

So Continental Studios needed to evoke some of that old school 1920s-1930s vibe while having its own identity. Architecturally, who did you turn to?

We decided we wanted the studio to be designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who came to California in 1915 and was influenced by the Mayan revival at the San Diego World’s Fair. We liked the materials he used at the time, and also liked the feeling of the architecture being kind of tomblike, which correlated with the way filmmaking has its ups and downs. We also wanted the studio to have a very strong, angled structure that felt heavy.

Where did you build the space?

It was built from scratch on Stage 23 on the Warner Bros. lot.

How did you prepare for the construction?

As always, I started out with a complete ground plan, then made a rough three-D model that I taped onto our stage floor. It was almost 9,000 square feet, and we had a seven-week build. I wanted most of it to be made of plaster, because you can mix in the colors you want [with the plaster] and then just seal it with paint, which helped because I was also set decorating, so this was fast and furious. We painted that beautiful ceramic floor in earth tones, like sandstone, and I mixed emerald-colored glass specks into the plaster, so if the light hits the floor in a certain way, it feels a little bit like the Emerald City.

L to R: Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders ], Kathryn Hahn, and Seth Rogen. Photo: Apple TV+

It looks like the studio lobby is packed with details.

We did little pockets of storytelling with Claire Coffman, my decorator, almost like a museum with little remnants of the studio’s history, like the last Oscar they won or a hat that Elizabeth Taylor would have worn. I also put Cucoloris in the window that had the branding of Continental.

Seth Rogen and Ron Howard. Photo: Apple TV+

What is Cucoloris?

It’s a film term for a mesh ornamental device in a window that translates a design so that when sunlight comes through the window, it projects a shadow of the design into the space. I designed a Cucoloris with the letter “C” for Continental.

So, you built the interiors for Continental Studios on the soundstage. Where did they situate the exterior, which we see every time Matt walks up the stairs into work?

The exterior was built literally on the steps to the Warner Bros. Television building. I drove all around the lot and decided that the building was best suited for the exterior. I built the first story of the exterior and basically snugged it in between the trees. When Seth drives up in his golf cart, walks up the stairs, and goes through the doors, that’s when we cut into our stage set.

Seth Rogen in “The Studio,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

In “The Oner” episode, everything is shot in one continuous take while Sarah Polley directs a movie on location at this glamorous L.A. house. Where did you find that home?

That’s the Silvertop house in Silverlake, designed by John Lautner, also known as the Reiner-Burchill Residence. I lived in Silver Lake for 15 years and walked past that house many times. It’s at the top of Micheltorena Street and looks down over the Silver Lake reservoir. The house changed hands two or three years ago and became available, so that’s definitely a house I suggested. Stacey Buckner, my location scout manager extraordinaire—she and I scoured a lot of architectural houses for each character.

 

Ex-studio boss Patty, played by Catherine O’Hara, also has a great-looking mid-century modern home where she yells at Matt for stealing her job.

Patty’s house is actually Kelly Lynch’s home, also by John Lautner. We wanted to shoot at a different Lautner house, but there was construction going on, so Catherine helped us get in there. Kelly was very gracious about letting us into her home. The view was spectacular, and then we showed Patty dragging Matt from room to room. In this show, the characters are always moving.

Catherine O’Hara and Seth Rogen. Photo: Apple TV+

Nobody’s sitting still, that’s for sure.

Seth told us, “Coffee is very important to me,” so the coffee station we put in his office had to be a very authentic Italian espresso machine that didn’t make noise but made bad-ass coffee. We always needed to have certain things for our locations: beautiful views, great mid-century houses with movement through their spaces, and a lot of light.

The Studio shoots in Los Angeles, where you live. Did you appreciate being able to work locally with a local crew?

I’ve never worked anywhere else in the world with as much love for filmmaking, professionalism, and craftsmanship as Los Angeles. To see all these working people toiling away on something we pictured for our story, and then to be there on the studio lot for five or six months straight? That was like a dream come true.

How did you take advantage of Warner Bros. backlots to shoot movie snippets within the show, like the Paul Dano action movie, Ron Howard’s film with the boring ending, Alphabet City Street, or Johnny Knoxville’s projectile diarrhea zombie movie Duhpocalypse?

The Paul Dano action movie was filmed on Midwest Street. For the Ron Howard movie Alphabet City, I looked at Taxi Driver for [inspiration], then I’d just go round the backlots and suggest “How about if we do this one here, that one there?” A lot of scenes involved Matt on his golf cart driving to the sets, so we gave that a lot of thought.

 

Were you able to use the studio’s various departments to dress the sets?

Yes. It was really fun to create these little stories outside the stage doors. Christmas! Gladiators! Robots! We’d ask set dec: “What do you have ten of?” We were literally using what Hollywood is famous for – prop houses, costume departments, and wardrobe – and then leaning on all these assets that have accumulated for years to be able to tell stories within the stories.

The Studio is streaming in its entirety on Apple TV+.

Featured image: L to R: Ron Howard, Anthony Mackie, Chase Sui Wonders, Seth Rogen and Catherine O’Hara. Photo: Apple TV +

Austin Butler & Zoë Kravitz Run for Their Lives in First Trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing”

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The first trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s crime caper Caught Stealing has arrived, and it’s doozy. Austin Butler stars as Hank Thompson, a former high school baseball phenom turned bartender at a New York City dive. But don’t cry for Hank, his life is pretty good—New York is the greatest city on Earth, of course, and he’s got an amazing girlfriend named Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), so things are going pretty well all things considered.

Yet there’s a significant vibe shift when Hank, being a nice guy, agrees to watch after his punk neighbor Russ’s (Matt Smith) cat. It turns out that Russ is involved in some highly sketchy, very dangerous business with a host of unsavory types, including Hasidic, Puerto Rican, and Russian mobsters. All of these folks are taking a run at Hank (he gets punched repeatedly throughout the trailer), but he hasn’t the foggiest clue why. He’s gotta find out, and fast, before he becomes a casualty in a war he doesn’t even understand.

The cast for Aronofsky’s caper is incredible—joining Butler, Kravitz, and Smith are Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, Regina King, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Griffin Dunne, Benito A Martínez Ocasio (aka Bad Bunny), and Carol Kane. Aronofsky directs from a script by Charlie Huston, based on the books Huston wrote.

This is Aronofsky’s first film since his 2022 drama The Whale, which netted Brendan Fraser an Oscar for Best Actor. At CinemaCon, Aronofsky said that with Caught Stealing, he wanted to make “something that was a lot of fun.” From this first look at the trailer, it appears he’s pulled it off.

Check out the trailer below. Caught Stealing hits theaters on August 29.

For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:

“Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse” Swinging Into Theaters in 2027

Sam Mendes’ Beatles Biopic Reveals Fab Four: Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan, & Harris Dickinson

From the Upside Down to the MCU: “Stranger Things” Star Sadie Sink Joining Tom Holland in “Spider-Man 4”

From Acclaimed Ads to the Andes: Director Dougal Wilson’s Charming Feature Film Debut “Paddington in Peru”

Featured image: Zoë Kravitz and Austin Butler in “Caught Stealing.” Courtesy Sony Pictures.

Ground-Level Galaxy: “Andor” DP Christophe Nuyens on Making the Most Visceral “Star Wars” Story Ever Told

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The satisfactions of Tony Gilroy‘s Andor were such that many viewers comforted themselves when the series came to an end on May 13 by immediately turning to Rogue One, the 2016 feature film that Andor served as a prequel series for. Such has been the power of Andor—it’s been hard to let go, and there’s no better way to keep the rebel spirit alive than by following Cassian Andor’s (Diego Luna) story to its bittersweet conclusion. Rogue One is really the only way to wean yourself off what’s been one of the most deeply gratifying Star Wars stories ever told.

The journey of Cassian Andor from reluctant rebel manque to becoming one of the key architects of the Death Star’s destruction—detailed, you might remember, in George Lucas’s 1977 Big Bang event movie, Star Wars IV: A New Hope—is the backbone of Andor. Yet what has made the series so relentlessly compelling is how the galactic struggle that Lucas conjured between a scrappy, often squabbling rebel alliance and a ruthless fascist Empire was brought down to Earth, so to speak, and into the streets, in Andor. Lucas gave us a battle between good and evil that was stark and colossal and shot through with Jedi masters and Sith Lords. Gilroy and his team grounded the struggle with people (and aliens) who wouldn’t return as Force Ghosts when they perished in the cause. In the place of the Death Star obliterating Leia Organa’s home planet of Alderaan, Andor gave us the massacre on Ghorman, all the more horrifying for being so up close and personal.

While Andor is nominally centered around Cassian, in reality, the series was a thrilling ensemble story, tracking a growing alliance of rebels, many of whom aren’t dashing pilots like Cassian or DH-16 blaster-toting guerrilla warriors like Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker). These are disaffected civilians like Cassian’s adoptive mother, Maarva, a former mechanical salvager who, as a member of the Daughters of Ferrix, became a key figure in the growing resistance. Or moles within the ISB (Imperial Security Bureau) like Lonnie Jung, who existed in a state of perpetual paranoia and who paid the ultimate price to deliver key information to rebel spies like Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and his ally and eventual successor, Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulua). Andor follows politicians like Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), who eventually becomes the de facto leader of the alliance, while giving key moments to smaller players like Thela (Stefan Crepon), a hotel clerk in Palmo who tells Cassian that “rebellions are built on hope,” a line that returns in Rogue One. 

Helping frame this story of the rebellion’s many authors was cinematographer Christophe Nuyens, whose mission was to lens the first six episodes of season 2. While Nuyens is adept at framing and differentiating the many planets and terrific set pieces that Star Wars fans are familiar with and count on, he also helped bring the series to street level, turning events like a wedding and meeting a partner’s parent into thrilling sequences. We spoke to Nuyens about what made Andor such a compelling series and how he framed the struggle against fascism on such a personal level.

(L-R) Denise Gough and Christophe Nuyens on the set of Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

On a personal level, how does it feel to work on one of the most critically acclaimed narratives in the entire Star Wars galaxy?

I feel honored. One of my favorite Star Wars movies is Rogue One, so I was honored to be asked to work on the first six episodes of the prequel to that film this season.

Andor is, of course, a part of the broader Star Wars universe, but it has consistently felt unlike any other Star Wars film or series. Were there any conversations about how Andor‘s aesthetics and storytelling stand apart from more traditional Star Wars stories when you came aboard?

We didn’t have a big brief about any Star Wars link. I think the most important thing is that we stayed in the universe of the first season of Andor, which is, I think, one of the most human Star Wars stories ever told. For the look and feel of the series, they gave us quite a bit of freedom.

Diego Luna on the set of Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Des Willie. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

What were the sets like for season two, which hops around the galaxy, from Coruscant and Chandrila to Ghorman, Mina-Rau, and Yavin 4?

It’s a big mix. A lot of it was built on stages at Pinewood and Longcross. For example, on the backlot of Pinewood, we built the plaza [of the Ghorman city of Palmo], which was beautiful and enormous. We also built the streets of Ghorman there. Longcross was where we filmed the jungle bits, on Yavin 4, because Longcross is an ancient military district, so there’s a lot of forest there. We built out bits of forest, and honestly, it looked like I was shooting in Vietnam. The art department on this show is incredible. Luke Hull, our production designer, did such beautiful work. It was a pleasure to light and film on those sets.

(L-R): Tony Gilroy and Diego Luna on the set of Lucasfilm’s ANDOR, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Was the central square in Palmo on Ghorman largely a practical set?

It was a practical set; the hotel was there, the entrance of the ISB offices was there, and the bar was there. All of that was practical. The stairs were there, too. The only thing that wasn’t there was the second level, which was all VFX extension. There was so much detail put into those sets.

Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

It had a European capital vibe…

That was the pitch, actually! Tony’s pitch was that it should feel like a town in Italy or France. So we started looking for references, and the code name for the set ended up being Turin. It’s really based on a mix between the architecture of France and the French Resistance, and where it’s located on the planet is more like the north of Italy, in the mountains. It was really nice to play with. When we started brainstorming about Ghorman and how the light should look, Tony was so precise about what he wanted for us that it was a gift to start looking for references and execute it.

Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

How did you approach keeping your eye on the narrative and human element of Andor, which is such a striking depiction of the courageous acts, both big and small, of people resisting a growing dictatorship?

We had a lot of prep on this series, and for every scene and every set, we’d read the script several times, generate ideas, and look for references. There was a lot of prep, and we were always looking for a flow between scenes. At the end of almost every episode, there’s a pile of edits going between different planets and different moments, and it was important that those scenes flowed into each other. The camera moves, the lighting flares, and all of it has to connect. We did a lot of shot listing, pre-vising, and testing. That’s the good thing about having that prep: we could test to see if things worked.

Cinematographer Christophe Nuyens on the set of Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

What kind of cameras are you using?

We used Venice cameras, the same as the first season. The only thing I changed was that I used Ultra-Vista lenses that cover the full sensor. Rogue One was shot on Alexa 65mm, which is a large-format camera, so it was important to go to a larger format, open the scope a little bit, and raise it a little bit toward Rogue One.

 

How did the three-episode-at-a-time releases shape the way you approached your work on the first six episodes? 

Oh yeah, because we each did two sets of three episodes, it was really important that every three-episode arc felt different, both in lighting and feeling. For example, in the first three episodes, we said, Okay, you’ve got Mina-Rau, it’s a sunny planet, and it should feel like everything is good, but suddenly, everything starts to collapse. You have the wedding on Chandrila, which is also sunny, so in those first three episodes, the sun is coming in, and there’s a little flare and a warm feeling. Then, in the second three episodes on Ghorman, it was like a city in the Alps in winter. So light-wise, I was always thinking about the north of Italy in winter, and we’re shooting at the moment that the sun is behind the mountains. It’s still day, but the light is very blue. We took the approach that those three episodes felt a bit darker, a bit moodier. We really tried to differentiate those blocks of episodes.

Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s talk about when Mon Mothma kind of loses it at the end of the wedding in episode 3, “Harvest,” where she starts dancing…

There was a lot of back and forth in that episode. In the beginning, when we were reading the scene, we read it as a night scene. We knew Tony wanted to have a scene where Mon is losing it, it should feel a bit like a nightclub, and we were thinking about ideas both in the Star Wars world and in the Andor world to create something like that. Then suddenly, in a meeting, Tony said, ‘No, no, no, it’s a day scene, because on the other planet, everything that’s happening is also a day scene.’ So we came up with the idea that the wedding starts at noon and then throughout, the sun is going down, so by the end of the episode, the sun is so low that everything is flaring, and it becomes quite a contrast. But to do that, normally you’d use a green screen, but a green screen is difficult to do that kind of lighting, and the windows are overexposed. So after a lot of discussion, we decided that maybe we should use an old technique—a painted backdrop.

Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

A painted backdrop in a Star Wars series is delightfully retrograde.

Yeah, we painted the backdrop of the mountains we used in Barcelona for the exterior scenes, and I’m so happy we did it in-camera, because it’s one of my favorite scenes. It’s so not Star Wars, but it’s a scene I’m quite proud of. Those differences are what’s really nice about Andor. You have Yavin 4, which is like the old Star Wars movies, it’s dirty and darker, and then you’ve got the ISB, which is white, like everything with the Empire, white and bright and monotone, so there are so many looks in the show, it’s so nice to play with.

 

Do you have any favorite sequences from the first six episodes?

Yes [laughs]. The scene between Dedra [Denise Gough], Syril [Kyle Soller], and Syril’s mom Eedy [Kathryn Hunter]. The scene in their apartment was so nice to film, and they’re so good. It was so funny because the whole crew was sitting over there, and we were all saying, ‘We know this experience!’ It’s an exaggerated version of what we see with our parents or our girlfriends, and all the details and all the extra things they brought to that scene was really so nice to film.

(L-R) Eedy Karn (Kathryn Hunter) and Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

I love that, of all the incredible sequences and high-stakes moments you filmed for this season of Andor, your favorite was a domestic scene between a couple and one very domineering mother.

It’s a really awkward scene, and it’s so nice to play with that awkwardness and underlying tension. We used a lot of fixed shots, and we tried to emphasize the tension with the camera. I really love that scene. When I go home happy, it’s not because I did some great lighting or great shots, it’s because I shot a good scene, and that was a day when I shot a good scene.

Featured image: Diego Luna on the set of Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

One-Shot Wonders: How Casting Director Shaheen Baig Assembled the Perfect Cast for “Adolescence”

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Co-created by and co-starring Stephen Graham, Netflix’s four-part series Adolescence has been a widely viewed hit for the streaming site. Nothing about casting the show, about an otherwise ordinary boy, Jamie (Owen Cooper), who has been influenced to such a malign degree by his online life that he becomes capable of murdering a classmate, Katie (Emilia Holliday), was standard operating procedure. Each episode is a single take, and finding an actor young enough to play the difficult role of thirteen year old Jamie and do so while shooting repeat one-shots was no small feat.

Knowing that discovering the show’s Jamie would be a long process, casting director Shaheen Baig (After Love, Peaky Blinders) looked for adult leads at the same time. She cast parts like DI Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters), the cop who first brings Jamie in for questioning, and Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty), while the search for Jamie across Yorkshire and northern England ran in the background. Prior to his arrest, Jamie lives with his family in a pleasant, unspecified Yorkshire town, and Baig kept her hunt regional, both so that actors wouldn’t have to do accents and the series’ many younger players could easily go home after work.

The work itself was structured atypically, with each episode requiring a rehearsal week, tech week, and shoot week, and it was non-negotiable for actors to be available for the whole period. Also unusual: having gotten down to a shortlist of four actors for the role of Jamie, after choosing Cooper, Baig and her team gave the other three finalists roles in the story, which is a rare occurrence. “I think that is a really positive note,” she said. “There was inclusivity across the board, and that was one of the joys of it.”

Adolescence has been lauded for its chillingly apropos script, but the series’ authenticity also comes from Baig’s meticulous casting choices. We had the chance to speak with Baig about putting together a stellar cast for one of the year’s most resonant new series.

 

What is your process like when a show’s creator is also the star?

It means you have this wonderful shorthand with the team. Stephen was really involved in the casting process. A lot of us had worked with each other before. It felt very much like we were in sync, and that’s rare. Sometimes you can spend an initial moment just getting to know everybody, and everyone has a slightly different idea of what the show is, but on this one, we were all aligned.

Adolescence. (L to R) Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, in Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

What was the search for Jamie like?

He is incredible. We searched all over Yorkshire and then in a couple of cities in the north of England. We did street casting, used social media, contacted youth groups, sports groups, drama groups, schools, anything you could think of, really. We were looking not just for Jamie but also for other young people in the story. We also looked at professional young actors. But it was a very wide, lengthy search.

Adolescence. (L to R) Mark Stanley as Paulie Miller, Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

What were some of the particular qualities you were looking for?

This was an unusual job, and the nature of the one-shot was not just for the young actors but for the adult cast. It was almost like a piece of theater. You rehearse and rehearse and rehearse, and then you shoot. It’s continuous, and you redo [a certain] amount of times a day. We needed really robust actors across the board. For Jamie, we saw some brilliant young people for the role. We got down to four, and they were all fantastic in different ways. We knew we needed somebody who wasn’t afraid of repetition, and somebody who was able, every time we did it again, for it to feel fresh, to feel original. Owen just had that capacity. He wasn’t scared of the process. I don’t think he realized, until he got into rehearsals, how the one-shot would manifest, but he was very focused, he did the work, and he listened. He worked really closely with Phil [Barantini, the show’s director] and Stephen, and I think he displayed, in those final screen tests, the ability to lock in and want to do the very best he could. It was an extraordinary sort of focus for somebody so young.

Adolescence*. (L to R) Phillip Barantini, Owen Cooper, Ashley Walters, Stephen Graham on the set of Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix/Ben Blackall © 2024 *working title

How did you cast Erin Doherty as Briony, Jamie’s clinical psychologist?

Erin is a brilliant actress. We had worked together on a series for Disney called A Thousand Blows. She was one of the leads, along with Stephen, on that show. We talked about a lot of different people for that role [of Briony]. Erin’s done a lot of theater, so she has that work ethic and [knows] the technical aspects of it. And also, she’s a really brilliantly truthful actor. We knew she would be able to embrace that way of working. I don’t think it’s for everybody. It’s fairly terrifying to shoot like that, but exhilarating. Once we’d all decided it was Erin, it was a no-brainer. She was coming straight off another job, so fair play to her, because we shot Episode 3 first. For Erin and Owen, that was really tough. But once Owen was able to manage that, he could manage anything, I’d say.

Adolescence. (L to R) Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston, Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller in Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Ben Blackall/Netflix © 2024

How did you find Manda, Owen’s mother?

Christine [Tremarco] is a great actress. Stephen has known Christine since they were kids. When we were talking about actresses for that part, we only talked about a very small group of people. It’s such intimacy in Episode 4. It’s a really difficult episode. Christine is someone he has massive respect for and feels really comfortable with. I knew that Stephen and Christine would really take care of Amelie [Pease, who plays Owen’s older sister Lisa], because it was her first job, and that Christine and Stephen would have this really natural bond.

Adolescence. (L to R) Christine Tremarco as Manda Miller, Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Ben Blackall/Netflix © 2024

How did you put together the huge cast for the high school?

We gave parts to a lot of the young people we saw throughout the whole audition process. We kept bookmarking. When it got to making the decisions—and this was a really lovely, special thing about the job—collectively we said, we’d really like to give a whole bunch of people parts in the series. We also used a lot of local young people, because we needed big crowd scenes. The production embraced the community that was on their doorstep.

Adolescence. Amari Jayden Bacchus as Adam Bascombe in Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Ben Blackall/Netflix © 2024

Out of that episode, Katy’s best friend, Jade, really stands out.

She’s incredible. It’s almost like you could make a film just about her story. [Fatima Bojang] does something so brilliant with that part, because she’s really memorable. When I finished the series, I kept thinking about her. That was the real beauty of her performance. It was a difficult part to play, and she gives you so much back story, she gives you layers, [even though] she doesn’t have lots of screen time.

Adolescence. Fatima Bojang as Jade in Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

What was the general approach to casting supporting roles?

Across the board, it was really a matter of workshopping, working with smaller and smaller groups, and working out what their instincts were. Phil really loves to work with natural instincts, so that’s what we did. Some roles were slightly tweaked for those young people to embrace what they were naturally bringing to those workshops. We did do script work, but we did a lot of improvisational work with them as well, throughout the audition process, to see where their imagination was, and to see how quick and fast they are, because when you’re working on something that’s essentially shooting live, anything can go wrong at any time. We needed to have really imaginative actors who weren’t afraid to improvise, because sometimes in those situations you have to.

 

 

 

Featured image: Adolescence. (L to R) Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, Erin Doherty as Briony Ariston, in Adolescence. Cr. Courtesy of Ben Blackall/Netflix © 2024

Rufus Sewell on Playing ‘The Good Guy’s Bad Guy’ in Netflix’s “The Diplomat”

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A proper English thespian who originated a role in Tom Stoppard’s Laurence Olivier Award-winning play Arcadia fresh out of acting school, Rufus Sewell has since excelled as a character actor with leading man looks. Over the past few years he’s played a sadistic aristocrat (The Illusionist); a Nazi (The Man in the High Castle); an astrophysicist (Eleventh Hour); and a drunken artist (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), for which he earned an Emmy nomination. Now, Sewell’s co-starring in The Diplomat as Hal Wyler, the savvy American husband of Keri Russell’s title character.

Created by former The West Wing writer-producer Debora Cahn, the Netflix political thriller follows Kate Wyler, U.S. Ambassador to the UK. Hal protects her interests amid a treacherous thicket of suspect politicians, bombings, treason, and state secrets. In his character’s defense, Sewell tells The Credits, “I would describe Hal as the good guy’s bad guy in that he will be underhanded and cutthroat in his machinations to do something he truly believes is for the good of mankind. In that regard, he’s not a careerist.”

Speaking from the garage of his home in Los Angeles, Sewell extols the virtues of French movies, screwball comedies, and that unquantifiable thing called chemistry.

 

How did you make your brash American character so convincing?

It’s lovely to hear that I bring out “brash American” – something that is almost jarring because that is so not me. The trick [of being an actor] is to do enough work that nobody notices that you’re doing any acting when in fact you’re working your little socks off!

You start Season 2 flat on your back in the hospital after being blown up in a car bomb attack in the Season 1 finale, presumably traumatized but loath to show it?

Initially, he’s not traumatized at all. As Kate says, people have tried to kill Hal many times. He’s, you might say, bulletproof to the point of exasperation in that he seems to come out of these things relatively unscathed. So I think Hal’s assumption, based on experience, is that he’s absolutely fine—until suddenly he isn’t. When they’re attending the fireworks and he has that panic attack episode, it’s not as if he’s been trying to conceal it all that time. Unless I was doing such subtle acting that nobody noticed, not even me. [laughing]. The idea in the writing and my conception of it was that the fireworks took Hal — and Kate — completely by surprise.

You play the supportive spouse in The Diplomat even though you’ve established a formidable State Department career of your own. Surely Hal must be ambitious in his own right?

Well, he’s incredibly ambitious for her. too. When people see Hal wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, the assumption is he’s doing it for his advantage or her eventual disadvantage, but that is not the case. The whole set-up of the show is that Hal manipulated Kate into a position so that she can be where she belongs, right at the top. On set, this is something we often talked about with Keri and Deb, the writer and showrunner. If the door had nudged open for Hal, you can best believe he would take that door, but the door that is opening is for Kate to be vice president, so that’s the play — that’s where we point our guns.

The Diplomat. (L to R) Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler in episode 204 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Did you have any references in mind that shaped the way you thought about Hal’s role in The Diplomat?

There’s a fantastic scene in Primary Colors, where there’s a question about whether it’s moral to take advantage of a rival’s [secret] past in order to win. John Travolta, as the Bill Clinton—inspired character, says, “Yes. If you don’t know when to kill, then you’re not in the right job.” So what I’m saying is, when you have an opportunity to win, for all of the right reasons, you have to take it. Hal is one of these people. And in that sense, Kate too is a killer.

 

It’s fascinating to witness the domestic dimension of the story, when Hal and Kate retire from public view and go to bed. The pajamas, the banter, the sex all seem to be part of the same flow?

That was there when I read the first couple of scripts, and I was immediately smitten. It reminded me of being a bit like a French movie: people would be arguing, the lady, or the gent, would go into the bathroom, take a pee, and carry on. It wasn’t a thing. Or it’s like early Woody Allen, where the comedy is not some pasted-on thing but came out of how these characters thought and spoke. These are not people who eat a croissant, talk about politics, and then have sex. Mentally enough, [laughing] for Kate and Hal, talking about the nitty gritty – the kill – is part of the sex.

The Diplomat. (L to R) Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler, Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in episode 205 of The Diplomat. Cr. Alex Bailey/Netflix © 2024

Very adult.

The writing also reminded me of movies like The Philadelphia Story and His Girl Friday. It’s that screwball thing where two people are apart but together, and it has that [snapping fingers]. It’s very difficult to get that right.

 

You two have chemistry, full stop.

You can see people trying for it, which I find more excruciating than Dullard’s comedy, to tell you the truth.

Because it feels forced?

The fancy talk. I find it grating when people play that style too knowingly. The sh*t that people describe as “chemistry” in reviews I find ridiculous – “finishing each other’s sentences at the same time” — basically the kind of stuff that makes executive producers high five each other in screening rooms.

Did you do a “chemistry read” with Keri to land the role?

No, it was just Deb’s gut feeling. I’d seen Keri’s stuff, I thought she was great, but we’d never met. I accepted the job. I was flown to England, where I go to work now that I live in Hollywood [laughing] — and on my first day on set, I popped into the makeup room. Keri was there, I think I made a joke, she laughed, we had a very brief chat about nothing in particular, and I came out of the trailer thinking “Oh, it’ll be fine.”

The Diplomat. (L to R) Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler, Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in episode 206 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

It sounds like you two did not need to plan things too much in advance.

We were just on the same page instinctively. We both have our process that we don’t make anybody else’s business, and my take on a scene will complement her take. We could have completely different conceptions of the scene, but we’re able to use our own thoughts and change and respond to each other as we’re listening. We just get each other. And I just have to say, we also have a lot of fun.

No overthinking required?

If it’s not there, then thinking about it won’t make any difference. In fact, you’re better off not trying. Because when I talk about what makes my skin crawl, it is the trying.

The Diplomat. (L to R) Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler in episode 203 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

So for you…

I’m like “She’ll be fine,” and she’s like “He’ll be fine.”

The entire cast of mostly British actors in The Diplomat is unusually strong across the board. What do you make of that?

Because of the writing, because of the writing, because of the writing. Good actors will come, even for very small parts. And Team Deb is watching. If an actor comes in just for a couple of days for a few lines and they nail it and they’re not a dick and they’re fun, then there’s always the possibility that they will [be asked to] come back.

 

Part of what makes The Diplomat pop visually is the sense of spectacle. Do you enjoy filming in grandiose settings like St. James Cathedral and Inveraray Castle in Scotland?

As long as we don’t let the set play us. There’s an expression, “The least interesting thing about a person is the uniform.” For me, it’s about the scrappy little human fidgeting underneath, plus the exterior. And it’s the same with beautiful houses, grand doorways, and staircases. If you’re not careful, the staircase will make you walk a certain way. Sometimes it’s appropriate, but I think it’s interesting when people trip up. This show is about the reality versus the presentation.

The Diplomat. Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler in episode 204 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Hal’s plan to promote Kate backfires horribly at the end of Season 2. For people catching up with The Diplomat now, it’s reassuring to know that the show’s been renewed for a third Season.

It’s already in the can, and you have no idea what’s coming.

 

 

 Featured image: The Diplomat. Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler in episode 103 of The Diplomat. Cr. Alex Bailey/Netflix © 2023

No Escaping Success: “Final Destination Bloodlines” Resurrects Franchise With Scary Good Opening Weekend

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Final Destination: Bloodlines has scared up a historic box office this past weekend, reinvigorating the franchise and once against dispatching characters in a series of increasingly ludicrous, brilliantly conceived set pieces.

Following its extremely strong reception from critics, audiences flocked to the theater to see the revival of the horror franchise from directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, fueling a $51 million box office domestically and another $51 million overseas, settling at a $102 million total. Bloodlines, the sixth installment, has officially infused new blood into a franchise that began 25 years ago, but has been dormant since 2011’s Final Destination 5. 

The film stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana as Stefani Reyes, a college student who finds out her grandmother managed to cheat death and save lives, but the consequences for doing so were, ah, troubling. Grandma’s powers are introduced in the film’s vividly intense opening sequence set in the 1950s, when Iris (Brec Bassinger), then a young woman, is on a date in a tall glass tower with her boyfriend when she has an intensely specific vision of their coming, horrific deaths in a massive inferno. Iris is able to escape her fate and save everyone around her in the process, but this upsets the franchise’s longstanding antagonist–Death itself.

The cast includes Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Tony Todd, Gabrielle Rose, Brec Bassinger, and Max Lloyd-Jones.

“There’s not much more a Final Destination fan could ask for, but Bloodlines, which at times feels more like a dark satire than a straightforward horror movie, reminds us we’re powerless against the world’s morbid whims. Best we can do is laugh about it,” writes The New York Times’ Beatrice Loayza.

“You may watch Final Destination Bloodlines through fingers covering your face. But chances are high you’ll be smiling, too,” writes the AP’s Jocelyn Noveck.

“While a canonically satisfying sendoff to the late Tony Todd’s William Bludworth bolsters the series’ morbid gravitas, a cast of playful, mostly likable 20-somethings keep proceedings light in juxtaposition to the filmmakers’ fiendishly inventive kills,” adds Variety’s Todd Chilchrist.

Final Destination Bloodlines is in theaters now. 

For more on Warner Bros., DC Studios, Max, and more, check out these stories:

“Mountainhead” Trailer Reveals “Succession” Creator Jesse Armstrong’s Film Debut

Man of Tomorrow, Today: Official “Superman” Trailer Reveals James Gunn’s Bold Vision for Man of Steel

Speed, Redemption, and Star Power: Brad Pitt Shifts Gears in High-Octane “F1” Trailer

Featured image: Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Designing Dance: Production Designer Bill Groom’s Meticulous Ballet World-Building in “Étoile”

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In the world of ballet as dramatized in Étoile, prickly personalities throw tantrums one minute and dance with exquisite grace the next. Created by former dancer Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Dan Palladino, the Amazon Prime series (now streaming) follows imagines a contentious talent swap between New York and Parisian dance companies desperate to create buzz about their new seasons.   

It doesn’t go well.

The quarrelsome characters include Cheyanne (Lou De Laâge) the world’s best ballet dancer and eco-activist who publicly denounces the company’s billionaire arms-dealer benefactor; the seemingly autistic choreographer Tobias (Gideon Glick), who jumps up on stage in the middle of a performance and insists on changing steps; plus, the perpetually stressed-out company directors Jack (Luke Kirby) and Geneviève (Charlotte Gainsbourg), tasked with riding herd over their unruly charges.

Étoile, filmed in New York, New Jersey, and Paris, features sumptuous backdrops from Brooklyn-based designer Bill Groom, who earned three Production Design Emmy nominations for his work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel after winning two for Boardwalk Empire. He spent six months last year in Paris designing sets and securing locations for the show. “Amy and Dan were careful not to rely on tourist icons, Groom explains. “We wanted the audience to see Paris like the locals would. And by the way, Paris is a great place to work if you have to be away from home.”

During a visit to Los Angeles, Groom talks about finding inspiration in Lincoln Center, taking cues from a 19th-century Parisian theater, protecting Étoile‘s actors and dancers with “sprung floors”, and repurposing a ballet set that originated in wartime Ukraine.

 

The ballet productions look so elegant. Did you design them?  

For production reasons, budget reasons, and most importantly, creative reasons, we decided to use existing ballet sets because I thought it would be more interesting to get productions designed by different hands. The first one scheduled to shoot was La Bayadere, so one day, I just sat down and googled “La Bayadere productions for rent,” and something popped up.

What did you find?

A ballet company in Tokyo had the backdrops, side wings—everything was available to rent. The production arrived in boxes in Paris. Then we discovered that it was actually a production from Ukraine that had been sent to this company in Tokyo for safekeeping.

Choreographer Marguerite Derricks on the set of ÉTOILE Photo: PHILIPPE ANTONELLO © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

The art survives. What else did you import?

We got Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake from the Birmingham Royal Ballet. They arrived by airplane in two large containers.

A lot of drama happens in the dancers’ rehearsal spaces, which look quite elegant but in completely different ways. In New York, the rehearsal studio is minimalistic, while in Paris, it seems ornate. Did you build those spaces from scratch?

The New York and Paris rehearsal studios were both built. It’s interesting to hear about the contrast between the two because Amy and Dan’s goal was to make New York look very modern while Paris had a classical look. There’s a rehearsal studio in Paris that Amy loved at the Garnier Theater. She wanted to shoot there, but it wasn’t available, so we ended up basically building what looks like a rehearsal studio at the Garnier, but a little bit larger.

The construction of the Paris studio must have been challenging, given the huge columns and the level of detail.

It was quite an undertaking because every inch is sculpted and cast in plaster. The painters and plastering teams were wonderfully talented, and they don’t often get a chance to do this kind of work.

Choreographer Marguerite Derricks on the set of ÉTOILE Photo: PHILIPPE ANTONELLO © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

The Paris dance studio is inspired by Palais Garnier, built in 1875 during Napoleon III’s reign. How did you create the sleek New York space?

So many dance rehearsal studios in New York are basically big white boxes with a wall of mirrors, so one of the issues for me was that I didn’t want to build a boring white box. While researching inside Lincoln Center, I found rooms in the basement originally built as rehearsal spaces for the orchestra, which had a kind of accordion-shaped ceiling, resilient to the acoustics. One of them had been converted into a dance rehearsal space. When I saw that room, I said, “Bingo, this is what we can do.” It was large and beautiful to look at.

And those windows! They’re very tall and very narrow, with the horizontal bleachers stretching horizontally across the space.

That’s all based on the Metropolitan Opera building at Lincoln Center, down to the size of the windows, which are very narrow. The bleachers I saw in some spaces there are often used by backers and patrons to watch rehearsals. We also had to build the correct floors for every dance situation. Whether it was rehearsal or on a stage, we were very careful about having sprung dance floors.

Mishi (Taïs Vinolo) in ÉTOILE Photo: PHILIPPE ANTONELLO © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

Sprung floors?

Meaning the floor has bounce. Sprung floors originally were built of oak, woven like a basket under the surface so that when a dancer comes down with a massive amount of force, the shock doesn’t go through their legs and cause an injury but goes into the floor. For the New York performances, we used the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. It’s sprung only for Broadway dancing but not for ballet, so we had to install a more resilient floor.

Tobias (Gideon Glick) in ÉTOILE Photo: PHILIPPE ANTONELLO © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

Was it logistically tricky to design a production split between Paris and New York?

I tried not to go back and forth too much. We shot Paris episodes one through six in the spring. We weren’t allowed to shoot during the Olympics, so we did all the New York episodes one through eight over the summer, and then came back to Paris to finish.

You made The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and half of Étoile in New York and New Jersey. As someone who lives in Brooklyn, is it heartening to take part in productions that impact the local economy?

Absolutely. The money goes to lumber yards, paint companies, florists, caterers, and individuals [in the crew]. People who are not in the business may not realize how many moving parts there are, but the money trickles down to all the different crafts as well as to people who are only peripherally involved with the movie business. There are so many looks and experiences you can get in New York, and now there are a lot of second and third generation craftspeople here as well.

ÉTOILE Photo: PHILIPPE ANTONELLO © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

Lincoln Center is not mentioned by name in the show, but it provides some gorgeous exterior shots. How much access did you have?

We shot in the Lincoln Center lobby, so when you see scenes in lobbies, they are filmed at the Metropolitan Opera House. The other interiors, it was impossible for Lincoln Center to accommodate our schedule, so we made it work at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, which is about the same size proscenium, about the same balcony and orchestra seating.

And the New York rehearsal space—where did you build that?

Steiner Studios in Brooklyn.

You arrived in New York City in 1978 to launch your career as a production designer. Where did you come from?

I was born in Missouri, an only child. My parents and I moved to Oklahoma when I was eleven. My dad ran a construction and trucking company. A couple of engineers at his company wanted to pay for my college and train me to be an engineer so I could move into the road construction industry. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to design sets.

Cheyenne (Lou de Laâge) in ÉTOILE Photo: PHILIPPE ANTONELLO © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

So you studied stage design at Tulane University. What sparked your interest in movies and TV?

I didn’t see a movie until I was in college because I grew up with a fundamentalist Christian background, and going to movies was considered a sin. When I saw my first movie, Bullitt, there was blood everywhere in one scene. I had to get out of my seat and go into the lobby to get some air because I’d never seen anything like that before on a 40-foot screen. That’s when I realized the kind of impact an image can have.

Amy Palladino initially gained acclaim for her witty Gilmore Girls scripts before she and her husband Dan moved into directing as well on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Étoile. What are they like to work with?

They’re both great. Amy has expectations or ideas that are not always the easy way out, but are often the best way out. Amy and Dan are collaborative and allow everybody to bring their own ideas. They’re very good at figuring out when those ideas are good.

Featured image: ÉTOILE Photo: PHILIPPE ANTONELLO © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

Lighting Love in LA: How “Nobody Wants This” DP Adrian Peng Correia Lit Netflix’s Coziest Rom-Com

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The moment Nobody Wants This became one of Netflix’s most beloved romantic comedies comes at the end of the second episode. Rabbi Noah (Adam Brody) and podcaster Joanne (Kristen Bell) have been glancing off one another in an uneasy will-they-or-won’t-they start to their relationship that finally ends in a kiss over ice cream. But it’s not just any kiss, Joanne later tells her sister, Morgan (Justine Lupe), but the greatest kiss of her life. And we believe her.

 

Created by Erin Foster and loosely based on her own relationship, the unlikely pairing of a rabbi and a shiksa podcaster seems like a budding romance that could only happen in Los Angeles, a city the show makes feel tangible. That first kiss happens at night, on the street, beneath lights from a movie theater marquee twinkling overhead. The scene feels arrestingly real, which is just what the show’s cinematographer, Adrian Peng Correia (The Walking Dead, Quiz Lady), wanted. The romance between Joanne and Noah builds despite meddling siblings, his aghast parents, and their own misgivings (plus Joanne’s bottomless pool of hang-ups and idiosyncrasies). However, despite their setbacks, they are still beautiful people living beautiful lives. For Correia, that meant two things: he wanted the actors to appear a bit larger than life, while giving the show overall a deeper look than its genre usually suggests.

We spoke with the cinematographer about making limited lighting work, shooting to take advantage of serendipitous moments, and approaching the series’ lead actors differently to best bring the audience along on their romance.

 

Was it planned from the outset to make this show look more cinematic than we typically expect from romantic comedies?

From a lighting perspective, for Greg [Mottola, one of the show’s directors], and for me, too, it was important that we had a show that had real guts for the look of it. It’s not a soft or shallow-looking show, even though it’s supposed to be about beautiful people and beautiful spaces. There’s an idea that I latched onto about this kind of messy elegance that the show should have. It didn’t have to have that incredibly polished sheen that sometimes comes with romantic comedies. We wanted it to have a little bit more of an edge, so sometimes the highlights were a little too hot, the contrast is a little heavy, the skin tones have real guts and information in them, and there’s a lot of color in those faces. From the get-go with Greg, the intention was to craft a look that was specific.

Nobody Wants This. (L to R) Adam Brody as Noah, Kristen Bell as Joanne in episode 110 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. © 2024

Did you choose locations where you could use lighting really strategically, like with the kiss everyone talks about at the end of episode 2?

The mandate from the show was that they wanted to try to go into these spots and just shoot them straightaway. So it was like, no dollies, no lights bigger than what you could plug into a wall. It was very contained in terms of the ability to run and gun, but it still gave it this crafted look. In that kissing scene, when we walked up, being underneath those hot top lights in the theater, we weren’t allowed to touch them at all. We couldn’t even put any softening agents on them, any kind of diffusion to make it more palatable. We just had to expose for what the street was, and then strategically hide some lights to work.

Nobody Wants This. (L to R) Kristen Bell as Joanne, Adam Brody as Noah in episode 102 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

How did you do that?

It’s all motivated by the practical environment. The lighting around that theater is a mix of warm tones and this really pretty vibrant purple neon. That’s why there are still these highlights and these blooms, which we tried to create artificially to give a world around them. When he tells her to put down her ice cream, there was this sense that they’re walking through this natural nightscape in Los Angeles that doesn’t feel heavily crafted, but they just happen to stop at this spot that gives them this kind of cocooning of light that works to the romanticism of that moment. We just enhanced it with our lighting when we went to close-ups. So it was strategic, opportunistic, and a happy accident all at once.

Earlier in the episode, how did you build up to that moment?

It literally says “the best kiss in the world” in the script. You really have to have the moment sing, so you have to build that relationship in 102 pretty quickly. Cinematically, I think we did a really good job of giving that episode balance, so that when that kiss does come, the audience feels a connection between the two of them. Part of that is allowing those two performances between Adam and Kristen to share the spotlight. The one thing I really love that not everybody talks about is Noah’s quiet confidence. We didn’t get too close to him, because he had a certain gravity that radiated this ease of energy. We gave him a little bit more space in his frames, and we were a little bit more immediate with Kristen’s close-ups. Adam’s choice to hold her face, that was in the moment. I remember at the first rehearsal, Kristen specifically saying, “Yes, hold the face.” You could see it in her close-up, how she opens up just a bit more to the camera. It was an electric episode.

Nobody Wants This. (L to R) Adam Brody as Noah, Executive Producer Erin Foster, Kristen Bell as Joanne, Director Greg Mottola in episode 102 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. Hopper Stone/Netflix © 2024

How did you light the dinner scene where Joanne and Noah first meet?

It looks like it’s night, but it’s actually afternoon. We had to heavily bring down all the lights and tent the front of the house to make it feel like nighttime. That was a pretty extensive amount of grip and lighting and hiding sources. When they had their meet-cute and he broke the cork in the bottle, that was the last take. They just kept improvising. It’s so naturalistic, funny, and beautiful because they made it work within the context of what happens in the take. And if you don’t cross-shoot that, you’re never gonna get those same matching reactions at the same time. When they go to the actual dinner party outside, we knew we would get tons of light play in the background from the city behind them. There were some practical lights and some heat lamps around them, and then it’s basically one four-foot tube light lighting that whole table and one four-foot little light box. So it’s two lights lighting that entire scene, basically.

Nobody Wants This. (L to R) Executive Producer Erin Foster, Director Greg Mottola, Adam Brody as Noah in episode 101 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. Hopper Stone/Netflix © 2024

What were you shooting on?

We shot with anamorphic lenses, and that was specifically a note from Greg Mottola. He had just shot a pilot that he used them on, and he thought it would really aid in giving a bigger look to a romantic comedy. The lensing with the choice of this heavy kind of cinematic look gave it this real weight and and scope, even in the close-ups. When we found a particular set of lenses from Panavision that we thought encapsulated that, it was really a eureka moment.

Nobody Wants This. (L to R) Kristen Bell as Joanne, Adam Brody as Noah in episode 103 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. Hopper Stone/Netflix © 2024

The characters’ faces are really beautifully lit, particularly in evening settings. How did you do that?

That’s the thing with comedies. Obviously, you want the settings to look wonderful, but you really want the audience to connect to people’s faces. There’s a tendency sometimes with digital cinematography in particular to allow this sheen of softness and beauty to come around a face, and we didn’t want that to be our show. We wanted it to have this heavier contrast with more color over the face, from highlights to shadow. I’m a big fan of classic screwball comedies from the 1930s and 1940s. There’s a reason why people like Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, and Claudette Colbert are lit a little bit brighter in space. Is it strictly a reflection of reality? No, but it does reflect a kind of classic Hollywood tenet I believe in, which is stars should look like stars. When people look like they’re in a movie, I think that actually helps the audience translate that kind of whimsical, romantic, stylized nature of what a romantic comedy is supposed to be. I don’t think reality helps romantic comedies. I think they need to feel bigger, and they need to look bigger.

Nobody Wants This. (L to R) Kristen Bell as Joanne, Adam Brody as Noah in episode 108 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. Adam Rose/Netflix © 2024

Were you limited by the genre at all?

It all starts with how you look at the material. If you’re looking down on a show or if you’re looking down on a genre, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it. There’s a reason why they’re successful, and just because something is popular doesn’t mean it doesn’t have artistic intent. When that scene happened between Adam and Kristen with the bottle and the cork, I remember turning back to Craig [DiGregorio], the showrunner, and saying, ”I feel like we have a show.” There’s a certain energy and lightness that happens that you see and feel immediately, and I really love that about comedies.

 

 

 

For more big titles on Netflix, check these out:

The Gauls Go Global: Inside Director Fabrice Joubert’s Vision for Netflix’s “Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight”

Director Alex Graves on Keri Russell’s Balletic Excellence in Netflix’s Hit Series “The Diplomat”

Behind Netflix’s “The Four Seasons”: How “30 Rock” Veterans Lang Fisher & Tracey Wigfield Reimagined a Classic With Tina Fey

 

 

 Featured image: Nobody Wants This. (L to R) Kristen Bell as Joanne, Adam Brody as Noah in episode 105 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. Adam Rose/Netflix © 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Mountainhead” Trailer Reveals “Succession” Creator Jesse Armstrong’s Film Debut

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There’s no shortage of rich people acting terribly in the actual world, but for those of you who deeply miss the vile, venal shenanigans of Succession‘s Roy family—and we count ourselves among your number—the arrival of Mountainhead is going to do wonders for your soul.

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong is back with this new feature film, which finds four billionaire friends reuniting in a palatial mountain retreat to kick back and enjoy the orchards (upon orchards) of their “labor.” Yet their mountaintop idyll is ruined by a pesky little problem having to do with one of their creations, a generative artificial intelligence, that starts sewing havoc and chaos throughout the world.

Our four billionaires are Randall (Steve Carell), Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), Jeff (Ramy Youssef), and Venis (Cory Michael Smith), the latter of whom is the creator of the AI that’s turning the world into a nightmarescape. The foursome need to deal (or deny) any culpability in the horrors happening the world over, and like any billionaire worth his yacht, they start to believe that the four of them have the power to set everything right. One way to do this is to potentially buy entire countries. Hijinx, acrimony, and bro-tastically bad behavior ensue.

Mountainhead is Armstrong’s feature film directing debut. After his Emmy-laden run on Succession, there’s a lot of excitement around this latest look at the foibles of the grotesquely rich. The film also stars Hadley Robinson, Andy Daly, Ali Kinkade, Daniel Oreskes, David Thompson, Amie MacKenzie, and Ava Kostia 

Check out the trailer below. Mountainhead arrives on HBO Max on May 31.

For more on Warner Bros., DC Studios, Max, and more, check out these stories:

Man of Tomorrow, Today: Official “Superman” Trailer Reveals James Gunn’s Bold Vision for Man of Steel

Speed, Redemption, and Star Power: Brad Pitt Shifts Gears in High-Octane “F1” Trailer

Precision and Passion: How Director Amanda Marsalis Choreographed the Chaos of “The Pitt”

“Sinners” Production Designer Hannah Beachler on Conjuring Ryan Coogler’s Supernatural Stunner

Featured image: Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, Jason Schwartzman. Mountainhead. Photograph by Fred Hayes/HBO

How Co-Creator & Showrunner Aeysha Carr Transformed “Government Cheese” into a Series of Indie Film Experiences

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If Wes Anderson and David Lynch partnered on a story set in 1969 about a Black family living in the San Fernando Valley, you might approximate the vibe of the new Apple TV+ show Government Cheese. The surrealist comedy is inspired by co-creator Paul Hunter’s childhood, and stars David Oyelowo as eternal optimist Hampton Chambers, a man chasing the American dream after being released from prison. 

Hampton aims to repair the relationship with his wife Astoria (Simone Missick), sons Einstein (Evan Ellison) and Harrison (Jahi Di’Allo Winston), and best friend Bootsy (Bokeem Woodbine), but they’ve all built new lives while he’s been away. Paul Hunter, who is known as one of the country’s most prominent music video directors and who directed several episodes, grew up with a dad who was always coming up with grand ideas and schemes to better their lives. As Hampton, Oyelowo embodies the idea that nothing is impossible, regardless of harsh realities. In fact, circumstances are constantly conspiring to drag down his dreams. Hampton is looking for guidance from God, and messages are all around him, but he finds them either confusing or not to his liking, which leads to trouble. 

Hunter and co-executive producer/writer Aeysha Carr (Woke, Uncoupled, Brooklyn 99) use themes from diverse spiritual belief systems to build story and develop character, and the results are bizarre, funny, and poignant. Each half-hour episode is like its own little independent movie that leverages elements of magical realism while staying grounded in the real world.

We chat with Carr, who says Apple TV+ gave her free rein to create a truly unique series. She talks about her experience in conversation with The Credits. 

 

Each episode is its own little indie film. How did you make that decision?

We did the pilot, and we did it with this take on a Coen Brothers movie, and then I remember I had to write episode 2, and I thought we should just make a short film. We had to create all this back story and I wanted to present it in a way that didn’t feel unwieldy. So I thought we could create what felt like a PBS film, with a narrator. Every time we came to a place where we asked how we could impart the information, we used that device. We were really taken away from TV norms, and both Paul and I love independent films, so once we made that first decision, we realized we could do pretty much whatever we wanted. It freed us up. I remember I was so scared when we showed Apple the opening, but they loved it, so I knew we’d be fine. 

Episode 7 is focused on Astoria. That’s important as part of a show about a family patriarch. 

That episode is where we delve more into the story of the mom. We had an amazing female director, Stacey Passon, and the whole episode came together so beautifully. It’s such a male-heavy show that it’s so much fun when you have a very strong and independent woman centered in an episode with completely weird elements. And again, Apple was all in. It was a joy to give Simone Missick the episode where it’s just her because she’s amazing, and Astoria has a great story. For me, Astoria wanting to have a life outside her home, where she found this awakening while Hampton was away, was essential for me to showcase. I came from my aunts and my mother, and they can all literally make a dress in one day. They have so many skill sets and are all highly creative, and I wanted to lean into that truth with Astoria. 

 

Cinematographer Matthew J Lloyd and costume designer Nancy Steiner are very important to the show’s look and tone.

The look was very specific. Paul, coming from directing these amazing videos, was into having really striking images. Matt Lloyd was so good. He has all these weird camera angles, or tilts the camera to get a different perspective. It was really everyone coming together to tell the story we wanted to tell consistently. Nancy is truly amazing in how she gets her period pieces, but I also think they don’t look like costumes; they look like something we might wear today, and I think that gave it another level of realism. 

Evan Ellison in “Government Cheese,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Government Cheese was filmed in the San Fernando Valley. What were some of the challenges and benefits of capturing a place that was true to Paul’s childhood and the original basis for the show?

It was all benefits. The reason people don’t shoot in LA is financial reasons. David was the one who was championing us filming in LA, and since the whole story takes place in The Valley and David lives there, they made it a priority. We lost some of the budget for other elements, because the budget was the same, but shooting there made a huge difference to the authenticity of what you see onscreen. We found places that hadn’t been touched, streets that were exactly the same as they were in 1969. There’s beautiful neon and storefronts, and it all offers such a depth visually. We were in Chatsworth and in Lake Piru. Shooting the real places for what’s in the script is just beautiful. I drove to places in LA I’d never been before. Those locations are just very true to where Paul grew up. They’re very LA, and they read very LA., and so it adds a depth to the script and to the story.

ahi Di’Allo Winston and David Oyelowo in “Government Cheese,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

What was your experience of collaborating with David Oyelowo, who also acted as executive producer on the project? 

David thinks about every word he says. It has to ring true and be true to his character. He brings as much as you can write on the page, and plans for how it’s going to go. David came to the set and brought a different depth to Hampton, and elevated him in a way far beyond what Paul and I could see, with this bright-eyed, bushy-tailed hyper-optimism. For him, Hampton’s truth was that he loved Astoria. We tend to write these male characters who cheat or are unfaithful, but as much as he did wrong, his love for Astoria was his driving force. By honing in on that, the audience can actually forgive some of the stuff he does or has done, because of his undying commitment to and love for Astoria. 

 

The characters of the show, including the guest stars, have some very strong spiritual elements. A great example is Sunita Mani as Edith in Episode 3. How much did you lean on world religion in creating the characters that help guide Hampton? 

That was important. I think Bootsy has a little bit of a Buddhist in him that rounds out the religiosity of the show. We find ways to reference multiple religions because there’s truth in all of them, and they’re all correct. Sunita was a counterpoint to Hampton’s Catholicism and Christianity, more earthy and spiritual, but she was giving him the same information. The idea was that it was coming from many different places, God speaking through many different channels. Sunita was supposed to be the weird, hippie, Mother Earth, universal girl, as an acknowledgement of all the different dualities, or the many paths to one truth. Hampton’s relationship with God, even though it is based on the bible, is very different. In the first episode, we refer to“The Gospel of Kenny Sharp,” which is the idea that anyone can be an apostle. Anyone can be a prophet, it’s just how you look at them. 

Sunita Mani and David Oyelowo in “Government Cheese,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

There is an element of magical realism in the show. How is that achieved technically?

Paul, as a director, doesn’t use a lot of VFX or CGI. There’s very little of that in Government Cheese. For us, it was about shooting things that are really happening, or at least attempting that. A lot of people lean into what they can magically do with CGI, and watching it, the audience knows that could never really happen, and that takes the stakes out. Really leaning into reality in those moments of magical realism, even with Sunita and how she moves through the world, we used camera tricks, which makes it so much more impactful. The scene that is shot underwater is done with practical effects. All that was really important to Paul, and I think it reads really well onscreen. 

David Oyelowo in “Government Cheese,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

What are you hoping audiences will get from the show?

My talking point is this idea that anything is possible. I think TV has gotten really dark. Much of it is beautifully done but just gut-wrenching. Paul and I wanted to write something that had a lot of joy in it, something that went down easy and was beautiful and artistic, and I think we stayed committed to that. 

 

Government Cheese is streaming now on Apple TV+. 

 

 

 

Featured image: Evan Ellison, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, David Oyelowo and Simone Missick in “Government Cheese,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

From Shadow to Spotlight: How Elizabeth Dulau’s Kleya Became the Hidden Heartbeat of “Andor”

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Tony Gilroy‘s masterful Andor has come to an end. The two-season prequel to Gilroy’s 2016 film Rogue One just delivered arguably the finest storytelling in the Star Wars universe since The Empire Strikes Back. That’s a bold and possibly needless assertion, but if you watched the series (and if you’re reading this, you likely did), my guess is you’d agree. While season one fleshed out Cassian Andor’s (Diego Luna) fitful, often brutal entrance into the rebel cause and populated the resistance movement with compelling characters as crucial to the nascent rebel alliance as the eventual saviors Luke or Leia ever were, season 2 tracked Cassian’s evolution into a bruised, battered, oft-resistant but nevertheless crucial leader of the rebel cause. Yet the second and final season was far more than a hero’s journey for Cassian. True to Gilroy’s vision of a rebel alliance that’s fueled by lesser-known figures without any Jedi powers, many more critical figures stepped out of the shadows and stepped up to become heroes, and have now stitched their names in the firmament of Star Wars lore. At the top of that list is Elizabeth Dulua’s Kleya.

Gilroy and his cast and crew’s masterclass in storytelling was predicated on the fact that while Cassian gets top-billing, the rebel cause would have been strangled in its cradle were it not for the countless people who resisted the Empire in ways minor and major without getting a Royal Award Ceremony on Yavin 4 to celebrate their heorics, figures whose sacrifice is done in the shadows. These are people who “will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude” as Lutheen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) so iconically put it in season one. Kleya was one of those figures. In season two, her sacrifices are revealed, as is her origin story and the depths of her commitment to the rebel cause.

Andor paid such considerate and narratively satisfying attention to characters like Kleya by also successfully bringing Star Wars down into the streets, revealing the cruelty and sadism of the Empire in ways far more evocative than blowing up Alderaan ever did, despite the death toll of that latter act of genocide being so much greater. The massacre in Ghorman, the pivotal catastrophe that season 2 was built around, is all the more horrifying for how personal it is, how bloody, how measurable. Here we are in the city of Palmo watching the Empire lure innocent civilians into the central square only to murder them in broad daylight while selling the slaughter to the rest of the galaxy as entirely the Ghorman’s fault. The Empire’s cruelty was multiplied tenfold by controlling the narrative, but thanks to resistance tacticians like Kleya and the courage of truth-tellers like Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw), Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), and Karis Nemix (Alex Lawther), the Empire starts to lose control of the message.

Andor season 2 released its 12 episodes in three-episode arcs, allowing different characters to move into the lead role as the rebellion started to cohere into something approaching a cosmos-wide awakening. And while viewers might have assumed the final three-episode arc would undoubtedly focus on Luna’s Andor, in a surprising and deeply satisfying twist, they mostly belonged to Dulua’s Kleya, Lutheen Rael’s tireless, tactically brilliant assistant. It’s Kleya who runs the whisper machines in the back of their antiquities shop and keeps Lutheen’s work well hidden in the shadows. It’s Kleya who sacrifices the only family she’s had for years to keep the rebel cause running.

(L-R) Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård)in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Without Kleya, there is a good chance Lutheen is caught, tortured, and the rebel movement is snuffed out years ago, let alone during his increasingly hectic final days. Her role as his communications expert, his memory bank, and his indefatigable and unflappable number two, was clear throughout the first 21 episodes, but it was in the final three episodes of the series that we learn precisely who Kleya is, where she came from, and why her bond with Lutheen is so unbreakable. Gilroy cast Dulua shortly after she graduated from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and as he told The Hollywood Reporter, once they had wrapped season one, “everyone on our whole show was just in awe. We don’t have a moment of bad film on her.”

(L-R): Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) and Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Yet Dulua was to get a major narrative promotion in season 2, especially in episode 10, “Make it Stop,” when her tragic backstory is revealed. Lutheen didn’t start out fighting the Empire; in fact, he was an Imperial Sergeant involved in a genocidal raid on Kleya’s home planet when she was just a child. In a moment of self-doubt, Lutheen struggles with his assignment to burn Kleya’s village to the ground, and as he begs the godless galaxy above to “make it stop,” he finds Kleya hiding aboard his ship, and it’s there their bond begins. He names her Kleya, and they leave his life on the Imperialist side to forge their fledgling personal rebellion together, often posing as father and daughter as they make their way across the galaxy, selling one antiquity at a time as they begin to build out their network and their tactics.

It’s in episode 10 that Kleya goes from being Lutheen’s apprentice to a kind of heir apparent, giving the old man the noble death he wanted and the rebel alliance absolutely had to have. She sneaks into the hospital where the Empire is trying to coax him back to consciousness, after he attempted to take his own life before Dedra (Denise Gough) could torture information out of him. But Kleya won’t have it, so she steals a nurse’s uniform, blows up a spacesport to distract most of the forces inside, and dispatches the remaining Stormtroopers guarding him so that she can make it to Lutheen….and then take him off life support. It is perhaps the most important clandestine mission in the entire series, given how much Lutheen knows and how much the rebels stand to lose if the Empire keeps him alive long enough to torture him. She kills her adoptive father to save the rebel cause, fulfilling his own prophecy that he’d never live to see the sun rise on a free galaxy; he would have been immensely proud.

Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Luthen’s monologue of sacrifice in season 1 was one of the defining and most memorable bits of dialogue in any Star Wars installment since “No, I am your father” (not “Luke, I am your father,” a common misconception). It explained not only Luthen’s sacrifice but, we realize by the series’ end, Kleya’s as well. But her fate wouldn’t be as grim as Luthen’s, a fact he made sure of when he chose to burn their communications equipment rather than have her do it.

“[That monologue] has always been there in the background,” Dulau told The Hollywood Reporter. “I was super nervous because it felt like the entire filming process was leading up to that day. I always had it in the back of my mind, and I deliberately tried not to overthink it. When I looked at Stellan lying there on this hospital bed, I really felt heartbroken for what Kleya was about to do.”

Before he was captured, Lutheen gave Kleya the most important information of their entire careers in espionage, relaying key words that spoke to the Empire’s secret creation of the Death Star, information that she ultimately passes on to Cassian, setting into motion the events that will eventually be depicted in Rogue One, which in turn lead to the Death Star’s destruction in George Lucas’s 1977 Star Wars: A New Hope (the end of which includes the aforementioned Royal Award Ceremony on Yavin 4, where Luke, Han Solo, and Chewbacca receive medals.) This makes Kleya an absolutely crucial figure in the history of Star Wars, connecting her directly to the major figures we have known for decades.

“It’s not lost on me that Tony Gilroy has literally written me into Star Wars history that dates back to the ‘70s,” Dulua told THR. “My mom and dad queued up at midnight to watch A New Hope. And knowing that they’re going to see my small part in that chain of events that leads to those stories, I’m just so grateful that Tony would hand me that domino. I really didn’t want to f**k it up. I really wanted to do justice to this opportunity that he’s given me.”

Justice was served. What Dulua recalls about those nervous initial auditions for the role, and the years of work that followed leading up to her ascendance into the Star Wars canon of crucial characters, was the grace and ease of working with Stellan Skarsgård.

“The feedback from the recall was that they really liked you. They thought you were great. The only note was that you seemed a little bit nervous. So they want to see you again, and they just want to make sure that you’ll be able to handle yourself. So walk in that room with as much confidence as you can; walk in that room like you are the dog’s bollocks,” she told THR. “Also, you’ll be reading at Pinewood Studios opposite Stellan Skarsgård, but don’t let that make you nervous. (Laughs.) I think I just burst out laughing because that’s insane. It was just an unbelievable thing to hear.”

So Dulua prepped as hard as she could, learning her lines front and back, and then finally, she met her counterpart ten minutes before her final audition.

“We chatted over coffee. Stellan has this wonderful magic about him. You just forget that he’s the legend Stellan Skarsgård. He really makes you feel at ease, and after just those ten minutes with him, I really felt like I was walking in the room with a friend, with someone who had my back and was there for me. And he was that way, continuously, throughout the next three years. I was intimidated by the scale of this production and how new it all felt, but I’ve never felt intimidated by Stellan. He always felt like my pal who’s got my back.”

Andor is streaming in its entirety on Disney+.

Featured image: Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

The Gauls Go Global: Inside Director Fabrice Joubert’s Vision for Netflix’s “Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight”

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It was in 1959 that Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo published their first comic strip about a village of Gauls resisting occupation by the Roman Empire.

In the nearly 70 years since, Asterix & Obelix have placated the Romans and conquered the entire world. It has become one of France’s most successful franchises, leading to 40 volumes of comics, 10 animated films, 5 live-action movies, games, merchandise, and a theme park.

Now, they return to Netflix’s screen with a 6-episode limited series, Asterix & Obelix – The Big Fight, an adaptation of one of the original comic books by the French pair. France and Belgium boast a rich tradition of comics and animation, having given rise to the influential bande dessinée style that has shaped generations of artists. The country is also home to one of the world’s premier animation festivals in Annecy, underscoring its status as a global hub for the art form. Fabrice Joubert, co-director of the new series, is a prime example of this creative legacy.

“I had the opportunity to study at the Gobelins school in Paris, which was one of the first to offer a program in animation. They created the degree thanks to Goscinny, who was making one of his feature film adaptations in Paris, and asked them to launch an animation department to support the production. So, in a way, I ended up working in animation partly thanks to Goscinny. The circle has come full,” he told The Credits at a special screening of the series in Brussels.

 

Joubert started out as an animator, bringing characters to life in productions such as Despicable Me and The Prince of Egypt. His first short film as a director, French Roast, was nominated for an Oscar in 2010. His illustrious career led him to the opportunity of co-directing the latest Asterix adventures with Alain Chabat, who wrote and directed the live-action film Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra.

“These characters are such an integral part of popular culture, we felt a real sense of responsibility towards them and their universe,” he says. Read more below about how this latest instalment of the world’s most famous Gauls came to life.

L-r: Fabrice Joubert, Alain Chabat. Courtesy Netflix.

How was your experience co-leading such a big production team? Can you describe a typical day at work?

Over nearly three years of production, over 300 people were involved. Alain and his co-writers, Benoît Oullion and Piano, began writing five years ago, so it’s been a long journey.

Animation is a notoriously complex and detailed process, right?

Animation is a slow and complex process. It works like a production chain, where each department depends on the one before it, so having a shared vision is key. My collaboration with Alain was very smooth and full of creative energy. We worked closely together throughout the entire production, from the animatic stage (which is the storyboard edited with temporary sound and voice) to the actual design and creation process.

Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight – Behind The Scenes Photo. 2025 Les éditions Albert René / Goscinny – Uderzo / NETFLIX

The characters and sets were developed in collaboration with our art director, Aurélien Predal, before moving into production with the TAT studio teams in Toulouse (France). Everyone involved worked toward a common goal: bringing Alain’s vision to life while remaining as respectful as possible of the original work by Goscinny and Uderzo.

What led you to choose to animate using CGI?

We quickly decided to go with CGI, partly for practical reasons, but also because it had already been used successfully in the two previous Astérix films by Alexandre Astier and Louis Clichy. It felt natural to continue in that direction. Initially, Alain considered stop motion because of the tactile quality it brings, and that definitely influenced the look and feel of the series. Working closely with our art director, Aurélien Predal, we focused on adding rich textures to the characters and environments. We wanted everything to feel tangible, almost handcrafted. We were looking for a balance between realistic elements and preserving the iconic graphic style of Uderzo’s illustrations. We were very committed to staying true to his visual legacy, so the challenge was finding just the right mix of stylization and realism. And I think we succeeded.

Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight – Behind The Scenes Photo. 2025 Les éditions Albert René / Goscinny – Uderzo / NETFLIX

How did you manage to retell their adventures for 2025 audiences while keeping the original essence of the comic books?

These characters are such an integral part of popular culture that we felt a real sense of responsibility towards them and their universe. At the same time, what made the project so exciting was the opportunity to inject a touch of modernity and relevance for today’s audience. We really wanted to honor the comic books, so we allowed ourselves some visual experimentation — for example, integrating onomatopoeias directly into the animation. Uderzo used to sometimes strip away the background and leave just a flat color for effect. We decided to reintroduce that in certain sequences where it felt appropriate.

Still image from the film. 2025 Les éditions Albert René / Goscinny – Uderzo / NETFLIX

We selected songs that could bring a contemporary feel while still serving the story. It was fascinating to mix modern music with a more traditional score. We recorded the music in London with the London Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Mathieu Alvado, and the result is an epic, absolutely fabulous soundtrack that really gives the series a powerful energy.

Fabrice Joubert, Alain Chabat. 2025 Les éditions Albert René / Goscinny – Uderzo / NETFLIX

And why did you choose to adapt The Big Fight, specifically?

The choice to adapt The Big Fight came from Alain. It’s a volume that’s especially close to his heart, and honestly, it’s one of the best in the series. For the first time, the Gauls are left without their superhuman strength, and they have to face a fight where they could lose everything. That narrative setup created the perfect dramatic stakes for a series. It gave us the kind of tension and momentum that really holds a modern audience’s attention. On top of that, we were able to expand on the story and add new characters. The series format gave us space to explore the characters in greater depth — especially the friendship between Astérix and Obélix, which was something we really wanted to highlight.

Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight. 2025 Les éditions Albert René / Goscinny – Uderzo / NETFLIX

How was the collaboration with  Netflix?

Working with Netflix felt like a natural choice. It also gave us the opportunity to reach an extraordinary global audience. Having that reach pushed us to achieve the highest possible quality — to create the best series we could, both technically and artistically, because we knew we were speaking to viewers all over the world. It was truly an incredible opportunity, and they backed our vision from the beginning.

Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight is streaming on Netflix now.

Featured image: Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight. 2025 Les éditions Albert René / Goscinny – Uderzo / NETFLIX

Man of Tomorrow, Today: Official “Superman” Trailer Reveals James Gunn’s Bold Vision for Man of Steel

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The official trailer for James Gunn’s Superman has arrived, offering a bevy of new footage of the hotly anticipated feature film that will officially kickstart Gunn’s new-look DC Studios.

The trailer opens with a close-up of David Corenswet’s Clark Kent/Superman and Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane. As Brosnahan teased recently, the film begins with Clark and Lois already in a relationship, and Clark has given Lois the most unbeatable scoop—she can interview him as his alter ego, Superman. Lois, being a crack journalist for The Daily Planet, is, of course, game for the assignment, and the interview begins. It doesn’t go as Clark imagines it will, given his relationship with the reporter.

It’s a clever set-up, as the interview allows Lois to paint us a picture of what’s been going on in Metropolis and the world, and how much fire Superman has been under, including from the Secretary of Defense, who is officially looking into Superman’s actions. This elicits a smile from Clark, as he doesn’t understand how “his actions” require suspicion, given that they include him stopping a war. How could such bravery possibly be something the Secretary of Defense, or anyone else of sound judgment and moral fiber, could call into question?

Such is the tone and tenor of Gunn’s vision for Superman, which re-centers the Man of Steel as a singular force for good in a world that has forgotten, at least a little bit, what good looks like. Gunn, who made his name centering offbeat misfits and oddballs in The Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, has been unabashed in his quest to tell a story about Superman that recalls the iconic hero’s original bearing and purpose, someone who was good, who wanted to do good, and who believed in the goodness in others even if he was cast as an outsider, a threat, an alien.

The case Lois puts to Superman in the new trailer is that others might not see it that way. Playing the hardened reporter, Lois points out that technically, Superman did illegally enter a country without consulting with the President of the United States, and she asks Superman the tough questions the rest of the world is asking—under whose authority was he acting? To Superman, however, the case is much more transparent and more straightforward—he acted because, if he hadn’t, people would die.

The new trailer is chock-a-block with action and allows some of the other meta-humans and villains their moment to shine (or destroy), including Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific, Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, and María Gabriela’s The Engineer.

It’s a terrific trailer, and there’s little doubt Gunn’s Superman reboot is going to be one of the summer’s biggest films. It augers in a fresh start for a united DC Universe, and sets the stage for Corenswet’s Superman to stake his claim as the new Man of Steel.

Check out the new trailer below. Superman soars into theaters on July 11.

 

Featured image: Caption: (L to r) RACHEL BROSNAHAN as Lois Lane and DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jessica Miglio

The Renaissance Executive: How Jason Harvey’s Multifaceted Background Powers BET+’s Streaming Success

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There are many things Jason Harvey is. Currently, he’s the EVP and General Manager of BET+, a subscriber-based streaming service cultivated around Black entertainment. With that title, he oversees the programming strategy, business operations, and revenue growth, among other responsibilities. Previously, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer, worked with Google to expand its digital advertising in Latin America, and authored a children’s book about entrepreneurship. Oh, and he’s fluent in Spanish and Portuguese – all this while being a husband and a father of four. It’s safe to assume he’s an intelligent and motivated individual, and my assumptions were more than confirmed once I caught up with him following his attendance at the BSO Symposium.

Harvey shares with me that he has always had a passion for the digital tech space, but he’s a creative at heart. “I come from a pretty humble background, and when I went to undergrad, I had a lot of student loans. So, when I came out and started looking at entertainment jobs, the pay was not great. I needed to make some money fairly quickly, so I had to look for other opportunities outside of entertainment, but I always had this desire to get back. I guess serendipitously, it came full circle.”

Since his time at BET+, the platform has seen measurable success in a crowded streaming space. So, I wanted to ask about what’s led to their growth, how they leverage data to better the viewing experience, and most importantly, what’s up with price increases.  

 

I have to ask for the consumers out there—can you speak to what can drive a monthly price increase for BET+?

That’s a great question and one we take seriously. For over three years, BET+ maintained a static price point, even as we expanded our content library and invested heavily in platform improvements. In 2023, we made a deliberate decision to implement a modest $1 price increase, roughly a 10% adjustment, reflecting the value we’ve added while remaining competitive in the market. At the same time, we launched BET+ Essential, our ad-supported tier, to ensure affordability and choice. It’s priced at slightly more than half of our premium subscription and provides a flexible entry point for new viewers, especially in a more cost-conscious environment.

What are the price changes driven by?

Ultimately, price changes are driven by our commitment to deliver more value, whether that’s through premium original content, improved user experience, or expanded access via ad-supported options. Our goal is to scale smartly while ensuring that our audience always has a choice that fits their needs and budget.

In a way, does it all come back to profitability?

Absolutely, it all ties back to profitability, but not in isolation. Profitability allows us to keep delivering the culturally resonant, high-quality storytelling our audience expects. Growing our subscriber base is essential, but so is ensuring that the business is sustainable. That’s the balance every streamer is now navigating, which is why you’re seeing broader industry moves like price adjustments, password-sharing enforcement, and a focus on monetization strategies that prioritize long-term viability.

The streaming world seems like it’s as high-pressure and competitive as the feature film world.

At BET+, we face the same pressures: premium content creation is expensive, marketing to cut through the noise is essential, and maintaining a seamless product experience requires continuous investment. Every decision, whether it’s pricing, bundling, or content cadence, is about managing that balance: providing consistent value to our audience while making smart, strategic investments that drive growth and profitability. That’s what allows us to keep elevating Black stories, year after year.

 

All valid points. Creating and supporting content costs money. How does the team balance those two ideas?

It’s a constant balancing act, and we approach it through what we call the “Three Vs”: Volume, Velocity, and Variety. Volume ensures there’s enough content to keep subscribers engaged. Velocity speaks to how efficiently we can bring new content to market. And Variety ensures we’re offering a rich mix of genres, perspectives, and talent that reflect the diversity of our audience.  Our goal is to deliver the best version of those Three Vs without compromising financial discipline. That means being highly strategic about where we invest, how we license, and how we produce. It also means being relentlessly efficient in our marketing, using data to target the right viewers at the right time with the right message. Profitability doesn’t come at the expense of creativity; it comes from building a smart, data-informed ecosystem that allows us to scale great storytelling sustainably.

Can you expand on the types of data that’s being used?

We rely on a robust mix of first-party data, behavioral analytics, and qualitative insights to inform how we program, market, and operate BET+. Our first-party data gives us a granular view into viewer behavior, what they’re watching, how often, when they disengage, what drives repeat viewing, and more. But we don’t stop there.

How so?

Every month, we conduct subscriber surveys to measure satisfaction and surface unmet content needs. We also run focus groups and cultural panels to stay in step with emerging trends and evolving audience preferences. On top of that, we partner with top-tier third-party research firms to complement our internal insights with broader industry benchmarks. All of this intelligence feeds into our “decision engine,” which shapes content decisions, optimizes marketing efforts, and guides operational investments. It’s how we ensure that BET+ remains culturally resonant and commercially sound.

 

You publicly mentioned that data from AI software companies Snowflake and DataBricks helps BET+ understand consumer engagement. Can you point to specific data that enables scale and improves consumer experience?

Yes, we’ve used it to build a robust subscriber health scoring system, ranging from A to E, that gives us a real-time, predictive view of audience engagement and loyalty. ‘A’ subscribers are highly engaged and likely to stay long-term. On the other hand, lower-tier scores indicate a rising propensity to churn, which triggers automated workflows within our CRM. These insights fuel targeted retention strategies, from personalized content recommendations to proactive messaging designed to re-engage at-risk users before they disengage.

Do you utilize these companies in other ways?

Beyond that, we use AI-powered models across our ecosystem: a recommendation engine to drive discovery, and a portfolio optimization model that evaluates whether our content mix is aligned with audience demand by genre, talent, and format. This kind of data-driven orchestration is only possible because we invested early in scalable infrastructure and partnered with world-class data scientists to ensure every user signal is captured, interpreted, and actioned in ways that meaningfully improve the BET+ experience.

 

That’s a tremendous amount of finite data. Can you elaborate more on subscriber health data and how it influences the platform experience?

We have grades for our subscribers, such as A, B, C, D, and E. The A subscribers are healthy. The model is telling us that they will be long-term subscribers. Then there’s what we call the propensity to churn, which means a customer may no longer use the platform. Folks who have a higher propensity to churn tell us we need to act. Then we start leveraging these models, pushing them into our CRM (customer relationship management), which then triggers specific communications to keep them on the platform. That’s a direct example of how we use this data and use machine learning to ultimately improve retention for BET+. We have a recommendation engine. That’s a model that helps with discovery. We have a portfolio analysis model that examines factors such as whether we have the right balance of content in a specific genre. We talk about the need for variety. This is all because early on, we had the opportunity to work with some data scientists who are super smart and built this data infrastructure to allow us to take advantage of all of these various events.

Are there data points that indicate whether a show can be successful before it is greenlit, or are decisions more creative-based?  

It’s still about the creative!  At the end of the day, success in content is still rooted in creativity, vision, execution, and talent. AI gives us powerful predictive signals, not certainties. It can identify favorable patterns say, a BET+ original thriller featuring specific talent combinations that have historically performed well with our audience, but it can’t read a script’s nuance or capture the cultural moment.

Our models inform us about optimal genre-talent pairings, audience demand curves, and even seasonality whether a title is better positioned for Q4’s high engagement window or a quieter release period. But greenlighting is a multidimensional decision. We consider content saturation, marketing alignment, and competing releases, and then layer in the human element: exceptional writers, visionary directors, strong performances, and post-production that delivers. So yes, data helps us reduce risk and increase the probability of success, but the creative execution is what ultimately makes a show break through.

 

Over the last few years, streamers have started offering consumers bundles. Subscriptions to multiple platforms at a reduced cost. This statement might be a stretch, but we could eventually get to a point where all streamers are packaged into a single bundle, which seems like cable TV all over again. Is that your feeling, or do you consider it an entirely different revenue stream than cable?

I see streaming bundles as a fundamentally different revenue model from traditional cable. While the structure may appear similar on the surface, multiple networks under one subscription, the behavior, audience segmentation, and content strategy are entirely distinct. For example, BET+ serves a younger, more digitally native audience compared to linear BET, with notable differences across age, income, geography, and gender. That diversity gives us the flexibility to program more boldly and take creative risks that wouldn’t always be possible in traditional cable environments.

Our recent bundle with Starz on Amazon Channels is a great example. Starz has compelling, culturally resonant programming that aligns with the BET+ audience. By bundling, we’re not just offering a discount, we’re curating a richer, more relevant content experience for the Black consumer. These partnerships are about strategic alignment and audience synergy, not retrofitting old models. Bundles in streaming aren’t a step backward to cable they’re a forward-looking tool to drive smarter discovery, engagement, and value.

You previously mentioned the possibility of BET+ including programmatic advertising or pause ads (ads that appear when a user presses pause). Any updates to either initiative?

We’re still in the early stages, but the momentum is strong. Our recent launch of the ad-supported tier on Amazon Channels was a major milestone because it gave us access to a highly engaged, primarily connected TV audience which significantly expanded our monetization capabilities. Now, we’re focused on optimizing ad inventory performance and deepening our understanding of viewer behavior within this environment.

As for innovations like pause ads, clickable overlays, and bumper formats those are actively on our roadmap. We see them as high-potential tools for non-intrusive, context-aware engagement. While not all of them haven’t been deployed at scale yet, we’re carefully testing and evaluating to ensure they enhance both the viewer experience and advertiser value. We’re committed to building an ad experience that’s premium, culturally relevant, and additive not disruptive.

[Connected TV (CTV) refers to streaming content on internet-enabled TVs. It differs slightly from over-the-top (OTT) services, which encompass all devices, not just smart TVs. CTV advertising is a form of digital advertising where ads can run alongside shows, be interactive, or be shown instream.]

Are there any considerations for international growth?

International expansion is absolutely on our strategic horizon as it represents a significant growth opportunity for BET+. Markets like the UK, Canada, Brazil, and the Caribbean have sizable diasporic audiences with strong cultural alignment to our content, and we believe there’s real revenue potential in those regions.

That said, our immediate focus remains on maximizing the momentum we’ve built domestically. The launch of our ad-supported tier has unlocked new scale in the U.S., and we’re just beginning to tap into that opportunity. We’re also closely analyzing the performance of our recent bundling initiatives to inform how we might replicate that model in international markets.

With the right partnerships and a phased approach, global expansion is not a question of “if,” but “when” and we’re being deliberate to ensure we scale both sustainably and strategically.

BET+ has a very successful original content pact with Tyler Perry. Can you speak on finding new talent you want to invest in?

Tyler Perry continues to be a cornerstone partner for BET+. His ability to consistently deliver high-performing content across acquisition, engagement, and retention is unparalleled and that engine continues to drive real value for our business. But equally important is our commitment to cultivating the next generation of visionary Black storytellers.

At BET+, we’ve been intentional about building a platform that not only celebrates established icons like Tyler and Kenya Barris but also provides meaningful opportunity for rising voices like Diarra Kilpatrick, whose Diarra from Detroit is sharp, bold, and fresh, and Jordan Cooper, who’s redefined sitcoms with The Ms. Pat Show.

What makes BET+ unique is our dual mandate to champion both proven talent and emerging creatives who are pushing boundaries. That’s where we find the most energy and promise: enabling authentic stories to be told that might otherwise struggle to find a home in an increasingly risk-averse industry. It’s not just a differentiator; it’s our mission.

 

What do you see as the potential hurdle in the industry for Black content?

There’s no question that strong Black-led content exists like Dope Thief on Apple TV+, Paradise on Hulu, and Survival of the Thickest on Netflix are great examples. But the broader challenge lies in the systemic shifts we’re seeing across the industry. As streamers tighten their content spend, dollars are increasingly directed toward projects perceived to have broad, mass-market appeal. That often comes at the expense of content designed for more culturally specific audiences.

One of the biggest hurdles is the lack of well-established success proxies for Black content. Too often, projects led by Black creators are seen as niche rather than essential, despite their impact and reach. The industry still struggles to measure the true value of culturally resonant storytelling beyond just traditional metrics.

How so?

Commercial success starts with clear, platform-specific KPIs but too often, those benchmarks aren’t calibrated to reflect the dynamics of Black content. What does success look like for culturally specific storytelling on a given platform? Without a defined framework, it becomes easy to undervalue or misjudge performance.

Discovery is another major barrier. Studies, including a notable McKinsey report, have highlighted algorithmic bias in recommendation systems, which can deprioritize Black-led content in user feeds. If audiences can’t easily find the content, it limits viewership and in turn, limits the data that proves its value. So even when the creative is strong and the audience exists, structural issues in how content is surfaced and evaluated can hinder its commercial potential from the start. Until that changes, the pipeline for Black-led content will continue to face headwinds, not due to lack of talent or audience demand, but because of outdated frameworks for evaluating success.

That’s similar to the algorithms used on social media. If you click on a cat once, you’re seeing cats for the next few days.

Hahaha, that’s right. So, there are a few things that make it more difficult for some of the broader mainstream streamers, which is why it’s so important for us to continue to operate and give these creators a platform.

 

 Featured image: Jason Harvey. 

From Wakanda to Chicago: “Ironheart” Trailer Unveils Riri Williams’ High-Stakes Journey in Marvel’s Latest

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We first met Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) on screen in Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Riri is a genius student inventor who the Wakandans tapped in a significant time of need—they’d just lost their Black Panther (the late, great Chadwick Boseman) and were facing a seriously uncertain future thanks to threats from Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and his vast army of ocean-dwelling Atlanteans. Thanks in part to Riri’s Tony Stark-level technical prowess, the Wakandans were able to hold Namor and his armies off. Now, in a brand new trailer for the Coogler-produced new series Ironheart, Riri is front-and-center and more determined than ever to make her mark. She returns to her hometown of Chicago to continue building her insanely brilliant, wildly ambitious iron suits. Her time with the Wakandas has fired her up to do something real, something good in the world. Yet Riri finds trouble in the former of Parker Robbins, aka “The Hood” (Anthony Ramos), who makes his introduction in the trailer by trapping her in an elevator and promising her that in less than three minutes the air will become unbreathable and she’ll die, unless she can figure out a solution. This is, it turns out, Riri’s interview. Welcome to the clandestine world of genius inventors, Riri.

The trailer reveals that Riri’s ambition is huge—her “internship abroad,” as she puts her time with the Wakandas, inspired her to want to build something iconic. Parker Robbins promises her that he’ll give her the tools to carry out her vision, but like all seemingly too-good-to-be-true deals, this offer comes with a cost. Parker admits that in order to pull off something iconic, you likely have to do some “pretty questionable things.”

Those close to Riri are concerned that she’s going down the wrong path and it seems inevitable that Riri and The Hood will eventually collide.

Lyric Ross, Alden Ehrenreich, Regan Aliyah, Manny Montana, Matthew Elam, and Anji White join Thorne and Ramos in the cast. Chinaka Hodge is the head writer, and Sam Bailey and Angela Barnes direct the episodes.

Check out the trailer below. Ironheart premieres on Disney+ on June 24 with a 3-episode launch at 9 pm ET.

For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:

Marvel’s Next Move: “Thunderbolts*” Director Jake Schreier Eyed for “X-Men” Reboot

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Marvel’s Misfits Have Mainstream Appeal: “Thunderbolts*” Strikes Box Office Gold

Marvel’s Misfits Hit Big: Florence Pugh-Led “Thunderbolts*” Strikes a Chord With Critics

Featured image: Ironheart/Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) in Marvel Television’s IRONHEART. Photo by Jalen Marlowe. © 2024 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

Director Alex Graves on Keri Russell’s Balletic Excellence in Netflix’s Hit Series “The Diplomat”

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Keri Russell plays blunt but brilliant U.S. Ambassador Kate Wyler in The Diplomat. She’s often anything but diplomatic in the taut political thriller, loath to dress in fancy clothes or brush her hair, but Kate exhibits invaluable tenacity as she tracks down the perpetrators of a horrendous ship explosion and car bomb attack. The Emmy-nominated Netflix series, which aired its second season last fall, co-stars Rufus Sewell as Kate’s ambitious husband Hal, with David Gyasi as the British Foreign Secretary, Ato Essandoh as her deputy chief of mission, and Rory Kinnear as England’s fiery prime minister. Kate Wyler meets her match at the end of the season when Allison Janney shows up as the wily, tactically brilliant, and ruthless American Vice President Grace Penn.

The show’s mix of witty dialogue and political chicanery brings to mind Aaron Sorkin’s now-iconic political drama The West Wing, which is where Diplomat creator/showrunner Deborah Cahn and executive producer/director Alex Graves met early in their careers. Graves, a Kansas City native, later worked with Cahn on Homeland and, more recently, directed episodes of HBO’s juggernaut Game of Thrones and Apple TV+’s Foundation.

Graves, speaking from his part-time home in Las Vegas, talks to The Credits about why he likes to keep the camera rolling and how grandiose public settings bolster the stakes for its privately anguished characters.

 

In The Diplomat, you have actors of a very high caliber showing up on set, ready to go. What does that leave you to do as the director when it comes to their performances?

What I spend time doing with the actors is watching. Because a lot of what you do with actors, and certainly on The Diplomat, is, you’re watching what they’re doing, number one, and two, you want to make sure you’re getting the psychological and emotional story. “Is there anything I’m not seeing?” Someone like Rufus Sewell, who’s just brilliant to watch, has already worked out the performance, or he’s riffing off Keri or whatever, and he has a very strong opinion about Hal. [After a take] You might say, “I’m seeing this or I’m not seeing that, let’s go again.” You want to see the insecurities, the pettiness, the little performance details that go right into the lens. It’s a funny experience for me because I’ve done a lot of very large things, science fiction and otherwise, and this show is really about the microscope.

The Diplomat. Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler in episode 103 of The Diplomat. Cr. Alex Bailey/Netflix © 2023

The range of Keri Russell’s performance as Kate is something to behold. She can do funny, heartbroken, fierce, and everything in between. What’s your directing relationship with her?

Keri’s full of energy, thank God, and she comes in totally ready, so we spend a lot of time trying to keep up with her. The thing about Keri is that she gives Kate enormous humanity and the clumsiness and the flaws and the bluntness of the character.

The Diplomat. (L to R) Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, Ato Essandoh as Stuart Hayford in episode 202 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Do you do a lot of takes?

It could be two takes, it could be ten takes. With Keri, a lot of times I won’t cut because whenever you cut, the magic that goes on—and it is a sort of magic—that stops. Keri is a dancer; she has been her whole life, so if you cut, she stops and the whole energy stops. There’s a real value to not cutting. If you say okay, “We’re still rolling,” Keri returns to her number one position, everyone re-sets in the background, and you say “go,” and she rolls right into the scene and maybe goes to another level.

You want to maintain momentum. Can you give an example of shooting multiple takes to achieve a better result?

Season one, episode seven, Keri’s just come back from a humiliating meeting at the White House, her old friend has filled her in on [casualties in] Afghanistan, so when Hal comes in to check on her day, Kate’s kind of a wreck. On take four, Keri just took it to another level, as if she’d never done the scene before. She was really having the experience. Early on, I realized what a great actor she is. She’d hate hearing me say that because Keri doesn’t like compliments, but her mind and her imagination for the character are just a blast to watch.

The Diplomat. Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in episode 103 of The Diplomat. Cr. Alex Bailey/Netflix © 2023

Keri meshes so well with the mostly British cast members like David Gyasi and Rory Kinnear, who really deliver the goods.

Well, Rory and David are simply two of the best actors out there. In the Season 2 premiere at 10 Downing Street, Rory has a six-page scene doing most of the dialogue [dealing] with the story and the psychology and the plot and I think he did that like 50 times that day because I had to shoot [coverage of] everybody, so he was running the scene. Each take was just as good as the next one.

The Diplomat. (L to R) Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, David Gyasi as Austin Dennison in episode 206 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

It’s interesting because Rory Kinnear looks like a regular guy, yet he brings so much intensity to his performance that he almost steals every scene.

I remember the first day I visited the Diplomat set, I was just hypnotized watching Rory act in rehearsals and takes. He’s a titan.

The Diplomat. (L to R) Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, Rory Kinnear as Nicol Trowbridge in episode 202 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Years ago, you and Deborah Cahn worked together on The West Wing, which gained instant acclaim as one of television’s best political dramas. Like The Diplomat, The West Wing excelled in fast-paced dialogue between brainy characters. What did you learn about directing from that show?

Getting to direct Aaron Sorkin’s work was pure joy and also very intimidating, so there was a lot of learning about how to work with fear! [laughing]. But another big thing I learned, which became very important on both Game of Thrones and Homeland, was learning to communicate the emotional and psychological aspects of what the characters are going through as they throw out all this beautiful technical dialogue about policy and politics and foreign affairs and whatever. On The West Wing, we used to call it, “The script behind the script.” You’d get Aaron’s dialogue and then you’d rehearse with very smart actors and have conversations about what is going on [with their characters]. In a way, The West Wing was kind of like my post-grad film school, and I think it was for Deborah as well.

The Diplomat. (L to R) Director/Executive Producer Alex Graves, Showrunner/Executive Producer Debora Cahn in episode 202 of The Diplomat. Cr. Alex Bailey/Netflix © 2024

Each character in The Diplomat is expected to conceal secrets and put on a happy face when they appear in public at grandiose spaces.

The Diplomat is a combination of very intimate moments on a very large scale, set in a very broad landscape.

 

You’ve filmed at Inveraray Castle in Scotland, Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire, the real U.S. Embassy in London, and the Louvre in Paris. Do you have a favorite set piece involving one of these landmark locations?

The most special setting for me in Season 2 was St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Deborah gave me a Christmas present, a ten-page sequence with almost no dialogue, which is a filmmaker’s dream. For me, it was about breaking down the intimate story going on with about eight characters in the middle of one of the greatest cathedrals in the world. That represented the huge scope of what was going on in the story.

The Diplomat. Episode 202 of The Diplomat. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

For more big titles on Netflix, check these out:

Director Alex Graves on Keri Russell’s Balletic Excellence in Netflix’s Hit Series “The Diplomat”

Behind Netflix’s “The Four Seasons”: How “30 Rock” Veterans Lang Fisher & Tracey Wigfield Reimagined a Classic With Tina Fey

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Featured image: The Diplomat. Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in episode 108 of The Diplomat. Cr. Alex Bailey/Netflix © 2023

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” First Reactions: A Pure Cinematic Adrenaline Rush 30 Years in the Making

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The first reactions to Tom Cruise’s eighth and potentially final mission as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning have arrived following a screening for critics and members of the press. The verdict? Cruise and his capable comrades Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and newcomer Grace (Hayley Atwell) have pulled off a sustained adrenaline rush of pure cinematic spectacle. In short, Cruise and co. have done it again.

If Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is indeed Cruise’s last go-round as the unkillable Ethan Hunt, it will cap a remarkable run for both Cruise and the franchise that began on May 22, 1996 with the very first Mission: Impossible, beginning with the set-piece that started it all, that sensational break-in at the CIA’s Black Vault, which The Final Reckoning hat-tipped in a recent trailer. The Final Reckoning promises to thread all of Hunt’s work over the past nearly three decades into a cohesive narrative, while capping the franchise with one final stunt to rule them all. It appears that Cruise and co. have pulled it off. 

Early reactions are calling The Final Reckoning the kind of big-screen spectacle that the movie theater was born for. Cruise somehow tops his previous stunts, which have included hanging off the side of an Airbus A400m in Rogue Nation, a record-breaking HALO skydive, and his mastery of helicopter piloting in Fallout, with a fresh stunt for the ages. 

Cruise, director Christopher McQuarrie, and longtime stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood have cooked up a fresh course of lunacy for The Final Reckoning, which finds Ethan and his longtime IMF partners, Luther Stickell and Benji Dunn, trying to save the world from imminent disaster a few months after the conclusion of the last installment, Dead Reckoning. The IMF team is struggling to stop the remorseless Gabriel (Esai Morales) from gaining control of the rogue artificial intelligence The Entity. The cast includes Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge, Pom Klementieff as Paris, Vanessa Kirby as the White Widow, and Hannah Waddingham, Katy O’Brian, and Tramell Tillman.

Let’s take a quick look at the first reactions below. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning will premiere on May 23, 2025.

Featured image: Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.