Gael García Bernal on His Showstopping Performance in “Cassandro”

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Gael García Bernal has played a political revolutionary, an eccentric symphony conductor, an animated trickster, and a victim of a beach that makes you age years in hours, but he’s never made as much noise in one film as he does in Cassandro, where Bernal had to rile up crowds of thousands as the eponymous lucha libre star. Cassandro, a Texas native known outside the ring as Saúl Armendáriz, became an unlikely wrestling champion in Mexico by flaunting his flamboyance. As his success in the movie grows, so does the braggadocio that Bernal exhibits. 

Bernal, who has carved out a reputation as one of his generation’s finest actors, tends to take on less showy roles. His work in films like Y Tu Mamá También, Babel, No, and Old can be intense, but most of Bernal’s performances don’t require the same over-the-top razzmatazz. Maybe that explains why the Oscars continually overlook his globetrotting work. 

As awards season unfolds, Cassandro is making a bid for recognition. It has another heavy hitter in director Roger Ross Williams, who previously profiled Armendáriz for The New Yorker Presents and has also directed The Super Models and Life, Animated. The Amazon movie was released during the Screen Actors Guild strike, so Bernal can finally promote his transformative performance. 

 

Roger Ross Williams has said he didn’t want you to spend a ton of time with Saúl before production began. Is that what you would have chosen too?

The nature of this was a free interpretation of the life of Cassandro. You have to amalgamate certain elements and bring in different things that are not really part of the life story of the real Saúl. Saúl came up with the character of Cassandro, so we had to come up with our own Cassandro as well. If I needed to talk to Saúl about what he did, most of the information was out there. He had done documentaries. The other thing is that, unfortunately, before starting to shoot, he had a health situation that took him out for a little while. I talked to him, and then we saw each other on the last days of shooting. That was really beautiful. 

Gael García Bernal in Cassandro. Photo: Courtesy of Prime Video © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

In the time you did spend with him, or in any of the research that you did, was there something you picked up from him that helped you understand what it feels like to be in the ring, receiving the energy of the room and having to feed it back to the crowd? 

That detail, in a way, is something that you can experience only by doing it. The wrestling training helped a lot. It was six months of physical conditioning and then two months of wrestling training before starting to shoot. That was incredible because it’s such a difficult sport that also includes the performative aspect. You have to give a good show, no? But one of the many things I learned through Cassandro is that you start from the surface, and then you start to understand a little bit more about the character. You start to walk like the character, start to internalize the character, and start to put the costume and the makeup together. There is also something very interesting that I want to be very faithful to, which is the life of the border culture. On the Mexican border, there is that duality that resembles what happens as a wrestler. You cross a line to become someone else, and that someone else is more of who you want to be. The border culture is incredible because they’re born with a situation that is horrendous on a sociological level. They’re born with a stupid wall right in front of them. They have to overcome it to live there and not acknowledge this human division. The community is so strong there. They’re vanguards in the sense of where humans are at right now. 

 

During those wrestling sequences, were you performing for a full arena? I can’t imagine drumming up that energy in an empty room.

The problem is that it’s very difficult to fill in a full room. The last wrestling match was shot at a stadium that seats 70,000 people. We had like 2,000 people, which is quite a lot, but in that place it feels like there’s no one. But they participated, and it was fantastic. Most of them grew up with lucha libre, and they knew what to do. 

Gael García Bernal and El Hijo del Santo in Cassandro. Photo: Alejandro Lopez Pineda © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

Was there a specific moment when you connected to the character after first seeing yourself in one of the wrestling outfits and the full makeup? 

I worked with María Estela Fernández, who’s a fantastic costume designer that I’ve worked with for many, many years, and Itzel Pena, who is an incredible makeup artist. We’re a film family. One year before starting to shoot, we started to try out stuff. It was a little-by-little process, but it was better to start with the complete extreme and tone it down. We also had to play with the practicalities. I cannot wrestle with heavy eyelashes or a wig. It was impossible, so it had to be my hair. Once you put elements together, something incredible happens. Also, the accent and the pluma — the feather. In queer Spanish slang, it’s like, “Let’s train the feather” or “Let’s get the feather.” 

Gael García Bernal in Cassandro. Photo: Courtesy of Prime Video © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

Over the years, your interest in making Hollywood movies seems to have waxed and waned. What do you make of the offers you’re getting at this point in your career? 

It’s an interesting time, no? When I started to work, Mexican cinema was at its lowest point. There were only six films done that year when I made Amores Perros. And 50 years before, there were like 200 films made each year. Little by little, it started to get back. Among the many opportunities that allowed me, the most important one was that I’m able to play in Spanish and to perform with bigger dimensions and more complexity. English-speaking studio movies were an option as a nice alternative, but I also worked in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, France, and Italy. After COVID, the film experience has changed. Who knows where this will lead for me or for anyone. 

Your breakthrough involved a handful of cool, edgy movies that people really responded to: Amores Perros, Y Tu Mamá También, The Motorcycle Diaries, and Bad Education. When you’ve done all those movies in relatively quick succession, is it hard to settle for things that don’t reach the same highs? 

It’s very difficult to replicate that experience, but I had that feeling on No with Pablo Larraín, which was the first time we worked together. It brought me back to that joy. Before, I used to love it, but I was very innocent. This time, there was no innocence. It was a pure, mature joy. That gave me a little bit of inner energy. I don’t know how many dog years a good film gives you. There are great films I’ve done that haven’t had the success or attention they deserve, and on the other hand, I’ve done some other films that haven’t been transcendental in terms of me being part of them. My experience is always different from the outcome. It’s hard for me to look at it from the outside. 

Have you enjoyed the bigger phenomenons, like performing a Coco song at the Oscars or making something as meme-friendly as Old? 

When something comes out, you end up belonging to that film rather than the film belonging to you. I don’t control it anymore, but it’s fantastic. I love how diverse everything can be, like doing Werewolf by Night. The Marvel experience was great because it was touching on an angle and a world that I have never tapped into, this fantasy-horror kind of thing. I had a lot of fun doing it, but at the same time, the complete opposite would be me participating in a small film or directing a film in Mexico. I love being able to experience that range. 

Which directors are still on your wish list?

I would love to work again and again and again with Pablo Larraín. We’ve done three films together now, and it’s such a joy to work with him. I would love to work again with Alfonso Cuarón, who’s like my brother and maybe the most talented filmmaker around. I’m still tapping into a curiosity I’ve always had, which is that sometimes, the further away the film can take me, the better. There is this wonderful director named Stephan Komandarev. He’s from Bulgaria, and he’s got a great film called Blaga’s Lessons that I recommend. It’s really, really amazing. I don’t even know him, but working with him would be fantastic. 

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Featured image: Gael García Bernal in Cassandro. Photo: Courtesy of Prime Video © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

“The Chi” Producer/Directors Deondray Gossfield and Quincy LeNear Gossfield on Shaping Lena Waithe’s Sharp Showtime Series

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The Chi directors/producers Deondray Gossfield and Quincy LeNear Gossfield are living proof of the collaborative spirit. They live and work together (they’re married), and when they directed episode 4 in season 5, “On Me,” in Lena Waithe’s coming-of-age Showtime series, the talented creator recognized she’d found two collaborators who could take on a larger role for season 6. That meant both directing and producing.

“We were already fans of the show before we started working on it, so we didn’t need much hand-holding as far as the characters were concerned,” Deondray says. “It was so exciting to be let in on the story arcs as they were being fleshed out in real-time.” 

The Chi is, naturally, set in Chicago, following residents of the South Side and their interconnected, often extremely challenging lives. Waithe’s series is often compared to David Simon’s era-defining HBO series The Wire, which offered a pointillist snapshot of life in Baltimore, although The Chi is often a more tender portrayal, if no less clear-eyed about the challenges its characters face. The series is led by a deeply talented ensemble cast, including Lynn Whitfield, Jacob Lattimore, Luke James, Jason Weaver, and Jill Marie Jones.

We spoke to the Gossfields about their working relationship, their philosophy for creating great TV, and how their duties, and skills, naturally blur and flow.

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Sisson/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME

What was your research process like coming into The Chi in season 5, with such a rich cast of characters and so many established storylines to carry forward?

Deondray: We were already fans of the show, so we already knew the history of all the characters and where they might be going; however, we did rewatch the entire series to remind ourselves of the evolution of the show. Visually, The Chi has had several aesthetics that were specific to each season, but there were always some signature looks and a directorial style that permeated throughout. We wanted to know what our creative boundaries were, what might be too much or too off the mark, and how performances varied and crescendoed from season to season. We were trying to see what tools were already in our toolbox and which ones we could add while preserving the integrity and energy of the show.

Quincy: We created a spreadsheet for each of the main and supporting characters and tracked their story arcs and relationships with photos. We also created a document with bullet points and synopsis per episode for all four seasons before we met with our showrunners and our former producing director. We may have over-prepared, if there’s such a thing. We really wanted to be able to speak confidently about the series. We were pretty much plugged into the world of The Chi pretty deeply in season five, so coming into season six as producers, we were ready. We did our homework.

 

How would you describe the way you handled episode four of season 5, “On Me,” which included a lot of major plot points and shifts?

Deondray: We used the same methods we used when breaking down scenes and applied them to the entire episode. Every scene is a short story with a beginning, middle, and end. Every character within a scene has a transition in tone with a mini story arc. We separated all the storylines within the script as if they were individual short films and broke down where each character started within those storylines and where they ended up. We directed each storyline as if they were standalone, which helped us keep track of them even as they existed within a whole episode. In addition, we found ways to thematically tie them all together to give the episode a story arc as a whole. When you break something down this deeply, you know it like the back of your hand and can maneuver and pivot with ease.

Quincy: We also like to focus on what’s not being said. What people don’t say is actually what motivates their behavior. People rarely say what they really mean. When we are breaking down the script, we are also looking at the emotional and psychological underpinnings of the story. We even write between the lines what’s not being said, and that really helps us tune into the heart of the script. We love pretty, cool, and slick visuals and things that push the art form, but not every moment requires all that jazz. Yet, every moment requires you to capture the story’s core. The story has to remain the ultimate goal, and then we look for ways to visually represent the story creatively.

 

How did you approach season six? Were there specific aesthetic changes you thought were necessary as the storylines evolved? 

Deondray: There were lots of conversations around pivotal plot points for the season, but mostly, it was about elevating the show in general. Lena really liked what we did with our episode on season five and wanted us to apply those same aesthetics and sensibilities to season six. We took all that information and began to work out what the look and tone would be for the season with our DP, Nathan Salter. All the camera work and directing were so deliberate to create intentional visual and performance arcs for the season based on all the early conversations we had with Lena and the Showrunners in pre-production.

Quincy: What I remember most was, “Don’t screw this up!” Lena was putting a lot of trust in us to take on this position. We directed one of the most talked about and loved episodes of season five, and Lena strongly felt that we had captured the essence of what she wanted for The Chi moving forward. It didn’t hurt that we also left a great impression on the cast and crew. It’s not often that a director(s) directs one episode and comes back the following season as the producing director. It’s a big ask, and Showtime wanted to make sure we could tackle it and were the right fit.

Alex Hibbert as Kevin in THE CHI, ìHouse Partyî. Photo credit: Elizabeth Sisson/SHOWTIME.

What’s your co-directing style like? Do you each tackle different parts of the production, complementing each other’s skill sets?

Deondray: Quincy and I are equally yoked when it comes to skillsets, so we have a very intensive prep process where we audition all of our ideas for each other. We each break down the script separately, mark it up, and then come together to discuss it. About 98% of our individual ideas overlap and require no further discussion. The remaining 2% get auditioned. It can end up being a very obvious win over the two different approaches to a scene, or it can be hours of refining and making strong cases for each idea, sometimes even getting them storyboarded or shooting a mock sequence on our iPhones. The better idea usually wins out in the end, or they’re equally as good, so we pick the easiest one to execute. By the time we arrive to set, we are on the exact same page, so our team and cast are never confused about what we want. We take turns giving directions on set. It really just depends on who has the most energy that day. One of us may be really high energy that morning and start to fade by lunch, so the other will take the lead until we wrap. It’s a tag team.

Quincy: Folks like to say we play good cop/bad cop, or they call us mom and dad on set. I think those roles are interchangeable, but we naturally just flow together like Yin and Yang. We were both professional actors in our early careers, so we understand the language of actors. We also both have degrees in psychology, and understanding people is important, whether it be the desires, needs, and wants of our cast or the motivation of the characters they are playing. Being a student of human behavior really comes in handy as a director. Another thing that we love to do is to audition our ideas visually. I am a visual artist and photographer, and we both have experience as cinematographers. Deondray has edited most of our indie projects, so we use a combination of storyboards, photos, and video to work out some ideas that may seem difficult. We’ll pull out our iPhones, stage a scene, shoot it, and edit together. When we finally talk with our DP, we can communicate our ideas more effectively because they can see what our goal is.

(L-R): Zaria Imani Primer as Lynae, Ahmad Ferguson as Bakari, Michael V. Epps as Jake, Judaeía Brown as Jemma, Shamon Brown Jr as Papa and Kennedy Amaya as Kenya in THE CHI, ìReUpî. Photo credit: Elizabeth Sisson/SHOWTIME.

What’s your process like for working with actors? Do you have rules of thumb you return to time and again, or is it different with every performer?

Deondray: Working with actors is our favorite part. Quincy and I started as actors, so we speak their language. There are some things that are universal: be collaborative, listen, leave room for imagination, and be open, but I would say most of what it takes to be an effective director is being able to hone in on each actor’s specific needs. Some need short-hand notes that allow them to fill in the gaps. Some need to have their motivations broken down so that they can understand them from a personal place. Others need constant, real-time feedback, while some prefer to marinate with the script, make choices, and then confer with you about their choices to see if they are on the mark. I think the best work happens when there is a mutual fluidity between the actors and the director. Each of you may have done the homework and painstakingly come up with motivations and emotional arcs that may not work once you get on set and have to adjust to your surroundings or the way another actor in the scene interprets a line. When a new, incredible layer is discovered in those moments, it’s your job as the director to cultivate and enhance it, and the actor’s job to let this affect them and respond to it.

QUINCY: One of the biggest things you can do as a director is to gain your actor’s trust, not by manipulation, but by really caring about them as people and performers by being empathetic. Being an actor can make one feel very vulnerable. Actors have to tap into many sensitive emotions, anger, sadness, fear, etc. and are often physiologically reproducing those states for the camera. Not to mention, there are physically intimate and sexual situations that may also be required. You cannot treat people like puppets or cattle who are only there to do as told. We want our actors to feel protected and in good hands. They know that we have their backs and share a common goal to make them their best, but never at the expense of their humanity. Not everyone works that way, but maybe things need to change. 

(L-R): Jacob Latimore as Emmett and Birgundi Baker as Kiesha in THE CHI, “One of Them Nights”. Photo credit: Elizabeth Sisson/SHOWTIME.

The Chi season 6 returns to Showtime in 2024. You can watch the first eight episodes of the series on Paramount+.

For more recent interviews, check out these stories:

“The Color Purple” Costume Designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s Stunning Creations

“American Fiction” Writer/Director Cord Jefferson on Cutting to the Heart of the Matter

“Wonka” Production Designer Nathan Crowley on Creating a Chocolatier’s Whimsical World

Featured image: Deondray Gossfield and Quincy LeNear Gossfield. Photo Credit: Elizabeth Sisson/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME

“Wonka” Production Designer Nathan Crowley on Creating a Chocolatier’s Whimsical World

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For production designer Nathan Crowley, whose impressive list of credits includes The Dark Knight, The Greatest Showman, and First Man, creating director Paul King’s deliciously appetizing Wonka musical was an exploration of “whimsical, nostalgic, and romantic” visuals inspired by Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “I’m used to doing practical films, and with Wonka, we had to find the realism of Roald Dhal and what that looked like. Our realism is his fantasy,” Crowley tells The Credits.

Crowley first considered the fictional town in which Willy Wonka, splendidly portrayed by actor Timothée Chalamet, comes ashore to sell his delicious chocolates. “The city is sort of the best of Europe, and we are trying to take parts of it and mix them together without them being noticed,” says the production designer. “Good design goes semi-unnoticed, and it just plays with the story and the characters live in that space without question.”

A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden was home to the 21-week production where dozens of sets spanned multiple soundstages, a backlot, and an airport hangar, along with filming at ten practical locations, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sutton Bridge, and Lyme Regis’ harbor. Crowley intertwined architectural styles from France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Czechia, and Switzerland to build the massive town.

Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Willy Wonka in Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

At its center is a 900m x 900m (2952ft x 2952ft) square that took eight months to complete. Twelve shops, two restaurants, two outdoor dining areas, a food market, and a florist fill out the square, which features an enchanting fountain. A labyrinth of cobblestone streets leads to the docks, Mrs. Scrubitt’s (Olivia Coleman) laundry warehouse where Willy is forced to work off his debt, the cathedral (inspired by St. Paul’s and Prague churches), and the Galeries Gourmet, home to the famed chocolate shops of Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Prodnose (Matt Lucas), and Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) reside.

The world of “Wonka,” which production designer Nathan Crowley helped create. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Crowley built the town in sections as a way to influence the lighting and visual effects. “You want to make it the right size cinematically for the camera lens,” he says. “If you have a real town square, it might be too big, and you might not be able to understand all the moments. Fortunately, Warner Bros. was willing to let us build the whole town square and the Galeries Gourmet, so I could really use every piece of stylization and architecture that I wanted in a much more creative way.”

The world of “Wonka,” which production designer Nathan Crowley helped create. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Blues, yellows, and greens were infused into the chocolatier shops of Slugworth, Prodnose, and Fickelgruber, whose signature colors are also part of their costume design, while other Galeries Gourmet shops had windows filled with delectable treats and drinks. Willy’s chocolate shop was a separate stage built and inspired by his childhood memories. “There’s a backstory that he grew up with his mother on a canal boat on a river with a beautiful weeping willow tree,” notes Crowley. “His mother created this safe, wonderful space, and Willy’s store is a reflection of this childhood memory that he holds dearly.”

Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Willy Wonka in Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Crowley started by designing a curved cherry blossom chocolate tree, which is reached from a delightful pink walkway. Below is a mouthwatering ground made of chocolate and a garden of edible roses, flowers, mushrooms, and lollipops. Creamy blue theatrical waves wrap the tree while a chocolate barge moves along a candy river that features a boat reflecting his childhood. “We couldn’t do the chocolate river yet because it’s his first chocolate shop. We wanted that to be part of the factory,” notes the production designer. Topping it off, the entire tree rotates in a sky of pink cotton candy clouds. “Visual effects got these giant turntables to rotate the tree in this corkscrew motion that gave us some movement for the song number,” adds Crowley.

The young Willy Wonka’s whimsical world was created in large part by production designer Nathan Crowley. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Looking back on the project, Crowley says, “You can do a film purely with visual effects, but you lose the journey of creativity in building a set and how you can change it like a piece of sculpture. I love building sets because of the process of building them and the way they change. You don’t draw an illustration and build that illustration. You art direct it, and, with the director, it becomes more than the idea. With Wonka, it’s successful at being whimsical and joyous. And I think we can all do with a bit of that right now.”

 

Wonka arrives is in theaters now.

For more on Wonka, check out these stories:

“Wonka” Costume Designer Lindy Hemming on Dressing the Joyous World of a Budding Chocolatier

“Wonka” Early Reactions: Timothée Chalamet is a Charisma Factory in Paul King’s Winning Confection

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Willy Wonka and HUGH GRANT as an Oompa Loompa in Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

 

“American Fiction” Writer/Director Cord Jefferson on Cutting to the Heart of the Matter

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Writer/director Cord Jefferson’s narrative feature debut, American Fiction, has become one of the most talked about films this awards season, and for good reason. Adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” the satirical drama won the audience award upon its debut at the Toronto Film Festival, with a number of subsequent fests following suit, and was recently named one of the top ten films of 2023 by the AFI. The film follows Monk Ellison (a superb Jeffrey Wright), a Black professor and novelist fed up with the literary establishment’s take on the Black experience. He channels his frustration by writing a novel under a pseudonym that pushes outrageous racial stereotypes, only to have it published and celebrated as a great work of literature. 

Wright brings Monk to life in all his complexities, and his work is a joy to watch, but the film is as much about family, friendship, and acceptance as it is about Blackness in art and culture, and those around him are crucial to his story arc. Monk has complicated relationships with his mother Agnes, played by Leslie Uggams, his newly out gay brother Cliff (Sterling K Brown), and his sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), an overworked doctor. His interactions with colleagues, too, are contentious. His agent, Arthur (John Ortiz), wants to see him succeed without leaving all the money on the table. Monk silently judges Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) for her wildly successful novel that takes place in the ghetto and is written in African-American Vernacular English. The film benefits from the ensemble cast as much as it does from Wright’s exceptional performance. 

The Credits spoke to Cord Jefferson about American Fiction just after it won the Audience Award at the Middleburg Film Festival. He recalls the challenges of getting it to the screen, making some of the film’s most memorable scenes, and the importance of a diversity of voices in art that becomes part of popular conversation.

 

The film is based on “Erasure,” which was released in 2001, but in some ways, the issues are even more relevant now. How did the book call to you? 

I worked as a journalist for about eight years before I started working in film and television, and towards the end of my career, I started getting a lot of requests to write about Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown being killed or some racist thing that somebody said, as if this was the only thing I had to offer. So when I got into film and television, I was excited because I thought finally I had no restrictions. I could write about space aliens or unicorns and not be bound by the realities of the world. Then, people would come to me asking me to write about this slave or that crack dealer or gang member. I still felt bound to this very specific, limited viewpoint of what life looks like. When I came across this book in December 2020, these were ideas that had been swirling around in my head for decades.  People always talk about feeling seen or having something that speaks directly to them, and when I read this novel, it honestly felt like somebody had sat down and written Cord Jefferson a book, so I immediately leaped at the opportunity to try to adapt the script and direct the film. This was the first thing ever in my career that I wrote just on spec because I felt so passionately about the project. 

Writer/director Cord Jefferson on the set of his film AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Claire Folger. © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

This film asks lots of big questions, but one that Monk struggles with is “What is art, and who gets to make it?” 

The scene that gets most at what you’re talking about is the scene towards the end where Sintara meets Monk, and they have a conversation about their ideology when it comes to their artistic process. The reason I really love that is because when I was reading the novel, I was very excited for the scene in which Monk was going meet this author he’s reviled for so long, and it never came. That scene is not in the book. When I sat down to adapt the screenplay, I knew that was one of the scenes I really wanted to put in there. What I love about that conversation is that there is no right or wrong answer. I wrote the scene, and I still don’t know who I agree with more. I think human beings have a problem with this, but Americans especially have a problem with this, that the answer to these questions sometimes is there is no answer. There is no right or wrong, and that can be frustrating. People want to see the world as being binary, black and white, right or wrong, or good and bad, but there is no answer to “what is art” or what the best way is to approach art. 

Issa Rae stars as Sintara Golden and Nicole Kempskie as Sintara’s moderator in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Courtesy of ORION Pictures Inc. © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Or what’s acceptable or not acceptable to create. 

There’s another question to ask. Artists tend to direct their anger at other artists when they feel like they’re making art they don’t like or that has bad politics, or is doing a disservice to a group of people. Why not direct that ire at the people in control of what is being seen? Why are the people atop these systems in which these people are operating making the decisions? Artists on the ground are just working within institutions and systems created far before they ever got into making art. Why are the people atop these corporations and institutions and systems greenlighting only the things they’re interested in? They’re the ones who have their hands on the purse strings. People creating within that system are just trying to be heard and show another perspective while getting some of that money. Creative life and artistic life is a hard life. With so much distraction, now more than ever, it’s difficult to make your way, get your work out, feed yourself, and have your voice heard as an artist. Far be it for me to criticize another artist for doing what they need to do to have their voice heard. 

 

For artists, art is hard enough to create without bringing the gatekeepers into the equation. 

Right. So the question is, why are the people we are working so hard to impress so specifically interested in a very, very narrow, limited perspective on people’s lives? This movie follows a Black man, but I have Mexican friends who ask why every story coming out of Mexico has to be about drug cartels or somebody fleeing their miserable circumstances in order to reach the promised land that is the United States of America. And why is there always a weird orange-y brown wash on every shot that’s in Mexico? There are a lot of people who just feel let down that the breadth and depth of their life is not being represented in the media they consume.

One of the most beautiful aspects of the film is the arc with brothers Cliff and Monk, and Sterling and Jeffrey are great at bringing that to life.

To me, those two finding their way back together is a beautiful and important love story. I knew that just in the casting, Jeffrey was going to play Monk. He’s very prickly, he’s antagonistic and pugnacious, and he fights with his students, his colleagues, his family, and his romantic partners. Casting Sterling, who is charming, has the most natural effervescence in the world, and is just a bundle of joy as soon as you see him, I knew that it was going to be a perfect foil for Jeffrey. What you want out of that is you want Monk to melt in front of some people. 

Jeffrey Wright stars as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison and Sterling K. Brown as Cliff Ellison in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Courtesy of Orion Pictures © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Monk does that with his sister Lisa, too. 

Exactly. That’s why it was important to cast Tracee Ellis Ross, too, who is also just incredibly buoyant. The idea was to cast these people who felt like they could elicit smiles and laughter out of Monk, this character who doesn’t laugh or smile easily.  In fact, he doesn’t want to do those things because, to him, it means he’s dropping the guard he’s built up around himself.  I have two older siblings, and despite the ups and downs in our relationship, they still know me better than practically anybody on earth. So even in the worst of times, they know how to elicit a laugh or smile from me because we have this deep relationship. I think seeing Monk, who is so quick to alienate himself, be around these people who know his weak spots and vulnerabilities because they’ve seen him for decades now was, to me, incredibly important. Having Cliff and Monk as the oil and water, butting heads, who nonetheless find their way back to each other, that was the beautiful love story in American Fiction.

Tracee Ellis Ross stars as Lisa and Leslie Uggams as her mother Agnes in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Claire Folger © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

 

American Fiction is in theaters now.

For more recent interviews, check out these stories:

How “The Color Purple” DP Dan Laustsen Made Visual Music

“The Color Purple” Costume Designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s Stunning Creations

Featured image: Erika Alexander stars as Coraline and Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Claire Folger. © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

 

“The Color Purple” Costume Designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s Stunning Creations

Posted on by babrams

There’s a famous line in Alice Walker’s 1982 novel The Color Purple that goes: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” It’s a message that even God can become annoyed when people overlook the wonderful things he creates. One such creation is what the character of Celie represents. “She’s a beautiful flower and a beautiful person that’s being trampled on,” costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck tells The Credits. “Alice’s novel is about how none of us should feel unworthy or made to feel that way.”

(L-r) TARAJI P. HENSON and FANTASIA BARRINO with Director BLITZ BAZAWULE on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Eli Ade

Director Blitz Bazawule (Black is King) reimagines the iconic story about self-realization and the unbreakable bond of sisterhood in the rural South that was once a Spielberg film (1985) and a Tony Award-winning musical. For its costumes, Jamison-Tanchuck curated an ensemble of handmade garments, vibrant jazz club attire, and traditional African garb spun from Kente cloth, details of which span multiple decades beginning in the early 1900s. Her previous work includes Coming to America, Glory, The Negotiator, Roman J. Israel, Esq. as well as the original The Color Purple, but this project is the apotheosis of her sensibilities, blending tactile textures, stirring colors, and bespoke silhouettes in illustrious style.

Caption: (L-r) PHYLICIA PEARL MPASI as Young Celie and HALLE BAILEY as Young Nettie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

“Blitz and I were constantly speaking of the color and how we would like to start it for this journey,” she says. The designer began dressing a young Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) and her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey) in crisp white cotton dresses as a display of innocence. The color reappears when the two make their way back to each other as adults. Separating their lives is a controlling, curmudgeon of a man named Mister (Colman Domingo), who makes Celie (portrayed by Fantasia Barrino as an adult) his wife and pushes Nettie away from her.

COLMAN DOMINGO as Mister in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ser Baffo.
(L-r) FANTASIA BARRINO as Celie and TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ser Baffo

Period, tattered clothing in muted colors dot Celie’s marriage with Mister, but the subdued palette becomes more colorful through the eras, making an entrance when Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), a strong, unafraid singer, visits. It’s then the color red becomes an inspirational motif for Celie, first being introduced in an eye-popping dress Shug wears during her fiery Juke Joint performance.

(L-r) FANTASIA BARRINO and TARAJI P. HENSON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Eli Ade.

Shug’s complete ensemble has a floor-length red coat with fur accents, red gloves, a feather headdress, and diamond-encrusted heels and is accessorized with a peacock hand fan. The dress itself has a fitted bodice drizzled in a delightful pattern of jewelry and three tiers of beads hanging along the bottom, reflecting a 1920s style. “I call it the cocoon coat because Shug is almost wrapped around in it like the cocoon of a butterfly. It’s another statement before we see the dress,” says Jamison-Tanchuck. “Then she takes it off, exploding with this outfit. To me, it was a special moment. That’s Shug in her glory.”

TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.Photo by Ser Baffo

Researching the Roaring Twenties was key to the dazzling look. “I ended up seeing how entertainers dressed in the early and mid-20s, and some of them wore see-through outfits and were pretty risqué in that era. So it wasn’t a far leap for me to have the slit on Shug’s dress go so high up,” says Jamison-Tanchuck. “She was able to move freely as she was dancing, and the outfit was able to shine in the darkness.”

Celie begins to step out from her shell thanks to Shug, a growing bond that permeates throughout the film. “Shug is the spark of life for Celie,” says Jamison-Tanchuck. “When Shug gives her a dress to wear at the Juke Joint as her guest, that opens up a world of loving feelings and something in Celie that she was worth something to someone and to herself.” The color purple is introduced into her wardrobe when she’s finally had enough of Mister. When Celie becomes a shop owner, red returns as a nod to Shug’s influence during a musical number inside the store.

Caption: (L-r) TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery, FANTASIA BARRINO as Celie and DANIELLE BROOKS as Sophia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s here we see Mister, a man who took his insecurities out on someone else, turn a page, offering a few kind words, and purchasing a pair of flamboyant pants Celie cannot sell. “When Celie left, Mister realized that she was a really intricate part of his life,” says Jamison-Tanchuck. “When he visits her to be friends or to resume the relationship, he thinks he was doing Celie a good turn by buying the trousers she couldn’t sell. My idea was to make the trousers shorter in length and a little bit flooded. Blitz and I liked this shiny, scaly-looking fabric. It’s very reptilian.”

COLMAN DOMINGO as Mister in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

When Celie reunites with Nettie (portrayed by Ciara as an adult) in the glowing backdrop of a majestic tree surrounded by tables, the actors wore white and cream colors with nods to African culture. “Blitz was an amazing inspiration because he is Ghanaian, and he has a wonderful friend who is also from Ghana who I conferred with and had meetings about how this would work in this particular era,” she continues. “Of course, the Kente cloth has been around for thousands of years, so you cannot go past that. We used that in the wraps and kept it simple and natural and less color so we could show off the beautiful quilt Celie worked on all those decades.” Besides the cultural significance of the costume design, whites were chosen to recall when Celie and Nettie were young women playing on a beach. “It was a moment for Celie to be united again with her beloved sister. They are back, almost with that pure love that they had, and it never ended,” says Jamison-Tanchuck.

A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

The Color Purple arrives in theaters on December 25. 

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

How “The Color Purple” DP Dan Laustsen Made Visual Music

“Superman: Legacy” Update: James Gunn Teases Superman’s Costume, Miriam Shor Joins Cast

New “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” Trailer Focuses on Black Manta’s Brutal Mission

Featured image: TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

 

How “The Color Purple” DP Dan Laustsen Made Visual Music

Posted on by babrams

Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen has been shooting movies for forty years, earning two Oscar nominations along the way for his contributions to Guillermo del Toro’s films The Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley. Director Blitz Bazawule, on the other hand, had never made a major Hollywood motion picture before helming The Color Purple (opening Dec. 25). But together, director and cinematographer melded their talents to resounding effect to create a sumptuous-looking movie musical based on Alice Walker’s 1971 novel.

“This is Blitz’s first big movie, but that doesn’t matter,” Laustsen says. “He has a very sharp eye, and I’m here to help make the movie the way the director wants. Blitz had the vision, so we tried to bring that to the screen.”

Previously adapted as a movie drama and a Broadway musical, this version of The Color Purple, starring Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, and Colman Domingo, offers song, dance, and intensely dramatic sequences to tell the story of a family in Georgia suffering abuse and heartbreak before ultimately emerging triumphant through the redemptive power of love.

Laustsen, speaking from Los Angeles, explains how he used southern sunlight and a shrewd selection of camera gear to differentiate dialogue-driven drama from musical sequences.

 

We talked to you a few years ago about your work on The Shape of Water, which includes a fantasy musical sequence, but The Color Purple marks the first time you’ve shot a full-blown musical, right?

That’s correct. I’ve never done a musical before. I knew the “Color Purple” story, but what is the reality of the story, and what is the music? That was difficult for me to bring into my head. I had long conversations with Blitz where it became more and more about a realistic world splitting into this fantasy world. It should not just be something where our characters are walking down the street, and then they start to sing.

Cinematographer DAN LAUSTSEN on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ser Baffo

So, how did you achieve these two distinct looks through your cinematography?

The drama world is very much [feeling like] the southern states of America with warm light coming through the windows. We went much more realistic camera-wise, lens-wise, and color-wise.

(L-r) FANTASIA BARRINO as Celie and TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ser Baffo
(L-r) FANTASIA BARRINO as Celie and TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ser Baffo

In the singing world, we went more wide angle and moved the camera a little bit more, which I think brought the joy of music onto the screen. Also, the color palette gets a little more rich in the singing world.

Caption: (L-r) TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery, FANTASIA BARRINO as Celie and DANIELLE BROOKS as Sophia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

What kind of camera rig did you use for The Color Purple?

We used an Alexa LF Mini and shot on Signature Prime lenses with a diffusion filter behind the lenses. I like the Signature Primes because they’re very clean, and very one-to-one. Then, you can put a diffusion [filter] behind the lens. We also used a fair amount of smoke.

(L-r) TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery and FANTASIA BARRINO as Celie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Eli Ade.

The Color Purple opens with an overhead shot of a man on a horse playing a banjo. It’s quite striking. How did you guys decide on this image to introduce the story?

That was Blitz’s idea in the storyboards: he wanted to start with the top shot. It looks easy, but I’m very much into preparation. We rehearsed it so many times at the studio backlot with a guy on a horse that we knew exactly where to put the chassis and the base of the crane so we could keep the camera moving when we got to the location.

(L-r) Director BLITZ BAZAWULE and COLMAN DOMINGO on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Eli Ade.

The warm Georgia sun brightens your unbroken opening shot that leads to the two little girls singing on a tree branch. Natural light also adds a joyous feeling a little later to a beach sequence where young Celie and her sister Nettie sing a duet. How did you capture that?

We filmed that in Savannah, Georgia. When you shoot on a beach, you can not bring a bunch of stuff in because the sand is so soft. We shot some of that on a Technocrane and also used a Steadicam, which gave us more flexibility to chase those girls as they were playing around. It was like a small ballet. We’d spent a lot of time on blocking and the scene those girls were very aware of the camera.

Caption: (L-r) PHYLICIA PEARL MPASI as Young Celie and HALLE BAILEY as Young Nettie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Midway through the movie, Taraji P. Henson makes a grand entrance as blues singer Shug, the local girl-made-good. How did you treat her return to town in the fancy car?

You’re starting with this close-up and then going to a big wide shot in one take. That’s challenging because the close-up has to be a beauty shot, and then the wide shot has to feel atmospheric. We used 18K Aputure [lighting] and put steel blue lights. I’m a big fan of steel blue instead of blue blue for the night feeling. That’s something we did on Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley with Guillermo del Toro.

TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Lynsey Weatherspoon

In a later night-time sequence, Shug looks every inch the conquering hero when she arrives by boat at this riverside nightclub. You wanted to conjure this romantic, larger than life vibe?

It has to be like that. Shug is like the release, coming to take Celie away from this dark world she’s in, so when we see Shug in the car and then in the boat, she has to look like a fairy tale queen. The costumes were red and the contrast color was steel–blue from behind. I thought it was very beautiful.

TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

What exactly is steel blue versus just plain blue?

Steel blue is blue-green – – there’s more cyan. You see a lot of it right now, but the first time I used steel blue was when we did Mimic 100 years ago [laughing] with Guillermo del Toro. It’s a very beautiful color and works as a nice contrast between the skin tones.

COLMAN DOMINGO as Mister in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ser Baffo.

You’ve been making movies since the eighties, whereas director Blitz has worked with Beyonce and directed an indie film, but he’s never made a Hollywood motion picture before. How did you find common ground?

The first time Blitz called, he asked me what movies I liked, and I said I Am Cuba.  It’s a black and white movie from 1962 filmed in Cuba by a Russian DP. Everything is shot very wide angle and there’s [a lot of] movement in the camera. Blitz said, “I love that movie too.” It had nothing to do with The Color Purple, but somehow we both felt that was how our movie should feel. It was interesting to start with something so far away and come back to where we are now with The Color Purple.

 

This movie has many characters, 15 songs and several decades worth narrative, yet it feels very cohesive. It sounds like you and Blitz collaborated well together.

Blitz is a very clever, very original director. He wants a movie where the light and the camera are moving to tell the story. It wasn’t like he was thinking yellow and I was thinking blue. We were synching right away, even when he was in Altana and I was in Copenhagen during Covid.

(L-r) FANTASIA BARRINO and TARAJI P. HENSON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Eli Ade.

In fact, you wound up filming The Color Purple during the Pandemic. That must have been stressful.

It was a super difficult three or four weeks. We had to shoot the Easter dinner scene five times because people were getting Covid all the time. We’d have to shut down, take the lights away, come back again. But when you see the scene, you don’t feel that because Blitz knows how to get the actors and everyone else aligned.

(L-r) Cinematographer DAN LAUSTSEN and Director BLITZ BAZAWULE on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ser Baffo

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

“Superman: Legacy” Update: James Gunn Teases Superman’s Costume, Miriam Shor Joins Cast

New “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” Trailer Focuses on Black Manta’s Brutal Mission

James Gunn Confirms Nicholas Hoult Will be Lex Luthor in “Superman: Legacy”

Featured image: A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, “THE COLOR PURPLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

“Superman: Legacy” Update: James Gunn Teases Superman’s Costume, Miriam Shor Joins Cast

Posted on by babrams

With the dual strikes now a not-so-distant memory and Hollywood back into the full swing of production, things are moving very quickly on some of the biggest productions out there. And there are few upcoming films any bigger than James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy, the first feature set to spring forth from his new-look DC Studios, which he’s running alongside co-chief Peter Safran. Last week, we learned that Nicholas Hoult was officially cast as iconic Superman villain Lex Luthor, and now, Gunn has given us a few fresh updates, while a familiar face to the Gunn universe has been cast in the film.

First, on the casting front, Miriam Shor has joined the film, having recently played the henchwoman Recorder Vim in Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Details of who Shor is playing are being kept under wraps, but The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Shor has joined the large ensemble, which is headlined by David Corenswet as Clark Kent/Superman and Rachel Brosnahan as intrepid reporter Lois Lane. The cast also includes Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Maria Gabriela de Farîa as Angela Spica/The Engineer, and Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher.

Gunn also took to Threads to share updates on his storyboarding, Superman’s costume, and the film’s score.

“Spoiler??!! Well, probably not,” Gunn wrote in the caption. “I’m constantly drawing Superman Legacy shots and storyboards all over everything. Here’s one I just sent to my department heads to understand how tight a shot was going to be we had been discussing.”

Post by @jamesgunn
View on Threads

Gunn also revealed that he’s more or less done with Superman’s costume, although he’s making some final tweaks, and that the film’s score is also in tip-top shape.

“The costume is mostly done but we’re still going back and forth on some elements,” the filmmaker said. “A lot of the score – maybe even most of the major themes – have already been written.”

Although no composer has been named for the movie, Gunn assured a fan who inquired about it that the fine print has never stopped him from working on a project.

“(And yes I know that sounds crazy since so much of the score has been written, but when you’re riding the waves of inspiration, what are you going to do? I wrote most of Peacemaker and all of Creature Commandos before I had a closed deal!)

Superman: Legacy is slated to soar into theaters on July 11, 2025

For more on Superman: Legacy, check out these stories:

James Gunn Confirms Nicholas Hoult Will be Lex Luthor in “Superman: Legacy”

Nicholas Hoult Eyeing Lex Luthor Role in James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy”

James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” Casts Its Villain

Featured image: L-r: Featured image: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – APRIL 18: Director James Gunn attends the press conference for “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3” at the Conrad Hotel on April 18, 2023 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images). A Superman costume from the 2013 Man of Steel film worn by Henry Cavill and designed by Michael Wilkinson and James Acheson is on display at the DC Comics Exhibition: Dawn Of Super Heroes at the O2 Arena on February 22, 2018 in London, England. The exhibition, which opens on February 23rd, features 45 original costumes, models and props used in DC Comics productions including the Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman films. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

New “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” Trailer Focuses on Black Manta’s Brutal Mission

Posted on by babrams

“Black Manta is not just driven by hate,” says star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II at the top of this new Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom featurette. “He’s driven by love; his father was killed by Aquaman, who had an opportunity to show mercy but didn’t.” As Abdul-Mateen II lays out his case for his vengeful Black Manta having more on his mind than simple payback, footage from the new film reveals the depths of his rage against Aquaman (Jason Momoa, obviously). “His need for vengeance haunts him, night and day,” Abdul-Mateen II concedes.

The new featurette gives us some fresh details about director James Wan’s upcoming sequel, which involves the discovery of the titular Lost Kingdom of Necrus, also known as the Black City, an underwater empire similar to Atlantis but one that only exists in brief intervals of time. It’s in the Lost Kingdom of Necrus that Manta finds a super-powerful trident that possesses whoever wields it with extreme capabilities, but also a remorseless evil. A new, all-powerful trident, a new super-suit, and a single, unrelenting vision all cohere to make Black Manta an absolute force to be reckoned with and one that’s headed straight for Aquaman, his family, and Atlantis.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will find a changed Arthur Curry, too, a man who was a self-described “wanderer” before the events in the first film. Arthur had no home, no real responsibilities, and due to his immense abilities inherited from his mother, Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), the man could finish a bottle of whiskey and still jump into a swelling ocean and save some otherwise doomed sailors. Life was…good?

But now, Arthur has responsibilities, including a family and a kingdom to protect, which means he’s got way more to lose, and Black Manta means to take it all away from him. The new film finds Arthur turning to an unexpected source for help—Orm (Patrick Wilson), the villain of the first film who ended up imprisoned after his attempt to claim the throne for himself. 

Joining Momoa, Abdul-Mateen II, and Wilson are Amber Heard as Mera, Nicole Kidman as Atlanna, Temuera Morrison as Tom Curry, Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus, Jani Zhao as Stingray, Vincent Regan as Atlan, and Randall Park as Dr. Stephen Shin. 

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will be the last film to bow for DC Studios that doesn’t carry the direct imprimatur of new bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.

“I’m excited to give the audience something cool to see,” Abdul-Mateen II says at the close of the new look. “And I’m rooting for the villain.”

Check out the new featurette below. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters on December 22:

 

For more on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, check out these stories:

First “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” Teaser Reveals Black Manta’s Revenge Plan

“Aquaman 2” Has Officially Wrapped Production

New Image of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Getting Jacked For “Aquaman 2”

Featured image: Caption: YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II as Black Manta in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros Pictures / ™ & © DC Comics

“Wonka” Costume Designer Lindy Hemming on Dressing the Joyous World of a Budding Chocolatier

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Costume designer Lindy Hemming knows her way around both sides of the color coin, having worked on Christopher Nolan’s texturally moody Batman trilogy and the playful palette of Paul King’s Paddington movies. She reunites with King for Wonka, whimsically outfitting the candy maker’s origins in a Gene Wilder prequel that has Dune actor Timothée Chalamet playing the title character to a joyous reaction among reviewers.

Hemming dressed a large principal cast with imaginative period aesthetics, threading bespoke looks with vibrant colors and tiny details that can only be fully appreciated upon a second viewing. A stew of burnt oranges, burgundies, yellows, greens, and blues knit the color scheme for three aristocratic chocolatiers (Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton ), a wretched innkeeper (Olivia Colman), an entire police force, and the iconic coat and hat of Willy Wonka. “I wanted to create a visible, instant connection to the characters. Costumes are not meant to look like costumes but pieces of wardrobe that come from somewhere,” says the Oscar winner.

The true-to-character costumes were conceptually drawn and then handmade by textile artists, costume makers, and accessory designers to ground the pitch-perfect musical. Below, Hemming shares with The Credits her color inspiration, collaborations, and the importance of dressing the crowd.

How did Paul King envision you using color for your latest collaboration?

The joy of working with Paul is that he loves color. He doesn’t just love it himself; he sees things in a colorful way, which is really quite rare. When I was younger, I didn’t see things like that, but as I’ve gotten older, I love using color. I think it is something to do with the emotions that are generated by the colors, I suppose. Paul gives you license to use colors. There are some colors he loves more than others, but he doesn’t prevent you from using color. As long as you are making a good palette, he’s happy.

How did you infuse your palette with production designer Nathan Crowley, whom you worked with on Christopher Nolan’s Batman films?

With Wonka, we’d spend every week together going through each other’s stuff. He would come to my studio, and I would go to his so I’d know what was coming. It’s much better than not knowing what the designer is up to. We are collaborators, and it was a very collaborative film in every way with the director, cinematographer, Nathan, and also all the actors. We showed the actors everything. Rooms full of reference material.

Did you want to express a thematic motif with your designs?

We really wanted to show the actors even before we started [filming] that we were having fun with the characters instead of being very serious. And I think that feeling translates into the film. The task was to have fun with color but also remain grounded in the characters. So, instead of dressing up in colors because it’s a musical, we tried to make characters who wore colors. Especially in the crowd, we wanted you to accept that it was their character dressing this way instead of a musical lineup kind of way.

A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

How did you approach designing the clothes?

Everything on a principle character was made by us. It was all drawn beforehand, and a lot of the costumes were drawn before we knew who the actors were. Then, there was a lot of embroidery that happened. Breaking down, dying, and printing the fabrics that went into costumes like Wonka’s coat. It was either made by tailors, dressmakers, or knitted by knitters. Even the props…the rings and watches they wore were made by us. It was a big exercise in design and having the ability, thanks to the producers, to have a team that could do many different disciplines. So I have to sing praises to the technicians on the film: the knitters, embroiderers, hat makers, dyers, and fabric makers.

Speaking of Wonka, can you share what went into his look?

It started with his backstory. Where he comes from, where he’s been. You see a little bit of him living on the barge. But he also might have found his coat in a magician’s shop, and his hat might have been in the backstage box in some theater. Because he’s traveled since he was little, he kind of picked up all the pieces as he’s gone along. We wanted every bit of his costume to have a story. We worked on every such detail on all the garments.

Hugh Grant as the Oompa-Loompa was a delight. What went into fashioning his trunk of clothes?

We took part in drawing the Oompa-Loompa, and once it was decided what he was like, we had a lady who made all these big doll-sized clothes. She even made hangers and a rail in Oompa-Loompa size for his whole wardrobe to be hung up on. All the fabrics were swatched, shopped, and found. He had clothes for every kind of occasion in his trunk. And they were made to look real. Like grown-up clothes but tiny.

Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Willy Wonka and HUGH GRANT as an Oompa Loompa in Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Another standout character is the Chief of Police, played by Keegan-Michael Key, who takes bribes in chocolate, and we see it affect his waistline as the movie progresses. How did you stylize the police force and Keegan’s character?

The costumes for the entire police force were made, and we were referencing an Eastern European costume. And for Keegan, we first drew a character that was short and fat, not tall and thin. Once Keegan came, I knew I had to draw pictures of him getting fatter and fatter for his fat suit. Honestly, it’s much funnier as a tall, thin man becoming this enormous bloke. Keegan was the most fantastic person and a really good actor.

(L to r) MATHEW BAYNTON as Fickelgruber, MATT LUCAS as Prodnose, KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY as Chief of Police and PATERSON JOSEPH as Slugworth in Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo credit: Jaap Buittendijk/Warner Bros.

Much of the visual energy of the musical numbers comes from the background dancers and extras. How were you able to maintain such a high level of costume detail?

The most important thing with the crowd is you need to have a wonderful team dressing and maintaining them. It doesn’t happen on many films that we get to make sure that all the people are their most interesting and the right color for scenes. And they are in front of the camera. Our first assistant director, Ben [Howard], and Paul made a rule that if we wanted to move or change someone around, we were allowed to do that. In the technical terms of making the film, it makes an enormous difference to each frame if what you’re looking at, as well as the actors are also beautiful and interesting.

Wonka dances into theaters on December 15.

Featured image: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Willy Wonka in Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “WONKA,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Courtesy Warner Bros.

Eddie Murphy Returns as Axel Foley in First “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” Trailer

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Axel’s back, so every law-abiding citizen of Beverly Hills can breathe a great sigh of relief. The criminals? Not so much.

Netflix has just dropped the trailer for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, which has Eddie Murphy reprising one of his most beloved roles, that of the Detroit cop Axel Foley, who first followed a case from the mean streets of Motor City to the posh environs of Los Angeles’ most bougie suburb back in 1984. Murphy went on to play Foley in two more sequels, in 1987 and 1994, respectively, so it’ll have been 30 years since we’ve seen him getting himself in and out of trouble in Tinsel Town.

The new film comes from director Mark Molloy and finds Axel returning to Beverly Hills to investigate the death of a long-time confidant and some seriously dangerous vibes surrounding Axel’s daughter, Jane (Taylour Paige). With Axel’s return to Los Angeles comes the reappearance of some of the most beloved members of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise: Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood and John Ashton’s John Taggart, two of Axel’s old police pals from the original. Bronson Pinchot returns as the lovably cuckoo Serge and Paul Reiser reprises his role from the original film as detective Jeffrey Friedman.

The new film also boasts a fantastic cast of fresh faces to Axel’s shenanigans along with Taylour Paige, and they include Kevin Bacon as Captain Grant and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Detective Bobby Abbott.

The trailer is short on plot specifics but long on that classic Beverly Hills Cop theme song and the thrill of seeing Murphy back at it in a role he took on just as his career was going into supernova mode. After all the years, the man’s still got it, and his supporting cast looks up to the challenge, too.

Check out the trailer below. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F arrives on Netflix in the summer of 2024.

Here’s the synopsis from Netflix:

Detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is back on the beat in Beverly Hills. After his daughter’s life is threatened, she (Taylour Paige) and Foley team up with a new partner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and old pals Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) to turn up the heat and uncover a conspiracy.

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

“Bridgerton” Season 3 Date Announced in New Teaser

How “Leave the World Behind” Production Designer Anastasia White Built a House for the End of the World

“Nyad” VFX Supervisor Jake Braver on Digitally Dropping Annette Bening Into the Open Ocean

Featured image: Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. (Featured L-R) Bria Murphy as Officer Renee Minnick and Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. Cr. Melinda Sue Gordon/Netflix ©2023.

“American Fiction” Star Jeffrey Wright Authors a New Chapter in a Stellar Career

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Jeffrey Wright has found a great role as Monk Ellison in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction. The story is based on a 2001 novel called “Erasure” by Percival Everett and centers on a professor and writer fed up with the way the literary world limits how Blackness is portrayed in pop culture. In response, Monk writes a blatantly stereotypical novel full of gangs, thugs, and criminals using a pseudonym. To his shock, it becomes a runaway hit and critical darling, leading him to a windfall of cash and an existential crisis. 

So far, the film has won awards in nearly every film festival in which it was played, and most recently, was named one of the top ten films of 2023 by the AFI and best film of the year by the Washington Area Critics Association. American Fiction benefits from not only Wright’s scintillating performance but the many compelling scenes between him and the stellar ensemble cast, which includes Sterling K. Brown as Monk’s brother Cliff, Issa Rae as successful novelist and Monk provocateur Sintara Golden, and John Ortiz as Monk’s agent, Arthur.

Wright discusses his work with Jefferson and members of the cast, including Issa Rae and Sterling Brown, considers how the film centers the importance of family and acceptance, and more.  

 

What kinds of discussions did you and Cord have about Monk?  

We really didn’t have a lot of discussions. We really knew Monk’s journey, and I just got him as a character. In terms of Cord, on both the creative and professional side as well as the personal side, there was a lot of overlap to his own story. That was true for me as well, certainly on the personal side, in terms of his relationship to family and to his internal dialogue that he has with himself, and maybe a bit of self-isolation. Cord says that when he started reading the book, he heard my voice as Monk in his head, and he felt that Percival Everett had written that book for him personally. In some ways, I guess in terms of novelist, filmmaker, and performer, it’s akin to three musicians who get together and just start playing their instruments, and they’re just on the same page from the start. 

 

How did the novel “Erasure” impact your approach or resonate with you in terms of how you got into the work? 

I actually read the book later, and in reading the novel, I saw that Cord had really reshaped it in his own image. The novel was set in DC, and he completely reworked some of the catalyzing events, but there were certain things from the book that were useful to me. I absolutely loved those meditative moments where Monk drifts off and starts describing fly fishing, or the intricacies of woodworking. That stuff really spoke to me in communicating his inner solitude and the peculiarity or the personal quality of his interests relative to what might be perceived from the outside. 

There’s a scene between Monk and Sintara, Issa Rae’s character, about his book that’s pretty central to the spirit of his conflict. Maybe one way to see that scene is how artists approach societal change from the inside or from the outside. 

I think that Cord’s casting Issa and her agreeing to do this film legitimized that scene in a way that didn’t require much more from me because she was in on the joke, but she also lent credibility to the argument that is needed at that moment to confront Monk. Because at the end of that discussion, I don’t think we know or should know who is right. Maybe both are right, maybe neither is right, or maybe there’s a synthesis somewhere in between. 

Issa Rae stars as Sintara Golden and Nicole Kempskie as Sintara’s moderator in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Courtesy of ORION Pictures Inc. © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

How did you, Cord, and Issa work to build that scene?

Issa was so helpful to me. At one point, prior to filming, I worked through the language with Cord because I do feel that scene is kind of the thesis of the film. I wanted to make sure Monk’s argument was properly shaped, so we talked through a few things; I added some stuff just to have the thoughts there, and then we trimmed some of the stuff away. When I had all this stuff in, and we were rehearsing, Cord asked Issa, “What’s your impression of him?” and she said, “Well, he’s just ridiculous.” I felt so deflated, but it was helpful because I didn’t want him just to be perceived in her eyes as ridiculous. I wanted him to be seen as having a particular perspective, a well-considered one that wasn’t in line with hers, but I didn’t want him to seem absurd. That became my challenge in that scene. Cord was super smart in inviting intelligent actors into the room because not only are they acting partners, but they become assistant directors, too, in terms of what they offer you. 

The cast you were with on this film is exceptional. How did you develop what the audience sees between you and Sterling onscreen? 

We didn’t have a lot of time. It was 25 days. The only things that we really had to work out, on the day, were just blocking, flowing through the space, and making the shots work. Sterling’s such a powerful and interesting, and in this instance, ironic actor. I think I met Sterling the morning we shot. I had met him in passing before. We showed up that morning, we got together and talked through some stuff, and the vibe was good. Went back to our trailers for a second, let them set up the shot, and then we showed up to do the scene. What was cool was that Sterling had said that he hadn’t planned on working during that period, for whatever reason, and he read the script, and he said he had to be in this film. That was the sense from everyone.

Jeffrey Wright stars as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison and Sterling K. Brown as Cliff Ellison in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Courtesy of Orion Pictures © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

They’re very compelling characters. 

Exactly. John Ortiz, whom I absolutely adore and have known for over 25 years from the theater in New York but had never worked with, just wanted to be a part of this and play that role, to play the agent. He’d never been asked to play an agent before; he’d always been asked to play characters in relationship to different types of worlds, whether it’s violence or criminality. He’d be the cop, or he’d be on the other side, but he’d never been asked to play a literary agent. We come from a fairly similar theatre background. I remember we were filming a scene, and John had an idea to shoot it in a slightly different way, but Cord is smart. He got a brilliant group of actors in the room. 

 

Referencing this film, you are quoted as saying, “Without family, there is no revolution.”  American Fiction is ultimately telling a story of family and belonging and transformation, and that’s what stays with viewers after the credits roll.

If there is something revolutionary about this film, and I use that term playfully, it is in the ordinariness of that family, and I love that. The film is not trying to answer questions, but I do think there is a response to the social commentary woven through it, and that is the madness and dysfunctionality and functionality and the uneasy love that we see inside that family because it’s like most people’s family, except this one isn’t articulated by a group of people that, at least, cinematically, we expect to see in that way. I think that’s really cool. I think it’s also an invitation to people across backgrounds to find themselves within the story, and maybe that’s what we need at this time, just some connection with people who we think are the other and some common ground to walk together. Inside of the couple of hours we’re watching this film, I think we have an opportunity to do that.

Sterling K. Brown stars as Cliff Ellison, Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison and
Erika Alexander as Coraline in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION
An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Claire Folger. © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

 

American Fiction is in select theaters on December 15th and expands nationwide on December 22nd. 

For more interviews with great filmmakers, check these out:

How “Leave the World Behind” Production Designer Anastasia White Built a House for the End of the World

“Poor Things” Production Designers Shona Heath and James Price on Going Gleefully Mad for Director Yorgos Lanthimos

“Saltburn” Cinematographer Linus Sandgren on Creating a Fluid Painting for Emerald Fennell

Featured image: Jeffrey Wright stars as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in writer/director Cord Jefferson’s AMERICAN FICTION. An Orion Pictures Release. Photo credit: Claire Folger. © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC. All Rights Reserved.

 

James Gunn Confirms Nicholas Hoult Will be Lex Luthor in “Superman: Legacy”

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Not only did James Gunn confirm that Nicholas Hoult will be playing Lex Luthor in his upcoming, new DC Studios era-defining Superman: Legacy, but that Hoult would be unlike any Luthor to come before him.

The new co-chief of DC Studios shared an image of himself and Hoult on Threads, which Gunn revealed was taken during a celebratory dinner after Hoult’s official casting as the iconic Superman villain.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Gunn wrote. “We went out to dinner last night to celebrate & discuss how we can create a Lex that will be different from anything you’ve seen before and will never forget. ‘But, James, we heard this weeks ago, why didn’t you tell us it was true?’ Because, although we were discussing it, it wasn’t final until a couple days ago and I don’t want to tell you all something that isn’t certain.”

It was reported back in December that Hoult, who originally auditioned for the role of Superman himself (which ultimately went to David Corenswet), was in talks to play Luthor. With Gunn now confirming, his Superman: Legacy cast is coming into focus. Hoult joins Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, Anthony Carrigan as Rex Mason/Metamorpho, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Maria Gabriela de Farîa as Angela Spica/The Engineer, and Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher.

Superman: Legacy will be the first official feature in Gunn and co-chief Peter Safran’s new look DC Studios, which will now be completely integrated and unified along film, TV, and video game projects.

Superman: Legacy is slated for a July 11, 2025 release.

For more on Superman: Legacy, check out these stories:

Nicholas Hoult Eyeing Lex Luthor Role in James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy”

James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” Casts Its Villain

James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” Cast Shaping Up With Nathan Fillion Joining in a Key Role

“Superman: Legacy”: David Corenswet & Rachel Brosnahan Cast as Superman & Lois Lane

Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 04: Nicholas Hoult attends the premiere of 20th Century Fox’s “Dark Phoenix” at TCL Chinese Theatre on June 04, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)

New “Dune: Part Two” Images Unleash Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen

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The third trailer for Dune: Part Two revealed the most in-depth, riveting look yet at Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited sequel. Along with the trailer, Warner Bros. also released a slew of new images from the film, giving us a clearer picture of the sweeping sci-fi epic Villeneuve and his team have built.

When we spoke to Dune: Part One and Two co-writer Jon Spaihts a year ago, he revealed that he and Villeneuve had left much of the most thrilling action from Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel for the second installment, choosing to focus Part One on the treachery and galactic scheming that led the galaxy to the brink of all-out war. Part One introduced us to some of the major players, including young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), whose maturation into a would-be messiah of a desert people he has yet to meet when the film opens is one of the film’s major narrative thrusts. Paul moves, along with his father, Duke (Oscar Isaac), the leader of House Atreides, his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), and nearly all of House Atreides soldiers, scientists, and advisors to the invaluable desert planet Arrakis to help manage the crucial manufacture and distribution of Spice, the native element rich on that planet that makes interstellar travel possible. They do this by galactic decree. They are a noble house, Paul believes at the start, even if they’re involved in the extraction of a precious resource from a planet not their own from a people they try very hard to ignore.

Part One dealt with the fallout from a plot against House Atreides, schemed up by an unseen Emperor and carried out by the ruthless, warmongering House Harkonnen, that led to the assassination of Duke Atreides and an assault by House Harkonnen on an unprepared House Atreides. While Part One had plenty of thrilling action, Spaihts explained that many of the most iconic action and fighting set pieces from the novel would arrive in Part Two. And now, at long last, we’re getting close to that moment.

Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica, ended Part One fleeing to the vast dunelands of Arrakis, where Chani (Zendaya) and the native Fremen, led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem), agreed to help them escape and plot their revenge. Part Two will focus on what happens when House Harkonnen and their vast intergalactic armies try to wipe out what’s left of House Atreides and the native Fremen entirely. It will introduce major new characters, including Princess Irulan Corrino (Florence Pugh), Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), Lady Margot (Léa Seydoux), and the psychotic Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler), the man who features in one of the book’s most iconic sequences. 

The new images give us a fresh look at the newcomers to Villeneuve’s two-part epic, as well as the returning players from Part One. The shots include a thrilling look at three sandworms being led into battle by the Fremen, a look at Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), a House Atreides Loyalist who survived House Harkonnen’s deadly initial assault, and Florenc Pugh’s Princess Irulan Corrino, the daughter of the scheming Emperor Shaddam IV. And then we have our featured image, Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the remorseless House Harkonnen lunatic who is on a collision course with Chalamet’s Paul Atreides. 

It all adds up to one of 2024’s most eagerly-anticipated films.

Check out the images below. Dune: Part Two arrives in theaters on March 1, 2024.

Caption: A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: JOSH BROLIN as Gurney Halleck in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: ZENDAYA as Chani in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: AUSTIN BUTLER as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: (L-r) ZENDAYA as Chani and TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides. in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: JAVIER BARDEM as Stilgar in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: REBECCA FERGUSON as Lady Jessica in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: FLORENCE PUGH as Princess Irulan in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Featured image: Caption: AUSTIN BUTLER as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

A New “Dune: Part Two” Trailer Brings the War to Arrakis

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A new trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two has dropped, boasting brand new footage in the most captivating look yet at the long-awaited sequel. This latest trailer is centered primarily on the relationship between Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya), which has blossomed into a romance since we last left them in the Arrakis desert at the conclusion of Dune: Part One. Their love anchors them in an otherwise chaotic, dangerous time on the cosmically invaluable desert planet, the locus of competing interests from across the galaxy.

Dune: Part One was a magisterial slow burn that built to terrible treachery; the warmongering House Harkonnen assassinated Paul’s father, Duke Atreides (Oscar Isaac), the leader of House Atreides, before waging an all-out assault on the Atreides Arrakis compound. This resulted in Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), fleeing to the vast dunelands of Arrakis, where Chani and the native Fremen, led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem), ultimately agreed to help them escape and plot their revenge.

Part Two will focus on all the wealth of action from Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 novel that Villeneuve and his co-writer Jon Spaihts saved for this go-round. That includes the introduction of major characters, including Princess Irulan Corrino (Florence Pugh), the Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), the psychotic Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler), and Lady Margot (Léa Seydoux).

Perhaps the most mind-blowing moment from the trailer is when Paul, Chani, and the Fremen lead a phalanx of colossal sandworms into battle, backed by the surviving Atreides loyalists, against House Harkonnen and the Emperor’s armies. If Dune: Part One was a slow burn, then Part Two looks to be an epic, breathless clash.

Check out the trailer below. Dune: Part Two arrives in theaters on March 1, 2024.

For more on Dune: Part One and Part Two, check out these stories:

“Dune: Part Two” Moves Up Two Weeks, Secures IMAX 70mm Screens

First “Dune: Part Two” Images Reveal First Look at Austin Butler’s Villain

“Dune: Part II” Trailer Unveils Stunning Look at Conclusion of Denis Villeneuve’s Epic Adaptation

First “Dune: Part Two” Teaser Reveals Paul Atreides Summoning a Sandworm

Featured image: Caption: A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

“Bridgerton” Season 3 Date Announced in New Teaser

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Pack your finest Regency-era attire because you’re invited back to the ton. Bridgerton is returning for a two-part season 3, a new teaser from Netflix reveals.

Shonda Rhimes hit series is returning to Netflix in 2024 with an initial four-episode Part 1, arriving on May 16, with Part 2 streaming on June 13. The new teaser combines footage from the series with TikToks and social media posts about the ton.

Season 3 will center on the relationship between Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), while Penelope deals with the fallout from her beef with Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie). Penelope will also be dealing with the fact that as her renown grows in the ton, so, too, does the chance that her Lady Whistledown alter ego will be revealed.

Season 3 also marks the reign (ton pun intended) of a new showrunner, Jess Brownell, who took over those duties from Chris Van Dusen. “I really feel like it’s Colin and Penelope’s time. Because we’ve been watching both of these actors on our screens since Season 1, we’ve already invested in them a little bit. We know who they are as people, Brownell told Variety in May. “I feel like, especially in the last season, there are these moments of tension between them where it’s like, Colin walks up to the line of almost realizing that Penelope has feelings for him but doesn’t quite get there. Instead of treading water on that dynamic, we wanted to push it into their season. It really felt like the perfect moment to tee it up.”

Check out the teaser below.

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

How “Leave the World Behind” Production Designer Anastasia White Built a House for the End of the World

“Nyad” VFX Supervisor Jake Braver on Digitally Dropping Annette Bening Into the Open Ocean

Final “Leave the World Behind” Trailer Teases Netflix’s Tense Star-Studded Thriller

“May December” Director Todd Haynes on Playing With Power in His Beguiling New Film

Featured image: Bridgerton. Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Featherington in episode 302 of Bridgerton. Cr. Laurence Cendrowicz/Netflix © 2023

“Saltburn” Cinematographer Linus Sandgren on Creating a Fluid Painting for Emerald Fennell

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The comic drama Saltburn from director Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) is as beautiful as it is macabre. It’s 2006, and Oliver (Barry Keoghan), an awkward, lonely student at Oxford, finds his place within the scenic confines of his university by becoming friends with Felix (Jacob Elordi), who is everything Oliver is not — handsome, charming, and rich. Felix invites Oliver to spend the summer at Saltburn, his family’s ancestral estate, where Oliver arrives early and sets to work ingratiating himself with Felix’s mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), fending off his rival, Felix’s cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), and creepily seducing Venetia (Alison Oliver), his host’s younger sister.

Saltburn’s interior is a warren of grand, eclectic, art-filled estate rooms. Outdoors, the stunning grounds hold a small lake, more art, and a real hedge maze designed by Adrian Fisher, one of the world’s go-to hedge maze designers. Oliver’s place in this idyllic setting seems like a charitable setup — the nice but poor kid whose haughty, privileged peer takes pity on him — but the story reveals itself to be the opposite. Oliver is a sinister toady, and Felix is actually a pretty good guy.

Fennell’s cinematographer, Oscar winner Linus Sandgren (La La Land, No Time to Die), framed the film’s elegant environs in a tight 1:3:3 aspect ratio and frequently lets the audience observe Oliver’s nerve-rattling behavior from a slight distance. A primary idea behind his approach to Saltburn was to treat the film like an oil painting, one that starts to get distorted as the story heats up. He speaks with us on that motivation and more:

 

How did you and director Emerald Fennell decide to use a 1:3:3 aspect ratio?

I feel it’s important to make a decision on aspect ratio because it’s a strong tool. Whatever aspect ratio we have will affect the storytelling. In our case, Emerald wanted it to be an expressive film that was real but also heightened. She talked about how she’d like it to feel like peeking into this dollhouse, and she felt that that more square format would benefit that. But the process was long. In prep, I felt attracted to the idea that we could depict the Cattons in a similar way to how their family had been depicted over hundreds of years, in their paintings. That’s more square, too, rather than cinema scope. Then the house had beautiful ceilings and square rooms, and that also felt like it fit. The fourth thing was that Emerald was obsessed with seeing lots of details and close-ups of sweat, armpits, hair, and eyes, and we also felt that the 1:3:3 would benefit that. Then, comparing different aspect ratios, it has a slightly more comical feel to it. Another thing that was important was that Emerald felt like this was sort of a vampire story, and vampire stories at their best [came from] the 1920s or German Expressionism or silent movies, and those were 1:3:3 as well. I think it was right. It’s also fun to compose for paintings. We did a lot of wider shots and left them like that.

It sounds like fine art had a big influence on how you visualized the film.

We always considered how we wanted to tell the story as if it were a painting. In the grave scene, we never shot a closeup of Oliver’s face, because it felt more appropriate to let the viewer be the judge of the emotions in the scene. He’s sobbing, and then he’s getting more and more obscene. It’s sad to watch, but you give the audience the authority to decide for themselves where the line is. If we had dollied in to him, I think that would have felt like we tried to make you feel something. If you don’t, then it’s more like when you look at a painting. Gentileschi has that famous painting of two women beheading a guy. It’s mesmerizing despite the ugliness of what’s going on. That felt very related to what our approach was. Even if you see something that’s hard to watch but depicted in a pleasant way, you give the audience as great an opportunity as possible to like it.

How did you approach lighting the Saltburn estate’s interiors? In daylight, they seem only to be lit through the windows.

We absolutely wanted to work expressively, but I love when you do that in a naturalistic way, so you don’t feel like there are lamps. Sometimes, when you’re in a house and it’s not lit and you have the sun shining in — you see classic examples of that in train stations in Paris in the 1930s and you see these shafts of light coming in — it’s all natural, but it’s also dramatic and expressive. We were attracted by Baroque painters like Caravaggio. They have that dramatic light coming through the windows. So we thought of creating expressive imagery where the house was also this object that hides secrets. It’s full of history. Outside it’s this bright, sunny day, but inside, it’s dark. The soul of the house is very dark. We don’t necessarily want to see everything in the house.

 

Were you similarly inspired for Saltburn’s grounds and Oxford?

For the exteriors, we had other inspirations— Polaroid photography and fashion photography. We had some English Gainsborough paintings for when it was foggy. Then, we tried to keep the Oxford interiors related to what’s coming. They’re also kind of dark. That had to do more with loneliness and making it feel like Oliver was an outsider, constantly behind these bars. The college was prison-like but also Gothic. We wanted to visually isolate him from the group.

Barry Keoghan in “Saltburn.” Courtesy MGM.

Did the film taking place in 2006 affect your process?

I didn’t consider that at all. Production design and costume design considered that a lot. That was enough, I think. I didn’t think of it as a 2006 flashback priority. A stronger influence for us were the vampire and Gothic themes. The mood was more important than the time. The time was there in the frame.

As we learn the truth about Oliver, is there something in the lighting or camera movement that supports that reveal?

I always try to break it down this way: let’s start with what’s going on emotionally here, what do we need to feel, and how can we visualize that. For that reason, part of the challenge is that you’re opening up this box slowly. On the other hand, in the first scenes, he reveals himself. There’s clearly something that is not right. He sits there in the future and tells this story. We deliberately wanted it to feel nondescript. Throughout the film, we pull out slowly, wider and wider, but we never get to see anything that reveals where you are. He asks the question, ‘Was I love in with him?’ And that becomes the main question for the film. That felt important to connect him and Felix, him and Venetia, him and Farleigh, him and Elspeth, all of it with sexual tension. The only thing we really reveal early on is that he’s a creep because he’s watching Felix making out with this girl in his dorm. That’s the first time you see something that’s not right. We wanted that to be spooky. That was already in the script, how we see this couple, the window, and in the window, this red cigarette glow. The worst thing that could happen to Oliver is to reveal where he comes from, so we wanted to make that look different. We’re taken out of this language we’ve created for the film, and in this case, we wanted the scene to almost feel like a cheap TV drama, to look super normal and simple.

Barry Keoghan is Oliver Quick in “Saltburn.” Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios.

The color red seems to be important to that language.

Red was a theme for production design. There’s the red in the corridor between Oliver’s room and the bathroom, the red when they’re closing the curtains in the dining room, and we had red in the birthday scene. We thought of red as a traditionally symbolic color for lust and love but also for blood and death and internal body color. The heart of the house was red. In that party scene on the staircase, Oliver is illuminated by the birthday cake, and the rest of the people are illuminated by red light. He’s in the heart of the house, but he’s still isolated and completely disconnected from his surroundings. There are hundreds of people on the staircase, but they’re all red, and he’s all yellow. Just symbolically, it’s a clear image of someone who is amongst a bunch of people but is alone.

Barry Keoghan is Oliver Quick in “Saltburn.” Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios.

Saltburn is in select theaters now, and comes to Amazon Prime Video on December 22.

For more on Saltburn, check out these stories:

How “Saltburn” Production Designer Suzie Davies Outfitted the Vast Estate in Emerald Fennell’s Thriller

Featured image: A scene from “Saltburn.” Courtesy MGM.

New “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” Extended Version Trailer Arrives Ahead of Streaming Debut

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A new trailer for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has taken the stage, revealing a final, fresh look at Swift’s world-conquering tour before it arrives on streaming on December 13. The new trailer offers a glimpse at the Extended Version of the concert film, which boasts three song performances that weren’t included in the film’s original theatrical run—”Wildest Dreams,” “The Archer,” and “Long Live.”

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour runs a hearty two hours and 48 minutes (now longer, with the added songs), giving her legion of Swifties the kind of backstage access most could only dream of. It’s also a chance for all those Swifties who couldn’t make it to one of her shows (or afford to go) a chance to revel in Swift’s presence and performance. “With its labyrinthine arc, jumbled chronology and dazzling changes of tone, milieu, and costume, it’s Swift’s ode to invention and self-reinvention, the many different lives she’s lived and faces she’s presented over the course of her career,” writes the Los Angeles Times Justin Chang. The film can even seduce non-Swifties, as NPR‘s Amy Nicholson attests: “I did not enter the theater a Swiftie, but I can say with confidence that this immediately goes on the list of great concert documentaries.” 

At the world premiere of the film at the Grove in Los Angeles on October 11, Swift made sure her fans knew the role they played in the tour and the film that documents it: “I think that you’ll see that you’re absolutely a main character in the film because it was your magic and your attention to detail and your sense of humor and the ways that you lean into what I’m doing and the music I create.”

Check out the new trailer below. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour arrives on Amazon Prime Video on December 13. The other platforms where you can stream it are Apple TV, Vudu, Xfinity, YouTube, and Google TV:

For more on Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, check out these stories:

Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” Coming to Streaming in December With Three Extra Songs

Swifties Rejoice: “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” Opening a Day Early

Taylor Swift Concert Film Coming to Theaters in October

Featured image: GLENDALE, ARIZONA – MARCH 17: (Editorial use only and no commercial use at any time. No use on publication covers is permitted after August 9, 2023.) Taylor Swift performs onstage for the opening night of “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at State Farm Stadium on March 17, 2023 in Swift City, ERAzona (Glendale, Arizona). The city of Glendale, Arizona was ceremonially renamed to Swift City for March 17-18 in honor of The Eras Tour. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)

Golden Globe Nominations Revealed With “Barbie” and “Succession” Leading the Pack

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The Golden Globes nominations have been announced, with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Jesse Armstrong’s Succession leading the pack in film and TV, respectively, with nine noms each.

Barbie‘s release date twin and other half of the Barbenheimer phenomenon, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, came in a very close second, with eight nominations, followed by Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, with seven nominations apiece.

Succession reigned supreme on the TV side, with The Bear and Only Murders in the Building coming in next with five noms each, while The Crown nabbed four.

The 2024 Golden Globes will be the first Globes since the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was replaced after its assets, rights, and properties were acquired by Dick Clark Productions and Eldridge, with Dick Clark Productions owning and producing the Globes. The new voters are now made up of 300 journalists from around the world, representing 76 countries, and comprised of a more ethnically diverse group.

The 81st Golden Globes Awards are set to air on CBS and stream on Paramount+ on Sunday, January 7, 2024 at 5 p.m./8 p.m. ET.

Here’s the full list below:

Best Motion Picture – Drama

Anatomy of a Fall (Neon)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple Original Films)
Maestro (Netflix)
Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Past Lives (A24)
The Zone of Interest (A24)

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Air (Amazon MGM Studios)
American Fiction (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)
Barbie (Warner Bros. Pictures)
The Holdovers (Focus Features)
May December (Netflix)
Poor Things (Searchlight Pictures)

Best Motion Picture – Animated

The Boy and the Heron (GKids)
Elemental (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Releasing)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal Pictures)
Suzume (Crunchyroll / Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Wish (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement

Barbie (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Paramount Pictures)
Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Releasing)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal Pictures)
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (AMC Theatres Distribution)

Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language

Anatomy of a Fall, France (Neon)
Fallen Leaves, Finland (Mubi)
Io Capitano, Italy (Pathe Distribution)
Past Lives, United States (A24)
Society of the Snow, Spain (Netflix)
The Zone of Interest, United Kingdom/USA (A24)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Leonardo DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Barry Keoghan, Saltburn
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Greta Lee, Past Lives
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
Jennifer Lawrence, No Hard Feelings
Natalie Portman, May December
Alma Pöysti, Fallen Leaves
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Nicolas Cage, Dream Scenario
Timothée Chalamet, Wonka
Matt Damon, Air
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Joaquin Phoenix, Beau Is Afraid
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Charles Melton, May December
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Julianne Moore, May December
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Best Director — Motion Picture

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Celine Song, Past Lives

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture

Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Barbie
Tony McNamara, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Celine Song, Past Lives
Justine Triet, Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall

Best Original Song – Motion Picture

“Addicted to Romance,” She Came to Me, Music and lyrics by Bruce Springsteen
“Dance the Night,” Barbie, Music and lyrics by Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, Dua Lipa, Caroline Ailin
“I’m Just Ken,” Barbie, Music and lyrics by Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt
“Peaches,” The Super Mario Bros. Move, Music and lyrics by Jack Black, Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Eric Osmond, John Spiker
“Road to Freedom,” Rustin, Music and lyrics by Lenny Kravitz
“What Was I Made For?” Barbie, Music and lyrics by Billie Eilish, Finneas

Best Original Score – Motion Picture

Jerskin Fendrix, Poor Things
Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer
Joe Hisaishi, The Boy and the Heron
Mica Levi, The Zone of Interest
Daniel Pemberton, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Television Series – Drama

1923 (Paramount+)
The Crown (Netflix)
The Diplomat (Netflix)
The Last of Us (HBO/Max)
The Morning Show (Apple TV+)
Succession (HBO/Max)

Best Television Series – Comedy or Musical

Abbott Elementary (ABC)
Barry (HBO/Max)
The Bear (FX)
Jury Duty (Amazon Freevee)
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)

Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television

All the Light We Cannot See (Netflix)
Beef (Netflix)
Daisy Jones & the Six (Prime Video)
Fargo (FX)
Fellow Travelers (Showtime)
Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama

Helen Mirren, 1923
Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us
Keri Russell, The Diplomat
Sarah Snook, Succession
Imelda Staunton, The Crown
Emma Stone, The Curse

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama

Brian Cox, Succession
Kieran Culkin, Succession
Gary Oldman, Slow Horses
Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us
Jeremy Strong, Succession
Dominic West, The Crown

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical

Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear
Elle Fanning, The Great
Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building
Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical

Bill Hader, Barry
Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building
Jason Segel, Shrinking
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso
Jeremy Allen White, The Bear

Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Riley Keough, Daisy Jones & the Six
Brie Larson, Lessons in Chemistry
Elizabeth Olsen, Love & Death
Juno Temple, Fargo
Rachel Weisz, Dead Ringers
Ali Wong, Beef

Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Matt Bomer, Fellow Travelers
Sam Claflin, Daisy Jones & the Six
Jon Hamm, Fargo
Woody Harrelson, White House Plumbers
David Oyelowo, Lawmen: Bass Reeves
Steven Yeun, Beef

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role on Television

Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown
Abby Elliott, The Bear
Christina Ricci, Yellowjackets
J. Smith-Cameron, Succession
Meryl Streep, Only Murders in the Building
Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role on Television

Billy Crudup, The Morning Show
Matthew Macfadyen, Succession
James Marsden, Jury Duty
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear
Alan Ruck, Succession
Alexander Skarsgard, Succession

Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television

Ricky Gervais, Ricky Gervais: Armageddon
Trevor Noah, Trevor Noah: Where Was I
Chris Rock, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage
Amy Schumer, Amy Schumer: Emergency Contact
Sarah Silverman, Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love
Wanda Sykes, Wanda Sykes: I’m an Entertainer

Featured image; (L-r) RYAN GOSLING as Ken and MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Jaap Buitendijk. Featured image: Matthew Macfadyen, Sarah Snook. Photo courtesy HBO.

“Poor Things” Production Designers Shona Heath and James Price on Going Gleefully Mad for Director Yorgos Lanthimos

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When we first meet Bella Baxer, she’s a bit unusual. Not in a physical sense. All her arms and legs are accounted for, and playing the character is Academy Award winner Emma Stone so that you can be the judge of her beauty. But something about Bella is off. Turns out, she’s the creation of Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), a renowned London scientist who reincarnated her adult body with the brain of a child.

The mashup is a delight to watch as Bella carries a joyful and unbridled curiosity, dancing the hallways of Dr. Godwin’s home and asking unchecked questions over dinner that become an amusing source of humor in Poor Things from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite). But Bella is more than an experiment to the doctor. He’s her educator, mentor, and protector until he’s not.

 

Creating the scientist’s peculiar residency were production designers Shona Heath and James Price, who blended period aesthetics with a modern approach to make the ornate, detailed, and sculptural quarters, which included from scratch studio builds for the living room, hallways, dining room, and Bella’s bedroom. “The styling point Yorgos wanted was a studio move from the 1930s but how it would have been made today,” Price points out. “But the big thing was he wanted it to look like nothing else before. That’s when the fun started.”

Willem Dafoe in POOR THINGS. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

A focal point for the designers was Dr. Godwin himself, whose face is scarred as if different sections of it have been stitched together. “We started with Baxter, who would have designed his home the way he was a surgeon,” says Heath. “He sort of cut and built his house in a very unusual way.” The pair referenced medical drawings, incisions, and architects who approached their craft in a similar way. “John Soane was someone we looked at as he sort of cut up architectural styles and put them back together. A sort of brutalist approach,” notes Heath. Connecting different architectural styles became a running motif, as well as finding eras that didn’t quite exist. Say, something out of the Victorian era but had a futuristic quality that matched the otherworldly and psychedelic style of Dr. Godwin and Bella.

At the same time, the production designers made the home “soft and comfortable” as Dr. Godwin “wanted her to be happy and live in a beautiful environment.” It meant adding padded walls and padded floors to protect Bella in her unwieldy state. Colors were muted, a mix of whites, blues, greens, and browns filling the space. “The home really grew out of these two characters,” says Heath.

Bellas Bedroom. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima

They also worked in a way that set decoration, overseen by Zsuzsa Mihalek, became part of the production design. For example, inspiration for the dining room came from Dr. Godwin’s love of collecting plates. Recesses in the wall allowed the display of dozens of blue and white porcelain stoneware decorating the walls. In the lounge area, helmets become architectural details instead of an afterthought. In the dining room, they wanted Dr. Godwin and Bella “to feel small, almost like dolls,” so they built chairs double the size to make them appear tiny.

Baxters Dining Room. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima
Ramy Youssef and Willem Dafoe in POOR THINGS. Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.© 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

“As we are designing these buildings, it’s all happening together, so the set decoration is part of the architecture, and the architecture is part of the set decoration,” says Price. Other details inside the home added to the storytelling. A painting of an English countryside made it seem like the outside world to make Bella feel free, while decorative motifs and deep textures shaped a lived-in patina. “The set dec team did a fantastic job sourcing items that sat outside the era,” adds Heath.

Baxters Living Room. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima

When Bella leaves her home, the wanderlust visits the sprawling streets of Portugal, sails to the slums of Alexandria, and finds her sexuality in Paris. Each environment is designed as a reflection of where she’s at in her journey. “Bella has a completely open mind with no preconceived notions about society. It was that freedom that we put into the designs,” says Heath.

Emma Stone in POOR THINGS. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Reflecting those ideas is a vivid color palette of purples, blues, and gold layered into the locations. Miniatures were also key design elements, like the exterior of the ocean liner. A 6-foot-long boat was constructed and shot against LED panels that showed the painterly sky. “One of the things people say about miniatures is that the water doesn’t scale the same way. But we wanted to play into that. That the scale will feel wrong,” says Price. “We wanted to be mindful that our miniatures felt like miniatures.”   

Emma Stone in POOR THINGS. Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.
Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo on the set of POOR THINGS. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Reflecting on the project as first-time collaborators, Heath was impressed by Price’s translation of the creative into a physical, while Price was taken aback by her creative ideas. “After 20 years, you get conditioned into a way of thinking because you’re always trying to strive, mostly but not always, for photorealism, so you start going down a certain path. Working with Shona was like being back at art school, and anything was possible again.”

Poor Things is in theaters now.

For more on Poor Things, check out these stories:

“Poor Things” Costume Designer Holly Waddington on Bringing Yorgos Langthimos’ Ecstatic Vision to Life

“Poor Things” Pops in Venice as Emma Stone Earns Raves in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Stunner

“Poor Things” Teaser Reveals Emma Stone Risen From the Dead

Featured image: Kathryn Hunter and Emma Stone in POOR THINGS. Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

How “Leave the World Behind” Production Designer Anastasia White Built a House for the End of the World

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Leave the World Behind has five main characters. Four are human, and the other is the house where they find themselves holed up together as an apocalyptic event rages outside. 

In the acclaimed 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam, the house has colorful interiors and a white picket fence. Not anymore. Sam Esmail, who wrote and directed the film, got Alam’s approval to use something more foreboding, according to production designer Anastasia White. The stately Long Island home that art director Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) rents for a getaway with her professor husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) and their two moody teenagers (Charlie Evans and Farrah Mackenzie) has the cold elegance of an Airbnb whose owners have eschewed any personal mementos. If the proprietor, G.H. “George” Scott (Mahershala Ali), hoped to remain unidentifiable, he’s out of luck. Not long after Amanda and Clay settle in, George and his daughter (Myha’la of Dumb Money and HBO’s Industry) show up in the dark of night, requesting to share his home with the Sandfords. The pair has fled a New York City blackout that augurs some sort of nationwide technological meltdown.

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Myha’la as Ruth, Mahershala Ali as G.H., Ethan Hawke as Clay and Julia Roberts as Amanda. CR: JoJo Whilden/NETFLIX

To amplify the tension that mounts among the four adults straining to build trust as news sources malfunction, Esmail decided the house should feel a bit frosty. That required modern architecture, an open floor plan, beige walls, and a large backyard with no visible neighbors. “We wanted something that was grand and definitely a departure from the Sandfords’ apartment in New York,” White explains. “But it also had to be something where they could imagine themselves living there. It wasn’t a mansion. It was something they could actually relate to, but it’s also a fantasy for them.” 

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Myha’la as Ruth and Julia Roberts as Amanda. CR: Courtesy NETFLIX

The house’s floor plan was key. The downstairs portion needed large windows that looked out on the lawn so the Sandfords and the Scotts could observe what was happening outside as more global systems deteriorated. And because Esmail loves long tracking shots that snake through multiple rooms or rotate 360 degrees, the house’s walls and ceilings needed flexibility. 

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Mahershala Ali as G.H., Myha’la as Ruth, Farrah Mackenzie as Rose and Julia Roberts as Amanda. CR: Courtesy NETFLIX

What couldn’t be filmed on location in Long Island was built on a soundstage. White, who also worked on Mr. Robot and Homecoming, knows Esmail’s projects require more elaborate sets than the typical film or TV show because he likes to shoot from a variety of angles. For example, a wide shot positioning the two pairs on either side of the doorway needed to show the facade that divides them, physically and metaphorically, before the Sandfords reluctantly let the Scotts enter. That’s impossible in an actual house with immobile walls. 

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Julia Roberts as Amanda, Ethan Hawke as Clay, Mahershala Ali as G.H. and Myha’la as Ruth. CR: Courtesy NETFLIX

The Scotts’ art collection also tells a story. George’s wife, who is traveling overseas, is a curator, so set decorator David Schlesinger (Knives Out) enlisted real-life curator Racquel Chevremont to find paintings that evoked a sense of collapse without revealing much about the family who’d bought them. (Chevremont has also contributed to And Just Like That… and Empire.) Since the Scotts are Black, Chevremont chose works by artists of color. Most of them have muted tones — lots of white, black, and soft golds — and none feature human faces. An existential conversation between Amanda and George, whose icy relationship slowly thaws as the movie unfolds, takes place in front of a painting in which the ink looks like it’s dripping down the canvas. 

LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Mahershala Ali as G.H. and Julia Roberts as Amanda. CR: JoJo Whilden/NETFLIX

The trickiest space to design was the basement of the neighboring home that concludes the film. The world is indeed collapsing, but Amanda and Clay’s daughter has found resources that could sustain everyone. She’s also discovered a way to watch her beloved Friends now that there’s no Wi-Fi. The room needed to feel like a sophisticated underground bunker, comfortable and bountiful. White and Esmail scouted real basements, but none were evocative enough. Instead, they built one from scratch. “It was the last scene of the movie, so it had to be really special,” White says. 

Leave the World Behind (2023) Myha’la as Ruth and Mahershala Ali as G.H. Cr: JoJo Whilden/NETFLIX

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

“Nyad” VFX Supervisor Jake Braver on Digitally Dropping Annette Bening Into the Open Ocean

Final “Leave the World Behind” Trailer Teases Netflix’s Tense Star-Studded Thriller

“May December” Director Todd Haynes on Playing With Power in His Beguiling New Film

Featured image: LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Julia Roberts as Amanda, Ethan Hawke as Clay, Myha’la as Ruth and Mahershala Ali as G.H. CR: Courtesy NETFLIX