Entertainment
The Black Keys on the L.A. hangout that led to their funky new album
Twenty-four hours or so before the release of their new album, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of the Black Keys are sipping old fashioneds at the Chateau Marmont as they reminisce about the days when the two of them ran a lawn-mowing business with one lawnmower between them.
“And one weed whacker,” Carney says.
“One lawnmower and one weed whacker,” Auerbach confirms. “And one gas canister. All in the same minivan we used for gigs. So all of our s— smelled like gasoline and grass clippings all the time.”
This was in the early 2000s, when they formed this once-scuzzy blues-rock duo in their shared hometown of Akron, Ohio — Auerbach on guitar and vocals, Carney on drums — and immediately began playing every deserted bar they could.
Two decades later, the Black Keys’ lives are very different, with four Grammy Awards, a pair of double-platinum albums and, thanks to Carney’s colorful marriage to singer-songwriter Michelle Branch, a level of tabloid scrutiny the members never even thought to dread back in Akron. (More on that marriage in a minute.)
On this recent evening, Carney, 43, and Auerbach, 44, have returned to the Chateau after a day of hand shaking and meeting taking while in town from Nashville, where they both live, to promote their latest LP, which somehow has only now used the title “Ohio Players.” Earlier they had lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel with their manager of 2½ years, Irving Azoff, whose other famous clients include the Eagles, U2 and Jon Bon Jovi.
“We’d never been there in all our years of coming to L.A.,” Carney says. “That exterior is amazing, and everything else was terrible. But I think that sums up Beverly Hills.” He looks around the dimly lighted lounge. “This is more our steez. The thing about the Chateau is that it’s so classy but the rooms kind of look exactly like an apartment I had in Akron.”
Indeed, for all their success — at one point, Carney mentions that pandemic shutdowns wiped out $20 million of Black Keys concert income in 2020 — there’s something about the band’s current situation that evokes the Black Keys’ busy first chapter, when they dropped four studio albums in just over four years. Having seriously burned out on the road, the duo went dormant in August 2015 and didn’t play a show again until September 2019; since reuniting, they’ve been on a creative tear, releasing another four LPs, including “Ohio Players,” their 12th overall.
Says Dan the Automator, the veteran hip-hop producer who was among the band’s many collaborators on the new album: “They’re cranking together right now.”
The novelty this time is that they seem to be enjoying it. The Black Keys’ liveliest effort since 2011’s hook-jammed “El Camino” (which drew a Grammy nomination for album of the year), “Ohio Players” is a loose and funky party record with catchy choruses and chewy grooves and guest appearances by the likes of Beck, Juicy J and Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. The album’s freewheeling vibe — think Beck’s “Odelay” meets the soundtrack of “Rushmore” — was inspired in part by the band’s so-called record hangs in which Carney and Auerbach haul their collection of vintage 45s to a bar and DJ late into the night; to make the album, they ventured from Nashville, where they typically record at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio, to work in rooms in London and Los Angeles.
“Honestly, we weren’t doing anything financially smart if we were trying to make money,” Carney says, recalling long stays at the Chateau and what he called its London equivalent, the Chiltern Firehouse. “But it wasn’t about that. It was about trying to maximize the experience.”
They so maximized it that “Ohio Players” almost ended up a double album, according to Carney, at least until he and Auerbach thought better of that idea. “There’s been a couple bands that have released very long albums recently that are complete garbage,” he says. “I’m not gonna name names, but there was one that had like 40 f— songs. Dan and I realized we didn’t want anything to do with making a pile of s—.”
Though the Black Keys broke out as a scrappy two-piece, they went into “Ohio Players” eager to “flex our Rolodex,” as Carney puts it. “There’s a lot of features in rap, but in rock these days there’s very little of it,” the drummer says — a shift from the late ’60s, he adds, when “Clapton would jump on a Beatles record or whatever.” For Auerbach, the collaborations — other musicians on the record include rapper Lil Noid, Leon Michels on saxophone and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin — were a way to add fresh wrinkles to the band’s established sound just as a new documentary heralds the approach of legacy-act status.
“I think it was important to us to release a new album at the same time as the movie,” Auerbach says of director Jeff Dupre’s “This Is a Film About the Black Keys,” which premiered at last month’s South by Southwest festival in Austin. “But also, we wouldn’t have been able to do this kind of collaborating when we started, or even 10 years ago,” the singer adds. “It’s really only now that Pat and I are confident enough to sit in a room and let something unfold without getting in the way.”
At the top of their wish list of accomplices, both men say, was Beck, who ended up performing on half of “Ohio Players’” 14 tracks, including the swaggering “Beautiful People (Stay High)” and “Paper Crown,” a fuzzy rap-rock-soul mash-up that also features a verse by Juicy J of Memphis’ pioneering Three 6 Mafia. Carney remembers wearing out a copy of “Odelay” as a teenager while on a family road trip from Akron to Washington, D.C.; Auerbach singles out “One Foot in the Grave,” Beck’s 1994 album of lo-fi folk songs, as a formative influence. “The way he bridged the gap as this guy who was on MTV but who was playing these Mississippi John Hurt-style songs — I was just like, Oh s—, I understand this,” Auerbach says of Beck, whom the Black Keys have known since he invited the band on the road as an opening act in 2003.
Almost as crucial as hooking up with Beck was doing it in L.A., which Carney describes as “a place that’s very conducive to creativity for us.” He lived with Branch in Toluca Lake for about a year when they got together around 2015, and he quickly “fell in love with the Valley”; these days he’s partial to the scene in West Hollywood, which offers “a culture we don’t have in Nashville,” he says. “When we’re home, I’m just watching football with my friends. But when we’re here, we’re, like, rubbing shoulders with Jason Momoa.”
The cover of the Black Keys’ “Ohio Players.”
(Easy Eye Sound / Nonesuch Records)
The Black Keys initially set up at North Hollywood’s historic Valentine Recording Studios, where Bing Crosby and the Beach Boys once worked. “That was great because it feels like you’re in your grandparents’ basement,” Carney says. “But they were adamant that there was to be no weed smoking in the control room, which was a deal breaker.” They eventually relocated to Hollywood’s Sunset Sound, a familiar setting after the six weeks they spent there making 2014’s “Turn Blue” with producer Danger Mouse.
To get Gallagher in the mix, the Black Keys agreed to go to the Oasis guitarist in London — “which was a big deal,” Carney says, “because I hadn’t gotten Dan to leave the country since 2015.” Auerbach was playing in Paris with his side project the Arcs the night of that year’s horrific terrorist attack that killed 90 people at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan theater. “Definitely made me a little leery of wanting to travel for a while,” Auerbach says now. “Subconsciously, I knew we had to get back, so I thought this was a great way to do it without the pressure of a tour.”
With Gallagher, the band wrote three songs in three days, including “On the Game,” a stately ballad with Beatlesque guitars that feels lush yet proudly hand-played. Carney says it’s that slightly sloppy quality that attracts listeners to the Black Keys’ music — and not just to theirs. “I think that’s why Mac DeMarco is so popular,” he says of the scruffy indie-rock crooner. “You can smell the realness. Or this new Waxahatchee record. I don’t hear big hits but I hear something you can really get a hold of.” He laughs. “A lot of that kind of stuff misses the mark because it just takes one person in the room who wants to straighten something out to ruin it.”
One of “Ohio Players’” appealing kinks comes in “Candy and Her Friends,” where a crisp psych-rock tune suddenly slows to a half-time lurch with the entrance of Lil Noid, an underground Memphis rapper whose mid-’90s “Paranoid Funk” cassette has been a favorite of Auerbach’s since he discovered it on YouTube. “We were listening to it in the car one night in L.A. on the way back to the Chateau,” Auerbach says. “And then we were just like, ‘I wonder what Lil Noid is up to?’ We looked him up and he was in Memphis, just down the road from us in Nashville. So we invited him to the studio.”
“Dan is a genuine lover of hip-hop,” says Dan the Automator, who’s known for his work with Kool Keith, Prince Paul and Del the Funky Homosapien, among other acts. “I mean, he’s into some regional stuff that I’m not even really up on.”
Auerbach equates the rawness of “Paranoid Funk” to that of records by Hasil Adkins, the rockabilly oddball who garnered a cult following in the ’80s and ’90s. “Pure folk art,” he calls the kind of music he’s drawn to. But of course, it’s been years since the Black Keys themselves could be considered anything close to outsiders. The night after our drinks, the band celebrates the release of “Ohio Players” (whose cover photo was shot in a bowling alley) with an invite-only gig at Highland Park Bowl filled with contest winners and music-industry types; also there dancing near the makeshift stage is Branch, with whom Carney reconciled after a messy 2022 incident in which she accused the drummer of cheating on her — in a tweet, no less — then was arrested on a domestic assault charge for slapping Carney.
Is the price of having a hit—
“We haven’t had one,” Carney interrupts back at the Chateau, which is certainly untrue given that five of the band’s songs have topped Billboard’s alternative airplay chart. So is the price of having a hit that you have to accept becoming a celebrity of some sort, with all the attention on your private life that that role entails?
“People are interested in stuff where they don’t know what’s going on,” Carney says. “And I get where the intrigue comes from. The thing is, being in a marriage is hard. I was actually just talking to my therapist about this. I was like, ‘Here’s the truth about marriage: I don’t know one that I can use as a reference that’s not unconventional or a little bit f— up.’ So whatever this is supposed to be, it’s gonna have to be its own model.”
As Carney speaks, Auerbach nods with what looks like recognition. His ex-wife is interviewed in the Black Keys doc and speaks frankly about his shortcomings as a partner. “Squirmworthy” is the word he uses to describe the experience of watching the film. “I’m glad I don’t have to watch it again,” he says. Then again, the movie recounts one of Auerbach’s most cherished experiences, when he traveled as an 18-year-old to rural Mississippi and jammed with another pure folk artist: the bluesman T-Model Ford. There’s a picture from that day that shows Auerbach, a high school sports star from a solidly middle-class upbringing, sitting in the scrubby yard outside Ford’s double-wide trailer home.
Asked how the encounter shaped his youthful conception of the musician’s existence, he says, “I didn’t see any of it like that. I didn’t think about quality of life. I just thought, I’m sitting across from the coolest person I’ve ever met, and he loves my playing. Nothing else mattered.”
And now? What would the Black Keys say if someone could guarantee they could make whatever music they wanted for the rest of their lives but only if they traded the rock star trappings for Ford’s more meager circumstances?
“Depends,” Auerbach says. “Where’s that double-wide at?”
Entertainment
‘The Bear’ at closing time: Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White reflect on five seasons
Should I stay or should I go?
It’s at once a practical and existential question that plagues the two lead chefs in FX’s “The Bear.” He was the emotionally tortured and volatile chef who left behind a rising career in Michelin-starred restaurants to return to Chicago, his hometown, to run his recently deceased brother’s floundering sandwich joint. She was a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef with potential and a steady demeanor seeking mentorship and an opportunity to work with a prodigy. Together, Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto and Sydney “Syd” Adamu — played by Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, respectively — transformed the Original Beef of Chicagoland from a hole-in-the-wall into the titular fine-dining establishment.
But now their partnership in the kitchen has come to an end.
Created by Christopher Storer, “The Bear’s” fifth and final season picks up the morning after Syd, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Nat (Abby Elliott) learn Carmy is quitting the food industry and leaving the restaurant in their hands at a make-or-break moment. And the pressure mounts for Syd to decide if she’ll jump ship to pursue another opportunity. The eight-episode season, now streaming in full on Hulu, largely stretches across one day as the restaurant’s debts accumulate, suppliers cut them off and an unrelenting storm floods the kitchen and threatens to upend a night of service the chefs desperately need to have one last shot at survival and one last performance as a team to deliver an improbable turnaround.
In some ways, it’s a journey that mirrors the actors’ own trajectories. Before “The Bear” became a runaway hit, White was best known for his role on Showtime’s long-running dark comedy “Shameless,” while Edebiri primarily worked as a stand-up comedian and writer. Just as their characters have evolved and gained electric momentum in their careers, so have the actors. Both garnered Emmy Awards for their performances on “The Bear,” and they have added a multitude of film and TV credits to their résumés since. Edebiri is currently starring opposite Don Cheadle in the revival of “Proof,” her Broadway debut, while White will be starring this fall as an investigative reporter in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning,” a companion piece to “The Social Network” that chronicles Facebook’s whistleblower scandal.
Over separate video calls from New York, Edebiri and White reflected on “The Bear’s” conclusion and what it means to leave the characters that supercharged their careers behind. Here are edited excerpts from the conversations.
Ayo Edebiri as Sydney Adamu and Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto in a scene from Season 5 of “The Bear.”
(FX)
After living inside these characters’ skins for so many years, what’s it like to be done playing them?
Edebiri: They keep saying that we’re done, so I guess that really is the thing of it. Obviously I know that it’s over, but even when we were finishing our first seasons, it didn’t matter how much critical acclaim we got because we’re on a show that’s a part of a network that has a deal with the streaming service — there’s all these things that are continually in flux or that you know that you have no control over. As an actor, you’re used to this state of limbo or not totally knowing or being prepared for an ending, so I think I’m not overwhelmed by it, if that makes sense.
White: I don’t know yet. We were very lucky to understand for a long time when the show was going to end and, to a degree, how the show was going to end. It was difficult to see the direction it went — I have strong feelings about Carmy and where he ends up and how his story might continue on. So much of this season, for Carmy, is about a surrender or acceptance of his place in the world and his place in the kitchen, and it’s the first time he’s really been able to get very honest with himself since we’ve met him. And, in doing so, he chooses to leave, and that was hard for me, for Jeremy. Maybe there’s a world in which he tries this and he comes back. I think I had a different understanding for a while of Carmy’s future. I want him to be happy and healed, but it felt like … I don’t know — imagining him outside of a kitchen was hard for me.
I want to unpack that a little bit more. He wants to be happy. But it was interesting to see him wrestle with how his work hinders that — is it the crutch or the salvation? Did you find yourself having an existential moment as Jeremy taking in what Carmy was wrestling with, or have you reckoned with it before?
White: He threw himself into this work, into this world, pretty young in life. And he was really good at it. But a big part of him burying himself has so much to do with his brother, with his family. I was finishing something too. And, yes, of course, I was thinking of goodbyes, and I was thinking of moving on, and new pursuits and all of these things. I was checking in with myself and what it might feel like to just make such a hard turn in life. I thought a lot about what you get back from your work, but I think ultimately, what Carmy and I don’t share is he was causing so much chaos in his work life; it wasn’t just himself that he was punishing at times. It came down to this surrender to an easier way, a softer way, which was to turn it over to Syd, to turn it over to Richie, to turn it over to Tina in the kitchen — that part, I had an easier time understanding.
“The most beautiful thing about their relationship is their true unconditional belief in one another,” says Allen about Sydney and Carmy in “The Bear.”
(David Urbanke / For The Times)
Syd was facing a crossroads: a shiny new job that could take her to the next level or sticking with this seemingly sinking ship that has taken her to the next level, but where she’s felt unappreciated or stifled at times. Ayo, what did you think of the choice she made?
Edebiri: We’re really fortunate to have such amazing writers who thought about her and her journey. [There’s] an awareness of Sydney’s womanhood and Blackness and youth, but I think [they treated] her with the full dignity of just being a human being and getting able to be a complex character in this show and giving her the dignity of being just as flawed as the other characters. [The choice she made] just made sense to me. It made sense in the architecture of the show. It was gratifying to get to build to that with everybody.
The bulk of this final season has the team dealing with this massive storm that’s created a slew of setbacks at a make–or–break moment for the restaurant. It leads to one final symphony in the kitchen together.
White: Those days were beautiful. So much of our show is shot so quickly, but then we really get to slow down with these choreographed pieces of kitchen ballet, and that’s also when we feel really strong as a group of performers, where we’re incredibly reliant on one another, not just for the emotional beats of a scene, but in this very technical aspect as well. I remember going back to Season 1 and filming Episode 7, “The Review,” which was the single-take episode, and just how much camaraderie came from that, and how much respect came from that for everyone — that feeling of real success that we could do this. It’s a really nice thing that happens sometimes on sets, where there is such a nice mirror of what’s going on with the characters and what’s going on with the cast. In this last push, and this team effort, we want these things as the characters, and we want these things as the cast. We want these people to have what they want, what they deserve, so it was really exciting shooting that last episode or two where all those things are coming into place.
Edebiri: That’s Chris’ thing — it’s like a classical piece of music or something; there’s different movements. His own challenge that he puts on himself, and that, in turn, puts on us, is that we’re still in the same piece of music, but everything just has a different feeling. He’d been talking about it since, low-key, Season 3, but definitely started talking about it a little bit more concertedly when we were filming [Season] 4. It was really starting to take shape in his brain. This challenge of having it be in this one day, and how each episode can feel different, was really exciting to him, so in turn, it became exciting to us.
Were you hoping for more runway to chart what the characters were facing?
Edebiri: No, I think it was cool. I was just like, “Yeah, let’s see what it is.” That’s kind of what everything has been with this show. Part of her emotional journey for the last season, what was on a slower track, in a way, there was something also really fun in having the pressure cooker of one day, and everything getting to ramp up and be quite immediate, which I think has been reminiscent of Seasons 1 and 2 in a fun way.
(FX)
Carmy and Sydney’s dynamic has been so fundamental to the series. These are two people who see something in each other that the other doesn’t. What do you admire about their relationship as friends and as co–workers?
White: The most beautiful thing about their relationship is their true unconditional belief in one another. They see the beautiful things in one another that the other one is not able to witness in themselves. Even though trust has been tested and trust has been broken at times, there is such a loyalty to the best in themselves. They know that they can rely on one another. In a lot of ways, they saved each other. That piece in the opening episode of Season 3, where Carmy gets the call about Mikey and serves the scallop to Syd without ever having met her — there is this invisible tether that was not witnessed by either of them, but it inspired Syd, and whether Carmy knew it or not, this thing was loved and enjoyed by someone that was birthed from this very traumatic moment. There’s just this beautiful, invisible tether that has always existed and will always exist between the two of them.
Edebiri: What I admire about it is the fact that they are able to bring out — through a lot of miscommunication and hard work, but ultimately, I think, with good intentions — the best in each other. They want to see each other be the best versions of themselves.
How is that reflected in your dynamic? Jeremy, who is Ayo as a scene partner and what has she brought out in you as a performer, and vice versa?
White: I was really so lucky to kind of witness Ayo in real time — everybody else had to wait some months to see her on the show. I remember genuinely being struck by her presence, her groundedness. It felt like, if this makes sense, wrong because she was doing it so well. She’s incredibly smart, she’s a wonderful writer, and she’s very skilled improvisationally, and so, in acting with her, there’s something that always makes you feel very in the moment. You can never like relax, in the best way. It’s like you always have to surrender yourself to each moment.
Edebiri: When we first started, I was coming from the comedy world, and he was coming from a much more dramatic world. Our approaches were so different. He has such amazing presence of being and a quiet focus and has such care for the work. He’s a really great leader. There are ideas in society of men in power, and what power held by men has to look like and feel like, and he’s very gentle — especially in the show, which can live so much in the space of chaos and anxiety, having a gentle spirit really helps with filming. He’s so good at making that very clear and helping teach me that as well … I’ve definitely learned from him, without realizing it, ways to protect yourself and protect your peace, and protect also the peace of your co-workers — you get the work done, you be serious about it, but it doesn’t have to be torture.
Edebiri on working with White: “When we first started, I was coming from the comedy world, and he was coming from a much more dramatic world. Our approaches were so different. He has such amazing presence of being and a quiet focus and has such care for the work.” (David Urbanke / For The Times)
What was it like to see them get this thing they’ve been after — not one, but two Michelin stars?
White: Reading that moment —there’s been so much pain and heartache … for years and years and years, and I was just so relieved to see this joyous moment on the page. It felt so, so close to the surface of me already. And we — Jeremy and Ayo — have shared so many insane, joyous moments in our lives since the show. So it felt familiar in the best way. I’m so glad for that moment for both of them — for Carmy and Syd.
Edebiri: We’re shooting it so fast. You always wish you just had more time, and that was one of the last scenes — I think it was the last thing that he and I shot. There’s obviously a bit of a preciousness and emotionality that you’re feeling in that moment, while also tapping into what’s happening to the characters. It’s this thing that, in the brain of myself, we’ve been building to this over five seasons. There’s obviously a somewhat meta reflection of what we’ve gone through — this is just such a crazy journey. But I think at the end of it, especially because of what we know is going to change in their relationship, that in their working proximity, that they are not going to be close, but they know that they were able to do this thing and build this thing together, I think [is] what felt very special, and felt very cool. I hope it’s something that people who have loved the show also feel.
Fans have intense feelings about their relationship, as I’m sure you know. Has it surprised you how strongly people feel about their dynamic?
White: I know that exists. I don’t have too much knowledge on how that all works. It’s funny, I’m very aware of it now because it’s become part of a conversation around the show, but it was nonexistent in our approach to the work. It wasn’t even a thought for either of us. It didn’t occur to us. But I understand it. There is an intimacy, of course, with these two characters. And there is this trust. They lean on each other and they admire each other so much. I’m not like — nobody’s crazy to feel that. There is love there, it’s just not a romantic partnership.
Edebiri: It surprised me the first two [seasons] because I don’t think that that’s what we were doing. Anytime that you say otherwise, I’ve learned [not to]. It’s been hard when doing press, it feels like we get asked specific questions to try to give a specific answer, but the point of art is we make it and we give it. If people are having a response, that’s great, and if I don’t agree with you, I don’t think I’m shutting it down or anything. We made something, then you’re picking something up — that’s the exchange.
White says he knows fans have intense feelings about the relationship between Carmy and Syd. “It’s funny, I’m very aware of it now because it’s become part of a conversation around the show, but it was nonexistent in our approach to the work. It wasn’t even a thought for either of us.” (David Urbanke / For The Times)
Carmy has a few heartfelt conversations this season, but one that really stands out is the one with his mom, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, while revisiting the family home he’s stayed away from for years. He cooks for her. She’s remorseful. Jeremy, what did you think of that moment for Carmy?
White: There’s resistance in it. People like Carmy, you can give them the answer, you can give them the sorry, you can give them the opportunity, and a lot of the times they don’t know what to do with it, or they push it away, or they push it down. What that scene was about, for Carm, was becoming available to even listen. That was the conflict of the scene and the moment. But he was able to eventually get to that acceptance to release some of the resentment, to release some of the anger. Then he is able to show up for her, which was what has been absent. He was able to take it and give her something. It’s been years, if ever, that he’s really been able to do that, to get out of his own way, and be of service in that way to his mother.
Ayo, it was really touching to see Syd naming Tina her chef de cuisine. How did you feel about what that sets up for where Syd and the Bear might be headed with these women as partners in the kitchen?
Edebiri: I loved it. I love getting to work with Liza [Colón-Zayas]. I’ve been so privileged to also be able to direct her — she’s just phenomenal. I think about these two characters, where they started Day 1; Tina was pretending not even to speak English just to stay away from the girl. It was rough from the get-go, but I think both for Liza and I, as two women of color as well, we felt so invested in their relationship and the community they built with each other. There’s something very moving about that to me. Part of the thing for Sydney, she doesn’t know — I think Carmy can see it — that one of her strengths is that they’re different types of leaders. Part of what I think makes Sydney a great leader is that she’s able to delegate and actually remove herself when she knows that she might not be the best in a situation, it might be somebody else.
I haven’t actually seen it. I can’t watch the episodes, but I know when we were filming it, it was both very sweet and very funny. I don’t know if they kept any of the improv from Liza.
You can’t watch because you’re emotional about it or because you just don’t have access?
Edebiri: No, I don’t want to. We were doing all this press and everybody was, “You were so emotional; you wanted to cry, right?” And I’m like, “No, I just don’t want to watch.” I’ll watch it later. The only season that I watched before [it aired], frankly, was 3 and 4 because I had episodes that I made in it. I love the show and I know the show is good. I don’t enjoy watching myself.
I do love that Syd’s ethos in the kitchen is borrowed from “Ratatouille.”
Edebiri: Yes, f—ing rat. It tracks for Sydney.
“I love getting to work with Liza [Colón-Zayas],” says Edebiri about her co-star, whose character is named chef de cuisine. “I’ve been so privileged to also be able to direct her — she’s just phenomenal.”
(FX)
Jeremy, what was your reaction when you read Carmy is in a suit interviewing for an internship at an architectural firm? And what he expresses there?
White: I understand and I’m proud of the courage that it takes [to do a life pivot], but also I tried to play that scene in a way where I didn’t want it to be entirely clear [what happens next]. I wanted the question to be like, “Is this guy still so f— up in the head that he’s trapped regardless of his place in this world, or place of work? Is it a romance that he’s saying goodbye to? Is it a love that he still has, and he’s not quite over yet?” Then I was like, “Do we snap out of that scene and we’re back on the clock?” What is this? I think the goal of the scene is it shouldn’t be all too clear and wrapped up.
What do you think?
White: I could see there’s obviously so much love. There’s love for the people he works with, and there’s love for the paces he’s gone through, but I didn’t know. … I didn’t know if it was a goodbye or an admittance. I think I was trying to find something between him coming clean and being like, you know what, I don’t belong anywhere else or I’m so in love with this thing, but it’s not good for me, and I think it exists somewhere in between that.
Ayo, what was your reaction to Carmy interviewing at the firm?
Edebiri: I was like, “Yeah, that makes sense. This boy’s a noodle.” He’s a fool, he’s ridiculous. It makes sense.
Where do you think he goes from here? Have you thought about it? Do you think he will ever find his way back to the kitchen?
White: I haven’t thought about it too much. I do think there’s something really honest about that direction that Carmy was moving into, but I would hope there’ll always be room for him somewhere in a kitchen.
Edebiri: Syd is like, “You can’t do anything else, brother. Like, what’s the plan?” I don’t know if he takes a break, if he comes back to help her, if he does his own thing.
What do you think happens to the Bear?
Edebiri: I think they do well. It’s not just her; it’s her and Sugar and Richie and Marcus and Tina. She got in it for Carmy, but I think she ended up finding her own voice. I think they keep going, at least for a few more years. I really do.
White: I have to believe that all the pain and suffering and trauma — not only that Carmy has gone through, but that everybody has gone through — is for some greater good. That there is a payoff. My hope is that it would be successful. They’ll have the endurance and the motivation to make it.
Lots of disturbing movies take place at summer camps. “Friday the 13th,” “Sleepaway Camp,” “Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation,” the list goes on, and it just keeps going because shoving dozens of kids into an emotional pressure cooker at the edge of civilization with minimal supervision and no escape is usually a bad idea. And that’s before you give them all bows and arrows.
Avalon Fast’s sophomore feature isn’t a typical summer camp horror movie. It’s a trippy, melancholic tragedy about healing psychic wounds, and finding out they’re already infected. Try to imagine an angsty, indie teen drama that’s parasitically burrowing its way into a Florence + The Machine music video. Now imagine it’s in theaters now and it’s called “Camp.”
“Truth or Dare” is a crappy game, even on “Love Island,” but it’s even crappier at the start of “Camp.” The halfhearted young friends of Emily (Zola Grimmer) can barely muster enough gusto to come up with a dare, and when they give up, their fallback “truth” is just asking her for her biggest regret. It may have been a haircut. It may have been the time she ran over a four-year-old with her car. Either way it’s a lousy icebreaker.
As if her night couldn’t get any worse, Emily’s best friend overdoses in her car, sending her spiraling into grief and misery. Months go by and her father arranges to get her a camp counseling gig, looking after other troubled youths at a place called only “Camp.” (I’d say the least plausible part of Fast’s film is that the domain name “camp.net” wasn’t already taken, but shut my mouth, because it really isn’t.)
The kids are non-entities, a vague distraction from her worries, but her fellow counselors are badasses. They smoke. They drink. They say things like, “I feel like doing drugs” and look, you gotta give ‘em credit, when they say they’re going to do something they do it. I can’t even take the recycling downstairs most of the time and here these girls are, saying they feel like doing drugs and then doing the damn drugs, making me feel like a lazy jerk.
There’s just one problem. Or maybe there isn’t. Emily’s new cohort, led by the alluring and oddly motherly Clara (Alice Wordsworth), begins each summer with a ritual to make their wishes come true. Nev (Lea Rose Sebastianis) wishes to have sex with their boss, Dan (Austyn Van De Camp), “really, really hard” and wouldn’t you know it, her wish was essentially a command.
Avalon Fast knows that’s wrong, but she knows her characters don’t care very much. Dan starts trudging across the camp grounds, confused and disturbed. He was saving himself for marriage, the poor guy, and looks like he’s on the verge of something terrible. But sacrificing Dan’s virginity gave Emily and her friends a taste of power, and it manifests in sparkly animated hand flourishes, which do nothing, it seems, except look cool. But it’s their power and they’re taking it, and they’ll take a lot more.
The problem with describing the plot of Fast’s “Camp” is that it places way, way too much emphasis on the plot. This movie doesn’t run from scene to scene, it gradually sinks into emotional rot. Emily thinks she’s getting better, finding friends and — in her own way — finding her spirituality. It’s just a selfish, detached spirituality and sees no value in anyone else’s feelings. Or anything else about them. What looks like a film about finding your way back from the darkness is, instead, a labyrinth that Emily probably can’t solve. She may not even want to.
“Camp” is a dreary, disturbing day dream of a movie, the kind you have when you’re all in your feels and close to getting heatstroke. It’s not about getting better, it’s about getting worse, and how that sometimes feels like getting better. You may not have worked through your baggage, you may not have processed your trauma, but at least everything looks simple. You can just while away your days with excess, abandoning all empathy, even for yourself.
It’s a sad film, “Camp,” and it’s a little tricky. Fast is working with familiar horror movie clichés, and falling into the old routine where witchcraft is initially empowering, then horrifying, and that probably doesn’t do real-life witches many favors. Then again, neither do a lot of the classic witch films — especially “The Craft,” the goth 1990s elephant in the room — and most of them aren’t as emotionally salient as Fast’s interpretation, although they’re typically more “fun.”
“Camp” isn’t a fun movie. That’s not a criticism, it’s just the way it is. Avalon Fast’s gloomy, lo-fi aesthetic occasionally segues into ornate, gorgeous imagery, proving the filmmaker — and cinematographer Eily Sprungman — are in total creative control. Fast wants us to feel Emily’s despair and the futile moral ambiguity of her distractions. It’s a cautionary tale, perhaps, about not hanging out with the wrong crowd, or taking solace in mind-altering experiences, but more than anything it’s a sympathetic mirror, and it’s pointed at anyone who ever got lost.
As La Cruz continues to break down barriers for the LGBTQ+ community in reggaeton, the rising Venezuelan star enjoys living out his gay fantasies in his music videos. Take the sultry video for his 2023 breakthrough single, “Quítate La Ropa,” which sees shirtless men perreando (twerking) before him in a locker room.
But at the same time, La Cruz has come to understand that his platform as a gay reggaeton artist coincides with a time when conservatism is sweeping the globe — and queer rights are receding.
“It fills me with happiness to represent a community that has been denigrated, treated badly and pushed into a corner for many years,” a bedheaded La Cruz says over Zoom from his New York City hotel room. (He had just performed at a Pride event the night before.)
“It’s a fact that [LGBTQ] rights are becoming progressive, but they’re rolled back even faster than they advance,” he adds. “This is very painful and concerning. This is happening in every country in different ways. During these difficult times, I’m going to keep putting my heart into my music more than ever.”
La Cruz is the stage name of Alfonso La Cruz. The native of La Guaira, a coastal city in Venezuela, pursued a music career after relocating to Spain in 2015. Following a brief stint on the singing competition “Operación Triunfo” three years later, La Cruz was closeted and found his momentum stifled. In 2022, he took the brave step of singing about his affection and lust for other men in his debut album, “Hawaira.”
Venezuelan reggaeton singer La Cruz released his new EP, “El Nene, Vol. 2,” on June 11.
(Maria Camila Pinzon)
Backed by the beats of reggaeton, a genre that had historically excluded the LGBTQ+ community, La Cruz found both his groove and his tribe with hits like “Te Conocí Bailando” and “Quítate La Ropa.” Early supporters included Colombian superstar Karol G, as well as Mexican American R&B singer Omar Apollo.
Alongside Puerto Rican provocateurs like Young Miko and Villano Antillano, La Cruz has continued to queer the heteronormative urbano space. He has also pushed his sound to broader horizons in his new EP, “El Nene, Vol. 2,” which includes “Sírveme,” a Brazilian funk banger with drag pop star Gloria Groove — and “Te Perdí,” a touching tribute to the victims and survivors of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla.
La Cruz’s EP dropped on June 11, the day before the 10th anniversary of that tragedy, which largely impacted the queer Latino community. In an interview with The Times, he opened up about being a gay reggaetonero and “Te Perdi,” his tribute to the 49 people lost at Pulse.
It’s been three years since you first went viral with “Quítate La Ropa.” What have you learned about yourself during that time?
There are songs that have brought me a lot of love and I’m thankful to my fans that consider that song to be a classic. It’s brought me a lot of blessings. At this moment, I feel like I have the best opportunities in my life. However, I feel like the industry is a bit uncomfortable with an artist that’s openly gay and wants to be a part of this. That hasn’t stopped me at all. It’s the gasoline in my motor. It’s what pushes me to keep working hard. My fans are what’s building my career and I won’t let them down. I’m sticking with this until the end.
You connected with Karol G early in your career. Did she give you any advice when you met her?
I want to say publicly that I would love to open for her concerts on her Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour. I’m very close to her. I love her so much. She has always treated me with so much love. I hope that something between me and her can happen sometime. I know everything happens in due time. I told her that I love the way she is and how she connects with her fans. When I see her singing and performing, I feel like she’s a sister to me. A big piece of advice that she gave me and that I’ll always carry with me is to never lose the humility and closeness that I have with my fans. The key to success is humility. I never want to be out of reach. I want people to see me and say, “I want to achieve my dreams like he has.”
How did your collaboration “Sírveme” with Gloria Groove come together?
I love her so much! I’ve always been a big fan of hers. I’ve gotten close to a lot of artists in Brazil and Gloria has been one of them. We didn’t think twice about making this song. Gloria was coincidentally traveling to the amusement parks in Orlando. I told her: “Baby, let’s go! I’m ready for you in Miami.” She told me: “Baby, I’m going to Miami!” We met one afternoon to create this song. She paused her vacation to go to the studio with me. It was very beautiful. I love my Brazilian fans.
With “El Nene, Vol. 2,” why was it important for you to also shed a light on the 10th anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting?
In 2016, when I recently arrived in Spain and my brother recently arrived in the U.S., we had a call with our family. My brother said, “There was a shooting close to where I live and it was in a gay club.” My family has supported me since I first told them about my sexuality. I thought that that could’ve happened to me.
I’m following up on this tragedy because it shaped my life. As the years go on, information about this attack has faded away. Each day people are talking less about it. It’s a tragedy that’s super important to remember, like 9/11 and the [2017] Las Vegas shooting, because it’s one of the worst attacks in U.S. history. Why are we not talking about it anymore? We have to keep talking about things so that they don’t happen again.
What inspiration did you pull from the Pulse tragedy for your song “Te Perdí”?
On this path, I’ve gotten to know the stories of people that survived that shooting. For example, there was a boy with his mother that lost her life and he survived. There’s a lot of stories of love from that club that have [since] come out. When I went to the studio, I was inspired by loss, or a love that’s gone away, with respect and love for the community that supports me. It is my gift, to be a voice for this situation that should never be repeated. There are people that don’t know about this tragedy and I want to let the world know that this happened. I hope that the victims’ families and the people that survived are living lives of peace and calm.
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