Entertainment
The team behind the Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice’ talks politics, power and peril
![The team behind the Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice’ talks politics, power and peril The team behind the Trump biopic ‘The Apprentice’ talks politics, power and peril](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/10409ef/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1008+0+0/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F0d%2Fdc%2F1a75fae74d1c9b4d186a7969fdb1%2F171468.jpg)
It is hardly unusual for a director introducing their movie at a film festival to express some anxiety. But as he spoke to the crowd before a packed late-night Telluride screening of his controversial Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice” on Saturday, director Ali Abbasi felt himself sweating with his own unique brand of jitters.
The screening, which had been kept under tight wraps heading into the festival, would be the first time a U.S. audience got a look at the film that ignited a firestorm at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where “The Apprentice” earned an 11-minute standing ovation even as it drew threats of lawsuits from the Trump campaign.
“I don’t get nervous often but I am actually nervous,” the Iranian-born Abbasi (“Holy Spider”) told the Telluride crowd. “This [film] has been some years in the making, and now it’s coming back home to you guys.”
“The Apprentice” charts Trump’s rise to fame and power in the New York of the 1970s and ’80s, with Sebastian Stan portraying the real estate developer and future reality TV star and politician alongside Jeremy Strong as his ruthless attorney and mentor Roy Cohn. Scripted by journalist Gabriel Sherman, who wrote a 2014 bestseller about late Fox News chief Roger Ailes, the darkly comic film presents Trump as a sleazy and callous, if charismatic, social climber who learns the art of achieving power through aggressive attacks, ethical disregard and the strategic manipulation of the the media under the tutelage of the amoral and deeply flawed Cohn.
After the film’s unveiling at Cannes, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung blasted it as “garbage” and “pure fiction” and vowed to file a lawsuit against the filmmakers in an effort to derail its release. Studios, streamers and indie distributors were understandably wary of picking up such a political hot potato. But ultimately Briarcliff Entertainment stepped in to distribute the film domestically, scheduling its release less than a month before a presidential election that has already been among the most tumultuous and fiercely contested in U.S. history.
The morning after the Telluride screening — and just 64 days before the election — The Times sat down with Abbasi, Sherman, Stan and Strong to discuss the film’s journey, the challenges of portraying such a polarizing figure and the impact they hope “The Apprentice” will have as the country braces for the final stretch of a deeply divisive election season.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Ali, when you introduced the movie last night, you said, “This is not a political hit piece. This is a mirror and it is intended to show you an image of yourselves as a community.” Can you elaborate on that?
Abbasi: This not a political hit piece. It’s in the nature of politics that you sort of streamline things to get a certain effect, in order to gain power or regain power. And that is really not the project here. We are all interested in exploring the complexities.
People ask, “Why are we going to watch this movie? What are you going to tell us that we don’t already know about Trump?” If you think you can get to know a character by reading a Wikipedia page, be my guest. But this is not information. This is an experience and it’s an experience of the complexity of these characters. Also, for me as an outsider, this was my chance to look at the American system and the utter corruption that has been an institutionalized part of it, at least from my perspective.
Strong: Of course, political machinations are part of what the film explores and examines. But really it’s a psychological investigation and, I think, a humanistic interrogation of these people.
Every great movie is about a relationship, I think, and this movie is about this relationship and the sort of formative aspects of it. Emerson said every institution is the shadow of a man. And I feel like this is looking at the very long shadow of this man [Cohn] refracted through that man [Trump]. It’s looking at that shadow that is casting its dark light on us now.
Ali makes these sort of phantasmagoric horror films, in a way. This is a monster movie. It’s a Frankenstein movie. It’s sort of the origin story of the birth of a mindset. With the combination of Gabe’s journalistic veracity and Ali’s Lynchian punk-rock filmmaking, we ended with something that is not “one plus one equals two.” All the politics aside, that’s the thing I feel excited for people to see.
The Trump in this film is very different from the one we see today. He’s younger and more vulnerable and still figuring out how he’s going to project himself onto the world. Sebastian, how did you find your way into him?
Stan: When I first read the script in 2019, it reminded me of “The Godfather Part II,” weirdly. I got this feeling that if I just forgot the character names and just looked at what was on the page — which is what ultimately you had to do — it felt like I was witnessing the solidifying of a person into stone. It reminded me of Michael Corleone’s arc in a lot of ways. Once you removed your subjective judgment of the thing, then you could see it in different ways.
Strong: As a fellow actor, I thought what Sebastian did is just a remarkable achievement. I didn’t ever see the stitching. It was just completely lived-in. I got to know a very different Donald until a certain point in the script where there were intimations of the person we know today, sort of Darth Vader. And when I met that Trump, that’s when I really understood the arc of what he was doing.
Sherman: For me, when I sat down to write the film, one of the things I really wanted to explore is, how do we humanize him? He’s this larger-than-life figure that lives in our imaginations but he’s also just a human being. I love the scene where Roy calls Donald and he’s asleep on the couch. There’s no superpower there — he’s just a guy who passed out on his couch. To normalize him as much as possible, I think, is something that is so rarely done with his character.
Stan, left, and Strong in a scene from “The Apprentice.”
(Pief Weyman / Apprentice Productions)
The Trump camp is alleging not only that the film is defamatory but that its release constitutes a form of election interference. Was the hope always that it would come out before the election?
Abbasi: I think it’s actually quite important to talk about the timing. I mean, I’m happy about the timing — it’s exciting, obviously. But we tried to make this movie since 2018 and every year it was like, “We’re almost there.” When Jan. 6th happened, we had some of the financing and everything, and then everyone was like, “No, thank you. Bye-bye.”
Sherman: I had a very prominent Hollywood executive come up to me at an event, I think in 2019, and said something like, “When Trump loses, call us. We’ll be interested.” We didn’t plan to have this out in a political sense. It was just a battle to get it made.
The film includes a scene in which Trump rapes his wife Ivana on the floor of their apartment, along with other scenes showing him getting liposuction and cosmetic surgery for his baldness. Why was it important to include those particular moments and how did you decide where to draw the line between what was fair game and what was too salacious?
Sherman: To me, the Ivana scene was a touchstone of the film because we are asking the audience to spend time with this character and we have to show all sides of him. We would be failing ourselves — I’d be failing myself as a writer and journalist — if we didn’t include that. He has been credibly accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women. He was found liable by a New York jury of committing sexual assault and defamation against E. Jean Carroll. This is an aspect of his character and it would be just a glaring omission if it was not in there, especially in this [post-#MeToo] climate.
Ivana made those allegations in a divorce deposition under the threat of perjury, under oath, and whenever she amended her statements, it was always because Trump’s lawyers were pressuring her before a book came out, or while he was running for president in 2016. So if you’re trying to assess the truth of something, if she says one thing and then later walks it back because his lawyers are threatening her, what seems more true to you? To me, her first statement feels more true. That is why we felt that was the most honest way to show the scene.
Given the stakes of the election, and knowing the ethos Trump learned from Cohn of “attack, attack, attack,” how are you preparing yourselves for what might come from him and his supporters when this movie opens?
Strong: I feel like the stakes with this are much bigger than whatever our individual stakes might be. Our role as artists is always to hold a mirror up to nature, and that might come with some risk. This is not the type of film that is getting made, for the most part. But I do feel like, in this age of alternative facts and fantasy, it’s more important than ever that art speaks the truth and interrogates that without fear. Neither of us are interested in judging or demonizing or vilifying these people. We attempted to understand them. Which would behoove all of us right now.
Stan: I think people that support and admire him will certainly see what they want to see in this movie. But we’ve been taking one day at a time, and it feels pretty nice to enjoy this day in this moment. We live in an uncertain time. I mean, look at the very different weekends we experienced where you went from an assassination attempt to a president stepping down. So who holds the answer? I don’t know.
Abbasi: When we did “Holy Spider,” I went through a version of this. Very much like the Trump campaign not watching this movie and coming with all these [attacks and threats], in Iran they watched the teaser of “Holy Spider” and were like, “This is blasphemy. This guy should be executed for it.” I don’t know how much was really meant but you never know. My parents still live in Iran and my mom was calling me and crying and begging me to take some things out of the movie for their safety. I was like, we’re riding on the back of the dragon. There’s no way to control the dragon. So let’s enjoy the ride at least as much as we can.
I don’t have this feeling like we have done something really dangerous and terrible and now we need to extend our security and hire two people with guns [for protection]. There’s a complexity there. The experience of the film and the performances are superlative to the political messaging or whatever. I ultimately think people will see it that way.
You know how “Barbie” worked, right? They said, “If you love Barbie, it’s a movie for you. If you hate Barbie, it’s a movie for you.” So we say the same thing. If you love Trump, it’s a movie for you. If you hate Trump, it’s also a movie for you.
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Movie Reviews
The Thicket (2024) – Movie Review
![The Thicket (2024) – Movie Review The Thicket (2024) – Movie Review](https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/the-thicket-peter-dinklage.jpg)
The Thicket, 2024.
Directed by Elliott Lester.
Starring Peter Dinklage, Juliette Lewis, Levon Hawke, Leslie Grace, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Esme Creed-Miles, Andrew Schulz, Macon Blair, Arliss Howard, James Hetfield, Ryan Robbins, Ned Dennehy, David Midthunder, Sophia Fabris, Guy Sprung, Derek Gilroy, Chris Enright, and Teach Grant.
SYNOPSIS:
West Texas. A boy who, after his sister is kidnapped by a violent killer known only as Cut Throat Bill, enlists a fierce bounty hunter named Reginald Jones who becomes the leader of the group of outcasts searching for the stolen girl.
Directly across from one another, Cut Throat Bill (Juliette Lewis) tells Peter Dinklage’s Reginald Jones he is the shortest man she has ever seen, to which he responds that she is the ugliest man he has ever seen. There are unmistakable parallels between these two hardened killers, one a gravedigger and gunslinger for higher, the other a career criminal with a hefty bounty on her. Even before Director Elliott Lester’s The Thicket starts getting into the similar expository traumatic backstory for each of them, anyone with working eyes can tell that these two people have gotten a raw deal from society (especially in the Wild West) based on their appearances alone. He is a dwarf; she is butch, scarred, gruff, and about as unladylike as a woman can get.
Above all else, everyone here is searching for a home or place of belonging, whether they realize it or not. Throughout the film, a found family is developed and juxtaposed alongside the hierarchy of a band of criminals. That’s not to say Reginald Jones starts as noble or with a heart of gold. It’s far from the contrary, as he, alongside his muscular friend (which is not to say that he can’t hold his own with a gun or in a knife fight) Eustace (Gbenga Akinnagbe) are bounty hunters and will essentially take any dirty job for money.
Their services are hired by sensitive and harmless religiously Christian Jack (Levon Hawke), who wants his sister Lula (Esme Creed-Miles) rescued from the clutches of Cut Throat Bill and her violent posse of miscreants. Following the tragic loss of their parents to smallpox, the siblings were attacked en route to a new family home, which Jack eventually uses the deed for to sweeten the deal. It is also unclear what Cut Throat Bill wants Lula for, but allowing the young woman to be assaulted and raped by her men is not an option. In that regard, there is some temporary relief for Lula’s safety, at least until we learn that she is being taken somewhere dubbed The Big Thicket.
There is enough drama to mine characterization from, but Chris Kelley’s screenplay (based on the book by Joe R. Lansdale) doesn’t know when to stop adding characters in its effort to drive home that found family aspect. The result is a lot of characters that are hard to care about, even if one of them happens to be an unofficially deputized bounty hunter chasing after Reginald Jones, played by none other than Metallica lead singer James Hetfield. Then, there is a forced prostitute (Leslie Grace) Jack decides he needs to save, meaning that there is a romantic subplot mixed into this narrative about rescuing his sister that one would think would play out more urgently.
Everything else tossed into this story comes as an unfortunate detour from Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis turning in solid, pained, and empathetic misfit turns as characters from similar backgrounds, ending up on different areas of the morality spectrum. It’s another fascinating role for Peter Dinklage, who admirably refuses to let his career be placed into a conventional box. He isn’t merely a helpless dwarf incapable of fighting against his tormentors; he is skilled with weapons and fends them off. There is also a tough exterior to the character and a willingness to mold Jack into a more traditional man, which is somewhat necessary to rescue Lula successfully.
The primary issue is that the storytelling isn’t particularly riveting, and the characters aren’t explored deeply enough. Unsurprisingly, all of this will culminate in violence at The Big Thicket, which disappointingly doesn’t come across as a unique, terrifying location or one that is taken advantage of for innovative action and set pieces. Admittedly, those environments are beautifully harsh, and the period piece details are convincing.
Overstuffed plot lines and characters just let down the core dynamic, presumably having had more time to breathe and come alive in book form. As an adaptation, The Thicket probably could have used more condensing and a tighter focus on fresh elements.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: ‘Reagan’ | Recent News
Nobody is going to mistake cut-rate biopic “Reagan” for a great movie. At best, it’s a pretty standard greatest-hits collection of important moments in the former President’s life. At worst, it’s a laughably underfunded production made by people who, for whatever reason, want to sell America on Ronald Reagan in 2024. But the movie is not always at its worst. It’s a subpar movie that I think some critics are mistaking for a terrible movie.
Reagan’s life story is told by former KGB agent Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight) as he teaches a young Russian politician about the mistakes the Soviet Union made in underestimating Reagan in the 1980’s. Petrovich understands his enemy so well that he can have flashbacks to Reagan’s childhood, where the takeaway is that his faith got him through family drama. Then he became a lifeguard, where he mostly “saved” women who weren’t really drowning, and really saved others before they knew they were drowning. Petrovich observes that Reagan forever remained a lifeguard.
It’s not long before we get to Reagan as an adult, played by Dennis Quaid. Sadly we don’t see much of his acting career (this movie could have really used a monkey), but we do see him as an increasingly-frustrated commercial pitchman as his career fizzles out. We also see his marriage to Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari) fall apart. But things perk up when he becomes vice-president of the Screen Actors Guild. Not only does he meet his wife Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller) through the position, but he learns that political-type leadership might be his strong suit. After that, it’s the California governorship, a failed run at the Republican Presidential nomination in 1976, and then of course, the Presidency in 1980.
As President, Reagan bravely gets the economy back on track, survives an assassination attempt, and negotiates a near-end to the Cold War. And he does it with all the charisma that a talented actor like Dennis Quaid can bring to the role. There is barely any mention of scandals like Iron-Contra or the controversial War on Drugs or Reagan’s reluctance to address AIDS. Yes, this movie is a pro-Reagan puff piece, one whose goal is almost certainly to get Americans excited about a Republican President just a few months before an election. It’s a pretty transparent political tactic, but I’d rather get positive productions like this instead of the ugly documentaries that accompanied the 2012 and 2016 elections.
The movie doesn’t creep into “memorably, hilariously bad” territory as much as some people are saying. The makeup in most scenes is tolerable, except for one in a hospital bed where the poor makeup is clearly struggling with gravity while Quaid is lying down. At that point, his face might as well be one of those creepy puppets from the Genesis “Land of Confusion” music video. Ill-advised cameos from Pat Boone (as a preacher talking to Reagan, next to Chris Massoglia playing a young Boone) and Creed frontman Scott Stapp (as Frank Sinatra, though I thought it was just some gaudy cover artist until the credits) go by too quickly for them to register. In fact, the same can be said for many historical figures in this movie, they’re in and out before their role in the Reagan’s life or administration is clear.
This brings me to the thing I liked most about “Reagan” – the pacing. It’s not “good” pacing in that I won’t argue with critics who say the movie is too rushed and choppy. But at the same time, I’m grateful for the way that the movie skips briskly along, whether it’s appropriate or not. Reagan led an action-packed life, and an aggrandizing biopic like this could have gone three, maybe four hours. I know this is a cold compliment, but the movie will have to settle for it since I don’t have many other nice things say: I left the theater feeling like I’d gotten off easy.
Grade: C
“Reagan” is rated PG-13 for violent content and smoking. Its running time is 135 minutes.
Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.
Entertainment
When 'English Teacher' wanted to tackle jocks in drag, Stephanie Koenig said, 'Pick me, coach'
![When 'English Teacher' wanted to tackle jocks in drag, Stephanie Koenig said, 'Pick me, coach' When 'English Teacher' wanted to tackle jocks in drag, Stephanie Koenig said, 'Pick me, coach'](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/66a5217/2147483647/strip/true/crop/8185x4297+0+581/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F89%2Fde%2F671da0c54edc8d5cb198e00833bc%2F1472158-et-0827-stephanie-koenig-english-teacher-cmh-09.jpg)
Stephanie Koenig first met Brian Jordan Alvarez 11 years ago, when they were both cast in a UC Santa Barbara student film, although both were already out of college. Their friendship was instant.
“We were making each other laugh so hard, and you could just feel it,” Koenig said in a recent video interview. “It was kismet. I remember leaving that night and going to my car, and I knew that I had met a good friend and something really special was happening.”
It’s still happening, except on a much bigger stage. When Alvarez created “English Teacher,” the new FX comedy in which he plays a gay teacher navigating the politics of a high school in Austin, Texas, he picked his frequent web comedy collaborator Koenig to play fellow teacher Gwen Sanders.
The daffy-but-sharp best buddy of Alvarez’s Evan Marquez, Gwen is infused with can-do optimism and an energy that would be right at home in a classic Hollywood screwball comedy. Koenig also wrote one of the season’s best episodes, “Powderpuff,” which runs Monday after the pilot (both episodes will be available to stream on Hulu). It gleefully demonstrates one of the series’ strengths: a deft ability to wrap a hot-button issue — in this case, drag — in a friendly package without watering anything down.
In FX’s “English Teacher,” Stephanie Koenig stars as Gwen Sanders alongside her friend and frequent collaborator Brian Jordan Alvarez, who plays Evan Marquez.
(Steve Swisher/FX)
Koenig, fresh off her strong supporting dramatic performance as the go-along-to-get-along Fran in Apple TV+’s “Lessons in Chemistry,” now has a major platform to show off her considerable comedic chops, including a knack for physical comedy that feels like a natural outgrowth of countless hours as a competitive dancer growing up in Rochester Hills, Mich.
Asked whether she and Alvarez share a sense of humor, Koenig deadpans: “No, we don’t.” But it’s pretty obvious they’re on the same comedy wavelength. After a decade of collaborating, including multiple web projects, the besties are now sharing the spotlight, and the classroom.
Asked what makes Koenig funny, Alvarez flipped the script in a video interview: “What doesn’t make her funny? Everything she does is funny,” he said.” “She just has these thoughts that you see in her eyes, and it just makes you laugh and laugh.”
He also praised her abilities as a performer. “She and I often talk about how the best acting is something that we wouldn’t be able to re-create if we were prompted to; [its] just some little series of expressions that come from real thoughts that the camera picked up on,” he said. “She does so much of that. She’s so free on camera, but she’s also so reliable.”
![A woman with red hair in a green suit leans on a wood fence.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e94a741/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5106x7354+0+0/resize/2000x2881!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa6%2Fa3%2F97d139f14e599a08bed740179bac%2F1472158-et-0827-stephanie-koenig-english-teacher-cmh-13.jpg)
Brian Jordan Alvarez on his co-star Stephanie Koenig: “She just has these thoughts that you see in her eyes, and it just makes you laugh and laugh.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Plus, he adds, “her writing is exceptional.”
Indeed, it’s her writing that drives “Powderpuff.” It stems from a tradition popular in Texas (and in the Midwest, where Koenig grew up), in which high school girls face off on the football field, and the football players dress up as cheerleaders.
Drag shows have become a conservative bête noire in Texas, condemned by some as a bad influence on today’s youth. But in “English Teacher,” it’s a student LGBTQ+ group that complains, arguing that the jocks are cross-dressing as a joke and undermining students who are actually trans or nonbinary.
So when the football players come to Evan for help, he decides that the guys are going to be “authentic and respectful in their performance” while going “full out.” Enlisting the help of a local drag queen named Shazam (played by real-life drag superstar Trixie Mattel), he gets the guys to go beyond just wearing dresses and applying makeup. Meanwhile, the school’s football coach, Markie (Sean Patton), brings in Gwen to coach the powder-puff players. Except after he hears about the girls’ fears and listens to a true-crime podcast, the practice turns into self-defense demonstrations that end with some variation of “boom, you’re dead.” “Powderpuff” intercuts these sessions with the drag lessons in a dual-montage sequence set to Laura Branigan’s ’80s anthem “Gloria.”
Stephanie Koenig as Gwen and Sean Patton as Markie in the “Powderpuff” episode of “English Teacher.” “When it was time to do the outline and pick who was going to write the specific episode, I was like, ‘Pick me, coach,’” Koenig said.
(Steve Swisher/FX)
“It’s a beautiful image to see a bunch of jocks dressing in drag and just dancing,” Koenig said. “It was all just very exciting. When it was time to do the outline and pick who was going to write the specific episode, I was like, ‘Pick me, coach.’”
The episode also demonstrates the series’ refreshing tendency to zig when you expect it to zag. “What the show does so well is take a topic that people have opinions about, but then it goes the opposite way that you’d expect,” Koenig said. “It’ll take a left turn. This episode was obviously something that was going to work with that approach.”
There’s also a little behind-the-scenes irony in the gridiron scenes. Where Gwen is portrayed as inept in the ways of football, Koenig and her sister actually learned to play from their father (“He wanted boys, but he got two girls,” she said).
As a youngster, however, Koenig spent most of her time practicing jazz dance. She studied drama at Michigan State University, and after graduating in 2009, she moved to New York, figuring she would try to crack Broadway as a means toward a film career.
“I waited in those non-equity lines at 4 in the morning in the freezing cold,” she said. “I was living in a railroad apartment in Queens and just was like, ‘This is it.’” Then, her boyfriend at the time gave her some valuable advice. If she really wanted to act in movies and television, move to Los Angeles. She did when she was 23.
“I don’t have any regrets,” she said. “But I do wish somebody had told me earlier: ‘No, no, no, just go straight to L.A.’ You have to be here for such a long time to get your footing, and to move here when you’re 23 is playing catch-up.” (In fact, the shoot for this story took place at the Escondite in downtown L.A., where she worked as a server while trying to catch her break.)
![A woman with red hair in a green suit leans against a framed image of buildings.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3b67267/2147483647/strip/true/crop/7927x5266+0+0/resize/2000x1329!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fac%2F32%2Fc7ca16d942b3b077c09117608f12%2F1472158-et-0827-stephanie-koenig-english-teacher-cmh-17.jpg)
Stephanie Koenig, at the Escondite, where she worked while trying to break into Hollywood. “You have to be here for such a long time to get your footing, and to move here when you’re 23 is playing catch-up.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
She met Alvarez soon after she arrived, picked up roles in shows including “The Offer” and “The Flight Attendant” and wrote and directed a spy movie spoof (2021’s “A Spy Movie,” starring herself and Alvarez) for the web. A pilot collaboration with Alvarez came close to getting picked up but fell short. Then came “English Teacher.”
In a sense, both Koenig and Alvarez are poster children for the YouTube age. They got their work out to a loyal audience chunk by chunk, including the absurdist comedy series “Stupid Idiots” (written and directed by Koenig, starring Koenig and Alvarez). When it was time to make bigger moves, they were polished and ready.
“I’m so grateful for YouTube,” Koenig said. “We were able to find our own fans. I’m grateful that I didn’t work really early on in the industry, because I had to use my voice in order to be seen and get work. I had to direct and write. I had to put myself in my own things and just show what I could do.”
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