Entertainment
The women of ‘One Battle After Another’ aren’t afraid to ‘shake the table’
Teyana Taylor has ordered two plates of chicken wings for the table. After last night, she’s not taking any chances.
The rest of us do not know this when we meet inside a deserted restaurant at a West Hollywood boutique hotel. Chase Infiniti arrives first and slides into the middle of the booth we’ve picked out, thinking ahead so it’ll be easier for her two “One Battle After Another” co-stars to join us. Regina Hall and Taylor show up together a couple of minutes later, still talking about last night’s Governors Awards, which reunited the trio after a few weeks apart.
“Lily Tomlin has not lost one bit of her sharpness or wit at all,” Hall says, laughing, giving a hat tip to the comedy legend who had presented Dolly Parton with an honorary Oscar.
Then the wings arrive. The women, fresh off a photo shoot and still immaculate in their off-white designer wear, dig in. “You can have more because I ate your French fries last night,” Hall tells Taylor. “You absolutely ate the French fries,” Taylor says, smiling. “You was gonna eat the chicken as well. That’s why I got two orders. ”
They laugh. Taylor’s just getting rolling. “I went to the bar during the dinner and came back. And Regina’s like, ‘Somebody took my plate.’ And I look down and say, ‘Somebody ate my fries.’” She motions at Hall. “Goldilocks over here.”
The camaraderie is evident among the three women, principal players in Paul Thomas Anderson’s politically charged epic, a movie that defies categorization and invites repeated viewings, a film that contains big laughs and overflows with righteous anger.
Taylor and Hall play members of the French 75, a revolutionary group introduced in the movie’s opening moments. Taylor portrays Perfidia Beverly Hills, bold, thorny, confusing, contradictory. Hall’s Deandra is Perfidia’s opposite number: steadfast, focused, calm. When things go bad and we flash-forward 16 years, Perfidia is gone. Her daughter, Infiniti’s Willa, is left to deal with her absence as well as an unhinged military officer (Sean Penn) hellbent on tracking her down.
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“Paul gives you a lot to talk about, for sure,” Infiniti says, as we dig into the movie’s complexities. “The beautiful thing about working with him is that he allows you the room to bring your own ideas. He had so much love for Willa already but was open to any ideas I had.”
“And you had some good ideas,” Hall interjects.
“A lot of movies that are being made right now are untouchable, and sometimes you just can’t relate,” Taylor says. “PTA’s characters are so beautifully flawed and so human and so raw that you come out of the movie and go, ‘Damn, did you go through that?’ That’s how you’re supposed to feel when you watch a movie. Shake the table. Shake the f— table. Have the conversations. Have uncomfortable but healthy dialogue.”
No character in film this year has sparked more conversation than Perfidia, who rats out members of the French 75 to avoid prison and abandons her daughter in the haze of postpartum depression. One of the movie’s signature shots — Perfidia, heavily pregnant, firing an assault rifle with the butt of the gun pressed against her swollen belly (“what not to expect when you’re expecting” is how Anderson described the image to me) — sums up her essence.
“This is a woman who has showed up for everybody, the revolution, the French 75 and [her partner] Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), and it’s just kind of like, ‘Why do I have to sit and be this? Why do I have to play house?’ It’s very seldom that you see a woman actually able to be selfish and show up for herself without the world going for her throat. You might not agree with everything she does, and she doesn’t have a moment to redeem herself, besides that letter [to Willa] at the end. But everybody still loves Perfidia.”
“You do see the moment where she’s pregnant at the end,” Hall interjects. “You do see how her personality changed a tiny bit, but then she comes back to knowing, ‘I gotta take charge of who I am.’”
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1. Teyana Taylor. 2. Chase infiniti. 3. Regina Hall. (Bexx Francois / For The Times)
“This thing happens to women in real life,” Taylor says. “‘Oh, I feel like I’m shrinking myself. I gotta stand up and remind myself of who I am.’ PTA did a great job at representing every part of a woman. We can watch this movie and relate to Willa here and Deandra there and Perfidia’s strength and hurt over here. We’re all mirrors.”
“Paul’s surrounded by women,” Hall says, noting his long marriage to Maya Rudolph, with whom he has four children, including three daughters. “He’s a girl dad.” Infiniti jumps in: “He’s definitely a girl dad. He loves those girls.”
“You know why?” Hall says. “He has a sensitive heart. It’s lovely.”
“Look at his wife,” Taylor says. “Look at his daughters. I’m not saying this movie is literal, but I think Bob and Willa’s dynamic was so important to Paul as someone who has mixed-race daughters. He gets it.”
A waiter swings by the table with a huge basket of French fries. No one knows where they came from. Maybe it’s a cosmic make-good from last night, I suggest. Hall tentatively dips a fry into the truffle aioli sauce. “You wanna be classy?” Taylor asks her. “Just dig in like you did last night.”
“Fries are my weakness,” Hall says. “You can’t go wrong with the potato.”
“Now that y’all are breaking it down, I feel like Paul sees a lot of himself in Perfidia in regards to standing 10 toes down on who he is and being himself unapologetically,” Taylor says. “That’s why he’s able to create this f— badass who is unapologetically herself. That’s what we love about him. Agree. Disagree. PTA stands 10 toes down on who PTA is.”
I love this “10 toes down” expression.
“Every time you say it, I’m like, ‘This is genius,’” Infiniti says, smiling. “Genius.” Taylor laughs and finishes the last wing.
“All Paul’s films are unique, though you know it’s him, just like with Tarantino,” Hall says. “‘Boogie Nights’ is PTA but it’s so different from ‘Phantom Thread,’ which is so different from ‘Punch-Drunk Love,’ which is his version of a romantic comedy.”
During a Q&A for “One Battle,” Hall said she watched “Phantom Thread,” the movie where a wife feeds her husband poisonous mushrooms to make him dependent on her care, and told Anderson that he was on to something. “I have wanted to poison people,” she joked. “Ex-boyfriends, specifically.”
Teyana Taylor, left, Chase Infiniti and Regina Hall.
(Bexx Francois / For The Times)
“What I learned from watching that movie is that Paul knew he needed to be poisoned a time or two,” Hall says. “Men know, right?”
The talk turns to all the running the women did for the movie, most of it cut down in the final edit as Anderson tightened the opening 40 minutes that focus on the French 75’s exploits. “Our knees and thighs were in pain,” Hall says.
Adds Taylor: “I was running across a field with a machine gun in my hand, running and jumping. I really thought I was Tom Cruise.”
“Tomasina Cruise,” Hall says, laughing. “Tommyana,” Taylor retorts.
The waiter comes over one last time and asks, “How were the wings?”
“Good,” Taylor answers. “Good and gone.”
And, too soon, so are we.
(Bexx Francois / For The Times)
The sixth outing in the director’s chair for filmmaker Kirk Jones, I Swear dramatizes the real-life story of touretter John Davidson (played by Robert Aramayo). Tourette’s Syndrome, for those unfamiliar with the condition, is a nervous system disorder that causes various tics, the most prolific being erratic and explicit language. However, as I Swear expertly showcases, the syndrome is far more than ill-timed outbursts of curse words. Davidson’s story is one of societal frustration, finding your people (both with and without the condition), and using your voice to help others rise. The subject and subject matter are handled with absolute care and understanding under Kirk’s measured vision and Robert Aramayo’s BAFTA-winning performance.
The film kicks off with the greatest exclamation to democracy ever uttered (*%#! the Queen!), as a nervous John Davidson prepares himself before entering an awards ceremony hosted by Britain’s royal family. Right away, the film tells us what it is: a triumph over adversity that blends humor and human drama with education. It’s an important setup, as the film flashes back to Davidson’s 1980s youth, where we see his time as a star soccer recruit flatline as his condition takes hold. Davidson’s life spirals from there. Some aspects, like school bullying and accidental run-ins with authority figures, are expected but important to empathizing with young Davidson’s (young version, played with heart by Scott Ellis Watson) new everyday life. The more tragic, a complete meltdown of his family system, is unsettling if quick. His father (Steven Cree) is never given enough screen time to explore his alcohol coping tendencies. However, his mother Heather’s descent into easy fixes and blaming is crushing and convincing. Harry Potter series actress Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) gives a layered performance as Heather. Someone who loves her son, but also feels cursed by him as the entire family exits the picture. It’s bitter, she’s tired, and fills each conversation with ‘only medication and your mother can save you’ energy.
From there, the viewer and Davidson find refuge in a host of characters. Maxine Peake plays Dottie, the mother of a childhood friend and a retired mental health nurse. Screen vet Peter Mullan plays maintenance man Tommy Trotter. Together, they help Davidson build a life and an understanding of himself that carries the film forward into its second half. After that, the film is primarily a 3-actor show as director Kirk fills the screen with these tour-de-force performances. Peake and Mullan are great vessels to get the film’s main message across: patience, love, and a shared responsibility between the diagnosed and those who understand their struggle can help change the path for people quickly left behind by a normative world. Together, they are the soul of the movie, with the filmmakers clearly hoping the audience will follow their lead after they exit the theater (in my case, the beautiful Oriental Theater for the Milwaukee Film Festival). Both performances are perfectly warm and reflective and shouldn’t be left out in discussions of I Swear.
I say this because the movie is anchored by The Rings of Power actor Robert Aramayo, who leaves Elrond’s elf ears behind to bring an acute naturalism to his performance of main character John Davidson. Aramayo’s physicality and timing of the fitful Tourettes Syndrome never feel out of place or overplayed. In fact, the movie as a whole does an amazing job of never veering into sentimentality. While many moviegoers left with tissues dabbing their eyes, the filmmaking never felt like it was forcing that reaction out of audiences. It straddles the line between feel-good and reality with every story beat and lands squarely on the side of letting the real inform our feelings. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will grasp the film’s message and hopefully take it with them into life.
I Swear continues at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Tuesday, April 21st, and releases nationwide April 24th, 2026, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Several private equity firms and Hollywood power players, including United Talent Agency and longtime agent Patrick Whitesell, have expressed interest in buying parts of Casey Wasserman’s music and sports management firm after it abruptly went up for sale.
Wasserman became ensnared in controversy earlier this year after his salacious decades-old emails to Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, were released as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s trove of Epstein files.
The agency auction is in the early stages, according to three people close to the process but not authorized to comment.
Earlier this week, several interested parties submitted proposals to meet a preliminary deadline in the auction, two of the sources said.
The company, which changed its name to the Team last month, is expected to be valued at around $3 billion.
Providence Equity Partners holds the majority stake. The private equity firm has discussed selling the entire company or carving off Wasserman’s minority interest. Providence also has considered selling the bulk of the firm and staying on as a minority investor, one of the sources said. Another scenario could involve separating, then selling the individual business units that make up the Team.
Wasserman and Providence’s company boasts an enviable roster of music artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran. Its sports marketing practice is viewed as particularly lucrative and has potential to grow in value as big dollars flow into sports that draw large crowds.
Wasserman, who declined to comment, has a veto right over any sale of the company that he has spent a quarter of a century building.
UTA, which also declined to comment, is among the most aggressive suitors, the sources said. The Team’s sports marketing and music representation divisions would dramatically boost the Beverly Hills agency’s profile and client roster.
Whitesell, former executive chairman of Endeavor, separately has been motivated to make investments in sports, media and entertainment since last year when he left the talent agency that he and Ari Emanuel built. Whitesell launched a new firm with seed money from private equity firm Silver Lake, and last spring he started WIN Sports Group to represent professional football players.
Whitesell wasn’t immediately available for comment.
European investment firm Permira also has expressed interest, according to a knowledgeable source. Permira declined to comment.
The New York Times first reported that Permira, UTA and Whitesell had expressed interest.
The sales process is expected to stretch into summer, the knowledgeable people said. The auction could become complicated particularly if Providence decides to unwind the business.
For example, UTA could not buy the entire company because of the Brillstein television unit. The agency is bound by an agreement with the Writers Guild of America that prevents it from owning television production.
Investment bank Moelis & Company is managing the sale. A representative of the firm declined comment.
Wasserman also is the chairman of LA28, the nonprofit group that will be staging the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in two years.
Following revelations of Wasserman’s 2003 emails with Maxwell, several musicians and athletes — led by pop artist Chappell Roan and soccer star Abby Wambach — said that, to stay true to their values, they would leave the agency then known as Wasserman.
Wasserman apologized to his staff for “past personal mistakes” and said he would sell the agency.
He had limited dealings with Epstein, flying on the financier’s jet along with former President Clinton for a September 2002 humanitarian trip through Africa.
Wasserman, a prolific Clinton fundraiser whose legendary grandfather, Hollywood titan Lew Wasserman, helped the Democrat win the 1992 presidential election, was joined on Epstein’s jet by his then-wife, Laura, actor Kevin Spacey, Epstein, Maxwell — who was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021 — and others, including security agents.
The LA28 board’s executive committee unanimously voted to keep Wasserman as chairman, citing his “strong leadership” of the Games.
Pizza Movie (2026) Director: Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Star: Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone
Somehow, I got through an hour of this movie. I was seconds away from turning off in the first fifteen minutes because of the juvenile humor. Pizza Movie is too silly, repetitive, and the characters are annoying. Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone star as college friends, Jack and Montgomery. College angles are rarely seen in films right now, and that’s the one saving grace of the film. Similar to high school, people are also trying to fit in. The story and visuals were too corny. You can only watch someone’s head exploding for so long without letting yours.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Stars: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy
I never saw the first Super Mario Brothers Movie when it was out, but I heard it got positive reviews. My brother always loved playing Super Mario video games as a kid, and I’d watch him. I tagged along with my friends to see Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it’s a cute and fun film. I like it when movies explore the video game world. The animation creates unique worlds and characters. The characters are split into their own storylines, and for me, I felt like it worked. It adds more action, especially for kids who are seeing the films.
Emily in Paris Season 5 (2025) Creator: Darren Star, Stars: Lily Collins and Ashley Park
After a bright spot in season 4, I thought season 5 of Emily in Paris would continue its growth in the story and its protagonist, but no, it’s all drained out in the usual Emily (Lily Collins) mishaps. Ashley Park (Mindy) has become too good for this show. Emily and Mindy waste several opportunities because of their love lives. The whole relationship angle is ruining it. I don’t understand why Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is still in the show. I thought writers learned their lesson, but by the last episode, they’re continuing to bring the past into an apparent season 6.
Sarah’s Oil (2025) Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stars: Naya Desir-Johnson and Zachary Levi
There’s always history lurking right beneath our noses. Sarah’s Oil (2025) tells the true story of Sarah Rector, an Oklahoma-born African American girl who became the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Naya Desir-Johnson is fierce and driven as Sarah. Zachary Levi is also along for the ride as Bert, a man who helps Sarah. Kate (Bridget Regan) was another favorite character as an intelligent woman. Cyrus Nowrasteh was drawn to the subject for its story and its themes. Nowrasteh’s direction is compelling as he unearths a hidden story from history. The film is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Jack Goes Boating (2014) Director and Star: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan
Jack Goes Boating (2014) didn’t quite work for me, largely because of its slow pace and uneven storytelling. The film stars the late Seymour Hoffman as Jack, who also directed the film. This was Hoffman’s first and only time in the directing chair. Amy Ryan also stars in the film, giving a solid performance. This was also based on a play that Hoffman starred in. Jack wants to participate in a swim championship. That’s hardly what the film is about, tracking other characters’ stories. While the film aims for quiet intimacy, it ultimately drags, making it an underwhelming viewing experience.
You Kill Me (2016), Director: John Dahl, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Meet You Kill Me (2016), yet another film that I found in the museum of underrated gems. The concept revolves around Frank (Ben Kingsley), a hitman, who is sent to an A.A. meeting to get his mind focused again. A different story happens, where Frank falls in love with Laurel (Tea Leoni). Leoni is one of my favorite actresses. It also stars the funny Luke Wilson. I liked the trio’s dynamics. You Kill Me is a mental health movie. It’s okay to make changes if you’re not happy. I recommended that you keep an eye out for this movie.
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