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A Silver Lake remodel saves a tree that's 'the soul of the house' — and still gets a killer view

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A Silver Lake remodel saves a tree that's 'the soul of the house' — and still gets a killer view

Under the canopy of the enormous olive tree that shades his home, Daniel Gerwin’s 11-year-old son ascends the tree’s gnarled trunk like an expert climber while his brother, 7, reads a book a few feet away inside the house.

Standing nearby, architect John K. Chan, who recently renovated the interiors and designed a modern 500-square-foot addition, can’t help but smile as he watches the boys’ parents cook dinner amid all the activity.

“It’s so wonderful to see the house working for them,” Chan says as the family and their dog, Phoenix, circulate in and out of the house through sliding glass doors — a classic California indoor-outdoor move. “As an architect, the sweetest gift you can get from your clients is seeing the house working. Sometimes Daniel will text me, ‘This is happening right now,’ with a photo of the kids doing something we designed, and it’s so gratifying.”

“The olive tree is the soul of the house,” says homeowner Daniel Gerwin. “So we built the house around it.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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Gerwin and his wife saw plenty of promise in the 1,100-square-foot home when they purchased it in 2016. Like many traditional homes built during the 1930s, the house featured a simple floor plan with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room with a fireplace, and a formal dining room and entryway.

Despite its compact layout, the house had many perks: It was within walking distance of a good elementary school and across the street from the Ivanhoe Reservoir. The majestic olive tree, which the couple guesses is as old as the house, was another bonus.

At first, the house was fine.

But as their family grew and they adopted a large Rhodesian Ridgeback, the single-story home’s compartmentalized rooms began to feel claustrophobic.

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“The boys’ room was OK when it was just a crib and a toddler bed,” Gerwin says, noting the tiny bedroom connected to the primary bedroom through a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, “but it was not sustainable.”

Adds Chan: “It was a traditional house carved into rooms.”

Chan, who began rethinking the house in 2016, says his challenge was to add everything the family wanted — an open floor plan, storage and natural light — on a small, triangular lot.

They also wanted to preserve the olive tree, which absorbs noise from the preschool across the street and shades the house and backyard.

“The olive tree is the soul of the house, and we feel connected to it,” says Gerwin, an artist. “It feels good to have a huge olive tree anchoring our house.”

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The silvery green leaves of the olive tree resonate throughout the house, including the front door.

Daniel Gerwin and his family’s renovated Ivanhoe Vista house is built around a giant olive tree.

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The modern addition, left, and the traditional home, right, can be seen from the backyard where architect John K. Chan plays with the family dog.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Chan agreed as someone interested in architecture as a cultural project. “When we do research for a house, we need to meet the client’s needs and address the practical concerns, but we are also interested in the poetics of the site, the specific cultures and ecologies of sites and their narratives,” he says, recalling the wooden cover that shielded the Ivanhoe Reservoir in the 1930s.

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“The house’s sensibility is very East Coast,” Chan adds, noting the neighborhood’s Spanish, Tudor and Modernist homes by architects Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain, R.M. Schindler and John Lautner. “We decided to tailor the addition to the site’s landscape.”

The newly remodeled house, which took a year to complete, demonstrates Chan’s vision. The silvery and green hues of the olive leaves repeat throughout the house, in the living room furniture, the kitchen’s stained oak cabinets and the olives and leaves preserved in the concrete flooring.

“Every day you see the tree, you sense its roots,” Gerwin says. “It’s nice to see it resonate throughout the house.”

To open up the interiors, Chan removed walls and the fireplace, enlarged the narrow galley kitchen, and added a two-story, 500-square-foot primary bedroom and bathroom that overlooks the reservoir, connecting the family to the lake, the walking path and an olive grove in the pocket park across the street.

When you enter the house, the kitchen faces an open dining room and living room bathed in natural light thanks to the shifting rooflines that create transitions instead of walls. Adding further drama is a giant bay window in the living room that overlooks the backyard. When it frames the boys playing outdoors, Gerwin likens it to a “diorama in a zoo or natural history museum.”

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The cabinets in the kitchen are painted a gray tone that echoes the olive tree outside.

(Stephen Schauer)

Walls were removed to open up the partitioned interiors of the traditional home. “A lot of exciting plane changes occur inside the house,” says the homeowner.

(Stephen Schauer)

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“One of the things that I enjoy about the house is the geometry,” Gerwin says. “A lot of exciting plane changes occur inside the house. It takes a certain kind of person to want to invest time and energy into something like that. John is that person. It continues to be a pleasure for me as I live here.”

The elevated reading nook above the kitchen allows the children and guests to visit Gerwin while he cooks. It also offers a reverse panorama of the house. Instead of being shut off in separate rooms, the family can face one another while cooking and doing homework in what Chan describes as an “egalitarian” design choice.

“Socially, the kitchen is not for the servants; it’s for the whole family,” he says.

Daniel Gerwin fixes dinner while his son reads in a nook.

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(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Because their home sits on a corner lot and is exposed to hundreds of people who walk around the reservoir daily, Gerwin and his wife were acutely aware that their new bedroom, which faces the pedestrian walkway, would have a fishbowl effect.

Chan felt it was important to connect the addition to the reservoir. “The house has its protected spaces, and oddly, as an inversion, it profoundly connects them to the lake,” Chan says. “The bedroom brings you to the lake.”

If you’ve walked around the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs, you can’t miss the addition, with its modern spiked roof, glass picture window, corrugated roof and dark cedar siding.

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The homeowners say they are comfortable with being exposed this way.

“It forces me to make the bed,” Gershwin jokes. “I often see people looking up at me from the walking path. But we aren’t in our bedroom during the day. In the morning, I can open the top of the blackout roller shades and still have the bottom portion closed for privacy.” (Chan installed a clear glass guardrail in front of the sliding glass doors for safety, allowing easy access to the windows and sliding glass doors and an uninterrupted view of the lake.)

When Gerwin looks out the bedroom window, he sees a community and, eventually, when the Ivanhoe Reservoir is refilled with water, a sea of blue.

The windows of the primary bedroom connect the home to the Silver Lake reservoir, its community and the pocket park across the street.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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The house, seen as a speck in the suburban landscape, overlooks the Ivanhoe Reservoir in 2022 before it was drained for new aeration and recirculation infrastructure.

(Stephen Schauer)

Similarly, in the new bathroom, where the pitched rooflines and angles converge, the color of the cement tile echoes the reservoir and the sky.

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Below the house on the ground floor, a previously unpermitted tandem garage conversion now is a part of the house. Chan updated the side-by-side spaces to include an art studio for Gerwin, an office and guest room with a Murphy bed and a small existing bathroom.

Chan considered permitting the garage as an ADU, but it wasn’t a priority for the family. Although Gerwin predicts one of his sons may inhabit the space someday, until then, it works as a guest room for the couple’s parents and for work needs.

The art studio functions well for Gerwin, who previously had a studio in Lincoln Heights. “It’s a little narrow, but I can open the doors for ventilation, and at night, I can close the bug screen so I don’t have to scrape insects off my paintings.”

Photos by Stephen Schauer

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Artist Daniel Gerwin in his studio, directly below his bedroom and facing the street.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

He can also do carpentry in the driveway and work in the evenings when his family is asleep.

“If I have a one-hour window, I can walk downstairs and work instead of driving to a studio,” he says. As the president of the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation, Gerwin also can hold board meetings in the office space.

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Chan, who argues that the addition reconnects the family to where they live, says that by embracing the olive tree’s narrative, it became the house’s substance.

“It was important for the house to emerge from the foliage,” he says. “The roof’s pitch is designed to accommodate the tree growing at this angle. It has a strong presence but is integrated in its context. The large hedge and the shade of the olive tree looming over the house are all important aspects. “

To many people, the Silver Lake Reservoir is an oasis in a frenetic city. But for this family, it’s an extension of their home.

“It’s fun to see people walk or run by,” Gerwin says as he walks Phoenix along the pedestrian path. “Living near a lake is a pleasure. How many people get to do that?”

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For filmmaker Chloé Zhao, creative life was never linear

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For filmmaker Chloé Zhao, creative life was never linear

In 2021, Zhao made history as the first woman of color to win the best director Oscar for her film Nomadland. Her Oscar-nominated drama Hamnet has made $70 million worldwide.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR


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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

It took a very special kind of spirit to make Hamnet, which is nominated for best picture at this year’s Academy Awards. Chloé Zhao brought her uniquely sensitive, mind-body approach to directing the fictionalized story about how William Shakespeare was inspired to write his masterpiece Hamlet.

Zhao adapted the screenplay from a novel by Maggie O’Farrell, and for directing the film, she’s now nominated for an Oscar. She could make history by becoming the first woman to win the best director award more than once.

Zhao says she believes in ceremonies and rituals, in setting an intention, a mood, a vibration for any event. Before Hamnet premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, she led the audience in a guided meditation and a breathing exercise.

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Zhao also likes to loosen up, like she did at a screening of Hamnet in Los Angeles last month, when she got the audience to get up and dance with her to a Rihanna song.

She, her cast and crew had regular dance parties during the production of Hamnet. So for our NPR photo shoot and interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, I invited her to share some music from her playlist. She chose a track she described as “drones and tones.”

Our photographer captured her in her filmy white gown, peeking contemplatively from behind the filmy white curtains of a balcony at the Waldorf Astoria.

Director Chloé Zhao at the Waldorf-Astoria in Beverly Hills.

Zhao says she believes in ceremonies and rituals, and makes them a part of her filmmaking process.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR


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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

Then Zhao and I sat down to talk.

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“I had a dream that we were doing this interview,” I told her. “And it started with a photo shoot, and there was a glass globe –”

“No way!” she gasped.

It so happens that on the desk next to us, was a small glass globe — perhaps a paperweight.

I told her that in my dream, she was looking through the globe at some projected images. “We were having fun and it was like we didn’t want it to stop,” I said.

“Oh, well, me and the globe and the lights on the wall: they’re all part of you,” Zhao said. “They’re your inner crystal ball, your inner Chloé.”

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“Inner Chloé?” I asked. “What is the inner Chloé like?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” she said. “Humbly, from my lineage and what I studied is that everything in a dream is a part of our own psyche.”

Dreams and symbols are very much a part of Zhao’s approach to filmmaking, which she describes as a magical and communal experience. She said it’s all part of her directing style.

Chloé Zhao used painting and dance to connect with actors on the set of her latest film Hamnet.

Chloé Zhao used painting and dance to connect with actors on the set of her latest film Hamnet.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR


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“If you’re captain of any ship, you are not just giving instructions; people are also looking to you energetically as well,” she explained. “Whether it’s calmness, it’s groundedness, it’s feeling safe: then everyone else is going to tune to you.” Zhao says it has taken many years to get to this awareness. Her own journey began 43 years ago in Beijing, where she was born. She moved to the U.S. as a teen, and studied film at New York University where Spike Lee was one of her teachers. She continued honing her craft at the Sundance Institute labs — along with her friend Ryan Coogler and other indie filmmakers.

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Over the years, Zhao’s film catalogue has been eclectic — from her indie debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me, set on a Lakota Sioux reservation, to the big-budget Marvel superhero movie Eternals. She got her first best director Oscar in 2021 for the best picture winner Nomadland. Next up is a reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“A creative life,” she notes, “is not a linear experience for me.”

Zhao still lingers over the making of Hamnet, a very emotional story about the death of a child. During the production, Zhao says she used somatic and tantric exercises and rituals to open and close shooting days.

She also invited her lead actors Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley to help her set the mood on set. They danced, they painted, they meditated together.

“She created an atmosphere where everybody who chose to step in to tell this story was there for a reason that was deeply within them,” actress Jessie Buckley told me.

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Buckley is a leading contender for this year’s best actress Oscar. She said that to prepare for her very intense role as William Shakespeare’s wife, Zhao asked her to write down her dreams “as a kind of access point, to gently stir the waters of where I was feeling.”

Buckley sent Zhao her writings, and also music she felt was “a tone and texture of that essence.”

That kind of became the ritual of how they worked together, Buckley said. “And not just the cast were moving together, but the crew were and the camera was really creating dynamics and a collective unconscious.”

Filmmaker and Hamnet producer Steven Spielberg calls Zhao's empathy "her superpower."

Filmmaker and Hamnet producer Steven Spielberg calls Zhao’s empathy her superpower.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR


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That was incredibly useful for creating Hamnet — a story about communal grief. Steven Spielberg, who co-produced the film, called Zhao’s empathy her superpower.

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“In every glance, in every pause and every touch, in every tear, in every single moment of this film, every choice that Chloé made is evidence of her fearlessness,” Spielberg said when awarding Zhao a Directors Guild of America award. “In Hamnet, Chloé also shows us that there can be life after grief.”

Zhao says it took five years and a midlife crisis for her to develop the emotional tools she used to make Hamnet.

“I hope it could give people a two-hour little ceremony,” she told me. “And in the end, I hope that a point of contact can be made. That means that there’s a heart opening. But it will be painful, right? Because when your heart opens, you feel all the things you usually don’t feel. And then a catharsis can emerge.”

As our interview time came to a close, I told Zhao I have my own little ritual at the end of every interview; I record a few minutes of room tone, the ambient sound of the space we’re in. It’s for production purposes, to smooth out the audio.

Zhao knew just what I meant. She told me a story about her late friend Michael “Wolf” Snyder who was her sound recordist for Nomadland. “He said to me, ‘I don’t always need it, but just so you know, I am going to watch you. And when I tell that you are a little frazzled, I’m going to ask for a room tone … just to give you space.’” she recalled. “‘And if you feel like you need the silence space, you just look at me, nod. I’ll come ask for a room tone.’”

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I closed our interview ceremony with that moment of silence, a moment of peace, for director Chloé Zhao.

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This spring, have a tea ceremony inside of an art installation and shop the latest Givenchy

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This spring, have a tea ceremony inside of an art installation and shop the latest Givenchy

Givenchy by Sarah Burton introduces the Snatch

Givenchy’s “The Snatch” handbag.

(Marc Piasecki / Getty Images)

Echoing the designer’s ready-to-wear sculptural designs, the Snatch from Givenchy by Sarah Burton is sensually shaped by the contours of the person who carries it. Its supple leather, fluid silhouette and three sizes allow it to slip effortlessly and intimately into the hand, over the shoulder or across the body. Now available. givenchy.com

Guess Jeans opens new L.A. store

Guess Jeans store interior.

Guess Jeans store interior.

(Josh Cho)

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In a move familiar to many millennials these days, Guess Jeans has returned home in its 45th year. The new flagship store in West Hollywood is both a return to its California roots and an envisioning of its future still ahead. While the brand may be an established icon, the store boldly reimagines the retail space as a living laboratory for design, craftsmanship and collaboration, with dedicated workshop and customization spaces. 8700 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. guess.com

Louis Vuitton’s new Color Blossom collection

Jewelry by Louis Vuitton
Sodalite bracelet by Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton’s new Color Blossom collection highlights sodalite.

(Louis Vuitton)

Taylor Swift’s sky may be opalite, but the starry blue hues in the new jewels of Louis Vuitton’s Color Blossom collection belong to sodalite. Rarely used in jewelry, the dark navy of sodalite adds an unexpected layer of depth to Color Blossom’s existing luminous gemstone lineup. Sun and star motifs rendered in gold enhance the gem’s night sky coloring, while the classic flower designs celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Louis Vuitton Monogram. Sodalite pieces available March 6, entire collection available April 4. louisvuitton.com

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Loro Piana debuts Library of Knits

Loro Piana debuts Library of Knits
Loro Piana debuts Library of Knits

Loro Piana’s Library of Knits comes in over 20 shades.

(Lora Piana)

L.A.’s (many) winter showers bring spring wildflowers, and a bouquet of Loro Piana’s new Library of Knits fits right into the vibrant spectacle. The exquisitely soft cashmere pieces in classic styles now come in over 20 shades inspired by Sergio Loro Piana’s personal wardrobe. With a spectrum ranging from blues and greens to corals and creams, it’s hard to choose just one for a frolic in the fields. Now available. loropiana.com

Margesherwood X Peanuts

Margesherwood X Peanuts

The Margesherwood X Peanuts collaboration features instantly recognizable motifs.

(Marge Sherwood)

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Love is famously in the air this time of year, apparently even for cartoon characters. This enduring love is illustrated (literally) in the Margesherwood X Peanuts collaboration. Inspired by the heart-fluttering love letters Sally writes to Linus, the designs feature instantly recognizable motifs that marry the Peanuts’ charm with Margesherwood’s refined silhouettes. The zig-zag of that famous yellow shirt winkingly graces a crescent baguette, while the black stripes of Linus’s red red shirt wrap around a slouchy shoulder bag. For the true heads and lovers, there’s even a petite hobo emblazoned with Sally’s pet name for Linus: “FOR MY SWEET BABBOO.” Now available. margesherwood.com

Ryan Preciado at Hollyhock House

Ryan Preciado's site-responsive "Diary of a Fly" at Hollyhock House features Oaxacan-woven textiles.

Ryan Preciado’s site-responsive “Diary of a Fly” at Hollyhock House features Oaxacan-woven textiles.

(Roman Koval)

Ryan Preciado’s new site-responsive installation at Hollyhock House, “Diary of a Fly,” is titled after a late-1930s musical composition by Béla Bartók that imitates the frenzied pace of a fly — a fitting name since his show reconceptualizes the experience of the springtime pest flitting around a house. Instead of hovering around overripe fruit or stalking a trash can long neglected, however, viewers are invited to take in Preciado’s Oaxacan-woven textiles and brightly colored sculptures situated throughout the city’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site. Open through April 25. 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles. hollyhockhouse.org

Veronica Fernandez at Anat Ebgi

Veronica Fernanadez's "Prey" filters childhood memories through experience and emotion.

Veronica Fernanadez’s “Prey” filters childhood memories through experience and emotion.

(Veronica Fernandez)

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In the figurative paintings of Veronica Fernandez’s first solo exhibition, “Prey,” the artist’s childhood is recalled through dreamlike and fantastical scenes, with memories filtered through experience and emotion. Many of her works place a child at the center of the scene among family, friends and caretakers, who usually appear shadow-like at the edges of the paintings. As a kid, Fernandez endured periods of homelessness. But rather than depict a childhood of adversity, her paintings empower the kids within them to claim their own space, imbuing her memories with strength and light. Open through April 4. 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. anatebgi.com

Dior launches J’Adore Intense

Dior launches J’Adore Intense

Dior’s J’Adore Intense captures the scent of solar flowers with Rihanna as its muse.

(J’Adore)

Florals for spring can be groundbreaking, especially when they’re created with none other than Rihanna as their muse. Dior’s J’Adore Intense captures the scent of solar flowers — jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, violet — right before they burst into fruit. The result is a warm, bold, addictive fragrance that drips with sensuality and femininity, down to the curves of its signature gold and glass figure-eight amphora. In other words, it’s Rihanna in a bottle. Available now. dior.com

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Rocky’s Matcha X Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán

The exterior of Rocky's Matcha x Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán
Rocky's Matcha hosts Japanese tea ceremonies in an ensō-inspired tea house from Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán.

Rocky’s Matcha hosts Japanese tea ceremonies in an ensō-inspired tea house from Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán.

(Stade New York)

The single, uninhibited brushstroke of the ensō, the circular form in Zen art, serves as a record of a moment. Commissioned by Rocky’s Matcha, Oscar Tuazon’s “Circle House” at Morán Morán shares both the ensō’s form and its call to mindfulness. In the artist’s tea house, constructed from cardboard, wood and tatami mats, architecture is inseparable from ritual: visitors will soon be able to partake in a Japanese tea ceremony inside the installation, thereby participating in a choreography of attention not unlike the act of gliding an ink brush across a sheet of washi. Open through December 31. 641 N. Western Ave. Los Angeles. Subscribe to rocky’s newsletter for tea ceremony information. rockysmatcha.com and moranmorangallery.com

Celebrate Mr. Wash’s new book, “Artists in Space”

Celebrate the launch of Mr. Wash's new book of studio visits and interviews with other L.A. artists.

Celebrate the launch of Mr. Wash’s new book of studio visits and interviews with other L.A. artists.

(Mr Wash)

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Make your first BBQ of the season a meaningful one at the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, where Compton artist and criminal justice advocate, Mr. Wash, will celebrate the release of his book “Artists in Space.” Proceeds from the book, which features interviews and studio visits with 20 Angeleno residents, go toward establishing the new community center where individuals returning home from incarceration will have access to art classes, creative residencies and housing. Mr. Wash will be in conversation with Patrisse Culllors and Evan Pricco (co-publisher and founder of the Unibrow) as well as displaying new works. The event is on March 7 from 2-6 p.m. 15 W. Rosecrans Ave., Compton. artbywash.com

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‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

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‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.

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Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.

Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.

But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”

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The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.

Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.

“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.

Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features


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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

Interview highlights

On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies

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I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …

The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.

On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up

I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.

On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance

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I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.

On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant

I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.

Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.

I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.

On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works

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I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

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