Lifestyle
Caleb Landry Jones Can Do This
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Till latest occasions on the Oscars, the movie season’s most memorable finest actor speech belonged to Caleb Landry Jones. In July, the Cannes Movie Pageant awarded Jones its prime male thespian prize for his portrayal of a mass shooter within the Australian drama “Nitram” (now in theaters and on digital). The 32-year-old actor had been to Cannes twice earlier than and had skilled its queasy jitters, spurred by consuming an excessive amount of, sleeping too little and feeling eyeballs scan his face to gauge his significance. (“L.A., however occasions 50,” he stated.) However this time, all eyeballs were fixed on him as he clutched the awards podium like a fainting chaise. “I feel I’m going to throw up,” he sputtered. The viewers tittered, unsure if his panic was a bit. Then Jones fled the stage, leaving in his wake just a few exhalations that lingered like mud clouds from a cartoon roadrunner: “I’m so sorry — I can’t do that. Thanks a lot.”
“I wished to be invisible,” Jones recalled. “I used to be barely forming phrases, and I assumed, ‘I’ve acquired to surrender.’” Re-enacting the second, he bellows, “Caleb Landry Jooooones,” seal claps after which pantomimes his flailing heebie-jeebies.
The Texas-born actor who nonetheless speaks in a singsong twang regarded exponentially extra relaxed the day we spoke within the yard of his 101-year-old ramshackle rental home in Los Angeles. In a nook of town that doesn’t but have a gentrified identify, the individuals round him (largely) don’t thoughts if he performs guitar at 2 a.m., or if he and his girlfriend, the artist Katya Zvereva, set out paper plates of tuna for the stray cats. Right here, it’s OK if Jones steels himself for stress by rolling joint after joint within the sunshine, as he did throughout our discuss. Later that afternoon, he was headed to the dentist for 4 root canals. “That’s why I’m getting as loaded up earlier than I am going in as I can.”
“Invisible” isn’t a phrase typically utilized to Jones. The redheaded actor has been a definite onscreen presence ever since he landed his very first display audition at 16 for a one-scene position within the Coen brothers’ “No Nation for Previous Males,” because the boy who biked as much as a bloodied Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) and delivered the memorable line, “Mister, you bought a bone protruding of your arm.” Jones roiled with menace because the racist son in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out”; riddled his pores and skin with ailments in Brandon Cronenberg’s bio-horror “Antiviral”; and set himself on hearth within the Safdie brothers’ “Heaven Is aware of What.” For many of his profession, he’s favored vibrant bit elements for status administrators — Jim Jarmusch, Sean Baker, Martin McDonagh, Lone Scherfig, David Lynch — over lesser movies that supply extra display time.
Jones is an odd pressure of insurgent — not a slick James Dean clone, however a cowlick that may’t assist doing its personal factor. He’s without delay meticulous and sloppy. After a childhood prognosis of obsessive compulsive dysfunction, he turned aware of the necessity to invite entropy into his life. At his residence, whereas his mind whirred with specifics — did he put precisely two teaspoons of crimson pepper in final night time’s chimichurri? — he projected disarray: paint smeared on pants, rumpled sweater, scruffy goatee. (He definitely didn’t appear to have packed a comb for his scraggly locks at Cannes.)
Zvereva, who got here exterior through the interview to supply us extra espresso, stated that when Jones first approached her on the road in New York, she thought he was homeless, even after she invited him to her studio and he, in flip, walked her to his movie set, the place his director cried fortunately that Jones had discovered one other particular person on his wavelength.
Rising up simply exterior of Dallas, Jones was inspired to comply with his creativity. His mother and father, a special-education instructor and a contractor, allowed him to attract all around the residence’s flooring till the plywood was changed by hardwood planks. His mom enrolled him in ballet and faucet, prodded him to audition for the native arts magnet, and served tea and graham crackers alongside hours of British comedies — “Monty Python” and “Wallace and Gromit,” and deeper cuts like “Solely Fools and Horses.”
A church child, he wasn’t allowed to learn X-Males comics, and he didn’t till he performed Banshee in “X-Males: First Class.” Although he loves music — and, actually, simply launched his second album of warbly psychedelia — as a lanky teenager, Jones waved off Nirvana for the Christian band DC Speak (he as soon as noticed them open for Billy Graham). That was till he acquired fixated on Bob Dylan and emulated his new idol by shrinking his shoulders and carrying tight pants.
“Stuff affected me an excessive amount of,” Jones stated. Every new obsession, like Radiohead and Bukowski, has had a manner of briefly overtaking his inventive temperament. “That’s why it’s good to seek out appearing,” he added. Exploring a personality — particularly a cryptic one whose decisions defy expectations — offers him the language to grapple together with his personal needs.
“He’s essentially the most immersive actor I’ve ever labored with,” the director of “Nitram,” Justin Kurzel, stated through Zoom. “He’s an actual artist.” Despite the fact that it’s troublesome to inform Jones so to his face. “Everytime you reward Caleb, I can see he’s uncomfortable.” Their movie is impressed by the 1996 mass taking pictures in Port Arthur, Tasmania, which motivated the Australian authorities to cross the Nationwide Firearms Settlement prohibiting computerized and semiautomatic weapons. It dominated the Australian Academy of Cinema and Tv Arts Awards in December and earned Jones a second finest actor statuette. (This time, he was in a position to prerecord his speech.)
His character — solely known as Nitram, in order to not lionize the precise shooter, who stays in jail — plods via the film like an intimidatingly outsized baby. He rages and sulks; he suffers feeling rejected for causes he can’t at all times management. And, on the finish of the movie, he finds one neighborhood who welcomes him (and his cash): gun retailers, who play good to the visibly unstable man and promote him no matter rifles he needs.
Jones, who had been requested to waste away over the length of the Australian shoot, selected to secretly gorge on meat pies in order that he’d take up more room. “No, we’re going ‘Fats Child Man!’” he stated, chuckling. A lot of the movie was improvised. They’d play a scene loud, after which strive it quiet. To know the hole between how Nitram noticed himself versus how others perceived the inarticulate, offended younger man, Kurzel assigned Jones duties: movie himself with a video digital camera, doodle in a diary. “I’d draw myself with muscular tissues, and I’d write ‘horny’ subsequent to it,” Jones stated.
“I’m unsure if I actually did ever meet Caleb,” his “Nitram” co-star Judy Davis stated by cellphone. “He was at all times utilizing an Australian accent.” Throughout their punishing scenes as mom and son, Davis, herself an award-laden display veteran, admired Jones’s openness and lack of pretension. “In all probability essentially the most responsive actor I’ve ever labored with.” When not on set, she tried to entice him into by chance utilizing his actual voice. Solely on her final day, earlier than the top of filming, did Jones startle her by breaking character to run up for a goodbye hug.
Because the shoot approached its ultimate explosion of violence, which Kurzel selected to maintain offscreen, Jones turned more and more withdrawn. The native crew, painfully accustomed to the precise tragedy, started to maintain their distance from Jones, notably after the weapons arrived on set. “I wasn’t discovering as many associates,” Jones stated.
It might sound agonizing for an artist to really feel so alone midway across the globe from residence whereas dealing with such intense materials.
“However it’s nice!” Jones insisted. “It was actually great for me as a result of I don’t know methods to act.” Perhaps he ought to let his awards have the final phrase.
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Lifestyle
Yes, chef: 'The Bear' has a lot going on in its third season : Pop Culture Happy Hour
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Jeremy Allen White in The Bear.
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Jeremy Allen White in The Bear.
FX/Hulu
The Bear just returned for its third season and it’s still one of the most stressful and most interesting shows on TV. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are launching their new fine dining restaurant, but he’s estranged from some of the people who are closest to him just as he sneaks up on a new level of success. The series is streaming now on Hulu.
Lifestyle
Pat Tillman Award Recipients Say Prince Harry Deserves the Honor
![Pat Tillman Award Recipients Say Prince Harry Deserves the Honor](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/f7/16by9/2024/07/01/f712e132bb104d9aa94418dfb9bff86a_xl.jpg)
Prince Harry has key figures in his corner amid the outrage over ESPN’s decision to honor him with the Pat Tillman Award for Service — at least 2 former winners say Harry is definitely deserving.
Jake Wood, a U.S. Marine and former college football player who won the award in 2018, tells TMZ … the Duke of Sussex is a natural fit for the Tillman honor because of Harry’s military service and his dedication to veterans.
Jake feels Prince Harry is a good choice because he’s dedicated his life to serving and supporting the military and veterans — Harry served 2 tours in Afghanistan — and that should be commended because there are hundreds of different ways a British royal could live his life.
Remember, Pat’s mom, Mary Tillman, set off the controversy when she slammed ESPN for its plan to give the award named after her son to “a controversial and divisive individual” at this month’s ESPY Awards ceremony.
Even ESPN personality Pat McAfee is publicly supporting Mary’s viewpoint, claiming his network is purposely trying to create a controversy … allegedly for better TV ratings.
Another previous winner, U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Israel Del Toro Jr., received the Tillman award in 2017, and totally disagrees with McAfee and Mary Tillman.
He says Harry’s work with wounded and injured veterans makes him a worthy recipient, and for what it’s worth … he’s looking forward to watching Harry follow in his footsteps.
That’s ESPN’s take too, as it insists Harry was chosen specifically because of his work as the founder of The Invictus Games for wounded and injured vets. Harry’s foundation is celebrating 10 years of service.
The notion ESPN selected Harry purely for publicity doesn’t make sense to Jake, who points out … the ESPYs and ESPN aren’t hurting for celebs and the ceremony is always chock-full of famous athletes.
Of course, Harry’s the first celeb to win the Pat Tillman Award for Service — in the past, it’s been reserved for unsung heroes, but Jake says Harry’s military background makes him unlike most celebs.
While Jake’s defending Harry here, don’t get it twisted … he says Pat’s mother has every right to defend her son’s legacy however she sees fit, and, obviously, he does not speak for the Tillman family.
Likewise, Israel has sympathy for Mary, but says the award boils down to service … and, for him at least, Prince Harry more than checks that box.
Lifestyle
Why 'A Family Affair' works so well as a Netflix romcom
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Nicole Kidman as Brooke Harwood and Zac Efron as Chris Cole in A Family Affair.
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About seven minutes into the new Netflix romantic comedy A Family Affair, Zac Efron, playing a conceited, not-too-bright movie star who’s just broken up with his girlfriend, is whining to his assistant (played by Joey King) that she needs to pick up his stuff from the ex-girlfriend’s place. He left treasured items there, he explains. He left his autographed Jordans! He left his Himalayan t-shirt! And then he says, gravely, as if it shows the urgency of the mission, “I left my copy of The Courage to be Disliked.” And I said, in my living room, “Ha!”
The Courage to be Disliked is a real book. It doesn’t actually endorse the practice of being a jerk; it’s more nuanced than that. But this character, without a pinch of self-awareness, bemoaning the disappearance of a book called The Courage to be Disliked? That’s a very solid joke, very solidly delivered by Efron. He follows it up with, “I have several underwears there. And people sell those.”
![Clockwise from top left: Industry, My Lady Jane, The Bear, The Umbrella Academy, Clipped and House of the Dragon](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/1351x1350+101+0/resize/100/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc5%2Fbe%2Fdd41899f4cdc8741c6f8af081988%2F6-images-1.jpg)
Eventually, the movie star, whose name is Chris, has one too many fights with the assistant, whose name is Zara, and he has to go find her to make amends. But when he goes to her house, he finds her mother, Brooke (Nicole Kidman), a beautiful widowed author who lives in the kind of gorgeous and classy house that starred in most of the best Nancy Meyers movies. (It’s sharply different from Chris’ house, which is equally fancy but also ugly and impractical, as seen in an effective little bit about his absurd front door.) Brooke and Chris start drinking tequila, they hit it off, and Zara, who lives at home and observes few boundaries with her mom, eventually walks in on them upstairs in Brooke’s bedroom.
Zara’s dismay over her mother’s relationship with Chris is not about the age difference (which goes mostly undiscussed), but about the fact that she’s seen Chris go through his girlfriend-dumping routine enough times to fear that her mother might get hurt. What follows in the script from Carrie Solomon is one part romance between Chris and Brooke, one part ongoing clash between Chris and Zara, and one part mother-daughter story about Zara and Brooke. And honestly, in this film from director Richard LaGravenese, it all works pretty well!
![Joey King as Zara Ford and Zac Efron as Chris Cole in A Family Affair.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3936x2624+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc4%2F7b%2F09f7e2054fdab01d873b57ae0db0%2Fafa-20220907-02637r.jpg)
Joey King as Zara Ford and Zac Efron as Chris Cole in A Family Affair.
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Tina Rowden/Netflix
Some of this — particularly an older woman getting involved with a younger male celebrity — may call to mind the recent movie The Idea of You, in which Anne Hathaway fell for a boy band member played by Nicholas Galitzine. I didn’t care for that movie at all, in part because it wasn’t funny enough, in part because the romance was unconvincing, and in part because the ending lacked emotional resonance. (It was based on a book with a completely different ending, and it turns out you can’t just take a carefully built story and flip the ending on its head and have the result make sense.) That book wasn’t written to be a romcom, but was adapted and wedged into the romcom box. This, on the other hand, is meant to be one — and it shows.
Efron is a much more successful, charismatic, and (especially) funny lead than Galitzine (whom I’d liked in Red, White & Royal Blue) opposite Hathaway in The Idea of You. And it’s refreshing to see Kidman happily making out with somebody, at least temporarily making her way out of the haunted-sad-person rut she’s been in for the past few years. Chris’ relationship with Brooke feels real and brings out nice things in them both, beginning when she explains the Icarus myth so he can understand its connections to his movie franchise, Icarus Rush, which she’s never seen. He certainly seems like a dope at first (“I’m Australian.” “Oh, do you know Margot Robbie?” “…No.” “I do.”), but as he gets comfortable, he grows on Brooke, in addition to being, you know, very hot.
All the way back in 2012, I wrote that Efron was making an interesting play to follow in the footsteps of somebody like Ryan Gosling. (At that time, in his mid-twenties, Efron was appearing in a Nicholas Sparks film.) Gosling was also once a Disney kid, and he managed to grow into a very good dramatic actor, a very good comic actor, and a very swoony romantic lead. Efron doesn’t have the Oscar nominations just yet, but he was excellent in a pure dramatic role in The Iron Claw in 2023, and he’s funny enough here as the willfully goofy hunk that he might have been a pretty terrific Ken if Gosling hadn’t been available — or a good Fall Guy.
![Romantic Comedy Guide: Irish Wish, Anyone But You, Upgraded](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/03/18/iw_20221004_unit_11149_r.jpg-iw_20221004_unit_11149_r_sq-ef2129b39827ac9e68403bc6b214a470984302b2.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
King is an established Netflix romcom lead herself, but she does a very nice job here, too. Besides the romance, particularly welcome is the strand of the story about Zara figuring out that the world is not all about her, even in her relationship with her mother. In a scene with her grandmother, played (skillfully as ever) by Kathy Bates, Zara starts to figure out what we all eventually must: Your parents are not only your parents, they are also human beings with lives and thoughts and wants that have nothing to do with you. She has a truth-telling moment with her best friend (Liza Koshy), too, about her problems not lying at the center of the universe, which gives the whole last act a very nice “What if somebody had forcefully told Rory Gilmore to get over herself?” quality.
Nicole Kidman as Brooke Harwood in A Family Affair.
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Tina Rowden/Netflix
It’s too early to declare some golden age of streaming romcoms, because the ones we get are still wildly uneven, and because on cable, it’s not as if they ever went away. But there’s some star power here, and some budget, and some writing and directing, that suggests interest in the genre is picking up steam and getting good results.
![Clockwise from top left: Inside Out 2, Thelma, Twisters, Hit Man, Fancy Dance and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/663x662+1681+688/resize/100/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Feb%2Fd5%2F9c7769a34e72a85a70e98fa6bb96%2F6-images-2.jpg)
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