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Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler on the Dune: Part Two press tour

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Ewan Mcgregor and Hayden Christensen

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith behind the scenes

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Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones behind the scenes

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Manu Rios in Strange Way of Life

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Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning, The Great bloopers

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One element of Billy that Sam Claflin really beautifully portrays is the battle Billy is having with himself not to give into his addictive inclinations. In the book, Billy says of Daisy, “When someone’s presence gives you energy, when it riles up something in you -- the way Daisy did for me -- you can turn that energy into lust or love or hate. I felt most comfortable hating her.” Sam surfaces the implications of that statement by making clear, through Billy’s coiled physicality around Daisy, that the same creative energy Daisy unlocks in Billy unsettles him to a dangerous degree because it brings him closer to his addiction. Billy quickly senses that Daisy is a threat to the control he craves, and because of the mirror she holds up to him, she is a threat to the level of self-delusion Billy is employing as a means of keeping it all together. Sam’s body language in Billy and Daisy’s early scenes practically screams “I need a drink”. Notice how tense Billy is during his initial interactions with Daisy -- the clenched jaw, balled up fists, fidgeting, constantly reaching for a cigarette. 

This tension stands out in contrast to the freedom of movement Riley gives Daisy.

And this scene at the close of episode 3 really shows Billy’s fear and trepidation, his instinct to hold himself away from the high of his and Daisy’s connection...

In conflict with his instinct to give into it. 

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Sam warms Riley up during the Aurora cover shoot

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Sam Claflin and Riley Keough on the Daisy Jones press tour 

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“Leonardo DiCaprio. That's what was going through my mind. I had seen Titanic seven and a half times in theatres, he was the love of my life.” 

-Emma Stone, on receiving her Oscar from Leonardo DiCaprio

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Shout out to Max Minghella’s performance in 5x10 (and overall this season). The little moment where Nick is turning away from Tuello on the bridge and kind of taps the top of his own head is so out of character for Nick, who is usually very physically still and contained. With that moment and the way Nick is always fidgeting with his tie, Max really finds a way to communicate the rising tension and repression that bursts forth from Nick this episode. 

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On Anthony’s watch 

Anthony’s watch is a physical manifestation of the trauma surrounding his father’s death. In season 1, he often checks it while with Siena. When she jokes that she will someday “take it apart bit by bit”, he emphasizes its importance as an heirloom passed down from his father, yet he resents its implications. Here the watch-checking signifies the burden and call of the familial responsibilities Anthony seeks to escape through Siena. 

By season 2, Anthony’s duties as viscount can no longer be avoided. Early on he’s seen checking his watch as he methodically seeks out a wife. The scene,  cut in hasty montage, is notably scored to an orchestral cover of Nirvana’s “Stay Away”. The opening lines? “Monkey see, monkey do (I don’t know why).” Anthony’s trauma only allows him to pursue marriage transactionally, a series of empty gestures. He is afraid to go past the surface because his construct of love is inextricable from grief, loss, and resentment. As he tells Lady Bridgerton, he desires a partnership “untouched by heartbreak and the ravages of grief” that his father’s death wrought. 

Anthony’s defensiveness is grounded in an overwhelming fear of death, of leaving someone with the unexpressed grief and trauma he was left with. Anthony is haunted by time -- by how suddenly it can be taken away. The foundation for the watch motif is laid in season 1, when Lady Bridgerton catches Anthony checking it and remarks, “Time, as we both know, is certainly of the essence.” Her observation underscores the watch’s symbolic import as a metaphor for Anthony’s anxiety around mortality. 

When Anthony turns the watch over and over in his hands or checks it as tic, we are seeing him grapple with his fear of the future or lack thereof. In episode 8, Lady Bridgerton urges Anthony to visit the bedridden Kate. “I do not have time for this,” he replies. Jonathan Bailey doesn’t play Anthony’s response as impatience, but almost as a plea. Anthony is not sure if he has the emotional capacity to confront Kate’s accident and what it means for him, the near impossibility of opening himself up to more loss.  “I was fearful of losing you,” Anthony tells Kate just before they mutually declare their love for one another. His ability to succumb to love is predicated on finally naming his fears.  

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Simone and Jonathan try to keep a straight face

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Station Eleven 

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