#emma stone was PRETTY good as sally in that one production

[fireworkss-exe]

y'all see it right.....

[spaceorphan18]

Marvel Movie Nights: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

You know, based on its reputation, and the fact that I really disliked the original film because it was a bad CW version of the origina Raimi film, I was ready to just hate this film.  And... I didn’t? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great, it’s totally got a Spider-Man 3 thing going with just too much going on.  But, if I’m being honest, I kind of had fun with it? More so than the so incredibly tedious first film.  

The plot is so convoluted and twisted into itself that it’s hard to talk about it as a whole.  It’s trying to balance about six different things while attempting to set up an entire universe on its own.  And, because of that, it kind of collapses in on itself like dying star.  So, I’m gonna take this one chunk at a time... 

First we have... Peter’s dead parents.  Honestly, this is one of the elements that feels a little too much. A lot of it is contrived, especially in how his parents are tied to the spider experiments that made Peter Spider-Man in the first place.  It feels like dumb movie logic, and this is the part, for me, that felt the most emotionally hollow (which is saying a lot because there’s a lot of cheap emotional beats in this film).  I didn’t care, and this movie would have worked fine without any of it in it.  

I’m gonna mention Aunt May next, because she has so little to do.  Sally Field is great -- but there’s this weird subplot of her trying to be a nurse? She spends most of her time yelling or crying or yelling and crying, but it all amounts to about five minutes of screen time.  I get what they were doing with it -- having read enough Spider-Man comics to realize that Aunt May has been somewhat of a one-note character for most of her existence -- but she feels so obligatory here that why even bother? 

Alright, so let’s talk about Andrew Garfield again.  Believe it or not -- I liked him so much better in this film! His Peter is still very lacking, and he makes some bizarre acting choices (as well as the fact that Peter’s basically a weirdo stalker in this film) but his Spider-Man is way less of a dick, and a lot more fun.   That is... when he has someone to actually interact with, which brings me to... 

Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy.  I didn’t get the chemistry thing from the first film, because the way the relationship plays out makes no sense.  Well, it mostly makes no sense here, too, but there’s some really clear chemistry here -- and it’s so nice for Peter to actually have a grounded friend here, that this whole thing is actually the most enjoyable part of the film --- even if Peter is stalking her through half of it.  

So, maybe I need a whole other post to talk about her death, but I’m kind of fascinated by this -- because it is one of comics most shocking moments.  Seriously.  It’s what ended the Silver Age of Comics and what pushed it to the Bronze Age, where comics were taken more seriously, and began to handle more realistic story lines.  I think her death works here! It’s not set up very well -- I like a little more thematic in my superhero films -- but the actual scene is pretty good.  I do have to laugh, a little, at the fact that Spider-Man clearly murders his own girlfriend, but because they have to end the movie, they kind of gloss over that with movie time montage.  Anyway... 

Villains! This story definitely has them.  So -- there’s a ton of set up for the Sinister Six -- Black Cat is prowling around.  BJ Novak was supposed to be someone.  And of course Doc Ock’s hands are floating in some kind of liquid.  And... Paul Giamatti in a giant Rhino suit, that’s kind of hilarious.  Again, it’s too much.  They’re trying so hard to set up, like, ten sequels that it kind of kills this one.  It’s like Iron Man 2 but on steroids.  There are also some evil lawyer types, too, which, whatever... 

So, first big bad is Electro played by Jamie Foxx.  He’s such a flat and ill-defined character.  What are his powers? He’s like an electric Magneto.  And so socially awkward that he has no personality and the basic emotional intelligence of a two year old.  But that’s fine -- because the rest of the plot is only using him for his powers.  It just feels... obligatory? 

Meanwhile, there’s Harry Osborn coming in as the Green Goblin, and let me tell you, this shit is wild.  The actor plays Harry like some kind of drugged up Leo DiCaprio.  They awkwardly force a relationship with Peter after having zero set-up.  Seriously - Peter just shows up one day.  And then there’s the whole plot -- Harry is dying of some rare genetic disease that is literally making him the Green Goblin, and only Spider-Man’s blood can save him.  After being thrown out of Oscorp because evil lawyer, he breaks out Electro so they can stop Spider-Man.  And then at the end -- Harry is magically fine.  It’s wild.  And insane.  Hilariously entertaining, but insane. 

On the production side of things -- despite the fact that nothing about this film feels like it’s grounded in any kind of reality -- it’s not that bad.  The CGI holds up pretty well.  The action sequences are decent -- especially the third act, where I usually tap out, actually kept me pretty captivated.  The score is fine, but not my favorite.  And the film looks pretty clean and less dark than the original film.  

Final Thoughts: While I did enjoy it despite the major flaws, it does make me miss Tom Holland -- I know all the fanboys want Spider-Man to work alone, but I think he does best when he actually has friends.  :P 

Next-Up: X-Men Days of Future Past.  I have nothing snarky to add - this is actually a good film. 

[mamusiq]

Liza Minnelli Ruined Sally Bowles For Literally Every Other Actress By Tyler Coates  Mar 12, 2015

Liza Minnelli was miscast as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and it’s the only time bad casting ever worked out so perfectly. Minnelli was absolutely wrong for the part, but she made it her signature role and ultimately ruined it for every actress that followed her.

Even though the role is most associated with Minnelli, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Sally Bowles, she wasn’t the first person to play the nightclub performer. Based on the real-life British singer named Jean Ross that author Christopher Isherwood met during his time in Berlin just before World War II (which he would fictionalize in his 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin, the basis for Cabaret), Sally Bowles first turned up in John Van Druten’s 1951 play I Am a Camera (later turned into a movie in 1955) in which she was played by Julie Harris. Fifteen years after I Am a Camera premiered on Broadway, Sally stepped back onto the Great White Way (this time portrayed by Jill Haworth) in John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical. (Oscar winner Judi Dench even played her in the first West End production in 1968.)

Minnelli, who was just 26 when Cabaret was released in 1972, had already made a name for herself as a recording artist and a musical theater actor. It made sense, of course, as her mother was Judy Garland. She became a nightclub performer at the age of 16, won her first Tony at 19, released three albums through Capitol Records by 20, and received her first Oscar nomination by 24 for Alan J. Pakula’s The Sterile Cuckoo. By the time Cabaret was in development, she was a shoo-in for the role; her proposed co-star, Joel Grey, had been the original musical’s star on Broadway (he won a Tony for his role as the creepy Emcee, and would later also win an Oscar), and director Bob Fosse was offered the production with the instruction that Grey’s casting was non-negotiable.

It makes sense for Grey, whose identity was already attached to that of the Emcee’s, but not so much for Minnelli. Yes, she was a phenomenal singer, actress, and dancer — an honest-to-goodness triple threat. But as Sally Bowles? In Isherwood’s book, Van Druten’s play, and Kander and Ebb’s musical, Sally is a show-stopping character. She’s pretty much an actress’s dream role: she experiences moments of utter lightness and deep darkness, is irresistibly quirky, and is completely untalented. She’s a failed cabaret singer — in the first act of the show, she’s fired after a single musical number. She’s flighty and manic, which is part of her appeal to the rich men she seduces and convinces to take care of her living expenses. For an actress, it’s a golden opportunity: the best lines, the chance to show off, and the complete comfort that comes with not really needing to be a good singer.

With Minnelli in the role, though? Well, no one in their right mind could be convinced that her Sally is an untalented loser who desperately uses what little power she has — her looks, her smarts, her convincing charm — to get men to give her the funds to do what she wants to do. The film, naturally, strays from the source material (well, at least the musical source material — it’s more faithful to Isherwood’s original text). Minnelli’s Sally is, obviously, an American, and she’s a phenomenal performer. After her performance of “Mein Herr” in the first twenty minutes, even you’d be willing to raise hell if the owner of the Kit Kat Klub had the nerve to sack her.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX-24Zm0bjk]

I mean, this is the definition of slaying. Liza Minnelli could chew every single one of those Kit Kat girls up and spit them out before they had the chance to finish a verse — in a halter top and heels, no less. She knows exactly how to handle her haters.

In the play, Sally is a bit of a tragic figure. She gets pregnant, as she does in the film, and briefly makes a plan with the character based on Isherwood (in the play, he’s an American named Cliff; in the film, he’s a British man named Brian). Despite offering her an idyllic, secure life away from the brewing political darkness in Berlin, Sally rejects it — she gets an abortion behind his back, putting her foot down in refusal of a hum-drum ordinary life. And that’s when she returns to the Kit Kat Klub (in the musical, she gets her job back; in the film, she never really left) and sings the titular song that has since become one of Minnelli’s standards.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moOamKxW844]

Minnelli’s “Cabaret” is a brassy and enthusiastic celebration of life, a stunning lightness compared to the growing darkness that exists outside the cabaret’s walls (and that is slowly seeping inside, as we see by the film’s end when the camera pans from the whimsical Emcee’s painted face to the mirrored walls, which reflect the audience full of Nazi officers). We don’t see what becomes of her after the film (although we can assume that things aren’t all wine, roses, and green fingernail polish once the Nazis assume power), and are left with her standing firm and proud, basking in the cabaret lights.

While Minnelli’s Sally Bowles isn’t tragic — the film ends with her standing by her principles, demanding her independence, and both acknowledging her flaws and celebrating them — the stage version makes Sally much more complicated, and modern theater audiences’ likely don’t see her as an empowering figure. In 1993, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes mounted a drastically new production of Cabaret at London’s Donmar Warehouse, which eventually transferred to Broadway where it ran for just under six years. That production, so beloved that it returned once again to Broadway last April where it will run until the end of this month, made a star out of Alan Cumming, whose Emcee is highly sexualized and slightly demonic compared to Joel Grey’s clown. And it also introduced another generation to a slew of Sally Bowleses — Natasha Richardson won a Tony for her performance in 1998, and later Jennifer Jason Lee, Gina Gershon, Molly Ringwald, and Lea Thompson would all step into Sally’s shoes. This newer version of the revival opened last year with Michelle Williams in the role, who was later succeeded by recent Oscar nominee Emma Stone and Sienna Miller, bless her heart.

While all of these women brought something special to the role of Sally — the stage version of Sally, notably untalented and doomed, and a frail, waifish blonde compared to Minnelli’s tall, athletic brunette with a cherubic face — none of them delivered the unrelenting talent of Liza Minnelli. Part of this is because Sally Bowles was never intended to be the star that Minnelli made her; she’s intriguing and compelling, of course, but not the star. I mean, compare her rendition of “Cabaret” with Jane Horrocks — an actress who proved her immense vocal talent in the British musical drama Little Voice, but whose Sally Bowles is full of rage and resentment, and whose voice sounds like it’s being ripped out of her throat.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw-CdMSJNPM]

No one could ever match what Liza Minnelli brought to the role, and we shouldn’t expect them to. But that Minnelli also set the bar so damn high — and that the role of Sally is written the way it is — are two reasons why no Sally Bowles will ever live up to Minnelli’s.

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https://decider.com/2015/03/12/liza-minnelli-sally-bowles-cabaret/

[movieswithkevin27]

Cabaret

After not liking All That Jazz, my expectations for Cabaret were realistic. I knew that it was possible Bob Fosse's directing style was simply not something I was programmed to enjoy. The end result is a film that seems inconclusive. Definitely more up my alley than All That Jazz, Cabaret is still not a film I would quite say I liked. More-or-less, it is an above average musical (in my books) that has some positives and some drawbacks that leave it being a pretty muddled and mixed bag at the end of the day.

First, the negatives. Though La La Land has come under fire for its weak or bad singing from Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, it is abundantly clear to myself that both Stone and Gosling turn in better singing performances than Liza Minnelli and especially Joel Grey in Cabaret. Neither impress, instead turning in bland performances of bland songs such as "Money, Money" or "Two Ladies" (for Grey). Yes, both are legends - especially Minnelli - but neither really struck me as being worthy of the praise they receive for this film on the singing side of things. Minnelli is largely ineffectual and lacks the punch needed for these musical numbers, instead just feeling quite robotic and missing the gravitas necessary to pull of the songs. Fortunately for her, this is not all her fault as some of the song performed in the cabaret are just very bad. Some have great lyrics and melodies, other are just overtly risque for no other value. The former are exclusively songs with Minnelli. The latter are reserved for Grey who is just flat-out grating to watch. He is too exuberant and boisterous. His singing is comically bad throughout and seems to be played out for laughs with his weird lip movements than for any actual singing ability. If people say Gosling is bad in La La Land, then Grey needs his due for being a bad singer in Cabaret. By the end of the film, however, my favorite song was the one not including either of them and given that they were the stars and the main attractions on the musical side, this seems quite alarming.

Second, the editing is quite bad. Just as in All That Jazz, Fosse goes cut happy at points. Jumping rapidly from one image to the next, the film just turns into a blur at parts. While it is supposed to represent the speed at which everything is occurring, it unfortunately has the side effect of rendering those moments entirely unwatchable and distracting. All That Jazz had the same issue with these rapid cuts that distract more than they enhance. It is clearly a style employed by Fosse that simply does not work in my view. While not too plentiful, the moments are bad enough and occur often enough to be worth mentioning. Other than these, the editing is fine. Nothing great and nothing awful. It cuts when it should and is quite cohesive as a final product, but those few moments unfortunately leave a lot to be desired.

In the mixed, not a pro and not a con, section we have the film's sexuality. Openly confronting society's reservations about open sexuality, LGBT persons, and various other sexual taboos, Cabaret is a crucially important film. It shows that those who cross dress, are trans, are gay, are bi, or are lesbians, are just people too. They want to have fun, they cry, they want to love, and they want to laugh all the same. Cabaret, for this, is boundary shattering. It is impressively open about these topics to the point that it may be too much. Mind you, I am not saying it is too risque or that I am a prude. Rather, it feels as though the film tries too hard to push these boundaries. It includes so many topics and, by the end, it feels like the film is just sitting there and judging the audience for not accepting like one of those SNL sketches about high school theatre with the film screaming out, "This is normal and your world view is small." While I agree with its message of acceptance against its backdrop of the rise in Nazism, it feels like it pours it on a bit thick.

On the positive side of things, some songs really stand out. Though I criticized Minnelli and Grey before, allow me to walk some of those comments back in praising some of their songs. For Grey, "If You Could See Her" is beautifully sung, catchy, and incredibly entertaining. It is also thematically relevant with a great take on accepting a person for who they are and not just judging a book by its cover. For Minnelli, "Mein Herr" and "Maybe This Time" are real standouts. The former features solid singing, but tremendous choreography by Fosse. The latter is gorgeously written with a great mournful and longing delivery by Minnelli on the vocal side of things. Yet, bar none, the highlight of the film is "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". Absolutely chilling to watch be sung by a boy in a Nazi uniform and joined in by similar white people, the sequence is brilliantly put together by Fosse and haunting. The singing and lyrics are terrific, but the moment it signifies is the real highlight and shows the perfect blend of music and plot found in the entirety of Cabaret.

The brilliance of this song is similarly matched by Fosse's portrayal of the rise in Nazism in Berlin in 1931. With Jews being threatened and the Nazis constantly present no matter where you go, it is clear that the line of thinking is taking hold. Fosse handles it with grace and turns this portrayal into one of the best ones concerning the rise of Nazism in Germany due to its subtlety. Yes, a song and many lines of dialogue do occur where the Nazis are discussed, but the film's portrayal is defined in images. A man dumped on the side of the road with blood running from him to the sidewalk, a dead dog (WHY KILL DOGS?), anti-Jewish vandalism, and more adorn this film and show the chilling results of hatred. Yet, they are shown in conjunction with how hatred takes power. Early on in the film, the cabaret owner kicks out a man in a Nazi uniform. The man comes back with some Nazi buddies and beat the cabaret owner to near death. At the end of the film, as Joel Grey performs "Finale", we see a few men in Nazi uniforms in the crowd via the reflection of a mirror. It is a chilling image in-and-of itself, but in the context of the film, it comes to represent the general acceptance of Nazis in Germany by this point in time. Though written off as idle threats by men such as Maximillian (Helmut Griem), it is clear the Nazis are becoming more accepted via "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" and the final image of them simply sitting in the crowd. Once rejected by the cabaret owner, they are now allowed into the club out of fear and intimidation, which are the glue to any rise in any authoritarian power. The warnings of Brian Roberts (Michael York) to take the Nazis seriously are well worth paying attention to, just as they are in modern day America with the rise antisemitism, anti-Muslim, nationalism, and other sources of hatred in America today.

Acting-wise, Liza Minnelli and Michael York are both terrific. As the off-the-wall crazy cabaret girl Sally Bowles, Minnelli is a ball of energy but also quite sad. She is open about sex and love, but unsure of how to old onto love for a long stretch of time. She is the quintessential "once bitten, twice shy" kind of girl. Incredibly sympathetic and charming, Minnelli has excellent comedic delivery and dramatic chops in the film and is the perfect foil to York's Brian Roberts. A real fish out of water, he begins a romance with Sally after seeming quite stiff with his British accent and studies at Cambridge. He is the complete opposite of this world of Sally's in Berlin, but he is smart and incredibly brought to life by York. A truly underrated actor, I love York every time I see him and Cabaret is no exception. Alongside Minnelli, he has great chemistry and the two really work well with one another.

With a mixed bag of songs, singing, and perhaps too upfront with its sexuality and taboo shattering nature, Cabaret is an important film for a great many groups of people and it does them terrific justice. Unfortunately, the film is simply too much of a mixed bag for my taste. It has some obvious flaws - Joel Grey, some bad songs, mediocre to bad singing, and moments of awful editing - that really hold it back. Fortunately, a tremendously graceful handling of the rise of Nazism, as well as terrific editing and some great songs propel Cabaret to become a film with more good than bad.

[fwittrocknews]

The Gentleman Caller Cometh: Finn Wittrock on the Endurance of ‘The Glass Menagerie’

By Drew Grant • 03/16/17 6:00am - Posted on Observer.com (This interview goes along with the photoshoot in the previous post)

The first time I saw Finn Wittrock, he scared the shit out of me. As Dandy Mott in the fourth season of American Horror Story (that would be the “Freak Show” one, for those not keeping up), Wittrock, 32, was a rich mommy’s boy-turned-serial killing clown (because in a Ryan Murphy production, one naturally follows the other) who turned matricidal when he didn’t get his way. Wittrock, with his cleft chin and movie star good looks, has a polish that tends to cast him in a darker light: as mere mortals, it’s hard for us to imagine anyone that attractive hasn’t just been over-compensated for some defection of the soul. Which is why he’s made such a good foil in the last three seasons of Murphy’s seasonal anthology, playing everyone from Dandy to Rudolph Valentino to a vampire/male model named Tristan (and that was in the same season!) to, most recently, a backwoods inbred cannibal in American Horror Story: Roanoke …a role that required the actor to transform himself with so many prosthetics that he was barely recognizable.

But outside of AHS, Wittrock has enjoyed a killer career trajectory, beginning with an off-Broadway stint in 2011 for Tony Kushner’s The Illusion and a year later, on Broadway in Michael Nichols’ production of Death of a Salesman, a rendition made famous by its applauded reviews and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance. (Wittrock, along with future Spider-Man Andrew Garfield, played Hoffman’s prodigies.) Wittrock, like his AHS co-star Evan Peters, seems at home playing smaller parts in larger ensemble films, like his turn in Adam McKay’s The Big Short (where he played a young garage investor, Jamie Shipley) and most recently, as Emma Stone’s clueless, pre-Gosling boyfriend in La La Land.

Luckily, Wittrock didn’t manage to be part of the coterie on-stage during the epic #OscarFail of 2017, as he was in rehearsals for his return to Broadway in Sam Gold’s The Glass Menagerie. (Prior to that, he’d been working with Gold for New York Theatre Workshop’s production of Othello.) As he splits his time between Los Angeles–where he lives with his wife–and New York, where he performs alongside the likes of David Oyelowo, Daniel Craig and Sally Field, Wittrock sat down with us on his day off about Tennesse Williams, Ryan Murphy, and while he’ll always be brushing up his Shakespeare.

What do you think will surprise people most about this production of The Glass Menagerie?

I think people are surprised by how many laughs there are in the show. I was surprised when I first read it.

I don’t know how Sally Field managed to embody both my mother and my grandmother at the same time.

I heard she did some research on that, talked to them about it.

The play struck so close to home, the last third act I was just muttering into my hands “Shut up shut up shut up, you’re making it worse!” Both to your character and Field’s.

A lot of people have felt that it’s close to home, and maybe not in a totally comfortable way.

My first experience watching you was originally on American Horror Story, when she showed up in season 4 as the rich brat-turned-clown-serial-killer. But I had always wished that I had been able to see that performance of Death of a Salesman that you starred in with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

That was a life-changer.

Was that your first big introduction to theatre?

Not with theater as an art. I’ve been doing theater since I was a kid. But it was definitely like, in terms of my career, a big break for me. And just artistically too, working with those people opened me up, I would say, in a big way. So it’s kind of cool, looking back at what I think is five years ago, now.

You were what, in your early twenties?

I turned 27 during the production. It’s fun and beautiful to come back to Broadway, to see how I’m different, how my confidence is different.

As the Gentleman Caller, Jim O’Connor, you’re VERY confident.

Well…I’m acting that way. But I still feel like a kid when I’m onstage.

I was reading The New York Times‘ profile of Sam Gold putting on this production, and they gave you guys a glowing review. And I guess I hadn’t known that Madison Ferris, who plays Laura, has muscular dystrophy. That wheelchair she sits in through much of the play isn’t a prop. I just thought she was making a very specific character choice for a part that only requires a slight limp.

I think Sam is very sincere in trying to expand the pool of what we’re used to seeing onstage, and trying to crack that open; trying to crack open the norms: the normal shapes and sizes and colors of what we see onstage.

I imagine that makes the production extremely hard to block around. The scene where you are trying to get her to dance, and you knock over a figurine…the entire time, all I could think was “They must have rehearsed that scene endlessly.”

The blocking was very specific and very intricate. Though it seems very simple, there’s a lot of work that goes into making it seem that natural. The analogy is perfect for the whole production because the set looks completely bare-bones, but if you see that Times piece, you see there were, however, many thousands of pounds of concrete poured onto the stage. All the sprinklers. This contraption to make the table move back at one point, that’s an incredibly elaborate contraption of shifts and levers and things. Which, basically, no one notices. Because it’s all to make a table move back, seemingly on its own, when the spotlight is elsewhere. All the work that goes into making something seem effortless. But that’s the kind of magic of it.

I haven’t done theater since high school, but even then, I remembered just how exhausting it was. The everyday grind of it all. Rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal, opening night, all these performances…and that’s just like, a high school production of Guys and Girls. I can’t imagine what that must be like on Broadway, especially coming off doing television and film.

It is, it’s very different. The fundamentals of acting are still the same, but the kind of athleticism of doing a play is just more demanding.

I imagine everyone has to be in just really good shape.

Internally, too. Also, I think the biggest difference to me, is, say, I have a tough emotional scene to complete in a movie or a show. That will be like, a really tough day at work. It will be like 8-12 hours that are really rough, having to go there. And then it’s over; it’s done, and I never have to touch it ever again for the rest of my life. It’s in a can, it’s in a computer program somewhere and someone edits it, and it’s gone. But if I have an intense scene in a play that goes well one night, I have to go back the next day and do it again. There’s no finale, you know?

Your character, Jim, reminded me so much of most of my ex-boyfriends. One of these guys who means well, but is always trying to–for lack of a better word–“mansplain” everything. He’s a little bit of a blowhard.

I think he’s a guy who lives by self-help books. He’s a guy who lives by an idealistic, gung-ho America kind of thing. But I think he believes in it genuinely. And I think the trap is having him fall into a lecture-y egotist. I think he is selfish, but completely unconsciously. I think he is trying to help her, and the scene does play deeper.

The way he’s just hitting that beat over and over, that her problem is a lack of confidence.

I think he’s like a lot of people. A believer in hard and fast solutions. I started reading this book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. It’s one of the first kind of real self-help books. It may actually have been….Tennesse Williams might have taken some inspiration (for this character) from it. The way Jim speaks is very, very similar. So I read that every night before I go on stage.

At its core, the book actually has a nice message. It’s like “Make it about the other person, don’t make it about you.”

And explain their personalities to them.

That’s the trap, yes.

In general, I’m not the hugest Tennessee Williams fan. Melodrama is its own certain thing, and where we’re at right now as a country, it feels like watching a show that’s so claustrophobic in its view of family is maybe a bit…melodramatic. But the way Gold did the show felt very modern: there was a lot of physicality, the way the characters are constantly touching each other, that I’m pretty positive Williams didn’t write into those bare-bones stage directions.

I think Sam is always looking to how to be faithful to the play as written, but also be very affecting for people in 2017 walking into a theater. How to do both things at once, but always leaning to the side of what will affect people the most, rather than playing homage to another dead playwright.

At the very opening of the play, after Tom’s speech, someone right behind me yelled out “Sounds like Trump!”

Oh yes. I remember that. The line was about “the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind.”

That’s a great line.

I know, Tom has all the best lines. You think of these plays as sort of dated, but it does become amazingly pertinent when you strip it down. And the stuff Jim says about America…it still hasn’t aged. We haven’t aged out of that mentality.

I think the play is really harkening back to a time that is simpler. Because the play is written just at the cusp of World War II, but is set in the 30s. Tom is looking back at a time just before the world blew up with a kind of nostalgia, but also, things weren’t so great then, you know?

No, it seems almost…uncomfortably tight.

Tight, exactly. Claustrophobic. The family as the microcosm for the national blow-up that was about to happen. And I feel like there’s a sense of that now. People are, even from a few months ago, nostalgic about the past.

Oh my god, do you remember a couple months ago? Things were great!

I know right? The world was so simple!

The play is about memory, and that never gets old. You don’t think about memory in a vacuum. Every memory you have is connected. You feel something about that memory. Anything you harken back to, you feel a certain way. Your stomach is connected to your head. I think that’s what the play was after: really stripping memories down and making them about bare-bone human essentials.

Let’s go back a little bit. You said you did theater in high school?

Even before that. I was born in Massachusetts, in Lenox, and my dad worked at this theater company called Shakespeare and Company. Mostly summer, but they do some stuff year round with Shakespeare. I kind of grew up running around the hills of the Berkshires, listening to actors do Shakespeare and being like the pageboy for whatever play was happening at the time. So that’s where I caught the bug. I was young.

Were you a big Shakespeare fan?

Yes. I would say so. It was nice, I got to Othello right before this with Sam, which was great. So that’s where I began, and then I moved to LA when I was 12 and went to this arts high school, called LA High School for the Arts.

Then you came here, did Death of a Salesman…so how does this lead you back to Los Angeles and getting hooked up with the Ryan Murphy crew for American Horror Story?

Ha, it’s funny how life becomes like a domino effect, right? You can track back like “How did I meet that, from that, from that?” I was in a movie called The Normal Heart, which Ryan directed, which Mark Ruffalo was in…and actually, so was Joe Mantello (from Menagerie). He was in it on Broadway, but plays a different part. It’s a beautiful movie. I just got that from an audition. Salesman had exposed me to a lot more casting directors at the time, so I started going out a lot when that was over, and I went out for The Normal Heart and found out three months later that I got it. And then shot the scene…I mean, it’s a nice part, but it’s a smallish part. Really intense and cool, though.

I met all those guys, and then Ryan one day on the set was like, “I have this crazy idea for a character in my show. Do you want to do it?”

What he doesn’t tell you is that the following season, you have to play two characters.

Or I’ll have to wear so many prosthetics that no one recognizes me.

American Horror Story: Roanoke, will live forever in my memory as “the season we barely saw Evan Peters or Finn Wittrock.”

Yeah, it’s the season where everyone showed up and immediately died.

Well, to be fair, that’s often how AHS plots develop.

But that’s the thing about the show! Being dead doesn’t mean you’re not going to work! Kathy Bates I think, talked more AFTER she was dead.

Are you a dancer as well?

(laughs) Who told you that?

In the Hotel season of American Horror Story, you have a great tango with Lady Gaga. I thought “This guy has some moves!” And then watching the heartbreaking way you “dance” with Laura in the Menagerie…

Oh, that’s sweet. I’m married to a dancer, actually, so maybe she’s rubbed off on me through osmosis. They do make me dance on that show, that’s right. They don’t make me sing, luckily…for everyone’s sake.

I have to say, for a lot of my friends, Dandy from American Horror Story: Freak Show is their fan favorite character.

That’s cool. That’s pretty wild. He creeps me out, personally.

Ryan Murphy is heading up approximately a million projects right now: AHS, American Crime Story: Katrina, Feud….are you going to be involved with any of these projects?

You know, Ryan is a very loyal guy. I’m sure I’ll get an email from him one of these days with something to do, and I’ll inevitably say yes.

So, let’s talk La La Land. You had a small role in the film as Mia’s boyfriend. Were you there at the Oscars?

No, I wasn’t. The nice thing about doing a play is it makes for a perfect excuse not to have to go to those things. Or anything else. I guess I might have been there, if I had been in LA.

Did you watch the now-historic moment when La La Land handed the Best Picture Oscar to Moonlight?

Yes, I watched the whole thing. It was…tense. I would say the word “tense” could be used.

But it also made for some great live television.

It did, it did. I have to say, I felt bad because the Oscars had done really well, up to that moment. The show was going really well, it was a relatively diverse year, the jokes were pretty funny, people had nice speeches…and the ONLY thing people are only going to remember this fiasco. The last few seconds.

But yes, it did make for a great moment on live TV. I just don’t know you’re supposed to compare La La Land to Moonlight; it’s like comparing two totally different art forms.

[joeygoeshollywood]

Oscars 2017: My Fantasy Winners and Nominees

Do you ever watch the Oscars and are disappointed with the winners and the snubs? I know I do, which is why I have my own Fantasy Oscars. Here are my picks and I encourage you to do the same!

Best Picture

Winner: 10 Cloverfield Land

Nominees:

Arrival Everybody Wants Some!! Jackie La La Land Lion The Lobster Manchester by the Sea Moonlight Nocturnal Animals

I personally thought that 2016 was overall a pretty weak year for movies. That said, no movie got me more excited this year than 10 Cloverfield Lane. Definitely the most overlooked movie of the year, this psychological mystery thriller had me at the edge of my seat from start to finish. 

For the record, I thought La La Land was beautifully made, but it didn’t have me over the moon like other people. And I thought dramas like Jackie and Nocturnal Animals and comedies like Everybody Wants Some!! and The Lobster were worthy of a Best Picture nomination. 

Best Director

Winner: Damien Chazelle - La La Land

Nominees:

Barry Jenkins - Moonlight Yorgos Lanthimos - The Lobster Dan Trachtenberg - 10 Cloverfield Lane Denis Villeneuve - Arrival

This was really no contest. Damien Chazelle created a work of art. 

Best Actor

Winner: Casey Affleck - Manchester by the Sea

Nominees:

Colin Ferrell  - The Lobster Ryan Gosling - La La Land Michael Keaton - The Founder Denzel Washington - Fences

Casey Affleck easily gave the most challenging male lead performance of the year. Playing a damaged man who has to pick up the pieces after his brother dies and managed to make us laugh is no easy task. I also think Colin Ferrell deserved praise for his career-best performance in The Lobster and Michael Keaton again proves that he’s one of the best actors of our generation in the widely unseen film The Founder. 

Best Actress

Winner: Natalie Portman - Jackie

Nominees:

Amy Adams - Arrival Sally Field - Hello, My Name is Doris Isabelle Huppert - Elle Emma Stone - La La Land

As much as I like Emma Stone, I think Natalie Portman is more worthy of the Oscar for her portrayal of Jackie Kennedy. Amy Adams has become the new Leonardo DiCaprio in my book and was completely snubbed for her brilliant performance in Arrival and Sally Field gave such a memorable performance in the indie comedy Hello, My Name is Doris. 

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: John Goodman - 10 Cloverfield Lane

Nominees:

Mahershala Ali - Moonlight Jeff Bridges - Hell or Hight Water Lucas Hedges - Manchester by the Sea Timothy Spall - Denial

There is no bigger travesty in any of the acting categories than John Goodman not being nominated for his performance in 10 Cloverfield Lane. He was brilliantly terrifying as a man who kept audiences guessing whether he’s good, crazy, or evil! Timothy Spall also deserves a shoutout for his role as the infamous Holocaust denier David Irving in the courtroom drama Denial. 

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Viola Davis - Fences

Nominees:

Olivia Colman - The Lobster Naomie Harris - Moonlight Molly Shannon - Other People Michelle Williams - Manchester by the Sea

It’s about time the Academy gave Viola Davis an Oscar. She’s truly a terrific actress and her performance as a struggling wife and mother in Fences is worthy of gold. That said, Molly Shannon came at a very close second for her painful performance as a cancer-sickened mother with a sense of humor in the indie dramedy Other People. Olivia Colman also deserves recognition for her hilarious dry-humor performance in The Lobster. 

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: The Lobster

Nominees:

Everybody Wants Some!! Jackie La La Land Manchester by the Sea

No film this year was more original than The Lobster. Here’s the synopsis: In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods. The result: a hilarious well-crafted dark comedy. 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Winner: Arrival

Nominees:

Denial Fences Lion Hidden Figures

It’s hard to make a sci-fi film feel so real. Arrival did exactly that. Not only was it a great drama, it was thought-provoking, something that’s rare for any film to do these days. 

Best Cinematography

Winner: La La Land

Nominees:

Arrival Moonlight Nocturnal Animals Silence

The opening sequence alone gave La La Land this award. It’s worth noting that Nocturnal Animals was completely snubbed in this category. It’s stunning cinematography deserved a nomination. 

Best Editing

Winner: Arrival

Nominees:

10 Cloverfield Lane Jackie La La Land Nocturnal Animals

Part of Arrival’s brilliance that it seamlessly jumps in time, and the strange thing is, you don’t exactly know if you’re in the present, the future, or even the past, yet it flowed so naturally. 

Best Production Design

Winner: La La Land

Nominees:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Florence Foster Jenkins Hail, Caesar! Jackie

Best Costume Design

Winner: Jackie

Nominees:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Florence Foster Jenkins Hidden Figures La La Land

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Winner: Star Trek Beyond

Nominees:

Deadpool Florence Foster Jenkins Jackie Suicide Squad

Best Visual Effects

Winner: The Jungle Book

Nominees:

Arrival Doctor Strange A Monster Calls Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Best Original Score

Winner: La La Land

Nominees:

10 Cloverfield Lane Jackie Lion Nocturnal Animals

Best Original Song

Winner: “How Far I’ll Go” - Moana

Nominees:

"Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” - La La Land “City of Stars” - La La Land “Drive It Like You Stole It” - Sing Street “Montage” - Swiss Army Man

Best Sound Editing

Winner: 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Nominees:

Deepwater Horizon Don’t Breathe La La Land Patriot’s Day

Best Sound Mixing

Winner: La La Land

Nominees:

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi Deepwater Horizon Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Best Animated Feature

Winner: Kubo and the Two Strings

Nominees:

Finding Dory Moana Sing Zootopia

ORIGINAL CATEGORIES

Best Ensemble

Winner: Moonlight

Nominees:

Hidden Figures The Lobster Manchester by the Sea Nocturnal Animals

It’s remarkable how the Oscars haven’t added Best Ensemble as a category. Moonlight handily wins this year with strong performances from Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Janelle Monáe, and breakthrough actors Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes, who all play the same character in different stages of his life. 

Best Comedy

Winner: The Lobster

Nominees:

Deadpool Everybody Wants Some!! Sing Street Swiss Army Man

Comedies don’t get enough praise. The Lobster is not only a great comedy, it’s a great film. 

Best Breakthrough Filmmaker

Winner: Barry Jenkins - Moonlight

Nominees:

Robert Eggers - The Witch Chris Kelly - Other People Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert - Swiss Army Man Yorgos Lanthimos - The Lobster

A category dedicated to writer-directors, Barry Jenkins wins this award for brutal but important coming-of-age drama Moonlight which depicts the life of a gay black boy growing up in the ghetto. 

Best Breakthrough Actor

Winner: Lewis MacDougall - A Monster Calls

Nominees:

Alden Ehrenreich - Hail, Caesar! Alex Hibbert - Moonlight Sunny Pawar - Lion Ferdia Walsh-Peelo - Sing Street

Child actors tend to go unappreciated. Lewis MacDougall gave one of the best performances of the year. A Monster Calls put him on the map as a troubled boy who befriends a monster when his mother’s illness gets worse.  One of the most powerful and emotional performances of the year, he will have a long and successful career ahead of him.

Best Breakthrough Actress

Winner: Anya Taylor-Joy - The Witch

Nominees:

Auli’i Cravalho - Moana Zoey Deutch - Everybody Wants Some!! Ruth Negga - Loving Madison Wolfe - The Conjuring 2 

Anya Taylor-Joy gives a terrifyingly good performance as a girl whose family accuses her of being a witch in The Witch. 

What would your Fantasy Oscars look like? Let me know!

[marriedtothescreen]

Golden Globe Nominations 2018 - Films

The nominees are out for the Jan 7th 2018 (NBC) award show, kicking off the award season for film. Many of the usual big name stars are nominated this year but lots interesting smaller stars and productions who could steal the categories as well. We will be looking at each category and breaking down possible winners and snubs.

Best Motion Picture Drama:

Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

The Post and Dunkirk give us a inside look at major events and made beautifully by legendary filmmakers but will be given a serious run for their money by the three others. The Shape of Water is leading nominations with 7 so is a big contender but Call Me By Your Name has been gaining ground to contend. A huge fan of Dunkirk, I think this could sweep technical awards but I think Call Me and and Water could be the top contenders. 

Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical:

Disaster Artist, Get Out, The Greatest Showman, I Tonya, Lady Bird.

Get Out, a horror film has slipped into the category of comedy but probably wouldn’t have stood a chance in drama a great film and will get far more recognition up in this category. Front runners for me would be Lady Bird then the Disaster Artist. I, Tonya is growing in more buzz though. I think the biggest snub was the Big Sick. 

Actress in a Drama Film:

Jessica Chastain “Molly’s Game”, Sally Hawkins “The Shape of Water”, Frances McDormand “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, Meryl Streep “The Post”, Michelle Williams “All the Money in the World”

Five strong proven female performers but I think the decision is between Frances McDormand’s fierce mourning mother and Sally Hawkins mute performance. 

Actress In a Comedy or Musical Film:

Judi Dench “Victoria & Abdul”, Helen Mirren “The Leisure Seeker”, Margot Robbie “I, Tonya”, Saoirse Ronan “Lady Bird”, Emma Stone “Battle of the Sexes”

The great Dames in with the young ladies. I think the category will be going straight to Saoirse Ronan but with Margot Robbie possibly contending as well. 

Actor in a Drama Film:

Timothée Chalamet “Call Me By Your Name”, Daniel Day-Lewis “Phantom Thread”, Tom Hanks “The Post”, Gary Oldman “Darkest Hour”, Denzel Washington “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”

The one up and comer versus the legend old guys. This is supposedly Daniel’s last role but I think the competition might be between Chalamet and Oldman. Chalamet is impressing in this beautiful relationship story while Oldman has really given a strong performance of Churchill in the back in Britain side of history that is happening in other nominee’s film Dunkirk.  

Actor in a Comedy or Musical Film:

Steve Carell “Battle of the Sexes”, Ansel Elgort “Baby Driver”, James Franco “The Disaster Artist”, Hugh Jackman “The Greatest Showman”, Daniel Kaluuya “Get Out”

In my humble opinion this category will probably go to James Franco. Hugh Jackman is a strong actor but it’s the only performance I can’t give my opinion on and so far only Franco has really done it for this category. I feel  Kumail Nanjiani from the Big Sick was snubbed and probably should have Elgort’s nomination. 

Supporting Actress in a Film:

Mary J. Blige “Mudbound”, Hong Chau “Downsizing”, Allison Janney “I, Tonya”, Laurie Metcalf “Lady Bird”, Octavia Spencer “The Shape of Water”

The category is probably between two strong mother roles from Janney and Metcalf but I think Allison Janney has taken it with her portrayal of Tonya Harding’s foul mouthed abusive mother. Nice to see Hong Chau nominated for her better performance in a mixed reception film and Mary J. Blige nominated for the Netflix film.

Supporting Actor in a Film:

Willem Dafoe “The Florida Project”, Armie Hammer “Call Me By Your Name”, Richard Jenkins “The Shape of Water”, Christopher Plummer “All the Money in the World”, Sam Rockwell “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri”

I think the award will go to Armie Hammer for this one but Christopher Plummer must have put on his legend cap because he was only given a few days before filming after being asked to replace Kevin Spacey, hoping Jenkins will be given a good chance too.

Best Director of a Motion Picture:

Guillermo del Toro “The Shape of Water”, Martin McDonagh “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, Christopher Nolan “Dunkirk”, Ridley Scott “All the Money in the World”, Steven Spielberg “The Post”

My heart as a fan is a bit torn in this category between del Toro and Nolan. I would really love for both of them to be recognized for these projects. I think it would go to del Toro over Nolan probably even with some criticism over the edit of the timelines of Dunkirk but I think it is one of the most beautifully shot war films as a whole. 

Best Animated Film:

The Boss Baby, The Breadwinner, Coco, Ferdinand, Loving Vincent

Major released animated films this hands down has to go to Coco. Though the smaller films Breadwinner and Vincent could give a run for it. Loving Vincent beautifully told as like it were all paintings done by Van Gogh. The story and different style of animation could also contend with Coco. 

Best Screenplay Motion Picture:

Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor “The Shape of Water”, Greta Gerwig “Lady Bird”, Liz Hannah and Josh Singer “The Post”, Martin McDonagh “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, Aaron Sorkin “Molly’s Game”

Sorkin and Hannah are strong contenders but i wouldn’t rule out Gerwig. 

Best Original Song:

“Home” Ferdinand, “Mighty River” Mudbound, “Remember Me”Coco, “The Star” The Star, “This Is Me” The Greatest Showman

Category with some pop stars in it, Mariah Carey, Nick Jonas and Mary J. Blige against the winners of last year who wrote for The Greatest Showman. Though through the famous singers and musical numbers, Remember Me is a beautiful song deserving of a win. I would say very good original songs from Beauty and the Beast were snubbed. Could have been a diva showdown between Mariah and Celine. 

Best Original Score:

Carter Burwell “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, Alexandre Desplat “The Shape of Water”, John Williams “The Post”, Jonny Greenwood “Phantom Thread”, Hans Zimmer “Dunkirk”

I will say this would be a Hollywood Reporter Round Table I would love to see. You have the legend John Williams, and the edgier Jonny Greenwood but if I could just hand an award over to someone I would give it to Zimmer. His score for Dunkirk kept my heart on edge for that whole film. Even in scenes where you already knew what would happen his score beautifully was toying with your emotions literally having me go oh god oh go. He scored an epic war film without needing to go above and beyond dramatic with his score.

Best Foreign Language Film:

A Fantastic Woman, First They Killed My Father, In the Fade, Loveless, The Square

The category has a transgender singer, child soldiers, neo nazis, divorce and art. My Father will probably get the most attention as it’s made by Angelina Jolie but its a pretty open category. 

[njawaidofficial]

'Awards Chatter' Podcast — Ryan Murphy ('Feud: Bette and Joan')

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/14/awards-chatter-podcast-ryan-murphy-feud-bette-and-joan/

'Awards Chatter' Podcast — Ryan Murphy ('Feud: Bette and Joan')

“The only difference between me and the ten guys and women who were in my writing group when I first started out here in Hollywood is that I’m the only one of those people who just didn’t take no for an answer and didn’t become devastated over the rejection,” says Ryan Murphy, the writer, director, producer and showrunner best known for creating or co-creating The WB’s Popular, FX’s Nip/Tuck, Fox’s Glee, NBC’s The New Normal and Fox’s Scream Queens, as well as the ongoing FX anthology series American Horror Story, American Crime Story and Feud. As we sit down at the offices of Ryan Murphy Productions on the Fox lot to record an episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s ‘Awards Chatter’ podcast, Murphy continues, “I think that’s because when I was growing up, I would get pushed down. And what are you gonna do? You gonna stay on the ground? No, you’re gonna get up and you’re gonna keep going. I’ve always had that philosophy: ‘Okay, well, that didn’t work out — and it hurt — so what’s the next thing that might?'”

(Click above to listen to this episode or here to access all of our 165 episodes via iTunes. Past guests include Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Eddie Murphy, Lady Gaga, Robert De Niro, Amy Schumer, Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez, Louis C.K., Emma Stone, Harvey Weinstein, Natalie Portman, Jerry Seinfeld, Jane Fonda, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Nicole Kidman, Aziz Ansari, Taraji P. Henson, J.J. Abrams, Helen Mirren, Justin Timberlake, Brie Larson, Ryan Reynolds, Alicia Vikander, Warren Beatty, Jessica Chastain, Samuel L. Jackson, Kate Winslet, Sting, Isabelle Huppert, Tyler Perry, Sally Field, Michael Moore, Lily Collins, Denzel Washington, Mandy Moore, Ricky Gervais, Kristen Stewart, James Corden, Sarah Silverman, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin, Rami Malek, Allison Janney, Eddie Redmayne, Olivia Wilde, Trevor Noah and Elisabeth Moss.)

Murphy, 51, was born and raised in Indianapolis — partially by his grandmother, who helped to introduce him to film and TV — as part of “a very rigorous, conservative,” religious, middle-class family. He knew early on that he was gay, but remained in the closet until the age of 15, when his mother discovered love letters that he had exchanged with an older boy and sent him to a therapist. The therapist met with him several times and then told his parents that they could either love him or lose him, and they got on board — but even so, by the time he graduated from high school and college, he knew that he needed to get away. “I always wanted to come to Hollywood, even as a young kid, and I always knew I would end up here,” he says, “I just didn’t know how.”

After college, Murphy headed west “with nothing” but, nevertheless, “instantly loved it.” A journalism major in college, he started out as a freelance writer and eventually graduated to churning out celebrity profiles for Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles Times, while doing his own writing on the side. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I knew the way in was to write,” he recalls, and indeed his first screenplay, Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn?, was read by an agent and bought by Steven Spielberg. “From that, everyone wanted to meet me,” he recalls. Murphy spent the next two years selling movie pitches and writing scripts, but, he says, “I realized, at that point, that I didn’t really want to be a writer; what I really wanted to be was a director/producer.”

At the urging of Murphy’s agent at the time, he turned one of his film scripts into a TV pitch, and all four networks bid on it. It wound up at The WB in 1999 as Popular, and it helped to put him on the map. He loved much about working in television — “I loved the pace of it and the energy and I liked creating something and writing something and then you were shooting it a week later,” he explains — but his overall experience with that show was “really terrible”: “I had homophobic executives; I was constantly being told to change who I was and what I was writing; and I always felt like I was 15 years old, you know, back pre-shrink.” The show was canceled after two seasons.

At that point, Murphy says, “I just decided, ‘Okay, well, what do you want to do and what do you want to be? You’ve got a foot in the door and your next move has to be pretty good.” In 2003, inspired by Mike Nichols and his 1971 film Carnal Knowledge, as well as an article that he came across about plastic surgery, he created the series Nip/Tuck for FX, marking his first of many collaborations with that network; his first time doing a show that didn’t really fit into any pre-existing mold; and, with the exception of one episode of Popular, his first time directing. “That was sort of the birth of a different part of my life and career,” he says, and he was recognized for it with a best drama series Golden Globe Award in 2005.

With his stock soaring, Murphy poured his heart and soul into Pretty Handsome, a pilot about a small-town gynecologist who realizes he is a woman, but, to his devastation, FX passed on it. However, this proved to be the first of several times when a low moment paved the way for high ones soon after — in this case, Glee and American Horror Story. “Every great success that I’ve had in my life has come from a disappointment that I was devastated by,” he marvels. “From that Pretty Handsome melancholy came these two big hits in my career, and it only happened, I think, because I was forced to get quiet and say to myself, ‘Well what do you really want to talk about?'” (He notes that a similar thing happened years later when FX declined to pick up his pilot Open, soon after which he arrived at the idea for The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.)

Glee was “an optimistic family musical” in which “the underdogs would always win,” Murphy says, noting, “There was a lot of my childhood in there.” Beyond being a musical series, the show — which ran on Fox from 2009 through 2015, arriving, like Modern Family, shortly after the election of America’s first black president — prominently featured LGBTQ and disabled characters, and became a full-fledged hit. “That was one of the biggest shocks of my life, that that show became what it became,” he confesses. Two years into its run, he launched a totally different sort of program — an anthology series in the mold of The Twilight Zone and others from TV’s Golden Age, only with a horror tint — and American Horror Story became an award-winning hit in its own right.

What’s with all the genre hopping, which most TV content creators never get to do because they either have more limited interests or get pigeon-holed into one sort of work? Murphy gets the chance, he says, because “Not everything [I do] does work, but I’ve had enough things that have that shouldn’t have” that he is given the benefit of the doubt. The desire, though, exists for deeper reasons. “I love all different genres and I just sort of bounce around between them because it keeps things fresh for me,” he explains. “And, I guess, maybe subconsciously, in the early days it was a way for me to not be stereotyped, when I have felt, as a minority, that I’m so stereotyped. He adds, “Now, I would say, it really is by design. I really love it.”

Another thing he loves: actors. He has built a veritable stock company over the years, led by his two queens from different generations, Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson, and also including Kathy Bates, Frances Conroy, Angela Bassett, Lily Rabe, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts, Matt Bomer and Denis O’Hare, plus many behind-the-scenes collaborators. “I think it comes from me having a sense of, ‘I wish that I had more of a close-knit family growing up and maybe felt a part of a community growing up,’ and I didn’t,” he reflects. As for the disproportionate number of women, and particularly older women, with whom he works, he says, “I like writing roles for women over 40 because it just resurfaces them, and they’re great.” This year, he started the Half Foundation, an initiative within his production company, to make 50 percent of his on-set hires women.

Murphy also has used his pedestal to highlight stories about gay people, not only on Glee, but in his short-lived semi-autobiographical NBC sitcom The New Normal (2012-2013) and his HBO TV movie The Normal Heart (2014), on which he partnered with Larry Kramer to bring Kramer’s landmark play to the screen after years of roadblocks. Productions like these would not have been possible less than two decades ago, when Murphy was starting out in the business. “I feel like I haven’t changed,” he says. “I feel what changed is the executives. The executives are now great — like, they want those characters. They know that launching a conversation about anything in visibility means a more diversified audience, which leads to success.”

Recently, Murphy has devoted a lot of his time to launching new FX anthology series in the mold of American Horror Story. He started last year with American Crime Story and its first installment, The People v. O.J. Simpson, which proved a towering success. And this year he did so again with Feud and its first installment, Bette and Joan, an eight-part study of the complicated relationship between the legendary movie stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, two best actress Oscar winners, starring two other best actress Oscar winners, the aforementioned Lange, as Crawford, as well as Susan Sarandon, as Davis. For it, Murphy personally received three Emmy nominations in July — best limited series, best directing for a limited series, movie or dramatic special and best writing for a limited series, movie or dramatic special — bringing his career tally to 23, four of which have turned into wins: best directing for a comedy series for Glee in 2010; best TV movie for The Normal Heart in 2014; best limited series for The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story in 2016; and best short form nonfiction or reality series for Inside Look: The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story in 2016.

Murphy, who grew up obsessed with Hollywood’s Golden Age and the Oscars, interviewed Davis when he first moved out to L.A., and created Feud using information from that conversation, tons of other research and a film script that he and Plan B bought years ago. He insists that the bickering of the two actresses featured on the show was not at all replicated by the two actresses who brought them back to life on his set. “It was a love-fest,” he says of Lange and Sarandon’s interactions. “They actually worked well together and supported each other and had great ideas for scenes for each other, so none of that happened. And hilariously, and thankfully, they were both nominated for best actress, as opposed to poor Joan Crawford, who wasn’t invited to the party [in 1963 for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, when the Academy nominated Davis but not Crawford for best actress]. Jessica and Susan are staunch feminists and believe in equality, and they’re not gonna do that bullshit. They’re just not those people. They’re not interested in petty gossiping. I’ve never met two women less interested in that.”

The one bit of drama that has been associated with Feud has come from the most unexpected of places: Olivia de Havilland, the sole legendary actress portrayed in the film who still is alive today. In June, on the eve of her 101st birthday, de Havilland sued Murphy for, allegedly, defaming her on the show (which she had not yet seen when I asked her about it in April). “I was saddened by it because I felt that I really had written and produced and directed a love letter to these women, and I was like, ‘Oh, no, really? I love her so much,'” Murphy says. “I’m sorry that she feels badly about it, but I don’t know why she feels badly.” In reference to Feud‘s depiction of de Havilland, he insists, “There is absolutely nothing but love — there is no malice, there is nothing said that’s not treating her like a lady.”

Murphy emphasizes, “The other thing that I think people should know about the docudramas that I do — be it Feud or American Crime Story with O.J. or [the subjects of an upcoming installment] Charles and Diana and on and on — you know, we don’t just write those and film them; we write them and lawyers read them and they say, ‘Where did you get this piece of information from? Where is this quote of Olivia de Havilland coming from?’ Obviously, the construct of doing a documentary wrap-around is a device of docudrama that’s been done since God was a boy. But everything that we have Olivia or Joan or Bette saying is, I would say, based completely on existing information, either research or interviews. And in the case of Olivia de Havilland, we have a very long document, as we did with Joan and Bette, where we say, ‘This is where we got this line from. She said this in an interview.’ Is it directly the exact line? No, some of it’s tweaked, but it’s all based on fact, it’s all based on research. And this had been vetted for months before we even shot any episode.”

He notes, “I feel like Olivia de Havilland is a historical figure, and I’m just sad she didn’t love it as much as everybody else seemed to. But I also have the support of Fox, and we have 15 lawyers who have reviewed every claim and think there absolutely is no claim.” But, he emphasizes, “I have nothing but love and admiration for her, and I do think it will all end up okay. Maybe I’ll get to meet her in court, but I hope it doesn’t go that far. The first thing I would do is say, ‘Can I have an autograph? I really love you! I really do!'”

Throughout our conversation, while discussing past traumas, personal and professional, and even lawsuits, Murphy exudes calm, but he says that doesn’t mean he isn’t upset about some of what’s going on around him. “I feel very angry about the state of the country,” he vents, “and I feel like the best thing that I can do is sit up straight and shut up and just write characters that are going through difficulties, so that people can see that and, as human beings, hopefully recognize that pain is pain is pain. That’s what I’m interested in doing as my sort of political activism.”

Glee Primetime Emmy Awards Feud

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