#one just happened to also look like lois's actress's husband

[cogentranting]

Who did they have playing adult Jon and why did he look so much like David Giuntoli?

[lavoixhumaine]

Tim Minear, I got a fucking bone to pick with you.

How the fuck did Nick and Nora, made during the infamous Hays Code era by the way, make out more times than Bobby and Athena? Like I’m not counting (I am and it is zero) but how is that exactly possible?

The film’s characters, supposedly married, weren’t even allowed for sleep in one bed because of those ridiculous rules and yet they seemed to convey more affection and sexual tension.

Meanwhile, you have no such restrictions with these actors today. We’re not even asking them to have movie magic sex, sir. We were just hoping for some actual fun sleuthing adventures with our favorite chaotic couple.

—because that was the expectation you set when you said they were going to be like The Thin Man.

(This should have been a red flag honestly because—in my opinion—apart from “The Thrilling Adventure Hour’s Beyond Belief” with Frank and Sadie Doyle, there has never been a truly good adaptation or inspired piece of The Thin Man which actually has led me to think it’s some kind of curse on its own, like a mini-Macbeth)

How do you reference The Thin Man regarding the episode you wrote? Like sir, Nick and Nora were a rich, chaotic, drunk honeymooning, sleuthing couple with a funny little dog who just happened to solve crimes for funsies because the wise-cracking wife and her cute little nose would not let her husband stay out of trouble.

They made sleuthing look fun and marriage seem sexy which was already a revolutionary idea in the silver screens of the 1930s…like that is the complete opposite of what you wrote in “Abandon ‘Ships”, Mr. Minear. Did you even watch the movies or did someone just say, ‘hey, you know those black and white movies…?’

I don’t mind what you did in the episode. I mind that you uttered complete bullshit about it saying it’s like The Thin Man movies because, no, hell no. Not even close. I really don’t get how you pulled that comment from your ass, sir. Respectfully.

So did you lie or did you just choose to reference the film series because this is another jab at the Oscars? Because as it happens, they also presented the actress who played Nora, Myrna Loy (sidenote: everyone knew she should have won for the 1946 film “The Best Years of Our Lives”) an Honorary Oscar.

So what I’m actually saying is, you kinda suck for lying through your stupid teeth, Tim Minear. So like go kick rocks or something. And maybe don’t ever speak of The Thin Man again if you’re just gonna lie about it.

[buffyfan145]

Not putting this in the tags for the show but I just saw a tease about the series finale tomorrow of "Superman & Lois" from Lois's actress herself and if what I think is going to happen it's huge!!! 😀 Putting it under a cut for those that don't want spoiled.

So what Bitsie posted is that fans of "Grimm" will be really excited about something that happens. Her husband David was one of the main characters and directed episodes of "S&L", but he also voices Batman/Bruce in multiple animated Batman movies and shows. There's been rumors for a while that either someone from the Arrowverse or their versions of either Batman or Supergirl would show up. This from her seems to suggest the Batman rumors are true and that David is playing him, which will be another example of the voice actor playing the character in live-action too. I'm hoping this is the case and will be awesome, but at the same time sad that they can't follow up with anything with the new DCU coming out and another actor being cast as Batman too for that (besides Robert in "The Batman" universe too). But at least looks like they got the ok to do this.

[princess-of-the-worlds]

Torchwood and the (Mis)treatment of its Characters of Color

Let’s be honest; despite its decent track record with queer characters, Torchwood has a problem with how it treats its characters of colors, and I say this as a South Asian, bisexual fan of the show. 

For the purposes of this post, I will only be looking at the Torchwood television series (so spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2, Children of Earth, and Miracle Day), and not as Big Finish Torchwood releases since I do not believe myself to be well-versed enough in them to be able to make an accurate post. And also, as much as I love Big Finish for eveything they’re doing, on-screen POC representation is very different from audio POC representation. (And for the purposes of this post, I will not be addressing the mistreatment of Martha Jones, which really, if you think about it, stems from Doctor Who and not Torchwood.)

TLDR; Torchwood has neglected or mistreated its characters of color, given them little or no background, and brutally killed them off, often for shock value.

Let’s start with Suzie Costello. 

Suzie Costello, played by Indira Varma who is a British actress of Indian descent, was promoted alongside the regular cast members in publicity material before “Everything Changes” aired, giving the impression that she would be sticking around for a while or would be a main character. Instead, she was unceremoniously killed off at the end of the first episode and only pops up once more in “They Keep Killing Suzie.” At no point was Suzie acknowledged as a woman of color or given much more background beyond her tumultuous, most likely abusive, relationship with her father.

Next, we get to Toshiko Sato, left as the only person of color on the team after Suzie’s death. 

Wonderful, gorgeous, caring Tosh who, for all intents and purposes, is essentially a walking stereotype. She’s an Asian (Japanese specifically) technology genius who is unlucky at love. Need I say more? (Check out this Teen Vogue article if you’re wondering why that’s a bad thing, or, honestly, just quickly search Google.) And all three of the Tosh-heavy episodes (”Greeks Bearing Gifts,” “To the Last Man,” and “Adam”) feature her being unlucky in love (Mary betraying her, Tommy dying, and Adam manipulating her). Plus, there’s everything with Owen where she pines after him for years only for him to finally recognize that before he dies, and then he, well, dies; that plot arc only ends in death and sadness.

Additionally, we only have limited background for Tosh in comparison to Jack and Gwen (who I guess you could kind of say are the main characters) but even in comparison to Ianto (for whom more background was revealed only because he became a more prominent character in COE.) We know she was born in London, moved to Japan as a child, and at some point moved back before growing up in the United Kingdom. She had a younger brother (mentioned in a deleted scene in “Captain Jack Harkness”) and a grandfather who worked at Bletchley Park (mentioned in “Greeks Bearing Gifts” and “Captain Jack Harkness.”) She also very much loved her family, or at least her mother, enough to commit treason for her, despite her mother only being seen in “End of Days” and “Fragments.” But that’s about it. 

There was so much more Torchwood could have done with Tosh. We could have seen more about her family or her education. We certainly could have seen more about her bisexuality; everything that happened with Mary was not a satisfying resolution. Instead, she was killed off alongside Owen in “Exit Wounds.” Torchwood used the death of a woman of color for shock value, and no matter how effective or emotional that was, it was not excusable. There was so much story left to be told with Toshiko Sato. 

Tosh’s death brought the racial diversity in Torchwood down to zilch.

Next, we have Lisa Hallett.

Now, Lisa Hallett...what do we actually know about her? She worked at Torchwood One, dated Ianto Jones, and loved him enough to maybe fight cyberprogramming for him - this part might be subjective to your own interpretation of “Cyberwoman.” We don’t know anything about her, really, apart from how she is defined and described for a white male main character, which...is problematic enough. I mean, would it have been too much to ask the writers for maybe some further description? I mean, I don’t know. Maybe where exactly she worked in Torchwood London? How she joined? How she met Ianto? If she had any family, any other friends? Why she loved Torchwood and worked there? Heck, a flashback scene featuring a non-cyberized Lisa and Ianto would have been brilliant. Is that too much to have asked of the Torchwood writers? I don’t know.

Then there’s the entire fact that Lisa was turned into a Cyberwoman. Now, I have many problems with how Doctor Who and Torchwood uses its Cybermen, especially regarding its continuous brutalization of black and brown bodies for emotional and shock value (Lisa, Danny Pink, and Bill Potts are only some examples.) It sends a very, very nasty message to these shows’ viewers of color, especially if they’re younger and more impressionable. Plus, the depiction of Lisa in “Cyberwoman” was uncomfortable and unnecessarily sexualized, but this is a whole different essay. But in the end, Lisa Hallett was pumped with bullets many, many times, and her death only added to the emotional pain of a white man.

Now, we come to more minor characters.

Beth Halloran was a human who did not know her true identity as an alien sleeper agent. She had a very interesting and action-packed story arc in “Sleeper” before ending up dead at the hands of Torchwood. She had an emotional struggle between her human identity and her truth as an alien sleeper and chose to help save the world, intentionally ending up dead at the hands of Torchwood. That being said, she was still another character of color who Torchwood had bothered fleshing out who ended up dead.

Next, there’s Dr. Rupesh Patanjali. 

Introduced in COE, he’s a medical doctor who catches Jack and Ianto working on a case and ends up piquing their interest after he makes some shit up. Spoiler alert: he’s an MI-5 plant. We see Gwen attempt to conduct orientation and recruitment with him. He has a fun setup to be a potential new Torchwood member and inside spy, but instead, he lures Jack to the hospital where Jack’s implanted with a bomb. And despite doing his job as requested and doing it rather well, Rupesh Patanjali is shot dead by Agent Johnson that very episode, just like Beth.

Then we have Lois Habiba, arguably the most interesting and fun character introduced in COE. 

She’s a naive newcomer, almost like Gwen, but during her first week working in the Home Office, she finds herself committing treason, conspiring against her boss Frobisher, and helping save the world from an alien invasion. She’s smart, resourceful, and principled, very much like Ianto. Like with a lot of the characters on this list, we know next-to-nothing about her background, which is odd considering her rather major role in COE. And despite being seemingly set up to become a member of Torchwood, we never see her again.

Finally, we come to Miracle Day and its two new characters of color, Rex Matheson and Dr. Vera Juarez. I won’t be getting into too much detail here, especially since MD has its own problems.

Ah, Rex.

Torchwood finally has a man of color for a main character who seems like he could be an interesting foil to Jack (a high-ranking CIA agent with a high bullshit meter), and what do they do...they kill him in his first scene. Oh, and they make him “lightly” homophobic, because that’s always fun. And then he ends up immortal in some kind of bullshit plot hole...I have enough to say there.

Vera, however, was quite interesting. Again, little to no background besides the basic (from San Antonio, had an ex-husband, is a surgeon), but she was still a Latina medical doctor. She had morals and was very stubborn and determined to save people, which is why she insisted into helping Torchwood sneak into the overflow camp. And what did she get for that? She ended up brutually shot in front of her lover Rex, which traumatized them both, and then literally burnt alive. Thrown on top of that? In a quite meta move really, the death of another woman of color was used to incite outrage around the country, and the world, and expose the wrongdoings of the United States government regarding the Miracle. Good stuff? Either way, it came at the cost of the death of one strong woman of color and the further trauma of another man of color.

Plus, there’s everything about how unnecessarily violent and graphic some of the deaths of these characters of color. To put it into perspective, think about how Owen or Ianto or Esther died. (I’m not trying to reduce the values of their deaths; I’m just trying to get you to think about it.)

So yeah, that’s all I have to say about that. Torchwood, you could have done better with your characters of color. (And thank you if you stuck all this way with me.)

TLDR; Torchwood has neglected or mistreated its characters of color, given them little or no background, and brutally killed them off, often for shock value.

[karazor--el]

Supergirl’s David Harewood Teases His 'Significant' Role In Crisis

David Harewood has been an important member of the cast of Supergirl since its first episode. Since then, his character, the Martian Manhunter J’onn J’onzz, has been through a lot both as the head of the DEO and as a son and brother reconnecting with long-lost family. Yet, one thing we haven’t seen Harewood do is play a large role in past Arrowverse crossovers. With "Crisis on Infinite Earths," that’s about to change.

CBR spoke to Harewood about what it’s been like to get to know his character’s family on Supergirl, the “significant” role he plays in the upcoming "Crisis" and the crossover’s impact on J'onn J'onzz going forward.

CBR: On Supergirl we’ve been learning a lot about J’onn J’onzz’s family over the past few seasons. What has that been like for you as an actor?

David Harewood: Well I keep getting these surprises. I always thought I was the last son of Mars, but I’m not the last son of Mars. There’s quite a few. So it’s been great. The writers always seem to come up with these relatives that are… challenging in some way.

But it’s been just wonderful in terms of acting to be able to work with the likes of Carl Lumbly, particularly Carl Lumbly but also Phil LaMarr. But working with Carl on Season 3, I believe it was, that’s probably one of the… highlights of my career just working with Carl.... And I feel very, very lucky and blessed that Supergirl has given me the opportunity to work with such a great actor.

When did you learn J’onn would be dealing with this brother he betrayed leading into “Crisis on Infinite Earths?”

I kind of knew something about it towards the end of last season [that] it might happen. But it’s been great. I’ve been aware of the character, obviously, for many years. It’s always nice to be able to reach back into J’onn’s mythology.

He’s such an incredible character with such a great pay-off. It’s been a real pleasure playing him and exploring him. As an actor it’s been great to explore the mythology of the character. Maybe one day somebody’ll play him in a movie. He deserves it. He’s such a fabulous, fabulous character.

Did you draw on any personal experience for J’onn’s familial squabbles?

Oh, always. Not necessarily squabbles, but I would say, in the past, exploring J’onn’s character, he was very much alone and you use the experience of being away from your own family and what that would be. So, I guess you do get to use your own experiences in that way.

And Carl Lumbly, I mean, just wow! I mean he actually looked just like my dad at some point. It was really odd ‘cause I lost my dad… about three or four years ago to the same condition [his character lost his father to], dementia. It was really, really amazing to work with [Lumbly] on that and kind of explore that.… Things like that have just been fantastic.

I’m sorry about your dad.

Dementia’s just terrible isn’t it?

Supergirl hasn’t been as “Crisis”-centric as The Flash or Arrow this season but in the mid-season finale we learned that all of J’onn’s trials with Malefic had been a test set up by the Monitor. Why was it J’onn specifically that was being tested?

I think as you’ll see throughout the "Crisis," J’onn… has many capabilities and I think one of them specifically is going to be highly important. And I think perhaps the Monitor was… testing J’onn to make sure his skills are honed because during the Crisis he plays a significant role, and it is specifically because he’s a Martian that he’s able to do that. I think the Monitor is probably right to think of J’onn when he was thinking about… exactly what was happening.

The Monitor told J’onn that his vulnerabilities were his strengths. Can you elaborate on what he might have meant by that?

I can’t particularly elaborate on it for J’onn but I think all of us need to acknowledge our vulnerabilities… And be aware of… putting up these fronts of “everything’s okay, I’m fine.” People do feel vulnerable. People should be free to reach out. I don’t think it is a weakness. Society always thinks that being vulnerable is a weakness and I don’t think it is, I think it’s a sign of openness.

Speaking of going into “Crisis,” this is a massive crossover. When you were shooting it what was it like being on set with all of the people that are involved?

Just fantastic! Very, very, very, very exciting… They’re all such individuals. They all bring their own individual energies and it’s great! It’s really wonderful… spending so much time with them all. I haven’t really featured in many of the previous crossovers, so it was interesting to sit across from this guy and this girl.

And I think we’ve all got some fantastic pictures to post, which we didn’t really want to do or couldn’t do because obviously we didn’t want to give away stories, so I think people are going to look forward to some really nice photographs over the next couple of weeks.

Oh, very cool! What was your response to the part you got to play in the crossover?

It was very exciting. As I say, having not previously featured in the crossovers to suddenly be very much a part of what is happening was satisfying and gratifying. Also a double-edged sword because not having been in the previous crossovers I’ve managed to go home and see my family, which is always nice. So, I couldn’t do that this time. That’s why it was so nice getting home [over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend].

Can you speak to J’onn’s relationship with any of the other heroes or villains in the crossover?

It’s always nice to see Tyler [Hoechlin, who plays the Arrowverse’s Superman]. He’s such a fantastic, fantastic actor and such a wonderful representation of Superman. I think he completely nailed it. And I really wish him well with his new show [Superman & Lois]. That’s going to be really exciting, really excellent. So it’s always nice to be around him, and with some of the other guys…. I’m amazed at how many of them have musical backgrounds… Every now and again there’s a little bit of a number. It’s quite exciting to be around them.

What will the impact of the crossover be on J’onn or Supergirl going forward?

The Crisis is going to affect everybody. So I think specifically with J’onn there is a fundamental change with J’onn that I think will be interesting for fans and interesting for me as a character and an interesting direction… to take the character. So I’m excited to see what these next scripts are going to be.

[Supergirl star] Melissa [Benoist] recently posted a video about being a survivor of domestic violence. What were your feelings about her story and her decision to speak out?

I think she’s incredibly brave and I was really, really proud of her. I love her to bits as an actress and as a person. And I’m 100 percent behind her. And I think we’re incredibly blessed in this company to have people who speak… their truth and are unafraid, as I said before, to show vulnerability… I was really proud of Melissa that day for owning that, being honest. It’s incredibly encouraging and will help other people… be honest about what their own situations are. [Former Supergirl actor and Benoist's husband] Chris [Wood] was a wonderful advocate for mental health, as am I. We’re really lucky to be a part of a cast of actors who are really unafraid to speak their truth and I was very proud of Melissa that day.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" begins Sunday, Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Supergirl, then continues in Batwoman on Monday, Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. ET/PT and in The Flash on Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. After the winter hiatus, the crossover will conclude on Tuesday, Jan. 14 in Arrow at 8 p.m. ET/PT and in DC's Legends of Tomorrow at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, Supergirl stars Melissa Benoist as Kara Danvers, David Harewood as Martian Manhunter, Mehcad Brooks as Jimmy Olsen and Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers.

CBR.

[introvertguide]

How to Support Your Lead Actors 101: A Lesson from the Supporting Cast of The Last Picture Show

SPOILER ALERT! I don’t know if this is even necessary, but I got some harsh words about ruining something so I am throwing this in just in case.

The first time that I saw The Last Picture Show (1971), I was not a fan. I thought it seemed liked a midnight movie because it was a bunch of teens in a small town living out their senior year with goals like losing their virginity. I thought it was a coming of age “boner comedy” along the lines of Porky’s, Private School, or American Pie. Just a bunch of unrealistic situations that are used to get nudity in the movie. The mistake for me was that I was watching the lead characters of Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd). Sonny was such a pushover non-entity and Jacy was a callous harpy who used her appearance to get what she wanted. So why do I enjoy it now? What happened? That answer is simple: it is not the leads that make this movie great, but the massive supporting cast.

I cannot say more than opinion as to the acting ability of Timothy Bottoms and Cybill Shepherd, but, for me, they did nothing to stand out in their respective roles in this film (they were the only main actors not nominated for an Oscar). I forgot that Sonny was the lead and Duane was his buddy since I saw the film last, he leaves so little of an impression on me. What makes the movie are the adults around the character of Sonny that try to guide him and he is just too dumb to listen. He is impressed by these adults, he hears what they say, he knows he should take their advice...but he does that mid adolescent thing of just doing whatever he wants anyway.

There are three characters that made this movie for me and I want to go through each role and acknowledge what a strong part the actors played in the film:

Cloris Leachman as Ruth Popper: This was the role of a down trodden woman in her 40s that was in a loveless and sexless marriage with a closeted gay man. She is not the prettiest woman in town now, nor was she in her youth and she considered herself lucky to get any kind of husband at all. She has an affair with Sonny and for once she is the focal point of lusting from a young man, something that she might never have been in her life. He eventually stops seeing her and gets tangled up with Jacy Farrow, but he is eventually dumped and he goes back to see Ruth for consoling. She hates him for what he did, the only light of hope for her life of depressing loneliness, and he just decided to stop calling on her to chase after some pretty face that had no interest in him. Sonny is so mean and so stupid, but Ruth realizes that he is just like a puppy and doesn’t realize what he has done. She forgives him because he knows not the pain he causes. Leachman plays the part of the woman scorned who never did anything wrong except be born and stay in a dying town. She picked the wrong man and lived a wasted life. Cloris Leachman won the best supporting actress award for her part and she defined the idea of “supporting” the lead as well as I have ever seen...her best competition being these next two actors.

Ellen Burstyn as Lois Farrow: The actress was actually given the choice of characters and she chose this one as the most interesting. Ironically, she lost the Best Supporting Actress to the actress who ended up playing Ruth Popper, the same way the character thinks she is getting the best situation available and still ends up falling short. Lois Farrow was the best looking girl in town in her generation and she now watches as her daughter uses that same power to wreak havoc on the local boys. Lois knows what it is like to play with the emotions of others and turn everyone against each other. She knows what her daughter is (basically a succubus) and what kind of carnage will be left behind, and Lois feels regret. She did the same things without caring about the suffering of others and now she sees these nice boys being hurt. She also suffered the death of the one good man that actually understood her and that she loved. She left him behind for some modicum of wealth and the promise of an easy life and always regretted it. Burstyn does such a great job playing a woman with such mixed motivations: she hates the town and wants it to disappear (although she is in it so that would hurt her as well), she wants her daughter to run over men for vengeance against all the men that have hurt her (although she regrets that the good men in both of their lives are the ones that seem to get hurt most of all), and she is bored and wants something interesting to happen (although all the things that happen seem to negatively affect her). What a confused and wonderful character.

Ben Johnson as Sam the Lion: To me, this is far and away the best character and actor in the film. Not even close. This is the man that owns most of the businesses in town and watches over the kids to keep them out of trouble. He is the most valuable asset in the entire town. He has spent his whole life there and has learned from watching the residents. He is almost like the omniscient narrator of the story. He is the understanding father figure that all of the kids (heck, all of the adults) need. He is the Atticus Finch of this story and Ben Johnson, the veteran actor since the 40s, is perfect for the part. He is the cool grizzled cowboy that has seen a lot of things and passes on his wisdom to the next generation (both as a character and as an actor). Ben Johnson won the Best Supporting Actor award that year and he earned it.

There is the old acting saying that “there are no small parts, only small actors.” This is the case of highly experienced, talented, professional actors taking roles with fewer lines and screen time for the sake of being in a good movie. Admittedly, they all had a scene in which they were given a chance to shine (Leachman and the coffee scene, Burstyn and the drive home, and Johnson by the lake), but all three took their chance and it made the movie.

Takeaway from all this, I was wrong about the movie and I am glad I gave it a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chance. I was watching the lead characters when I should have been watching what was going on around them. I don’t know how connected these things are, but I did not like the movie when I was closer to the age of the main characters and today I love the movie now that I am closer to the age of the supporting actors. I get what it is like to watch children blindly make the same mistakes that you did and there is really nothing you can do about it. Bravo to these actors for bravely portraying a quintessential “has-been” right at the age when that is a great concern.

[aion-rsa]

Superman & Lois: How “Fail Safe” Sets Up a Difficult Choice for Lois

https://ift.tt/3wYtFgl

This article contains Superman & Lois spoilers

Superman & Lois Episode 13

Superman & Lois has done so many things right in its first season, deftly paying homage to the classic origins of the Man of Steel even as it explores an entirely new corner of the Superman mythos, introducing intriguing comics heroes like John Henry Irons, and reinventing the story of the final days of Krypton in ways that give Clark Kent a new connection to the home he left behind. 

Thankfully, Lois Lane has been given just as much emotional and narrative weight in this series’ story as her superpowered husband – juggling stories that encompass her roles as a mother, a wife, and a daughter. But despite the fact that she’s essentially the most famous journalist in the world, we haven’t actually gotten to see Lois do a ton of reporting, and her job at the local Smallville Gazette has thus far served as little more than the means that allows her to investigate Morgan Edge.

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And though the latest episode, “Fail Safe,” doesn’t show really show us our favorite star reporter in action, so to speak, it does illustrate how difficult balancing her family’s secrets and her desire to serve the truth is becoming. The hour forces her to face something of an ethical crisis, asking where she’s willing to draw the line when it comes to protecting her family and telling the truth. 

Lois, of course, knows exactly what happened to all the Smallville residents who had Kryptonian consciousnesses stuffed into their bodies and precisely how Morgan Edge was responsible for it. But that’s not exactly a story she can put in the paper, not without potentially exposing multiple members of her family to very real danger. 

The fact that Lois decides to be less than truthful is as understandable as it is shocking. I mean, this is Lois Lane – she’s basically the embodiment of the truth part of the whole truth, justice, and the American way thing. But when faced with uncomfortable questions about Edge and what, precisely, the Department of Defense was doing in Smallville, Lois balks, choosing to lie (poorly) about what she knows. 

As a result, we not only get to see Lois genuinely struggle with what (if anything) to reveal in the press about what happened, we also see her get called on the carpet by a most unexpected person.

Smallville Gazette editor Chrissy Beppo has spent most of Superman & Lois’ first season gazing at her star reporter with heart eyes: Lois is her idol, after all, and she’s beyond thrilled that they get the chance to work together. It’s why Lois’s choice to lie stings so much.

In “Fail Safe,” Chrissy stands up to Lois for the first time, confronting her co-worker (but more importantly, her friend) about the fact that she’s not only lying, but she’s also going against the very thing she always purported to believe in most: The truth. 

“​​I think [that] was a very scary thing for Chrissy,” actress Sofia Hasmik tells Den of Geek. “[But] I think it’s something that needed to be done.” 

“Because a lot of what she does admire in Lois is this very unrelenting, very steadfast approach to journalism. Not only does she admire her as a person, [but she also] admires her integrity as a journalist.” 

In Hasmik’s view, Chrissy calling out Lois’s problematic behavior is a sign of just how much she respects and cares about her. 

“You learn from your idols, you know,” Hasmik says. “And you hope to not only do yourself justice but to do them justice [too]. This is what I learned from you, and this is why I’m holding my ground on this.

By standing up to Lois and standing up for the truth of the story – what a perfect way to pay homage to her idol in a weird way.”

Read more

TV

Superman & Lois Episode 12 Ending Teases More DC Comics Villains

By Mike Cecchini

TV

Diggle’s Green Lantern “Cosmic Destiny” and a Potential Superman Connection

By Nicole Hill

Much of the tension at the heart of Superman & Lois revolves around trying to keep potentially life-altering secrets in a small town that’s very existence is built on the idea of trust and community. No matter what you do in a place like Smallville, your actions will inevitably impact those around you in ways both good and ill – whether you’re a superhero, a local mom, or an intrepid journalist trying to track down a story. 

Edge didn’t just brainwash a dozen innocent people and force them to do his bidding, he did so by preying on the very connections that make Smallville special. Lana, for example, was such a great choice to convince others to join his company precisely because she was so trusted by her neighbors and friends. It’s why she’s being (pretty unfairly) punished so viciously now. 

So while Lois’s decision to cover for her father and the DoD certainly makes sense – it’s not like they can tell the town residents about the whole Edge actually being Superman’s half-brother trying to build a Kryptonian army thing – it’s also easy to understand why Chrissy would see it as such a personal betrayal. Who’s going to look out for Smallville if not the people that live there?

“I think [for] Lois, this particular moment with Chrissy especially, could be a reminder of what she [once] stood for. And you also see in the episode that Lois has her moments as well. She doesn’t feel good about the situation either. And it is a very in-your-face reminder of why she got into journalism.. I’m just really happy that Chrissy got to play a part in that.”

Ultimately, Lois’ realization that she’s too close to the story to report on it objectively feels like a defining moment for her – that perhaps despite her best intentions both at home and in the office, there are times where she won’t be able to balance everything and difficult choices will have to be made.

“Her entire career  [has been] coming to this sort of ethics build-up of her personal life with Clark and Superman and her father. Where do you draw the line? what stays private?” Hasmik says. 

Though Superman & Lois is a superhero show, it’s also a story about the heroes present in everyday life, whether that means a community that comes together to lift up someone in need or one single woman who’s determined not to keep local journalism alive in her town, even if she has to do itall  on her own. 

“I admire so much that Superman & Lois – it [says] that we all have the ability within us to choose right from wrong. And instead of succumbing to pressures or outside influences, it’s [about] really standing up for what is right,” Hasmik says. “It’s this idea of families, this idea of community, it’s what’s for the greater good and how everyone’s actions [can] influence that. I’m just so proud of the show for having those messages wrapped in every single episode.”

As for Chrissy and Lois, though the pair’s friendship is currently at a rocky place, Hasmik is looking forward to seeing their relationship develop even further as the series progresses. 

“I’m obsessed with the Chrissy and Lois relationship,” she says. They’re such a duo together and I think the relationship has developed so much since we first met Chrissy and since she first met Lois. She’s been holding the Gazette down [on her own] for so long. [So] I love the fact that Lois is with her now and I can’t wait to see the development of where that goes.”  

The post Superman & Lois: How “Fail Safe” Sets Up a Difficult Choice for Lois appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[riley1cannon]

Favorite books of 2017

A Murder is Announced, Agatha Christie; Miss Marple mystery

The Zig Zag Girl, Elly Griffiths; first in the Magic Men mysteries (Brighton, after the war; DI Edgar Stephens & Max Mephisto – if you want to picture, say, Dan Stevens and Matthew Goode, I certainly won’t object – are on the case.)

Wouldn’t It Be Deadly?, D.E. Ireland (Eliza Doolittle has to prove Henry Higgings didn’t murder someone. Yes, I know, and honestly my expectations were set really low for this one, but it was vritually free so what the heck. Turned out to be fun, however, and the main trick was fancasting the characters in my head to provide distance from the musical.)

Ghost Talkers, Mary Robinette Kowal (The Great War, mediums employed – in a scheme dreamed up by Houdini and Cona Doyle – to debrief soldiers who have passed over; a cameo by J.R.R. Tolkein; a tear jerker romance; a murder and other skullduggery to solve; and ghosts.)

Design for Dying, Renee Patrick (Our heroine, Lillian Frost, teams up with not-yet-legendary costume designer Edith Head to solve the murder of a starlet – and Lillian’s former roommate – Ruby Carroll in 1930s Hollywood. Look for cameos by Preston Sturgess, Bob Hope, and Barbara Stanwyck, along with a fun cast of original characters, and a pretty good mystery.

Rules of Murder and Death by the Book, Julianna Deering (Books one and two in the Drew Farthering Golden Age-style mysteries. One head’s up: These are from a Christian book publisher, and matters of faith do pop up. It’s not pervasive or preachy, however, so unless you just absolutely loathe even the tiniest whiff of that, you should be able to enjoy these. Example: There is a romantic subplot going on, and while things are kept chaste and above board, there is plenty of sizzle going on between Drew and Madeline.)

Lost Among the Living, Simone St. James (The author’s farewell to the 1920s, but still featuring a heroine getting to the bottom of a what’s behind a haunting.)

A Fatal Winter, G.M. Malliet (The second Max Tudor mystery, and rather better than the first, although I enjoyed that too, with a couple of reservations. Max is former MI5 agent who left the service after a mission went bad, and found a new calling as vicar Nether Monkslip. His former skill set serves him well when murder comes to his parish. If you love Grantchester, this should go over well. Frankly, Max may prove better company than Sidney does at times.)

Lois Lane: Fallout, Gwenda Bond (While I didn’t love this one as much as hoped, it was still a lot of fun. There is a strong Smallville vibe, and that’s not a bad thing.)

Holding Court, K.C. Held (The other YA title on my list. This one is a mystery, with some romance, some laughs, and twist or two along the way. It’s a stand alone title but could easily be the start of a series.)

Speaking From Among the Bones & The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, Alan Bradley (Books five and six in the Flavia de Luce series.)

The Invisible Library, Genevieve Cogman (Librarians saving the universe, w/steampunk fanasty elements. Difficult to describe; heap of fun to read.)

Claws for Alarm & Crime and Catnip, T.C. LoTempio (Books two and three in the Nick and Nora cozy series. Nora is a former true crime reporter, now operating a sandwich shop in a fictional SoCal town; Nick is the cat who adopted her after his other human, a private eye, disappeared. If you like cozy mysteries with cats, this is a good series to check out. And in case you don’t know, cozy mysteries with cats is a huge, huge thing.)

Romancing the Duke, Tessa Dare (A romantic frolic with engaging characters, and enough substance to maintain interest. Just when you think it’s going right over the top, it doesn’t. If that make any sense. Steam rating: High.)

Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaronovitch (Wacky paranormal hijinks for Peter Grant in the English countryside. So, you know, par for the course, and enjoyable as the preceding books. Bonus points for this one for giving us some more insights into Nightingale, although the man himself doesn’t appear very often. And when am I going to get around to reading The Hanging Tree? It’s been in my to read stack for ages now...)

Indigo Slam, Robert Crais (Private eye novel featuring L.A. detective Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. This time the guys are hired by some kids to find their father. Since it’s Elvis and Joe, of course things get way more complicated.

Property of a Lady, Sarah Rayne (Another ghost story/mystery, the first in a series featuring Oxford don Michael Flint and antiques dealer Nell West. The story revolves around a creepy old house, and there are some genuine chills as Michael and Nell investigate. Their primary means of investigating involves discovering hidden documents. That begins to strain credulity a bit, but I found I coud put up with it. I will probably read more, to see if something at the end of this one is followed up in a subsequent book, and to discover if we ever actually meet Michael’s cat, Wilberforce.)

Night of the Living Deed, E.J. Copperman (Another cozy, this time with ghosts.)

Borrower of the Night, Elizabeth Peters (The first Vicky Bliss novel, and a fun intro to her and her life. John won’t turn up until the next book but there are other romantic interests. Not to mention mysterious shennanigans in a creep old castle, some shivery moments, and a bit of history along the way.)

A Familiar Tail & By Familiar Means, Delia James (Another cozy cat mystery, this time with a pinch of witchcraft as well.)

Whiskey Beach, Nora Roberts (Suspense, romance, family ties, longer than it needed to be but someone I mind that less with Nora than some other authors. Steam rating: Moderate.)

Garden of Lies, Amanda Quick (One of the things I love about AQ books is that along with the romance, we usually get a murder mystery to solve, often with paranormal elements. Another thing is, that although she has some Regencies in her backlist, she’s staked out the Victorian Era as her primary time period. Nothing against Regencies but this reader does sometimes need a break from the ton and all that. Now AQ appears to be moving into the 20th century, which this reader also applauds. Bring on the Jazz Age, baby! Anyway, I liked this one and only wish it was the start of a series of Ursula and Slater mystery romances. Oh well… Steam rating: Moderate.)

Agatha Christie: They Came to Bagdhad; A Pocketful of Rye, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, Murder with Mirrors, 4:50 from Paddington (The first is one of her non-series novels, a fun thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat, and also made me wish Dame Agatha had turned her hand to spy thrillers more. The rest are Miss Marple mysteries.)

Mary Stewart: This Rough Magic & Madam, Will You Talk? (This Rough Magic was a reread, and one that held up quite nicely. Young actress on holiday on Corfu, intrigue, romance, gorgeous scenery, and a charming dolphin. Madam, Will You Talk? is her first novel, but just as polished as the later ones. Young, war widowed teacher on holiday in France, brooding hero with dark past, gorgeous scenery, and even car chases. Why there aren’t a series of movies based on these books mystifies me.)

Those were the print books. Here are the ebooks that made a good impression:

Little Clock House on the Green, Eve Devon (Contemporary romantic comedy set in a quirky English village. My only complaint with this one is that certain reveals, re: the heroine’s motivations, took too long to come to light. It wasn’t a huge problem for me, though. The characters were good company. Steam level: practically Hallmark Channel.)

Murder at the Brightwell, Ashley Weaver (First book is the Amory Ames mystery, an homage to the Golden Age, and this one isn’t bonkers. Amory is at the Brightwell, a resort hotel, to help out an old friend--and one-time romantic partner--as well as evaluate the state of her marriage to husband Milo. And then of course there’s a murder. I went into this one expecting one thing to happen, re: Amory and the men in her life, and wound up rather nicely surprised at developments. The mystery was good too.

The Yankee Club, Michael Murphy (Another historical mystery. This time we’re in 1930s New York, with a private eye-turned-mystery writer back in town and getting involved in the murder of his former partner, reunited with his former girlfriend, now a Broadway star, and winding up hip deep in a conspiracy that threatens the very foundations of America. There’s some actual history to back that up, however, and it doesn’t play as over the top as it may sound. Like Design for Dying above, there are cameos by real life celebrities of the time like Cole Porter.)

Bed, Breakfast & Bones, Carolyn L. Dean (Young woman in need of a change moves to a small town on the West Coast, decided to revive the bed & breakfast, finds a body--the usual cozy formula. It’s played well here and I wouldn’t mind reading more books in the series.)

Southern Spirits, Angie Fox (This time our cozy heroine is struggling to keep her ancestral home, while she gets involved in a mystery and is assisted by both the local hunky sheriff and a ghost. I went in expecting nothing, and in fact anticipating to wind up deleting it, and wound up pleasantly surprised. An instance of: don’t judge a book by its cover.)

The Undateable, Sarah Title (Contemporary romantic comedy. A librarian finds herself part a meme that goes viral. This leads to a makeover and a quest to prove she is not the most undateable woman in San Francisco, and it is really way better than I’m making it sound. Promise. Steam level: practically Hallmark Channel.

Act Like It, Lucy Parker (Contemporary romantic comedy, set agains the background of the British theater world, and employing the fake dating trope. I loved it. Steam level: also moderate.)

Marriage is Murder, Emma Jameson (Historical mystery once more. England just before the War, and our doctor hero is sent to a small town in Cornwall, the same town his wife left behind her, and where secrets abound. They no sooner arrive than the wife is killed in a hit-and-run, and the husband left badly injured. Horrible accident or was it murder?)

There were other books–58, total–and many not listed here had their merits, but this batch were the ones that were the page turners, the don’t want to put it down and go to bed ones, the can’t wait to get back to it ones.

There were several books started and not finished; there were others started and put back the shelf to try another time. The latter, I think, is the better option. They may win me yet.

I have no reading agenda for 2018. Just more books, good books, and if I’m lucky one or two that surprise me by being so much better than they looked going in. Love when that happens.

[usnewsaggregator-blog]

Lois Smith’s Life Unfolds On Stage And Screen. In 2017, It’s All Paying Off.

New Post has been published on https://usnewsaggregator.com/arts-culture/lois-smiths-life-unfolds-on-stage-and-screen-in-2017-its-all-paying-off/

Lois Smith’s Life Unfolds On Stage And Screen. In 2017, It’s All Paying Off.

To talk to Lois Smith is to hear her professes, again and again, how “fortunate” and “lucky” she has been, almost as if everything in her career happened by chance.

At 87, Smith is closing the book on what may be the splashiest year of her seven-decade tenure in film and theater. In January, the big-screen adaptation of “Marjorie Prime” premiered at Sundance; Smith’s performance has since sparked Oscar buzz, collecting nominations from the Gotham Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards. Smith originated the role onstage, in Jordan Harrison’s Pulitzer-nominated play about an octogenarian conjuring memories from her life in the company of her late husband, who assumes the form of a computer-programmed hologram. 

The movie “Marjorie Prime” opened in August. Then, Smith appeared in November’s “Lady Bird,” the acclaimed Greta Gerwig film that’s another awards season favorite. For a venerated actress who has consistently worked without achieving widespread fame, Smith’s 2017 has been an improbable treat. It’s one of precious few examples of aging performers earning their due. 

HuffPost sat down with Smith in New York on the afternoon of last month’s Gotham Awards. If she earns an Oscar nomination on Jan. 23, she’ll be among the oldest nominees in the award’s 90-year history. What does she think of all this fuss? She’s grateful, of course, but she could do without it, too.

It seems you’ve had a huge year. Does it feel that way to you?

Oh my gosh, it’s been wild. This past year has been very quiet for me, actually, in a certain way. I was recovering from [her partner, actor David Margulies’] death, which happened a year ago last January. It’s getting into almost two years now.

But the year just before this very year was so busy. The first time I did “Marjorie Prime” was the fall of 2014, and after that, I did a play at [Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago] that Rory Kinnear had written, his first play, and directly back to New York and pretty straight into Annie Baker’s play “John” [at Signature Theatre Company in August 2015]. And right after that was the filming of “Marjorie Prime,” and right after that — I mean, really, hours — into the first rehearsal of “Marjorie Prime” onstage at Playwrights Horizons.

And then it was January of 2016. That year, I turned down all the roles that came for the stage. Nothing I was really into. But I started doing quite a lot of guest shots in episodic series. It’s all been really overwhelming, really it has been.

I’m not working [now]. Well, I’m doing television stuck in among the other things, briefly. I’ve got plays coming up, but not until spring.

Do you prefer to stay in New York?

I do. I love to be at home. I really do.

Was there a point in your career when you became choosier about the roles that required travel?

Well, for quite a while I was a single mother with a growing child, and I thought, I can’t really take long trips, and I also don’t want to. It’s a good excuse.

And then later, there were good times, onstage and on film, of going out of town. I haven’t done a lot of classics, though. I’ve done almost no Shakespeare, I’m sorry to say, but I did get to do some Chekhov and Shaw. Irene Lewis was so great — the first time I worked at the Baltimore Center Stage, when she was the artistic director, I did a modern George Walker play, and she asked me if there’s anything I wanted to do. At that time, I knew I wanted to do “The Cherry Orchard,” and we did a beautiful production. And then I said, “When I was a student, I always thought I’d do Shaw, and I never had.” And she did “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” for me, so that was a treat.

I always say it’s the people or the material, and when the people and the material were very attractive, there’s no reason I couldn’t do the plays.

Is there a Shakespeare role that you’d love to get your hands on?

You know, it’s a little late now for my favorites. There might still be something.

You could kick “Macbeth” up a couple of generations and do an older Lady Macbeth, right?

[Laughs.] We’ll see.

The list of people you’ve worked with is astonishing: John Cassavetes, James Stewart, Helen Hayes, James Dean, Jack Nicholson — all before 1980.

Isn’t that amazing? As it happens, it just happens. You know, James Dean was not an icon. He was a very talented, fascinating young actor doing his first movie. Certainly, some of it has been sort of astonishing, but it’s never like ― gasp! 

I’ve been most greatly fortunate, and sometimes very fortunate to have something drop in my lap, like working with James Stewart on a television show. That was just a funny thing — I don’t know how it happened. Somebody in the big television casting stuff must have noticed that I was one of the young actresses who had started to work. But it was never a big pursuit. I just kept working. I’ve been very fortunate to do that.

Did James Stewart have a big movie-star aura?

No, no. Most people are lovely, really.

“Marjorie Prime” has consumed such a large portion of your life.

It’s been well over four years since I was first handed “Marjorie Prime” to play. I’ve been living with it a long time.

It does seem like your profile has risen in conjunction with this role. Audiences get to discover the same role across stage and screen.

It’s interesting. When you just said stage and screen are coming together, that’s true, really, because I don’t think that’s ever happened before for me, and it doesn’t happen very often that people play something on the stage and get to make a film of it.

Now, when I did it onstage, I did it at the Taper in LA, and at the Playwrights Horizon. These are places where I’ve done regional theater, and the New York scene of theater companies where I have worked for a long time. So that was not a new audience for me. It was wonderful to bring this wonderful play to these audiences, I certainly feel that. And in film, again, I’ve been doing films for 60 years, but this one was really special. It’s special on its own terms.

Some critics have called it the greatest role of your career.

I don’t even know how to think about that. Whenever people ask you something like that, you know — the answer to the what’s-your-favorite question is, “The last one.” Because what are you going to do? It’s very hard. There are many meaningful things for different reasons, and especially once you’ve been at it as long as I have.

What were your first ideas about the play, which addresses concepts of memory and death?

The minute I read it, I was so excited. […] I’ve always found [Marjorie Prime] the most full-of-life character. The play is funnier, and the movie is sadder. It has partly to do with the adaptation and partly to do with the tonality of the two different people who made them. It’s the same story, but of course, there are differences with the movie. The play takes place in one room, and I was mostly sitting in a reclining chair all evening. That’s a big difference, but the character remains very much the same.

When you first saw the movie, were you prepared for that tonal difference?

It took me quite a while to accept the movie entirely as itself because I couldn’t help it. I’d been living with this text for a long time. I’d read the screenplay [by Michael Almereyda], and of course, admired it from the beginning. And I think I increasingly appreciate many things about it.

I think Michael did many wonderful things to make this a movie, because it’s not a simple, obvious thing to do when it’s very contained, with few characters in one place. It’s very verbal, and it’s very thoughtful and provocative — all things I love.

And of course, you do a play and you don’t see yourself. And actually, when you do a film you can see yourself, and that is not always easy, either. Maybe because I’m a stage actress so much, I’m not used to seeing myself act. It’s true I’ve been doing it for a long time, but it is different. It’s not something that happens to you in a play.

And I must say, I think when I first see myself in something, more often than not, it’s difficult. It’s not the most fun, to judge one’s own performance. We often are not very good at it as actors. I know a lot of other actors have that trouble, too. Some have it worse than I do.

Do you ever go back and watch your older work?

Rarely, though once in a while something comes up, like “East of Eden.” Quite a number of years ago now, it had some big anniversary, so there were a lot of events. That was an occasion for seeing it again.

What did you think upon revisiting it?

Oh, I loved it. It’s better if it’s long ago. And also, it’s really interesting — I remember a film I made with Paul Mazursky many years ago, “Next Stop, Greenwich Village.” It was a film that, for some reason — I think it had to do with a piece of music — was never on television, and people didn’t see it. And I hadn’t seen it or thought about it, really. But that must have gotten fixed, because it was on television.

I happened onto it, and in that case, it was like, “Oh my god, how young we all were,” because it was this circle of New York actors. We were so young! Chris Walken is in it, and Jeff Goldblum and Ellen Greene. That was like visiting another time, because it really was of its time.

Acting is maybe the only profession that provides a living yearbook to open, or not, at your choosing.

It’s true, isn’t it? You don’t have to go looking for it sometimes — it just appears.

Do you feel you’re fundamentally a stage actress?

I guess I do. It’s where I started. I was really lucky when I first came to New York and started working. Within the first couple of years, I was working both onstage and in television, of which there was lots then, in the ’50s. I mean, lots. There were plays on television — not series, but every week, plays. Right away, I started to do plays for television and film. That was really lucky, in so many ways.

Do you feel like you’ve managed to accomplish onscreen what you would want to, given that theater and the stage are your bread and butter?

Well, you don’t get much bread and butter in the theater. Really, film and television is where the bread and butter is, in terms of making a living.

But had I been a more famous movie person, I might have had better parts. I think I had some lovely parts. I’m not complaining about them. But I never felt I was a movie star.

When American Cinematheque in LA announced they were going to do a retrospective — three days of double features of films of mine — my immediate response was, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m not a movie star. Who would come to that?” And after friends and family told me, “No, this is really nice,” I thought, “Oh yeah.” And it was! It was really nice. And now The Quad is going to do something like that in New York. I guess that also gave me the feeling, “Well, yeah! I did some interesting things in movies.”

I’ve always felt, as much as I’ve thought about it ― which, lately, I have thought about it ― I’ve had the kind of fame which I felt was just the right amount. It’s really lovely if people come up to you and say, “Your work really means a lot to me” and “I like your work.” But to be chased around by photographers? That would not be a nice way to live.

So you never had a craving to hit the next level?

To be more and more famous? I guess not. Isn’t that funny? I guess not. I mean, in this business — I’m sure it’s true in many places, but it’s certainly true in our business — you need to be known in order to get more and better work. So, yes, I appreciate that if I worked, and worked well, I’d get better known, and then I’d get more and better work. That was always a true thing, which I did not negate at all.

I wasn’t aware of drawing a line, but what I’m saying makes me think I did, because I didn’t long to be on everybody’s gossip column. That is not something that seemed attractive to me.

Looking back, is there a particular role that let you feel like you’d made it?

I don’t know about that. Every good piece of work really helped. Sometimes I’m not aware of the connections of it all. Just a few years ago, I did a scene on “The Americans.” I think it was about three years ago. It was a wonderful scene. As soon as they sent it to me, I thought, boy, they’re not usually this good, this complete, this well-written.

I was very fortunate: I was busy, but they waited for me. I was shooting “The Nice Guys,” a movie, and that turned out really well. I have a feeling that, because I got a lot of acclaim for it, that made more and more television work come, more and more requests for me to do a guest-star.

Now, I think that’s true, but I can’t be sure, because a lot of things change. For instance, all of a sudden there’s so much television, and certainly in New York. I’m not in a position to say “this caused this,” but that’s what it felt like to me. It made a difference in the employment track right there.

“The Young and Beautiful,” when I did it in New York, I think I won every award I could have won, because it was off-Broadway that year. I think that also elevated my status.

You mentioned knowing that the “Americans” role was acclaimed. How does that get filtered to you? Do you ever Google yourself?

No, I didn’t Google it. First of all, when they actually finished it, before it was shown, I got a telephone call from the two producers. I found that really unusual. They had just seen it and they were really excited. Then, when it came out, a lot of people talked about it, and still do. And then I was nominated for some broadcasters’ award, and there would be little press things saying “should have gotten an Emmy.”

I don’t care, but it’s that kind of thing. Many, many people remember it, and speak of it. It was a particularly good piece. There’s nothing like good work. It’s always the material and the people you work with.

Were you familiar with Greta Gerwig before “Lady Bird” came along?

Oh yes, I saw her as an actress and a writer, and I was enormously impressed with her as an actress, my goodness. But I had not met her until the first day of shooting. Somebody called my agent and asked if I wanted to do it, which I did.

She has such a distinctive voice as a writer. What was she like as a director?

Well, she was absolutely, as she herself described it, creating a safe place. She’s really something. And her first time directing? The major part of my part was shot the second and third day of the shoot, so I was very, very early in the shoot of her first film. I was very impressed. And then it went on and on for weeks while I wasn’t there, because my part’s little and it’s all concentrated. I think she’s really quite astonishing.

Have you played a nun before “Lady Bird”?

No! I haven’t.

Every great actress has to play a nun at least once.

Well, I’m glad I had a chance. Something reminded me of this, maybe the nun. William Wyler was casting “The Nun’s Story” with Audrey Hepburn, and I was pregnant. I remember when we spoke. We were talking about dates, and realizing the date they were proposing was almost immediately after [my due date]. We all just sat and looked at each other, and I thought, well, that would have been fun. I mean, this was in 1957.

And you were offered the role but couldn’t take it because of the timing?

You know, I’m not sure he actually offered it. We met, and I could tell in the room that I was certainly a high candidate for it. But that was that.

See, everything comes full-circle. You didn’t play a nun then, and now you can play one now. She’s an interesting character because she’s so compassionate.

It’s such a great character, to be a teacher. She’s so compassionate and involved and understanding of the kids she’s dealing with, but she’s a grownup.

Often, popular culture presents nuns who go into education as strict and cloistered. It’s interesting to see a California spin on that, if you will. Did you grow up religious at all?

Yes, I grew up Protestant. My family were devout Protestants. When I was little, I went to Sunday school and church all the time.

Here we are on the day of the Gotham Awards. What is it like to be part of the Oscar conversation?

Well, I guess it’s fun. It’s also exhausting. I don’t find award shows the most fun events in the world. I said the other day, “I’m not keen on the contest idea, both in our country and in our profession.”

But it is there, and it’s hard to ignore it. It’s not something that I’ve been panting after in my life. And I feel I’ve had a lot of awards — more in theater than in film. Of course, it’s gratifying to be praised, to be valued. There’s no doubt about it. That’s lovely, it really is. So there’s an element of pleasure.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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[cinefiles-ithaca]

A Film Trail to Pittsburgh

As Silent Movie Month rages on for another week, I’m back at Ithaca College from a trip home to Pittsburgh for Fall Break.  While there, I popped in to the Senator John Heinz History Center, where I worked last summer, to interview Lauren Uhl, Museum Project Manager and a curator at the Center, about her love of silent film actress, director, writer, and producer, Lois Weber (1879-1939). Weber, often considered to be one of the first American female directors, was born in Pittsburgh and spent the first twenty years of her life there. Last summer, the city celebrated Lois and her accomplishments in the film industry by putting up a historical marker in front of the Allegheny Carnegie Library where Weber’s house once stood.

Senator John Heinz History Center

When I showed Wharton Studio Museum's executive director Diana Riesman the first draft of this blog post, she was excited to let me know that Lois Weber figured somewhat prominently in Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache, the critically-acclaimed documentary directed by Pamela B. Green that WSM showed this past Wednesday night at Cinemapolis for Silent Movie Month.  Alice Guy was making films in Paris in the late 1890s for Gaumont Studios, before coming to the States in the early 1900s, establishing her own studio --  Solax --  in Fort Lee, NJ, and writing, directing, and producing hundreds and hundreds of films, working with her husband Herbert Blache on numerous productions.  Alice Guy's path coincided with Lois Weber's -- Weber acted in a number of Solax films, and allegedly had an affair with Herbert Blache. Weber is sometimes referred to as "Mrs. Smalley" in the documentary, since she was married to a director named Phillips Smalley.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache, (Pamela B. Green, 2018)

But back to Lois Weber... Throughout our conversation Lauren makes it clear what drew her to Weber, why Weber is such an important person in the history of cinema, and why having communities claim these under-represented people in this industry is important. And she describes how the historical marker came to be plunged in the ground of Pittsburgh’s Northside:

Lois Weber

Rachael Weinberg: What was the process like of creating a historical marker for too many, an unknown person?

Lauren Uhl: Would you like the background? The Heinz Heinz History Center curators have been interested in documenting the film industry for so many years, and it was probably about five years ago I ran across the name Lois Weber. I found that she was one of the first female American directors and she was from Pittsburgh. I just couldn’t believe, I had never heard of her before. I love silent film, and I have been in the Pittsburgh history business for 30 years, and I never heard of her. I found that really fascinating and, at that time, even five years ago, there wasn’t a lot of information about her really anywhere. But, not long after that, I heard through the grapevine that Pitt [University of Pittsburgh] was hosting some women in Silent Film Program, and someone named Shelley Stamp was coming, and she had been in the process of writing a book. I asked if we could go, they agreed, and Shelley said in passing, “I’ve always wanted to get a historic marker for Lois in Hollywood.” When she said that I thought, “Jeez, we should do that here.” That is something the History Center could sponsor, that I could work on, and nobody in Pittsburgh knows who she is. It became a tangible thing to do for this anamorphosis project, this documentation project that we are trying to do. I talked to a few people to my colleagues and boss, because it would cost some money, and I got the green light. I contacted the state about paperwork, and to see what I needed to do and how much money it would cost, but I kept on getting green lights. And that was sort of the genesis of the idea of it. It seemed like a tangible thing, it would last beyond program. It would be a permanent fixture in the city and something we could turn too, and it seemed like a good starting space for the project.

Shelley Stamp

RW: So you say you, “kept on getting these green lights”, but were there any issues along the way?

LU: Surprisingly there weren’t. I think it was because it went under the radar, so it flew over the heads of those in a lot of power. Plus, the cost of the marker was only $1,600, which was not inconsiderable, but in the scheme of things, it wasn’t major money. It was just kinda me sitting in a corner in my spare time. Fortunately, by the time it started to roll out, Shelley’s book came out. I used it as my background source, so I read that as fast as I could. Then I could write about Weber and her importance.

Scene from Suspense (Lois Weber, 1913), showing a custom vignette

RW: Shelley Stamp and Illeana Douglas were the two keynote speakers, what was it like working with them and how did you get that to all come together?

LU: It was marvelous. I look back and call it my Lois Weber day, where everything goes right. Shelley Stamp was the obvious one, because she was the academic and she wrote the book. When we first saw Shelley she was doing an academic lecture on Lois’s film. We wanted this to be a conversation and not a lecture, about not only Lois and her importance in the film industry, and I wanted it to reach beyond that. I had seen Illeana a number of times on TCM, she is an actress, director, and producer as well. But also she is such a good interviewer, that it would be more of the conversation than lecture. I knew Illeana would come with a price tag. I figured that Shelley would just need to come here, but I knew Douglas would come for a pause. I wasn’t sure how much it would cost and how to get in contact with her. I went to her website, I called her personal appearance person and they never responded. A few days later,  I emailed her agent and one night he called, and I had a nice conversation with him, and he gave me a price tag, which wasn’t outrageous. I went to education, and said that there was this price tag and they said, “okay, we will give you the money.”  So then it was just logistical: making sure they could both come at that time. But she was available to doing it. So everything worked out as best as I could recommend.  

Illeana Douglas

RW: How did watching Weber’s work influence you? She is a revolutionary.

LU: She truly was. But it was, at first, hard to find. What I was impressed with was that she was an amazing filmmaker. You always say the first, but she wasn’t just the first she was really good. She was a really good filmmaker. Her films had a lot of heart to them, which is unlike today. She had a way of taking moral tales and  thoughtful stories, and hard subjects like abortion or wage inequality and have you think at the end of them. Because they were good stories and good films. She was able to package all of these things I love and lift them up cinematically, and they were silent. She didn’t have sound. And she was able to blaze a trail in how to create film. I was even more amazed that she grabbed this medium and made it her own. By god, she was going to do the stories she wanted to tell, own a studio, and she had this matronly personality that made her easy to love. She was getting her point across, but in a matter that was not offensive, even if you disagree with her. 

RW: For sure. She was born in Pittsburgh, but she never worked in Pittsburgh, right?

LU: Yes, she never filmed in Pittsburgh, but she did grow up here. She spent the first 20 years of her life here, so she was formed in Pittsburgh, but never created here. 

Poster for The Blot (Lois Weber, 1921)

RW: What does that tie all the way back to the silent era mean to your project?

LU: She is foundational, but she is not the only one. We claim the Nickelodeon, the Warner Brothers get their start in Western Pennsylvania. They figure out that distribution is where the money is. Then as Edison and his patent people come here, they move west. Edwin S. Porter was born here (Great Train Robbery). So it is lovely to have a woman, because it provides balance, but there were a lot of these greats getting their starts here.

RW: That leads me to my next question… Yes, we have all these men, but what does it mean to have a woman. Especially a woman who was talking about sobriety and sex and prostitution, what does it mean to have that voice?

LU: It is interesting to me, because, personally, I am a Christian, so is comes from that world view. She was a missionary and Christian, so that comes into her world view. My understanding was that she was a missionary in Pittsburgh and New York, what that also brings to the table is it gives us an understanding of what Pittsburgh was like when she grew up here. That falls through the cracks of history. It is easy to talk about Andrew Carnegie and immigrants, but Lois could take these real life problems in Pittsburgh, which I’m sure happened everywhere else, but putting them on the forefront. She was able to use her Pittsburgh background to tell these stories. In some way it leaves Pittsburgh into these tales without explicitly saying “Pittsburgh”.

RW: What else are you doing to keep Lois alive in house?

LU: For Lois, physically, nothing in particular, but whenever I have the opportunity, I will try to invoke her. Especially since next year was the centennial for women getting the right to vote. So I will try to fit Lois whenever she fits. The other thing I would love to do, is i would like to honor her on an annual basis by having a lecture or conversation. In my mind it is two things: One would be with a Pittsburgh filmmaker, and the second would be a person who isn’t from Pittsburgh but exemplifies Lois. So that would be the way that we would keep her name in front of the people. 

RW: You named a lot of other silent players. How are you incorporating those?

LU: When people say exhibit they think of large objects, but the other curators and I would love to do other things for the exhibit, like blogs and films and events. But right now we are also looking for the tangible pieces of these people, but we also thing “Can we find a photograph? Can we find a lobby card? What are other ways to incorporate these people?” And past. I don’t just want this to end either. I want this to grow into something larger whether that is traveling or putting pieces in our permanent collections. We just want to grow and allow for this to keep spinning. 

RW: Why is it important for us to remember these women and these marginalized people in film to allow for their stories to be told, or retell their stories?

LU: I can think of two things. The first was when I was in college and I was working in the Henry Ford Museum. It was still old school, and they just had aisles and aisles of objects. I remember sitting there and thinking, these are my people. What do you learn in history class? Washington, Lincoln, the Depression? And I’m thinking, “My people aren’t even completely marginalized. They’re the German Irish, but they aren’t in the history books.” So I want to tell these stories of all of these marginalized people and give them a sense of belonging. The second part comes down to the fact that other people came before you, and it goes back to something that Shelley said. When Illeana asked Shelley something similar she said, “I’ve got this girl in my screenwriting class who thinks that she nobody has ever done it before, and that she needs to blaze the trail. She doesn’t. Women have been writing for over 100 years. It’s going to be harder for you as a woman. It always will be, but there are people who came before you and people who will come after you.” That’s one of the fascinating things about history. You don’t have to feel bad about being the cog. Lois did this 100 years ago meaning that you can do this too. So let’s keep honoring them and keep reminding people of them, so they can also see how this industry and any industry hasn’t always just been part of hegemony.

Scene from Suspense (Lois Weber, 1913)

-Rachael Weinberg, Museum Division Intern

[astrognossienne]

scandalous beauty: joan crawford - an analysis

“Nobody can imitate me. You can always see impersonations of Katharine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. But not me. Because I’ve always drawn on myself only.” — Joan Crawford

I’ll admit, Joan Crawford is one of my least favourite stars. I’ll also admit that this was partially due to her being a shitty mother, thanks to her daughter Christina’s infamous expose/memoir, Mommie Dearest. But even without that, there was always something about her as a person that rubbed me the wrong way. Crawford had caustic relationships with her children, film studios, and fellow stars, earning a reputation as a hard-nosed bitch who prized her career above all else. She was a relentless self-promoter, difficult, and was dubbed box office poison as quickly as she was “Queen of the Movies.” But Crawford was known for playing the determined working girl in cinema — women who had a rough start, but eventually found love, respect, and success. These big-picture images were inspirational to female audiences, and Crawford became one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood during Tinseltown’s male-dominated reign. I’m a fan of the fantastic FX series, Feud: Bette and Joan, which focuses on Crawford, her enemy Bette Davis, and the circumstances behind the making of their film together, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? As such, I feel compelled to write about her and figure out for myself why that is. To gain further objectivity, I also watched a few of her interviews on YouTube and have seen her in her Oscar-winning titular role in Mildred Pierce as well as Humoresque, my favourite movie of hers. All in all, the image I hold of Crawford is one crafted from her various roles and interviews that have far more complexity than “Mommie Dearest” and her current legacy do.

Joan Crawford, according to astrotheme, was an Aries sun and Aquarius moon. Upon looking her story up, I see she had it quite rough, and had to do what she felt was necessary to survive and thrive. As such, Crawford’s personal life always took a backseat to her professional life. She was married five times and adopted four children - Christina (adopted in 1940) and Christopher (adopted in 1944), twins Cathy and Cindy (adopted in 1947). By her own admission, Crawford loved playing bitches on film, and for her life almost always imitated art. Shortly after her death in 1977, Crawford’s adopted daughter Christina published Mommie Dearest, a memoir detailing her mother’s alleged abusive nature, alcoholism and neuroses. Katharine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, her first husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., her two youngest daughters and others close to her denounced the book. But with Frank Perry’s 1981 film adaptation, the damage was done. In just two hours, the film unravels what Crawford had been building for herself since first gracing the screen in the late 1920s. It turned the image of Crawford in the cultural imagination into a monstress, a soulless camp icon to be mocked and reviled but rarely respected, and a cautionary tale of what happens when women put their careers first. This misses how layered and beguiling Crawford could be—she was a woman who embodied all the dreams every young girl has when she looks at the glimmer of Hollywood and thinks “I want to be a star!” and the cold pangs of yearning when the spotlight leaves. I don’t necessarily like Joan Crawford any more after learning more about her (from her own words as well as others’), but I did feel like I gained a better understanding of what she felt she had to do, and why she did it. She was frequently too strident in her self-justification for me to feel that I could really relate to the egoism of the “star” aspect of her personality, but I did feel that she came across as worthy of admiration and respect for her many accomplishments. She’s one of the finest examples of how stardom works and is a powerhouse of an actress, despite the obstacles she faced from the same industry that made her a starlet.

Next week in honour of Feud, I’ll focus on her Baby Jane co-star and her arch rival. One of the greatest actresses that ever lived, she was an iconic and amazing Aries goddess who knew her worth and was in a class all by herself: one of my idols, the incomparable Bette Davis.

Stats

birthdate: March 23, 1903

major planets:

Sun: Aries

Moon: Aquarius

Rising: Scorpio

Mercury: Pisces

Venus: Aries

Mars: Libra

Midheaven: Virgo

Jupiter: Pisces

Saturn: Aquarius

Uranus: Sagittarius

Neptune: Cancer

Pluto: Gemini

Overall personality snapshot: She was where it was at, and beyond that too. But was she a self-obsessed revolutionary or a social prophet? Was she a passionate progressive or a detached onlooker? Or did she discover how to combine both through a vocation which met her need for constant challenge? She may have appeared to be self-centered but, just when everyone thought she was in it only for herself, she revealed her capacity for true friendship and interest in the needs of others. She could equally be very civilized and very selfish. She wanted to make her mark upon the world but she didn’t want to scar it in the process, though it may not believe her at first. When firing on all cylinders, and not just spouting hot air, she was original and inventive; a natural pioneer, entrepreneur and leader of progressive causes; a great improver, able to see the big picture and inspire others with a large and distinctly different vision of things. She took an active interest in anything that appealed to her maverick, heretic and non-conformist approach to life. New schemes and ideas may have been more exciting to her than the prospect of finishing what she had already started, for orderly routine was a living death for her. Being self-employed and/or doing her own thing attracted her, yet she also had a strong social sense and could work well with others, provided she was in charge. She rightly had a high opinion of her own genius, and in order to be happy she needed to be working and playing in areas where she felt free to take the initiative and pursue her observations and insights.

With her razor-sharp mind, she enjoyed an intellectual challenge, and had an ability to look at things from a different perspective. She delighted in being controversial and poking fun at the status quo. She saw herself as a go-ahead mould-breaker, an anarchist even. In film, fashion or the very way in which she expressed herself, she was drawn to the non-conformist, original and maverick, and was never happier than when out on limb arguing for a viewpoint that others did not yet share. In this she could combine courage and imagination, for she was a natural campaigner who could pursue what she believed in with a burning conviction. Friendships and social contacts were very important to her, and here as in so much of her life she could oscillate between self-interest and social concern. One moment she was being an elitist social climber, using her natural charisma and powers of persuasion to chat up the in-crowd with a cynical eye to the main chance; the next she was giving her time and energy to help the socially deprived and under-privileged. This dichotomy may have played havoc with her philosophical and political affiliations as she veered from radical liberalism to complete free-enterprise. She allowed room for both, and as such, she ended up embracing an enlightened self-interest and made friends right across the fascinating spectrum of human viewpoints. Her Arian nature dictated that she was selfish and ruthless in her pursuit of her goals. Her Aquarius nature dictated that her close personal relationships suffered for the greater need of relating to others. In her case, it manifested as relating to her fans and being respected by her peers in her acting career.

She had dark, brooding looks with thick, abundant hair and strongly marked eyebrows that framed the most important feature of her face, her eyes. Her eyes had a piercing, penetrating quality. Overall, she gave the impression of quietly contained power. Her movements were controlled, and her clothes were chosen for their dramatic value. With her commanding personality, she was able to instill fear and apprehension if she wished. She held a lot of hidden rage and passion within her, which had to be released. It would have been good if this energy was released in a positive way, but unfortunately, it poisoned her inside. She was intuitive and artistic and, at times, over-sensitive. She could also be a little secretive.She had a flexible and easily impressionable mind. Although you are disorganized mentally, you are able to understand the most elusive subjects. She sometimes had difficulty understanding everyday problems which required little intelligence. It really depended on her mood as to how well her thought processes operated. She often lost patience when something couldn’t be done immediately, which is why she often needed to redo things. She was a talented entertainer, because she was both creative and imaginative. A hard worker, she took extreme pride in her work, although she  tended to worry too much about work, which affected her health. Routine didn’t worry her, as this usually went hand in hand with the sense of security that she needed to accompany her job. It was good for her to have a certain amount of variety and intellectual stimulation in her job as an actress, as this brought out her more capable qualities. Her good business sense (with the Pepsi deal) and critical abilities also stood her in good stead. Unfortunately, these same critical leanings tended to be applied too harshly to her colleagues which produced ill-feelings and provoked hostility. She drove herself excessively hard. She had an artistic side to her that obviously influenced her choice of career as an actress. Once she had decided upon her career, she was able to (and most certainly did) pursue it with great determination. She could be, at times, unreliable, extravagant and self-indulgent. She had problems defining her objectives and accepting responsibilities. However, once she found a goal to work towards, the sky was the limit considering the vast resources that she had at her disposal.

She was slightly selfish and emotionally intense. Her main focus in life was to gain the security that allowed her the freedom to do as she liked. Because she was able to establish priorities and she had great determination, she usually realized her goals fairly early in life. She was willing to accept responsibility and didn’t want to depend on others for anything. She concentrated on efforts to improve her mind (she had a life-long insecurity about her lack of education) and would take up any intellectual pursuits that gave full rein to her imagination. She had an original mind and used every skill she possessed to gain control of her affairs. She found it hard to let go of the past, and it would have been good if she did so that she could grow. She was willing to tolerate austerity for as long as it was justified. She respected institutions for as long as they served her purpose. She had the ability to judge what was viable or important. She belonged to a generation with fiery enthusiasm for new and innovative ideas and concepts. Rejecting the past and its mistakes, she sought new ideals and people to believe in. As a member of this generation, she felt restless and adventurous, and was attracted towards foreign people, places and cultures. Members of her generation were emotionally sensitive and extremely conscious of the domestic environment and the atmosphere surrounding their home place.Also, as a member of the Cancer Neptune generation, she felt a degree of escapism from everyday reality, and was very sensitive to the moods of those around them. Joan Crawford embodied all of these Cancer Neptunian ideals. As a Gemini Plutonian, she was mentally restless and willing to examine and change old doctrines, ideas and ways of thinking. As a member of this generation, she showed an enormous amount of mental vitality, originality and perception. Traditional customs and taboos were examined and rejected for newer and more original ways of doing things. As opportunities with education expanded, she questioned more and learned more. As a member of this generation, having more than one occupation at a time would not have been unusual to her.  

Love/sex life: The best part of sex for her was always the anticipation. She enjoyed the excitement of the chase, the gentle swordplay of meaningful flirtation and the thrill of impending conquest. This is not to say that she was uninterested in the act itself, but the physical finality of orgasm had only a limited charm for her. Given her restless and essentially intellectual approach to sex the completion of the drama was often just an excuse to go out and begin a new conquest. Since she was one of the most intense and uncompromising of the Mars in Libra lovers the world of real sex and real relationships often disappointed her. She was in love with an ideal. Certain people at certain times may have approached this ideal and she gladly gave them her affection but, since they were human, they could never maintain this perfect state for very long. The repeated failure of the real world to give her what she wanted may have caused her to give up on love and settle for mere companionship, a reasonable compromise though one that certainly left her bored and dissatisfied.

minor asteroids and points:

North Node: Libra

Lilith: Capricorn

Vertex: Cancer

Fortune: Capricorn

East Point: Sagittarius

These points and minor asteroids packed a major punch in determining her life, her attitude towards it and the subsequent consequences that she suffered as a result. Her North Node in Libra dictated she needed to move away from a tendency to see the world only in terms of herself, and develop a more outward-looking view. It would have been good if she took other people’s needs and desires into consideration to a greater degree. Her Lilith in Capricorn ensured that she had a scrappy plucky attitude hot-wired into her psyche. She needed to be in control and to be mistress of her own destiny, because her life  was in the control of not-so-well-meaning others as a child. Her Vertex in Cancer, 8th house meant that she had a dream for an almost womblike environment that shut out all discordant noise or interference from the outside. There were very deep desires regarding the ideal structure or family and home life. When she committed herself in a relationship she was really deeply committed and if she felt that her partner wasn’t similarly serious she struck out at them in defense. Her expectations of others, ultimately, were unrealistic and were based on her own feelings of insecurity, which were profound. An internal yearning for an inseparable union with and total commitment from another, come what may. This need was so intense that she fantasized all manner of unspeakable actions and reactions if the final dream, once attained, was even threatened. The dark side is that when the reality of her partner didn’t fit this model (and it rarely did totally) she had a difficult time adjusting when faced with a breach of contract of any sort. Once badly hurt there was a tendency to become jaded and guarded in future relationships, thereby passing up the opportunity to explore interactions which might just have fulfilled out her intense needs perfectly

Her Part of Fortune in Capricorn and Part of Spirit in Cancer were hugely influential in her life, as this placement dictated that her destiny lie in creating practical and long-lasting achievements. Success came through hard work, determination, responsibility and perseverance. Fulfillment came from observing her progress through life and seeing it take a form and structure that will outlive her. Her soul’s purpose guided her towards building security in her life, both emotional and material. She felt spiritual connections and the spark of the divine within her home and family. East Point in Sagittarius dictated that she was more concerned with finding final answers. Her goal seeking was oriented toward questions of meaning, truth, philosophy and religion. Why are we here? Where are we going? What (if anything) does life mean?  All these were very personal issues for Crawford. She aggressively pursued ultimate values and belief systems. Such people with this East Point are, in some way, identified with the absolute. This can manifest as: “I should be perfect.” Perfection may be defined as having all the right answers to all the right questions; as being witty, charming and fun; as traveling to all the right places, etc. Then, they can decide, “I am perfect; the world only needs to recognize and appreciate me,” or “I should be perfect; I’m not; therefore I am nothing.” With Joan Crawford’s life, this was also a huge theme: of being the best she cold be to wipe away her past. Seeking perfection in the form of some higher meaning in life would ultimately have been more satisfying for her than trying to play God personally.

elemental dominance:

water

air

She had high sensitivity and elevation through feelings. Her heart and her emotions were her driving forces, and she couldn’t do anything on earth if she didn’t feel a strong effective charge. She needed to love in order to understand, and to feel in order to take action, which caused a certain vulnerability which she should (and often did) fight against. She was communicative, quick and mentally agile, and she liked to stir things up. She was likely a havoc-seeker on some level. She was oriented more toward thinking than feeling. She carried information and the seeds of ideas. Out of balance, she lived in her head and could be insensitive to the feelings of others. But at her best, she helped others form connections in all spheres of their daily lives.

modality dominance:

mutable

She wasn’t particularly interested in spearheading new ventures or dealing with the day-to-day challenges of organization and management. She excelled at performing tasks and producing outcomes. She was flexible and liked to finish things. Was also likely undependable, lacking in initiative, and disorganized. Had an itchy restlessness and an unwillingness to buckle down to the task at hand. Probably had a chronic inability to commit—to a job, a relationship, or even to a set of values.

house dominants:

4th

3rd

7th

The domestic arena and the home were also emphasized. By extension, the influence of the family she was born into, and the parents that raised her, as well as her personal and private life was of paramount importance to her. Short journeys, traveling within her own country were themes throughout her life; her immediate environment, and relationships with her siblings, neighbours and friends were of importance. The way her mental processes operated, as well as the manner and style in which she communicated was emphasized in her life. As such, much was revealed about her schooling and childhood and adolescence.   Her attitude towards partnerships with other people was emphasized in her life, whether on a personal or on a business level. It also revealed her marriage partner. It indicated how she dealt with other people and how her relationships with others affected her. Also had the propensity to attract enemies, and the effect that they had on her life was an issue.

planet dominants:

Jupiter

Sun

Pluto

She had luck, and believed in expansion, integration, and growth. She could also be excessive and lazy. She reached out beyond herself and expanded her consciousness. She loved travel, was fairly religious, and liked to integrate herself into the larger social order—church or religion, community, and corporation. She had intellectual and spiritual interests in the most profound sense. She had vitality and creativity, as well as a strong ego and was authoritarian and powerful. She likely had strong leadership qualities, she definitely knew who she was, and she had tremendous will. She met challenges and believed in expanding her life. She was unique and protected her individuality. She brought about complete and profound transformations in her life, good or bad. She felt the need to let go of what was familiar to her and accept new and different ways of being and doing things. There were areas in her life where she had to accept regeneration, which involved the destruction of the old and the creation of the new.

sign dominants:

Pisces

Aquarius

Aries

She needed to explore her world through her emotions. She felt things so deeply that quite often she became a kind of psychic sponge, absorbing the emotions of people around her. As such, she gravitated toward the arts, in general, to theater and film specifically. She could be ambivalent and indecisive simply because she was so impressionable. She also tended to be moody because she felt the very height of joy and the utter depths of despair. Love and romance were essential for her. These fulfilled her emotionally, and she generally flourished within stable relationships. She was an original thinker, often eccentric, who prized individuality and freedom above all else. Her compassion, while genuine, rose from the intellect rather than the heart. She was hard to figure out because she was so often a paradox. She was patient but impatient; a nonconformist who conformed when it suited her; rebellious but peace-loving; stubborn and yet compliant when she wanted to be. She chafed at the restrictions placed upon her by society and sought to follow her own path. She was bold, courageous, and resourceful. She always seemed to know what she believed, what she wanted from life, and where she was going. She could be dynamic and aggressive (sometimes, to a fault) in pursuing her goals—whatever they might be. Could be argumentative, lacked tact, and had a bad temper. On the other hand, her anger rarely lasted long, and she could be warm and loving with those she cared about

Read more about her under the cut.

Joan Crawford was born Lucille LeSueur on March 23, 1908 in San Antonio, Texas. Her father deserted the family home shortly after she was born. When her mother later married Henry Cassin, a theater manager from Oklahoma, her name was changed to Billie Cassin. (As an adult, many of her friends privately continued to call her Billie.)  As a child, Crawford was treated as a skivvy by her laundress mother, fondled by one of her stepfathers, and frequently beaten. She never forgot her feelings of loneliness and isolation. ‘I never had any close chums,’ she recalled. ‘I was “different” because my mother wasn’t a very good seamstress, so my dresses were always too long or too short. I yearned to be famous, just to make the kids who had laughed at me feel foolish.’ As she blossomed into a beautiful teenager, with flame-red hair, expressive blue eyes and shapely legs, she soon attracted a different kind of attention. After winning a Charleston contest at the age of 13, she became determined to be on stage. Dancing in a Chicago strip club at the age of 17, she later joined the chorus lines of Broadway shows. By age 19 she was in the chorus line of the Broadway show Innocent Eyes, where MGM executive Harry Rapf discovered her, and signed her to her first movie contract. After a few minor roles under the name Lucille LeSueur, MGM sponsored a fan-magazine contest to pick out a new name for the young star. 

As Joan Crawford, a name chosen by fans in a studio-sponsored contest, she was quickly becoming one of MGM’s biggest stars; her first big movie role was as Irene in Sally, Irene and Mary (1925), but the role that made her a star was as a flapper that literally danced on the tabletops in Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By 1929, just four years after her arrival in Hollywood, her position in its dazzling firmament seemed assured, and later that year she ­married Douglas Fairbanks Jr. This elevated her to the highest ­levels of Hollywood society, as ­presided over by Fairbanks Sr. and his second wife Mary Pickford at their mansion Pickfair. But his first wife, Anna Beth Fairbanks, made it clear that the former Lucille LeSueur could never be fully accepted, dismissing her son’s latest relationship as ‘a chorus girl fling’. ‘I was always an outsider,’ said ­Crawford. ‘I was never good enough. Not for the Fairbanks tribe. Not for Louis B Mayer, not for so-called film society.’ Longing to be regarded as a proper companion for her well-born husband, she emulated his every refinement, learning to dress with better taste, and toning down her hair colour from its natural bright red to a sedate chestnut brown. But while she devoted herself to self-improvement, studying French and learning operatic arias in between working long hours at the studio, Fairbanks was sleeping with other women and she blamed herself for this. ‘I worked too hard, and a lot of my relationships failed because of that,’ she admitted. ‘I needn’t have spent so much time on the image thing.

Her determination to save the marriage ­faltered in November 1931 when she and Clark Gable worked together on the melodrama Possessed. Only that summer Gable had married his second wife, a Texan oil heiress, but he and Crawford began what she described as ‘a glorious affair’. As rumours about this spread in Hollywood, Louis B Mayer feared that news of a romance between these two married stars would jeopardize both their careers. To separate them, he paid for Crawford and Fairbanks to go on a delayed honeymoon to Europe the following June, but there was no hope for the marriage. ‘I am sorry to say that I crept out of our suite at night to visit another lady traveller,’ Fairbanks later admitted of their time at sea. Crawford admitted in one of her last interviews that she should never have had children. ‘We actresses wanted to be mothers, but it was a lousy idea. The biggest part of us wanted the career.’ With Crawford continuing to see Gable on their return to America, she and Fairbanks eventually divorced in 1934. Although Crawford was keen to find a new husband worthy of her movie star status, Gable was never a contender.They would work together on eight films in all and were, from time to time, lovers again. Yet their relationship was more often a loyal but ­non-carnal friendship lasting until his death in 1960.

Unlike many silent movie era stars, Crawford’s transition to “talkies” was smooth and by 1932 she was starring in classics like Grand Hotel (1932) with Greta Garbo. Throughout the 1930s Crawford worked steadily for MGM in films like Letty Lynton (1932), Dancing Lady (1933), and The Gorgeous Hussy (1936) co-starring with her future husband Franchot Tone. Within a year of her divorce from Fairbanks, the uneducated and always insecure Crawford had found another husband to play Professor Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle. One year her senior, actor Franchot Tone would never achieve lasting success in Hollywood, but he was the son of a wealthy businessman and Crawford found his poise and sophistication irresistible. He read her Shakespeare, Ibsen and Shaw and, after their marriage in 1935, encouraged her to hold formal dinner parties with the correct wines for every course and harpists providing the background music. Dazzled by this new Svengali, Crawford failed to realize that he was a ­violent alcoholic and soon he was beating her up and cheating on her. ‘One afternoon I dropped by his dressing room to surprise him — and I did,’ she recalled. True to form, she was unfaithful too, sleeping with Spencer Tracy during the making of the movie Mannequin in 1937. If she hoped this might make her heavy-drinking co-star more ­pliable during filming, she was to be disappointed. ‘We whooped it up off the set, but he turned out to be a real bastard,’ she said. ‘He did cute things like stepping on my toes when we were doing a love scene — after he chewed on some garlic.’ Crawford’s popularity skyrocketed in 1939 with the release of The Women, in which Crawford played the iconic role of “Crystal”, the hard-boiled husband-stealing shopgirl. Later that year, Crawford’s marriage to Franchot Tone ended. So far, her attempts to cast aside the dirt-poor Lucille LeSueur of her childhood had brought her only misery as Joan ­Crawford the wife. Soon they led to more trouble in her next incarnation, as Joan Crawford the mother.

By 1947 she had adopted four ­children: Christina, Christopher and twins Cathy and Cindy. According to the unscrupulous ­brokers who persuaded their mothers to give them up, and then sold them on for a commission, these babies were abandoned and unwanted. If she believed this then Crawford was perhaps making an unconscious attempt to save those she saw as mirrors of her childhood self. Whatever her motivation, she appeared determined to give them the father figure she never had, resulting in a third disastrous ­marriage in the summer of 1942. The groom this time was Phillip Terry, a 33-year-old bit-part player from San Francisco who was tall, good-looking and, most importantly, fond of children. Despite her professional success, by 1943 magazines were proclaiming her to be “box-office poison” and MGM seemed to agree. Crawford soon left MGM for Warner Brothers, where she snagged the title role in Mildred Pierce (1945). Her performance in Mildred Pierce earned Crawford her one and only Oscar for Best Actress. However, in her personal life, her marriage to Terry was in trouble; they divorced only four years later, the large settlement awarded to Terry almost destroyed her financially. But she never lived to see the most notorious consequence of her foray into motherhood.

This was the publication in 1978 of Christina Crawford’s autobiography Mommie Dearest, which depicted her mother as a monstrously ­abusive and alcoholic tyrant.  We will never know what Crawford would have made of this, but she admitted in one of her last interviews that she should never have had children. ‘We actresses wanted to be mothers, but it was a lousy idea,’ she said. ‘The biggest part of us wanted the career, and we had to live up to the demands of that career.’ Her willingness to sacrifice ­personal relationships to that end took a ­disturbing twist in the early ‘50s. With Christina and Christopher away at boarding school, and the twins looked after by a nanny, she began living at the studio from ­Monday to Friday in a dressing room contained within one of the sound stages. ‘After the others leave, I’m locked in that dressing room at night with my script, getting ready for the next day,’ she told an interviewer.‘Sometimes I go over to the empty set and walk it, rehearsing.’ Even in this self-imposed isolation, she knew that she had to be ­constantly ‘on’ for her fans. ‘I was obliged to be glamorous,’ she said. ‘If people wanted to see Joan Crawford the star, they were going to see Joan Crawford the star — not a character actress in blue jeans. In 1946, Warner Brothers signed Crawford to a seven-year contract at $200,000 per film, only to release her from her contract after just three years.

Her beauty depended increasingly on elaborate foundation garments and heavy make-up, and she became increasingly fearful of being eclipsed by younger actresses. As she headed for home every ­Friday evening, she ordered that the interior lights of her limousine be switched on, so that she could be seen waving warmly at her admirers as she glided by.  Many must have envied her but the reality of her life was, as always, different behind the glamorous façade. Now approaching 50, she was drinking heavily. Her beauty depended increasingly on elaborate foundation garments and heavy make-up, and she became increasingly fearful of being eclipsed by younger actresses. In 1953, she was enraged by the frequent visits paid to the set of the musical Torch Song by Elizabeth Taylor, then 21 and the wife of her co-star Michael Wilding. Crawford did not care for the presence of this radiantly beautiful ­creature, who had no whisper of rouge or eye-liner, and Taylor soon found herself barred from the studio. A worse punishment awaited ­Mercedes McCambridge, the only other female member of the cast of Johnny Guitar, a Western which began filming in Arizona the same year. Crawford was ten years older than McCambridge and did not appreciate director Nicholas Ray favouring her younger rival with the picture’s few close-ups. Late one evening, she tore McCambridge’s costumes to shreds and had them strewn over the nearby highway.

It was not that Crawford had any problems ­attracting men. During the filming of the movie Queen Bee in 1955, other cast members recalled how she and leading man John ­Ireland often arrived for work late and disheveled thanks to their erotic high jinks. ‘It never seemed repetitious,’ said Ireland of their affair. ‘Every time was like a first time. She was exotic beyond the meaning of the word.’ Crawford dreaded normality but realized that her status had dropped as quickly as it had risen. Unfortunately, she was also ­‘unutterably lonely’ as she told a friend at the time. She found real ­happiness with Alfred Steele, the Pepsi-Cola executive she married the same year, but it was short-lived. He died of a heart attack in 1959, one month short of their fourth wedding anniversary, leaving behind many debts. To pay these off, she worked tirelessly as an ambassador for Pepsi-Cola and took what acting work she could find. Ironically her only notable achievement in the coming years was the 1962 classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in which she and Bette Davis played ageing stars who were past their glory days. That year Crawford also penned a memoir, Portrait of Joan.

The popularity of Baby Jane led to Crawford’s appearance in a series of horror films throughout the 1960s, including a 1969 episode of Night Gallery with novice director Steven Spielberg. Crawford made her final film, Trog, in 1970.  Iin 1973 she was sacked from the board of Pepsi, the drastic drop in her income forcing her to sell her huge New York apartment and move into a smaller flat in the same block. One day, she noticed two women talking about her in the lobby. ‘I actually heard one say to the other: “See her? She used to be Joan Crawford.” At that moment, I suddenly felt old.’ From that point on, she referred to herself as ‘an ex-movie star’. She preferred to remain at home, where she welcomed the few people she could trust — not coiffed, made up and dressed like the star Joan Crawford, but rather like the woman (if not the girl) next door. Although this normality was what she had dreaded throughout her life, it seemed to bring her a kind of peace as she finally had time to discover who she really was. But the movie queen in her had not quite disappeared yet. One day, shortly before her death of cancer in May 1977, she was leaving a Manhattan restaurant when a team of builders recognized her and whistled loudly. ‘Hey, Joanie!’ shouted one of them. Then 71, a smiling Crawford went over to shake their hands. ‘I’m surprised you fellas know who I am!’ ‘You’re one in a million,’ said a workman. ‘They sure don’t make them like you any more, baby!’ She loved it.

[mrmichaelchadler]

The Feminine Grotesque: On The Warped Legacy of Joan Crawford

This review was originally published on May 4, 2016 and is being republished for Women Writers Week.

“No wire hangers!”

That’s what comes to mind when most people think of Joan Crawford, more so than the professionalism and remarkable performances that mark her four decades long career. 

Shortly after her death in 1977, Crawford’s adopted daughter Christina published “Mommie Dearest,” a memoir detailing her mother’s alleged abusive nature, alcoholism and neuroses. Katharine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, her first husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., her two youngest daughters and others close to her denounced the book. But with Frank Perry’s 1981 film adaptation, featuring Faye Dunaway’s shrieking, hollow, larger-than-life performance, the damage was done. In just 129 minutes the film unravels what Crawford had been building for herself since first gracing the screen in the late 1920s. It turned the image of Crawford in the cultural imagination into a monstress, a soulless camp icon to be mocked and reviled but rarely respected, and a cautionary tale of what happens when women put their careers first.

This misses how layered and beguiling Crawford could be—she’s a woman who embodies all the dreams every young girl has when she looks at the glimmer of Hollywood and thinks “I want to be a star!” and the cold pangs of yearning when the spotlight leaves. The image I hold of Crawford is one crafted from her various roles and interviews that have far more complexity than “Mommie Dearest” and her current legacy do. She’s one of the finest examples of how stardom works and is a powerhouse of an actress, despite the sexism and obstacles she faced from the same industry that made her a starlet. 

Although many stars from classic Hollywood struggled as they aged and the studio system that shaped them went to rot, actresses carried a heavier burden. Towards the end of Marlon Brando’s life he was an absolute embarrassment professionally and personally, but that hasn’t stopped new generations of actors from exalting him, as if screen acting didn’t matter until he showed up.

The 1962 Robert Aldrich film “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” reinvigorated Crawford’s career, along with that of Davis, her co-star. It also spawned the dubious “hagsploitation” genre, which is exactly what the word conjures. There is a visceral thrill in watching these aged divas and older cinematic titans hash it out in horror rather than be regulated to playing bloodless, supporting roles far beneath their talents. Films like “Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (1964), starring Davis and Olivia de Havilland (in a role originally meant for Crawford) let these actresses form fascinating roles, and often disregard the rigorous expectations of beauty in order to deconstruct their own images in a metatextual manner. But the films in this genre often look down upon the leading characters rather than empathizing with them. In the last few years of Crawford’s career we see this strain of pure Grand Guignol. In films like 1964’s “Strait-Jacket” and 1970’s “Trog” (her final screen appearance), Crawford is positioned as a punchline.

Crawford took a dim view of her later career after “Baby Jane” saying, “They were all terrible, even the few I thought might be good. I made them because I needed money or because I was bored or both. I hope they have been exhibited and withdrawn and never heard from again.” She stayed in the public eye thanks to her later film work and a prolific television career that included guest spots on “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (1967) and “Night Gallery” (1969). Her later career is spotty at best, rarely living up to what she was still capable of as an actress. These failures aren’t enough to undo her many accolades and amazing dramatic performances. They have nothing to do with Crawford as an actress. They are a byproduct of an industry that fails to see the rich interior lives of older women and fails to offer roles worthy of their skills.

It’s ultimately “Mommie Dearest” that cemented Crawford’s legacy as a campy joke. The very end of her career highlights a grotesque femininity that Christina Crawford’s book and Perry’s film expand on.

I’m not interested in parsing out what may or may not be true about Christina’s depiction of her mother. What does interest me are the reasons the legacy was undone by the memoir and its adaptation. The hits Crawford’s image has taken after her death are the result of something that was building up before then: a resentment of professional women. People are more brazen faulting women like Crawford as mothers and romantic partners because they openly put their careers first. In this light, her work in “Mildred Pierce” (1945) gains a deeper meaning as it concerns the price women pay for caring about their careers, the tricky emotional dynamics of the domestic sphere, and a fraught mother/daughter dynamic which predicts issues Crawford would deal with personally later in life.

Joan Crawford was a good, sometimes even great actress but she was also an amazing businesswoman. She may have come through the ranks of the MGM star machine, which changed her birth name from Lucille Fay LeSeur to Joan Crawford and made sure her freckles were never seen on-screen, but she had a hand in crafting her own image.

It should be noted that the stars from this era we remember weren’t really products of the star machine in the first place and were able to retain something essential about themselves even when going through the rigors of Hollywood during their early years. Crawford pivoted from setbacks like the end of her tenure at MGM to signing with Warner Bros. and delivering arguably the best performance of her career in “Mildred Pierce." She had the uncanny skill to adjust her looks to simultaneously reflect and seem slightly ahead of whatever was the conception of the modern woman at the time. Her films particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, which often paired her with Franchot Tone and Clark Gable, showed her as a hard-working young woman on the make, able to find love and success thanks to her own intelligence and sheer will power. Looking at these roles only through Crawford’s biography do her skills as a performer, and understanding of what film actors needed to bring to the table, a disservice. But her hardscrabble, poor upbringing undoubtedly lends these roles an authenticity and edge they wouldn’t have had if played by someone else. Even after having to mount a campaign of self-promotion to get the quality roles she deserved during her early years at MGM, Crawford wasn’t the kind of star to take up issues with the studio. Unlike other actors like James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland, who rightly fought their draconian contracts, Crawford was a professional and knew her limits even as she became one of the most powerful stars in the business during the 1930s. In the “Star Machine,” film historian Jeanine Basinger offers a behind-the-scenes story about “When Ladies Meet” (1941) that illustrates this writing, “Crawford knew her own stardom depended on being professional rather than always getting the key light. She was smart about her career—and cooperative.” Basinger mentions how Crawford mutes her performance when acting against Greer Garson, who was being groomed as a star, while Crawford was already well established and a few years away from leaving MGM. Even as the production team “clearly favors [Garson]” and the politics behind her place at MGM became more fraught, Crawford was always the utmost professional. This anecdote of actresses at very different points in their careers illustrates Crawford’s own professionalism and the short shelf-life of female stars, even those as beloved and well-paid as Crawford. That Crawford was able to last long beyond this moment professionally is a testament to her own acumen.

Crawford was kind to her fans, personally signing the photographs they sent to her; she knew what they wanted from her famous remark, “if you want the girl next door, go next door.” Crawford was self-aware about the beauty politics of her role in the Hollywood ecosystem. Placing her roles through the years next to each other, we can see a startling breadth of presentation. There's the flapper with the witty smile and slick bob that led F. Scott Fitzgerald to say, “Joan Crawford is doubtless the best example of the flapper, the girl you see in smart night clubs, gowned to the apex of sophistication, toying iced glasses with a remote, faintly bitter expression, dancing deliciously, laughing a great deal, with wide, hurt eyes. Young things with a talent for living.” There’s the lustful, independent dame with looser curls and tighter clothes acting against Clark Gable. Then there’s the career woman of the 1940s moving up in the world on her own, all broad shoulders and long hair. This isn’t to say that Crawford’s only or even primary worth was in her professionalism and understanding of stardom. Her career wouldn’t have spanned that long unless she was able to speak to her audience and be believable as an actress.

While I love the bitchy, sly mistress she plays in “The Women” (1939) and the fluidity of her movement in her flapper roles, Crawford feels at her most transcendent in later roles. 

Crawford’s greatest work shares a few traits particularly in how it highlights how she used posture to indicate character. While Crawford seems like an incredible force of nature, she’s at her most captivating when actually sharing the screen with an actor that can challenge her. There’s of course Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”, with each woman bringing a humanity and terror to their roles in dramatically different ways. But there’s also the uncomfortable mother/daughter dynamics that create the backbone of “Mildred Pierce," the garish “Johnny Guitar” that sets her against Sterling Hayden (1954) and one of my favorites, the brief moments she shares with noir staple Gloria Grahame in “Sudden Fear” (1950). Even though Grahame and Crawford barely interact, the film goes to great lengths to position their versions of femininity as dramatic opposites. There’s the lustful, underhanded fatale that Grahame plays on one side and Crawford’s rich, caring playwright on the other, who grows more and more hysterical as the film goes on. If the film was made ten or fifteen years prior, Crawford would likely have been playing Grahame’s role. Crawford shows an incredible understanding on-screen and off of the various compromises women make in trying to find success, romantic and otherwise.

One of her most emotionally realized performances came later in her career in the 1956 drama “Autumn Leaves,” directed by Robert Aldrich. The film delves into mental illness and an older woman/younger man relationship dynamic. But my favorite scenes involve Crawford grappling with her own loneliness, like when she goes to a musical performance early in the film and the world seems to fade around her. The light stays on her face, her shoulders slump and she softens as she gets lost in her memories. These moments show a level of tenderness and self-reflection that contradict the wild-eyed monster Faye Dunaway played her as and her own daughter believed her to be. It may prove impossible to fully wrestle Crawford from this image or shift her legacy so that it portrays the full range of her skill and complications.

It’s hard for me to choose my favorite photograph of Joan Crawford. In a career spanning four decades, Crawford provided audiences with many indelible images of womanhood even if history only holds onto one. But if pressed I would pick the series of photographs Eve Arnold took in 1959. One shows Crawford studying her lines on the set of “The Best of Everything [the top photo] her hand grazing her hair in concentration. In another you can see her gazing off camera next to Norma Shearer [pictured below] her eyes alight with a smile we can’t fully see, at a party somewhere in Hollywood.

Crawford was in her mid-fifties when Arnold took these pictures. The extreme close-ups of her lining her lips, or another photograph showing the casual intimacy of her in undergarments cradling the phone while speaking to her agent, could have been framed as a grotesque representation of what happens as icons age. But Arnold was a photographer of great emotional intelligence. What’s most striking about these photographs is that they express a humanity that doesn’t exist in how many remember her, thanks to “Mommie Dearest." Most of the images deal with Crawford reckoning with her own reflection—both literally in terms of the mirrors surrounding her and metaphorically in terms of how they detail her beauty process. Crawford, perhaps more than almost any female star in classic Hollywood, understood what was expected of her. That beauty and the power it brings comes with its advantages and also a price.

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[rachelbrosnahanweb]

New Update has been published on Rachel Brosnahan Web

New Post has been published on http://rachel-brosnahan.org/2018/12/12/press-alex-borstein-talks-about-rachel-brosnahan-and-why-she-loves-the-world-of-the-marvelous-mrs-maisel/

Press: Alex Borstein Talks About Rachel Brosnahan and Why She Loves the World of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Sometimes it all comes down to having just the right chemistry. Several years ago, when Alex Borstein heard about Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino’s idea for a television show about a woman in the ’50s doing stand-up, breaking into a man’s business and balancing family, and she was definitely intrigued.

This was two years before Sherman-Palladino actually had a script and mentioned there might be a part for Borstein, who portrays Susie Myerson, the curmudgeonly manager of Miriam “Midge” Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) in the critically-acclaimed series from Amazon Studios.

The much-anticipated series, which garnered eight Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series, recently returned for season 2. The third season of colorful episodes has already been ordered.

Borstein, 47, who won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress for Mrs. Maisel, has two decades of show business experience in such diverse projects as MADtv, Getting On and the voice of Lois Griffin on Family Guy and films Good Night, Good Luck, Dinner for Schmucks, Ted and A Million Ways to Die in the West. She has known the creators of Mrs. Maisel for many years and appeared as a cranky harpist and eccentric seamstress in the beloved mother-daughter series Gilmore Girls, also from the same creative team.

For Borstein reading the part of Susie opposite of Brosnahan’s Midge for the first time seemed like kismet. “It is really just kind of like speed dating; either it’s there, or not and it was just there,” she recalled. “It was something you can’t really put in a script; that’s how chemistry works.”

How is the second season of Mrs. Maisel different for you than the first? Are you more comfortable in Susie’s skin?

The newness is gone and now you’re stuck with this character, and what do you do to make it different and not hit the same notes all the time? And in Susie and Midge’s relationship, the honeymoon is over. They are, ‘OK, let’s do this. Now, we’re thrust into this relationship. But do I even like you? Can I work with you? Why are you annoying? You’re passive aggressive. Well, you’re aggressive-aggressive.’ So we have all this back and forth because Susie and Midge are a kind of an Odd Couple that happens.

Did you expect both the show and your character to be so well-embraced?

I know that Amy creates incredible worlds and I knew when I read the first script that this was one of those worlds. I knew that the part was special because Susie is such a cool woman to play, as are all of the women in it…I didn’t know how this show would be received but I was pleasantly surprised that it has been so warmly embraced.

What’s it like to be in that world created in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? When I watch the show I see this nostalgia for those who remember that time and a yearning for it for those of us who were too young to remember it.

It’s cool because in some ways it feels like this nostalgic fantasy and kind of cozy and safe… In other ways, it was a pretty turbulent time that was coming up with civil rights around the corner… It’s taking a picture of one tiny space within that world but there’s something very warm when you show up to the set and it’s all designed in the ’50s, and the cars from that period are all parked in the streets, and everyone that walks by is Dapper Dan and dressed to the nines. There’s something very lovely and calming about it in today’s crazy world. So, then going out of that world into your real life, is that jarring to you?

Yeah. It’s quite different, but Susie, the character, is hard-assed, and aggressive, and was kind of before her time. So, she doesn’t feel antiquated or old-fashioned. She feels like she could really fit into any time period.

Talk about the chemistry between you and Rachel, because it’s pretty strong right from the pilot and it continues to increase on-screen.

I came to New York to audition for Susie. I probably spent half an hour with Dan and Amy alone and then Rachel came in and we read together. And from the get-go, the chemistry was there. We just had this Mary Tyler Richards-Rhoda kind of thing that just worked and it worked well.

What do you think are the ingredients?

I don’t want to say it was pure luck because Amy wrote it and she said she had me in mind. She’d already found Rachel, so it’s not shocking that it worked, and Amy’s taste is pretty cool, and so she knows what’s going to go together.

It is a phenomenal cast of highly skilled actors, who have really sunk their teeth into these characters.

Like, Tony Shalhoub, I have had a massive crush on him from Galaxy Quest, and I got to know him years ago when he did a guest starring role on MADtv, the sketch show that I was on. I just thought he was amazing and he was so kind, and so cool to work with, and had always been one of my favorite people. When I heard he was doing this show, it was like ‘holy cow,’ here is yet another reason that I couldn’t possibly say no.

Have you worked together yet?

In season 2, our worlds meet a tiny bit. But he and I have yet to really get down and dirty and get to really, really work together. I’m hoping as the show continues to go, there’ll be more and more.

You do work with Michael Zegen, who plays Midge’s husband Joel?

Yes, and the chemistry between Michael and I, playing Joel, is just perfect too, that there is a disdain and a competitiveness between the two characters that it’s really cool and works really well between us.

You’re both vying for Midge’s attention.

It’s a love triangle. It really is.

Have you been to comedy clubs since the show began and did Mrs. Maisel change your perspective of them?

I did stand-up for a lot of years, and I’ll go if there’s somebody I know is there to see them. I still love seeing a well-crafted set, but it’s not my choice for a night out. It’s like I don’t watch sketch comedy anymore after doing MADtv for years.

It sounds like something that your character Susie might say. You must be proud of winning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy. What was the experience like?

Very strange. First of all, I was very late. My parents and one of my best friends, Will, also came with me. He lives close to my parents. So, I told him to come to our house and I will pick everyone up with the car service. So, of course, he was late. We showed up and they wouldn’t let us in. They said, ‘You have to wait until a commercial break.’ And I’m getting texts of ‘Where the hell are you?’ I was like, ‘Excuse me, I don’t want to cause any trouble, but they’re telling me I need to be sitting because I think it’s time for my awards category…’ and they are not letting us sit, they are still telling us we have to wait…

That sounds nerve-wracking.

Yes. It was just very crazy, and stressful, and then finally they’re like, ‘OK, you can go in and sit down.’ Then literally, we sat down, and at that moment they announced, ‘The nominees for Best Supporting Actress are…’ So, I just made it. So when they called my name I was so not prepared in any way.

During the hiatus, are you writing? Are you acting? Are you looking for different projects?

I live in Barcelona, Spain, and I’m doing a musical with a small theater company there that opens on January 31. So, I have two children, and the bulk of my days is getting them to the bus stop, picking them up, going to piano lessons, going to dance, homework and making dinner, yelling at them, bath time, and then I go to rehearsals for this musical, which I’m just loving it so much. The musical is like feeding me.

How old are your children?

My daughter is 6 and my son is 10.

Have they seen the episodes of the Gilmore Girls that you’re in?

No, I don’t think so. I don’t think they’ve seen any Gilmore. They have come to the set of Mrs. Maisel and seen some episodes that we’re shooting. And the project I did before this was called Getting On, and they often came to the set. Well, my baby girl was born on that set, basically, so she was there every day, but my son was about 4 years old at the time and he visited a lot.

Do people recognize you from this show or any other work while your children are around, and what’s that like?

Yeah, people do. It bothers my son a great deal. If someone asks for a photo, he does not like it.

Yeah, he’s being protective.

He gets very angry and he knows that I don’t want him in any photos, so he’ll try to jump in to mess up the photo.

I used to go to Broadway shows in the ’80s and there was a group of autograph collectors who would share their stories. One guy had nearly every famous person who had performed on Broadway for some 50 years.

Well, it’s nice when someone is an actual collector. But now, people wait outside and they have 15 cards and they want you to sign them all, and you know they are going to put them on eBay that night. So I want to say, ‘What are you doing? This isn’t for you. This is Crazy!’

Well, if you put their name on the autograph they are probably not going to sell it.

Many times, I will… If someone says, ‘Can you just sign your name, please?’ I’ll write, ‘To eBay’ and then I sign my name or I sign someone else’s name and they don’t notice until they get home.

Source: Parade

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Superman & Lois: Behind the Scenes of The New DC TV Show

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When you think of Superman, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Is it the cape? The tights? The ability to “leap tall buildings in a single bound?” Whatever Superman’s most recognizable trait, it’s probably the way the character makes you feel that stays with you. The premise that someone so powerful would choose to use that power solely for good is an optimistic one. Despite being one of the most powerful figures in the DC Universe, it’s Superman’s capacity to inspire hope that is his defining characteristic. 

“Part of why I find the character of Superman appealing as a fan, let alone as a part of the show, is that he has the power to destroy the world and he doesn’t,” Elizabeth Tulloch, who plays Lois Lane on Superman & Lois, says. “He’s doing the right thing because it’s the right thing. If he wasn’t Superman and he was just Clark Kent without the powers, he would be the same man. In other words, you don’t [need] powers to be good, decent, and kind.”

Lois Lane is an equally inspirational figure. What could be more hopeful than someone believing, often in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that all the world needs to make the right decision is to hear the truth? As one of fiction’s most famous journalists, Lois uses a different kind of power from her husband’s to make the world a better, more just place.

Let’s face it, these days, we’re all in need of a little hope. So why not spotlight the two heroes who have been fighting the hopeful fight for over 80 years? Superman & Lois, the newest iteration of these legendary characters which premieres on The CW on Feb. 23, aims to do just that, albeit with some refreshing twists. The days of our heroes competing with each other for scoops while Clark awkwardly hides his true identity from Lois are gone, replaced with a happily married pair with no secrets between them. To switch things up a little further, the two are raising twin teenage boys not in big city Metropolis but in Clark’s hometown of Smallville.

It may sound like a radical interpretation (at least by the generally change-averse standard of most Superman tales), but Superman & Lois still has sci-fi and action to spare, even as it shows us a new side of the Man of Steel. It comes as the latest entry in the network’s ever-expanding roster of DC superhero TV shows, which began in 2012 with Arrow and has grown to encompass The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman, Stargirl, and more.

It was this shared universe that brought us TV’s newest Superman, Tyler Hoechlin, who first wore the cape in 2016 as a guest star on Supergirl. Despite the fanfare surrounding his arrival there was no Superman spinoff in the works at the time, and this was intended as a one-off appearance for the character. 

“Honestly, I was at a point in my life and my career where I didn’t want to commit to something that was a full-time thing on a show,” Hoechlin recalls via Zoom during a break from filming. “I had just left [Teen Wolf] and was enjoying the opportunity to try different things and move around a little bit. So it felt perfect. [Filming] was going to be a couple of weeks up in Vancouver. I could check the list and say I got to play a superhero– and Superman at that.”

But Hoechlin, who had previously auditioned for the role on the big screen for 2013’s Man of Steel, found himself drawn to the way the hero was being presented for TV.

“I liked what Supergirl was representing at the time and what it has continued to represent,” Hoechlin says. “I really loved that the show was just shamelessly optimistic and hopeful. I was happy to do something that was just very, very bold about it.”

That “optimistic and hopeful” quality is apparent in Hoechlin’s performance from the first moments of that initial Supergirl guest appearance. Incredibly powerful and yet so unfailingly polite that he takes the time to offer a wink and a smile to people he saves on the street, this Superman connected with fans tiring of the conflicted, brooding takes which characterized so many of the character’s recent adventures. When the decision was made to bring Superman back for the following year’s Elseworlds crossover event, it was important to match Clark with the character who has shared nearly all his adventures since 1938.

“They were reading a lot of other actresses I recognized,” Tulloch recalls of her 2018 Lois Lane audition. “I kind of had a feeling, after I did it once, that I totally was doing something different from the other actors. The choice I made was just to have fun with it. I think, based on some of the feedback I got in the room, a lot of women had been reading that scene more seriously because, on paper, the scene did read as serious.”

The audition reading in question was a deleted scene from 1980’s Superman II, in which Lois, determined to prove that she knows Clark’s secret identity, pulls a gun on him and fires. A horrified Clark reprimands her, only for Lois to reveal that the round was blank. But by then it’s too late: he’s already confessed to being Superman.

“I just sort of played it joyfully,” Tulloch says. “And at the end, when he doesn’t die, I squealed happily and said, ‘I knew it.’” Tulloch recalls a note from Supergirl co-showrunner Jessica Queller: “She was like, ‘This is what we were looking for… there needs to be a joie de vivre about Lois.’” 

Lois Lane is as crucial to DC history as Superman, first appearing in what is generally considered ground zero for the entire superhero genre: 1938’s Action Comics #1. The book introduced both Superman and Lois to the world and, over the ensuing decades, Lois has risen from supporting character to co-headliner, and with good reason. Tougher than a Metropolis winter, sharp-witted, and a better journalist than her superpowered co-worker, Lois showcases the human spirit at its best, no powers required. Tulloch embodies the character as confidently as Hoechlin does Clark/Superman.

“I can’t think of a more important time in recent history to be playing a journalist,” Tulloch says. “After the last few years, where I feel like journalists and members of the media have come under a pretty constant onslaught and had their roles diminished, I think it’s really important to be doing what she’s doing, using her words to fight on behalf of other people, and to fight for truth and justice.”   

Just like Hoechlin’s Superman, Tulloch’s Lois was an immediate hit with fans. It helps that the pair share an effortless onscreen chemistry. Without the Clark/Superman/Lois faux-love triangle that characterized so many previous versions of the legend, TV’s new Lois and Clark were free to focus on fresher elements of the relationship. Amazingly, this rapport came naturally, as the tight shooting schedules of the Elseworlds crossover meant the first time the pair were in character together was right before filming.

“Our first readings were on set,” Hoechlin says. “We didn’t get to do any of the readings together beforehand. I immediately thought she was perfect for the part. That feeling has only grown.”

“We really just have so much fun,” Tulloch says. “I think that’s part of why I hope people respond to us. Obviously there’s a level of gravitas to these roles, and what they’re doing in their roles in the world is really important, but they’re also really playful and they really like each other.”

By the time the characters were brought back for another DC TV guest appearance in 2019, things had changed. Lois had given birth to their first child, the infant Jonathan Kent. They were there for the multiverse-shattering Crisis on Infinite Earths, which changed elements of reality for all the DC superhero shows, including a major status quo shift for Clark and Lois: instead of raising a single infant son, they now have twin teenage boys.

The responsibility of shaping Superman & Lois fell to writer and executive producer Todd Helbing, who served as showrunner on the fifth season of The Flash. Yet, it was a task that gave him pause when the job was first presented to him by DC TV maestro Greg Berlanti.

“These shows are ginormous,” Helbing says. “The hours alone, it’s just a daunting task. And nobody wants to mess up Superman.”

It was here that the family dynamic of Superman & Lois began to take shape. “Crisis gave us a blank slate in a lot of ways,” Helbing says, and with that came freedom. Only child Jonathan gave way to the idea of a son and a daughter, before finally settling on two very different twin sons: the athletic and confident Jonathan (Jordan Elsass) and the anxious and introverted Jordan (Alexander Garfin).

“I have two boys who are wildly different, so that became part of the storytelling,” Helbing says. “What do you do as parents when one child is completely different from the other and needs different attention and different help? The brothers’ relationship changes the family dynamic. And as working parents, how do you juggle your lives? Just thinking about Lois Lane being the most famous journalist in the world and the demands that her job has coupled with the demands that Superman would have, how do you infuse the storytelling with all of those challenges?”

Those challenges include the fact that, as the show opens, the boys don’t know their father is the world’s most powerful superhero, which means Clark occasionally misses out on fatherly activities without an honest excuse, an understandable point of friction. 

“Superman is a difficult person to dramatize because he’s perfect in a lot of ways,” Helbing says. “The analogy we always use is Superman is sort of perfect, but Clark can be clumsy as a dad. I think being clumsy as a parent, that’s something that we all are. We’re all figuring it out. There are  a lot of books written about it, but the second it happens to you, you don’t know what you’re doing. So why would that be any different for the Man of Steel? In a lot of ways, that opened up the floodgates about really telling stories where people can relate to him in a way that they haven’t been able to before.”

In other words, just because Lois and Clark are icons, pillars of an entire genre of storytelling, and two of the most famous characters in all of fiction, it doesn’t mean parenting comes easily to them. 

“I think there’s a little element of guilt on both of their parts because they’re such busy people, with Clark moonlighting as Superman, and Lois being this very famous, hardworking journalist,” Tulloch says. 

The idea of Lois and Clark as parents isn’t new to fans of the comics, where young Jonathan has been a fixture for years, but it isn’t as well known as other facets of the Superman legend. This makes Hoechlin and Tulloch the first actors to bring this element of the characters to a mainstream audience.

“For me, it was an exciting opportunity to tell a part of the story that hasn’t been told before,” Hoechlin says. “In a way, it raises the stakes significantly… the only real threat to him is threatening the people that he cares about. Of course, he’s had that relationship with Lois, but now he’s also got two kids, so that threat becomes all the more real.”

Fans who grew up with Superman and now have families of their own may see the character in a new light. “I think for parents to be able to come back and reconnect with this character who was a hero of theirs as a kid going through the same things that they’re now going through is such a cool opportunity, as well,” says Hoechlin.

Creating a realistic family dynamic meant finding actors to play the Kent sons who felt natural with their onscreen parents. Tulloch did readings with a series of young actors to make sure the parental chemistry was there.

“You honestly could tell almost immediately that they were the right fits,” Tulloch says. “Alex Garfin, who plays Jordan, has a lot of emotional stuff. He was just really excellent. Jordan Elsass, who plays Jonathan, is the same. His role is really different since Jonathan’s a bit cockier. If anything, his character’s Achilles’ heel is that he thinks too highly of himself. But both of those boys were just awesome.”

Events in the first episode lead the family to leave Metropolis for Clark’s old hometown of Smallville, which isn’t quite the idyllic small town it’s sometimes portrayed as. But the rural setting doesn’t mean that there will be less superheroic action than you’ve come to expect from a big city-based hero.

“The way we approached it was, if Flash is the guardian of Central City and Supergirl is the guardian of National City, Superman is the guardian of the world,” Helbing says. “So it really doesn’t matter where Superman’s based. He can fly anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds. Once you understand that, it really doesn’t matter where his home turf is… it could be anywhere.”

Bringing the family back to Smallville means that Hoechlin has an opportunity to explore more facets of the character. There’s a long-running debate among Superman fans and creators about which of Superman’s identities is the “real” persona. Is he really Clark Kent, and Superman is a put-on for the world? Or does Superman represent his true nature, and it’s Clark Kent who’s an act? To hear Hoechlin tell it, it’s far more complicated than that.

“There is Superman at the most extreme, when no one knows him as anything other than [a hero],” Hoechlin says of his approach to the character. “There’s Superman when he’s around people who are aware that he’s more than just Superman. There’s the Clark that everyone knows is Superman, but he’s still kind of ‘playing Clark.’ There’s also the extreme Clark where you would only ever think that he’s the clumsy guy in the office and that’s all he is.”

But the truth of the character lies somewhere else entirely for the actor, and it’s the one that lends itself well to a story of Clark living a family-oriented life when he’s not flying around saving the world.

“And then there’s this guy in the center,” Hoechlin says. “I don’t really think that there’s a right answer in saying that ‘he is Superman’ or ‘he is Clark.’” 

Clark will face some challenges as he readjusts to Smallville life, but it’s the famously outspoken Lois who has her work cut out for her.

“Lois has a tendency to put her foot in her mouth and sometimes she doesn’t think before she speaks,” Tulloch says. “You will see her get into trouble a little bit with the people of Smallville because she thinks she’s doing the right thing on their behalf, but not really thinking through their specific needs.”

Despite these weighty and dramatic concepts, there’s no shortage of super-powered action in the first two episodes, in which Superman takes on a mysterious, armored foe. For those wondering whether they need to be up on the various continuity bylaws of a TV universe that encompasses no fewer than six other shows, the first episode kicks off with a wonderful crash course in the history of this particular Superman and Lois, and there’s no baggage from other series to contend with.

“My mom watches everything that my brother [Aaron Helbing of The Flash, Knightfall, and more] and I do, and she didn’t read comic books,” Helbing says. “If she can’t understand what’s going on, then we’ve failed. But in the same light, there’s a huge fanbase, so we want to put Easter eggs in there and we want to tell stories about characters that everybody knows [from] the comics. We want to satisfy both at the same time, but ultimately, our job is to just tell a good story, and that takes focus.”

Getting what these particular characters represent right matters more to fans than superpowered brawls, crossovers, or intricate continuity. (“Part of why Tyler and I take this really seriously [is] because we know these roles are iconic for a reason,” Tulloch says). Embodying those core values is what made Hoechlin and Tulloch’s portrayals connect so strongly with fans in the crossovers, and it’s something everyone involved in the spinoff series intends to continue.

“It’s such a polarized world that we’re living in,” Hoechlin says. “Superman’s ability to stand for what’s right without having to, for lack of a better word, demonize, is something I really appreciate about him. For me, that’s really that idea of compassion and empathy towards everyone. I think his hope is that everyone finds the right path.”

But as it so often does when discussing the world of Superman, it always comes back to that one word: hope.

“Superman has always been hopeful,” Helbing says. “Considering everything that we’ve gone through this year, hope is infused in there and it should be. But it has to feel real, and it has to come out of hopefulness for real struggles that anybody watching this can relate to. If Superman can struggle and he still remains hopeful, and if Lois can struggle and she remains hopeful, then I think maybe we can, too.”

Superman & Lois premieres on Feb. 23 on The CW.

The post Superman & Lois: Behind the Scenes of The New DC TV Show appeared first on Den of Geek.

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