#paule delys

[postcard-from-the-past]

Paule Delys on a vintage postcard

[gogmstuff]

1908 (October) Les Modes - La mode par Félix Mlle Andrée d'Arcy (top, bottom) Mlle Paule Delys (center) - Photos by Paul Boyer & Bert. From gallica.bnf.fr; fixed spots & flaws w Pshop 1766X2253.

[surfmusic]

x

[hikari-kaitou]

This is Phoenix and Edgeworth's profiles as imagined by character designer Ms. Suekane. We got quite different answers from her compared to Takumi and the others!!

Phoenix's profile

Birthday: Maybe a Virgo? I kinda get the feeling he was born in September.

Blood type: O type. His attitude towards Maya and his fairly easygoing nature give me that impression.

Birthplace: Saitama, maybe? It's close to Tokyo but not on the same level because it's more rural. Maybe Saitama or Chiba or Ibaraki? But Takumi-san is from Saitama? Well, let's go with Saitama, then.

Non-work clothes: A hoodie. I want Phoenix to like wearing hoodies (lol). I can't think of anything else that would suit him. On the bottom, he'd wear cargo pants.

Living situation: He lives at his office. He's got a locker there where he keeps blankets and stuff to sleep on.

On his days off: He does nothing. He kinda just spaces out in the morning, then when noon comes he eats lunch and watches TV. When evening comes, he eats dinner, watches more TV, bathes, and sleeps. But if someone invites him out then he'll go.

Hobbies: Video games and stuff. Like fighting games (lol). I can see him with his controller going "tap tap tap tap" and smashing out combos. He might also play Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy or those types of games.

Favorite food: He's omnivorous. He'll eat whatever but he's kinda happy when there's meat in it. He loves meat.

Luxury foods: Diet cola. Beef jerky would be fine too (lol). He drinks alcohol but it doesn't show on his face much. Not beer, but like Japanese hot sake (lol)

Sports: Swimming. In general he's useless at sports but he'd be like "swimming is the only thing I'm good at." He seems like he'd get a little excited while talking about swimming.

Music: He doesn't listen to music. He'll go to karaoke if someone brings him, though.

Cellphone: He updates it fairly regularly, but because he always waits for the price to go down, he always ends up with one that's two models behind (lol).

His part time job in college: Something loose, because he doesn't commit himself to things… Like maybe he worked at a convenience store.

His type: I feel like he dreams about someone with abstract qualities like being "kind" or "domestic". Just thinking about those words gets him all starry-eyed and sighing (lol).

Edgeworth's profile

Birthday: He's an Aries, which means he was born on April 2nd or later. Let's go with April 2nd (lol).

Blood type: Type AB, because I feel like his emotions kinda have peaks and valleys.

Birthplace: Chiba. At first I thought Ace Attorney took place in Soga (a city in Chiba Prefecture).

Non-work clothes: A jacket, but not like a suit jacket, more like a casual one. Like from Paul Smith or something.

Living situation: A normal apartment. A lot of his furniture is Japanese handicraft stuff, and I feel like he'd put a lot of money into making his place feel Japanese.

On his days off: He goes shopping or on walks and has an elegant lunch. If he drives a car, it would be a silver one (lol).

Hobbies: Collecting western antiques and Japanese handicrafts.

Favorite food: Taro and meat soup (imoni). He has a favorite deli in his neighborhood that makes it.

Luxury foods: Whiskey. He enjoys it on the rocks.

Sports: He used to play soccer, but now he does weight training. He's got a defined six-pack.

Music: jazz. He listens to it while drinking his whiskey. Eminem fills him with rage.

Cellphone: A normal one. He uses his computer to send emails so he really only uses it to talk.

His part time job in college: Administrative assistant. He'd help with paperwork only when the office was really busy.

His type: Someone who doesn't lie to him. I have nothing in particular to add to that.

[sethsclearwater]

Can I request poly embry and Paul where reader does girl dinner or girl math and the boys are confused/ concerned

Btw can my emoji be 🖤 if it’s not already taken

absolutely!!

...

"there's no way you're seriously calling that dinner," paul said exasperatedly as he watched your smiling figure plop down on the couch next to your other imprinter with a plate of 2 dino nuggets, 3 strawberries, and a couple random slices of deli sliced cheese you found in the fridge.

you giggled, rolling your eyes as you curled into embry's side, allowing him to wrap his arm around you to hold you close to him, "it's so good!" you responded, flashing paul a smile before you dipped one of your dino nuggets into ketchup, taking a bite with a hum of approval that had embry laughing.

paul rolled his eyes, "girl dinner," you added before taking another bite, giggling when you saw paul's confused expression at your comment.

"girl dinner?" your other imprinter's soft voice came from next to you as he threaded his fingers through your hair, gently scratching at your scalp.

you hummed and nodded, "girl dinner." you confirmed, not bothering to offer either boy an explanation as you took a bite of one of the strawberries, curling further into embry's side.

"you know what i'm not even gonna ask," embry said, both him and paul laughing softly over their confusion about the whole ordeal, "you still good with watching that new episode of survivor?" he asked, smoothly changing the topic to avoid paul asking any more questions about your 'girl dinner.'

you hummed, thinking about it for a moment before responding, "actually i was thinking-" you started but paul was quick to cut you off.

"not a chance princess, you know how long it took you to make up your mind on survivor?" he asked as he grabbed the remote, looking over to you with one eyebrow raised.

he wasn't wrong, you'd spent nearly 45 minutes going back and forth with the boys over what show to watch. instead of arguing with him, you just giggled and rolled your eyes, smiling as embry also let out a soft laugh at your and paul's bickering.

"i suppose survivor is fine," you drolled teasingly, squealing when embry squeezed your hip as paul hit play.

"you just focus on your girl dinner, yea?" embry asked, chuckling when you rolled your eyes again and nuzzled his chest, stretching your feet across the couch to rest in your other imprinter's lap.

despite paul's teasing, he was quick to allow you to put your feet in his lap, gently rubbing at your feet as the show started.

[piccolos-bigtoe]

Uglysketches but working on a fucked up and evil normalcore TF2 Grocery Store AU because I was bored at work and I want them to suffer from having a normal average life as much as I do…. Demo and Sniper are both cashiers, Engineer is HR (he has a comb over rn but all his hair falls out later from stress, there’s a whole arc about it just wait), Administrator is ofc the big store owner and Pauling is the manager. Soldier would definitely be a shift lead and a total hard ass. Tentative on what the other characters would be, Heavy would be like the guy that like is behind the deli ofc, I think Scout and Pyro would be on floor/stocking/janitorial (Scout would be high as a kite and take 15 minute bathroom breaks and pyro would be doing most all the work), Spy would probably like be idk security but the like kind thag just sits and watches cameras all day (im conflicted because that’s more so administrators cup of tea, wayching cameras, but like irl why would an owner waste their time doing that when they can hire some other asshole to do it for them), erm Medic would be, I’m not sure, probably also HR but the the completely useless kind, he’s just HR because he’d love the gossip.

I’ve put a lot of heart and soul of personal experience into this soulless corporatecore grocerypilled tf2 AU, yeah… *blushes and kicks ground twiddles thumbs smiles etc etc*

Fun fact the vests I drew on are the same as the one I have to wear

[deligrossery]

Deli Grossery Archive: July 2019

Paul’s Da Burger Joint. 131 2nd Ave, New York, NY. (Photo Date: 6/12/19)

[tf2occontest]

Dr. Valentina Rosa García, The RED Chemist VS The Courier

(Full matchup list here)

Alright team, here's a recap: This is a contest to determine who amongst you will take the top of the leaderboards and be hired at TFI! Simply put, whoever gets the most votes gets to move on, and whoever doesn't... Well. They'll be put down swiftly and cleanly. :}

So, mann your stations, because here are your next contestants! Vote for your favorite mercenary who you want to win the TF2 OC Contest! - P

OC INFO UNDER THE CUT!

We highly encourage you to take a peek to make your decision!

Dr. Valentina Rosa García, The RED Chemist

@archerwolfposts

Image credit: @/archerwolfposts

The RED Chemist uses her doctorates I pharmaceuticals, toxicology, and biochemistry to explore the limits of the world's chemistry, which includes other people, especially the enemy team. Underneath the mask, the RED Chamist can come across as cheery and passive to a fault as a front to make her appear as non-threatening as possible to her coworkers. While she knows everyone is supposed to be equals, the Chemist is very aware of how she's perceived as just how many odds are stacked against herself. Knowing she may not always be seen as an equal, she would rather not be perceived as an obstacle, lest someone decide to poke around for projects that must stay between the RED Chemist, Miss Pauling, and the Administrator. The RED Chemist is a woman of many thoughs outside of her genius, shrouding the complicated perception of the intersections between her morality, her occupational duty and the cruelty is requires, and her own scientific curiosities. That being said, her scientific curiosities couple well and flourish within her occupational duties, making her more likely to sidestep her moral obligations as a human being for the sake of satiating herself and her higher ups.

The Courier

@sicc-nasti

Image credit: @/sicc-nasti

Do you like receiving your mail on time and your packages in pristine condition - untouched by curious hands and peeping eyes? Do you love when your woefully embarrassing love letters filled with poetry from your soul are delivered with the utmost care and secrecy? Does it fill you with glee when your special snacks you ordered overseas finally make its way into your hands and not a SINGLE piece is missing?

If you said yes to any of these questions then WOW do I NOT have the guy for you!!!!

Instead-

TFI presents you something you didn't know was possible OR legal - weaponized postal services!

Meet your 10th Class-

The Courier!

By intercepting and opening someone else's mail, an individual can gain access to confidential information that can be used for identity theft, fraud, or other illegal activities. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we? That's why our solution to this simple problem is bringing the mail to the battlefield! Courier is equipped with MANN CO approved disposable stackable mail crates for your climbing or shielding needs. Just think of how nice it would be to build a tower to do taunts on or have cover from that enemy Heavy's hail of bullets. Sure it's clunky but nothing shreds paper faster than a bullet - that's science tested and math approved by TFI scientists! And monkeys!

Courier is THE MANN for the job.

If that ain't enough to catch your attention, let's take a peek at the men behind the uniform.

RED’s Courier is a Puerto Rican ex-felon hailing from the greatest place on earth! New York City! With an insatiable appetite for all things fraud, deli meats, and violence - what more could you ask from a guy?

BLU's Courier is a Puerto Rican-Italian ex-con plucked from the greatest place on earth! Jersey City! With an insatiable appetite for all things smuggling, deli meats, and violence - what more could you ask from a guy?

Not enough for a vote?

Well, listen, I'm not above bribery. If you vote for them, Courier promises to not read your mail for like a week and INSTEAD- will write you up a totally not fraudulent marriage certificate to any merc you want!! Just think! Finally legally married to Heavy! Or Engie! How’s that sound for incentive, boss?

THROUGH RAIN, SHINE, BULLET HAIL OR SNOW, THEY’RE YOUR COURIER.

VOTE FOR COURIER IN THIS UPCOMING TF2 OC CONTEST

Maybe there’ll be enough in the budget for a third one!

[potterandpromises]

4x09 liveblog:

The push-pull between Oliver's Irishness and his "Greekness" will never not fascinate me

Who exactly is calling Charles an ice prince?

I'm distracting by the TV in the background. Is that Taylor Swift?

I can't believe there's another fucking Ron in this show

Howard walking Gravey AND Sevelyn in the intro.

Calling it now: Marshall was Sazz' protege.

What's up with that tie-dye hoodie in Bev's office? I mean I know it's probably from the movie, but is it also a clue?

"We're the most listened to murder podcast on the upperwest side that's sponsored by a deli chain." Wait does this mean they're still sponsored by Dimas Delis?? I would have thought for sure that would have fallen through when they sent it's owner to jail!

Does Charles' expression imply that he was Oliver's emergency contact?

Their auditions are so funny

Half way through, I think this is one of my favorite episodes of the season. Probably tied with 4x02. There's so many gems.

"A couple of married old men and their caretaker."

It's kinda funny that they killed Paul Rudd off twice

...is that why Marshall can't grow facial hair?

Ooooh Oliver is Charles' emergency contact and Charles used to be his

"I always thought that we'd grow old-er and die together." I like that this is the episode that acknowledges that they're married. This is how olicharles can still win

Called it. The thing with the bear was clever. The shoe thing was pretty convoluted but I guess Marshall is petty lol

Everyone on Reddit called Sazz having written the script and Marshall stealing it. Wonder how the writers feel about that.

[mariacallous]

Sheila Glickman Leventhal isn’t your average Jewish American grandma. The 82-year-old owner of Cecil’s Deli in St. Paul, Minnesota, the spot her parents opened and where she’s been peeling and dicing potatoes since she was eight years old, is also an every day yogi and was recently named the St. Paul deli matriarch. 

In a chaotic, fun interview with lots of laughter, Sheila (along with the occasional two cents from her daughter Becca Kvasnik) told me the most important factor to restaurant success, the most essential Jewish ingredient, and how she’s pretty confident she could still make schmaltz on Mars. 

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. 

[ericcarrsworshipper]

KISSBLR!

I need your help! I want to write a mini series including these members (listed) and I need to give them powers bc i want to potentially have the timelines mess up ans weird stuff seem to happen and overlap so the boys end up waking up with powers. This is going to be a comedy and slice of life mixed with fantasy. Please comment what you think works for each!

So far the ideas we have. (Not set in stone)

Paul - pick style throwing blades

Gene - Fire

Tommy - Lightning

Eric S

Eric C

Bruce

Vinnie (possibly)

In Deli's mini AU series, the current line up gets teleported to an AU where Eric never dies and the reunion tour never happened so the line up there is still Eric Carr and Bruce. I was going to do this as a x reader series and unfortunate you, the reader, have messed around with timetravel but while you're meant to keep your thoughts clear, your mind is troubled with KISS retiring from touring and that Eric passed away, this leading the strange world of unexplainable magic that is the timetravel device you made to drag current kiss with you into 1988. But with being such big celebs, people start to talk while you try to explain to the band what happened. With hiding away and denial, The Manager soon locks onto the potential danger that he thinks are just fakes trying to sabotage KISS's career and sets out to hunt them down. And while you're on the run with the band and the KISS (88 line up) is touring. You make the mistake of running into them. Thus now 2023 KISS and Eric and Bruce of 1988 KISS are aware of each other and its a race against time to fix the massive mess you've made in the timelines

[edgessunflower]

Rookie

Pairing: Raven x Fem reader x Steven Richards

Description: You arrive at ECW and despite being a rookie immediately prove yourself in your first match catching the attention of a certain duo

Everything for the beginning of your career relies on this moment as you stand in the crowd watching a tag match after talking with Paul Heyman before the night's show of ECW and you were still in awe and disbelief that not only had you been noticed or even considered for a wrestling company as well known as ECW but that you wanted you to sign immediately and be one of the few women in the world of extreme. You watched closely waiting for the perfect time to jump in and you did right when one man stood next to another in a leather jacket while a different man followed the other leading to you jumping in and kicking him into the post while the ref was distracted turning around and locking eyes with the quiet and brooding man in the leather jacket before suddenly a smack echoed and the man with long hair and purple gear won as you walked backstage where paul was waiting with a chesire grin on his face, "You did well young lady" you grabbed a sandwich from the nearby deli and a coca cola before you felt a tap on your shoulder as you ate only to turn and see the man from earlier in the ring who had won the match learning his name was Steven Richards but he was called Stevie by everyone else and you saw the man in the leather jacket behind him down the hall making you raise a brow as you looked at stevie. "That's Raven, he's not a real talker" you nodded as you took another glance at raven and took notice of the wild and long curly hair, tattoos, and how he dressed compared to stevie and some of the other wrestlers you briefly saw over the last thirty minutes backstage and during the show as the last two matches went by and everyone began to leave along with their pay stubs for the month which made you confused when you got one from Paul with five hundred dollars inside telling him that you hadn't done anything only for him to respond with your intervention in stevie's match earlier and playing the clip showing how the audience reacted, "They already want more and that's just a glimpse of you they got tonight" despite shaking your head you took the stub and left going to your hotel room unaware of the glances from raven and steven and the interest they both took in you not just as a possible ally and maybe even a friend but both secretly thinking of more within that first moment unaware of the other thinking the same thing.

[marine-corps-strong]

Beers and deli sandwiches from G&R deli in the Bronx and Paul O'Neil IPA beers from bar on Arthur Avenue. If I lived in NYC I would be 50 pounds heavier for sure. 🤣❤️

[sade1-adam]

“Ben 4 kişiyim: 1 ben, 2 içimdeki, 3 aynadaki, 4 kalbimdeki.. Ben'i geç, içimdeki zaten deli, kır aynadakini. Ya kalbimdeki?”

Paul Auster

[efervesan]

B12 kullanıyorum 10 gündür, herhangi bir ölçüm yaptırmadım, ihtiyacım var mı yok mu onu bilmiyorum. Zaten hiçbir boku unutmayan bana biraz fazla gelmiş olabilir ama 4K dan 8K ya geçiş yaptım ve bence bu günümüz şartlarında biraz fazla. Overdose sanırım benimki.

Bir insasın elinin köşesindeki küçücük bir beni neden unutmazsın be adam? Deli misin?

Öldürmem lazım içimdekini.

Ama,kandırsam da olur...

Diyordum çok uzun zaman önce. Ve bunca zaman sonra hala hangi noktadayım bilmiyorum. Bir arpa boyu yol katedememiş gibi hissediyorum kendimi.

Neyse, Yunus Emre’nin dediği gibi, ‘tırnakların çok güzel olmuş’.

[denimbex1986]

'As a director, Benny Safdie makes sleazy movies about hustlers and gamblers and criminals and strivers. Films that teem with violence and drugs, while a pulsating anxiety yanks you through a gritty underbelly of a New York you thought no longer existed.

But today? We’re about as far from that seediness as you can get. On his suggestion, we meet up at the Upper West Side deli institution Barney Greengrass. The tree-lined blocks around here are stately and idyllic, tucked between Central Park and the Hudson River. Safdie, 37, is dressed in full dadcore: glasses, striped tee, jeans, Tevas. (Tevas!) He has the personality to match, with a warmth and gregariousness that initially catch you way off guard. This is the guy responsible for Uncut Gems?

“My go-to meal here was pastrami, eggs, and Mun-chee cheese. But Mun-chee cheese doesn't exist anymore,” Safdie laments. “Nobody bought it.” He opts for a sesame bagel with butter instead.

This neighborhood is his home turf, and his favorite place in the world. He spent his childhood ping-ponging between an unstable environment with his father in Queens, then comfortable normalcy with his mother and stepdad on the Upper West Side.

As a younger man, he did a brief stint living downtown. “I looked out, I'm like, There's no trees. I didn't realize how important that is to my sanity,” he remembers. Now he and his wife, Ava, are raising their two boys, Cosmo, 7, and Murray, 4, up here.

Safdie made his name in tandem with his older brother Josh, the two perpetually mentioned in the same breath for their idiosyncratic, independent films reminiscent of the heyday of New Hollywood. Daddy Long Legs (2009) was mined from their own misadventures with an irresponsible father. (Safdie says he tends to have a more critical view of their upbringing than Josh and, though he still talks to their dad, “it can be strained.”) Good Time (2017), with Robert Pattinson as a small-time criminal and Benny as his mentally disabled brother, raised their profile.

And then came 2019’s Uncut Gems, the heart-pounding thriller starring Adam Sandler as a diamond-dealing gambling addict, which planted the Safide brothers firmly at the center of the culture. The success that followed changed everything.

“That was the first time where I had a vision beyond four feet in front of me,” Safdie says.

What does that vision look like? For Safdie, it means pursuing an increasingly successful acting career. He’s branched out on his own, diverging from the brother he’s been working with his entire life. Many actors go on to become directors; it’s much rarer for the opposite to happen. Even the few who do make the jump—say, John Huston—end up being remembered more for their first career.

Safdie, though, possesses a chameleonic talent, so much so that every role of his feels like a genuine surprise. Perhaps you saw him pop up in Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘70s Valley vibefest Licorice Pizza as Joel Wachs, a closeted councilman. Or in Claire Denis’s Stars at Noon as an eerily nefarious CIA man (character’s name: CIA Man). Or as a Jedi in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or, earlier this year, in—wait a second—the film adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume’s seminal tome about a preteen girl coming of age.

Safdie’s downtown cred, the A24-ness of it all, maybe didn’t make him the most natural casting choice for Margaret’s dad Herb on paper. “It always delights me when people find out he's in the movie. Just their total shock,” the film’s director, Kelly Fremon Craig told me.

Rachel McAdams, who plays Margaret’s mom, told me in an email that she first met Safdie at a screening he hosted for Uncut Gems. “He was so lovely and effusive with such a gentle, open energy about him,” she said. “I remember my brain not quite being able to compute that guy with the same guy who just put me through one of the most stressful movie-watching experiences of my life.”

Safdie sees acting as a way to delve into certain aspects of himself that he hasn’t had an outlet for otherwise. Playing a dad, for instance. “That's a big part of my personality that I haven't yet had the chance to explore in my own work,” he says. His experience as a director also makes him considerably less neurotic about his own performances. Watching himself in the editing room? Having a big line in a scene cut? No problem—he’s been on the other side, and he gets it.

Now, Safdie has his biggest role yet, a meaty part in Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s wildly anticipated summer blockbuster about the father of the atomic bomb. Safdie plays Edward Teller, opposite Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer. Teller was a controversial figure, a Hungarian theoretical physicist who would go on to testify against Oppenheimer in later years.

The cast of Oppenheimer is comically stacked: Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Gary Oldman, Rami Malek, to name a few. Nolan was looking for someone fresh and unexpected to play Teller. He had initially seen Safdie in Good Time and then Licorice Pizza. “I called Paul [Thomas Anderson] and I asked about Benny, and he gave him the strongest possible endorsement and pointed out that he's an incredible actor, but also just a wonderful guy,” Nolan told me.

There was also a bit of fate sprinkled in. Safdie had studied physics at Boston University—almost became a physicist, in fact, before he swerved off into filmmaking. Oppenheimer would allow him to combine his two passions, to dive into yet another deep interest that had otherwise not merged with his film career. It would also require him to wear layers of makeup, to have his hair straightened every day until he could hear it sizzle, and to do accent work for the first time. Safdie put off sharing his speech progress with Nolan for as long he could, until he couldn’t. Finally, he sent the director a voice memo of himself describing his breakfast in a thick Hungarian accent.

“When he sent me that recording, I listened to it about a thousand times and very much enjoyed it,” Nolan said.

Teller could have been written as a straight antagonist to Oppenheimer, but instead Nolan used him to inject rare moments of levity throughout the film. (There is one memorable scene in which Safdie slathers sunscreen all over his face before the first nuclear bomb test.) “For the tragedy of that relationship to have resonance, you have to have seen a warmth there and something between them that's more of a brotherly relationship,” Nolan said. “And I felt that Benny could really bring that to the role and give it that warmth.”

“[He’s] such a kind and gentle fella,” Cillian Murphy told me of Safdie. Much has been made of how intense the film is—take a look at any number of harrowing promotional shots of Murphy in character looking like the most haunted man of all time. In between takes, he said it always seemed as if he ended up talking to Safdie.

“You keep the atmosphere light and joke around because I feel you need to be in a relaxed state to act. Your heart rate needs to be low, your cortisol levels need to be low,” Murphy said. “And that's why I think I probably gravitated towards Benny.”

Safdie is obsessed with realism. It checks out, considering how so many characters in his movies were just ordinary people plucked off the street. That sensibility has followed him into his performances.

Eating, for instance. It drives him nuts when people don’t eat on camera. “I hate it when people don't eat,” he says, tearing into his bagel. “It destroys me.” When he filmed a dinner scene in Licorice Pizza, he made sure to eat in every take. “I don't know how many tiramisus I ate, but it must have been 30,” he says. Same thing happened in The Curse, his secretive upcoming Showtime series with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone about a couple producing an HGTV show: “Sixty chips in one take, and we must have had nine takes…”

“It wasn't just the nine bags of chips,” Fielder told me in an email. “Any scene that involved food, everyone would pace themselves on the first take.… But Benny for some reason would keep shoving food in his mouth the entire scene ’cause he thought it would be funnier. And he was right. There was one scene where he ate an entire Chinese buffet plate every single take for 15 takes and he would always match the exact same volume of food. You'd think any sane person would eat a couple less popcorn shrimp each time as the takes went on. But he wouldn't.”

And then there’s the crying. Safdie tends to cry when he gets into character—thinking of all the things he might be feeling if he were in that person’s shoes. When Adam Sandler, in Uncut Gems, had to weep, dejected, that he was “so sad and so fucked up,” it was Safdie who went into his trailer to pump him up.

“In a weird way, there's nothing better than being able to do that in front of people because it's usually a very private moment that you're ashamed of and you don't want to show anybody. But to actually get the opportunity to show people what it's like when you're really sad,” Safdie recalls saying. “And then I started crying. He goes, ‘You got to stop. Can you take it easy?’”

Before Uncut Gems, even with a handful of celebrated movies under his belt, a film career didn’t feel truly viable. At the back of his mind, he still thought he might have to go back to school and actually become a physicist. His wife was the primary breadwinner, and so when he edited Good Time, he’d set his son Cosmo in bed with a bunch of pillows surrounding him so he wouldn’t roll over, turn on the baby monitor, and work while he slept.

Last year, it was announced that Sandler would be working on a new movie with Elara Pictures, the Safdie brothers’ production company. The project would be set in the world of sports memorabilia collectors, with Megan Thee Stallion also reported to star.

Shortly after, news broke that Benny would not be directing the Sandler movie with Josh. “Elara is still there. We work on a lot of documentaries and there's just a constant flow of ideas,” Safdie says. “It just felt like, okay, there's things that I want to explore that don't necessarily align right now with Josh. So it's a divide and conquer mentality. He wants to tell this story, he can go and do that. I'm going to go and do a couple of other things. It seems like a natural progression for how things have happened.”

Mainly, he had gone away to act on several projects and work on The Curse. By the time he returned, Josh and their longtime third collaborator Ronald Bronstein, were already deep into working on the new Sandler movie. “It was just a matter of, ‘This works for me right now and this is what I've got to do,’” Safdie explains.

Elara also had a shakeup earlier this year. One of its founding producers, Sebastian Bear-McClard, was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. A spokesperson for the Safdies had previously said they fired him upon becoming aware of the behavior in July 2022. “It’s disgusting, and when you find out something about somebody that you didn't realize, you just have to be much more careful,” Safdie says when I ask him about the incident. “It's a lot, and it's not something that you want to have happen to anybody. And when you find it out, the one thing that you can do is really just take control.”

When we speak, Safdie is just finishing up final sound editing on The Curse. The show originated through his friendship with Fielder. Safdie had been a longtime Nathan for You enthusiast, and had even written a Cinema Scope article about his love for the show. Fielder was similarly a fan of Safdie’s. “In those initial hangouts it was clear we were on a similar wavelength,” Fielder said.“We both think a lot about tone and realism. We weren't even intending to collaborate on a project actually, it just sort of happened organically the second time we hung out.”

“We came up with the idea for The Curse and we're like, ‘This is so stupid, but it's really funny,’” Safdie explains. They kept texting and texting about it, until the bit became real.

In The Curse, Fielder and Emma Stone play a couple, while Safdie is a long-haired, turquoise jewelry-wearing HGTV producer. “They live in an area called Española, which is close to Santa Fe. And that's where they're building their new homes. They have a very different way of gentrifying the community. They want to do it ethically, and they want to do it in a way that doesn't hurt anybody. So they want to make a show about that. And you follow their lives as they're doing it,” Safdie explains. “It started out as a 30-minute comedy and became an hour-long comedy-drama.”

So he filmed Oppenheimer in the New Mexico desert and then returned to New Mexico to film The Curse for several more months. While he emerged without any turquoise jewelry, he did leave the set having purchased a ton of props from production. “I do have an insane amount of Talavera dishware, which I love. I love it so much. It brings me so much joy to look down and see the bright colors,” he says.

This enthusiasm and attention to detail saturates everything. Directing, acting, physics—they’re all connected.

“All of it is just trying to understand what this thing is that we're going through,” Safdie says. “How in the world is the universe expanding and here I am, sitting here. What's 14 billion years ago? What's time? How much time is left?”'