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EMMY SPECIAL JUNE 14, 2021

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EMMY SPECIAL JUNE 14, 2021

“CATEGORY IS ‘LEGENDARY’ EXCEPTIONAL” LUMINOUS Mj RODRIGUEZ” “BARRIER-BREAKING

“ARGUABLY TELEVISION’S MOST IMPORTANT SHOW”

RODRIGUEZ HAS GIVEN A WARMING PERFORMANCE”

SO MUCH HEART...SURE TO ELICIT TEARS...

“GROUNDBREAKING”

“POWERFUL”

“MUST-SEE TV THAT MATTERS”

“CHILLING ” “RAW AND REAL “MARA MAKES A COMPELLING LEAD” “FULLY NAILS THE COMPLEX EMOTION TOP 10 SHOWS OF 2020

SHARP” “HAUNTING” “ MARA AND ROBINSON ARE EXCELLENT”“LAYERED TREATME “DEVASTATING...EXCELLENT CAST”

KATE MARA

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES

NICK ROBINSON OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES

FYC OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES

“STRONG PERFORMANCES ... ADDICTIVE” “PROVOCATIVE...

S”

L”

“EXCEPTIONAL WORK FROM ROBINSON

“SEARING”“STUNNING SOPHISTICATED”

NT OF A SENSITIVE SUBJECT”

Director, Reality, Guest Star

Netflix juggernaut before it was cool — which means she binged it in its entirety the day it hit the streamer in October.

British limited series I May Destroy You and It’s a Sin feature nuanced portrayals of friendship, rich with specificity, that explore how chosen family can help anchor those who are suffering from trauma or isolation.

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After achieving astronomical viral fame by lip-syncing Donald Trump on TikTok, comedian Sarah Cooper landed a Netflix special and earned the audience she’s been trying to reach for decades.

A Category Dominated

by Unlimited Talent This highly competitive actress race may put esteemed (and Emmywinning) veterans of the category up against breakout stars.

“People said they were actually able to hear what [Donald Trump] was saying when it was coming out of my mouth,” says Sarah Cooper.

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Ode to an Episode: Chloe Bennet on The Queen’s Gambit

Down a Rabbit Hole for Obscene Lyrics Alexandra Rushfield, showrunner of Hulu’s Shrill, takes THR inside a scene from the third season that follows her protagonist to a record

The Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD star reveals that she got into the

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‘I Would Give Up Everything for Him to Have Never Been President’

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shop, where her distracted boss meets up with an old friend.

20 ‘Look How We Choose Not to See What Is Right in Front of Us’ Nicole Kidman and director Susanne Bier dish on HBO’s The Undoing, a twisty murder mystery limited series that became the network’s mostwatched show in 2020.

22 ‘We Needed to Discover a New Version of This Character’ Sebastian Stan and director Kari Skogland discuss Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which brings grounded realism and a bit of comic relief to the Marvel Universe while introducing a very different Bucky Barnes.

LACEY TERRELL/NETFLIX

10 TV Friendships, With Emotional Benefits

June 2021 Emmys 4

into believing a tone-deaf singer is a musical phenomenon.

HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves is a family affair for executive producer and director Ridley Scott, whose son Luke helmed three episodes of the mind-bending sci-fi series. The duo say their collaboration was decades in the making — ever since a young Luke stepped foot on the set of Alien.

A movie character is “really a merger of the double and the actor that makes up the style,” says stuntman Aaron Toney (second from right), who has stepped in for Anthony Mackie (far right) for about a decade, including here, on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

32 ‘It Was Very Operatic, That Character’ From delivering a monologue in a made-up language to “screaming bloody murder” on an operating table, Tony Goldwyn realized he had to embrace the camp of his Lovecraft Country role.

30 Building a Music Superstar From Scratch

34 Stunts Are ‘Poetry in Motion’

The EP behind Fox’s competition series I Can See Your Voice, adapted from a Korean game show, reveals how they trick contestants

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Aaron Toney is more than just Anthony Mackie’s look-alike stunt double — he’s also played a role in

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shaping the actor’s Marvel character, Sam Wilson. Now he hopes audiences will recognize the talent and intellect within the stunt community.

36 Set Visit: The Masked Singer The team leading the Fox reality competition, which filmed seasons four and five during the pandemic, had to get creative to produce the show safely.

40 91 Years of THR Betty Thomas broke an Emmy glass ceiling in 1993 when she won for directing HBO’s Dream On.

COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS/DISNEY+

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THE RACE

TV FRIENDSHIPS, WITH EMOTIONAL BENEFITS British limited series I May Destroy You and It’s a Sin feature nuanced portrayals of friendship, rich with specificity, that explore how chosen family can help anchor those who are suffering from trauma or isolation BY LOVIA GYARKYE

F

riendships have been captured on television for years, but two recent British limited series — Russell T. Davies’ It’s a Sin and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You — portray the intimacy and adventure of these relationships with the same levels of fascination as their more romantic counterparts. They succeed at it by forgoing grand gestures for quieter moments, observing the particularities of a relationship with nuance and specificity before exploring how they shift, morph or potentially collapse in the face of trauma.

Friendships rely on a common language — a phrase, a gesture or a facial expression. Should a member of the group stray too far, get lost or become subsumed by isolation, that expression can pull them back into the fold. For the crew on HBO Max’s It’s a Sin, the language is a simple, melodic note: “la.” It appears at the end of the first episode, when Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander), Roscoe Babatunde (Omari Douglas), Colin Morris-Jones (Callum Scott Howells), Jill Baxter (Lydia West) and Ash Mukherjee (Nathaniel Curtis) decide to rent a flat in London. It’s 1981 and they affectionately call the space, which will see them through the first decade of the HIV/AIDS crisis, The Pink Palace. Jill, their spirited and most maternal member, leads the charge on the first morning in the group’s new place. As aspiring actor Ritchie heads to meet an agent, Colin to his job at the tailor and Roscoe to the bar he helps manage, Jill sings them the note and eagerly awaits their reply.

It’s a sacred moment, a ritual

Above: I May Destroy You’s central friendship of Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), Arabella (Michaela Coel) and Terry (Weruche Opia).

Left: It’s a Sin’s Jill (Lydia West) and Ritchie (Olly Alexander).

that confers upon them safety and an armor as they head into a violent world.

The phrase repeatedly pops up throughout the five episodes in the series. As AIDS infiltrates their apartment and wreaks havoc on their bodies and their spirits, the “la” anchors the friends and viewers to the hopefulness of those early moments.

In the third episode, as Colin sits in the infectious disease ward of a hospital, slipping in and out of a dementia-like state, he is

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surrounded by his mother, Roscoe and Ash. Ritchie and Jill walk in and intone, “la!” The group sings back a bit more mournfully, and Colin’s mother, in a surprising turn of events, joins. “See, he taught me,” she says excitedly.

On HBO’s I May Destroy You, friendship hums in the background, singing a similar tune.

The bond among Arabella (Coel), Terry (Weruche Opia) and Kwame (Paapa Essiedu) runs deep, as shown through a shorthand that builds and sustains intimacy.

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The 12-episode series charts the aftermath of Arabella’s rape — an experience that alters her relationship to herself and those around her. Terry is the first to notice that Arabella is acting differently. In the second episode, when Arabella starts to piece together the fragmented images of the night a stranger spiked her drink, Terry makes sure she gets some sleep. “Where’s your head scarf?” she asks as Arabella climbs into bed. The question, like the “la” in It’s a Sin, gestures at a particular vulnerability and softness these Black women feel safe enough to show with each other — a sharp contrast to the outside world. It’s Kwame, at the end of the same episode, who accompanies Arabella to the London police station where she reports her rape. Before the detective walks in, the camera settles on Arabella resting her head on Kwame’s shoulder before the detective asks: “Who’s this?” She responds simply, “Kwame,” the one who holds her as she cries, internalizing the weight of her assault.

While Arabella’s journey is central to the show, some of I May Destroy You’s most fulfilling scenes are when the three friends share the screen. Their language shifts during these hangouts as they flit between their English accents and their West African-inflected ones.

The former conveys pain, anger and sadness, while the latter is reserved for joy. During a party in the seventh episode, Arabella, Kwame and Terry briefly convene in the kitchen, trying to plot a love match on behalf of a reluctant Kwame. “Isn’t he,” Arabella teases, “your type?” Kwame, trying not to be amused, adopts a distinctly Ghanaian accent, one that reminded me of the one my mother put on when she was no longer in the mood to entertain a line of inquiry. “OK, OK, go and serve,” Kwame jokingly says to Arabella while handing her a plate of food.

Moments like these, abundant in It’s a Sin and I May Destroy You, are nuanced portrayals that acknowledge how friends become chosen family while avoiding the trappings of over-sentimentalizing them.

DESTROY: NATALIE SEERY/HBO. SIN: BEN BLACKALL/HBO MAX.

EMMYS 2021

EMMYS 2021 FEINBERG FORECAST

A CATEGORY DOMINATED BY UNLIMITED TALENT This highly competitive actress in a limited series or TV movie race is likely to pit esteemed (and Emmy-winning) veterans of the category up against breakout stars BY SCOTT FEINBERG

MICHAELA COEL I May Destroy You The 33-year-old Brit is the only actress listed here who also created, wrote, co-directed and executive produced her own show — which was, according to Metacritic, 2020’s best and is at 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the highestrated of any represented on this list. Her portrayal of a young creative who, like herself, struggles in the aftermath of a sexual assault, brought her a SAG Award nom and BAFTA TV Award win. Its Achilles’ heel: It is one of several HBO contenders and began rolling out a full year ago, longer ago than any of these other actresses’ shows.

NICOLE KIDMAN The Undoing The veteran of the field, 53, won this award four years ago for Big Little Lies and was nominated for it five years before that for Hemingway & Gellhorn. She returns to contention for her portrayal of a wealthy therapist whose idyllic Upper East Side life is shattered when her husband (played by Hugh Grant) is accused of murdering his mistress, forcing her to take a closer look at her marriage. The show’s six episodes dropped in October through November, with viewership increasing for each — an HBO first — but it ended in a way that disappointed many and registered a field-low 75 percent on RT.

THUSO MBEDU The Underground Railroad For her portrayal of Cora — a slave who escapes from a plantation and is pursued across five states, experiencing love and heartbreak along the way — in Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel, this 29-year-old South African newcomer, a complete unknown in this country, should not be underestimated. She is onscreen for nearly every minute of her show’s 10 episodes (none of these other actresses had more screen time, or less dialogue) and has Amazon’s enthusiastic backing. Voters may find it hard to resist her personal narrative.

ELIZABETH OLSEN WandaVision The first Disney+ MCU TV series, which takes place shortly after the events of Avengers: Endgame and also sets up the forthcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, is highlighted by this 32-year-old’s portrayal of Wanda Maximoff, also known as Scarlet Witch, as she and her hubby, Vision (Paul Bettany), settle into suburbia. Her versatility is on full display as she adapts the character to fit into numerous eras of TV sitcoms, one of which was even filmed in front of a live studio audience.

Hers is the only show of this lot that is largely light and fun.

ANYA TAYLOR-JOY The Queen’s Gambit None of these actresses has experienced a bigger career bounce than this wide-eyed American-Brit, the youngest contender here at 25, whose portrayal of drug-addicted chess prodigy Beth Harmon helped to make her show the most-watched limited series in Netflix history when it dropped during the darkest days of the pandemic last fall. The Golden Globe, SAG and Critics Choice award-winning performance has catapulted her to full-fledged stardom — since its rollout, she has done everything from hosting SNL to shooting a David O. Russell film alongside Robert De Niro and Taylor Swift.

KATE WINSLET Mare of Easttown A decade after winning this award for Mildred Pierce, the revered Brit is back in the mix for another HBO production in which she plays the title character, this time a small-town cop juggling dark personal history and unsolved mysteries. Her performance — from her spot-on Philly accent to her embrace of an unglamorous character — has won her raves and helped make her show HBO’s second (after The Undoing) to increase its viewership with each episode. It also was the most recent to finish rolling out, which kept it from garnering precursor awards, but means it’s fresh in voters’ minds.

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COEL: NATALIE SEERY/HBO. KIDMAN: NIKO TAVERNISE/HBO. MBEDU: KYLE KAPLAN/AMAZON STUDIOS. OLSEN: COURTESY OF DISNEY+. TAYLOR-JOY: KEN WORONER/NETFLIX. WINSLET: MICHELE K. SHORT/HBO.

ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE

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EMMYS 2021 ODE TO AN EPISODE

‘I SPENT THE WHOLE DAY WATCHING IT — I COULDN’T STOP’ Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD star Chloe Bennet reveals that she got into The Queen’s Gambit before it was cool — which means she binged it in its entirety the day it hit Netflix in October

Left: Chloe Bennet. Above: Anya Taylor-Joy with Marcin Dorociński in the Netflix limited series The Queen’s Gambit.

a story in a way that doesn’t reduce wardrobe, hair and makeup to being female or frivolous, which a lot of shows tend to do. The way that women in particular express themselves and really mature, grow and communicate through their hair, makeup and clothes, it was just so well done. And to inspire someone like me, who literally cannot play chess? I have, like, seven chessboards now!” — AS TOLD TO TYLER COATES

Bowing Down to The Queen’s Gambit These celebrities joined in on the mania surrounding the series

“I’ve watched a lot of TV during this cursed year — I know I’m not alone — and the best of the best is THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, on Netflix.

Utterly thrilling.”

“in unrelated news I binge watched The Queen’s Gambit to keep myself sane the past few days.

Can’t tell who I have a bigger crush on. Anya Taylor-Joy or Thomas Brodie-Sangster !!!!”

“The Queens Gambit was so good, and I don’t want it to be over make more MAKE MORE PLEASE”

“I loved #QueensGambit.

Loved. Wept at the end.

Beautiful storytelling.

Bravo to the creators, cast and crew. And especially Moses Ingram We see you. You blessed this production!”

“Can we just talk about the brilliance of #QueensGambit for a second? It is one of those exceptional works of art that both exhilarates and baffles at the same time in how something about chess can be so riveting and edge of your seat entertainment.”

STEPHEN KING

HALSEY

KAREN GILLAN

KERRY WASHINGTON

JOSH GAD

OCT. 28

NOV. 7

NOV. 4

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BENNET: ALBERT L. ORTEGA/GETTY IMAGES. DOROCINSKI: PHIL BRAY/NETFLIX. TALOR-JOY: COURTESY OF NETFLIX. KING: SLAVEN VLASIC/GETTY IMAGES. GILLAN: ANDREAS RENTZ/GETTY IMAGES. HALSEY: TAYLOR HILL/GETTY IMAGES. WASHINGTON: RACHEL MURRAY/GETTY IMAGES. GAD: GARY GERSHOFF/GETTY IMAGES.

With my schedule, I rarely get to see things before the hype surrounds certain projects. I’m always the last to see things. For some reason — well, not ‘for some reason’; it’s because of the global pandemic — I remember being home right when The Queen’s Gambit loaded onto Netflix. I was immediately taken by the general aesthetic of the show and how intentional and striking Anya Taylor-Joy was as the character. I spent the whole day watching [all seven episodes] — I couldn’t stop. I thought it was one of the best things I’ve ever watched. And no one was talking about it yet! I felt immediately cool, like such a hipster. The intentionality of it all was so clear to me, and even the evolution of Beth’s aesthetic was so subtle and striking, and told

EMMYS 2021

I was born in Jamaica, but I was raised in Rockville, Maryland.

My dad was an engineer for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and my mom was a human resources director for a health consulting firm.

You were drawn to the arts as a kid, but took a long detour away from them.

AWARDS CHATTER

‘I WOULD GIVE UP EVERYTHING FOR HIM TO HAVE NEVER BEEN PRESIDENT’ After achieving astronomical viral fame by lip-syncing Donald Trump, comedian Sarah Cooper landed a Netflix special and earned the audience she’s been trying to gain for decades BY SCOTT FEINBERG

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or many people, 2020 was the worst year of their lives, but for Sarah Cooper, it was — at least in a professional sense — the best. During the global pandemic, her DIY videos, shot at home in Brooklyn and featuring her lip-syncing and acting out then-President Donald Trump, went viral. The Washington Post described her as “just about the only good thing in a year mired in isolation, racial unrest and political conflict.” Adweek named her Digital Creator of the Year. And in October, Cooper was given the larger platform that she deserves: a Netflix comedy special called Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine.

The 44-year-old recently spoke with THR’s Awards Chatter podcast about her life and career.

Where were you born and raised? And what did your folks do for a living?

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It’s really hard to go to your parents, who are Jamaican immigrants who work very hard, and say, “I want to act.” It’s just not what they want to hear. At 17, I was going to go off to college — I got a theater scholarship and really wanted to do theater — and my parents encouraged me to not do that so that I wouldn’t struggle.

I felt it was necessary for me to not let my own dreams down, so I created a contract between me and myself. I wrote, “I, Sarah Cooper, being of sound, mind and body” — I didn’t realize that “sound mind” was one phrase, so I put a comma after “sound” — and I promised myself to try to be an actress for at least 10 years, or as long as it takes, or if I decide to change my mind and I don’t want that anymore, that’s fine, too. But I just promised myself that I would give it a try. I signed the contract and I had my sister witness it. I was so serious about this thing.

Instead of going to the University of Maryland for theater, you went to study economics.

Yes, but I always had one little toe in theater. I eventually found design because it was creative but I could also make money.

Then I got a master’s degree in design at Georgia Tech and a job as an interactive designer at an ad agency. I was like a little Don Draper making Flash ads — those ads that come up if you go to, like, RottenTomatoes.com, and take over your whole screen, and you can’t find the X button? That’s what I was working on. Even after I left that job and went to Yahoo and was designing there, acting was always in the back of my head.

I had just tried stand-up comedy for the first time, and then I was at the Stella Adler Conservatory for summer study and got a job at Google, so I stayed in New York. At Google, I designed the interface

for Google Docs. If you open up Google Docs and start to type, I decided how much of a shadow there should be around the page and the order of the icons.

You were a big fan of The Colbert Report …

I loved Stephen Colbert because he became the thing that he didn’t like, the thing that he wanted to make fun of, and he was so good at it. I would watch his monologues, transcribe them, study the jokes and try to create my own sort of Stephen Colbert character.

Was The Colbert Report responsible for the creation of a blog called The Cooper Review?

I was at Google for about three years when I wrote an article called “10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings,” which I had started writing when I was at Yahoo.

That was the first thing I did that ever went viral — and I created the blog based on the success of that article. I turned it into an illustrated post, republished it, and it went viral again. I found my agent, Susan Raihofer, through that, and she’s still my agent now.

I said, “You know what? I want to turn this into a book.” She said, “You know what? We’re going to turn this into three books.” 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings came out in October 2016. Then I did a coloring book for business people where you can color in low-hanging fruit and someone getting thrown under the bus. My third book, How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings, came out in 2018.

LACEY TERRELL/NETFLIX (2)

Shortly after the first book was published, Donald Trump was elected president. As a woman of color who emigrated from one of the places he was soon calling “shithole countries,” you had some things to vent about.

I was always replying to his tweets and telling him what an idiot he was. In October 2017, I tweeted something like, “Fake news: Trump is not fit for presidency. Real news: Trump was never fit for the presidency.”

People started liking it and retweeting it, and he saw it and then he blocked me. I was like, “Oh my God, I’ve been blocked

Sarah Cooper: Everything’s Fine was produced by Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne and featured plenty of A-list guests, such as Helen Mirren (right), Jon Hamm and Megan Thee Stallion.

by the president of the United States!” Which was a huge claim to fame at the time.

Many believe that your first Trump video was “How to Medical,” which went viral, but there were several before that. Where did the idea of lip-syncing Trump come from?

I was playing around TikTok in quarantine, and I was trying to do a dance and was very bad at that.

Then I saw a woman lip-sync him, and I was like, “Wow! It’s fascinating hearing his voice coming out of someone who looks nothing like him.” I was like, “I’ve got to try that.” There was one when somebody asked him how he was going to get something done and he said, “Well, I’m going to form a committee. Yeah, I’ll call it a committee, and we’re going to make decisions, and we’re going to make decisions fairly quickly, and I think they’re going to be the right decisions.” I felt like I was back in one of those work meetings and a guy who said absolutely nothing was being lauded and applauded and told he was brilliant for saying absolutely nothing. Because I’m a woman and a person of color and an immigrant, I got a little jealous, feeling like, “I want to do that! I want to say nothing and have people think I’m amazing!”

So you upload “How to Medical” on a Thursday night in April 2020, go to sleep, wake up and …

It had a million views by the next day. I thought, “Oh, cool,

yay! I made a viral video in the pandemic.” I mentioned it to my manager at the time and he was like, “Cool.” He didn’t even think it was a big deal, so I was like, “Oh, I guess maybe it’s actually not that big of a deal.” Then Jerry Seinfeld started talking about it, and that was like, “Whoa!” So I told that to my manager and he was like, “Cool.” I was like, “OK. I guess it’s really not a big deal.”

But then the pandemic kept going on and Trump kept saying dumb things and I kept making videos because it was fun.

I understand people like George Conway were DMing you requesting videos. At some point, Kamala Harris wanted to get in touch. Then you filled in for Jimmy Kimmel. But like the rest of us, you were locked down in the middle of a pandemic.

Was it almost like a fever dream?

Absolutely. I mean, I did Ellen from my couch, I did Fallon from my couch. I went from 60,000 Twitter followers to 2.3 million. It just snowballed. But at the same time, I still feel like I don’t know what happened. I was just doing a Zoom with Ben Stiller and I was like, “Is this really happening?”

None of it has felt real.

There are numerous other people who did Trump impersonations.

Do you think that seeing Trump’s words coming out of somebody who is, in a lot of ways, his exact opposite made for a different viewer experience?

It’s one thing to be played by Alec Baldwin, who is a Trump contemporary and also has power and money. I don’t have people calling me “sir” and following me around telling me I’m a genius or whatever. People said they were actually able to hear what he was saying when it was coming out of my mouth. The reason is because we’re so visual that when we see a powerful white man, rich, in a suit, and people are nodding at him, we think, “Yeah, this must make sense.” But for better or worse, when a Black woman is talking, we’re like, “Wait, what’s she saying?” People just listened a little bit more, which was great, because he’s not saying anything.

Was any part of you concerned about being known only as the woman who lip-syncs Trump? And if he lost in 2020?

There was no world in which I was going to be disappointed if he lost.

I would give up everything for him to have never been president.

The Netflix special was your first high-profile opportunity to show your range. How did it come together just seven months after “How to Medical” posted?

I would not advise anyone else to attempt to do what we did. It was a lot of people’s first production back from lockdown. And the last time I was on a set? I had a line on some show years ago, Vampire Diaries or something like that, and now I was number one on the call sheet and there were 100 people with tags that said “Sarah Cooper” on them. I was on set with Jane Lynch one day and Jon Hamm the next day. Helen Mirren and I were rehearsing on Zoom.

It was so surreal. I’m proud of everyone who worked on it and of what we were able to do.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Awards Chatter Podcast The weekly show, hosted by Scott Feinberg, features career-encompassing conversations with actors, directors, writers and other artists behind the top Oscar, Emmy and Tony contenders.

Recent guests include Ben Affleck, Will Ferrell, Jodie Foster, Michelle Pfeiffer, Gary Oldman, Billy Crystal, Regina King, Sophia Loren, Riz Ahmed, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Fran Lebowitz, Anya Taylor-Joy and Tina Fey. Listen and subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

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EMMYS 2021 SCRIPT TO SCENE

DOWN A RABBIT HOLE FOR OBSCENE LYRICS

Alexandra Rushfield, showrunner of Hulu’s Shrill, takes THR inside a scene from the third season that follows her protagonist, Annie, to a record shop, where her distracted boss, Gabe, meets with an old friend BY TYLER COATES

Alexandra Rushfield

In the sixth episode of the third season, Aidy Bryant’s Annie tags along with her boss, Gabe (John Cameron Mitchell), at the alt-weekly The Thorn to meet his onetime bandmate Bongo, played

by Fred Armisen. “We wanted to show John Cameron Mitchell’s character as checked out of his job, feeling old and irrelevant and turning his attention to other pursuits,” says showrunner and executive producer Rushfield.

“Fred was happy to help out Aidy, his Saturday Night Live former co-worker and friend, as well as our co-producers Broadway Video, which also made Portlandia,” says Rushfield.

RUSHFIELD: ERIK VOAKE/ GETTY IMAGES FOR HULU. SHRILL: ALLYSON RIGGS/HULU.

The record store location fueled Gabe and Bongo’s nostalgia trip.

“The location was brilliantly accurate and looked like a true relic from the early ’90s,” Rushfield says, adding that the scene “was also shot in a beautifully loose way,” reminiscent of Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, which followed the punk scene in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1980.

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From left: John Cameron Mitchell, Fred Armisen and Aidy Bryant on Hulu’s Shrill.

“The scene was from Annie’s point of view, but it was also evocative of the looseness and fun Gabe and Bongo used to have,” says Rushfield. “Bongo didn’t just seem like some addled acid casualty.

He seemed like the guy who Gabe collaborated with to make The Thorn great and cool, the publication that inspired Annie to want to be a journalist.”

“I am a first lady buff,” says Rushfield. “I went down a short rabbit hole trying to come up with obscene lyrics for Gabe and Bongo to sing about first ladies from the past.” A reference to Tipper Gore emphasizes the era in which the song was written, even though Rushfield had a ball thinking of alternate options.

“I’m not sure our mostly millennial-age audience really cared about rhymes involving Rosalynn Carter,” she says.

THE

DIALOGUE

‘Look How We Choose Not to See What Is Right in Front of Us’

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman and director Susanne Bier discuss HBO’s The Undoing, a twisty murder mystery limited series that became the network’s most watched show in 2020

D

irector Susanne Bier vividly remembers her first meeting with Nicole Kidman to discuss collaborating on The Undoing, the pair’s nail-biter of an HBO limited series. The director walked into the Sunset Marquis to find the star seated beneath a giant blackand-white portrait of herself. “It was almost mythical,” says Bier, who needed little convincing to sign on to the project. Kidman, for her part, was completely unaware of the placement. “I didn’t see it!” she insists. “I just remember that we clicked and that she really wanted the show to be a thriller, not a character study, and that was exciting to me.” The two went on to bring David E. Kelley’s scripts to life in the compelling, six-episode limited series, which became the network’s most watched show of 2020.

NICOLE KIDMAN Well, this is primar-

ily about a marriage and about a family, so it’s very much the couple front and center. I loved that. That’s what David had not done in Big Little Lies. He was shaping it to so many different storylines and so many different women, and so to be the focus of his attention through the whole show was really, really exciting to me. And I just get his rhythms and I can speak his rhythms, and it’s just rare that you get that kind of connection with a writer where you feel that whatever they write, you can grasp.

RÉSUMÉS Nicole Kidman

Nine Perfect Strangers (2021) The Prom (2020) Big Little Lies (2017-19) Susanne Bier

Nicole, you collaborated with David on Big Little Lies. What did you feel he was doing differently in this script that made you excited to work with him again?

Bird Box (2018) The Night Manager (2016) In a Better World (2010)

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Susanne, not having worked with David before, what was your reaction to the initial scripts?

SUSANNE BIER I wanted more.

David’s writing is very precise and very compelling. It could really go both ways because he can go very deep in character studies, but I think he got very excited about the thrill of it all.

I felt that making it more of a thriller would allow for the character stories but would give the characters a very clear direction, which I felt was needed.

The show is based on a novel called You Should Have Known.

How much liberty did you feel you could take with the adaptation?

BIER David had made it very clear

to the author early on that he felt the novel only really worked in terms of making it into TV for the first couple of episodes. So that was a clear agreement between them that he would use the novel for the first two episodes and then he would shape the series in the way that he felt was right.

And it is very different — one of the biggest differences being

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that the character of Jonathan [played by Hugh Grant] is a huge part of the series and not so much in the novel.

KIDMAN Novels work as novels. I think what happens sometimes is there’s such reverence for every single part of it, but there’s a reason a book works as a book. You’ve then got to go and re-create it, whether it’s for a two-hour film or for a six-hour limited series or an ongoing show. There’s a process that has to happen where you shed. You use what you can and then you carry it forward. David’s very good at that. And we obviously couldn’t even use the book title because why would you sit through six hours if you know the title? It gives you the whole story!

BIER It’s an interesting thing because the book was out there, but it still generated deep interest because the storylines quite early on, like already in episode two, were different. And because it was so remarkably different, it still generated that huge discussion about who did it and who didn’t do it. I was kind of worried, and I think David was worried, too,

KIDMAN: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE. BIER: ELISABETTA A. VILLA/WIREIMAGE. UNDOING: NIKO TAVERNISE/HBO.

By Bryn Sandberg

than waste any time on, “My God, does somebody know what’s happening here?”

So much of the show is centered on notions of belief. Why was that an appealing concept for both of you to explore?

BIER It’s incredibly timely. We have

Susanne Bier

that people who might’ve read the book would kind of go back — but they didn’t. I think audiences anticipated that anything was possible.

Susanne, what made you want to direct all the episodes of the series? Did you worry about being overextended?

BIER It’s like a six-hour-long

movie, and as a director it’s hugely interesting to have much more real estate to play with.

I didn’t really have any doubts about it. I mean, yeah, you can go, “Do I really want to shoot for 90 days?” (Laughs.) Of course there

is an element of that, but the creative undertaking is hugely exciting. You could compare it to a short story or a novel, a short story being a feature film and a novel being a series. And that is really rewarding to do.

KIDMAN If I can add, too, it’s not like you’re shooting each episode separately. We were having to jump back and forth. And when you’ve got the person who has it all in their head, shaping it that way, you can do that. If you’re mixing directors, I don’t think we could do it because it’s too difficult. As actors, we could just inhabit [our characters] rather

a pandemic and we still have people not actually thinking it’s true.

I feel that at this moment in time there is so much discussion and conversation and unease about the actual truth — and it comes right back to your own perception of your own life, where you kind of go, “Is what I’m observing the actual truth or do I somewhat filter my own observations?” So we all felt it was critically relevant to tell that story and to point to the huge gap between what we believe in and what is really there.

KIDMAN For me playing it, it was really fascinating how much I was willing to let go or choose not to see because I want my life back. Even if there’s a 95 percent chance that [Jonathan] did it, I’ll believe in the 5 percent. There are so many people who live like that. I’ve lived like that. I know that feeling. David always said the series is about what we choose to believe. That’s why it had to be that he did it. Because if you took a cheap shot and made it Lily [Rabe]’s character or made it Donald [Sutherland], that to me is a cheap twist because the actual metaphor for what it’s about is it’s right in front of you, and look how we choose not to see what is right in front of us. It was fascinating how culturally that’s what Kidman with Hugh Grant in HBO’s The Undoing.

happened when [the show was airing]. I couldn’t believe it, people were wanting it to be me more than they wanted it to be him!

BIER I had my 90-year-old dad calling me, going, “OK, just tell me.

It’s her. I know it’s her.”

KIDMAN I was kind of offended by everyone. I was always like, “Aw, you’re hurting my feelings.” (Laughs.)

With such heavy material, how did you unwind after shooting?

KIDMAN I don’t think we did

unwind, did we, Susanne?

BIER No, we would text each other about [the show].

KIDMAN I don’t think there is an unwinding. It’s months and months of trying to stay in a very taut, emotional state as a director and as an actor. You’re not doing comedy. Occasionally we’d all go out to dinner, but there was so little time, and even though we shot for what seemed like a really long time, the schedule was still jammed. But it’s really interesting as an actor to be able to maintain that sort of state of being slightly strung-out emotionally.

Exhaustion can work really well for actors, and not having time and having to sort of push, push, push through because it takes a lot of the thought out of it and you don’t overthink things. You kind of just exist because you have to — and that’s quite good.

BIER But you do that anyway.

That’s how you work. Nicole enters into some kind of altered state of mind …

KIDMAN For me, it’s a very good way to work. You need an understanding family, but if someone gets me — Susanne got me — then it’s just a wonderful working existence.

You get to really be understood.

And that was particularly important playing Grace because there’s a lot of interior emotional thoughts. It’s like a pressure cooker, and that’s a really hard thing to act. You’ve got to bring that energy and just be that.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

THE

DIALOGUE

Sebastian Stan

Kari Skogland

‘We Needed to Discover a New Version of This Character’ Sebastian Stan and director Kari Skogland discuss Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which brings grounded realism and a bit of comic relief to the Marvel Universe while introducing a very different Bucky Barnes

By Aaron Couch

W

hen The Falcon and the Winter Soldier director Kari Skogland and star Sebastian Stan met for the first time at the Avengers: Endgame premiere, neither had seen a script for what was next, but they knew they faced a tall order. They not only had to follow up one of the biggest movies of all time and help introduce the world to a Black Captain America (Anthony Mackie), but they also had to breathe fresh life into Bucky Barnes, the character Stan had portrayed for a decade. (No pressure.) Here, the director and actor discuss Stan’s most daring scene, the talked-about moment when Bucky loses use of his metal arm, and the improv between

Stan and Mackie that made the show what it is.

We’ve never seen something like a five-minute therapy scene in a Marvel property. Sebastian, how did Kari help you get into that scene?

SEBASTIAN STAN I knew we were

going to head that way at some point. We hadn’t gotten a chance to go deeper, particularly the impact of everything he’d gone through. In order to jump off into the series, you had to establish that he was alternately facing these things and taking a chance on working on these things.

The way Kari was shooting it, and the camera placement, was telling its own story and how my

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performance would fit into those angles and the marriage of the two. There was a different kind of visual storytelling to that scene and to the show that came from her that we hadn’t had before.

KARI SKOGLAND He never said, “Jesus, the camera is right in my flippin’ face!” Sebastian is particularly good at being able to use that tool, which for some people is a bit pervasive. What we were trying for is this type of jail cell that he’s in, his own mind. It’s really not easy to perform at that caliber for an entire day, with the camera absolutely on him.

STAN There was a freedom there, which was nice. We were able to go, “OK, let’s do a version of the scene now that is very funny and

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sarcastic, and let’s take him to these different places” to have options in the editing room.

We ended up with a much more grounded, realistic version than was on the page, or how initially I had approached it. It was much more right this way, because it sets the tone for the series.

SKOGLAND I have this saying: “If it sucks, it won’t be in the movie.

Don’t worry about it.” It releases us all. Even if elements don’t work, you discover something. To have everybody open to discovery is critical on any set, but in particular this one, because of the fact that we were remaking characters. Bucky was like a whole new guy. Bucky was dealing with post-traumatic stress, dealing

enjoying each other’s company. It’s trying to capture that, but keep it within the characters. They were a lot of fun to watch, the ad-libbing and such. At the monitors we are wondering, “OK, what’s going to come out? What’s next?”

RÉSUMÉS Sebastian Stan

The Devil All the Time (2020) Avengers: Endgame (2019) I, Tonya (2017)

Do you recall any ad-libs, Kari, that you ended up using?

Kari Skogland

The Loudest Voice (2019) The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-18) The Walking Dead (2016-17)

SKOGLAND Definitely with John

STAN: GEORGE PIMENTEL/GETTY IMAGES FOR HUGO BOSS. SKOGLAND: DIA DIPASUPIL/WIREIMAGE. FALCON: CHUCK ZLOTNICK/DISNEY+.

with psychiatric issues, dealing with relevance, dealing with all these things coming at him, and it was important to experiment to find the tone. On the other hand, the levity — it was really easy to be funny. Particularly between Sebastian and Anthony.

Walker (Wyatt Russell), when we were in Prague, in the back of that truck. There were some fun ad-libs there that Bucky came out with, because Bucky’s attitude at that point was, “I don’t want to know this guy. I don’t want to be near him.”

STAN In episode two there were quite a bit of ad-libs with Anthony. We had that freedom.

They had just reunited and were trying to one-up each other.

Kari, was there a particular Sebastian scene that most impressed you?

SKOGLAND When he is in front

of the fire [in an episode four Wakandan flashback scene] and Florence/Ayo is giving him the final test [to prove she has freed him of the brainwashing that made him into a weapon]. And he says, “It’s not going to work.”

Speaking of levity, there’s a moment when Anthony and Sebastian are talking about fighting wizards, about how Bucky read The Hobbit when it first came out in 1937, things like that. Is that in the script or is that improv?

One of the most talked-about moments was when Dora Milaje member Ayo (Florence Kasumba) disarms Bucky’s robotic arm.

Sebastian says so much with just a look. What was the key to that?

STAN I don’t think Anthony’s and

STAN The Wakandans were the

my improv necessarily revolves around wizards. That was all in the script. It’s one of those things where you look at something like that [and think], “This is going to sound very silly,” but then when you are doing it and committing to the choice of it fullheartedly in the moment, naturally it is funny because these two grown men are debating these things.

SKOGLAND There was a lot of improv between you guys. The scene after that — we went into the plane — originally had a whole bunch of words. Then we tried, “OK, let’s try a take with no words.” The two of you were glaring at each other.

STAN That’s probably what made it.

SKOGLAND Everyone was willing to experiment. Out of that came the genuine, authentic relationship between the characters. It’s hard not to drag their personal friendship in it as well. The two of them together, before you say, “OK, roll,” they are cracking jokes and

only ones who could rein in Bucky in any way, shape or form. That’s where his whole loyalty and allegiance is at that point in the series. When that scene happens, it’s him trying to feel out his perimeters and life again. He owes everything to the Wakandans.

But in a way he is growing up again and breaking out again and trying to find how he can take charge of certain situations. [In that fight scene,] he is well aware that he’s gone too far, [teaming up with Daniel Brühl’s Zemo, a mortal enemy of both Bucky and Wakanda]. I always said to Kari, “Why would he ever stop them?”

But it’s really Sam asking him, “Hey, we’ve got to put a stop to this altercation right now.”

SKOGLAND On the page, it looks like one thing. Then you get inside and go, “Actually, he wouldn’t do that, so how are we going to fix that?” It was through Sebastian bringing up some tough questions and us going, “Oh yeah,

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you’re right.” They [Stan and Kasumba] could play off each other to get inside that scene.

STAN In that moment when the arm falls off, there’s so much subtext going on in their relationship [with Ayo]. It’s a warning in a sense, and it’s a reminder: “Hey, you are here now, but just remember why.” It’s a little bit putting him back in his place, which I think he needed at that point.

then you mark it on a calendar and you are just dreading crossing the days out as you get closer and closer. This was right after the holidays, so I was able to grow out my beard for it. I was definitely very, very nervous about it.

What’s something that stuck with each of you about working with the other?

STAN I still felt we needed to

discover a new version of this character that we hadn’t seen before, one that had a sense of humor but also had this incredible, traumatic past, and it was very much about the tone and making sure we are earning those fun moments. Kari came without any preconceived idea of Marvel, these characters, what we’ve seen, what it needs to be or what are the expectations.

From left: Sebastian Stan, Daniel Brühl and Anthony Mackie in Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

She says, “Don’t worry, I’m here to take care of you.” It was a magical night. I wanted it to have fire and be murky. I shoot way too much, and he had to do about 27 takes of that and stay in that place. And he did an amazing job. I was really so thankful that I was there to capture it.

STAN As an actor you see a scene like that and initially go, “Oh my God, yes! Finally!” And right after that, you’re like, “Oh God, I really have to try to do this thing.” And

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SKOGLAND Sebastian has a tre-

mendous sense of story. For me, it’s all about trusting that they know more about their character than I do. When Sebastian comes to set with ideas because he’s been working on this scene all night and he’s found these bits and pieces he wants to try, it’s my job to go, “Yeah, let’s try.”

He knows.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

DIRECTING

Raised by Ridley HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves is a family affair for executive producer and director Ridley Scott, whose son Luke helmed three episodes of the mind-bending sci-fi series. The duo say their collaboration was decades in the making — ever since a young Luke stepped foot on the set of Alien By Josh Wigler

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n space, no one can hear you scream — unless you’re a murderous android banshee, in which case your scream is the last thing anyone ever hears.

Such is the case on the HBO Max drama Raised by Wolves, a science-fiction thriller set in the far future where two androids (Mother and Father, played by Amanda Collin and Abubakar Salim) attempt to reboot humanity on the faraway planet Kepler-22b. A literal and theological war for the future of life ensues. Created by Aaron Guzikowski, Raised by Wolves burst onto the scene in late 2020 at a time when new television was still at a relative premium as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown — but even outside

COCO VAN OPPENS/HBO MAX (2)

I

the pandemic, a sci-fi concept such as Raised would have been an uncut gem.

Good thing the series comes paired with a filmmaker who knows a thing or two about space gems.

Enter: Raised executive producer and director of the first two episodes, Ridley Scott, the visionary who revolutionized the sci-fi genre and the space-horror subgenre in 1979’s Alien — a movie packed with not only an acidblooded space monster, but also a horrifying milk-blooded android in Ian Holm’s Ash, the veritable Grandfather to Raised by Wolves’ Mother and Father.

And there’s more DNA linking the two space epics: Scott’s son Luke Scott, a filmmaker

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Left: Luke Scott directs a scene from HBO Max’s Raised by Wolves. Right: Ridley Scott (far right) with castmembers Felix Jamieson (facing Scott) and Ethan Hazzard.

in his own right with the 2016 sci-fi feature Morgan under his belt, not to mention his having worked with his father as second unit director on The Martian and Exodus: Gods and Kings. Between them, Ridley and Luke Scott directed five out of the 10 first-season episodes of Raised by Wolves, bringing a powerful family dynamic to a story that, despite its farout flourishes, is ultimately all about family.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Ridley and Luke about the journey that brought them to Raised by Wolves — a journey that starts off in space.

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Luke, you were very young when Ridley was making Alien. Do you have memories of that time?

RIDLEY SCOTT Just so you’re aware, both Luke and [Scott’s son and filmmaker Jake Scott] are in Alien. The [spaceship] was built in the studio, but it didn’t look big enough. It never does. And so I had two cheap miniature spacesuits made [for Luke and Jake], because Luke was like 3 feet tall. It was a good, cheap way of doing it.

LUKE SCOTT It was the greatest summer vacation I’d ever had. I went back to school and the teachers asked the inevitable question: “What did you do on holiday?” And I said, “I went to space.” (Laughs.) It really was magic.

You must have many stories like that growing up, with Blade Runner just a few years later. How much did that inform your own interest in filmmaking, Luke, and science fiction in particular?

LUKE SCOTT Obviously, Ridley always brought work home, so you were kind of exposed to this wild universe building and thinking.

And I don’t think it took any of the wonder away. If anything, I think it amplified the wonder, because it makes you think about the possibilities and all the side stories that go with what we’ve all seen in the movies. It was a great, great, great experience, to be honest.

Ridley, was there an early moment you recognized Luke as an artist in his own right?

RIDLEY SCOTT Luke has a talent for writing. I’d show the kids films that normal fathers wouldn’t do. So one day, I think Luke would’ve been 12 and Jake would be 15. And I showed them, for fun, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, the Werner Herzog film. I thought they’d get bored, and they were frankly blown away. And then in the report, the following term, the [British school] master had written on the bottom of Luke’s report card under English literature, “A writing talent to be envied,” which I always remembered. And I just urged him to start writing his book or screenplays now, because he’s still got that very special touch as a writer, which I don’t have. For me to take time out now to start writing screenplays, it’s kind of a waste of time. I work so fast, I’m better off directing and trying to get some great footage. Luke has a talent for writing, and I know he’s stepping up to the plate right now, doing something right now.

What are you working on right now, Luke?

LUKE SCOTT (Quick pause.) I’m not going to tell you! (Laughs.)

It’s one thing to live in each other’s creative spaces as family, but how about as colleagues?

LUKE SCOTT First, we should just have a pause here because, you know, there are my siblings as well, Jake and Jordan, who [are also filmmakers]. We can’t leave them out because I’ll catch some shit when we get out of here!

We’ll do the full family panel next time!

RIDLEY SCOTT Well, the [assumption of a] parentsibling deal is not one in our vocabulary in our life. You’ve got to earn your way. You’ve got to work at it. My kids, I exposed them to what I did for a living on the basis that they may find it interesting, but they may want to go be a lawyer or a teacher. So it was really not forcing them to do anything other than to see this is what I do. But little by little, they all became engaged. They’re all directing now, and have been for a while.

I didn’t have film school. For me, my great film school was advertising, at a pretty high level. I had a wonderful time doing commercials. By the time I was ready to do film, in a blink, I was 40. At that point, I could afford to hire a writer, choose my story and make the film [The Duellists]. Mine was a long journey, but what I learned from an inordinately good art school training and, like in commercials, I can still walk on any floor and literally know exactly what to do minute by minute, by the second. Funny, that what I learned in art school, I still use every goddamn day. I’m doing storyboards right now as we’re talking, for my next film.

In addition to advertising and before The Duellists, you also worked in television.

RIDLEY SCOTT Yeah. Live TV, BBC. My first job was a designer at BBC White City in London. And I was a very good designer. I jumped straight in.

I didn’t do any apprenticeship. I got a very good art school kind of degree. I went straight in as the designer. As I was such a pain in the ass as a designer, I was spotting that the directors were a bit dodgy and didn’t know what they were doing. I’m sure they’ll forgive me for this, but it’s true. I said to the director, “Why do you ask for a four-sided room when you’re shooting two people having a conversation in the fucking corner?” I said, “I could have built the corner, saved money.” So eventually, after three years, they gave me a production cost to shut me up.

(Laughs.) That’s how it started.

I ask about television because it’s a very different landscape now, where you can make something as epic in scope as Raised by Wolves.

RIDLEY SCOTT I couldn’t have done it in my late 20s. I can do it now because I can muscle my way in and with very determined knowledge and experience that I can do this. It can be done and it will be special. That’s what I do.

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And so I think people smell a confidence and I’m allowed to do it, but on top of that, in doing it, I storyboard the whole damn show first to show that it’s storyboarded literally, so they can see exactly what they’re going to get. I do that to help me so I can walk on the floor because I’ve already filmed it in my head and on paper. That’s why I’m very good at utilizing four or five cameras at once. In essence, you’re at least four or five times faster, right? If you’ve got one camera, that’s one speed. You’ve got four cameras, you know what you’re doing.

You’re going to be shooting a scene that’s scheduled for a day and finish by 11 o’clock.

Really, that’s it. And, this is not showing off, it’s brought about from my life in live television. I am blessed with an eye, and the eye and the six cameras always made sense to me, mostly to save the actor awful repetition.

Ridley Scott with Sigourney Weaver on the set of Alien, which was the first project that his son Luke appeared in.

Ridley, you filmed the pilot and the second hour. Luke, you directed the third and fourth episodes of Raised by Wolves in addition to the finale. What were your initial conversations like about the look and feel of the show, translating Aaron Guzikowski’s scripts into reality?

LUKE SCOTT I came out [to location in South Africa] toward the end of the first block. Just to kind of have a look around and see what the hell this thing was all about and get a little bit more familiarized with what was happening, the style, all those kinds of things.

Because for me, it wasn’t to reinvent the wheel as much as it was to try to follow the path already beaten, as best we can. It was certainly an interesting process, but the other thing I needed to track is where additional characters are introduced or new ideas are introduced. It’s still trying to remain true to the initial vision board. I think the danger is

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EMMY™ SEASON’S SIGNATURE SHOW Watch TV’s Most Celebrated Contenders Gather Around THR’s Iconic Roundtable

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DRAMA ACTRESSES JUNE 2

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Amanda Collin and Abubakar Salim as Mother and Father in Raised by Wolves.

to get overconfident and start reinventing the wheel midstream. And I think that’s common for TV. RIDLEY SCOTT What we’re not acknowledging enough, though, is how fantastic the script was. I read the script because that’s what I do as the CEO [of production company Scott Free], and in my experience, I know whose hands I’m in within half a page. I know if I’m in good hands or insecure hands. Within the first page, I knew I was up for something special. By the time I was finished reading it, I knew I wanted to direct the pilot. Aaron had given this a terrific cadence. There’s a music to his language, and it stuck with me.

LUKE SCOTT For me, coming in at the end of the first block, you don’t always have the full story.

I spoke with Aaron [while filming episodes three and four] and asked, “What’s going to happen in five and six?” And he said, “Good question!” It’s not that he didn’t know where it was going. He did — he wasn’t telling us.

You have to give your faith over to the vision of the writer. When you read the writing, there are some head-scratcher moments: “This is so fucking weird. How do we make that? Did I just read that right?”

You have to put your faith and trust in the scripts and also in the actors, who are the gatekeepers of maintaining continuity and character and things like that. By the end, these dynamics have worked themselves out through the guidance of Aaron — but come out naturally, as well as through me and the other directors. It was such a great joy to really follow that and be a part of it. And to really follow the kind of arcs and little places you end up going and discovering new things about the story, about the actors, and things like that.

In terms of translating specific scenes from the script, the first episode features Mother becoming a “Necromancer,” whose sonic screams cause her foes to literally explode.

It’s such a shocking moment. Ridley, what was involved in bringing that transformation to life?

RIDLEY SCOTT It goes back to intuition. Intuition is an evolution that you either acknowledge and address and accept, or you’re very vulnerable because your intuition is dodgy and patchy. And I’ve discovered through my experience through life so far, I’ve got a very good intuition. So I’ve learned to trust it. And I will go with my intuition, not even question it. I get a flash and I’ll go with the flash. And so far, so good.

I’ll jump quickly back for an anecdote.

With Mother and Father, Aaron had written Adam and Eve in essence, right? That’s what it is. And therefore Adam and Eve ought to be naked. And I called HBO Max at that point and said, “Listen, how do you feel about your two actors being naked?” They threw me out into the car park. (Laughs.) And so I came up with elastic suits, and the elastic suits leave nothing to the imagination, but what’s interesting is, within an hour you’re so used to it. It’s part of who they are.

And so now that sets the pace of what you’re doing. You’ve just raised the bar about 2 meters because you’ve all got to reach to that. And I was very pleased with it. It did make casting, if not much more difficult … the actors had to have the shape as well as the capability. Now, once they have that, and not only that, I thought that Mother without question should have a short haircut and be androgynous in a sense and yet inordinately female. [That] made it very interesting. Now we go down the route where she is a creation

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of some sick motherfuckers way back, where she can be a killer as well as the Mother.

What’s even more complex: She is not aware that she is capable of killing. It comes on to her like a bad migraine, and you can’t control it. You just need to go into a dark room and lie down. So in a way, when she has this thing coming and closing in on her, she is, in essence, going into a dark space and actually closing down and becoming something else.

But I didn’t want it to be a cliche. And this is where intuition clicks in.

I’m always standing right outside of New York City. The best piece of sculpture in New York is Atlas holding the world on his shoulders right outside Rockefeller Plaza. I always stand there going, “Fuck me. That’s amazing.” And I thought, “I’m going to do a female version of that.” That’s what happens [in this scene]. Trust your intuition. She will be bronze, she can fly, and I won’t explain how.

She can kill, and I won’t explain how. She will have this disturbing predatorial shriek. Those are my intuitions. Everybody just looked at me and went, “This is dodgy.” But when you have strong intuition, you have to learn to trust that.

Luke, do you have any questions for Ridley about his work as a filmmaker, his way into the craft?

LUKE SCOTT Yeah, it relates to storyboards.

How are you so confident in those? The lines are so expressive.

RIDLEY SCOTT I’ll show you. I’m working on [a film about Napoleon Bonaparte]. It’s starting with a snowball fight in Corsica. I want Napoleon as a young boy to put a stone inside a snowball because he’s losing the fight to the other boys in his military school. He fights dirty. So I draw that out. It fits the location I’ve already found in Malta, a fantastic Napoleonic courtyard. But it all starts with a great script [by David Scarpa]. The script is inspiring. I read it, and I started drawing, which means I’m filming already.

Do you illustrate as you read the script?

RIDLEY SCOTT No, I read, and it goes in indelibly.

A good script is indelible. I can go in and literally start constructing the scene in my head without referring to the script. That’s how I work. It’s the one thing I’ve got. I have very good visual retention. I’m great at remembering pictures and images. I can’t understand mathematics, algebra or logic.

Ridley, anything you want to ask Luke about?

RIDLEY SCOTT Well, he won’t tell you what he’s [working on next] … but he’s about to find out what it’s really like to design something that’s going to be really scary.

LUKE SCOTT That’s not going to help. (Laughs.)

Interview edited for length and clarity.

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PROMOTION

FROM SUPERHEROES TO SCI-FI,

IS YOUR COMIC + GENRE DESTINATION

Can See Your Voice — Fox’s musical competition series based on a hit Korean game show in which a rotating cast of celebrity judges help a contestant guess if a crop of singers (aka “secret voices”) have good or bad voices without hearing them sing a note and with a cash prize on the line — launched its debut season in September after its production was derailed by the pandemic, having only one episode shot before the set was closed in March 2020. The team, including host Ken Jeong and executive producer James McKinlay, did not let the shutdown slow them, though, and used the time off to study that first episode and make improvements for their return, when I Can See Your Voice became one of the first shows back to work. With season two now also in the books, McKinlay spoke to THR about bringing the hit Korean concept to America and finding the country’s worst voices.

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REALITY

Building a Music Superstar From Scratch The EP behind Fox’s competition series I Can See Your Voice, adapted from a Korean game show, reveals how they trick contestants into believing a tone-deaf singer is a musical phenomenon By Kirsten Chuba

How did you adapt this Korean format for U.S. audiences?

The most significant element was that we wanted to create more of a game-show feel and create more stakes within the show.

The Korean format is much more of a panel-based format, where the music star is the main focus and the panel is advising them throughout the show. In Europe, a lot of panel shows work very, very well, but they’ve never worked that well in the U.S. market.

Something that [Fox reality chief] Rob Wade wanted to do was to bring in the game-show element, so we added a contestant [who assesses the singers], and then we had to figure out how that part of the process would work in terms of the musical guest being in a slightly different role. It’s really given us something that I think U.S. audiences have loved, and it’s given us the human-interest angle as well in terms of the stakes of what you’re playing for.

What is the casting process like for the good and bad singers?

It’s a real journey for them having to effectively fake that they’re a performer. You forget how many natural things people give off when they’re actually a

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performer, even from the way they walk to how they hold the microphone. We’re constantly against the panelists and trying to trick them on some occasions, and then in other ways we have our Susan Boyle-type singer, who may not look like a performer but then has this incredible voice. We work with them extremely closely — the good singers as well as the bad singers. There’s a fantastic team of vocal coaches and choreographers who work right up until the last minute because if you’re training somebody who’s not used to performing, it’s a big deal for them. They’re going into the live studio setting in front of celebrities, and they have to be able to pull it off. They work extremely hard, but they all enjoy it; we have so many lovely letters and emails from secret voices after they’ve been on the show about what an incredible experience it was for them, so it’s a really rewarding thing.

VOICE: MICHAEL BECKER/FOX (2). SELENA: COURTESY OF HBO MAX (2).

What are the challenges that come with casting bad voices?

We have to be very careful that when we’re casting them — it’s going to sound a little odd — but that their voices are sufficiently bad. And we do have that sometimes, where during the casting process, we have to drop people because there’s definitely a level of one to 10 of how bad a singer someone is. They have to be a naturally poor singer in every way — some people can certainly slip in and out of a melody, and that doesn’t work for us. It’s got to be somebody that is virtually

tone-deaf. It has to be something that’s a natural part of their makeup so that when they do hit the stage, it’s all there to show off in the right way.

SELENA GOMEZ GETS SCHOOLED IN THE KITCHEN

What was it like to be one of the first productions back?

We were very much one of the first, which was a little nervewracking, but it was so well done by the COVID support team that we had around the show. We were expecting a lot of stops and potentially people not being able to come in, and we didn’t really have any of those issues. And Ken was extremely on top of it as a medical doctor. It was helpful because if anyone had any questions — even when we were off set — about things, he was always extremely willing to talk us through his knowledge because he read up massively on the whole subject.

What will season two look like?

We’ve taped season two, and we are super excited about it. There’s a whole new round of panelists and music guests, and we have made some changes to the format a little bit: Some of the lip-sync rounds are slightly different — there’s more of a battle element going on. Then we have a new lifeline which we’ve introduced that brings a slightly new element.

We’ve definitely changed it up, but we’ve kept the core DNA. We had Ken in tears about four times this season.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Left: I Can See Your Voice features both good and bad singers. Above, from left: The first season’s rotating celebrity panel comprised Katharine McPhee, Adrienne Houghton, Niecy Nash, Joel McHale and Cheryl Hines; Houghton and Hines are set to return for season two.

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The pop singer and actress cooked up her HBO Max show (shot remotely) during quarantine

Chef Tanya Holland (below) teaches Selena Gomez how to make buttermilk fried chicken and fresh-baked cheddar scallion biscuits.

elena Gomez says that every time she was asked in an interview what she would love to do if she weren’t singing and acting, she has the same response: “I’d always answer, ‘I’d be a chef,’ ” she says. The one problem? She wasn’t exactly good at cooking.

So when the pandemic hit, and she, like most people, was stuck in her home for months, the 28-year-old took the opportunity to create Selena + Chef, an HBO Max unscripted series in which she learns to cook under the virtual tutelage of a professional chef (the first season’s guests included Ludo Lefebvre, Roy Choi, Nancy Silverton and Antonia Lofaso). “I thought it could be an interesting idea to do a cooking show and people could learn and improve their skills along with me,” she says of the series, which is eligible in the structured reality program category for Emmys.

Shot using remote cameras and featuring cameos from Gomez’s grandparents and friends, the series also has a philanthropic component, with each guest chef selecting a charity to highlight and the production donating toward that cause. The first two seasons have raised $360,000 for 23 nonprofit organizations. “When we first started discussing the show, this was the most important aspect to me,” says Gomez. “Whenever I agree to come on board with a brand partner, I always make sure there is a charity aspect to the deal.”

The series, which often features Gomez making gaffes in the kitchen, is filming its third season.

“Cooking [shows seem] to cross demos, and people find them very calming. That’s been really interesting to hear, I have to say,” she says.

But don’t expect Gomez to turn to television to learn other skills anytime soon. She says, “I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough on TV, so probably not.” — REBECCA FORD

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GUEST STARS

‘It Was Very Operatic, That Character’ From delivering a monologue in a made-up language to ‘screaming bloody murder’ on an operating table, Tony Goldwyn realized he had to embrace the camp of his Lovecraft Country role By Scott Huver

ony Goldwyn admits that after seven seasons playing Scandal’s Byronically romantic President Fitzgerald Grant, a one-episode guest stint on HBO’s horror series Lovecraft Country, as the menacing, aristocratic white supremacist/occultist Samuel Braithwhite, offered an opportunity to tap some less frequently summoned acting skills.

“It was very operatic, that character, so you don’t often get to do that on television, or in front of a camera,” Goldwyn recalls, noting a key scene in which he had to shout a mystic incantation in an invented dialect at the top of his lungs. “I had to learn, phonetically, this runic language, this whole long chunk of this spell that I was casting. And that was fun and interesting, and a muscle I had not flexed for some time.”

Goldwyn, who since Scandal wrapped has appeared in multiple Broadway productions

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WHEN FAMILIAR FACES POP INTO THE PICTURE FOR A GUEST APPEARANCE The original TV Queen Elizabeth returns to The Crown and an Emmy vet lands in the MCU

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Michael Angarano

Yvette Nicole Brown

PEN15 and This Is Us He already earned an Emmy nom in 2019 for his role as Jack’s brother (pictured) on This Is Us (which he reprised this year) and is also eligible for playing a drama teacher on PEN15.

A Black Lady Sketch Show Brown reprised her role as a judge for the sketch “Courtroom Kiki,” which celebrated an all-Black-lady courtroom in the final episode of season two.

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GOLDWYN: RODIN ECKENROTH/WIREIMAGE. LOVECRAFT: ELI JOSHUA ADE/HBO. ANGARANO: COURTESY OF NBC. BROWN: ALI P. GOLDSTEIN/HBO. FOY: ALEX BAILEY/NETFLIX. FREEMAN: ERIK VOAKE/NETFLIX. LOUIS-DREYFUS: CHUCK ZLOTNICK/©MARVEL STUDIOS.

and next headlines National Geographic’s miniseries The Hot Zone: Anthrax, joined THR to reflect on flexing those new muscles after Fitz, Lovecraft’s unexpected immediacy, and his earliest TV acting guest stints on a string of now-classic series.

What kind of permission did the unusual genre-bending nature of the show give you as an actor?

Playing a to-the-manner-born white supremacist, who’s this sort of Gothic figure … you had to lean into the camp of it, the genre. But the way that guy’s mind works is representing something profoundly real and disturbing in our culture and human nature.

When you meet my character, he’s un-anesthetized, getting a piece of his liver cut out on a table in his lab, screaming bloody murder.

And then Jonathan Majors enters the room, and [Braithwhite] says, “Oh, he’s darker than I [expected]” … That kind of a statement is shocking, and yet also camp, if you know what I’m saying. It’s larger than life, but tragically all too close to life, as we have seen this year, really. And that’s what’s so weird: Not that racism wasn’t a familiar concept in American culture, but we shot that in 2019, and the events of 2020 sort of exposed how close to the surface all that still is.

To see it come out at such a charged moment, immediately following the Black Lives Matter protests, when it achieved even greater degrees of relevance and immediacy, must have been a unique experience.

Slightly surreal, honestly. It was very disturbing. It’s very discomforting … When I read it, it felt dangerous and relevant and provocative, but also fun. When I saw it, it was still entertaining, but there was a much darker sensibility to the fun aspect of it, if you know what I mean. And honestly, for me personally, now that I’m reflecting on it … embodying a white supremacist was a very different experience in 2020 than it was in 2019. There was something where I could feel that I was at an arm’s length from it. Whereas now, there’s been a seismic shift, and it would be, frankly, much harder to do — which makes me feel a

Tony Goldwyn as Samuel Braithwhite, the father of Christina Braithwhite (Abbey Lee, right) on HBO’s Lovecraft Country.

bit silly, because of course that’s my reality, and I think the reality for African Americans is not that different. People are like, “Yeah, wake up!” Which is what Misha [Green] was writing about, but the world has a very different lens on it now.

After several seasons on a hit TV show in a regular role, what have you enjoyed about these briefer excursions? Fitz was such a complex character — he could be dark, he could be someone you rooted for — that the role doesn’t saddle you, the actor, with a lot of typecasting baggage.

I really loved playing Fitz, for the reasons you said … He was so complicated and had so many light and dark shades that made him just endlessly fun to play. And I’d never had the experience of living in a character for that long.

But that said, since Scandal ended, I’ve played five, six, seven different roles, all so different, from Samuel Braithwhite to the shows I did on Broadway … And the project I’m doing now for Nat Geo, The Hot Zone — the character I’m playing could not be more different from Fitz. It’s wonderful [after] going to work every day and playing the same character and literally wearing the same suit every day for seven years to just go to completely different places.

When you were starting out, you took the jobs that came your way, as actors do, and a lot of

those were guest spots on future TV classics.

What do you remember about those years?

And what it was like to step onto a series as a young, up-and-coming actor?

First of all, I was just grateful to have a job!

I mean, I still am, but when you’re starting out, just any work you can get is good work.

And also, it was a way to learn about acting in front of a camera, because I started working in the theater, and the camera was very foreign to me.

I did a bunch of those guest star things in shows in the ’80s, from sitcoms to dramas and cop shows and whatever: Matlock and Designing Women and the pilot of Murphy Brown, and I did — oh God — a show called Hunter, do you remember that? And then a couple of things that had more meat.

St. Elsewhere was actually where I got my SAG card … I did L.A. Law, too. I had a pretty good part in that.

I imagine this is true for people today still: It’s a rather difficult thing, because you’re coming onto a show, where everybody knows the show and everybody does this thing every day, and you’re kind of parachuting in to give your performance and play this character.

And you don’t know anybody in it. It can be very challenging. And eventually, after you’re more experienced, you learn to relax, but that I found very difficult.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Claire Foy

Morgan Freeman

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

The Crown Foy, who played Queen Elizabeth for the first two seasons, stepped back into the role for a flashback in the fourth season, set on the then-princess’ 21st birthday, in 1947.

The Kominsky Method The veteran actor, as a fictionalized version of himself, goes up against Michael Douglas’ character, Sandy Kominsky, in the final season of the Netflix comedy.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier In episode five, the Veep star popped in as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and it seems likely she’ll return to the MCU in the future. — REBECCA FORD

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STUNTS

‘It’s Poetry in Motion’ Aaron Toney is more than just Anthony Mackie’s look-alike stunt double — he’s also played a role in shaping the actor’s Marvel character, Sam Wilson.

Now he hopes audiences will recognize the talent and intellect within the stunt community By Richard Newby

aron Toney didn’t grow up dreaming he’d be doing stunts for the biggest franchise in the world. But much like the characters he’s had a hand in shaping for nearly a decade as a stunt performer and Anthony Mackie’s double — most recently on the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in which he brought insight into the character of Sam Wilson as both an athlete and an artist — a willingness to learn and push himself has made the 39-year-old a force to be reckoned with.

“I come from a martial arts background,” says Toney. “I was introduced to martial arts when I was a little kid. My dad used to keep books around the house.” For Toney, a native of the L.A. neighborhood Harbor City, his skills were self-taught at first, and later acquired in classes provided by nonprofit Family Matters PACT while he was in junior high. His teacher was so impressed by his skill level that he used him as an instructor for the other students.

Eventually, Toney was awarded a scholarship to a tae kwon do martial arts school, where he excelled, skipping several belt classes.

Despite a natural inclination toward martial arts, Toney imagined his life going in a different direction. “Honestly, I thought I was going to become a computer programmer because I’m a huge geek,” he says. “I love computers. I build them. I love anime and tech. I’m constantly tinkering with stuff.” Before venturing to Hollywood, Toney

A

studied at DeVry in Long Beach to be a computer information tech.

“But something in me just told me this isn’t for me,” he says. He found what he was looking for at a gym called L.A. Valley College, a hub for trickers, break-dancers, circus performers, cheerleaders and stunt performers. “I fell in love instantly with everything that was going on in the room.”

Toney paints a picture of the place during its prime as a haven for athletically inclined performers where you could find anyone from the actors on WMAC Masters to Power Rangers.

Making it from the gym to the studio lot wasn’t easy. Before he got his SAG card, Toney landed a summer gig as a live-show performer at SeaWorld in San Diego for its Cirque de la Mer show from 2004 to 2006. “Doing the live show work really helped me get over a lot of fears — fear of heights, fear of trying new things,” he says. “It gave me a

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better, broader sense of performance. I think of it as theater.”

Between summers, Toney worked nights as a security guard while continuing to train and building a stunt reel. Before a night shift, Toney got a call from longtime stunt performer and second-unit director George Marshall Ruge, who was impressed with Toney’s reel. “I went in right after I worked all night. I didn’t even go home.

I changed in the bathroom and went to my interview over at

Aaron Toney (left) with Anthony Mackie.

The pair have worked together since 2012’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

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Disney in Burbank.” The meeting went well, but the admission that he didn’t have a SAG card left him walking away feeling a little defeated. Two days later, he got a call for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and it was his experience as a live performer at SeaWorld that landed him the gig.

Years later, a fellow stunt performer Toney had met on Dead Man’s Chest, Don Lee, called him: “They need a stunt guy for this actor in a project called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and you look just like him.” That guy was Anthony Mackie. “We actually do look alike. Were we long-lost cousins or something? We’ve actually talked about that,” Toney says. “We matched up so well, it was already a done deal.”

Toney has been doubling for Mackie for a decade now, and the pair hit it off right away.

“From the day I met Mackie, he was always really, really cool. He just said, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, so show me.’ ” he says. “He always had a good attitude and good heart about things, so we got along really well.”

BTS: CHUCK ZLOTNICK/MARVEL STUDIOS/DISNEY+. TONEY: @AARONTONEY/INSTAGRAM.

“There are so many brilliant minds among the stunt community. Some of these people have degrees in physics and chemistry,” says Toney, seen here in action on the set of Disney+’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Three years later, Disney approached Toney again, this time for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Toney now laughs about what he thought the job would be, only to learn that Marvel had bigger plans. “I started for Falcon trying to do all the fancy stuff that I could already do, and they were like, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to do that yet.’ ” By the time he got to Captain America: Civil War, Toney was allowed to delve into what could be done with the character’s fighting style. “We started to explore more acrobatic kicking, and more Tai-style techniques,” he says.

“It started to evolve, and people started to take Falcon seriously.”

So seriously, in fact, that a lot of the fight choreography Toney developed for the Falcon has made its way into the pages of comic books.

When asked about the influence he’s had on Sam Wilson as a character, both onscreen and in the comics, Toney cites one of his friends in the stunt community to make his point, something he

does often while talking about his work. “I like to say Black Widow is not only what Scarlett Johansson does but also [her stunt actor] Heidi Moneymaker,” he explains.

“It’s really a merger of the double and the actor that makes up the style, and also the source material from the actual comics.” Perhaps it comes from his background teaching martial arts, or maybe it’s the circus performer in him, but Toney always finds a way to extend the credit to the larger stunt community and friends who helped him along the way.

He’s a performer very much aware of the shoulders he stood on to get to where he is, and eagerly lends his own to help others on their way up.

Many Marvel actors like to do as many of their own stunts as possible, and Toney couldn’t be more excited to see what Mackie is able to achieve. “I love to focus on what an actor’s strengths are,” he says.

“We would focus on his boxing, a lot of leg work and judo kicks. He’d always get mad at me and say, ‘My legs don’t work that way, A.T.!’ ” Yet Toney only has praise for the

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actor’s progress. “I was super impressed on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. We’re all getting older, but somehow Mackie got bigger, stronger and more flexible because I’ve been torturing him.

When it’s something he wants to do, he’ll push me, lovingly, out of the way and say, ‘Get out of here.

I’ve got this.’ ” Being active on social media has made Toney aware of the many people who want to do stunts and think it’s simple. “You can be seriously hurt, and you could possibly die. It’s important to know that when you sign up to become a stunt performer, you are signing up to be someone who is looked upon to be put in the danger zone, the position where you wouldn’t put an actor,” he says of those who misunderstand the physical commitment of his work. “You must train. You must take it seriously.

And you must respect the craft.”

That respect of the craft is something Toney emphasizes as a science. “We are professional athletes. Our job is to stay ready,” he says. “A lot of it is constant physical therapy. I think some people

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get very comfortable and they stop training, which isn’t smart.

I’ll be 40 in June, so I’m really excited that I’ve been able to last almost 16 years in this business without any real major injuries.”

Toney credits the ingenuity of the stunt community, who have made possible stunts that would at one time result in serious injury or death. “We don’t just go ahead and say, ‘Well, that’s how it’s going to work.’ ” he says. “There’s so much science and planning involved.

There are so many brilliant minds among the stunt community.

Some of these people have degrees in physics and chemistry.”

In recent years, several stunt coordinators and performers have moved into directing — such as Chad Stahelski (the John Wick franchise), David Leitch (Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2) and Sam Hargrave (Extraction). Toney expresses excitement when asked about the potential of taking his career in that direction. “I’ve been developing a series,” he reveals. “Earlier this year, I did about five days of shooting on a project called Project H. It’s under my new company called Halvon Corp. Entertainment. We are now in postproduction and so we are developing that and will now at some point pitch it as a pilot. I have a solid team of people who believe in the work and what I’m creating for this world. I think the endgame is to produce and develop my own stories so that I can help my friends go ahead and tell the stories they want to tell, too.”

Enthusiasm over the new stunt category at the Emmys — which will honor individual performers for the first time this year — is yet another extension of Toney’s admiration for the larger stunt community and hopes for seeing his friends achieve their goals.

“It is nice for people to see the hard work that actually goes into developing and creating stunts,” Toney says. “It’s nice to see that the Emmys are starting to pay attention to that, because it is art, it is a science. It’s poetry in motion.”

EMMYS 2021

1

SET VISIT

THE MASKED SINGER

The team behind Fox’s reality competition, which filmed seasons four and five during the pandemic, had to get creative to produce the show safely: ‘I feel like people’s artistry came through’ BY JEAN BENTLEY

B

ased on title alone, The Masked Singer was perhaps the most pandemic-ready of any show on TV — masking up is not only part of the competition, it’s the whole premise. Of course, these masks aren’t exactly endorsed by the CDC. In reality, the team behind Fox’s unscripted hit faced the same pandemic-related roadblocks as every other TV series that went back into production in 2020 — but they got around them in some very creative ways.

According to executive producer Craig Plestis, there were two main concerns he and

his team had to address before they were able to film the fourth season of the star-studded singing competition. First, how to keep the cast and crew safe — which they tackled using frequent testing and other safety protocols, ones that evolved and changed with each new scientific development — and second, how to make the show feel the same as it did before COVID-19 shut down the world in 2020.

“That second part really opened up a lot of avenues of creativity for us,” Plestis says.

While many audience-based shows turned to Zoom setups or audience-free filming, The Masked Singer turned to technology to make

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seasons four and five (filmed in mid-2020 and early 2021, respectively) feel exactly like the first three, complete with host, judges, competitors and, most important, audience. They used old audience reactions for close-ups and CGI virtual ones for the crowds.

“We auditioned an absolute cutting-edge company that designs virtual audiences for sports games in New York,” says the show’s director, Alex Rudzinski (who won an Emmy in 2016 for directing Fox’s Grease Live!). But instead of adding 20,000 people to a stadium cheering for a football team, they used “graphic CGI technology from the gaming world” to add people cheering for costumed celebrities’ cover songs.

“For two or three perspectives in our studio — in the big wide shots and in the tracking shots that we have over audience shoulders — we inserted a virtual audience in the foreground,” the director explains. “So when you cut to the big wides, you still see an audience; when you cut to a dollying low wide shot, you still are seeing audience. The technology is so good that even our executives were fooled.”

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The slimmed-down crew acted as an audience while the celebs performed, with sweetened applause sounds filling the soundstage and the CGI crowd appearing on the monitors in the studio. Other departments, like lighting, were handled via remote control to reduce the number of bodies in the room, and costume designer Marina Toybina and her team would do fittings over Zoom to avoid congregating in a space for too long.

“I feel like people’s artistry came through,” Toybina says. “We started to really explore new techniques, new ways of how to do this all, even though the stores were closed.”

Most crucial, though, was the knowledge that everyone involved in the series was interconnected and had a responsibility to protect one another.

Judge Ken Jeong, who was a physician before getting into comedy, took that to heart and consulted several doctor friends to make sure the show was employing the best safety policies possible. “I really had to think like a doctor far more than I’ve ever had to in my entertainment career,” he says. “It’s nerve-wracking, but it’s also calming if you have a plan.”

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1 The Piglet (later revealed to be Nick Lachey, who won season five), takes the stage. “We were able to use helmets inside masks that we could then take out and properly clean out and air-dry,” says costume designer Marina Toybina.

2 Says judge Ken Jeong (with Jenny McCarthy, left, and Nicole Scherzinger) of filming without an audience: “It’s just a matter of rhythm. You adjust your rhythm, and you don’t wait for the feedback of the audience.”

3 The masked crew on set, where there were limits to how many people could be in a room at a time.

4 McCarthy in the hair and makeup room.

5 Taylor Dayne’s Popcorn costume from season four. “It really came down to going back to the basics of art and costumebuilding and construction and creativity,” says Toybina. “It got us working together closely as a team and really having a lot more communication.”

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1 Seasons four and five of The Masked Singer were both shot during the pandemic.

2 Lisa and Clint Black were season four’s Snow Owls. “How do you rehearse with your singers with all these protocols in place?” says EP Craig Plestis. “We had a lot of Zoom rehearsals.”

3 The masked crew sets up lighting. 4 Wiz Khalifa came in third in season five as Chameleon.

5 Judge Robin Thicke on set. 6 Jeong says one of his favorite performances during the pandemic was singer LeAnn Rimes covering the Billie Eilish hit “When the Party’s Over.” “I listened to that over and over, and I could not stop crying,” he says. 7 The Russian dolls (which housed the Hanson brothers) from season five. “As a designer, the last thing I wanted was people to notice those little things, like, ‘Oh, this is probably why it wasn’t as cool as previous seasons because we’re dealing with all these challenges,’ ” says Toybina. 8 The Masked Singer crew on set in protective gear. Says director Alex Rudzinski: “Not only were we wearing face masks and getting regularly tested, but on top of our face coverings, we also had to wear plexiglass full-face masks.”

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If it weren’t for a scheduling conflict, Betty Thomas might not have won an Emmy in 1993. “I wasn’t supposed to direct that script,” recalls Thomas of “For Peter’s Sake,” the episode of HBO’s Dream On for which she won outstanding directing for a comedy series. “Tommy Schlamme was assigned that, but then he went and did some pilot. … I stole his Emmy from him, happily.” Thomas had already earned a supporting actress Emmy for her role as Sgt. Lucy Bates on Hill Street Blues and had been directing TV series such as Doogie Howser, M.D. and Parenthood for several years, but her comedy directing victory made her the first woman to top that category — an achievement she didn’t even realize until reading about it almost 25 years later.

(Another female director wouldn’t win again until Gail Mancuso took home the Emmy for Modern Family in 2013.) “If you think about it, you do understand why that’s true, because there were no women directing almost anything, but certainly comedy,” Thomas says. Dream On, created

by Marta Kauffman and David Crane pre-Friends, dealt with sexuality and nudity and, according to Thomas, almost required a female director to make everything more comfortable. “You have to get the female energy, which I think is an open, fun, let’s-see-what’s-going-to-happen energy.” Thomas went on to helm films including The Brady Bunch Movie, Private Parts, Dr. Dolittle, 28 Days and John Tucker Must Die. As for today’s opportunities for female directors, Thomas says: “It’s a nightmare still in a lot of places. … There’s work to be done, and here’s the reason why [we should do it]: because women are good. It’s not because they’re women, it’s because they’re good.” — KIRSTEN CHUBA Betty Thomas showed off her Emmy for outstanding directing for a comedy series on Sept. 19, 1993; THR featured her in its Emmy coverage the next day (inset).

The Hollywood Reporter, Vol. CDXXVII, No. 22B (ISSN 0018-3660; USPS 247-580) is published weekly; 40 issues — one issue in May and July; two issues in October; three issues in September and December; four issues in January, February, June, August and November; and five issues in March and April; plus 22 special issues: 5 in January; 1 in February; 2 in March; 1 in April; 7 in June and 6 in August — by The Hollywood Reporter, LLC, at 11175 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025.

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RON GALELLA, LTD./RON GALELLA COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES

Betty Thomas Broke an Emmy Glass Ceiling in 1993

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OUTSTANDING DIRECTING for a Comedy Series

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