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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gayle King Reveals Her 2 Picks to Be Named PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive: ‘They're Really Good Human Beings' (Exclusive)
Gayle King revealed her two picks to be named PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE at the opening night of Call Me Izzy on Broadway in New York City on Thursday, June 12 She described both of her picks as "really good human beings" The CBS News journalists also said "there are lots [of worthy men] to choose from" for the annual titleGayle King is singling out two actors she believes deserve to wear the PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive crown. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE at the opening night of Call Me Izzy on Broadway in New York City on Thursday, June 12, the CBS News journalist said that while "there are lots [of worthy men] to choose from," she'd love to see a certain Bridgerton leading man tapped for the honor. "I wouldn't be mad if Regé-Jean Page got it. I wouldn't be mad," she says, referring to the 37-year-old British actor, who rose to fame playing love interest Simon, the Duke of Hastings, in season 1 of the Netflix period drama. King also tossed out another name: Brandon Sklenar, star of It Ends with Us, 1923 and more. "Brandon Sklenar, also nice," she says of the 34-year-old actor. "Because I've met them, and in addition to looking good, I think they're really good human beings," she continues of both actors. "That to me matters more than anything, does more than anything. Because good looks come and go, but your character and a big heart doesn't go." King isn't the first celebrity to share her votes for the SMA title. In January, Today co-host Savannah Guthrie asked Will Ferrell and his You're Cordially Invited costar Reese Witherspoon about the Elf star potentially campaigning for the annual honor. "Again. I mean, I missed out last year," Ferrell, 57, joked. Asked why she believes Ferrell would make a good cover star, Witherspoon, 49, replied, " 'Cause I mean, who else would it be? I can't think of anybody!" Also in January, Matthew McConaughey put in a little plug for fellow actor Anthony Hopkins. At the time, the Interstellar star shared a carousel of photos on Instagram of himself posing with various celebrity friends at the 2025 Joy Awards in Saudi Arabia. He captioned a shot of himself and Hopkins, 87: "It's past time this Sir is Peoples Sexiest Man Alive." Last year's SMA title was bestowed on John Krasinski. As the Office alum prepares to pass the torch to the 2025 honoree later this year, he recently shared some advice for his successor. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "Buckle up. It is a hard crown to wear, but you'll be all right. Just stay focused. Take a deep breath, you'll get through it," Krasinski, 45, told PEOPLE at the May 19 premiere of Apple TV+'s Fountain of Youth in New York City. Read the original article on People
Daily Mail
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Brooke Shields rocks youthful look at Call Me Izzy Broadway opening after calling Meghan Markle 'too precious'
Brooke Shields showed off a casual-cool look that made her look years younger than her age when she made a splash at the opening night of the Broadway play Call Me Izzy. The 60-year-old actress showed off her impressively toned arms in a button-up best as she joined other stars on the red carpet in New York City on Thursday. Brooke stepped out just days after she admitted to criticizing Meghan Markle for being 'too precious' during a live event in front of thousands of people last year. exclusively reported earlier this week that King Charles ' goddaughter India Hicks had removed a clip of Brooke speaking about the surprising critique on her personal website. For her Broadway attire, she paired her black vest with a flared pair of high-waisted dark-wash jeans. The sleek pants, which emphasized her trim figure, were paired with modest black heels decorated with gold eyelets. Brooke completed her low-key ensemble with her lustrous brunette hair, which she wore in thick waves draped over her shoulders. She was attending the one-woman drama Call Me Izzy (its title is an allusion to Moby Dick's opening line, 'Call me Ishmael.'), which stars Jean Smart. The Hacks actress plays a downtrodden housewife in Louisiana who cultivates a secret life of the mind by writing poetry, which she has to keep secret from her abusive husband, whom she also plays, in addition to other supporting characters. Initial reviews were mixed on the play and its script, but Jean's performance received widespread acclaim. Brooke has been a vocal fan of Jean's hit HBO series Hacks, which recently wrapped up its fourth season and has been renewed for a fifth. Last year, she told that she loved the show and Jean 'so much,' and she claimed its other lead Hannah Einbinder had pledged to try to get the show's writers room to come up with a guest part for her. When Hannah appeared on the Today Show later, she sounded shocked that Brooke would share their conversation. 'Oh, my God! Wait, that's so — wow, Brooke Shields that's crazy,' she said, before vowing to keep her promise to find a way to get the veteran actress on her show. The sleek pants, which emphasized her trim figure, were paired with modest black heels decorated with gold eyelets. Brooke completed her low-key ensemble with her lustrous brunette hair, which she wore in thick waves draped over her shoulders Brooke recently caused a scandal when she admitted that she shut down Meghan Markle onstage last year. The two were part of a panel discussing International Women's Day at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, when the former Suits star, 43, began answering a question that Brooke thought turned overly serious. 'Katie asks the first question to Meghan and talks about how at a young age, she was already advocating for women, etcetera, etcetera,' Brooke explained. '[Meghan] starts telling a story about how when she was 11... And she keeps saying, well, when I was 11, I saw this commercial and they were talking about washing dishes and only soap for washing dishes was for women. 'And she said, "I didn't think only women wash dishes. It wasn't fair. So I wrote to the company. And when I was 11, I wrote my first letter and when I was 11..." and she kept saying she was 11! She wrote to the company, they changed the text, they changed the commercial.' At that point, Brooke said, she couldn't resist breaking the tension in the room and the earnestness of Meghan's response. 'I go, "Excuse me, I'm so sorry. I've got to interrupt you there for one minute." 'I was trying not to be rude, but I wanted to be funny because it was so serious. '"I just want to give everybody here a context as to how we're different,"' Brooke told the audience. 'I said, "Well, when I was 11, I was playing a prostitute." 'The place went insane. And then luckily, it was more relaxed after that.' The comment was a reference to Brooke's breakout role as a child star in the controversial 1978 film Pretty Baby, in which she played a child sex worker, a role that sparked debate at the time and has remained the subject of intense scrutiny in the decades since. In Austin, the moment broke the ice, as the crowd broke out into laughter. 'I was like, oh, I hope she doesn't think I'm rude. I'm not being rude,' Brooke added. India — daughter of Lady Pamela Mountbatten, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II, and the late interior designer David Hicks, agreed that lightening the serious mood Meghan created was the right thing to do. 'I think it's genius,' she said. Reflecting on the exchange, Brooke added: 'It was just too precious. And I was like, they're not going to want to sit here for 45 minutes and listen to anybody be precious or serious.' Despite the crowd's response, Brooke acknowledged that the moment might not have gone down quite so well with Meghan herself. 'This was in front of [thousands of people]. I mean, it was crazy,' she said. 'And then afterwards, she was kind of like, oh, okay. And I was like, let's just have some fun with it.' Brooke added: 'I don't know if you'll have to cut this out.' After the episode came both Brooke and India were accused of being 'racist Karens' and 'b*****s' on X (formerly Twitter) due to the comments.
Wall Street Journal
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Call Me Izzy' Review: A Woman Shows Her Smarts on Broadway
New York Jean Smart makes a welcome, and warmly welcomed, return to Broadway after an absence of a quarter-century in 'Call Me Izzy,' a solo show by Jamie Wax about a woman trying to break free from an abusive marriage. Ms. Smart has reached a later-career peak recently, winning three Emmy Awards for her performance as a down-and-out comic rampaging on the comeback trail in 'Hacks,' in which she has given one of the most superlative performances of the streaming-television era.
Chicago Tribune
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘Call Me Izzy' on Broadway stars Jean Smart as a working-class woman with dreams
NEW YORK — Jean Smart hasn't been on Broadway for 25 years. The last time, she played a glittering, glamorous and ruthless actress in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's 'The Man Who Came to Dinner,' a powerful siren who enjoyed breaking up marriages for sport. This time, she's an abused woman from small-town Louisiana who makes her first appearance on stage in the bathroom of a mobile home in a Louisiana trailer park. It's likely quite the jolt for fans of a much-awarded actress familiar for her work on 'Hacks,' 'Designing Women' and 'Mare of Easttown,' a contrast intensified by playwright Jamie Wax's 'Call Me Izzy' opening in the slipstream of the Tony Awards. As the Broadway glitterati walked by Studio 54 over these last few nights, Smart was inside, slipping disinfectant into a toilet bowl for her bemused fans. 'My husband, Fred, he hates the blue cleaner I put into the toilet almost as much as he hates my writing,' Smart's titular character says to the audience at the start of 'Call Me Izzy,' as she flushes and marvels at the various shades of swirling azure. Uh oh, you'll surely think, right off the bat. This Izzy sounds like a working-class writer trapped in a marriage with an oafish, one-syllable Southern man who won't understand such matters as artistic freedom, artistic expression, and the desire to escape said trailer park for a more examined life. The kind of scared little dude who might well resort to violence to keep his wife in line. You would of course be right. That's exactly the scenario in 'Call Me Izzy,' a solo show about the power of poetry and its ability to lift working-class writers out of their difficult lives, but only if they can find room to express themselves, avoid those who would block their progress and align themselves with the kind of mentor who will take an interest. For those of us who've been around a while, 'Call Me Izzy' starts to recall the plot of Willy Russell's 'Shirley Valentine,' another play about the power of humanistic education, albeit set in Liverpool in the U.K. rather than Mansfield, Louisiana. In both plays, the lovable central character finds herself in the thrall of a charismatic teacher who clearly represents a means of escape from those with no understanding, but might also just be a distraction from what is typically venerated in plays like this, which is finding your own way with words and ideas. Those are noble sentiments and there are only so many stories under the sun. Moreover, stories about white, working-class characters from Louisiana are as rare on Broadway as dramas about blue-collar poets; I'd venture that no toilet has ever played so prominent a role at Studio 54, at least not since that venue's days as a nightclub. All that is to say 'Call Me Izzy' is not a total bust, especially given Smart's formidable acting chops. Monologic shows like this with no explicit person being addressed require deeply conversational kinds of performance, as if the audiences were all your best friend who just happens to be outside the bathroom door. Smart is skilled and experienced enough to forge such a bond. I believed her entirely as a woman from small-town Louisiana capable of both great stoicism (often a feature of those in abusive relationships) and profound artistic yearning. Her performance is somewhat under-scaled and under-vocalized for so large a Broadway house (and why are we here in so huge a space, one wonders), but then it has been 20 years and the deeply honest Smart is clearly immersed in her character, with nary a note of condescension. But you still always know where 'Call Me Izzy' is ultimately going, even if the piece is a tad confusing as to its chronology; that's another frequent risk with long monologues recounting a story that may have happened in the past, may still be happening, may go wrong in the future. The audience needs more signposts from a director, and heftier moment-by-moment tension, than director Sarna Lapine here provides us. 'Call Me Izzy' is simply one character's point of view and you can't help contrast it with the complexity of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray,' which uses one live actress to create an entire Victorian world. In the case of 'Izzy,' one might as well be reading the narrative on the page. Except of course for the chance to see Smart, which is why most people will be there. The biggest challenge she faces here is to overcome the fundamental familiarity of a moralistic script that gives us a clearly sympathetic character battling against a brute we never see and wants us to be surprised by the outcome. Wax is so in love with his central character, he finds it hard to give her anything truly substantial to fight against as she rolls down her personal runway. Smart does her considerable best to find it for him, but she didn't write the play.
USA Today
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
'Call Me Izzy' review: Jean Smart transcends a middling Broadway play
'Call Me Izzy' review: Jean Smart transcends a middling Broadway play Show Caption Hide Caption Hack's co-stars talk off camera relationship 'Hacks' co-stars Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder reveal to USA TODAY what their relationship is like in real life. NEW YORK — It's impossible to ever truly upstage Jean Smart, the incomparable 'Hacks' star and six-time Emmy winner. But boy, does a toilet try. For 85 fitfully moving minutes, a porcelain throne is the shag-covered centerpiece of 'Call Me Izzy,' an uneven new Broadway play that opened June 12 at Studio 54. Dramaturgically, it makes a wee bit of sense: Our heroine, Isabelle Scutley (Smart), is trapped in a low-income Louisiana trailer park with her abusive husband, Ferd. Their teensy bathroom is her only refuge where she can safely scrawl her poetry, which she does – surreptitiously and often – on rolls of bath tissue. But aesthetically, surely there must've been better ways to convey Isabelle's dire straits than plopping a potty centerstage. It's one of the myriad jarring choices that distract from Smart's otherwise beautiful leading turn, telling a conventional but necessary story of a woman's late-in-life liberation. Written by Louisiana native Jamie Wax, the one-person show begins with what could be a spoof of an awards-bait prestige drama. Smart, donning an unkempt wig and terrycloth robe, stands alone in Isabelle's bathroom as she wistfully names the shades of her toilet bowl cleaner: 'Blue … azure … sapphire … swirlin' cerulean … lapis lazuli.' The intent well may be to give us a peek into Isabelle's creative mind, and the heartening ways that she finds poetry in the mundane. But the entire exercise is so perplexingly self-serious, and only becomes sillier when Isabelle squats in her latrine to recount her life story. Much of the play's first half unfolds in similarly obvious fashion, as Isabelle secretly enrolls in a creative writing class and wins a fellowship that could be her bus ticket to a new life. It's hardly a surprise when Isabelle tells the audience conspiratorially that she's started an affair with her professor. But Smart, with her mischievous glint and bone-dry delivery, manages to wring laughs from even the most groan-worthy one-liners. ('He is surprisingly passionate and so polite. I keep expecting him to say, 'Please pass the vagina?'') Wax's writing is riddled with clichés, although he occasionally hits on something uniquely powerful or harrowing. In one crushing scene, Isabelle recalls the first time that Ferd hit her and how he wept in her arms afterward. But rather than abhorrence, she was shocked by the 'closeness' she felt to him in that moment: 'That power, that healin' after a bad episode. It's a dangerous drug.' Sarna Lapine's production never quite coalesces, from Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams' scattershot scenic design – a grab bag of lawn chairs, baskets and forest silhouettes – to the folksy underscore music that pervades nearly every dramatic revelation, courtesy of T. Bone Burnett and David Mansfield. As for Smart, she elevates the show in every sense imaginable. Returning to Broadway for the first time in 25 years, the soft-spoken actress delivers a richly textured performance that brings Isabelle to vivid life, in all her strength, humor and resourcefulness. No matter how often Ferd strikes and belittles her, Isabelle always manages to brush herself off and turn her pain into art. But eventually, his decades of mistreatment come spilling out of her, and Smart's palpable grief for a life and family lost is devastating to witness. After a mawkish beginning, the play somewhat redeems itself through earned emotions and an ambiguous ending that begs discussion. It's never wise to bet against Smart, who ultimately deserves a far better vehicle for her Main Stem comeback. But even if these powder-room reveries aren't a royal flush, 'Call Me Izzy' still has a lot in its tank. 'Call Me Izzy' is now playing at Studio 54 (254 W. 54th Street) through Aug. 17.
