Latest news with #IndieWireHonors
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Kathy Bates Salutes Her ‘Matlock' Team — ‘First, Last, and Always, I Am a Soldier of the Cinema'
Kathy Bates is still relatively new to leading a major network juggernaut, but at IndieWire Honors, the 'Matlock' star declared herself part of Hollywood's 'old guard.' Surrounded by friends and collaborators from the CBS legal drama, IndieWire's Vanguard award winner began her acceptance speech on June 5 by reflecting on the definition of the accolade. 'I looked up the word 'vanguard' and it means 'a group of people leading the way in new developments or ideas,'' said Bates. 'If you use that in a sentence, it would be the experimental spirit of the modernist Vanguard. So you folks at IndieWire have provided me the perfect opportunity to thank the army of folks who continue to champion our incredible show.' More from IndieWire 2025 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series 2025 Emmys Predictions: Outstanding Drama Series The acting legend began her litany of thanks for CBS with executives George Cheeks, Amy Reisenbach, and David Stapf. She also tipped her hat to Eric Kim, Yelena Chak, Phil Gonzales, Kristen Hall, Claudia Lyon, Brian Seabury, and Yani Chang at the network, quipping, 'Thank you all for being such delightful people to work with and not weird at all.' Honoring her personal team, Bates thanked her agent Brian Mann at CAA and press agent Rachel Karten. Explicitly and proudly showing off the show's ratings success ('16 million!'), Bates also credited her co-stars. She spoke directly to three of her fellow actors, who were seated with 'Matlock' creator Jennie Snyder Urman in front of the podium. 'Jason Ritter and David Del Rio, you bring joy to my heart every day,' said Bates. 'As Jung put it, you are 'the youthful regenerative males' and essential for older women to keep their glow.' She continued, 'Skye P. Marshall, your eyes assure me that we will catch each other in our highwire act without fail. I never expected to find you, girl. How lucky we are to play delicious roles that we can sink our teeth, claws and souls into.' Marshall wrote the heartfelt dedication for Bates' Vanguard award. 'Finally, Jennie Urman, your vision is why we are all here to celebrate Matlock tonight,' Bates said. 'I am so glad you took that long walk to find your way into the soul of an old woman who is fighting her last battle as a sniper — which is kind of sexy! I identify with her and you. I adore you.' Looking back on her career as a gladiator in the craft of acting, the 'Misery' and 'Matlock' star concluded, 'First, last, and always, I am a soldier of the cinema. I will gladly bring up the rear, as the ready reserves, the old guard.' The IndieWire Honors event took place at NeueHouse in Hollywood on Thursday, June 5. Other honorees for the evening included Ben Stiller, Colin Farrell, Owen Cooper, Julianne Nicholson, and more. Best of IndieWire 2023 Emmy Predictions: Who Will Win at the Primetime Emmy Awards? 2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special 2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Kathy Bates Cracked ‘Matlock' — with Wisdom from Anthony Hopkins and ‘Fried Green Tomatoes'
On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire's editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. We're showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event. A studied actor celebrating her biggest TV role ever at age 76, Kathy Bates recruited some legendary help to get ready for 'Matlock.' In 1992, the year after she won her Academy Award for 'Misery,' Bates presented Anthony Hopkins with his Oscar for 'Silence of the Lambs.' More from IndieWire On '1923,' Aminah Nieves Delivered One of TV's Great Breakout Performances - but She Almost Said No to It Amazon MGM Studios Unveils 'Vought on Ice' Fan Activation in Los Angeles to Celebrate 'The Boys' The pair caught up in 2021 when Hopkins won Best Actor again for 'The Father.' Both killers of the silver screen, Hannibal Lecter and Annie Wilkes were keen to talk shop — an honor Bates extended to IndieWire as our 2025 Vanguard award winner. 'When he was doing 'The Father,' I had seen a lot of the interviews [Hopkins] was giving to the press,' said Bates. 'He was talking about being an actor who did extensive work on his characters and took tremendous notes on his scripts. At his age now, though, he just learns his lines and learns his lines. Then, he goes out and has a ball.' Hopkins and Bates are world-famous for disappearing into their characters. What it takes to pull that off is still a mystery to many, but the challenges facing Bates on 'Matlock' are clear. CBS's so-called 'reboot' centers on a quietly extraordinary role and an undeniably genius actor. To hear Bates tell it, you need a robust toolkit to make the part work, and the script is where you start. 'It's interesting to me that [Hopkins] went from being fully prepared to letting it fly and staying in the moment. With this, I find I really have to do both,' said Bates. 'This is not your grandfather's 'Matlock.'' A contemporary Trojan horse, this unique spin on a classic crime title — starring Andy Griffith from 1986 to 1995 — sees Bates leading the charge as Madeline Kingston. Yes, Kingston. The new Matlock is an accomplished attorney too, but one who only assumes the iconic moniker as an alias. Last season, viewers watched Matty Matlock go undercover at Jacobson Moore, an elite law firm in New York City, to investigate its culpability in the opioid epidemic. 'For the pilot especially, to walk into that boardroom, I had to have a fully formed character without being able to relate to any of the other actors,' Bates said. 'I had to really dig deep and find out, 'Who is this woman? How much of myself can I use to create her?'' Confronted inside by megawatt talents Skye P. Marshall, Jason Ritter, and more from the show's stellar cast, Bates spins Matty into a walking-talking subversion of the 'invisibility' so many women say they feel as they age. Teaming up with Cloud Nine to secure the rights to 'Matlock,' showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman and her production company, Sutton Street, delivered a ratings juggernaut. 'Every bit of this show, I just can't believe it,' said Bates. 'I feel like this should have come earlier in my career. It's a total surprise to me that I would have this success right now, and we're all just going, 'Can you believe this?' The numbers are incredible.' The smash-hit legal drama has appeal across demographics and continents. Bates says it's also the most publicity she's ever done. Much like Demi Moore's 2024 Oscar campaign for 'The Substance,' the pensive reexamination of sexism at the core of 'Matlock' continues to connect with fans. Per Bates, Urman came up with the idea while taking a walk to reflect on her own evollution as a woman in Hollywood. What had aging into her forties really meant for Urman? And what else might change in the showrunner's fifties, sixties, and beyond? 'I was extremely lucky they wanted Matty to be in her seventies, because they could have easily gone with the great-great granddaughter of Andy Griffith's Matlock,' said Bates. 'But Jennie really puts her soul into things. I've always felt that who you are as an artist has to be informed by who you are as a human being, and she's this stellar human being who has really put her heart inside this character.' 'Matlock' lets Bates repurpose erasure as a kind of narrative cloaking device. While Matty hunts for clues and argues cases, Bates covertly thumbs through the psychological layers of a woman on a well-meaning revenge mission. On TV shows, it's common for directors to set 'tone meetings' to decide the look, feel, and flavor for each episode. With 'Matlock,' Urman gave Bates a specific mood to hit in every scene. That's 'deeper than stage directions,' said Bates, who added, 'You don't want to play the character. You want to be the character so that you can play with the other actor.' Bates combed through pages and pages of 'Matlock' to find what she calls 'essential storytelling architecture.' Trained in the Sanford Meisner method of acting — and not afraid to throw that terminology around! — Bates prepares solo by combining heavy line repetition with deep character work. (For annotations, shes uses the Scriptation app, but said her process used to involve stacks of paper, colored pens, and a three-hole-punch.) Devouring that same material in a group, Bates said, has produced a new technique. As suggested by actor David Del Rio (aka first-year associate Billy Martinez), the main collaborative engine for 'Matlock' grew out of the spare time that gets wasted on some sets. After checking their marks and moving to allow the cameras to get in position, actors often go back to their trailers. 'With the Del Rio method, we take that time to go and all sit down in another room and say, 'OK, I don't understand this case,'' said Bates. ''What's happening here?' 'Can you explain that case to me?' 'What's going on with you and I here?' 'Where are we?' 'What's the tone of this?' That gives us a way to really be firm and understand what's happening in each scene.' This isn't the first time Bates has leaned into the expertise and advice of other actors. One of the first big instances came with her bittersweet comedy performance in 'Fried Green Tomatoes' — a memory with lessons Bates says she recognizes now but that wishes she had learned then. 'I wish I had a chance to go back and redo Evelyn Couch,' she said. Post-Oscars for 'Misery,' Bates was in Japan when she got the script from director John Avnet. 'I thought, 'Oh, this is fabulous! I want to do it,'' said Bates. 'But when I got back home, my head was spinning. He was asking me about wigs and costumes and this and that, and I thought, 'Holy crap.' I was used to doing theater where you have weeks to prepare.' On set, 42-year-old Bates found herself overwhelmed by the frantic pace of shooting and said she was unsure how to bring the sympathetic role of Evelyn to life. That's when she went to talk to her senior co-star, the zesty Jessica Tandy, who at 74 was two years younger than Bates is now. 'I knocked on Jessica's trailer door and she said, 'Ah, you've come to see the Wise Woman,'' said Bates. Tandy pushed her junior castmate to refocus on her acting skills and told her to 'go do three plays on Broadway.' An accomplished stage performer, who had just left New York, Bates realized years later that Tandy was pushing her to embrace the same ethos titans like Hopkins are sharing with her now. 'The English actors and the British actors and the Australian actors make it look so easy. Even when they're young, they train in the theater,' said Bates. 'That rehearsal time has to be part of who you are as an actor, and I don't think I did it long enough in New York to have had that under my belt. At the time we did 'Fried Green Tomatoes,' I certainly was nowhere near the level of Jessica.' Bates still loves that movie and says she'll end up watching scene after scene if she catches 'Fried Green Tomatoes' on TV. She's especially fond of the menopause moment, when Evelyn says, 'I'm too old to be young and I'm too young to be old.' And yet, looking back, the 'Matlock' star says she can't help but see the film as an uncracked case. 'I was always running to catch up, and I think it shows on screen,' said Bates, adding that she also wished she had done more to support Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson on the press tour. Bates said they were frequently sidelined in coverage by the attention on her and Tandy — despite the two Oscar winners repeatedly insisting, 'It's their story.' Once again, Bates used the word 'effortless.' These days, the ferociously kind talent is fast to compliment CBS, cast, and crew but continues to demand more from herself as an actor and public representative who is ready to fight for 'Matlock.' 'I kind of rake myself over the coals when I shouldn't, but I do feel a tremendous responsibility,' Bates said. 'Last season, I asked somebody, 'How long have you been doing this?' And one guy would say, 'Oh, I've been doing this for 35 years.' 'Oh, I've been doing this for 20 years.' You start adding that up, and there's hours and hours and hours of experience of all these people there.' She continued, 'So, you respect that. You respect each human being and what they bring to the table. That's what I walk onto set with — the respect for the experience that everybody has brought to create this show. It truly fills me with joy to be around such people.' Happy to discuss cliffhangers but overjoyed to pick apart character choices, Bates said 'Matlock' still feels 'like serendipity.' It's also become her second home in Hollywood — the first Bates says she's had since falling for Rob Reiner's team on 'Misery.' The actor lives near the CBS backlot in Los Angeles, where Matty Matlock will spend Season 2 living in a studio version of New York, while Bates continues to embrace real wisdom. 'You've got to know your stuff so you can make it look easy,' she said. 'Then, you can fly.' Best of IndieWire All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear' Quentin Tarantino's Favorite Movies: 65 Films the Director Wants You to See
Daily Record
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Yellowstone 1923 actress tearfully pays tribute to late co-star as she scoops major award
Aminah Nieves stars in the hit Paramount prequel series as Teonna Rainwater Aminah Nieves, star of 1923, delivered an emotional acceptance speech after being awarded the Breakthrough Performance Award at the 2025 IndieWire Honors in Hollywood. The popular Yellowstone prequel delves into the backstory of Paramount's renowned ranching family a century prior to the events depicted in the epic modern Western. In the series, Nieves portrays Teonna Rainwater, a young Apsáalooke woman subjected to an abusive American Indian boarding school operated by the Catholic Church. Viewers have been captivated by Teonna's narrative, which sees her violently break free from the school and go on the run, only to be apprehended for murder in the second season. After the dramatic series finale in April, Nieves graciously accepted her IndieWire award, becoming visibly emotional during her impactful speech, reports the Mirror US. "I am extremely humbled and honoured to be recognised for my work at these early stages of my career," she expressed amidst enthusiastic applause from the audience. "None of this would be possible without the love and support from the very people in this room." She proceeded to express gratitude towards her parents for "nourishing her wild heart" and her "bandmates" for their "unwavering love, dedication and support". Nieves then confessed that she was "nobody" until her manager, Jonathan Yue, discovered her and "took a chance". The rising star concluded by expressing her appreciation to the cast and crew of the Yellowstone franchise, including its creator, Taylor Sheridan and Mo Brings Plenty. After making a heartfelt appeal to "amplify stories like Teonna's" Nieves' speech turned more poignant as she commemorated her late co-star, Cole Brings Plenty. The burgeoning actor and nephew of Mo Brings Plenty, aged 27, was tragically found dead in Kansas last April after his family had reported him missing. She began: "To Coco, my brother, Cole Brings Plenty," followed by an exuberant "woo!" upon realising the emotional weight of her words was bringing tears. Nieves continued, her voice heavy with emotion: "The very essence of you reverberated off the waters and the trees every single day on set," struggling to maintain composure. "You carried us home the only way you knew how to, fully in love, in deep belly laughs." She concluded with a wish: "Until I see you again, let Coco's story be a reminder to all of the continued injustices throughout Indian country and across the globe." Following her acclaimed performance in the popular Yellowstone prequel, Nieves has since secured a role in a forthcoming thriller directed by none other than Kathryn Bigelow. Expected to be released later this year, a synopsis reads: "Centered on White House staffers grappling with an impending missile strike on America, this gripping drama unfolds in real-time as tensions escalate."
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady Took ‘Fearless' Swings with ‘#1 Happy Family USA'
On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire's editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. We're showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event. Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady were big fans of each other who had never met — and as soon as they did, they started to work together on a television show. The duo teamed up for A24 and Prime Video's '#1 Happy Family USA,' an animated series about a Muslim family in post-9/11 America that 'has no business being as funny as its first season proves to be.' More episodes are on their way, thanks to a two-season order from the streamer, and Youssef and Brady will receive this year's Spark Award for animation at this season's IndieWire Honors. More from IndieWire Sheryl Lee Ralph Remembers Sidney Poitier's Early Support: 'I Expect Great Things from You' 'Squid Game' Creator Teases Potential Spinoff: 'I Want to Show What They Did' Between Seasons 1 and 2 As a millennial stand-up and creator of his own show, Youssef was (of course) influenced by 'South Park,' which he describes as an ''Oh shit' moment' breakthrough about the possibilities of animation and 'the crazy things that you could say when it's just coming out of like little animated children's mouths.' Brady had been impressed by Youssef's work and begged her manager to set up a meeting, just to 'understand how [his] mind worked.' She played it cool when he asked her about working together, while inside she was freaking out. She wasn't alone. As the show went into pre-production — and production and post-production — Youssef said that at the studio, 'everyone, at every time' was nervous about how it would go ('including right now'). 'It's so interesting, because the show is in a lot of ways about fear, but working with Ramy, the creative process was pretty fearless,' Brady told IndieWire. 'It didn't feel like we were being provocative for no reason, just to be provocative. We were just telling the story. We're exploring a 12-year-old boy's mentality at a really tough time, and the fact that it felt true gave us the confidence to push it.' 'In a lot of ways, making an animated show was less daunting than making a live-action show that was not only dealing with things that were sensitive to me, but also using my face and my name and all that stuff,' Youssef said, referencing Hulu's award-winning 'Ramy.' 'To go into something that's like, 'He's just a cartoon' actually felt way more liberating, and felt like let's just fucking throw it at the wall.' Early on, the show brought Youssef back to his stand-up roots, riffing on a joke with an audience — the writers room — for immediate feedback and finessing. The comprehensive process of animation allowed them to be what Brady calls 'joke maximalists' in terms of fine tuning something for as long as possible. 'In live action, we do so much iterating, but at a certain point you go home with the footage, and that's just what it is,' said Youssef. 'Here, as long as you don't need to move a background, that mouth is yapping and moving. You could have it say whatever the hell you want it to say, pretty much up until the last day.' Each episode of '#1 Happy Family USA' opens with a cheeky disclaimer. They're rated H for haram, and not intended to serve as cultural representation. It started as just that — a humorous insurance policy for Youssef, whose work is often tasked with speaking for large swathes of the Arab and Muslim community — and grew into a reliable running joke. 'It started from the sincere place, and then became this really funny runner where every episode we list off the things we're not representing,' he said. 'So immediately there's a joke as the episode starts, but then you also kind of know what we're about to satirize, and you go, 'Oh, well, how's that going to happen?'' '#1 Happy Family USA' goes to some pretty surreal places — the code switching, the talking lamb, the musical interludes, and, of course, George W. Bush — but that's not unusual for animation, or indeed for those familiar with Youssef's work. The series grew from the same seed that informed Episode 104 of 'Ramy,' a 9/11 flashback with a strawberry-loving Osama Bin Laden hallucination. Breaking that particular story, Youssef said, showed him that 'there's this whole era here. The best parts of the live-action episode were very surreal, and then I got really inspired by pushing it even further and taking it into something that was animated.' In the show, Youssef also voices the young Rumi Hussein, and his father Hussein — a deliriously entertaining track that Brady pushed for. 'If I look back, probably my favorite thing about making this show is finding that character of Hussein Hussein. I think he's the heartbeat of the show,' Youssef said. 'There's a depth to the idea that that Ramy as a kid lived through 9/11 as a 12 -year-old, and now he's playing it as a 12-year-old but also seeing the experience through a father's eyes,' said Brady. The show excels because it sees the world through Rumi's eyes, or Hussein's, or sister Mona (Alia Shawkat) or mother Sharia (Salma Hindy). Consider Rumi's dalliance with illegally downloading music, which puts him on the radar of a not-so-mysterious pen pal known as Curious_George_Bush43! By the end of the season, President George W. Bush arrives at the family's doorstep, masquerading as Rumi's friend while barely concealing his sinister intentions. 'What's so great about getting to know his character through Rumi is that he just gets to be a mischievous adult, who at first is like, 'Hey, I'm your pal,' until the other shoe drops,' said Youssef. 'I think kids have that experience of adults: 'Hey, you're a really good kid. You get to do this, but first you got to do your homework,' or whatever the kid doesn't want to do. But in this case it's the President of the United States, and he wants to implicate this kid in his global fight on terror.' 'We also wanted to make sure we didn't present him in the way that he's just this boob and this puppet, because we all felt pretty clearly that he knew exactly what he was doing,' said Brady. 'We just wanted to show him being a bastard to Rumi, and show this guy is not your friend.' As for the central family, Brady said, 'The thing that's funny about 'South Park' that people don't talk about that much is it's a story about four best friend boys. At its core, it's very sentimental — not in the bad way, but it's about friendship. That's why you can get crazy, because you buy their relationship. [This show,] at its core, it's showing the the bonds of the family.' Youssef likes to start broad with his humor and then add layers of specificity. He gives a perfect example: in the show's pilot, there is a crisis over where to bury Rumi's grandfather (Azhar Usman), a crisis which culminate in Uncle Ahmed (Elia) being arrested at the airport on the morning of September 11, 2001. 'You have this family that is so loving they really care where their dead relative is about to be buried, but then there's so much dysfunction that the body has to be stolen,' he explained. 'That is its own can of worms, before you even add on the layer that they're Arab and Muslim and add on what happens at the airport. What would it look like for this family to have a dead body at the airport on 9/11? That is a very wild thread to connect, and is emblematic of the kind of things we try to pull off on the show.' It's clear that Youssef and Brady take pride in the show, as much as the artist's impulse often leans toward self-criticism. They've also got the second season coming, and were thrilled to draw on a well of ideas that supplied both installments. Brady is happy with with the audience response, and hopeful that a show like this one won't always feel so radical. For Youssef, it's a welcome addition to a diverse body of work. 'I'm finding that this animated show is sitting with different fans in different ways, and that's really cool,' he said. 'There are people who love 'Ramy,' and then there are other people who go, 'Yeah, 'Ramy' was OK, but I really like 'Mo,'' and then there's people who are like, 'Hey, this is my favorite thing you've done.' I find all of that really exciting. You just get to learn more about different things that that can connect in different ways.' '#1 Happy Family USA' is now streaming on Prime Video. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Julianne Nicholson Was ‘Paradise' Creator Dan Fogelman's Only Choice for His ‘Complicated' Villain
On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire's editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. We're showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event. Ahead, 'Paradise' creator Dan Fogelman explains why Julianne Nicholson, this season's IndieWire Honors Performance Award winner, was so worth the wait (and the white lies) it took to get her 'transcendent' work in the series. More from IndieWire Natasha Lyonne: The Maverick Behind the Madness 'Stick' Review: Owen Wilson's Golf Comedy Takes Too Many Shortcuts Trying to Be 'Ted Lasso' It's summer of 2024. We are shooting Episode 2 of my new [Hulu] series, 'Paradise.' While a lot of my mental energy has been devoted to the pilot, I'm equally focused on the second episode… an episode that expands our world and tells the backstory of our complicated 'villain' — Samantha Redmond, AKA Sinatra. I have come to set today — a rarity for me. Because today Julianne Nicholson is doing her big therapy scene — a monologue where she processes the loss of a child and her failed attempts to move forward — and I want to see it live. There are some things you just need to see in person. Julianne begins her monologue. The directors — knowing what's about to happen before it happens — have chosen to start on her and shoot the scene in one shot. No editing. Just let her go. And, so, the scene begins. I am standing in the back room, watching on the rear monitors. Julianne launches in. It is transcendent. And to no one, or maybe everyone, I simply say, 'Oh, my God.' And with that, as I'm inclined to do in many of my screenplays, I FLASHBACK. It's a year earlier now. I've been an admirer of Julianne's from a distance for years, and I've been obsessed with the idea of her as Sinatra from go. We've Zoomed, connected, and agreed to take this journey together. I'm so excited. And then I get a phone call… there's been a hiccup. Julianne has been filming another project, a project that still has time left to go, and their dates conflict with ours. They conflict in a way that makes shooting with her impossible. 'Dan,' I'm told, 'You're going to have to move on and cast someone else.' A decade of running TV shows has taught me to roll with the punches. A location falls apart, you change the location. An actor can't get their head around a speech, you change the words. But having Julianne in my show — in this part — and then losing her? I can't roll with that. There's a multiple week overlap between projects. I would have to push our project multiple weeks to accommodate Julianne's schedule. At a very late date. It would cost the show, and the studio that employs me, a LOT of money. I worry I'll never be able to convince anyone to push, not for one actor in an ensemble, no matter how great they are. And so… I lie. I tell everyone I need more time to prep the show (which I kind of do), and that we are rushing into production before we were ready (also a partial truth). But the real truth: we could shoot now. Just not with Julianne. And I don't want to shoot without Julianne. BACK TO PRESENT Julianne only needs two takes at the monologue. We will wind up using her first take in the show. It is one of the most extraordinary single pieces of acting I've ever witnessed — a broken woman, a mother who has lost a child, grasping at anything she can hold on to as she tries to survive for her remaining child. It's so raw, and so real… one of those performances where the lines blur between reality and art. You can hear a pin drop on stage. Everyone knows they are witnessing 'special.' I have a five-year-old. We're entering the 'not good to lie' portion of his development. But the white lie I told that allowed Julianne to play Sinatra is one of those few lies I'll be proud of for the rest of my life. She's a woman at the very top of her craft, who is kind and generous to boot. Working with Julianne Nicholson is, indeed, Paradise. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
