Latest news with #IndieWireHonorsSpring2025
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'
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Natasha Lyonne: The Maverick Behind the Madness
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 conversation with Natasha Lyonne is to experience a gravel-voiced one-woman film school with a carousel of cultural references that range from 'The Long Goodbye' to Lou Reed to quantum physics. More from IndieWire 'Stick' Review: Owen Wilson's Golf Comedy Takes Too Many Shortcuts Trying to Be 'Ted Lasso' Julianne Nicholson Was 'Paradise' Creator Dan Fogelman's Only Choice for His 'Complicated' Villain But what makes Lyonne singular (and why she's being recognized with the Maverick Award at this season's IndieWire Honors) is more than her encyclopedic mind or her distinct creative stamp. It's her ability to turn lived experience into genre-busting, soul-searching, radically original storytelling. In a TV landscape dominated by serialization, Lyonne and co-creator Rian Johnson took a left turn with Peacock's 'Poker Face,' a classic case-of-the-week mystery format with a twist. The heroine is Charlie Cale, a human lie detector with a beat-up car and an even more battered moral compass, and she's received plenty of 'Colombo' comparisons. 'It's quite intentional that I walk around like a rumpled detective,' Lyonne told IndieWire, 'but I'd say I've seen him in more Cassavetes films than 'Columbo' episodes, if I'm being honest. Which I might as well be, given the theme of the show.' As a result, 'Poker Face' doesn't feel like a riff or homage. She and Johnson developed a character who feels both timeless and unmistakably hers. 'It's not really about assessing the landscape,' Lyonne said. 'It's about inner curiosity. That's more likely to resonate than paperwork.' Lyonne's commitment to crafting characters with depth and agency began with co-creating Netflix's 'Russian Doll.' The mind-bending, Emmy-nominated series riffed on time loops and existential dread while feeling deeply personal. 'At the risk of sounding pedantic, I do think it's important to mention that — as it so often seems with women — someone assumes a character was created for them,' she said. 'Let's be really clear: That never occurred. This character exists because, like any good old-fashioned entrepreneur, I saw a void.' Lyonne was never going to fit in the 'beautiful, but she doesn't know it' roles. She's gorgeous but, with her wild red hair and irrepressible intellect, she doesn't look or sound like anyone who's unaware of exactly who she is. To find the work, Lyonne had to create it. 'In modern times, there were no women running around like Philip Marlowe on our screens. Surely, that was a hole I could fill,' she said with a laugh. 'I knew nobody was casting me as a 'Roller Girl' type, you know what I mean? That's Heather Graham's part, and Meryl Streep had her section. Well, I found mine in the basements of YMCAs and Murray Hill in Manhattan, where I would watch a lot of noir films alone in the middle of the day after I dropped out of Tisch.' 'Mae West made her choices,' she added. 'I made mine.' Lyonne builds her shows from the inside out. She's a writer, director, and producer with her own company, Animal Pictures, which she co-founded to support boundary-pushing creators. She's now prepping her first feature, 'Uncanny Valley,' which she's co-writing and directing with Brit Marling ('The OA'). Lyonne and Marling became fast friends after they were invited to a series of what Lyonne describes as 'backdoor Hollywood AI meetings.' 'I adore Brit Marling,' she said. 'She's a fucking genius. Because of our sci-fi leanings, we'd each developed a deep interest in this space. And in these meetings, it became clear that a lot of what was already happening was AI. Brit and I looked at each other and realized: this is real. It's fascinating. We're both interested in this, and we're both kind of punks, raising our eyebrows at how it's all going down. So we got this idea: attack it sideways and head-on. I think it's going to be a very cool movie.' In fact, she cracked, 'It's not announced yet, but Joe Pesci is the star of 'Uncanny Valley.' He plays my daughter. Thanks for this conversation, and thanks to IndieWire for this Maverick Award. As a maverick, it's really important that everyone knows Joe Pesci plays my daughter in 'Uncanny Valley.' It's been said, so now it's fact. Throw it on Wikipedia.' That kind of humor, bone-dry and self-aware, is part of what makes Lyonne's voice so necessary. But underneath it all is a deep understanding of what it means to survive, create, and evolve in an industry that rarely makes space for women like her. Her advice to others, particularly women taking creative control, is simple and hard-earned: Hang tight. Stick to your guns. Don't worry about being palatable, or overthink the wins and losses. 'It's all grist for the mill,' she said. 'Self-respect is the answer. And blood on the page.' That's why Natasha Lyonne is this year's Maverick. And why Joe Pesci better clear his schedule. 'There is no reality,' she said. 'It's what you make it. Where you're at dictates how you receive the world.' 'Poker Face' Season 2 is now streaming on Peacock. 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
If She Chooses You, You're in: Melanie Lynskey on the Magic of Natasha Lyonne
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. In the days leading up to the event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers. Ahead, Lyonne's long-time best friend Melanie Lynskey tells IndieWire about the many qualities that set our Maverick Award apart, both as a performer and as a pal. 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' There's a moment when Melanie Lynskey talks about Natasha Lyonne that kind of says it all. 'If she chooses you, you're going to be her friend,' she said. 'That's just it.' For more than 20 years, Lyonne and Lynskey have been ride-or-dies bonded by weird nights, great scripts, and deep mutual respect. They've starred in three movies together, including 'But I'm a Cheerleader' and 'The Intervention' (that one directed by their great pal and 'Cheerleader' co-star Clea DuVall). So as Lyonne gets her flowers at IndieWire Honors, Lynskey is here to remind us why there's nobody like Natasha. 'She's always been insanely talented,' Lynskey said. 'But now, she knows exactly what she's capable of — and the world knows it too.' That includes writing, directing, producing, and starring in not one but two groundbreaking shows ('Russian Doll' and 'Poker Face'), all while championing the people she loves. 'If she loves you, she wants you to be doing everything to the maximum of your abilities,' Lynskey said. 'She's everyone's biggest cheerleader.' Their friendship kicked off in Toronto during filming for the 1999 film 'Detroit Rock City,' when a shy, New Zealand-based Lynskey arrived on set. 'Natasha took me out for the night and that was it. We were bonded for life,' she said. That night included a Halloween KISS concert, an attempted casino trip (denied at the door: no passport), a persistent limo driver trying to crash the afterparty, and vodka. Lots of vodka. 'If we tried that now, it would take me two weeks to recover.' Lynskey still lights up when she talks about how Lyonne works. 'I really kind of envy the looseness she has in her body, like the drapey-ness and the kind of physicality that can be a little bit masculine at times. It's really fun,' she said. 'She's very loose, especially in 'Poker Face.' She has a real sort of looseness to her limbs. And I feel like there's always a part of my brain that's like, 'What do I do with hands?'— there's just this swagger. Meanwhile, I'm over here like, 'What do I do with my hands?'' Even before 'Poker Face,' Lyonne's spirit helped shape Lynskey's path — sometimes literally. When Lynskey was auditioning for the role of a New Jersey girl in 'Coyote Ugly' and couldn't afford a dialect coach, she leaned on her interpretation of Lyonne (never mind that she was very much born and raised on the Upper East Side). 'It morphed into something else after I got cast, but I kind of based it on Natasha, yeah,' she said with a laugh. 'I don't know how impressed she was about that: 'I did that audition, too.' I was like, 'Well, sorry about that.' Now, even as Lyonne's busy running the show, she's still hyping her friends. 'She's everyone's biggest cheerleader. I remember one time I got a message from her, and she was looking for acting coach or a dialect coach and she said, 'You're the best actor I have in my phone.' Such a specific compliment. I loved how it wasn't hyperbolic,' Lynskey said. They don't see each other as much as they'd like, although Lynskey has an upcoming guest-star slot on episode 8 of 'Poker Face' — but when they do, nothing's changed. 'We had this great night recently, just hanging at Natasha's house and talking for hours. That's the good stuff.' So what's left to say? 'She's such a treasure to all of us,' Lynskey said. 'There's nobody like her, so it's really so special to see her being recognized.' Read Natasha Lyonne's full IndieWire Honors profile. 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
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
David Gauvey Herbert Reveals ‘Ren Faire' Director Lance Oppenheim's Disarming Methods
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. In the days leading up to the event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers. Ahead, journalist and 'Ren Faire' executive producer David Gauvey Herbert shares the story of his first meeting with Magnify Award winner Lance Oppenheim, and what he observed working alongside him on their critically acclaimed HBO three-part docu-drama. More from IndieWire The Cast and Crew of 'St. Denis Medical' Found Joy and Warmth in the Show's Hospital Setting 'The Gilded Age' Season 3 Trailer: A New Generation Rises as Carrie Coon Tries to Secure Her Status in High Society Several years ago, after a brief Zoom courtship, I met Lance at Frank's Wine Bar in Carroll Gardens and ordered him his first-ever martini. The waitress considered carding him, but then took me, I think, for a responsible, much older brother. 'Oh wowww,' he said upon tasting the cold gin, but in a pitch better suited to a young couple entering a roomy master bathroom on 'House Hunters.' I was taken with his charms and talent, and I soon pitched him on a succession crisis at America's largest Renaissance festival, just outside Houston, Texas. But on set, with prospective subjects, this endearing young ingenue became a bumbling neurotic. It was maddening to watch. He overshared about his ex-girlfriend, his Florida home, his internet addictions. 'Put these people at ease!' I wanted to yell. 'Stop acting like you're in therapy.' But I was coming from print magazines, and I hadn't yet encountered the Lance Method. This wasn't journalism, it was jiu jitsu. He pressed and pulled until he found a way to drop you onto his sweaty mat, and forced you to surrender to his impish charisma and good nature. A popcorn vendor would enter a three-minute conversation with Lance, and then blink to find he'd just finished a three-year collaboration. Lance ran the set with this same inverted logic. The crew wasn't a crew. It was a writer's room, a chaotic docu-democracy that resulted in long days, frayed nerves — and a profound devotion to the work. They labored through 110-degree heat, a scurvy-inducing lack of fresh produce, and an Airbnb owner who responded to complaints about a fishy fridge by showing up with a rifle. Lance's ability to foster this collective fellowship — bordering on collective insanity — would have served him well in Jonestown. We're lucky to have him in Hollywood instead. I may have introduced him to martinis and, later, his wife, but Lance returns favors. He's criminally generous with his Rolodex. But mostly, he nudges me to think bigger. It was 1 a.m. and still a million degrees in Grimes County, Texas. I was grousing about the time, the many hours we'd put in that day, my feet. 'If we're not pushing past our limits,' he asked, 'then what are we doing?' In an industry that can walk in endless circles of mediocrity, Lance has his compass set in a different direction. I'm grateful to have marched alongside him. 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'
