A wave of new owners brings fresh energy to independent bookselling
NEW YORK (AP) — Amber Salazar is the kind of idealist you just knew would end up running a bookstore — a lifelong reader who felt angered 'to the core' as she learned of book bans around the country.
A resident of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Salazar last year opened Banned Wagon Books, a pop-up store she sets up everywhere from wineries to coffee shops, featuring such frequently censored works as Maia Kobabe's 'Gender Queer,' Angie Thomas' 'The Hate U Give' and Toni Morrison's 'Beloved.'
'I decided that no matter what it looked like, I was going to open a bookstore so that I could contribute in some small way and stand up for intellectual freedom in the U.S.,' explains Salazar, 33, who donates 5% of her profits to the American Library Association and other organizations opposing bans. 'Since we were coming out of the pandemic at that time, I started thinking about ways to combine my love of literature and passion for intellectual freedom with my appreciation for the small businesses in my city who weathered some difficult storms through shutdowns and supply chain concerns.'
Salazar is among a wave of new — and, often, younger — owners who have helped the independent book community dramatically expand, intensify and diversify. Independent bookselling is not a field for fortune seekers: Most local stores, whether run by retirees, bookworms or those switching careers in middle age, have some sense of higher purpose. But for many who opened in recent years, it's an especially critical mission. Narrative in Somerville, Massachusetts, identifies as 'proudly immigrant-woman owned & operated, with an emphasis on amplifying marginalized voices & experiences.' In Chicago, Call & Response places 'the voices of Black and other authors of color at the center of our work.'
Independent stores will likely never recover their power of 50 years ago, before the rise of Barnes & Noble superstores and the online giant Amazon.com. But the days of industry predictions of their demise seem well behind. In 2016, there were 1,244 members in the American Booksellers Association trade group, at 1,749 locations. As of this month, the ABA has 2,863 individual members, at 3,281 locations. And more than 200 stores are in the process of opening.
'It's incredible, this kind of energy,' says association CEO Allison Hill, remembering how, during the pandemic, she feared that the ABA could lose up to a quarter of its membership. 'I don't think any of us would have predicted this a few years ago.'
Hill and others acknowledge that even during an era of growth, booksellers remain vulnerable to political and economic challenges. Costs of supplies remain high and could grow higher because of President Donald Trump's tariffs. ABA President Cynthia Compton, who runs two stores in the Indianapolis area, says that sales to schools are down because censorship laws have made educators more cautious about what they purchase.
The ABA's own website advises: 'Passion and knowledge have to be combined with business acumen if your bookstore is to succeed.'
Salazar herself is part of an Instagram chat group, Bookstores Helping Bookstores, with such like-minded sellers as the owners of The Crafty Bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana, 'specializing in Indie books & custom bookish accessories,' and the Florida-based Chapter Bound, an online store with a calling 'to connect great books with great people — at prices everyone can afford.'
'In the age of social media, people are craving genuine connection and community,' Salazar says. 'And books often provide a catalyst to that feeling of community.'
Stephen Sparks, who is 47 and since 2017 has owned Point Reyes Books northwest of San Francisco, believes that the pandemic gave sellers of all ages a heightened sense of their role in the community and that the return of Trump to the White House added new urgency. Sales are up 20% this year, he says, if only because 'during tough times, people come to bookstores.'
The younger owners bring with them a wide range of prior experience. Salazar had worked in retail management for nine years, switched to property and casualty insurance sales 'in search of advancement opportunity' and, right before she launched her store, was a business process owner, 'a blend of project management, customer and employee experience management.'
Courtney Bledsoe, owner of Call & Response, had been a corporate attorney before undertaking a 'full career shift' and risking a substantial drop in income. The 30-year-old held no illusions that owning a store meant 'pouring a cup of coffee and reading all day.' Calling herself 'risk averse,' she researched the book retail business as if preparing for a trial, before committing herself and launching Call & Response in May 2024.
'This endeavor is probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,' she says, acknowledging it could take a couple of years before she can even pay herself a salary. 'We're just doing this to serve the community, doing something we love to do, providing people with great events, great reading. It's been a real joy.'
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Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Renee Ferguson, longtime investigative reporter for WMAQ-Ch. 5, dies
Renee Ferguson spent more than 25 years as a reporter on two Chicago television stations, and she made history as the first Black woman to work as an investigative reporter on TV in Chicago. During her career, Ferguson, who also cofounded the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, established herself as one of Chicago's premier investigative reporters, winning seven Chicago Emmy awards plus an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for investigative reporting. 'Renee had this incredible ability to convince the powers that be in the newsroom to give her these really interesting assignments,' said former WBBM-Channel 2 director of community affairs Monroe Anderson, a longtime friend. 'She knew how to work things out. She was really talented. And she was a good reporter.' Ferguson, 75, died Friday while in home hospice care, said WMAQ-Channel 5 news anchor and reporter Marion Brooks, a close friend. She had been a longtime Chicago resident. An Oklahoma native, Ferguson graduated in 1967 from Douglass High School in Oklahoma City. She then earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Indiana University in 1971. 'Renee and I were the only two Black students in the journalism department at Indiana University (at that time),' Anderson recalled. After college, Ferguson worked as a writer for the Indianapolis Star before taking a job at a TV station, WLWI-TV, in Indianapolis in 1972. She spent five years at the station, which in 1976 took on the call letters WTHR-TV, and worked alongside a young, wisecracking weather forecaster named David Letterman, who would go on to national fame. In 1977, Ferguson joined WBBM-Channel 2 as a reporter. While at the station, she drew national headlines for an investigative piece she reported that debunked the highly acclaimed Westside Preparatory School founder and teacher Marva Collins. By the late 1970s, Collins had become nationally recognized for her work, and Ferguson's report threw cold water on that national praise, accusing the educator of lacking the background and temperament to teach and also alleging that Collins had not gotten the results she had said she was getting, and that she had used high-pressure techniques to collect tuition payments. While at CBS 2, Ferguson also began hosting the public affairs talk show 'Common Ground' in 1981. 'Renee always thought of herself as the voice of the voiceless,' said retired WMAQ-Channel 5 vice president of news and station manager Frank Whittaker, who first worked with Ferguson at Channel 2. 'She would take on stories that nobody else would take on because she believed in what people were telling her and what she believed was the truth and she was going to be their voice.' In 1983, Ferguson left Channel 2 to become an Atlanta-based network correspondent for CBS News. WMAQ-Channel 5 hired Ferguson as an investigative reporter in 1987, bringing her back to Chicago. 'She really was so authentic and people trusted her and she had this uncanny ability to create a space that made people really open up to her. She had that sort of Oprah-esque vibe where people would just share with her,' Brooks said. 'She also had great instincts — she knew when to follow the trail.' One of Ferguson's early reports was 'Project Africa,' which was the product of an idea Ferguson had with a Near West Side elementary school principal in which they would bring nine children from Chicago's toughest streets to Africa for two weeks. The project required students wanting to take the trip to commit themselves to extra attendance both before and after school to study French, photography and West African culture. 'We did play tourist some of the time when we were in the cities, but by far the most moving times were when we visited the villages,' Ferguson told the Tribune's Rick Kogan in 1989. 'The native kids greeted the Chicago kids as if they were visiting royalty. It was an extremely special time for all the children. And I could see the Chicago kids getting more and more relaxed. They started out kind of shy, but as the trip progressed they began to feel surer of themselves. This is the sort of experience that will change them forever.' In 1993, Ferguson visited strife-torn South Africa while on a prestigious William Benton Foundation Fellowship through the University of Chicago. She returned to NBC 5 afterward and covered the landmark 1994 elections in South Africa for the station. Later work included reports on strip searches of Black women at O'Hare International Airport, which in 1999 won Ferguson and her producer, Sarah Stolper, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for investigative reporting. 'That was amazing work,' Brooks said. In 1996, a young Chicago man, Tyrone Hood, was convicted of murder and armed robbery in the 1993 slaying of an Illinois Institute of Technology basketball star. Hood insisted that he had nothing to do with it, and Ferguson concluded that Hood was innocent and that another man had been the murderer. Ferguson reported numerous stories about the case, all with Whittaker's support. She continued that advocacy even after retiring, and eventually then-Gov. Pat Quinn commuted Hood's lengthy prison sentence. 'Her work was able to get him out of prison,' Whittaker said. 'She just really believed in helping when people reached out, and she had a true soul for it. It was ingrained in her.' In the early 2000s, one of Ferguson's investigative interns at Channel 5 was a Harvard University undergraduate named Pete Buttigieg. During Buttigieg's internship, Ferguson and her husband housed the future U.S. Transportation Secretary and South Bend, Ind. mayor in their home. 'She was very proud that she was a mentor to Mayor Pete,' Anderson said. Ferguson later was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 2007. Ferguson retired from NBC 5 in 2008 and soon began working as a spokeswoman for former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun during Moseley-Braun's unsuccessful 2011 bid to become Chicago mayor. She later served as a press secretary for U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush. Ferguson's husband of 34 years, Ken Smikle, died in 2018. She is survived by a son, Jason Smikle. Services are pending.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
The Latest: Combs' ex-girlfriend sobs while recounting ‘hotel nights' that lasted for days
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean 'Diddy' Combs ′ recent ex-girlfriend, testifying under the pseudonym 'Jane,' sobbed on the witness stand Friday while describing their many drug-fueled sex marathons, saying he ignored her when she signaled that she wanted to stop and chided her for crying after one of the encounters. The Latest: Lawyer asks judge to crack down on people who are trying to reveal Jane's identity Jane's lawyer Lindsay Lewis spoke up during a break in testimony while the jury was out of the courtroom. She said some media outlets and social media accounts have or are attempting to reveal Jane's identity. Judge Arun Subramanian didn't immediately act on Lewis' request. He asked her to send him any examples of concerning posts. Subramanian noted that there's little he can do about members of the public doing their own sleuthing to figure out Jane's identity based on what she's said on the witness stand. The judge previously warned reporters and members of the public observing the trial not to describe Jane in detail. He's also told sketch artists not to draw her. Jane was heartbroken when Combs flew to the Caribbean with another woman Soon after co-opting her birthday into a 'hotel night' in 2023, Combs jetted off to Turks and Caicos with another woman, Jane said. She told jurors she saw Instagram posts of Combs and the woman in the Caribbean archipelago, where they spent some of their earliest times together. 'It broke my heart because I just finished my birthday with these guys having sex with me,' Jane testified. Combs was planning the trip during her birthday celebration, which involved her having sex with three men, she said. In a text message, she told him: 'It feels like you used me to get off and then go away for a week.' Jane wrote a frustrated note to Combs but never sent it Irritated with the imbalance of their relationship, Jane poured her thoughts into the Notes app on her phone in November 2021, drafting a message to Combs but never sending it. 'I don't know what you're calling me for, but I'm sorry I don't want to do drugs for days and days and have you use me to fulfill your freaky, wild desires in hotel rooms,' Jane wrote in the unsent missive. Jane said she was tired of waiting for Combs to fulfill promises he'd made to her, such as date nights, togetherness, quality time and doing things she wanted to do — not the 'hotel nights' that had come to dominate their relationship. Jurors hear audio of Jane confronting Diddy about another woman In November 2021, Jane confronted Combs about cheating on her after she saw Instagram posts from a woman who was at his Miami-area estate. In an audio recording played in court, Combs explained that the woman had come to his house to work out. But Jane didn't buy that and responded that the woman had been there for days. Jane said she'd known that Combs was seeing other women, but the Instagram postings reinforced for her that he was giving another woman quality time she yearned for. She said she felt used, telling jurors that at the time she thought: 'It's not me that he wants. It's these nights.' Afterward, Jane said, Combs called her on FaceTime and calmed her down, repeating a pattern she said happened each time she objected to continuing with 'hotel nights.' Jane says the sex marathons caused her to suffer from back pain and UTIs Jane wiped away tears as she recounted the many ill-effects of 'hotel nights,' including constant back pain, frequent urinary tract infections and soreness in her genitals and pelvic areas. Combs' former longtime girlfriend, Cassie, testified she also suffered UTIs after enduring hours of sex during sex marathons involving Combs and male sex workers. Both women testified they were made to have sexual encounters before they were fully recovered from UTIs. Jane is shown photographs of herself and male sex workers during 'freak-offs' The images were not shown to the courtroom audience or on monitors in overflow courtrooms, in keeping with the judge's order barring evidence from being displayed to reporters and the public while Jane testifies. Jane says she arranged some of the 'hotel night' sex marathons Sometimes, it was a surprise to keep Combs happy, Jane said. Other times it was because he demanded it, she said. 'I knew it was to be expected,' she testified. 'He expected me to coordinate a night where we had an entertainer join us.' Combs would often ask for 'hotel nights' in a roundabout way, Jane said, relying on a type of code they'd developed. 'He didn't have to directly, specifically tell me to do things,' Jane said. 'If he said, 'I can't want to see what you have for me,' or something along those lines, I knew what task was being asked of me.' Jane felt obligated to continue doing 'hotel nights' for Combs Jane recalled another occasion where she told Combs she wasn't interested in sexual encounters with other men. On a trip to New York in 2023, she said she told him, 'I didn't want to do it anymore, these nights with these men.' Combs didn't listen, she said, and they proceeded with the encounter. Jane said she objected again in a subsequent conversation and Combs told her she didn't have to engage in such sexual encounters anymore. But Jane said she felt obligated. Just a few months earlier, she had moved into a home that was paid for by Combs. Jane told jurors she was apprehensive about going to New York in the first place because she worried Combs was trying to set up a 'hotel night.' Sure enough, on the flight, she said she received a text message from Combs asking: 'Do you want entertainment tonight?' Jane's testimony resumes Jane, who had been crying steadily when a lunch break was taken, returned composed to the witness stand after the hour-long break. The jury was brought into the Manhattan courtroom shortly afterward. And the prosecutor, Maurene Comey, resumed her questioning, which began Thursday. Immediately, Comey confronted her with a picture of one of the male sex workers. Jane says her longest 'hotel night' lasted three and a half days Cassie, Combs' girlfriend from 2007 to 2018, testified during the trial's first week that her hundreds of marathon 'freak-off' sessions with Combs and a male sex worker usually spanned multiple days in which she and Combs used drugs to stay awake. Jane testified Friday that her longest 'hotel night' with Combs and a male sex worker was three and a half days, while most went 24 to 30 hours. Jane said she relied on ecstasy to dull her senses. 'I just feel like I had to take them. When I wouldn't, it would feel too real, like the atmosphere,' Jane said. 'And I didn't want to feel like it was too real.' In a parallel to Cassie's testimony, Jane recalls how Combs ruined her birthday Jane said Combs brought her to have sex with sex workers on her birthday in 2023, even though she was hoping for time alone with Combs. Jane said she wasn't interested in having her birthday subsumed by Combs' fantasies. She said she turned into something of a robot, telling jurors, 'I would just tune out and kind of get like in a zone.' Jane said Combs' mood soured when she asked for a condom for the sex worker to use. Afterward, Jane said, Combs took her to another hotel suite, where he was loving and gave her cake and flowers. But then, Jane said, another male sex worker came into the suite. When they were finished, Jane said, a third man entered the room. It was 'just hours and hours of that,' Jane said. Combs held sex marathons just weeks before his arrest, Janes says Combs was continuing to have so-called 'freak-off' sex marathons as federal investigators were closing in on arresting him last year, Jane testified Friday. Jane said she was involved in sexual encounters with male sex workers at Combs' Miami-area estate as late as last August, just weeks before his arrest at a Manhattan hotel. Jane estimated there were about five such encounters between February 2024 and his arrest last September. None of them were in hotels, a frequent venue for activities she dubbed 'debauchery' and 'hotel nights.' Federal agents raided Combs' home on ritzy Star Island, along with his home in Los Angeles, in March 2024. Prosecutor focuses on allegations of sex trafficking and forced labor Prosecutor Maurene Comey has been deftly mixing in questions for Jane that cut to the heart of the case, including charges of sex trafficking and forced labor. As Jane was describing her many 'hotel nights' with Combs and paid sex workers, Comey asked her, 'who did the most work' during those encounters. 'It was all me, from just start to finish,' Jane testified. When asking Jane about recruiting a sex worker, Comey underscored the geographic scope of the alleged crimes. Jane testified that she'd booked flights to Los Angeles and New York for the Atlanta-based sex worker. One of Combs' charges is interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution. Later, Comey asked Jane about transporting drugs across state lines for Combs. Jane says she was Combs' drug mule on at least two occasions Jane described how she nervously smuggled pills in her checked luggage on commercial flights from Los Angeles to Miami. Jane said both times Combs asked her to 'pick up a package' at his Los Angeles mansion and bring it with her when she visited him at his Miami-area estate. Jane testified that she wasn't comfortable with the request, but Combs' chief of staff Kristina 'K.K.' Khorram told her: 'It's fine, I do it all the time.' Jane said she delivered the drugs to Combs and ended up using some of the drugs with him. Jane says Combs pressured her to continue having sex, even after vomiting Combs pledged to get clean from drugs in 2023, Jane said, but first wanted to have another of their 'hotel nights,' dubbing it a 'sobriety party.' Jane testified that she typically took drugs to get through the encounters, but abstained that night in a Beverly Hills hotel room as Combs ingested ecstasy and cocaine. After having back-to-back sex with two sex workers, she said, she felt sick and vomited in the bathroom. Jane said Combs came in and told her: 'That's good. You'll feel better now that you've thrown up. So let's go.' Jane then went back to the party and had sex with a third man, she said, telling jurors she was 'repulsed' and 'deeply regretted' doing it. 'I hated it so much,' she said. Prosecutor zeroes in on the control Combs had over Jane One of the prosecution's central arguments is that Combs coerced women to submit to his sexual fantasies by using his fortune to make them reliant on him. To bolster that claim, Prosecutor Maurene Comey had Jane read aloud texts in which she complained to Combs that it seemed that 'hotel nights' were 'the only reason you have me around and pay for the house.' She said in the messages that she was 'doing things that make me disgusted with myself.' Still, she expressed her love for Combs, saying in the messages that 'my heart is really in this and it's breaking.' By September 2023, Combs had been paying Jane's rent for about five months. Comey asked Jane what she feared would happen if she stopped doing hotel nights. 'That he would take it away, that Sean would take the house away,' Jane responded. It was then that Comey asked her how Combs responded to her messages. 'He said: 'Girl stop,'' Jane answered. Combs taps his fingers as Jane sobs As Jane broke into sobs talking about how she 'just really wanted my partner to get sober' when she tried to do a 'hotel night' without drugs in October 2023, Combs tapped his fingers against one of his legs, occasionally glancing toward the jury or his lawyers and away from Jane. Jane texted Combs that she wanted to stop having 'hotel nights' Jane tried to put an end to so-called 'hotel nights,' texting Combs in 2023 that she longed to return to the early days of their relationship, before the drug-fueled encounters started to dominate their time together. Jane told Combs that she felt obligated to perform for him and that she regretted ever getting involved in the encounters, writing: 'ever since I opened Pandora's box, I haven't been able to close it.' 'I don't want to keep feeling like that,' she wrote, telling Combs that she wanted them to 'talk like adults and figure out where we're going from here.' Combs responded: 'Girl, stop.' Jane sometimes leaned into Combs' fantasies even though she 'didn't like them' Jane acknowledged sending sexually explicit text messages to Combs between their hotel encounters, telling jurors she wanted to convey her love and interest in having sex with him — not strangers. At times, she said, she did lean into his fantasies, sending graphic messages describing what she said she wanted to do with sex workers while Combs watched. On the witness stand Friday, she said she sent those messages because she wanted to make him happy. In reality, she said, she wanted the encounters to stop. 'I didn't like them,' she said. 'I was realizing this was becoming the dynamic of what we were.' Jane says Diddy stopped condom use during 'hotel nights' Jane testified that Combs intervened to stop a man she identified as Don from using a condom, even after she requested it. The moment was captured in audio played for the jury. She said it happened during their first 'hotel night,' which Combs had arranged, and that he blocked condom use again in a later encounter. Jane testified that Combs 'guilt tripped me out of it. It wasn't something he wanted to see.' Prosecutors play audio of 'hotel night' encounter. Later, Jane breaks down sobbing Prosecutors played an audio tape in which Jane asked a man to wear a condom who was about to have sex with her. It was the first time jurors in the trial, now in its fourth week, heard any recording from what Jane has called 'hotel nights' and what Cassie called 'freak-offs.' During hotel nights, a male sex worker would have sex with Jane while Combs watched, according to testimony. Later in the testimony Friday morning, Jane broke into sobs as she described crying on two occasions during 'hotel nights' with Combs. In tears, Jane says Diddy ignored her resistance to group sex Jane wept as she told jurors how Combs ignored her 'subtle cues' that she wanted to stop engaging in sex acts during their drug-fueled 'hotel nights.' She said she'd tell him she was tired or hungry or make gestures and facial expressions indicating that she didn't want to continue. Combs, she said, would tell her to keep going and 'finish strong.' Asked by a prosecutor why she didn't tell him directly that she wanted to stop, Jane said, 'I just, I don't know,' as she cried loudly. Jane's second day of testimony starts with sexual topics Comey, the prosecutor, questioned Jane about sexual subjects right from the start on Friday, beginning with a trip Jane said she took with Combs to Las Vegas in 2023 when they had a 'hotel night' with an 'entertainer.' The prosecutor asked Jane if Combs ever used the word 'freak' with her. Jane said he would say 'he wants his freak.' She said she understood that to mean 'he wanted me to be wild and sexual.' Jane's description of 'hotel nights' has closely paralleled Cassie's earlier testimony about 'freak-offs' she had with male sex workers, under Combs' direction. Jane returns to the courtroom Jane is back to resume her direct examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey. The jury has entered the room. Combs, wearing a dark sweater on Friday, is conversing with his lawyers and writing notes. The judge gave prosecutors a small victory prior to the resumption of testimony when he ruled that statements Jane made that cast a disparaging light on the sexual performances she endured during her three years of dating Combs can be used during her examination. Defense lawyers had argued they should be inadmissible. But the judge said the opening statement by the defense opened the way for admission of the exhibits because the defense asserted that Jane was a willing participant and that sexual activities were all consensual. Judge meets with attorneys before jury arrives As he has throughout the trial, Judge Arun Subramanian is meeting with prosecutors and defense lawyers in the courtroom on Friday before the jury is brought in so disputes about evidence can be settled. The judge also discussed efforts to improve the ability of Combs to communicate with his lawyers from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he has been held since his September arrest. The Associated Press
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tramell Tillman could make Emmy history as the first Black Best Drama Supporting Actor winner
In 2015, Viola Davis won the Best Drama Actress Emmy for How to Get Away with Murder, becoming the category's first Black winner. That left one acting category that had yet to produce a Black champ: Best Drama Supporting Actor. Ten years later, that remains the case — even the short form acting categories, which were created in 2016 and consolidated into one in 2024, have awarded Black performers — but that could finally change in September with Severance star Tramell Tillman. Tillman is currently in third place in Gold Derby's Best Drama Supporting Actor odds, trailing Walton Goggins (The White Lotus) and Severance costar John Turturro. Tillman is the only Black performer in the top seven. Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus), Jack Lowden (Slow Horses), Sam Rockwell (The White Lotus), and Patrick Schwarzenegger (The White Lotus) round out the predicted field. More from GoldDerby 'Forever' star Lovie Simone on traveling back to a 'nostalgic' time for Netflix's teenage romance show Kristen Kish dishes on Season 22 of 'Top Chef,' Emmys, and the show's global impact: 'It's all driven by the fans' New 'Freakier Friday' trailer, Mia Goth set for 'Star Wars: Starfighter,' Samuel L. Jackson heads to Taylor Sheridan's 'NOLA,' and the rest of today's top stories Tillman was not nominated for the first season in 2022, not surprising for an unknown actor on a new show. Severance received 14 nominations for Season 1 and the Best Drama Series frontrunner is expected to expand this year. If Tillman makes the cut amid a possible deluge by White Lotus dudes, a win — and a historic one at that — is certainly not out of the question. The Apple TV+ drama was bigger than ever in Season 2, and Tramell got to shine even brighter as his Lumon stooge Seth Milchick faced a crisis of confidence, leading to his instantly viral line, "Devour feculence." Oh, and there was the whole Choreography and Merriment marching band dance. It also doesn't hurt that the actor has brought his unique line deliveries to Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. SEE The ultimate oral history of Severance Season 2 It's not surprising Turturro is ahead of Tillman in the odds. He's a bigger name and a past winner who was nominated for Season 1 and had meaty material early in Season 2 before a diminished presence in the back half. Tillman had a consistent presence and arc throughout the season, ending with a bang with the aforementioned dance sequence (Turturro was MIA in the finale). And voters have shown through the years that when they're paying attention to a show — and there's no reason to think they're not paying attention to Severance — the underdog can topple the "obvious" frontrunner or bigger name (see: Jodie Comer beating her heavily predicted Killing Eve co-star Sandra Oh). Of course, Goggins is the frontrunner, not Turturro. And taking down The White Lotus, an acting branch fave, will be tougher. Formally established in 1970, Best Drama Supporting Actor has seen 13 Black actors receive 23 nominations over the years. 2021 was the last year with a Black nominee — and there were a record three: Giancarlo Esposito (The Mandalorian), O-T Fagbenle (The Handmaid's Tale), and Michael K. Williams (Lovecraft Country), who died shortly after voting ended. They lost to Tobias Menzies (The Crown). There have been POC nominees since then, however, with Squid Game stars Park Hae-soo and O Yeong-su in 2022, The White Lotus' Will Sharpe, who is half-Japanese, in 2023, and Shōgun duo Tadanobu Asano and Takehiro Hira in 2024. Best of GoldDerby The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Jay Duplass on exposing his 'dad bod' and playing a 'soft villain' in 'Dying for Sex': 'Easily one of my biggest acting challenges' Click here to read the full article.
