LISTEN: Clayton Davis Remembers Everything About His Time With Tramell Tillman; Sharon Stone Talks Filming ‘Euphoria' at ‘Nobody 2' Premiere
Davis recalled the moment he met Tillman on a rooftop downtown in New York City. The two connected over a long interview about Tillman's craft as an actor, his childhood, acting opposite Tom Cruise and what it means that he might make Emmy history as the first Black man to win an Emmy for supporting drama actor for his work in Apple TV+'s much-praised series 'Severance.'.
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'Nobody 2' Review: Bob Odenkirk's Geek Assassin Goes on a Family Vacation in a Sequel as Preposterously Vicious, and Fun, as 'Nobody'
Fifth Season's Noah Greenshner on 'Severance,' Emmy Glory and the Studio's Creator-First Approach
Box Office: Bob Odenkirk's 'Nobody 2' Won't Be Able to Unseat 'Weapons' From No. 1
'He was a natural in front of the camera,' Davis says. 'Britt Lower, his co-star from 'Severance,' compared him to an orchestra in my piece. It's because he can just do anything. He's probably one of the most multi-talented people I think I've met. He's a good, kind soul, and that's hard sometimes to find in this business.'
Tramell Tillman on His Emotional Coming Out Story, 'Severance' Delays and Acting With Tom Cruise the Day After He Got 'Mission: Impossible' Script
Tillman landed his breakout role as Seth Milchick in the AppleTV+ series, 'Severance,' which he received his first Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series.
Despite being fairly new to the industry, his passion for the business has garnered attention from Hollywood's key players.
'The guy just really exudes the passion for the business,' Davis continues. 'He cares about his craft. He wants to get better. What I loved so much about him is he doesn't quite know how great he is yet. That is one of those endearing qualities.'
The episode also features Marc Malkin, Variety's Senior Editor of Culture and Events, detailing his conversation with Bob Odenkirk and Sharon Stone about 'Nobody 2' at the premiere on Monday night.
The sequel to 2021's 'Nobody' centers on Odenkirk's assassin character Hutch Mansell going head to head against Stone -an evil crime boss- after unexpectedly crossing paths while Hutch is on vacation at a waterpark with his family.
On the red carpet, Odenkirk told Malkin that he sent a note to Stone asking her to play the villain after they met for the first time at the Golden Globes.
'We needed a big villain, a big presence, a big personality,' Odenkirk said. 'I wondered if Sharon would be willing to be that big. And she said yes. You could see what she does. She owns the third act entirely.'
Meanwhile, Stone said she was inspired by real world problems with her role. 'I'm not real happy with what comes out of social media. I wanted to portray that -the cruelty, the lack of any sort of care or sense of responsibility.' she explained. 'There's no empathy.'
Stone also revealed that she starts shooting Season 3 of HBO drama series 'Euphoria' in a few weeks. Stone tells Malkin she's 'grateful to be a part of' of a 'really important' show. The gritty drama of teenagers and young adults grappling addiction and interpersonal struggles is hard to watch, the Oscar nominee admits,
Finally, Littleton offers a tutorial on slanguage superlatives boffo, whammo and socko.
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National Geographic
an hour ago
- National Geographic
What is flow state? Here's the science behind top athletes' laser focus.
Pro climber Steph Davis climbing "Hidden Gem" near Moab Utah. The athlete often experiences a flow state during her intensive free climbs. Photograph by Chris Noble Steph Davis had reached the halfway point in her ropeless climb up the Sister Superior—a slim, 6,037-foot-tall natural sandstone tower. Surrounded by miles of red rocks, there was nothing but her grip strength keeping her from falling thousands of feet down into the open desert. As a professional rock climber, Davis often does free solo climbing, which means leaving her harness and ropes at home. Her plan on this climb, which took place in 2010, was to reach the top, then jump off with a parachute. As she climbed the tower in southeast Utah, the holds for her hands started getting smaller, and she was getting tired. She felt mentally distracted, and took a moment to pause. Suddenly, a feeling of calm energy washed over her. Her body seemed to take control, bringing her to the top. (Why a pair of adventurers decided to make their treacherous climb much harder.) Davis had entered a flow state, an experience that athletes, musicians, scientists, and artists say they tap into when they're confronting challenging situations. In this state, a person becomes completely engrossed in what they're doing and achieves a loss of self-consciousness while also feeling completely in control—a mindset that actor Chris Hemsworth leverages in Limitless: Live Better Now (currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, and on National Geographic starting August 25). In episode two, the 41-year-old enters a flow state while ascending the Luzzone Dam, an artificial climbing wall in the Swiss Alps that, at approximately 540 feet tall, is the world's highest. Though most of us likely don't find ourselves hanging onto a rock or a climbing wall hundreds to thousands of feet in the air, life's daily challenges can feel equally insurmountable. Can entering a flow state help push through all the difficulties you might encounter daily? While the mindset is a rewarding experience that comes from taking on life's hardest tasks, it also requires a certain set of conditions in place in order to be activated. What is flow state? In 1975, Hungarian-American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi became fascinated with how artists lost themselves in their work. His research found similar experiences reported by chess players, dancers, mountain climbers, athletes, and musicians. Csíkszentmihályi called the engrossed attention he observed a 'flow state' after many people he interviewed said they felt like they were floating and being carried by the flow. (Your body changes in fascinating ways during the first 10 minutes of exercise.) Regardless of profession or hobby, the states of mind these people entered all sounded similar. They lost their sense of time, became impervious to pain or fatigue, and achieved a laser focus on what they were doing. One later report from 1996 asked professional athletes what flow was like. 'You're just so absorbed in what you're doing that you're not really aware of what is happening around you,' one tracker runner said. A javelin thrower experienced time slowing down, saying, 'When I went to throw it, it was like things were in slow motion, and I could feel the position I was in, and I held my position for a long time." Based on his interviews, Csíkszentmihályi determined that to enter a flow state, a person first had to have a clear intention in mind; then, they had to be put under pressure, but not too much or too little. People entered flow states when they were pushed to their limits and had the expertise to accomplish their goal. 'It's a balance between your skills and the challenge,' says Abigail Marsh, a neuroscientist at Georgetown University who worked with Hemsworth on the show. The science behind the flow state Over the years, scientists have come up with different theories about what happens in the brain during the flow states. These theories fall into roughly two camps, says John Kounios, a cognitive neuroscientist at Drexel University. Some believe that flow states happen during periods of intense focus, when the brain is exerting more attention and greater effort to exclude everything but the task at hand. An alternate view argues that the brain calms down during flow, rather than ramps up, allowing a person's skills to take over. In 2024, Kounios and David Rosen, another cognitive neuroscientist, brought 32 jazz guitarists to a lab to study the location and intensity of electrical activity in the brain while they were in flow. Some of the guitarists were newer at playing, and some had played at an expert level for years. The researchers asked them to improvise solo performances and report back whether they fell into flow states, all while being measured by an electroencephalogram (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain. The experienced musicians had a higher number of flow states that were also more intense. The scientists then compared what was happening in the brain when musicians said they had high-flow performances versus low-flow ones, and the difference was notable—there was less activity in the frontal lobes during flow states. The frontal lobes are responsible for executive processing, which organizes thoughts and behaviors, focuses attention, and forms goals. 'If the flow state was a matter of heightened concentration [and] focus, we would have seen greater activity in the frontal lobes when a person was in a state of flow,' Kounios says. The more experienced musicians also had activity in brain regions associated with hearing and vision during their flow states, while the less experienced musicians didn't show this activity. Kounious says it was as if the seasoned jazz players had their own brain networks for improvising that they relied upon, while at the same time releasing conscious control in the frontal parts of the brain. Kounios believes the study's findings show that flow takes place when the brain lets go and expertise takes over. 'It doesn't become something you have to consciously, deliberately do,' he says. How you can achieve a flow state Some amount of expertise is required for flow, whether it be during something thrilling like rock climbing, or a less intense activity, like building model ships or putting up drywall. As long as a challenge you're confronting demands that you utilize your expertise, that's when the flow state can be activated. If you're attempting a task that you're not skilled in at all—playing a concerto at Carnegie Hall as a beginner, for example—then you're more likely to experience frustration or fear instead. (Here's what fear does to your brain and your body.) However, there's no way to rush a flow state—it's something that comes on its own time. When you first learn a new skill, it's unlikely you'll experience flow; but if you turn away at the first sign of challenge or stress, you won't be able to increase your expertise to tap into those flow states later on. 'The flow state is the reward you get for tackling a difficult challenge,' says Marsh. You can still be highly focused and engaged in activities without needing to be an expert, however; Kounios calls this absorption. When you see a beautifully shot movie, read the end of a thrilling novel, or even clean out your garage, you might find yourself absorbed. Rather than chasing after flow, Marsh recommends thinking about what hobbies you genuinely like to do, keeping in mind that flow states are an eventual pleasant side effect of doing these activities that you find valuable and rewarding. (Your brain shrinks after 40. Learning a musical instrument can reverse it.) After all, the best way to gain expertise is to take on new and difficult experiences. It's not satisfying when a climb is too easy, Davis says. 'The goal in climbing is to get into the flow state,' though climbers call it 'sending.' When she's climbing at her limit, there's nothing better than entering flow and reaching her goal. In Utah, when she reached the top of that summit, 'I just had this incredible sense of well-being: Everything's right with the world. Everything feels good," she says. "It's a very euphoric feeling—you want to stay in that feeling for as long as you can.' "Limitless: Live Better Now" is currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu and on National Geographic starting August 25. Check local listings.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ben Stiller Gets Candid About How Long It Takes To Make Severance By Dropping A Comparison To The Bear That I've Honestly Thought A Lot About
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Ben Stiller was asked about how long it would take to release Severance Season 2 over and over and over again. Now, it's out, and because we had to wait three years between Seasons 1 and 2, he's already getting questions about when Severance's third season will come out. So, in response to the wait, the show's director and executive producer got candid about how long it takes to make this show by making a comparison to The Bear that I've actually been thinking about for years. Since Severance has a bunch of 2025 Emmy nominations for a season that took years to make, Ben Stiller was asked by Vanity Fair if this kind of acknowledgement felt like 'affirmation of it being worth the wait.' Just by watching Season 2, I knew it was worth it; however, these nods certainly help. Nevertheless, the wait still seems to bother the director, as he explained: On a certain level, it's just the affirmation of when you follow your instinct—knowing that you have to make sure something feels right, and that you get it to the place you need it to be. The frustration for us was that it was taking so long, honestly. Sometimes I look at the outside factors, which are beyond our control, but then also—I mean I won't lie, I look at my own process too and go, 'What is it?' This is how The Bear comes into this equation. So, let me present some facts for you. Season 1 of Severance premiered on February 18, 2022, and The Bear Season 1 dropped on June 23, 2022. Then, on the 2025 TV schedule, Severance premiered Season 2 on January 17, and a few months later, on June 25, The Bear dropped its fourth season. That means in the time it took Severance to make Season 2, The Bear released Seasons 2 and 3 and was well on its way to dropping Season 4. That's kind of wild, and it's something Ben Stiller has thought about, as he said: Chris Storer will shoot an episode in an hour and a half or something on The Bear. I'm like, 'Goddamn, why can't I do that?' These days, it's commonplace to wait well over a year for a new season of a series. However, there are a few that consistently drop every year, including The Bear, which can be streamed with a Hulu subscription. I don't know about you, but I adore having an old reliable that I know will come out around the same time every year. However, I also get why it takes shows a very long time. A project like Severance is complex in both plot and setting, so it takes longer to make it and release it to those with an Apple TV+ subscription, plus its episodes are twice as long as the aforementioned series. Meanwhile, The Bear, for the most part, takes place in the restaurant and has 30-minute episodes. All that said, though, Stiller didn't back away from how hard the wait for seasons can be on both the creatives and fans. He noted how the pressure builds the longer we go between seasons, saying: That's the conundrum when you're in it. You start to feel like, 'Oh, wait a minute. It's going to take this much longer, and then there's going to be that much more pressure on it for people who will be saying, like, Oh, we waited this long. I hope it's worth the wait.' You're just kind of stuck with that, and you have to move forward blindly. Apple TV Plus: $9.99 A Month With 7-Day TrialSave 70% - You can watch hits like Severance by simply paying $9.99 a month, with a 7-day trial. Offer available globally, prices Deal It is certainly a conundrum, and comparing Severance to a show that's released three seasons in the time it took to release one is quite a fact. However, I don't think it's one this Apple TV+ series should fret over. As Season 2 proved, the wait was worth it, and the painstaking detail put into the series is one of the reasons it's so remarkable. It also proves that the time it takes to make a show doesn't necessarily tell you anything about its quality. The Bear and Severance are each excellent, and we're getting more of both. Art takes time, and that time varies from project to project, so my advice is to just enjoy it as it comes, so these folks don't have to stress about the amount of time they're taking to make it. However, I do have to say, I am appreciative of the fact that Ben Stiller addressed the point about his show and the FX restaurant series that I've been thinking about for years now.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Watching Amy Poehler Get Hilariously ‘Pissed' At Adam Scott Over Severance's Season 2 Finale Perfectly Encapsulates My Feelings About It
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Severance ended on the 2025 TV schedule months ago; however, my mind is still boggled by its ending. Every day, my opinion changes. Some days, I'm livid that Mark left his wife Gemma on the other side of the door, and others, I totally get why he ran back into the building with Helly. Now, Amy Poehler has expressed her frustrations over all this to her former Parks and Rec co-star and the lead of the Apple TV+ hit, Adam Scott, and it perfectly encapsulates my feelings. Now, before she got 'pissed,' Poehler was complimenting Severance's Season 2 finale during an episode of Good Hang. However, after she called it 'incredible,' she stopped mid-sentence and made the funny face below: Adam Scott was confused by that look, so his former TV wife dived into what caused the reaction, saying: You're wife, she went pretty hard to get back to you. Dude! Listen, Mark's choice to run away from Gemma was shocking. So, after repeating 'I know' while looking at a jaw-dropped Poehler, Scott asked if she was 'pissed' about what happened. In response, she said: Yeah, dude. Dude, same! No matter what side of the debate you fall on, it was hard not to scream something along the lines of 'Dude!' after Mark made his choice. And Amy Poehler didn't back down from that point either. While she adores Britt Lower, who plays Helly, and has worked with her before, she couldn't see past Mark running back into Lumon with her, which led to her 'But.' And after saying 'but,' the Parks and Rec lead made the face below at her former co-star, fully illustrating her frustration over the whole situation: Apple TV Plus: $9.99 A Month With 7-Day TrialSave 70% - If you are looking to watch huge hits like Severance and Ted Lasso, you'll need Apple TV+. Thankfully, that's easy to get, and plans start at $9.99 per month. Offer available globally, prices Deal What followed was a semi-intense and overall funny debate between Scott and Poehler. And I'm not gonna lie, I've had conversations with others where I've played both sides of this debate. Here's the very entertaining back and forth: Adam Scott: Well, what other choice was Innie Mark going to make? Amy Poehler: Oh, I don't know, the choice where you go with your wife? Adam Scott: So, walk out the door and end your life? Amy Poehler: Yes! You go to the door! Adam Scott: Really, that's the choice you would make? Amy Poehler: What do you mean end your life? Adam Scott: He walks out that door, he doesn't know if he's ever coming back. He walks out that door, he becomes his outie. He doesn't know if that outie is ever going to walk back in that building. Amy Poehler: But that building is not great. Adam Scott: No, but it's better than not existing. Amy Poehler: But is it?!? Admittedly, when Mark left his wife Gemma, it was shocking. However, after thinking about it, it's important to remember that Innie Mark doesn't really know her; he is also in love with Helly. Oh, and if he leaves, he might never return, meaning he could die. However, now Outie Mark has been left in a way, and so has his wife... This leads to the final element of the Parks and Recreation co-stars' conversation. While the Leslie Knope actor joked about how flustered she was about the finale, she also noted that that's what made it so great. She explained that she immediately texted Adam Scott after she finished watching the finale, and noted that that kind of cliffhanger and excitement that evokes such a visceral reaction is what makes TV so fun. All-in-all, this was a relatable and hilarious interaction, and I'll be watching it on repeat (you can too, it starts at 41:55) as we wait for Severance Season 3. Overall, as a massive Parks and Rec and Severance fan, this whole interaction made my heart happy, and it reignited all the mixed and passionate emotions I have about Mark's choice. Now, the wait is really on to see what happens in the aftermath of that Season 2 finale, which you can re-watch and feel all the emotions Amy Poehler felt with an Apple TV+ subscription.
