I Was Failing at Work and Motherhood. Then I Met Joan Darling.
As Mother's Day approaches, the Opinion Video above asks: Is it possible to be a great mom and have a great career? That question has plagued the filmmaker Shaina Feinberg.
Before Ms. Feinberg was born, her mother dreamed of a successful career as a performer — then gave up those dreams to raise her daughters. That loss still haunts her mother.
Now a mother herself, Ms. Feinberg is confronted with the same dilemma: Should she quit working as a filmmaker to be a full-time mom? Or keep doing a 'depressingly bad job at both'?
The universe answers her in the unlikely form of Joan Darling, a 90-year-old director and actress. She's the first woman to be nominated for an Emmy in directing. And unlike Ms. Feinberg's mother, she never had children.
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Animal skins, clothes-swapping, and those terrifying masks: How ‘Yellowjackets' costume designer works with Liv Hewson and cast
Talk about a fashion emergency. It's not easy dressing teenage girls under the best of circumstances — add in a plane crash in the wilderness, brutal winters, a devastating fire, and some mild cannibalism, and you've got to do some pretty creative costume work. More from GoldDerby Liam Payne confirmed as judge for Netflix singing competition, 'Superman' hits hard, and today's other top stories Carrie Preston on fencing with Matthew Broderick and the heart, humor, and growth of 'Elsbeth': 'She's more than just quirky' Brian Wilson, Beach Boys co-founder, dead at 82 Such is the challenge faced by Yellowjackets costume designer Marie Schley, an Emmy winner for her work on Transparent. Even in its third season, Schley says her job has actually gotten easier, as she's able to collaborate with the actors who've come to fully embody their characters — that is, the ones who've survived. Here, she talks with Liv Hewson, who plays teen Van (and who uses they/them pronouns), about their favorite costumes, the one look that defined their character, and what they took from the set. SEE'I was terrified — she has an Oscar for "Million Dollar Baby"': Melanie Lynskey on her epic 'Yellowjackets' fight with Hilary Swank Gold Derby: How do you work together in creating your character's look? Marie Schley: In terms of this season, it was a different process, because for the pilot, you put together a concept for your director and your showrunners, and then you do your fitting. But the characters evolve — certainly, Liv's character has. And so for this season, we are piggybacking on what's been established before, but also bringing in new ideas, more input, from the actors, because they're really living these characters. Liv Hewson: One of my favorite things about the process of figuring out the clothes on this show is how collaborative it is working with Marie. The restriction of Yellowjackets costume-wise is fun in that there literally is a finite amount of clothes that all of these characters are working with. The actor nerd in me really gets a kick out of tracking who would be wearing what, and what would they be using the clothes for. Something that is always really important to me is that Van is a butch lesbian, so what does her clothing say about her and communicate about her within the restriction of where they are? And how does her style evolve out in the wilderness? So it's about coming up with little nods, like her cutting the sleeves off of things, and masculinizing the clothes that they're all sharing. That was something that was really important to me. So it has been this beautiful process of discovery of these characters over the course of the experience they're having, while having to work within the framework of what they packed in the suitcases they have with them. Schley: I remember in our first fitting this season, there's this concept that they're sharing clothes amongst them. And Liv was, like, it really should be either Javi or Travis's clothes that she wears. So you'll see that Co-Ed Naked soccer T-shirt go between those two because they have a more similar aesthetic. In the first episode, we did a lot of different costumes for the summer solstice ritual and Van has this amazing storytelling monologue, which you did so beautifully. So there was this Ren Faire kind of poncho with shredded things on it that we fit in our first fitting. And Liv was definitely like, no flowers, let's minimalize this. It's really important to have that give and take to make sure it feels really authentic to that character. I think that it turned out really well. It turned out to be one of my favorite costumes, actually, Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with Showtime Hewson: I love it. I remember saying this very much in the world of what the others would be wearing. But with Van, it's Peter Pan, rather than like witch coven. With her gender expression plays a bigger part in her clothes. It felt really good to be wearing a garment like that. How does your process work? Do you sit together down together at the start of the season with the scripts saying, "OK, here's where we're going, so here's what the looks are going to be?" Schley: I wish we had that much time! You guys don't even get the scripts. I get them more ahead of you all do. So I'll give you kind of an idea. Sometimes I show you pictures, if I have them. It's a surprise in that first fitting I think, and I try to have enough there that we can cover ourselves. Hewson: We had a really cool opportunity to have more back and forth this season about what Van is wearing, and the scenes that she has with herself. That was a unique costume opportunity. So that was an instance in which the two of us were emailing back and forth, and I remember sending you a couple of reference images, and we were talking about what would be on the T-shirt. That was a fun new opportunity to get into the nitty gritty of who the character is with clothes. Schley: That was an important scene, because that is the bookend to Van's journey. So it was really important I know for Liv that it had a heroic element to it which it should have, because Van is a hero, by the way, and finding the right thing that felt right to you so you could perform that scene in the way it should be. There is an outline in the writer's mind of what is happening on the show, but it does change, as each season comes to fruition and it's put out in the world. So many times we're working backwards, like we establish certain things in the pilot for your characters, and then we're not really sure what is going to happen leading up to those scenes. It's an interesting puzzle that we're piecing in backwards. And I think that's true in this scenario too, where it's Van's demise — we don't really know what happens between season three and the future. Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with Showtime Hewson: Exactly. That outfit on the plane is beautifully out of time at the moment, but we don't know if we'll see it again. We don't know if that's a version of Van that we might get to be reintroduced to later. It's something that I really admire about the work that Marie and the costume team does on this show, that there's all these threads that you establish, and then, because of the parallel timeline nature of the show structurally, there are these images that you need to keep returning to, and things become imbued with significance because of what happens later. You don't necessarily know that pair of shoes is going to be one of the most important things that everybody's staring at for three years. But as you're doing it, you have to keep track of the symbols that we've established and what matters when, and what to draw the audience's attention to. So it's incredibly resourceful what Marie and the team do, and it's impressive. SEE'I was terrified — she has an Oscar for "Million Dollar Baby"': Melanie Lynskey on her epic 'Yellowjackets' fight with Hilary Swank How do you track all of that? Is it situation on your office walls? Schley: It is! In the pilot, it was in the script that the camera pans up to a pair of shoes at the edge of the pit. So we knew those shoes were going to tell a lot. And then, of course, because they were focused on they became very much a symbol. But we never knew who was going to be wearing them. That's why we also came up with the idea that people were going to be sharing. It wasn't just because it makes sense story-wise, but also for us, we had to move the shoes around, because we just didn't know where they were going to end up. Hewson: There were a couple of moments you had flagged things that needed to be seen on certain people just before we got to the end of this season, like this sweater. I remember you saying to me, we need to see you in this at least once, because it becomes the mask that Van is wearing in the hunt from the pilot. Schley: It's also what gives birth to a lot of ideas. For instance, that sweater, it was a mask. So we actually made the mask before we ever made the sweater, and then we made multiples of that sweater so that the audience would see it evolve. Ben wears a baseball cap, and then we made that into a mask for Shauna. When you have those limitations, it springs new ideas. In our first fitting, we were using blankets that had survived the fire. And I was like, we can use these as clothing. I gave them to Liv, and Liv draped them in a very particular way around their body. And I was like, Oh, that looks very cool. And you were like, that seems like how Van would do it. It was across the body with the belt. And then that became what all the Yellowjackets wore in the trial, it kind of distinguished those who were the lawyers. Hewson: And that's a fun game, too, as an actor, to have these fabrics that your character has snuck out of a burning building, and then looking at them and being like, well, what would I do with this? SEE Liv, how rare is that for you as a performer to be able to get that opportunity to inject yourself into your character and your character's wardrobe? Hewson: I definitely count myself very lucky to be having that experience on this show. I'm very passionate about the work that I do and I see the work that I do as a part of a larger puzzle. And I know that clothing, especially for a show like this, where clothing is so loaded and significant is a big part of that. Schley: My question for you, Liv, is where there's a specific piece of clothing in that first fitting, whether it's a motorcycle boot or a dangling earring, all of a sudden, there's a turning point where the actor's like, "Oh, OK, this is my character. Now I'm vibing with it. I'm feeling it, it's coming to life." Was there any kind of thing like that for you? Hewson: I think there always is. I hear so many actors describe a version of that with characters that they play, and I think that's really part of the alchemy of the magic of costuming, is being able to watch a person come together in the work that you do. I know with Van a big part of clicking it in was the slouchy, '90s, androgynous, masculine, leaning silhouettes. The other things that come into play when I'm thinking about a character and clothes are things like class and bodily comfort and background, how this person might be presenting themselves to others, versus how they might see themselves. Is this an anxious person who is going to be using fabric to hide and shrink into or is this someone who's really out? Clothing in that way can inform how you stand, it can inform how you face the world or shrink away from the world, and sometimes, as an actor, you're not conscious of those things until you get dressed completely. I think with Van, it ended up really being the shoes, because she's in this one pair of shoes the whole time, until you see her in the pink Converse a couple of times before the final hunt. Because in real life, people have their comfort objects or their pieces of clothing that make them feel like themselves. And characters have that, too. How do you balance that all with Van's look in present day for Lauren Ambrose? Hewson: How she appears is informative for my journey with this character going forward. As we see these characters age and dress differently, there's a real point A and point B aesthetically as well as within the story. It's like, OK, now we've got to build me towards that. Schley: Adult Van really does have a lot of '90s references in their clothing. But it's such a different context for the adult storyline, because different things are happening. They're not stuck in the woods. Van is living with Taissa with a limited amount of clothing, and also Taissa's maybe buying some things for them. But it's always been an interesting challenge trying to link the two different actors who are totally different people without being really heavy-handed. We were going for classic American kind of thing for both versions, iconic silhouettes during that moment, because it's a surreal scene about dying. Anything you can tease about what's to come come for next season? Hewson: There's definitely a lot of ground to cover in between the point in time that our versions of these characters are at versus where they are in the present. I have always been really curious about that kind of unknown, blank window of time. And I think, like all of us, are excited at the possibility of wearing clean things one day. Schley: That'll be a whole new show. Is there one piece of clothing you're going to take from the set when all is done? Hewson: I do have a couple of pieces, actually, because, for the outfit that I end up wearing in the scene between Lauren and I on the plane, I actually went shopping for some jewelry for Van, a silver chain and a couple of delightfully gay rings, because I was, like, because Lauren wears so many rings as Van, I need to have a little nod to that. Schley: You're going to be so sick of all those clothes you're going to want to burn them! 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Parker Posey reveals ‘The White Lotus' fans are making sure she's living a comfortable life
'Thank you, darling! I dressed up for you! I got the flowers in the kitchen!' Parker Posey says, accepting a compliment on how fabulous she looks popping up on our Zoom interview from the Chateau Marmont, wearing her now signature pink glasses and a chic scarf. Although the certified Legend earned her first Emmy nomination last year for guesting on Prime Video's Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Posey considers this her first real awards season, and she's doing it right. If you watched Season 3 of HBO's The White Lotus, you already know that Posey could do no wrong as Victoria Ratliff, the North Carolina matriarch whom show creator Mike White described to the actress as a younger version of Grey Gardens' eccentric Big Edie. Having grown up in Louisiana and Mississippi, Posey couldn't wait to choose her (much-imitated) Southern accent. "I love how funny it sounds. I love how there seems to be an emphasis on feeling but not actually what you're saying," she explains. She zeroed in on Victoria's lines about her country club life. "She's under this grip of achievements, and money, and what people should do and how they should live," Posey says. "I looked at her as someone who was programmed in this kind of male-dominated world. But underneath it all, there was someone lost and waiting to come out. That's why I like her [tsunami] dream so much [in Episode 3]. A character has a dream, then that gives such another dimension to her and what's going on with her." More from GoldDerby Animal skins, clothes-swapping, and those terrifying masks: How 'Yellowjackets' costume designer works with Liv Hewson and cast 'The Last of Us': Gabriel Luna on shooting flamethrowers and what Season 3 could mean for Tommy 'The Studio' dominates 2025 Astra TV Awards with 4 wins, including Best Comedy; 'Severance' takes Best Drama Here, Posey shares how she found inspiration for some of Victoria's most memorable moments — and which scenes fans won't let her forget. Gold Derby: You've said that if Victoria hadn't been funny, she would have come across as a terrible person. Was that your biggest challenge, making her likable? Parker Posey: Yeah, you're exactly right. You know, The White Lotus is already like a brand. So we know what kind of characters we're dealing with. We're dealing with the 1 percent, and then the hospitality industry in these hotels, right? Everyone likes a snob when you look at characters in movies and TV shows, like the person who's just obnoxious. So having a [slips into Victoria's drawl] snotty way of talking, it's really juicy. So I was happy to be able to deliver that. I mean, I hope it's OK. You know I wasn't always confident, in the beginning especially. But I love Evil Under the Sun and Murder on the Orient Express, and these characters, they're almost drawn, they're kind of animated. I remember being a little kid and watching these movies and looking forward to being a grown-up and acting this way. Maggie Smith, and who else was in Evil Under the Sun? Peter Ustinov. You know they had this style and this way of being that you knew they were acting and having fun as they were playing these people, you know, but they were very drawn. It was very archetypal. And so that was fun to enter into that story world of whodunit, you know, and just playing someone who you don't really know what she's capable of doing. Do you trust her? Is she trustworthy? Is she high on lorazepam? What's going on? So all that stuff was such good fun. There's an arc with Victoria, from almost childlike to formidable: When she arrives at the White Lotus, I love how nervous she is when Pam (Morgana O'Reilly) brings up taking a test. And then cut to when she's off the lorazepam and she's the one, not husband Timothy (), who finds a way to stop Piper () from staying in Thailand. What was it like for you to play that change? It was so fun to just play a full-on woman, you know. Like, when she's in a bad way and she needs to take to bed, she's gonna take to bed. And Timothy and the whole family is going to abide by that and take care of mom and worry about mom and hope she's OK. And then, like on a dime, she can drink a cup of coffee and get the show on the road and do some detective work. [Laughs] That kind of drama. She's just a drama queen. Tell me about filming the scene in the finale when Piper reveals to Timothy and Victoria that she isn't staying in Thailand. It's so fun to watch you, as Victoria, figure out what Piper's really saying. You escalate Victoria's response to the hug. Was the thumbs up you give scripted or something that just came to you? No, that was totally scripted. And that was such a beautiful day of work for Sarah Catherine. We shot a lot in a condensed amount of time, and we shot that, I think, within the first or second week. So I didn't know really what the path of Piper was. … It's so tragic in that scene, so much about not being able to escape your family and to accept the limits of what you are capable of doing. And so really what she's saying is, "I'll never be able to leave you." And it's that powerful mother and father that have their child going, "I gotta come back to you." I just thought it's just such great writing and such a great arc. But that was all Mike White. She hugs, and she's like [gives a thumbs up], "Got her!" [Laughs] Jason told me how much he with a live audience and hearing people's reactions to certain scenes. Is there any particular scene you'd have loved to hear the response to? I haven't watched the show yet, and I wasn't there for the finale [screening] because I was working. But I talked to John Valerio, our editor, and I said, "Can you remind me of the piña colada scene? Because all I remember is, it was at like 4 o'clock in the morning. We improvised a lot of different bits, right? We were talking about desserts?" He's like, "That's not in it." He said in the editing of that scene, what was fun is the stuff that was added, just the energy of the scene. Mike would throw out funny lines, like ["Is that it, Tim? Have you ever heard of wine?"]. To be able to work with an ensemble, and to be able to build moments along with the director, who's written the story and knows it so well, it's like all these characters coming to life right in front of his eyes. It's such a remarkable thing. Every actor I've spoken to this awards season has talked about how much they love that on-set collaboration. It made me wonder about a line in Episode 2, when Victoria finds out that Jaclyn () is a famous actress and says, "Actresses are all basically prostitutes… if they're lucky." The laughter from your costars seemed genuine. Was that scripted or something thrown in? "If they're lucky" was thrown in, yeah. And that was my first day of work. Mike is so funny, because you can just hear him cackling. Has anyone done his cackle for you? Patrick (Schwarzenegger) has. It's like [shrieks twice]. Another scene that I thought might also have been enhanced by you was the house party in Episode 7 when Victoria is talking to the Thai beauty (played by Praya Lundberg), asking why she's with her older boyfriend, and telling her to come to North Carolina: "Are you scared of him? I could get you out of this." Praya was a really lovely person. We just connected on set [filming an earlier scene], and I adored her. And I told Mike. I was like, "I love Praya. Can we have a scene with her?" And he thought about it. And then he was like, "I know what I wanna do. I'm gonna bring her into the party," to the scenes that you're talking about. But that [dialogue] was all Mike. … We spent almost seven months [in Thailand], and when I went back to the premiere, people there were like, "Welcome home." Like, it's so hospitable, and the people are so lovely and kind. So I still feel like I'll be returning there soon, even though I'm not. What was cool about the experience was there was the hotel working next to us, and the Butlers. Did I read that you and Natasha Rothwell took the butlers out to dinner? God, that was such a perfect night. That was such a perfect night! Yes, we took our butlers at the Four Seasons. [Names them.] We bonded with them. They were just such cool women, you know. And when they knew that I like to just hang out — we were staying there for like two months — I felt like I got to know them a little bit, and to know just the kind of people that they are. And I just love them. "You know Khun Parker, you don't need a man if they don't enhance your life. And if they don't enhance your life, why…." [Laughs] They were, like, giving advice. … One of my favorite nights was going to set watching Lisa perform [as Mook]. And I watched Lisa dance, and it was so beautiful. The way that they just move, and that beauty, that's their culture. So I cried when I left Four Seasons, and I know how ridiculous that sounds. But I cried, like looking out of the van and waving goodbye to them. We were like, "We'll be back in like six months, five months," and when we came back. … Natasha, Michelle, and I took them all out to dinner. They were all obsessed with Lisa, and it just so happened that Lisa worked that day, and I called her assistant. I said, "Is there any way Lisa can stop by?" And she said, "Well, it just so happens that something's up with Lisa's leg and she's like a five-minute drive [away] getting a massage, and she can stop by on the way." And so we took these pictures of Lisa and the butlers. It's those moments that make it. They were just so happy. Fabio Lovino/HBO Jason told me that people now offer him piña coladas everywhere he goes. Is anything like that happening to you? On Easter Island! I was shooting a movie with Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich on Easter Island, and you know it's the furthest place you can go in the furthest part of the world. The only people there are tourists, and it's just like this hotel we were all staying in. There was a homemade mimosa bar, and so it was like 10 o'clock in the morning, and this woman walks by and she says, 'I have some lorazepam if you need some,' and just walked away. [Laughs] That will be happening for the rest of your life. And then I went on a Delta flight, and the flight attendant asked what I wanted to drink, and I said, "I'll have a seltzer with some ice," and he says, "I just want to make sure you're living a comfortable life." "Oh, thank you. I'm very comfortable." I did want to touch on that "I just don't think at this age I'm meant to live an uncomfortable life" scene. Did you know when filming it that fans would eventually be quoting it? That moment, when she says, "I don't want to live an uncomfortable life, I don't have the will," that's when you don't really know what's gonna happen to Victoria, this being at the end of her rope and what she's been through. [With] those little lines, we get to bring in the history of person. I had the essential oils and the lotions, and you just see how spoiled she is. But also, you know she's broken. She's kind of a mess, and then on the other side, she gets it together, and she's able to, like, Sherlock Holmes this stuff and get her daughter back. I love Mike White and how he writes women! We're talking about a writer who writes great women, and they're alone. They stand alone in a man's world. I feel so lucky I got to play it. Best of GoldDerby TV Hall of Fame: Top 50 best choices who should be inducted next Carrie Preston on fencing with Matthew Broderick and the heart, humor, and growth of 'Elsbeth': 'She's more than just quirky' 'RuPaul's Drag Race': Onya Nurve and Jewels Sparkles dish their 'ride of a lifetime,' stolen jokes, and turning drag 'inside out' Click here to read the full article.
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Emmy experts analyze Limited Series race: Why ‘Adolescence' is ‘the one to beat' as voting begins
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