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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Michaela Watkins Loves HR Representatives (And Not Just Because She Plays One on 'Hacks') (Exclusive)
This season, Hacks introduced us to HR representative Stacey, played by Michaela Watkins. At first glance, Stacey might be poised to be the voice of reason and someone who could lead Deborah (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbiner) to reconciliation. And while the comedians appear to be back on the same page at this point in this season, one has to wonder just how much of that progress is thanks to their well-meaning but delightfully awkward chaperone. Watkins is no stranger to comedies, having appeared on shows like The New Adventures of Old Christine, Search Party and Enlightened, and she thrives her ability to oscillate between grounded sincerity and offbeat humor. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Watkins sat down with Parade for an exclusive interview to discuss her role on the Emmy Award–winning series. She reflected on Stacey's peculiar presence, the balance between improvisation and sharp scripting, and the comedians, both past and present, who continue to shape her comedic voice. Related: Grace Leeder: Let's talk aboutStacey. I feel like when we first meet her, she seems like she's going to be the normal person in the room. But she is odd. I wonder is she odd or is she just odd in particular situation she's found herself in, chaperoning Deborah and Ava? Michaela Watkins: I think that when Stacey is with other Stacey's, she's not that odd. I think she is particularly odd when she is with them. That said, I think Stacey is odd. She's a bit out there. I wouldn't be friends with her! So when Stacey is with other Stacey's, she's totally fine. But with these two - they're cool, they're savvy, they're smart. They're 20 steps ahead of Stacey. I think that she is over her head with these two. It's sort of "Bring Your Annoying Aunt to Work Day." I've seen a lot of HR people who Stacey reminds me of. Did you do HR homework for this type of role? For any series that you're on, there's usually a sexual harassment seminar that they have for the cast and crew. Over the course of five to ten years, you've been in enough of them. I always love them. I find them very interesting because, in some ways, as our culture progresses (or as we are regressing right now in America), the goalposts move a little. I think it's important to bring everyone up to speed, which is a great thing. I always feel like I take away something. The people who lead it understand that it's full of cynical actors and so they are very funny and entertaining. It's sort of like if you get a traffic violation and have to go take traffic school with a stand-up comedian. They always seem like you could see yourself hanging out with them. I'm always like, "that was a nice person!" Stacey feels more corporate. She doesn't feel cool for cool actors. She feels like all the cool ones were taken and they were left with Stacey, who was doing seminars for Merck or grocery store corporations or something. The writing on is so sharp. Do you mostly work with the script that was given? Is there a lot of improv on set? The writing is so sharp and so funny that you don't have to tinker much. I think the trio (Paul Downs, LuciaAniello and JenStatsky) like to hire people where if they do go rogue, it's not going to be a waste of anyone's time. So, when Megan Statler goes off on her things, they must use so much of it. Same with Paul, because he's also a writer. They're not so precious that they don't want you to do anything else, and yet they're very specific about getting some of their lines out there. It's a very fun little dance. They want you to competently show up and do the script and they leave room for Jesus. If you have inspiration that comes in, they're not going to fight you on that. I love how is a celebration of different generations of female comedians. Do you have a comedian you look up to from a previous generation? They had CarolBurnett on the show and she is timeless. I do feel like if she hit the boards now, we would be hailing her as a comedic genius as much as we did then. She has always been in her own little orb of hilarity and timelessness. She's just very unique in every way. I think it surpasses the time space continuum. Related: And how about a comedian from a younger generation? I keep bringing up Megan Statler in these interviews. I came across her online, and I thought she was a legitimate weird person and then I realized, "Oh, she is having me on right now". She's not that lady. This is a comedian I had never seen before. I think that she has a fresh, hilarious sensibility of comedy that I just love. John Early, too. I do feel like they could both be from any time. They have good, old fashioned senses of humor. They're not reliant on things like being the most blue or the most salacious or sardonic. It's just that you can feel like when they go off and do their thing, it's amazing. Kate Berlant, too. Her one woman show is art. It's the people whose comedy is real art and you're not being manipulated by them. You're looking at the world through their point of view and it's a hilarious one. I do also want to say that when I was looking through your filmography for this interview, it clicked just how many things I love that you've been in. and ! You saw Suze? Yeah! It felt like nobody knows Suze. I am Canadian. Oh, you are? Okay, yeah. I felt like nobody found Suze! Did you like it? Yeah, I loved it. It's so sweet! Oh amazing. Well, thank you for saying that.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Willem Dafoe Is a Summer Tenant Tormenting Corey Hawkins in ‘The Man in My Basement' Teaser
Willem Dafoe is deepening his hold on the modern thriller: The acclaimed actor is putting his talents to the adaptation of Walter Mosley's novel 'The Man in My Basement' alongside 'The Color Purple' standout Corey Hawkins. Dafoe stars as Hawkins' unexpected summer tenant who has ill intentions… The logline reads: 'Down on his luck, Charles Blakey (Hawkins) agrees to rent his basement to a mysterious stranger (Dafoe), unaware he may be letting in a force much darker than he imagined.' The film is set in 1994 Sag Harbor, New York, with Charles on the verge of losing his ancestral home to foreclosure. Anna Diop co-stars. More from IndieWire 'Search Party' and 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' Location Scout Makes Directorial Debut with Meta Indie 'The Scout' - Watch First Look Julianne Moore Talks About Being Drawn Into the 'Stakes' of 'Echo Valley' - and Expresses a Desire to Work with Wes Anderson Nadia Latif makes her feature directorial debut with 'The Man in My Basement.' She opted to have the film take place a decade before the novel is set (in the early 2000s) to coincide with the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide during the Rwandan Civil War of the '90s. Latif teased to EW that the timeline shift was necessary for a meditation on 'who gets to tell whose history,' with a 'darker, scarier, and more baroque' tone than the source material. 'I haven't stopped thinking about the novel since I first read it 20 years ago,' Latif said. 'It's such a dark, twisted, and wickedly funny journey into the heart of evil.' Hawkins also told EW that the film 'asks each of us to sit in the uncomfortable. We're exploring mental health, trauma, exploitation, and yes, the nature of evil, but we're also dealing with legacy, lineage, home, and love. A script centered on blackness in middle-class Sag Harbor in the '90s is loaded with cultural significance. I love that Nadia honored all of that and was willing to deconstruct the script with us, interrogate it, and put it back together — all of the ugly, all of the beauty. She took the essence of Mosley's novel and distilled it into something very unique.' Hawkins, whose role in 'The Man in My Basement' was originally to be played by Jonathan Majors before Hulu parted ways with the actor, previously told IndieWire that he was brought in to replace Majors a few months after he exited the film. 'It's an incredible look at a Black man who is experiencing trauma, but also legacy and family and curiosity,' he said of the feature. 'I don't think we've seen a story like this. It gave me an opportunity as an actor to go deeper than I've ever gone before. To bounce off of somebody like Willem Dafoe day after day after day, it was just like two bulls in the ring. It's a gift.' 'The Man in My Basement' will premiere later this year in theaters and on Hulu. Check out the teaser below. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Wicked: For Good' Trailer: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Get Ready to Meet Dorothy
Oscar-nominated 'Wicked' stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are ready to close out the musical epic for good. The duo reprise their respective roles of Glinda and Elphaba for Part Two, 'Wicked: For Good,' directed by Jon M. Chu. And this time, Oz will have a new visitor: Dorothy (Alisha Weir). 'Wicked: For Good' spans a series of years, beginning with Erivo's Elphaba AKA the Wicked Witch now being an enemy of the state. Glinda (formerly Galinda) is the spokesperson for Oz thanks to her appointment by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), with her former teacher Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) literally singing her praises. Glinda also just might have a wedding on the horizon to Jonathan Bailey's Fiyero, despite him blatantly lusting after Elphaba. This all leads into when Dorothy's house flies into Oz and the iconic 'Wizard of Oz' character walks the yellow brick road. More from IndieWire 'Search Party' and 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' Location Scout Makes Directorial Debut with Meta Indie 'The Scout' - Watch First Look Julianne Moore Talks About Being Drawn Into the 'Stakes' of 'Echo Valley' - and Expresses a Desire to Work with Wes Anderson The 2024 film 'Wicked' made history as the highest-grossing movie musical of all time. It went on to land 10 Oscar nominations, and winning for costume and production design. 'Wicked' also won the Golden Globe for cinematic and box office achievement. Director Chu told Vanity Fair that the two parts of 'Wicked' will feel like one complete epic film, despite them being released a year apart. 'What's nice about movie two is it's so different from movie one that it doesn't feel like we're talking about what you just saw. It's the new chapter,' Chu said, teasing of the plot, 'Our heart was broken when Glinda can't make the choice that we want her to so badly at the end of movie one, and it feels empowering for Elphaba to fly away from society. In movie two, we get to see the consequences of those choices. The temperature is up.' Chu added, 'We want to finish this story in the way that this beautiful memory of 'Wicked' can actually come full circle and can be with you for the rest of your life. We want you to look at both movies in the end, and feel like it was one all along.' Universal will release 'Wicked: For Good' in theaters November 21. Check out the trailer below. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
The Guardian
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
John Early: The Album Tour review – a rich slice of larky self-mockery
For fans of a certain brand of comedy – the comedy that exposes self-fashioning in the age of social media as ridiculous performance – this flying UK visit by John Early has been keenly anticipated. The outre star of millennial self-satire Search Party and sidekick to the brilliant Kate Berlant, Early has spent his career perfectly situated where generational social commentary meets flamboyant silliness. At his best tonight, he richly delivers on the expectation. And even if his best doesn't sustain from start to finish, in the first half, when the Tennessee man addresses himself to frightened, vacuous, deracinated American modernity, he's riveting. What's interesting about Early's approach is that – unlike Berlant, Leo Reich, and others – he doesn't hide behind a character, or a grotesque version of himself. What we get is seemingly the real Early, larking around, sending up his own prissiness a little, but sharing observations on culture and its discontents that are strikingly idiosyncratic and unmistakably his own. Maybe some of the topics are familiar (pretentious food presentation in restaurants, say), but Early's way of digging beneath them into richer cultural subsoil is distinctive. There's a great routine about circumlocutory waiter-speak, and what it says about our fear of directness. Another skit about visiting the toilet while in company is both a goofy piece of self-mockery and a weirdly eloquent delve into shame and carnality in the era of the curated self. I make it sound heavy; it isn't. Early is always on to the next thing, which is often outrageous and uproarious, like his routine about overinvesting in sexual role-play. ('I went full Meryl on his ass!') All of this is punctuated by covers of pop hits by the likes of Madonna, Britney and – in a lovely closing duet with his musical wingman Hess – Dolly Parton. The songs aren't always as gripping as the comedy. There's a fairly basic audience participation interlude, and a sketch in character as denim-clad southern mom Vicky with a V that's diverting, but lower-wattage than what's gone before. It all adds up to a great show, though: entertaining in lots of ways and electrifying in some.
The Guardian
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Search Party's John Early: ‘You can only take a narcissistic monster for so long – it grates after 10 years'
There was a time when comedians weren't just about the jokes, they were about the crooning, too. I saw Ken Dodd shows back in the day where he broke up the tattifilarious nonsense with sentimental ballads and wartime songs. Can you imagine a 21st-century comic doing anything so uncool? Reader, you no longer have to – as one of the coolest comedians in the world wings his way to London with a show as much about the heartfelt chanson as the layers-of-ironic millennial bantz. The man in question is John Early, scene-stealing camp superstar of the HBO comedy-thriller Search Party, and sidekick to another whip-smart standup brain, Kate Berlant. Like Berlant – and like Catherine Cohen, Bo Burnham or the UK's own Leo Reich – Early's work fashions the navel-gazing, always-online, identity-as-performance spiritual anomie of his generation into outrageous comedy. Or at least, he does in his screen work. Onstage, it's a bit different, and includes straight-bat performances of pop/rock standards with the backing of six-piece band the Lemon Squares. 'In the beginning,' he says, 'I just felt, 'wouldn't this be groovier if I did this with a full band? Wouldn't it be fun to do a Britney Spears song with a 70s-inflected arrangement?'' Back then, the songs were – like everything else – a part-ironic posture. 'I would immediately find some jokey delivery to protect me through the song.' But things changed when Early recorded his first special last year. Now More than Ever includes a celebrated 16-minute routine lamenting the millennial generation's wasted youth, spliced with a plangent performance of the Neil Young number After the Gold Rush. 'That was a choice I made that changed my life,' says Early now, chatty and self-deprecating over a transatlantic Zoom. 'I always used to trust the audience to find the humanity underneath the irony. But people didn't often see that part of it, for some reason. Maybe today you can't trust them to, because we live in such an antisocial time, and people are so 'mallet to the brain' by the internet.' 'So with After the Gold Rush, for the first time ever, I fully just spoon-fed it. It was 'this is me baring my soul'.' It was the songs wot done it – so much so that Early subsequently released the show as an album. 'It's actually a very old cultural instinct, funny people doing sincere covers. Those are my heroes: the Bette Midlers, the Sandra Bernhards.' In the olden days, comedians performed sincere songs because the art form itself couldn't handle sincerity. That changed as comedy matured – but changed back again, Early argues, with millennials, so lost in irony's hall of mirrors, they must turn again to song to help free themselves. 'I am part of a generation of people that are like stuck together, a bunch of internet phrases that have been Frankensteined together. Singing takes you out of this poisonous, ironic-banter internet speak and lets you sit in time for three or four minutes, being wistful or sincere.' One might marvel that a lifelong satirist of millennial self-fashioning should himself feel trapped by it. But that's not all Early had to contend with. A self-described 'good Presbyterian boy', the son of church folk in Nashville, Tennessee, Early ascribes much of his work – ie portraying himself as 'a narcissistic monster' – to that background. 'I always thought there was something gross about portraying yourself in a flattering light,' he says, and so developed an oeuvre – his role as Elliott in Search Party prominent within it – that accentuated his 'psychotic, anxious, socially oppressive' tendencies. Away from the cameras, meanwhile, he delivered standup that felt like 'a safe way for me to actually be myself, to use the parts of me that are good at bringing people in and making them comfortable.' For years, he resisted broadcasting that live work, because 'I felt very allergic to putting a camera on that.' With Now More than Ever, he finally did so – and it came as a cathartic release. 'Because you can only take the monster for so long. It gets a little grating after 10 years of that.' All of which explains why London audiences are getting a rare glimpse of Early's live work this spring. 'Doing these shows has been very meaningful to me,' says the 37-year-old. 'I get schmaltzy on tour, I really love doing it. And as the [US] tour was ending I was like 'we have to keep going! It can't be over!' So we booked these London shows.' Content-wise, 'I don't want to promise anything too coherent,' he says, but it'll be 'my usual bloated, sweaty, wild show,' with guest appearances from his YouTube and Netflix 'southern Christian mom alter ego Vicky with a V. She will do – I was going to say a surprise set, but I've just given it away.' For comedy fans, it's a must-see – and perhaps, after all these years of Early hiding between inverted commas, worth a look for sincerity fans, too. John Early: The Album Tour is at Soho theatre Walthamstow, London, 28-29 May
