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Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Meet the A-List Ballet Dancers at the Heart of ‘Étoile' — and the Choreographer Who Hired Them
Étoile, Prime video's new ballet dramedy is — like the meaning of its French title — full of star power. Sure, the creators have won Emmys. The actors have, too. But the dancers are what's center stage, and for good reason. Étoile's end credits might as well be a list of the ballet world's most elite: an A-list lineup of names from New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Boston Ballet, the Paris Opera and more. More from The Hollywood Reporter For Luke Kirby, 'Étoile' Was a History Lesson 'Étoile' Review: Amy Sherman-Palladino's Amazon Ballet Dramedy Pirouettes Gracefully Before Stumbling in the Final Act 'The Amateur' Star Rachel Brosnahan Insists She Still Feels Like an Amateur 'What I really love is the class, the artful choices,' Robbie Fairchild, a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet and now freelance artist, tells The Hollywood Reporter of the series. Fairchild plays Larry in Étoile — you can spot him rehearsing a duet by Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick) in episode one. Étoile, from Amy Sherman-Palladino and husband Dan Palladino of Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (and Bunheads!) fame, follows two ballet companies in New York and Paris that swap their most talented stars in an attempt to boost ticket sales. Luke Kirby and Charlotte Gainsbourg lead the main cast. 'It felt like somebody from Lincoln Center was like, 'This is what you should do the show about,'' Fairchild says. 'It was highbrow. It felt like, relatable highbrow.' So how did the Palladinos pull it off? In part, by choosing a good choreographer — Marguerite Derricks. And, by naming Derricks as a producer. 'Choreographers, we do so much without credit,' Derricks says. 'It's something we're used to doing anyway, but Amy is so dialed into everything. She really embraced me into this project, even before pen went to paper. That was really nice. It doesn't happen very often.' Derricks then pulled it off by hiring all those real dancers — more than 100 of them. 'The biggest thing that made me really interested in doing [the show] was that they really stressed they were truly committed to making it as realistic as possible,' says Brooklyn Mack, an international principal guest artist who plays a dancer in the New York company — he dances Don Quixote with Alicia (Wanting Zhao) in the first episode. 'The casting was tricky,' Derricks says. At both New York and Paris open calls, she saw hundreds of dancers in single days, most of whom didn't have enough serious training to make the cut. 'I realized the dancers we wanted were dancing in companies,' she says. 'I was like, 'We have to go after these dancers that are willing to break their contracts and come and do a TV show.'' For months, Derricks sat in her New York office watching thousands of audition videos, sorting clips, sending requests and fielding emails. Her hard work shines in nearly every frame of Étoile, which sparkles with footage of dancers in company studios and hallways, stretching and chatting and, well, dancing. 'It became like that Madonna documentary where she had the cameras following all the dancers around,' Derricks says. 'The cameras were always there and after a while, we forgot.' 'One of my favorite things in the first episode is when one of the dancers comes in with a bag with a dog in it,' Tiler Peck, a principal dancer at New York City Ballet who plays Eva Cullman, says — Eva is also part Tobias Bell's rehearsal piece in episode one, and she performs Black Swan later in the season. 'That's so us,' Peck says. 'We all bring our dogs to class, then there's somebody that's practicing a lift. People stretch, people talk, people try things. I don't think any of that was choreographed. That's just how dancers hang out.' The credits at the end of each episode play over more b-roll of these scenes. 'I love that Amy and Dan decided to use that footage in the credits,' Derricks says. 'We really wanted to keep it real.' With real dancers also comes the ability to perform real repertoire, and when the time came to decide how to introduce Paris company star Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge, with Constance Devernay as dance double), Derricks says Sherman-Palladino requested the balcony pas de deux from Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo & Juliet. MacMillan's 1965 adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, set to Sergei Prokofiev's score, is widely revered as one of the most famous works of the 20th century. 'Who wants to touch MacMillan?' Derricks says, laughing. 'It's just so beautiful.' In the final cut of episode one, the dancers perform MacMillan's original choreography, and the show is complete with real costumes and sets from the MacMillan estate. Balletomanes can also look out for choreography from George Balanchine and Christopher Wheeldon, in addition to pieces from Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Giselle and Sylvia. 'I wanted to honor all the ballet greats,' Derricks says. 'I just really wanted to be respectful to this community, I wanted them to see that we were doing a ballet show that was real, it was really going to honor their world.' But gaining access to real-world stuff can be a challenge, as most pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries are protected by choreographers' estates or trusts, many of which have high standards regarding who is allowed to perform the work. 'It wasn't always easy,' Derricks says, and part of the puzzle involved making these esteemed stage ballets fit for the camera. 'I really got to know and become friends with the camera guy, Jim, the steadicam operator,' Peck says. 'It really was a duet. It didn't matter if I hit it perfectly, if he didn't, or vice versa, [it didn't work].' 'It was fun watching the estates watch me protect their work,' Derricks says. 'They were realizing what a film choreographer can bring to a piece.' Dancers also sing the praises of Étoile's on-set experience. 'There were a bunch of camera rehearsals, which were great,' says Unity Phelan, a principal dancer at New York City Ballet who plays Julie — you can spot her dancing with Fairchild in episode one, during the Tobias Bell rehearsal. 'Amy and Dan were super specific with their camera crew about the fact that we are dancers, and we can't repeat things a million times to get the shot.' Phelan has worked on other sets with less understanding crews, where she was asked to repeat complicated dance steps over and over again. 'I was doing fouettes at 4 in the morning,' she says. 'That was a much harder situation. This, they really thought about the dancers and our wellbeing.' Étoile shines, for this reason, with a clear respect for the art form. 'A lot of the company life and conversations that happen [on the show], it's really fun to watch because it feels very real,' Phelan says. 'At one point when I had scenes with Gideon and Luke I was like, 'You guys are doing such a good job that it almost feels like I'm at like my normal job right now.'' Mack compares it to the way he watches procedural shows for a glimpse of worlds different from his own. 'I love The Resident because it has so much realism,' he says. 'My mom's a nurse, and she was like, 'Oh my god, this is the best show I've ever seen because it's really what goes on [at a hospital].' I love that [Étoile] went this route and really committed to bring [ballet] to the forefront.' Of course, all this happens without losing quintessential Palladino humor — dancers and non-dancers alike offer big personalities that bounce off one another with irreverent jokes and fast-delivered dialogue. But the dancers say this is the opposite of being unrealistic. 'The ballet world is quirky,' Fairchild says. 'It's really quirky. There's a bunch of weirdos in a building wearing tutus and standing on their tippy toes. They captured that and they respected it at the same time.' *** All eight episodes of Etoile season one are now available on Prime Video. Read THR's interview with Luke Kirby. *** Best of The Hollywood Reporter 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise 'Yellowstone' and the Sprawling Dutton Family Tree, Explained
Identity
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Identity
International Movies You Can Catch on the Big Screen
It's already shaping up to be a packed season at the movies, with international productions dominating the theater scene and topping the charts. Whether you're into light genres, high-stakes action with an Avengers vibe, or edge-of-your-seat thrillers, there's something for everyone. Here's a roundup of the top-ranked films currently screening in cinemas that you might want to check out. Sinners This one delivers just the right dose of horror and suspense. The Sinners, starring Miles Caton, Saul Williams, Andrene Ward-Hammond, and Jack O'Connell, follows twin brothers returning to their hometown for a fresh start, only to find that a darker, more sinister force is waiting to greet them. Thunderbolts This one's already stirring up mixed opinions, but giving it a shot won't hurt. Thunderbolts brings together Marvel's crew of antiheroes for a high-stakes mission that pushes them to face the darkest parts of their past. If you're an Avengers enthusiast, this might be up your alley. The Amateur Rami Malek is back on the big screen, and we're already on the edge of our seats for this one! The Amateur tells the story of Charlie Heller, a brilliant CIA decoder whose world turned upside down after his wife dies in a London terrorist attack, where he sets off on a thrilling global chase to track down those responsible and seek revenge. A Minecraft Movie A fun, easy watch if you're in the mood for something light and playful. Starring Jason Momoa, Garett Garriso, Emma Myers, and more, this movie follows four misfits who get pulled into a strange cube-shaped world where everything runs on pure imagination.
Time Magazine
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Are You Watching a Movie? Or Is it Just Content?
Whenever a friend or colleague sees a movie before I do, the first question I ask is no longer 'Is it any good?' but 'Does it feel like a real movie?' Everyone knows exactly what the question means, even if none of us can quite articulate it. The rise of streaming has eroded not just the moviegoing experience but also the hard-to-define qualities that have traditionally made a movie a movie. I've stopped counting the number of times a friend or acquaintance has said to me, 'There's so much to stream these days—I'd rather just stay at home.' But even if the theatrical experience sometimes appears to be dying, the movies are not. Young people and veteran filmmakers alike still want to make them. What is it that still draws them—and us—to the form? What makes some films feel real and others like sham products, worthy only of that derisive term content? This is all new territory. But it may help to look at some recent theatrical releases, as well as a few streaming-only products, to help discern what makes a film feel like a movie-movie today. does a movie have to feel totally fresh? James Hawes' The Amateur, with Rami Malek as a low-key CIA employee intent on avenging his wife's death, is based on a 1981 Robert Littell thriller that has been adapted before. But it has a satisfying aura that seems to belong on the big screen. The action takes place in splashy locales like London and Paris, and the direction has a confident muscularity. We used to get sophisticated action-thrillers like this eight or nine times a year in the 1990s; now, a movie like The Amateur, watched on the big screen, can awaken a sense of something we've lost. It feels like a forgotten luxury. But a work doesn't necessarily have to play on the big screen to feel like a movie-movie. Conviction on the part of the filmmaker or the actors, or both, may be the deciding factor—it's a 'you know it when you see it' sort of thing. Netflix has bankrolled some terrific films over the years, from Roma to Maestro. But the Netflix Original The Electric State, a retro-futuristic fantasy directed by the Russo Brothers, released in mid-March via streaming only, achieves the dubious distinction of feeling slapdash and extravagant at once. Netflix spent some $300 million on it, yet even with its designed-to-look-cool robot-centric special effects, it barely feels worthy of even the smallest screen. But that doesn't mean a direct-to-streaming entity can never feel like cinema. FX's series Shogun is an example of TV that offers the kind of visual splendor we usually have to go to the movies for. Even for diehard movie people, cinematic TV can step in when the movies fall down on the job. What about movies that become surprise hits? Do they work because they're fun and well-made, or is the mechanism more mysterious than that? Lawrence Lamont's bawdy buddy comedy One of Them Days —in which Keke Palmer and SZA play best friends who spend a crazy day trying to scrape together $1500 in rent money—opened in January and stayed in theaters for more than two months before shifting to Netflix in early April. Audiences loved it. But the film also plays beautifully on the small screen—it's hilarious even when you're watching alone. Let's reverse-engineer that equation and consider Patricia Riggen's action-adventure G20, from Amazon MGM Studios. Viola Davis plays the President of the United States, a war veteran who's forced to dust off her combat skills when crypto-terrorists invade the G20 Summit in South Africa. Though the movie got only a streaming release, beginning April 10, Amazon did play it for small, select audiences a few days earlier, which is how I saw it. I can't imagine enjoying this enthusiastically made but somewhat clumsy picture in my living room. But to watch Davis, a terrific actor who rarely gets the chance to let loose, crack a baddie over the head with a frying pan? The audience went nuts, and I did too. Sometimes the presence of other humans can turn a work into something greater than the sum of its parts. Movie-movies don't have to be extravagant or expensive. Earlier this year, Steven Soderbergh released Presence, a subtle but intensely effective supernatural thriller that cost about $2 million to make. Soderbergh's elegant, sophisticated spy caper Black Bag, released a few months later, cost quite a bit more (roughly $50 million) and didn't make its money back at the box office—but that's no reflection on its quality. Now more than ever, the movie gods can be cruel. And yet, even though the movie year is still young, we've already seen one example of a perfectly movielike movie. Ryan Coogler's Sinners fulfills every promise of what a great mainstream movie can be, and several weeks after its release, it has the box-office returns to prove it. Sinners is gorgeous to look at, and though it comes laced with serious ideas, about race and community, it's not hamstrung by them. It features both a big movie star, Michael B. Jordan, and an astonishing newcomer, Miles Caton, as a blues prodigy who's invited to dance with the devil. And it's about vampires—bloody, ruthless, charismatic vampires. There's music, there's steamy sex, there's gore served up in a way that's both artful and exhilarating. Sinners is the kind of movie that sends you home thinking, OK, I just saw something. You saw what a filmmaker can do with a possibility, a camera, a cast and crew. But maybe even more important, you became part of the almost mystical bond that a filmmaker can forge with an audience. In the moviegoing equation, you're ingredient X. No movie is real without you.
Daily Record
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Outlander's Caitriona Balfe lands major new role after saying goodbye to Claire Fraser
Outlander star Caitriona Balfe has already lined up her next project after completing work on the acclaimed Starz series After bidding farewell to her beloved character Claire Fraser in Outlander, Caitriona Balfe has swiftly moved on to her next venture. The Irish star, who has graced our screens alongside Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser in the Starz hit series for a decade, is set to appear in the final season yet to be broadcast. Following the completion of Outlander's eighth season last year, Balfe has already made waves with her role in the Hollywood thriller The Amateur, featuring Rami Malek, which premiered in cinemas the previous month. Balfe's latest role will see her join the ensemble of Apple Original Films' Tenzing, a biopic chronicling the life of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, famed for his historic ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. Jennifer Peedom, known for her documentary Sherpa, which also delves into the same topic, directs the film. Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe are set to play New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary and English expedition leader Colonel John Hunt, respectively, reports the Scottish Daily Express. In Tenzing, Balfe takes on the role of Jill Henderson, a friend of Tenzing who played a pivotal role in organising expeditions to Mount Everest. Deadline provides a glimpse into the film's narrative: "Tibetan born Tenzing Norgay, alongside New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary, both outsiders on a British Expedition, defied insurmountable odds to achieve what was once thought impossible, reaching the summit of the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest. "After six previous attempts, Tenzing risked everything for one final venture. He had to navigate treacherous politics and perilous weather as he embarked on the most significant climb of his life. "Through it all, he did so with humour, warmth, and generosity towards his fellow climbers, but also deep reverence and respect for the sacred Mother Goddess of his Mountain, Jomolungma." The film is being produced by the Oscar-winning See-Saw Films, celebrated for The King's Speech, while the script is in the hands of Oscar nominee Luke Davies, known for Lion. Balfe's fans from Outlander eager to delve into her other big-screen performances can recall her Golden Globe and BAFTA-nominated role in Kenneth Branagh's esteemed period drama Belfast. Her career also includes roles opposite Christian Bale in the film Le Mans '66 (Ford v Ferrari), Orlando Bloom in The Cut and sharing the screen with George Clooney and Julia Roberts in Money Monster. Following the gripping seventh season finale of Outlander this past January, enthusiasts eagerly await the final chapter. The last season will draw from Diana Gabaldon's eighth novel, Written in My Own Heart's Blood, as well as elements of Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone. Gabaldon has recently announced that her blockbuster series will culminate with the tenth book, named A Blessing for a Warrior Going Out.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cook review: ‘Accountant 2' adds up to fun actioner for grownups
'The Accountant 2″ adds up to a terrific action movie with a kind of buddy flick and a numbers expert at its core. Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal, who plays his brother (and also is recognizable for his roles in 'The Bear' and the recent 'The Amateur') are a terrific pair. The story begins eight years after 'The Accountant,' the film that introduced audiences to Christian Wolff, Affleck's brilliant autistic forensic accountant, who once again has some mysteries to unravel. J. K. Simmons shows up right from the get-go as the former director of an investigations unit for the Treasury Department. Bernthal is Christian's younger brother, who has an interesting relationship with his sibling that ranges from frustration to admiration, and sometimes both at once. The movie focuses on gun play, so much so that you could consider it a kind of Western – almost a kind of contemporary 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' with all of the shoot-'em-ups and buddy humor. In fact, one of the most entertaining scenes takes place in a country;western bar – you really need to see Affleck in the line-dancing sequence. Another funny scene involves Affleck's character in a speed-dating situation in which he disappoints every woman he meets. Director Gavin O'Connor and screenwriter Bill Dubuque deliver a fast-paced actioner that drew audiences into sold-out auditoriums in its first few days of release. It's a crowd-pleaser for grownups. The film never takes itself too seriously and lets the chemistry of the two leads engage viewers. I'll bet someone is writing a third installment already. P. S. Want to get reacquainted with the characters before you see the sequel? 'The Accountant,' not coincidentally, is streaming on a number of platforms if you want a refresher. 3 1/2 stars Rated: R for violence and foul language. Running time: Two hours ans 12 minutes. In theaters Watch the trailer here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
