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Elle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
'She's Not The Most Graceful, But She's Relentless': Why Rachel Brosnahan Wanted To Play Superman's Lois Lane
Actor Rachel Brosnahan is no stranger to playing strong women — Midge Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Rachel Posner in House of Cards, Emily Donovan in The Courier. Now, the Golden Globe winner is adding one of ELLE's favourite comic book heroines to the list, as she takes on the role of Lois Lane in upcoming blockbuster Superman, starring alongside David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult. Brosnahan has a busy summer ahead of her, what with the film's world tour just around the corner. Though she still carved out time for a major fashion moment, heading to Rome this week for Dior's Cruise 2026 show, which was staged in the magical gardens of 18th century Villa Albani Torlonia. ELLE UK caught up with the actor to talk about her latest role, the style advice she swears by, and her go-to hotspots in Rome. I heard that Maria Grazia was requesting that the women wear white and loved how romantic this dress was. I've been wearing a lot of black lately so it was nice to wear something that felt softer. The lace makes the dress seem demure at first but it's also fairly see through so it feels like I have a secret. Always have to start with eye patches. Especially if fighting jet lag. The dress felt like it was calling for something as romantic as it was. I have naturally curly hair but rarely wear it so we wanted to embrace the curl but also pull it off my face. My hairstylist Jillian Halouska also tied a few small black and white bows in the back to hold it in place. Emma Day, my brilliant makeup artist, and I have worked together for many years and she always uses colour so beautifully. She suggested a coral Dior Rosy Glow blush and lip and pulled some into the eyes too. I'm obsessed with the Dior Addict Lip Glows because they give you a little bit of a stain but are still glossy. Skincare is the best makeup. Take care of your skin and then enhance your natural beauty with beautiful makeup. And to invest in timeless pieces that can be worn in different ways. Then you never have to worry about going out of style. My style is constantly evolving and I like to have fun with fashion. It's an opportunity to express yourself - who you are or who you want to be, even if just for tonight. I'm endlessly inspired by French Women. They're so effortlessly stylish. My dog chewed through the pocket of my favourite black leather jacket so I'm on the hunt for the perfect replacement. She's an icon and I'm standing on the shoulders of the brilliant women who helped bring her to life for different generations. I love that she's not always the most graceful in her pursuit, but that she's relentless in her quest for the truth. I think she's endured because it's inspiring to watch someone go to the ends of the earth for what they believe in. Sometimes literally in her case. It's also fun to watch someone like that get into trouble, which she often does, and have to rely on their own intelligence and instinct (and occasionally a Superman) to come out on top. I'm hesitant to give them away because I'll never be able to get in again! I'm always chasing the perfect gelato… I recently stumbled into La Strega Nocciola which is pretty fantastic. I went to Enzo al 29 a few years ago which is excellent but not a secret anymore! Da Francesco is also really good for pasta and pizza. I love to walk around Trastevere near the water and people watch. Rachel Brosnahan wears Christian Dior; Makeup: Dior Capture La Crème, Dior Capture Le Sérum, Dior Eye Patches, Dior Forever Hydra Nude 1,5N, Dior Forever Nude Bronze 03, Soft Matte Diorshow 5 Couleurs 557Brown Cachemire, Diorshow Overvolume 090 Overblack, Diorshow on Stage Crayon 099 Black, Diorshow Liquid Liner 096 Satin Black, Dior Backstage Rosy Glow 001 Pink, Backstage Rosy Glow Stick 001 , and Pink Dior addict Lip Glow 001 Pink. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.
The Age
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Etoile review: How Amy Sherman-Palladino became the master of comfort TV
, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. No one makes TV like Amy Sherman-Palladino. Since the start of the century, she's created warmly welcoming, female-focused series about wonderfully eccentric communities. They have a distinctive look and sound. Whip-smart dialogue is delivered at screwball-comedy speed. Conversations between characters, typically loaded with pop-culture references, bounce back and forth like verbal ping-pong. Episodes are rich with lush colour and distinguished by a shooting style that frequently favours extended, elaborately choreographed camerawork. Rachel Brosnahan stars as Midge Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In her sunny fictional worlds, there are no mutilated bodies, missing children or rampaging creatures. She produces comfort TV of the best kind: not mushy, bland or glib, but happily surprising, like big bowls of festive bonbons. And fun. Chicken-soup-for-the-soul stuff. Loading A writer, producer, director and showrunner who works with her writer-producer-director husband, Daniel Palladino, ASP has given us Gilmore Girls (2000-07); its 2016 sequel Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life; Bunheads (2012); and her masterwork The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (2017-23). In 2018, with Mrs Maisel, she became the first woman to win Emmys in the comedy writing and directing categories. Now there's Etoile, a culture-clash comedy about a couple of elite ballet companies struggling with rising costs and declining audiences whose managers hatch a scheme to generate publicity and reignite interest in their endangered art form. For one year, the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre in New York, run by Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby, Mrs Maisel's Lenny Bruce) and Le Ballet National in Paris, managed by interim director Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), will swap stars. Famously fiery Parisian etoile (star) Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge) will endeavour to put aside her contempt for American food, coffee and culture to headline productions in New York, while young ballerina Mishi Duplessis (Taïs Vinolo) will reluctantly return home to France, miserably clutching a plush toy of a bagel. Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Lorelai (Lauren Graham) in the fondly remembered Gilmore Girls. Credit: ASP's series are invariably celebrations of their communities, whether it's the cozy east-coast town of Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls, the Californian coastal hamlet of Paradise on Bunheads or the Manhattan of Mrs Maisel, with its clubs, theatres, diners and delis. Consistent through them is her fondness for smart, feisty and sometimes spiky female protagonists, as well as an affection for tetchy, formidable older women such as Gilmore Girls' Emily and Bunheads' Fanny (both played by Kelly Bishop). Now comes Bruna (Marie Berto), Cheyenne's mother, a woman of few gruff words who wears a workman's uniform and tinkers with goodness-knows-what in her trash-and-treasure-filled apartment. Ballet also features regularly in ASP's productions: while Etoile focuses on a pair of prestige companies, Bunheads is largely set in a small home-based ballet school, and one of the cornerstones of Stars Hollow is Miss Patty's School of Ballet. Showbiz is in Sherman-Palladino's blood. Her father was a comedian, her mother a dancer and, as a child, she trained as a dancer, recently telling Vanity Fair: 'I stopped dancing the minute I realised somebody was going to actually pay me to do something, and I could have a sandwich'. One of the dance scenes – performed by professional ballet dancers – in Etoile. Credit: Philippe Antonello/Prime Video Etoile demonstrates that she reveres the qualities required to succeed in this sphere: grit, grace, discipline, dedication and endurance. At times, Etoile simply focuses on the extraordinary athleticism and sheer beauty of the bodies in rehearsal and performance. As well, ASP has explained, 'They're an odd, amazing bunch of people'. So, ideal for one of her shows. Her commitment to them extends to the authenticity sought in portraying their world and the attention to detail in evoking it. More than 1000 real-life dancers auditioned to fill roles in the two companies. Constance Devernay, the body double for de Laage, was a principal dancer with the Scottish Ballet for seven years; Vinolo dances with the National Ballet of Canada. Episodes are filled with shots of dancers going about their daily routines: stretching, chatting, napping, scrolling on phones, lacing shoes, bandaging feet. And when it comes to shooting the performances, the camera sits back respectfully, watching in wide shot, the directors understanding that there's no need to try to pump-up the action with fast edits or cuts to close-ups. Loading That laudable effort aside, Etoile – which has been green-lit for a second season – is no Mrs Maisel. It certainly has its charms, predictably to do with snappy dialogue and vibrant characters, as well as the visual pleasures of two photogenic cities. But it can be a bit clunky, lacking the sleek flair of its predecessor, and it's prone to overstatement, particularly in terms of haughty French folk and their disdain for crass Americans. Where Mrs Maisel neatly avoids stereotypes and often surprises with its character developments, Etoile sometimes succumbs to clichés. Although it should be noted that Gainsbourg nails the tough manoeuvre of appearing both frazzled and chic. Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Maisel and Luke Kirby, who also stars in Etoile, as Lenny Bruce in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. To its credit, it's not all colour, movement and frisky banter as the series also tackles questions about the uncomfortable union of art and commerce. The talent-swap initiative can only be achieved with funding from flamboyant billionaire Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow). Described by Jack as 'a right-wing, boot-licking toadie for dictators', he's made much of his fortune from an array of dirty deals.
The Star
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Can 'Etoile' make ballet cool? 'Mrs Maisel' creators pirouette into dance drama
Ballet is beautiful. Ballet is ethereal. Ballet is mysterious. Can ballet also be cool? The creators of the new Prime Video show Etoile – Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel fame – are betting yes. Or, shall we say 'oui' – the show is split between New York and Paris as it tracks the story of two ballet companies joining forces to attract audiences and stay afloat. And 'afloat' is a good word to describe the chief appeal of the show: real lifts, not to mention turns and leaps, by real ballet dancers, many of whom are in the cast. Sharp-eyed viewers might notice several New York City Ballet stars in supporting roles. A mix of Bunheads (also from the Palladinos), Emily In Paris –with way more leg warmers – and perhaps classic ballet movie The Turning Point, Etoile seems to know it lives and dies by the quality of its dancing. And that's because, as actor David Alvarez says, 'Ballet is one of those things you can't fake.' 'You can't just wing it and pretend you can do it,' says Alvarez, who made his name as one of the original dancing Billy Elliots on Broadway, winning a best-actor Tony along with two other Billys at age 14, and later played Bernardo in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story remake. 'Any dancer will be able to spot from a mile away that you're not actually a ballet dancer, just by how you walk or your posture,' he says. Alvarez plays Gael, a dancer who has a stormy relationship with Cheyenne, herself a very stormy prima ballerina – or 'etoile,' the French word for 'star' – who comes to New York as part of an elaborate talent swap between the two companies. Vinolo, who plays young dancer Mishi, is a real-life ballet dancer who's making her acting debut in 'Etoile.' Photo: Amazon MGM Studios via AP The gimmick has made uneasy partners of Jack, who runs Metropolitan Ballet Theater in New York, and Genevieve (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who runs the top company in Paris. (The two troupes are very thinly veiled versions of New York City Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet.) Alvarez is one of those hybrids, an actor who also dances. Tais Vinolo, who plays young dancer Mishi, is a real-life ballet dancer who's making her acting debut. Normally, she says, 'We express with our body. Expressing with another form, like speaking and acting, was a bit of a challenge.' Minolo feels confident that the creators found the truth in ballet. 'People don't have a good idea of what ballet is and how hard it is,' she says. 'They see the pink tutu and the pointe shoes. But they don't see that it's very physical. And it's hard. It's a lot of discipline, and it's also very hard mentally.' The physical challenge of ballet was just what Sherman-Palladino was looking to get across. The showrunner trained seriously in ballet from the age of four, before fate guided her into a writing career. 'And she has the back surgeries to prove it,' quips husband Dan. 'It's an amazing world,' says Sherman-Palladino. As for De Laage, her mother enrolled her in intensive dance training as a child, but it was a mother's dream and not the daughter's. Photo: Amazon MGM Studios via AP 'They're amazing artists. And it's literally an art form where you're just guaranteed not to make any money. So you have to truly just love it. 'You know, they're trained athletes,' Sherman-Palladino adds. 'They're unbelievably strong, and just the things that they can do with their bodies is ridiculous.' She sees dance as like 'silent movies almost – it's storytelling, it's acting, it's emotion and heartache and happiness and love ... I think that so many people who think that dance is not for them just haven't seen it.' Some of the French cast members barely spoke English, and vice versa. The show takes place in two languages – but the signature rat-a-tat Palladino banter can be hard to translate. 'It was tricky because we are very precise with our language, but our language doesn't exactly translate to French,' says Sherman-Palladino. 'Finding a translator may have been the hardest thing that we had to deal with on the entire show – the right translator that caught the essence of our script. So we kept changing translators 'til we finally found one that everybody could agree on.' For Lou De Laage, who plays Cheyenne, it was especially challenging because she spoke little English when she was cast. But the writer's strike meant she had nine months to prepare, rather than three, which proved a huge help. Gainsbourg, a British-French actor and singer-songwriter, spoke English but still found it tricky to get into the Palladino rhythm. Daniel Palladino and Amy Sherman-Palladino attend the premiere for 'Etoile' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York last month. Photo: AFP 'I was very nervous about learning the lines,' she says. 'I'm very slow. That was already challenging. Then the rhythm was something completely new. In the end, I got to understand the humour and the pace, (but) it took me a little while.' Kirby, whose Jack runs Metropolitan Ballet Theater, says he knew little about ballet beforehand – but had a cousin who was a dancer, 'and so I'd see her putting her body through torment.' Gainsbourg only spent a year studying ballet when she was four. She stopped but did piano in the same building – the Salle Pleyel in Paris – and remembers the elevator stopping on the ballet floor, where she'd go into the dressing room and pick up 'a very good, talcum powder smell. And that's my emotional remembrance of ballet.' As for De Laage, her mother enrolled her in intensive dance training as a child, but it was a mother's dream and not the daughter's. 'So that became a fight between us because she wanted that for me, and I didn't want that for me,' De Laage says. As an actor, 'I worked with really good dancers, but that wasn't my passion. I love watching dance.' What Gainsbourg has taken away from doing a series on ballet is 'the fact that it's so extreme and that everybody is working there for their passion. It's not about money, it's really about the art, and they're all completely passionate.' Ask the real ballerinas in the cast – for example, NYCB stars Tiler Peck and Unity Phelan, who play small roles, as does former principal Robbie Fairchild – and they'll tell you: Ballerinas sew their own ribbons on their pointe shoes. Nobody does it for them. So Minolo had to demur when, on the series, the crew offered to sew the ribbons on for her. 'I have a very specific way,' she explains. 'And I don't like when people touch my pointe shoes. I like to stitch the edge of my pointe shoes to make the platform bigger.' 'I do that too!' replies Alvarez, and the two laugh. 'Good for balancing.' 'Yeah exactly,' Minolo giggles. 'You understand.' – AP
South China Morning Post
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How Prime Video ballet drama Étoile keeps it real by mixing ballerinas and dancing actors
Ballet is beautiful. Ballet is ethereal. Ballet is mysterious. Can ballet also be cool? Advertisement The creators of the new Amazon Prime Video show Étoile – Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel fame – are betting yes. The show is split between New York and Paris as it tracks the story of two ballet companies joining forces to attract audiences and stay afloat. And 'afloat' is a good word to describe the chief appeal of the show: real lifts, not to mention turns and leaps, by real ballet dancers, many of whom are in the cast. Sharp-eyed viewers might notice several New York City Ballet stars in supporting roles. A mixture of the Palladinos' series Bunheads, Emily in Paris – with way more leg warmers – and classic ballet film The Turning Point, Étoile lives and dies by the quality of its dancing. Advertisement And that is because, as actor David Alvarez says, 'Ballet is one of those things you can't fake'.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Étoile review – a ballet show that's absolutely not on pointe
At first, Étoile looks as if it's shaping up to be Fame in pointe shoes. One character even knowingly quotes the 'This is where you start paying, in sweat' speech. This would be fine – great, even, because who didn't love the quintessential 80s series about the high-energy kids from New York City's High School of the Performing Legwarmers? The problem is that, as the new venture from Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino progresses, it doesn't seem to be sure what it is. Apart from Whimsical with a capital W, an attitude that rarely works out well for anyone. The setup is simple. Two dance companies – Le Ballet National in Paris and the Metropolitan Ballet Theater in New York City – are struggling after Covid and assorted other modern pressures such as anti-elitist attitudes and everybody's terrible attention spans. So what if they swapped their top dancers and choreographers and launched a huge publicity campaign about it so everyone abandoned YouTube and became interested in ballet instead? The head of the French company, Geneviève (Charlotte Gainsbourg, jarringly unconvincing in her first television role) has already secured funding for the project. All she needs is for her former lover and head of the New York company, Jack (Luke Kirby), to agree, even though the money is coming from a man he despises – arms and chemicals manufacturer Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow, giving his Four Weddings and a Funeral turn an evil billionaire twist. He's not quite twirling a moustache but it's cringe-inducing nonetheless). But what are peacenik principles when you are a ballet company director who has just had to order ordinary champagne flutes (instead of the preferred etched) for the bar for cost reasons? Jack reluctantly agrees to the swap and they hammer out a deal. 'It must happen! For ballet's sake!' The big draw is star ballerina Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge). She is feisty, of course, and an ecowarrior in her spare time. So furieuse about the swap is she that she turns up at Geneviève's office straight from a protest on a fishing boat to tell her so, even though she is in a trawler's jacket and stinks of le poisson! But there is ballet's sake to be considered, so off she must go. In her stead comes Mishi Duplessis (Taïs Vinolo), returning to her native France and the keep of her neglectful parents, one of whom is the minister for culture and delighted to have her back as a ballerina if not as a daughter. Added to the mix is hapless neurotic and choreographer Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick, who provides much of the comedy that works on screen). He is sent from New York to Paris and is paralysed by the lack of Crest toothpaste there, and an unnamed cleaner's unnamed child who practises alone at the Metropolitan at night using videos of classes her mother secretly records during the day. Cheyenne discovers her and a bond is formed, revealing the golden heart under the feisty exterior. Étoile is … fine. It passes the time. But every person seems to be acting in a slightly different show from everyone else, and tonally it falls between any and every possible stool. There is a scattering of jokes per episode but it is not funny enough to be a comedy, not dramatic enough to be a drama (nor, on the basis of a seriously terrible speech Crispin gives to Cheyenne about the need for artists to prevent their humanity 'floating out into the ether', should it go further down this road), or frothy enough to be a soap. Occasionally (see the etched champagne flutes), it seems to be aiming for satire but – perhaps because Sherman-Palladino is a former ballet dancer herself and loves the form – the barbs are blunt. We are clearly meant to root for various characters – especially Cheyenne – but they remain ciphers it is impossible to invest in. De Laâge does a wonderful line in apoplectic fury, but when this is all you do – and when lesser dancers literally cower from you as you march through a studio – it becomes a bit much. And then there are all the bits of bolt-on whimsy, like the bull that is to be used in a production but must not face the principal dancer because of her red costume, which the designer refuses to change. These things strip the show of the easy charm it needs if it is to ape the Palladinos' previous hits. Étoile may be a show about dancers, but it urgently needs to find its feet. Étoile is on Prime Video now
