Latest news with #TurtlesAlltheWayDown
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Felix Mallard
What Felix Mallard has grown to appreciate about living in L.A. is that there's a pocket of town to match every vibe — even if that vibe is 'Aussie,' which his proudly is, having moved from Melbourne seven years ago. 'There are a lot of places that remind me of home,' says the 27-year-old actor, who plays tough-shelled Marcus in Netflix's 'Ginny & Georgia,' which returns for its third season next week. 'The coastal cities and certainly some parts of Silver Lake and Echo Park feel very Melbourne. They feel very hipster. I mean, that word has changed so much — I don't know if bohemian is the right word either. But there's a sense of wanting to engage with good food, good coffee and good art. That kind of thing is very important to people from Melbourne.' As he carves his own space in Los Angeles, Mallard has been captivating Gen Z audiences with his nuanced roles, ones that tend to resonate with young men amid all of the distinct pressures they face. Last year, he starred in the romantic drama 'Turtles All the Way Down,' the film adaptation of John Green's young adult novel that explores the complexities of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He's now set to headline 'Nest,' a movie about a young family whose home is invaded by deadly arachnids. ('It's a quiet meditation on masculinity and being a father, wrapped up in a really fun spider horror movie,' he explains. 'A real one-two punch.') For Mallard, a perfect Sunday in L.A. involves surfing (a must), playing music loudly (he knows his way around the guitar, bass, piano and drums) and trekking from West L.A. to the Eastside in the name of adventure. Here's a play by play. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 5:30 a.m.: Chase the wavesI'd get up early and have a surf. The funny thing with surfing in L.A. is that you have to go where the waves are good. So it could be anywhere — Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach, Malibu or Ventura. You've got to check the Surfline app and kind of know the seasons as well, like how winter brings north swells and summer brings south swells. But it's a guessing game. You kind of throw a dart and follow it, you know? There's a nice crew of Aussies, Kiwis and Americans. We all try and surf together, which is really sweet. 8 a.m.: Post-surf burritos Now I'll probably be in a raggedy flannel top and some track pants and some Birkenstocks. Really just kind of half asleep. But it's mandatory after a surf to get a breakfast burrito. There's a really, really good place in Hermosa Beach called Brother's Burritos. They don't do the typical kind of massive breakfast burrito. Theirs come in two little bite-size burritos, which is perfect for breakfast, you know? And then there's another place in West L.A. called that's just off the Culver loop. It's a really cool, funky little coffee shop and cafe with a little record store next door — the perfect kind of vibe after having a surf and being in nature all morning. I really try to enjoy the peace that comes after that. 9:30 a.m.: Catch up on showsI'm going home and catching up on the week's shows. Right now, I'm really deep into 'Hacks' — obsessed with it. I feel like I came to it quite late and I've had to make up for lost time. And I'm really, really loving 'Everybody's Live With John Mulaney,' and 'Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.' I feel like if you're going to check in with the news these days, it's got to be in a format that's digestible. I think John Oliver has a really great way of doing that, presenting the outrage and the absurdity in a fun context. Noon: Try to find the joy of cooking I've always found it such a challenge to see cooking as the expression of love that I know it is — I just haven't had the inspiration. But Jamie Oliver's books have really helped me because he explains recipes in a way that teach you the fundamentals. He's got this cookbook, 'One-Pan Wonders,' with an herb-y chicken tray bake that's really simple. You can put the vegetables at the bottom of the tray — and a lot of rosemary and a lot of lemon — and put the chicken on the bars above the tray, so that when it cooks, the chicken fat drops into the vegetables and creates this really lovely flavor in the veggies. And then you finish it off with some lemon and olive oil. So that's the one I think I can do. But if anyone has seen that recipe, they'll know it's the easiest one in the book, so I'm not trying to brag here. 1 p.m.: Get lost in the music It's always a struggle to get up off the couch, but once there's been some food, I'm off to play some music. There was this beautiful, really fun, cheap, grungy rehearsal studio in Culver City called Exposition Studios. It would be, like, $25 or $30 an hour, and you could rent instruments and rent a room and just play as loud and as long as you want. It's not there anymore, but there are a few other places like that around town. I've gone to Pirate Studios in West Adams a couple times, and just anywhere I can play some music, really, really loud. I've got an EP of songs that I'm working my way through. It's very grungy, very emotion-based. It's probably quite angsty. There's a lot of anger in there, and then I think maybe a lot of sadness. It's touching on a lot of the uglier sides of our psyche that we all have. 4 p.m.: Car entertainment Now we start preparing the journey east. Because it's L.A., you can't pretend that you're not going to spend some part of your day in traffic. So a podcast is a must. I'll be listening to Louis Theroux. I just love how he asks questions, how he kind of gives a space for his guests to either showcase who they are or maybe unknowingly reveal parts of themselves they may not even intend to. How he holds the space for that is quite impressive, and it's a good distraction while you're driving. 5 p.m.: Fuel up with burgers We're going to Burgerlords. They do a really simple menu. You can get a smashburger, I think a vegan burger, and something else, and they've got a really nice selection of craft beers. And it's kind of like a redone version of a '50s diner inside. 7 p.m.: Let loose at a punk show From there, we'll go to Zebulon. I love it. I don't see too many venues with an indoor-outdoor kind of space. They have a big garden, so you can go and take a break outside and then come back in and enjoy that change of pace. It's one of my favorite spots in L.A. to go and watch music, for sure. The last time I went, we saw the Spits. They're, you know, really proper punks. And then another time, we saw a band called Spy, and they were supported by Fentanyl, Blood Stained Concrete and Yard, which is a Polish hardcore band. So any time we're out there, it's usually for a bit more of a hardcore kind of scene. And they're the most fun gigs to go to. Everyone's there to release some tension, some energy. The fans are always super, super, super die-hard fans. Midnight: Straight to bed I'll make the trek home and tuck into bed. That's usually about midnight. I'd like to say it's earlier and that I'm, like, healthy, but I'm not.
Indianapolis Star
08-05-2025
- Health
- Indianapolis Star
John Green connects deadly disease to Stetson hats, svelte figures and weighted vests
Who knew tuberculosis had a connection to the development of the cowboy hat or the U.S. military or women's dress sizes? John Green; that's who. And the author was on 'The Daily Show' on May 7 spreading the knowledge in his campaign to end the world's most deadly infectious disease. The curable disease, caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, resulted in 1.25 million deaths in 2023, according to the Word Health Organization. 'I'm super opposed to tuberculosis,' he told host Desi Lydic. 'I'm a little confused why everyone else isn't. It feels like it should be kind of a universally-held opinion.' The young adult genre ('The Fault in Our Stars,' 'Turtles All the Way Down') and social media (Vlogbrothers YouTube channel) star was promoting his New York Times bestseller 'Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection,' published in March. Green shared how tuberculosis tied into the development of the modern-day American cowboy hat. The maker of the Stetson had moved from New Jersey to the West to recover from tuberculosis, he said. The host challenged him to connect the disease to other trends and events. Was there a connection to Navy fighter jets falling into the water, she asked, referencing the second time in just over a week that a U.S. Navy fighter jet from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier was lost in the Red Sea. President Harry S. Truman had requested the federal government budget $200,000 to fund the development of Isoniazid, one of the most critical tuberculosis drugs, Green responded. 'If it weren't for Harry Truman sending federal money, federal government taxpayer money, to fund the treatment of tuberculosis, we wouldn't have that amazing drug,' he said. How about the popularity of weighted vests? 'Not even a challenge,' he answered. 'It's trying to shrink your body. It's trying to make you smaller. And that is a result, partly of this tubercular beauty standard. When we romanticized tuberculosis, in the 18th and 19th centuries, we began to associate beauty with very frail, small bodies. So attempts to shrink the female body are at least in part a response to this tuberculosis beauty standard that goes back to the 19th century.' John Green: Best-selling author writes a love letter to the Indianapolis 500 Green, an Indianapolis resident, talked about a 2019 trip to Sierra Leone, where he got to know a youth who was trying to recover from drug-resistant tuberculosis and learned how widespread the disease was. Over the next five years, he 'fell in hate' with the disease, and the book came about from wanting to tell 'his ultimate story of survival, and also wanting to tell the story of the fact that this disease is not history; it's present,' the writer told Lydic. 'It's the deadliest infectious disease in the world, and unfortunately, as a direct result of decisions made by our government, that number is going to go up instead of going down,' Green said. 'It's been going down for the last 20 years, which is something we can be really proud of. "The U.S. has long been the most generous funder of TB response, but that's changing with the dismantling of USAID; and as a direct result, I think the estimates are that within two years, we might see two million people dying instead of over a million.' That doesn't have to be, he said. 'We can achieve cure rates of over 95%. We do that in the United States, and we should be doing it globally. And the fact that we aren't really is kind of a mark of shame on humanity.' 'Turtles All the Way Down': John Green's novel is now a movie, and the ebook is on sale. How to get it 'We know how to live in a world without TB. You search for cases, you treat every case you find, and you offer preventative therapy to folks who are near those cases. And that's how we eliminated TB in the U.S.; or nearly eliminated it. That's how we've nearly eliminated TB in many countries around the world. But that takes funding. And right now, if you think of the history of tuberculosis as a long staircase where we learn more and learn better tools and have better tools to fight the disease, right now we have the tools; we just don't have the political will. So right now, unfortunately, we've fallen down the staircase.' Green sounded hopeful, though. 'But it's easy to feel like this is the end of history. I feel that way all the time, to be honest with you. But it's not the end of history. This is the middle of the story, not the end of the story, and it falls to us to write a better end. And I really believe we can do that together. I really believe that I will live to see a world without tuberculosis.'
