audience

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace has delivered some sharp criticism of President Trump since she became a host on the progressive-leaning cable news network in 2017.

So it’s surprising that her new podcast shares its name with one of Trump’s regular boasts about his team: “The Best People.”

“I thought he had abandoned it,” Wallace, 53, told The Times. “But I actually think ‘the best people’ was one of his best messages in 2016.”

“He abandoned it officially when he picked Matt Gaetz,” she added, referring to Trump’s first choice for attorney general.

Each week on “The Best People,” starting Monday, Wallace will have lengthy conversations with actors, musicians, thought leaders and other figures outside of politics. The guest on the first episode is actor and fellow podcaster Jason Bateman, followed by Sarah Jessica Parker, music producer Jimmy Jam, folk singer Joan Baez and Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers in coming weeks.

The jump into podcasting comes as the network looks for more ways to reach the growing number of consumers who are no longer watching cable TV.

The network says its existing audio podcasts, which include series from hosts Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Jen Psaki, will top 10 million downloads in May.

“Our goal is to meet our audience where they are and to bring the talent of our hosts and anchors to them in those spaces,” said Madeleine Haeringer, MSNBC’s senior vice president of digital, audio and longform. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all formula — but instead, tailoring each project to both the host and the platform.”

Wallace said she was ready to expand her role at MSNBC before the corporate changes. Podcasting appealed to her because, as a working mom, she knows many women aren’t available to watch her daily program in the afternoon.

Her branching out into less overtly political territory is somewhat unexpected.

The former Bush White House communications director’s tenure on the ABC talk show “The View” was brief, partly due to her lack of pop culture expertise.

That’s not a concern this time around, she said. The guests she solicited for “The Best People” are coming to the table to discuss their own advocacy issues apart from the kind of instant political analysis presented on her MSNBC program “Deadline: White House.”

Wallace connected with Jimmy Jam when they discussed creating a “We Are the World” type of musical production to aid Ukraine. She knew Rivers through his social justice activism (as coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, he had to guide the players through the scandal over former owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments) and Parker for her devotion to literacy programs.

The podcast format allows them to open up in a way that doesn’t always happen on live TV.

“For some reason, people sitting in front of their computer screens on the Zoom are even more candid and forthcoming about how they feel,” Wallace said.

Wallace is wading into digital media at a time when MSNBC is in transition. The channel, along with other NBCUniversal cable outlets, is being spun off from current owner Comcast into a new company called Versant.

Comcast is getting out of the cable channel business, with the exception of its potent reality brand Bravo, out of concern about the steady decline of the pay TV audience. Over the last 10 years, cord-cutting has reduced the number of cable homes MSNBC reaches by 33%.

MSNBC also saw a mass exodus of viewers just after the presidential election, as its loyal left-leaning audience tuned out after Trump’s victory.

The ratings have gradually climbed back up, with MSNBC maintaining its second place position behind perennial cable leader Fox News but well ahead of third place CNN. In May, the network was up 24% from the lows it hit in November and December, but is still down 35% compared to the presidential campaign-elevated levels of a year ago, according to Nielsen.

But leadership at Versant has it made clear that MSNBC will continue to cater to a politically progressive audience.

Wallace believes the commitment to the network’s point of view has only deepened under new management. “It’s a culture that really rewards deep wonky coverage of politics,” she said. “[MSNBC President] Rebecca Kutler has come in and tripled down on all of that.”

The spinoff requires separating MSNBC from NBC News, where some journalists were uneasy with the intensity of partisan commentary on the cable network. Versant is hiring its own newsgathering team — as many as 100 journalists — including justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian, who is moving over from NBC.

“To work for someone who is hiring reporters at a time when we’re looking at an administration that seems a little meh about the Constitution is pretty forward leaning,” Wallace said.

She was inspired to try something new by the extracurricular activities of her husband, the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Michael S. Schmidt, who co-created the Netflix thriller series “Zero Day” with former NBC News President Noah Oppenheim.

“Michael enjoyed it so much it gave me the idea to add something that is a little outside my comfort zone,” Wallace said.

Wallace met Schmidt, 41, at MSNBC, where he is a contributor. They married in 2022 and a year later had their first child via surrogate. Wallace also has a 13-year-old son, Liam, from her first marriage.

While Wallace and Schmidt have a business-like dynamic when they appear together on the program, family matters creep in off-camera.

“When we are both on set, my son is texting us about dinner,” Wallace said. “During the breaks, we’re never talking about the rule of law. We’re talking about logistics.”

Ricky Gervais is living his best life right now. Even when he’s busy talking about death. On Saturday his new tour, Mortality, arrives at the Hollywood Bowl, where thousands will hear him tackle hilariously macabre commentary about life — and the end of it — through his signature blend of dark humor, empathy and razor-sharp commentary. His last appearance at the Bowl in 2023 with Armageddon earned him a Guinness World Record for the highest-grossing single stand-up performance — so, no pressure.

Gervais is also known for turning awkward pauses and brutal honesty into comedy gold, so it’s only fitting that after such a long career full of accolades that he would also finally earn a coveted spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday. As Hollywood honors the man who’s roasted its elite with such precision, to be roasted for eternity by the Hollywood sun sounds fitting.

It’s not all about receiving: Giving back matters to Gervais and he’s doing that by helping spotlight the next wave of comedic talent through the Spirit of Comedy — a U.K. stand-up contest presented by Dutch Barn Vodka, which he happens to co-own. With a star on the Walk of Fame, a massive show at the Bowl, and a platform for rising comics, Gervais is fully owning his Hollywood moment. But he needs to be home by 6 p.m.

You’ve spent your career pushing comedy boundaries, has there ever been a moment where you thought, “Oh yeah, I’m going to have to defend this one?”

Oh no, it all comes and goes. It’s cyclic. People get nervous and that’s just always been there from day one. People get worried and then I say, well, this is why it’s OK. Sometimes it’s an executive producer or a broadcaster who just wants some ammunition to defend it. Because sometimes, they don’t know whether it’s OK or not, they just don’t want to get complaints. If I can go “listen, this is why it’s OK,” then they often trust me because I can defend it. It’s not me sitting in the room going, “what’s the most offensive thing I could say to get the BBC burned down?” There’s always a point to it. Offense often comes from people mistaking the subject of a joke with the actual target, and they’re not usually the same.

It sometimes feels like comedians, whose job it is to joke, are being held to a higher standard when it comes to what is “offensive.”

We’re human, so we react to buzzwords and we’re cautious of taboo subjects. That’s why they’re still taboo, because we’re cautious of them. I do that on purpose as well, particularly with my stand-up where I talk about contentious issues and taboo subjects because I do want to take the audience to a place they haven’t been before. I do want them to reflect on it, worry about it, think about it and then, I’ve got to misdirect them. It’s like I take them by the hand through a scary forest but it’s OK because they always laugh. If I were going out there and saying things that were really offensive, and no one was laughing, well, that would be odd. That’s what politicians do. Politicians say awful things and they mean it, and no one laughs. Comedians say things they don’t mean, everyone laughs and they get the same treatment.

But you have to have free speech, and there’s nothing you could say that someone somewhere won’t be offended by. It’s impossible so you shouldn’t even try. I don’t go out there and try to ruin the audience’s evening, I go out there and I make a joke and it’s crafted. We’re human though and we take things personally, but you shouldn’t because I think comedy is best as an intellectual pursuit.

“Comedy is best as an intellectual pursuit” sums you up because you’re not careless. There’s a formula to it all.

Exactly. You should go “well, that’s a bad subject and I don’t agree with the punchline, but does it work comedically?” It’s a magic trick. It is a formula. You can’t argue with chemistry. No one goes, well, I know I laughed, but I don’t agree with it. Well, it did what it does. That’s the joke and I’m not gonna change the joke or meaning. I think the only form of censorship, as an audience, is your right not to listen. You just don’t have to watch. You can leave, not buy my stuff, not buy my tickets, and that’s absolutely fine.

You can turn your own TV off, but what you can’t do is make other people turn their TV off. That’s the difference. And then, people will complain about something you’re doing in the privacy of your own home, even if they have to go up to their attic and stand on a stepladder and look through binoculars to see it. They will find it. People sometimes seek out the offense and that’s actually where people can get addicted to being offended. They like it, it makes them feel alive. The news even picks up Twitter! They say, “Oh, fans weren’t happy!” Three fans weren’t happy.

“I don’t go out there and try to ruin the audience’s evening, I go out there and I make a joke and it’s crafted,” Gervais said. “We’re human though and we take things personally, but you shouldn’t because I think comedy is best as an intellectual pursuit.”

(Andy Hollingworth)

Tweets making headlines is why we can’t have nice things. I wanted to ask about the Spirit of Comedy contest, where the winner gets to open for you at OVO Arena Wembley. How did all of this happen?

I know, it’s mad! I’ve never done anything like this before and I’ve turned down loads of things, but this co-ownership with [the show’s sponsor] Dutch Barn Vodka is different. When we met, we first bonded about the company being really ethical. It was sustainable, it was recyclable, they used British apples, they were vegan, they paid their workers really well—they were really trying to be good, and I like that. They said they wanted me to make it famous, make it a global brand, and that I could do the advertising, which really interested me. I do all of my own trailers, I write all my own stuff, so that was exciting creatively. What a great nut to crack.

The business side of it sort of came last, but it all made sense too. The main thing about it was I felt I could sleep at night, and I could still have fun. That’s all I really cared about. The contest was actually all Dutch Barn’s idea and when they were asked about the contest they said something like, “Well, we know Ricky’s not going to last forever.” Maybe they’re finding my replacement? How cruel and ironic would that be?

Well, at least you can go down knowing you broke a record at the Hollywood Bowl.

Yes! It was two years ago, and I just put out a tweet because it broke the record for a single gig. I don’t know why I’m doing it again. I did it once, it was frightening, I broke the world record and it was great. Why would I do it again?

Ricky Gervais speaks at the 77th Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 5, 2020, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

(Associated Press)

Because we love you in L.A. and it’s been too long. That’s why.

I haven’t been avoiding it, it’s just a long way so I try to do as much as I can while I’m there. I sort of work out of London now and also, it gets harder with jet lag. I’m 63! Jet lag lasts about a week now! Everything is worse, isn’t it? I’m offered really cool things every day, flying around the world and I just think, is it better than me sitting on the couch with my cat and my girlfriend watching Netflix? No. It has nothing to do with anything else other than how valuable your time is and how you wanna spend it.

Is that why you named your tour “Mortality”? Are you planning?

Sort of. There’s a joke in there where I sort of talk about getting old, looking back and all the things that are going wrong which are funny. The reason I started doing one word, sort of academic-style titles, was that I was sarcastically making fun of the pomposity of some comedians who think they’re doing lectures. That’s where it started when I was pricking that bubble of comedians who think they’re changing the world. I’ve kept up the one-word thing, but also, mortality, it’s a scary subject so already the audience is going, is Mortality gonna be funny? Yeah, it’s funny! I’m the one dying. Sit back and laugh.

From sitting to kneeling, it’s fitting — and a bit ironic — that someone who roasted Hollywood so memorably is now being cemented into its history with a star on the Walk of Fame.

Well, that’s funny because the first time they told me I got it I said, “Oh? Do I have to get down on all fours on the concrete? I’ll never get up! I’ve also got bad skin!” I had all of those thoughts, but I’m doing it the day before the Hollywood Bowl so I can kill two birds with one stone. It’s all about getting home on the couch by 6 p.m. This life, you know what I mean?

You started kind of late, but you did earn this comfortable life. And maybe 6 p.m. is the new midnight.

When I grew up, I was good at school, I went to college, then I was a failed pop star, and I never had money. Really, I never had any money. I think I was about 37 years old when I started doing this, and I just grabbed a hold of it. I thought, this is a really lucky second bite of the cherry. You better not screw this one up. So, I did work really hard, but in saying that, what does this sound like? “I work really hard in a room writing while drinking cappuccino.” Some people are hiding behind a wall getting shot at! My dad was a laborer for 60 years! It’s funny to say that, because now, I’m glad I was born poor. It’s not something that I talk about much, but I am sort of proud of myself. I didn’t have a penny, and no one gave me anything. It might be luck, but I still feel like I beat the system.

Esai Morales is on a death-defying mission to make Tom Cruise’s life impossible, yet again, in the latest installment of the “Mission: Impossible” action film franchise. Titled “The Final Reckoning,” the movie was released Friday.

Morales reprises his role as Gabriel, an assassin liaison set on carrying out a dangerous mission for Entity, an artificial intelligence system gone rogue, whose capabilities render it a danger to human society. This role dates back to the first “Mission: Impossible” film in 1996, as a murder Gabriel committed was the impetus for Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to join the Impossible Missions Force.

“I have to look at Gabriel as the star of his own movie,” said Morales in a video call. “I play these characters with as much humanity as I can.”

Although for most of the franchise Gabriel is presumably dead, audiences are introduced to Morales’ character in the 2023 summer flick, “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.” Besides shouldering responsibility as the main antagonist, which involves risky stunts opposite veteran adventurer Cruise, Morales also made franchise history as the first Latino lead in the action series.

The Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican actor is best known for his role as Bob Morales in the 1987 Chicano film “La Bamba” and as Jesus “Chucho” Sánchez in 1995’s “Mi Familia” — both of which been added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. Morales is also known for his roles as Joseph Adama in the “Battlestar Galactica” prequel spin-off of “Caprica,” as well as Camino del Rio in Netflix’s “Ozark” and villain Deathstroke in the DC “Titans” series.

“The thing I love about ‘Mission: Impossible,’ with Gabriel, is that you don’t know he’s Latino,” Morales said. “It doesn’t focus on race. It focuses on the race to get the key!”  

Likewise, the release of the last two “Mission: Impossible” films was a dash to the finish. Directed by Christopher McQuarriel, filming spanned five years with some stops along the way due to the COVID-19 pandemic, plus the 2023 strikes by members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America. Additional costs due to inflation brought the total budget of the Paramount Pictures movie up to $400 million, making it one of the most expensive films of all time.

Morales considers its release a momentous occasion — and a “graduation” of sorts.

“All those obstacles are like the pressure that creates a diamond out of coal,” he said. “I hope that the audiences feel what I felt and continue to feel when I watch the film.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and shortened.

 How did you prepare physically and mentally for the role in ”Mission: Impossible”?
I was asked if I was physical and I said, “Actually, yeah.” I love playing tennis so my conditioning is really good. During the pandemic, I [would sneak] into the ocean at dusk and I would swim at night for hours at a time. It was kind of scary. Then [I got] to London and met some of the finest stunt people who do fighting, acrobatics, knife fighting, boxing. The thing is to get your reflexes in shape, because sometimes you have to do take after take and you don’t want to gas out.

Mentally it’s a lifetime of preparation. It’s not like I can study the life of Gabriel, so you apply what you can about your own character and characteristics under imaginary circumstances. Some of it comes from the ether… from the ether going after Ethan [laughs]. It’s an instinct and a lifetime of seeing movies, including the “Mission: Impossible” movies. They work hard. One of the most comforting things they instill is [that] “we’re not gonna leave until we get it right.”

Cruise is known for his gutsy live-action scenes. What was it like to join him on these scenes?
It’s thrilling. I couldn’t think of anyone else whose hands I’d want to put my well-being in, because look at his track record: He’s still alive and extremely healthy, and he doesn’t take these things lightly. He’s extremely strict about safety. Life is inherently risky. If you’re gonna take other risks, it’s best to take them with people that have survived and thrived for decades doing the same.

There’s a death-defying scene up in the air that was being teased a lot in this press run. What was going through your mind as you were up there?
After the initial prayers and thanking God, the universe and the angels, who and whatever has kept me alive and blessed me with an amazing life so far… You’ve gotta let go and let God, as they say.

What impact has this franchise had on your long-term career?
 It’s a blessing. I got the job during one of the most trying times of my life — and everyone else’s. I hope it’s not all downhill from here. I’m just grateful because I got to work on something at this scale, with these kinds of collaborators.

I am hoping that the work I continue to do leads to meaningful roles and characters that enhance the human condition for having watched it. I wanna do things that make people feel good about being human. Even if I’m the bad guy, somebody’s gotta play the bad guy. Right?

But is Gabriel really the bad guy?
Not in this actor’s eyes. For me, I have to look at Gabriel as the star of his own movie.  Wars are not fought by people who feel they’re gonna lose them.  So I play these characters with as much humanity as I can.

How did the COVID-19 pandemic and Hollywood strikes impact production of this film?
I am on the board of SAG-AFTRA. I did feel the impact of both COVID-19 and the strikes. I mean, it was not easy, it was not fun. It’s still not easy. We still have to deal with new media or new technology, speaking of AI. The production stuck together. When you struggle with adversity, it makes you stronger.

You consider yourself an honorary Chicano, particularly because of your role as Bob Morales in “La Bamba.” What memories come to mind when you think back to that role?
 So many, but the incredible irony or synchronicity or synergy that a role with my [last] name on it would be one of the most remembered. They’d say, ‘That has your name all over it.’ Well, this [role] literally did. When people wanted me to focus more on Ritchie, I wanted to bear witness and lend my pain to the role of Bob [Ritchie Valens’ brother].

I don’t know where my career would be without that film and a few others. When you have the ability to be with the person you are portraying, first of all, it’s an extreme amount of pressure because they’re there and you’re not them. And it’s like you’re gonna pretend to inhabit their being and their life. You don’t wanna mess up. But [Bob and I] were able to bond and have a few beers and really kick back, and I was able to absorb Bob’s biorhythm. I absorbed his Mexicanismo, [the same way] Anthony Quinn portrayed “Zorba the Greek.” [Whenever] he went [into] a Greek restaurant, plates would crash in honor of him and his portrayal … and he is a Mexican Irish actor.

 I think a lot of people forget that you’re Puerto Rican because you play the Mexican role so well.
I’m proud to be Puerto Rican, but I’m so secure in it that I don’t feel like I have to wear my banner on my head. I just want my work to speak for itself. We have to embrace that which has toughened us and has given us character and has given us something a little extra yearn for and live for.

There are many Latinos in sci-fi films. I’m thinking of you in “Caprica.” There’s also Diego Luna and Adria Arjona in “Andor,” Zoe Saldaña in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Pedro Pascal in “The Mandalorian,” Ricardo Montalbán in “Star Trek …” What do you think of space roles introducing Latino actors to new audiences?
 How about to their own audience? We make up 25% of the movie-going audience, at least. It’s a wise decision to include people that in the past were overlooked. We were overlooked. So to put in all the great people is serving your market and representing them. It’s long overdue but extremely welcomed.

Is outer space the gateway to more Latinos in mainstream roles in rom-coms or action?
I would like to see that. I would like to see us play more central characters, people that we can grow to learn, grow to love and feel for, because I think that’s what movies do. They let you inside the heart of your lead characters. And you just can’t help but to love them, you know?

CANNES, France — In Cannes, the weather changes so fast that you can enter a theater in sandals and exit in desperate need of rain boots and a scarf. On Friday, I ran to my room to grab a warmer shirt for an overcast outdoor party. I checked the window and added a jacket, then checked the window again and was stunned to see the sun. By the time I raced back down the Croisette (in something sleeveless), the cocktail hour was over. C’est la vie.

The mutability is a lovely parallel for the filmgoing itself. At the end of a great movie, you feel like the world has changed. And when a film is bad, the director suffers the shock of their forecast being dramatically upended. Before the premiere, they were chauffeured around in festival-sponsored BMWs and now their friends are stammering how much they like their shoes.

Harris Dickinson, the young British actor who convincingly dominated Nicole Kidman in last year’s “Babygirl,” seemed a tad flustered introducing the premiere of “Urchin,” his directorial debut. Jacket and tieless with his dress shirt’s sleeves rolled up lopsidedly, he hastily joked, “I’m nervous, but I hope you enjoy it — and if you don’t, tell us gently.”

That barometric pressure is especially intense in Cannes, but onscreen (so far, at least), the wind is only blowing one way: south. Almost every film so far has been about a character braving a storm — legal, moral, political, psychological — and getting dashed against the rocks.

Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in the movie “Eddington.”

(A24)

“Eddington,” Ari Aster’s twisty and thistly modern-day western, is set in New Mexico during that first hot and crazy summer of the pandemic. To his credit and the audience’s despair, it whacks us right on our bruised memories of that topsy-turvy time when a new alarm sounded every day, from the social-distancing rules of the coronavirus and the murder of George Floyd to the rumors that Antifa was rioting in the streets. With “Hereditary,” Aster made horror trauma hip; now, he’s shifted to satirizing our shared PTSD.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Joe, a sheriff with a soft heart and mushy judgment, who rejects the mask mandate of Eddington’s ambitious mayor (Pedro Pascal), arguing that COVID isn’t in their tiny rural town. Maybe, maybe not — but it’s clear that viral videos have given him and everyone else brain worms. Joe’s wife (Emma Stone) and mother-in-law (Deirdre O’Connell) are fixated on conspiracies involving everything from child trafficking to the Titanic. Meanwhile, Eddington’s youth activists, mostly white and performative, are doing TikTok dances advertising their passion for James Baldwin while ordering the town’s sole Black deputy (Micheal Ward) to take a knee. No one in “Eddington” speaks the truth. Yet everyone believes what they’re saying.

Phoenix’s Joe watches Henry Fonda movies and wears a symbolic white hat. Yet, he’s pathetic at maintaining order, pasting a misspelled sign on his police car that reads: Your being manipulated. Having lived through May 2020 and all that’s happened since, we wouldn’t trust Aster anyway if he’d pretended a savior could set things right. Still, there’s no empathizing with hapless, clueless Joe when he whines, “Do you really think the power is with the police?”

Well, one person in a Cannes film does: the lead of Dominik Moll’s “Dossier 137,” a single mother named Stéphanie (Léa Drucker), who just so happens to be a cop herself. Once, Stéphanie investigated narcotics. Now, she gathers evidence when her fellow officers are accused of misbehavior. An inspired-by-a-true-story detective movie set in the aftermath of the 2018 Paris demonstrations, the film’s central case involves a squad of undercover officers who allegedly shoot a 20-year-old protestor in the head with a rubber bullet, shattering the front of the boy’s skull.

Moll has made the kind of sinewy procedural that makes your palms sweat. “I have no personal feelings,” Stéphanie insists, even as her ex-husband and his new girlfriend, also police officers, accuse her of being a traitor. More precisely, she allows herself no visible emotions as she questions both the accusers and the accused. It’s impressive to watch the meticulous and dogged Stéphanie put together the pieces and make the liars squirm. But she’s the last person in the movie to see the big picture: No matter how good she is, she can’t be a hero.

Aleksandr Kuznetsov in the movie “Two Prosecutors.”

(Festival de Cannes)

Sergei Loznitsa’s Stalin-era drama “Two Prosecutors” lugs its own protagonist along that exact same journey; it’s affixed to cynicism like a train on a track. Here, the ill-fated idealist is a recent law student (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) who wants to interview a prisoner that the government would rather remain disappeared. The voices that once boldly spoke out against the Soviet regime have long since been silenced. Now, the Great Purge is locking up even the Russians who swear they love their leader.

Methodical and dreary, the film’s key image is of Kuznetsov (who coincidentally-but-on-purpose has a nose that appears to have been busted around) walking down endless dismal hallways. He’s polite and stoic, but we all know he’s not getting anywhere. The film plays like a sour joke with an obvious punchline. I respected it fine, but slow and inevitable don’t make great bedfellows. The jet-lagged stranger next to me nodded off for a nap.

Snores weren’t a problem at “Sirât,” a nail-biter that had its midnight crowd wide awake. The fourth Cannes film by the French-born Spanish director Oliver Laxe, it’s about dirtbag ravers who’ve gathered in a barren stretch of Morocco for a stunning party: orange cliffs, neon lights, thumping EDM beats and dancers thrashing in the dust like the living dead. The only sober attendees are a father (Sergi López) and his young son (Bruno Núñez) who are hoping to find the boy’s sister, a bohemian swept up in the relentless rhythm of this road-tripping bacchanalia. But when the party gets busted up by the police, this fractured family joins a caravan headed in the vague direction of another fest. Next stop, disaster.

An image from the movie “Sirât,” directed by Oliver Laxe.

(Festival de Cannes)

The small ensemble cast looks and feels like they’ve already lived through an apocalypse. Two of his actors are missing limbs and nearly all are flamboyantly tattooed. As these battered vans hurtle through the desert, it’s obvious that “Sirât” believes the age of “Mad Max” has already begun. But Laxe’s cadence of death is nasty and arbitrary and delightful. He’s unconvinced that we can form a community able to survive this harsh world. At best, he’ll give us a coin flip chance of success. I’ve got to watch the film again before I decide whether (a) it’s a comedy and (b) it has anything deeper to say. But a second viewing won’t be a hardship. Even if “Sirât” proves half-empty instead of half-full, witnessing another audience gasp at its mean shocks will be sweet schadenfreude.

Which finally brings us back to Harris Dickinson. His film “Urchin” is good. Great, even. The last time he was in Cannes, it was as the lead in Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness,” but he’s a real-deal director. It’s high praise to his acting that I don’t want him quitting his day job just yet.

“Urchin” lopes after a drug-addled boy-man named Mike (Frank Dillane, fantastic) who’s been sleeping and scavenging on the London streets for five years. Yes, Dickinson has gone 21st-century Dickensian; Mike pesters people for ketamine, vodka and spare change like Oliver Twist begged for porridge. But this isn’t a pity piece. “Urchin” is energetic and filled with life: funny asides, tiny joys, stabs of recognition and flourishes of visual psychedelia.

Mike is given multiple chances to change his fortunes. Yet, he’s also stubbornly himself and we spend the running time toggling between being scared for him and being scared of him. Dickinson, who also wrote the film, wants us to know not just how easy it is to slide down the social ladder but what a small step forward looks like, even if his tone is ultimately more Sisyphean than self-help.

After the movie, I ducked into the drizzle, then into a cafe. A man was monologuing to an acquaintance about his career change from tech to film and this is my favorite place to eavesdrop.

“I was rich and successful but I had to look for something more jazzy,” he explained, stabbing at the other person’s plate of charcuterie. He’s now broke, he said, and divorced. But somehow, he seemed content. He’d emailed his script to Quentin Tarantino. Maybe next Cannes, he’ll be the one getting fêted and chauffeured. Maybe the wind would start blowing his way. A great movie really can change your life.

The TV industry and buyers of commercial time were able to breathe a little easier going to their annual week of presentations known as the upfronts.

Not long before the curtain went up Monday at Radio City Music Hall for NBCUniversal’s event, President Trump announced he would hold off on tariffs on China, easing some of the economic uncertainty going into the selling season for television networks.

But the messaging from media executives throughout the week acknowledged that advertisers will be under pressure to get more from their marketing dollars. Between performances by Lizzo, Lady Gaga and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, ad buyers heard about the new artificial intelligence-powered tools for targeting specific audiences.

While traditional TV still commands the bulk of U.S. advertising spending, advertisers’ increasing comfort with streaming was apparent.

Seven years ago, YouTube executives had to reassure sponsors that the company would work harder to keep their ads from running in user-created videos that pushed conspiracy theories or hate speech.

But at the Google-owned platform‘s gathering at Lincoln Center on Wednesday, the audience saw a glowing testimonial video from Marc Pritchard, chief branding officer for Procter & Gamble, a company known for being meticulous about its marketing and media decisions.

Netflix and Amazon marched into the week buoyed by the growing number of streaming subscribers who see ads. Netflix said its service carrying commercials now reaches 90 million subscribers worldwide while Amazon’s Prime Video is now at 130 million in the U.S.

The week of parties and parade of celebrities offered a glimpse into the current state of the TV business. Here’s what stood out:

Live sports rule, especially the NFL

Walt Disney Co.’s TV lineup is packed with big-name talent. But the company kicked off its upfront with an opening number by an unlikely singing duo — former NFL quarterbacks Eli and Peyton Manning.

The audience at North Javits in Manhattan saw two more NFL stars, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, before a single actor appeared on stage. It was a sign of the NFL’s vital importance to the company and the TV business writ large.

Disney — where not too long ago Chief Executive Bob Iger mused about spinning off ESPN — wasn’t alone in touting its commitment to the league.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did a walk-on at the YouTube presentation to announce the platform’s first exclusive livestream of a league game, the Los Angeles Chargers season opener against the Chiefs in Brazil on Sept. 5.

Roger Goodell speaks onstage during Netflix’s Upfront 2025 on Wednesday in New York.

(Roy Rochlin / Getty Images for Netflix)

On the Netflix stage, Goodell was joined by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to plug a documentary series on the franchise and announce this year’s two Christmas games that will be carried on the platform.

Jason and Travis Kelce promoted their Wondery podcast at Amazon’s show. Former tight end Rob Gronkowski showed up at two upfront presentations, one for Fox where he is part of the network’s NFL coverage and later at YouTube because, well, why not?

NFL games accounted for 95 out of the top 100 most-watched TV programs last year and is now setting records on streaming. Netflix had its most watched Christmas Day in history when 65 million U.S. viewers streamed some portion of its NFL double header. (Goodell wore a Santa Claus suit for his announcement of this year’s Netflix games).

For TV industry veterans, the emphasis on live sports was surprising. “Traditionally entertainment was the driver of the upfront,” Ben Silverman, co-CEO of production company Propagate, told CNBC.

Or as ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel put it during his annual Disney upfront roast: “This is all sports. What happened? We used to be so gay.”

But as the audience continues to be atomized by the growing number of streaming options, sports are more valuable than ever for advertisers who want to reach a mass audience.

Executives at Netflix, long on the leading edge of providing niche offerings to fit every consumer’s taste, now extol the virtues of the mass audience viewing experience now that it carries NFL games.

Live sports have become a lifeline to traditional TV, as most young viewers have turned to streaming for scripted series and movies. The trend was reflected in NBCUniversal’s presentation, which emphasized the arrival of the NBA on the network that will cost $2.5 billion a year.

“Tonight” host Jimmy Fallon may have summed it up best when he said, “Good morning, I’m glad to be at the NBA upfront — I mean NBC upfront.”

Planning for life after cable

Warner Bros. Discovery stunned the crowd at the Theater at Madison Square Garden with the announcement that its streaming service Max will once again be called HBO Max. The company stripped HBO from the name in 2023, believing the HBO brand name was too exclusive for the service’s ambitions to broaden its audience.

Dropping the prestigious HBO logo from the name of the service was a dubious decision from the start. But restoring it was a recognition of an undeniable fact: the future belongs to streaming, so why relegate a familiar and respected brand name to the waning cable box?

CNN and ESPN announced that their direct-to-consumer streaming services rolling out later this year will use the network names that have been familiar to cable viewers for more than four decades. The monikers will not carry a plus sign or any other designation that suggest the product differs from what’s on TV, and that’s by design.

Younger viewers may be forgoing cable subscriptions, but they know the CNN and ESPN brand names through their digital content. For those viewers, streaming isn’t an add-on, it is the way they watch TV

Movies are open for ad business, too

Not so long ago, seeing a movie star on stage at a network upfront presentation was a big deal.

But streaming has blurred the line by offering both series and original movies, and media companies are using that to their advantage when pitching to advertisers. The trend has given the platforms a bit more sizzle in their pitches.

Charlize Theron speaks onstage during Netflix’s upfront presentation Wednesday in New York.

(Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images for Netflix)

Arnold Schwarzenegger riffed at length about his upcoming Christmas film for Amazon, “The Man With the Bag.” The moment got added mileage when the former California governor’s “True Lies” co-star Jamie Lee Curtis joined him on stage.

Charlize Theron took the stage at the Perelman Performing Arts Center to plug her upcoming Netflix feature “Apex.”

NBCUniversal teased the sequel to “Wicked,” which will eventually run on its Peacock streaming service.

Warner Bros. Discovery touted its sponsor partnerships for the theatrical blockbuster “A Minecraft Movie” and brought out James Gunn and Peter Safran, keepers of DC Studios, to say there will be opportunities for the upcoming Superman movie and other projects.

As the box office improves, will a steep discount on tickets bring more people to the multiplex this summer?

That’s what AMC Theatres is betting.

The Leawood, Kan.-based chain said this week that members of its AMC Stubs loyalty program, which has a free tier, will get 50% off adult evening-priced movie tickets all day long Wednesdays, starting July 9.

The move comes as the studios and theater owners have struggled to bring audiences back to the movies after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Box-office revenue improved in fits and starts as the pandemic waned, though the number of films released was greatly affected by the dual writers and actors strikes in 2023.

As of this past weekend, domestic ticket sales this year are down about 30% compared with the same time period in 2019, according to Comscore. Even before the pandemic, attendance numbers were declining.

But there is some hope on the horizon.

Total North American box-office grosses this year are expected to reach about 80% of 2019’s totals, with 2026 predicted to reach 86%, said Alicia Reese, senior vice president of equity research for media and entertainment at Wedbush Securities.

“The post-pandemic recovery has been pretty bumpy,” she said. “That said, the strikes really challenged the box-office volume for a while, but that’s now in the rear-view mirror.”

Theatrical attendance and flexible ticket pricing were frequent topics of conversation at the CinemaCon trade conference earlier this year in Las Vegas, where studio executives and exhibitors alike mused about how to bring audiences back to theaters.

A more diverse lineup of films would help, some said. Others, like Paramount domestic distribution president Chris Aronson, argued that an improved experience in the theaters, including fewer ads, limited trailers, extended matinee pricing or daily deals could lure customers back.

He highlighted the “Discount Tuesday” promotion available at many theaters.

“Why not ‘Discount Wednesdays’? Unless, of course, you’re already at full capacity on Wednesday, in which case, don’t do it,” he said during his on-stage presentation, to laughter from the audience of theater owners and industry executives.

That’s now exactly what’s happening at AMC, as theater operators consider ways to improve traffic on less-attended weekdays.

In explaining the decision, AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron touted the improved box-office results in the fiscal second quarter.

Just a few months ago, the industry was collectively wringing its hands over the poor performance in the first quarter, including underwhelming showings from films such as Disney’s troubled live-action “Snow White” and a general lack of blockbusters.

The bleak first quarter at the box office took a toll on AMC’s earnings, which the chain reported last week.

The company reported revenue of $862.5 million, down 9.3% from the $951.4 million it logged during the first quarter of 2024. Net loss for the first quarter was $202.1 million, compared with a loss of $163.5 million during the previous year. AMC also reported lower attendance for the first quarter with 41,903 admissions, a decrease of 10.1% from the same time period a year ago.

Aron cautioned in a statement at the time that the first-quarter domestic box office was “a distorting anomaly” and that anyone trying to draw conclusions about the movie theater business from those results was “likely to be mistaken.”

So far this spring, films like Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie” and Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” have jolted the box office back to life.

And with several new movies on the horizon, including Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” and the Tom Cruise-led “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” analysts and theaters feel optimistic about the potential box office trajectory. As of last weekend, the year’s box-office grosses are up 16% compared with the same time period last year, according to Comscore.

“Realistically, we could not afford to have made this change to our ticket pricing strategy until the box office showed true signs of sustained recovery,” Aron said in a statement. “But in April and now in May, the box office has been booming, and the remainder of 2025 appears poised to continue that upward box office trend.”

Already, Tuesdays have emerged as the biggest non-weekend moviegoing day, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. Adding another lower-priced day to the mix could help drive attendance, increase concession sales and expose audiences to trailers for new films, he said.

“When consumers feel like they’re getting something more, the loyalty developed there is very important,” Dergarabedian said. “Having one of the bigger chains commit to this is a big deal.”

The initiative will likely be a test to whether it cannibalizes higher-priced attendance on other days, Reese said.

“Overall, I think it’s a strong strategy with a lot of really good content available over the summer to get people who wouldn’t otherwise go to the movies to come back to the movie theater,” she said. “Either way, it gets attention, it gets far more people onto their loyalty programs that they can communicate with directly, it opens their eyes to AMC’s paid subscription program.”

Dynamic ticket pricing, similar to hotels and concerts, has long been discussed as a potential attendance booster but hasn’t been fully embraced for movies.

Nonetheless, AMC has experimented with different kinds of discounts. The company a couple years ago introduced modestly lower-priced tickets for less in-demand front row seats, but later backed away from the idea.

The worst thing “Saturday Night Live” could have done on an episode featuring rising character actor Walton Goggins, who was hosting for the first time, was play it safe.

Though many new fans may know him from his recent turn on Season 3 of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” Goggins has spent a career playing misfits, weirdos and southern charmers including on shows like “Justified” and “The Righteous Gemstones,” which recently wrapped its fourth and final season.

Smartly, this week’s “SNL” was calibrated to both sides of Goggins; he’s an excellent dramatic actor even when he’s doing comedy, and he’s good at playing ridiculous characters such as Uncle Baby Billy on “Gemstones.”

Following a President Trump-themed cold open that included the welcome return of Cecily Strong as newly appointed U.S Atty. Jeanine Pirro, Goggins appeared as a very horny waiter at a Mother’s Day brunch, a Second Amendment-pushing Founding Father named Matt and a man with very small feet in a Jane Wickline musical number. They were each strong sketches with great turns by Goggins.

He was also an actor in a play performing for an audience of 20 service dogs undergoing training, a pre-taped sketch about a boss (Goggins) and his wife (Sarah Sherman) who have peculiar pooping habits, and one about a horror-themed restaurant whose waitstaff (Bowen Yang and Ego Nwodim) struggle to make it feel scary.

Goggins was consistently funny and solid throughout, even if he stumbled on a few lines early in the show. His commitment to the bits was strong and it was a good appearance overall; he’ll likely be back. And maybe he’ll bring his “White Lotus” co-star Sam Rockwell with him again — he appeared briefly in the tiny feet video.

Speaking of oddball energy, musical guests Arcade Fire performed “Pink Elephant” and “Year of the Snake.” On the latter, lead singer Win Butler tried unsuccessfully to smash his guitar, then held it up for the audience to see the words “The Machine is Broken” on it. He broke a guitar on “SNL” back in 2007.

In this week’s cold open, it looked like the show would continue its tradition of Mother’s Day openings featuring cast members’ real moms. But that conceit was punctured quickly with yet another monologue by James Austin Johnson as Trump. This week’s riff touched on Pope Leo from Chicago (“Like Da Bears, but Da Prayers”) and Christianity in general. Trump praised the Popemobile as his favorite mobile next to Weiner and Bat, but revealed his disdain for holy water. “Why’s that stuff burn so bad when it hits your skin?” he asked. The cold open took off when Cecily Strong showed up as Pirro, armed with a wine holder she called a “Cozy for my Merlotzy.” Pirro was pleased to join an administration full of “Russian assets, booze hounds and people famous for the little baby animals they’ve killed.” Colin Jost appeared as embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who kept getting red wine spit on him by Pirro. Before the third time, he handed her a pint of his preferred liquor and opened his mouth to get some of the alcohol he says he doesn’t drink.

Some “SNL” hosts use the monologue to show off their singing skills. Goggins used it to address what it’s like to be a sex symbol at 53 (“It feels fantastic!”) but pointed to unflattering headlines that have accompanied all the attention, including Cosmopolitan’s, “Are We All Horny for Walton Goggins’s Receding Hairline?” Goggins shifted gears to talk about being raised by a single mom, aunts and a grandmother in Atlanta. He invited his mom, who was in the audience, up on stage to dance with him. When a slow Al Green tune turned into a more fast-paced and impressive dance number , it became a moment of pure joy.

Best sketch of the night: Be careful asking about the ‘bottomless’ mimosas

The Goggins gift for playing characters who are both sleazy and incredibly alluring was on full display in this Mother’s Day sketch about a brunch that gets very, very dirty. Sherman and Heidi Gardner are moms dining out with their sons (Mikey Day and Andrew Dismukes). Goggins, with many shirt buttons undone, is a libidinous waiter who takes his flirting with the mothers to extremes. “Just cuz your momma baked you don’t mean other men don’t wanna see the oven,” he says as he admonishes the sons when they protest his behavior. Goggins has a lot of fun in this one and delivers some very funny lines.

Also good: This trip to the zoo even has a Sam Rockwell cameo

For those who are suckers for clever and original songs, it’s been fun this season to watch new cast member Jane Wickline make her mark, mostly in “Weekend Update” appearances. This time, she takes the spotlight in a music video about a tiny baby shoe found in the Central Park Zoo. It turns out the shoe belongs not to a cute baby, but to a full-grown man with little feet (Goggins). The song takes a turn when the man insists they date. Wickline’s not having it. That’s when Rockwell appears as himself to mansplain the Cinderella conceit and to make balloon animals. Oh, and he’s got tiny feet as well. It’s a strange sketch, but the song is good and Wickline continues demonstrating that she brings something unique to the show.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Hate spiders? You will relate

This week’s “Update” featured three guests: Marcello Hernández, who brought back his Movie Guy character to discuss “Sinners” and other movies he hasn’t seen; Gardner played a woman visiting New York who only knows what’s she’s read on Facebook about the city; and Mikey Day was a guy who just walked into a spiderweb but is there to talk about tariffs. Of the three, Day’s was perhaps the most impressive since these kinds of “Update” appearance are usually wordy monologues. Instead, Day got on his feet, began freaking out as he took off his shirt and fell over multiple times. It was a committed and funny piece of physical comedy, especially for the arachnophobic.

This story contains spoilers for “Andor” Season 2, Episode 9.

Senator Mon Mothma is finally, openly, part of the rebellion.

In the ninth episode of “Andor” Season 2, the senator from Chandrila, played by Genevieve O’Reilly, publicly denounces the Empire in a speech from her pod in the Imperial Senate.

“The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil,” says Mothma as she challenges the official narrative spun to cover up the “unprovoked genocide” on Ghorman. “When truth leaves us … when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to … whatever monsters scream the loudest.”

She then declares Emperor Palpatine is a monster and becomes the Empire’s most prominent public enemy.

In established “Star Wars” lore, this is a moment that will directly lead to the formal declaration of the Rebel Alliance. It’s also one, according to O’Reilly, that Mothma has always been ready for.

“That’s the fulcrum of who the woman is,” says O’Reilly while seated in a Beverly Hills hotel bar last month. With branches of flowers hanging from the ceiling, the room’s decor is almost reminiscent of that of the Chandrilan wedding seen in earlier “Andor” episodes this season. “Underneath everything, [Mothma is] a woman who was always ready to set fire to her life. To step out of the shadows and to risk it all on behalf of others, to stand up and use her voice against oppression.”

“This is a woman who doesn’t ever pick up a blaster,” she adds. “Her only weapon is her voice, and it’s really amazing to get an opportunity to see her use it and to be impactful.”

Genevieve O’Reilly says Mon Mothma has always been ready to “to stand up and use her voice against oppression.”

(Kyle Galvin)

O’Reilly shares that when she first read the script for the episode — written by “Nightcrawler” filmmaker Dan Gilroy, who also wrote Episodes 7 and 8 — it only included bits and pieces of the speech. “Andor” is a show about ordinary people living through (and fighting against) an increasingly oppressive regime, and it’s not uncommon for sequences to jump between multiple storylines at the same time. Mothma’s speech was intended to be interwoven with other scenes, so the script just featured the key lines that would be highlighted.

But showrunner Tony Gilroy understood the actor and her process enough to know that O’Reilly would want to see more. Even before she had a chance to bring it up on her own, he asked her if she wanted the whole speech written out. He returned with the entirety of the speech within a day of her responding, “Yes, please.”

“That was everything for me because there is such a musicality to that speech,” O’Reilly says. “It starts off and talks about her history. It talks about this holy place that she has grown up in. What she believes the Senate to be. And then it ends with her calling him [out].”

And when the episode’s director, Janus Metz, one of the few who had also been given the full text of the speech, asked if she would want to film the whole thing, her response was “of course.”

“I went back and I worked on it,” O’Reilly says. “You carve it, and you create specific moments. As an actor, you’re part of the musicality of the piece. And then they used it, so that felt really special.”

For O’Reilly, the structure of “Andor’s” second season helped build toward Mothma’s moment with the speech. During the season’s first three-episode arc, audiences see Mothma, wife and mother, navigating deeply personal moments and the strains in her relationships at her daughter Leida’s (Bronte Carmichael) traditional, extravagant, marathon wedding in her homeland.

“The most unexpected, dramatic, sometimes messy things happen at weddings,” she says, pointing to the conversation Mothma has with Leida just before the wedding ceremony about her mother at her own wedding. “It felt deeply personal … Mon Mothma, in that very moment, she’s just opened herself completely and Leida just kind of sticks the knife in. So she has to button herself back up, figuratively put the mask back on, and go back outside … There’s no tricks. It’s really about relationship. It was really special.”

Leida (Bronte Carmichael), left, and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) share a moment at the former’s wedding.

(Lucasfilm Ltd.)

The next arc, which spans from Episodes 4 to 6, shows Senator Mothma in action as she tries to build a coalition to fight problematic policy as well as maintain her mask while unexpectedly having to interact with Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), a man who represents everything she is fighting against.

“I could certainly feel it in every fiber of my body that she really wants to take him down,” says O’Reilly of Mothma’s mindset during their exchange. “It’s all she wants, but she can’t. She must stand there and spar a tiny bit, but in the end, she has to swallow what he’s serving because of the power he wields. And if she is exposed there, it’s all for nothing.”

She explains that “there is great danger” for Mothma as she manages the many masks she has to live behind while in the public eye.

“She’s stuck, but I think what the speech reveals in Episode 9 was that all of that was worth it,” O’Reilly says. “You could see what she had been holding all that time. You can feel it fly from her body.”

Mothma is a character O’Reilly has been playing on and off in various “Star Wars” installments for 20 years. Originally cast to play the younger version of the Rebellion leader portrayed by Caroline Blakiston in the 1983 film “Return of the Jedi,” O’Reilly first stepped into the galaxy far, far away for 2005’s prequel film “Revenge of the Sith” — though most of her scenes landed on the cutting room floor. She was then brought back to reprise the character in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” the 2016 spinoff film that takes place directly after the events of “Andor.” She’s since portrayed the character in “Ahsoka” as well as the animated “Star Wars Rebels” (the latter of which is set during the same years as “Andor”).

“I could never have expected that 20 years later I would be here playing the most fleshed out, dexterous, rich, enriched version of this woman,” says O’Reilly.

In addition to Gilroy and his writing team, O’Reilly credits “Andor’s” hair and makeup designer Emma Scott and costume designer Michael Wilkinson for helping bring Mothma to life, especially this season. With Mothma being someone that is very deliberate in her wardrobe, O’Reilly says Wilkinson has “revealed character within the armor she chooses to wear each day.”

Perrin Fertha (Alastair Mackenzie), Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) in “Andor.”

(Lucasfilm Ltd.)

While Blakiston’s Mothma did not have much screen time, O’Reilly says what audiences do see is “a woman who has a weight, a gravitas, but also who has a deep empathy” and, just as significantly, was a female leader of a rebellion in a movie filmed in the 1980s. And she has always understood Mothma to be deeply socially conscious — whether that was what drove her to join the Galactic Senate or if it was her work representing people for so many years that awakened her social consciousness.

“I don’t know which way that happened, but I definitely feel that in her bones,” O’Reilly says. “I think the window into her history, into that orthodox culture that she has grown up in, probably helps you see what motivated that drive.”

And in the two seasons of “Andor,” O’Reilly — as well as the audience — has finally been able to see a fuller picture of Mothma and her backstory, as well as some of the pain the character endured to become the Rebel Alliance leader “Star Wars” fans know.

“To have had the opportunity to come back and to really play, discover, and put flesh and blood and sinew and heartbeat into this woman, to really fill her out,” O’Reilly says. “She feels so beautifully human and complicated, and it’s really a version of her that I could have only hoped for.”

Throughout the evening on Sunday, I was placed in a foreign jail, joined a folk-rock band for a sing-along uprising that involved a killer bear and ran up multiple times against selfish, greedy taskmasters, once in a comedic production in a jazz club and another time in the back room of a seedy dance space.

A scene from “That’s Jazz Baby!” from immersive team Spies Among Us. “Our big goal going in was making a simple, understandable, funny piece and hoping everything else fell into place after that,” says Spies Among Us founder Prescott Gadd.

(Chiara Alexa / For The Times)

And it all felt like freedom, 10 minutes at a time.

The Immersive Invitational, now in its fourth year, was presented in collaboration with the LGBT Center and the After Hours Theatre Company, with the support of local group the Immersive Experience Institute. The conceit: Participating companies are given 48 hours to craft a new, 10-minute production and then perform it multiple times on the event’s concluding day. Audiences become part of the show — “immersive theater” denotes the involvement of the ticket buyer, usually by interacting with or following the cast. There’s silliness — one production involved a cryogenically frozen Swedish rapper — and the overall tone is one of joviality, the belief that art in the early 21st century should be increasingly interactive and playable.

In Dr3am Logikk’s “Bird Is the Word,” participants were thrown in a jail, playing the part of a rock band that made a racket in a nameless foreign land ruled by authoritarianism.

(Chiara Alexa / For The Times)

Immersive is a broad term. It encompasses everything from large-scale theme park lands — Universal Studios’ Epic Universe in Florida, which opens May 22, is seen as perhaps the largest immersive happening of the year — to play-focused wonderlands such as the Sloomoo slime museum. Immersive theater tends to lean more niche, but as more generations increasingly grow up surrounded by games and social media apps that rely on gamification techniques, experimenting with ways to merge art and play is seen as vital.

“[Participants] have agency,” says Aaron Vanek, co-founder of Spectacular Disaster Factory, one of the troupes in the show. “I think it’s an empowering situation when participants are able to not just immersive themselves in a world but actually affect that world and, in today’s current situation, just having a little bit of power to make a significant change to a person, a character or a story is extremely enriching.”

At this year’s invitational, music was given as a broad topic, but themes often worked their way back toward artistic expression — the emptiness when its taken from us, the messiness when emotions get involved and the power when collaborating with others. The majority of the productions nodded abstractly to world outside the halls of the Los Angeles LGBT Center in Hollywood, seemingly in broad agreement that life for many in 2025 is full of unseen stressors, and yet many also found an uplifting spirit by allowing audience members to join in on the act of creation.

The now annual L.A. Immersive Invitational featured eight, 10-minute theatrical performances, all centered on a theme of music.

(Chiara Alexa / For The Times)

With the limited time frame, participating theater crews have to quickly establish a place and a sense of purpose, lending the audience, which must immediately contort to their role as actors, a call to action. We are, for instance, to free ourselves from a prison in an unnamed country or find out who killed classical music. The were different levels of interactivity, as one show gave us interview prompts, another had us act as puppeteers of a sort, and elsewhere we were instructed to do some rudimentary bad street dancing. And immersive theater, when it works, breaks down barriers, allowing the act of play to get to know our fellow audience members and explore narratives and emotions with trained actors.

“A season doesn’t exist in immersive theater,” says Graham Wetterhahn, the founding artistic director of After Hours, noting that many productions have short runs. They can often sell out quickly. The L.A. Immersive Invitational is a way, hopefully, to expose audiences to various troupes to expand their reach.

I had to literally be kicked out of “Stringed Instruments,” from Spectacular Disaster Factory, as the show appeared to continue long after its final beat. Tonally, it differed from much at the Immersive Invitational, striking a demented, borderline-horror feel as audiences explored the dressing room of an electronic music dance club. There, two bottle girls sat before makeup mirrors. Our only instruction was to look for strings with brightly colored paper dots attached, and these were found after a minute or two on the arms of the actors.

“Stringed Instruments” from Spectacular Disaster Factory took on an eerie tone, in which audiences controlled actors as if they were puppets.

(Chiara Alexa / For The Times)

The scantily clad performers spoke in monotone — “lipstick,” “hairbrush,” “pencil” — as the audience took turns puppeteering their arms around their desks. Occasionally, a superior would come in and remind them and us of the minutes till opening. It was affecting. We were at once attempting to help the actors in their request but unable to free them from the grips from the occupation that was leaving them dead-eyed. It leant the audience a discerning sense of agency, as we could control the show but only to a point.

A diary of one of the actors — splayed open on the desk — read that she was grieving the loss of her future. “Stringed Instruments” was a work that left the audience without a closing moment of wish fulfillment. There was no uprising, no quitting, and that empty future seemed the way forward. And yet there was a sense of comfort in its monotony, the simple act of hunting for items on a desk and directing an actor creating a sense of calmness that sought to raise questions surrounding the ways in which we unjustly acquiesce.

“We’re coming at immersive theater from an opposite edge,” says Spectacular Disaster Factory’s co-founder Kirsten Hageleit. “A lot of people are coming from traditional theater. There’s people from escape rooms. We’re coming from live-action role-playing and a type of role-play where it’s not scripted.”

Audience members at the L.A. Immersive Invitational play a piano in “That’s Jazz Baby!” from Spies Among Us.

(Chiara Alexa / For The Times)

“That’s Jazz Baby!” from Spies Among Us, the team behind a long-running Little Tokyo tale of espionage, found similar lifelessness in corporate drudgery, this time in a jazz nightclub. Only here, the goal was more lighthearted and the audience did succeed in freeing the performers from the clutches of a exaggeratedly maniacal owner. Audiences had to liberate a cadre of musicians from hypnosis and do so by concocting scenarios in which the club’s proprietor was continually forced to leave the room. We donned wigs and played instruments as we fought for equity in a show that argued the appeal of music wasn’t perfectionism or talent but community.

Classical music, the genre, was murdered in “Settling the Score” from Meanwhile … Netprov Studio.

(Chiara Alexa / For The Times)

Spy Brunch found inspiration in the era of ’60s protest music in its “Ursa Major and the Blue Mountain Hexes,” turning audience members into makeshift musicians in its mischievous show about outwitting a government agent. The story took a metaphorically magical bent, focusing on music’s power to unite — and potentially summon a bear. “Bird Is the Word” from Dr3am Logikk had similar messages but did so via a setting in which rock ’n’ roll was outlawed and its Clash-inspired musicians were jailed for making a racket in a foreign land. To fight authoritarianism, we had to craft an inspirational song using no instruments and no animal noises. Both were shows that inspired connections and vulnerability, part of the elation of communal art.

Emotional volatility was touched on in “Frog and Toad: Live in Concert!” from Last Call Theatre, one of the more prolific companies on the immersive scene. It played to the group’s choose-your-own-adventure strengths, pairing audience members with an actor in attempt to stop a band from breaking up. The age-old tension between artistic originality and commerce was explored, and our team failed at finding a compromise. The Queen’s Fools went a slightly more traditional theater route with “Devil on My Shoulder,” in which we were fed prompts to actors in a show that argued even more passive productions can find ways to get audiences to lean in.

There’s occasionally an absurdity in interactive fiction. Cherry Poppins‘ “Ismusik” and Meanwhile … Netprov Studio‘s “Settling the Score” each put the emphasis on comedic improvisation, the former presenting to us mini challenges as we saved Swedish hip-hop and the latter tasking us with interviewing personified musical genres in an attempt to solve a murder, in this case classical music. Yet underlying each were subtle statements about fame-chasing in our commodified age.

Big messages can go down easy — or even slightly disguised — in immersive entertainment. That’s because we’re playing, and when we play we’re in the moment. We’re also slightly out of own headspace and ready to buy into worlds of wonder or even strife. And at the Immersive Invitational, where productions ranged from goofy to heavy, there was an underlying common denominator, and that is that immersive play can inspire radical joy.

San Francisco — San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie had declared it Michael Tilson Thomas Day. City Hall glowed MTT’s trademark blue. Davies Symphony Hall, where Tilson Thomas presided over the San Francisco Symphony for an influential quarter century, was festooned with giant blue balloons.

For Tilson Thomas, it all was the culmination of what he declared in February: “We all get to say the old show business expression, ‘It’s a wrap.’”

Despite starting treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer in summer 2021, Tilson Thomas astonishingly continued to conduct throughout the U.S. and even in Europe for the next three and a half years. But in February he learned that the tumor had returned, and the conductor declared last Saturday night’s San Francisco Symphony gala, billed as an 80th tribute to this native Angeleno, would be his last public appearance.

He was led to the podium by his husband, Joshua Robison, who remained seated on stage, keeping a watchful eye. Tilson Thomas started with Benjamin Britten’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Purcell, better known as “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” After various tributes and performances in his honor, MTT, ever the great showman, went out with a bang, leading a triumphant and mystical and stunningly glorious performance of Respighi’s splashy “Roman Festivals.”

A song from Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Town” — including the line “Where has the time all gone to?” — followed as an encore, sung by guest singers and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, just before balloons joyfully fell from above.

For six decades, beginning with his undergraduate years at USC — where he attracted the attention of Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky and the odd rock ‘n’ roll musician about town — Tilson Thomas has been a joy-making key figure in American music.

To pin MTT down is an unreasonable task. He saw a bigger picture than any great American conductor before him — his mentor and champion, Bernstein, included. With a pioneering sense of eclecticism, he connected the dots between John Cage and James Brown, between Mahler and MTT’s famous grandfather, Boris Thomashefsky, a star of the New York Yiddish theater.

Tilson Thomas has nurtured generations of young musicians and given voice to outsiders greatly responsible for American music becoming what it is. He treated mavericks as icons — Meredith Monk and Lou Harrison among them.

The San Francisco concert could touch on little of this, but it did reveal something of what makes MTT tick. In “Young Person’s Guide,” for instance, Tilson Thomas demonstrated an undying love of every aspect of the orchestra as well as his lifelong devotion to education. As a 25-year-old Boston Symphony assistant conductor, he was speaking to audiences, sharing enthusiasm that not all uptight Bostonians were quite ready for.

Not long after, he succeeded Bernstein in the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts. He made television and radio documentaries. In 1987, he founded the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, training orchestra musicians. Alumni are now busy reinventing American orchestral life. In L.A., former New World violinist Shalini Vijayan curates the imaginative Koreatown new music series Tuesdays @ Monk Space.

With the young conductor Teddy Abrams at his side turning pages, Tilson Thomas treated “Young Person’s Guide” more as a seasoned player’s guide to the orchestra. A hallmark of Tilson Thomas’ tenure in San Francisco had been to encourage a degree of free expression typically stifled in ensemble playing. Britten’s score is a riot of solos, and this time around they all seemed to be saying, in so many notes: “This is for you Michael.”

Michael Tilson Thomas conduct’s Britten’s ‘Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell’ to open his gala concert with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall.

(Stefan Cohen / San Francisco Symphony)

This is for you, Michael, as was all else that followed. While Tilson Thomas sat in a chair at the front of the stage looking at the orchestra, Abrams — music director of the Louisville Orchestra and a Berkeley native who began studying at age 9 with Tilson Thomas — led the rousing overture to Joseph Rumshinsky’s Yiddish theater comedy, “Khantshe in Amerike.” Bessie Thomashefsky, Tilson Thomas’ grandmother, was the original Khantshe in 1915.

Throughout his career Tilson Thomas has been an active composer, but only in recent years had he finally began more actively releasing his pensive and wistful songs that served as informal entrees in a private journal. Mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke led off with “Immer Wieder” to a poem by Rilke. Frederica von Stade, still vibrant-sounding at 79, joined her for “Not Everyone Thinks I’m Beautiful.”

The two songs tenor Ben Jones turned to, “Drift Off to Sleep” and “Answered Prayers,” were moving odes to melancholy. The Broadway singer Jessica Vosk — whose career in show business was launched when Tilson Thomas picked her out of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus to be a soloist in “West Side Story” — lifted spirits with “Take Back Your Mink” from “Guys and Dolls,” but then reminded us why we were all there with Tilson Thomas’ “Sentimental Again.”

Cooke sang “Grace,” which Tilson Thomas wrote for Bernstein’s 70th birthday but which here took on a brave new meaning in its final stanza: “Make us grateful whatever comes next / In this life on earth we’re sharing / For the truth is / Life is good.”

Edwin Outwater, who got his start as an assistant conductor to Tilson Thomas in San Francisco, led the inspirational finale of Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” before Tilson Thomas returned to raise the roof with “Roman Festivals.”

Respighi’s evocations of gladiators at the Circus Maximus, of early Christian pilgrims and other scenes of ancient Roman life, seem a surprisingly odd epilogue to an all-American conductor’s storied career. But Tilson Thomas has always been an arresting programmer, even in his 20s when he served as music director of the Ojai festival. “Roman Festivals” has long been a Tilson Thomas favorite. He recorded it with the L.A. Phil in 1978, relishing the details of ancient Rome in all its intricate and realistic complexity.

This last time, Tilson Thomas offered an epic, yet longing, look back. Trumpets blared with startlingly loud majesty. Pilgrims were lost in stunning meditative refinement. In the last of the four festivals, “The Epiphany,” grace and grandeur merged as one, with final, firm orchestral punctuation massively powerful. It was as if Tilson Thomas was saying to the audience, “This one is for you. And I’m still here saying it.”

Tilson Thomas has made a practice of musing about what happens when the music stops. What is left? How long does the music stay with us, somewhere inside? Can it change us? Does it matter?

From the instant Tilson Thomas became music director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995, he treated the orchestra as an essential component of San Francisco life. His successor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, has taken that to heart with the kind of innovatory spirit that he had brought to the L.A. Phil. The orchestra’s management has not, however, provided needed support, and Salonen is leaving in June. Musicians stood outside Davies handing out fliers to the audience demanding that the orchestra pursue Tilson Thomas’ mission.

The San Francisco Symphony has reached a turning point. Respighi wrote of “The Epiphany” that he wanted frantic clamor and intoxicating noise, expressing the popular feeling “We are Romans, let us pass!” Tilson Thomas beat out those three emphatic staccato orchestral chords — Let! Us! Pass! — as though meant to ring and ring and ring, as lasting as centuries-old Roman monuments.

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” That’s one of Walt Disney’s most popular quotes, often used in the context of the theme park marvels imagined by the company he created.

Over the decades Walt Disney Imagineering, the secretive arm of the Walt Disney Co. devoted to theme park experiences, has dreamed up a room full of singing birds and flowers, brought to life a mini New Orleans, captured the idealism of space flight and re-envisioned modern transportation, to name just a few of its many varied accomplishments.

For its latest trick, Imagineering will attempt to resurrect a life of sorts, that is to fully animate a highly accurate robotic creation of one of the most recognizable figures of the 20th century, Walt Disney himself. First unveiled last summer at the company’s fan convention D23, the goal, said Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro at the event, is to capture “what it would have been like to be in Walt’s presence.”

That means finding a middle ground between romanticism and realism.

Imagineers Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz, left, and Tom Fitzgerald,\ are principals on “Walt Disney — A Magical Life,” which will debut in the Main Street Opera House at Disneyland on July 17. The show will feature a lifelike robotic figure of Walt Disney.

(Mike Pucher / Disneyland Resort)

On Wednesday morning, Imagineering previewed for a select group of media the upcoming show “Walt Disney — A Magical Life,” set to premiere July 17 to coincide with Disneyland’s official 70th anniversary, when it will temporarily displace an attraction centered on a robotic Abraham Lincoln. An early sculpt of what would become the animatronic was revealed, one complete with age spots on Disney’s hands and weariness around his eyes — Imagineers stressed their intent is faithful accuracy — but much of the attraction remains secretive. The animatronic wasn’t shown, nor did Imagineering provide any images of the figure, which it promises will be one of its most technically advanced.

Instead, Imagineering sought to show the care in which it was bringing Disney back to life while also attempting to assuage any fears regarding what has become a much-debated project among the Disney community. When D’Amaro unveiled “A Magical Life” last summer, he did so noting he had the support of the Disney family, singling out Disney’s grandnephew, Roy P. Disney, who was in the audience.

Yet soon a social media missive critical of the attraction from Walt’s granddaughter would go viral. It raised anew ethical questions that often surround any project attempting to capture the dead via technology, be it holographic representations of performers or digitally re-created cinematic animations, namely debates surrounding the wishes of the deceased and whether such creations are exploitative. “Dehumanizing,” wrote Joanna Miller in her Facebook post on the figure.

The animatronic somewhat represents a shift in thinking for the Walt Disney Co., as the majority of its robotic figures are representations of fictional characters or overly-saturated political figures such as those in Florida’s Hall of Presidents, in which new politicians are added while they are living. Arguably, the Walt Disney Co. first tested the public’s willingness to embrace a resurrected Disney via a holographic-like projection for its touring “Disney 100: The Exhibition,” which initially raised some eyebrows.

Longtime Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald, known for his work on beloved Disney projects such as Star Tours and the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster in Florida, said Wednesday that “A Magical Life” has been in the works for about seven years. Asked directly about ethical concerns in representing the deceased via a robotic figurine, Fitzgerald noted the importance of the Walt Disney story, not only to the company but to culture at large.

Disney Imagineers at work on the wardrobe of Walt Disney for the new animatronic show, “Walt Disney — A Magical Life.” Seen here is a close-up of the stitching of a logo for Palm Springs’ Smoke Tree Ranch, a favorite retreat of Disney’s. The locale will be represented on Disney’s tie.

(Mike Pucher / Disneyland Resort)

”His life story had been told in these other formats already,” Fitzgerald says, referencing the film “Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream,” which currently airs at Florida’s Hollywood Studios. “What could we do at Disneyland for our audience that would be part of our tool kit vernacular but that would bring Walt to life in a way that you could only experience at the park? We felt the technology had gotten there. We felt there was a need to tell that story in a fresh way.”

Disneyland, in contrast to the company’s other parks around the globe, places a premium on historical attractions, in part because it’s the only park Disney walked in. The park’s patriarch even had a small apartment on Main Street, U.S.A., in which he would occasionally spend the night. After its initial run during the 70th celebration, “A Magical Life” will play in tandem with “Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln” thanks to a newly constructed revolving stage. A new pre-show gallery will feature a mini-re-creation of Disney‘s apartment and also unveil some never-before-seen artifacts, such as early master plans of Disneyland.

The figure, essentially, was created in part to anticipate criticism. Fitzgerald notes modern audiences, with the ability to zoom in on a character via smartphone, are far more discerning. The animatronic will aim to represent Disney in 1963. Disney died in 1966 at 65.

“He needs to be able to speak with his hands. Hands, very important,” Fitzgerald says. “When you watch Walt Disney talking, he’s very expressive with his hands when he talks. He also has expressive eyebrows, which many of you had heard about. When he speaks, he speaks with his eyebrows. … One of the things I discovered in watching the footage, he doesn’t blink when he speaks.” Thus, when animating the figure’s eye movements, Fitzgerald says, there was much discussion over his “blink profile,” ensuring it matched up with filmed footage.

Though the exact arc of the show, which will run about 17 minutes, wasn’t revealed, Fitzgerald and fellow Imagineer Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz, who was instrumental in the recent reimagining of Disneyland’s Toontown, noted that all dialogue will be taken directly from Disney’s speeches. The setting will be in Disney’s office, and for much of the show Disney will be leaning on his desk, although the figure was teased as being able to stand up.

Fitzgerald and Shaver-Moskowitz note that they researched Disney’s shoe size, looked at molds of his hands and even attempted — and failed — to find out which hair products Disney used. He will be wearing a tie emblazoned with the logo for Palm Springs’ Smoke Tree Ranch, a favorite retreat of Disney’s.

“We didn’t order an animatronic to look like Walt,” Shaver-Moskowitz says. “We built a Walt animatronic to deliver a performance that was specifically Walt.”

Veteran Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald reviews storyboards associated with “Walt Disney — A Magical Life,” which launches July 17 at Disneyland. The show will include a robotic figure of Walt Disney as well as a short film.

(Mike Pucher / Disneyland Resort)

Yet can any animatronic capture the essence of a human, even a theatrical interpretation of one?

“You could never get the casualness of his talking,” Disney’s granddaughter Miller wrote in her post. While those who know the Disney family have confirmed the veracity of the post, attempts to reach Miller have been unsuccessful. Members of the Walt Disney family are said to be divided, with many supporting the animatronic and some others against it, say those in the know who have declined to speak on the record for fear of ruining their relationships.

“He was so fascinated with technology, and also the intersection between technology and art,” says Kirsten Komoroske, executive director of the Walt Disney Family Museum, of Disney. Multiple descendants of Disney’s sit on various boards that the Family Museum is associated with, and Komoroske says those working with the institution have pledged their support of the animatronic. “They really feel that he would have liked this project.”

Others who knew Disney, such as legendary Imagineer Bob Gurr, the designer of the Disneyland Monorail, the Matterhorn Bobsleds and more, as well as a pivotal collaborator on the Lincoln figure, have confirmed that they have seen the animatronic but have chosen not to discuss it. “I am embargoed,” Gurr told The Times, adding only that the public would have “quite a reaction.”

Imagineers were asked about Miller’s comments. Dusty Sage, executive editor of Disney fan site Micechat, told the audience he has spoken with Miller and her primary concern was that Disney never wanted to be turned into a robotic figure.

“In all our research, we never found any documentation of Walt saying that,” Shaver-Moskowitz says. “We know that it’s anecdotal and we can’t speak to what was told to people in private and we can’t speak to Joanna’s specific feelings about the project. But we have worked very diligently for many years with the Walt Disney Family Museum and members of the Disney and Miller family. … We’ve taken care to make sure that the family is along the journey with us and we feel that we’ve presented a faithful and theatrical presentation that keeps Walt alive in the medium that he pioneered.”

The Walt Disney Co. has made a significant effort over the years to mythologize Disney. Statues of Disney can be found at both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, and trinkets bearing his image, including an ornament of the latter, can occasionally be spotted for sale in the park’s gift shops. The reality of who Disney was has arguably become obscured.

“Walt Disney — A Magical Life” will walk a fine line when it opens, attempting to inspire a new generation to look into Disney’s life while also portraying him as more than just a character in the park’s arsenal.

“Why are we doing this now?” Fitzgerald says. “For two reasons. One is Disneyland’s 70th anniversary is an ideal time we thought to create a permanent tribute to Walt Disney in the Opera House. The other: I grew up watching Walt Disney on television. I guess I’m the old man. He came into our living room every week and chatted and it was very casual and you felt like you knew the man. But a lot of people today don’t know Walt Disney was an individual. They think Walt Disney is a company.”

And now nearly 60 years after his death, Disney will once again grace Main Street, whether or not audiences — or even some members of his family — are ready to greet him.