More from Esther Zuckerman
‘Abbott Elementary’ Star Lisa Ann Walter on Doing Right by Philly: “I Would’ve Been a Dialectician If I Wasn’t an Actor”
Lisa Ann Walter has brought a lot of herself to her portrayal of tough-as-nails Melissa Schemmenti on Abbott Elementary, particularly her Sicilian upbringing and the experiences of her teacher mother. This latest season also saw her character get closer to fellow instructor Jacob Hill, played by Chris Perfetti, whom Walter has invited over for holidays. […]
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How to Roast a Comedian and Other Trade Secrets From Hollywood’s Top Production Designers
Girls5eva Teresa Mastropierro says that since Girls5eva began, she had a box of CDs under her desk “just waiting for their day in the sun.” So when she heard that the eponymous girl group would be performing at a mansion for a nostalgia-themed birthday party in season three’s “Orlando,” Mastropierro knew she had to put those […]
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Down Under Dogs: The Aussie Couple Behind Disabled-Pet Comedy ‘Colin From Accounts’
During the process of writing Colin From Accounts, the spiky Australian comedy with a sweet center that launched this year on Paramount+, creator and star Harriet Dyer decided she didn’t want to make a “doggy show,” she recalls. “She didn’t want it to be cutesy,” her co-creator, co-star and husband, Patrick Brammall, added. She was […]
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‘Problemista’ Filmmaker-Star Julio Torres Resisted Making Such a Personal Project for Years
It’s immediately evident that Problemista, the new feature from A24, certainly comes from the mind of Julio Torres, the writer and comedian who brought his surreal ideas to Saturday Night Live and the HBO series about horror lovers, Los Espookys. But unlike most of his other work, Problemista gets personal. Problemista — which Torres wrote, […]
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‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Producer Daniel Lupi on Working With Osage Consultants on the Film: “You Always Felt Like You Were Making Their Story”
Producer Daniel Lupi had worked for years with the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Spielberg, but until Killers of the Flower Moon, he had never collaborated with Martin Scorsese. So when he got the call to come on board, it was a no-brainer. “How could you say no to Martin Scorsese?” he says. “He’s […]
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‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Editor on Complicated Process of Weaving in the Trial With Flashbacks: “It’s Like the Point of View of God”
From the moment editor Laurent Sénéchal read the script for Anatomy of a Fall, he knew he had a challenge ahead of him when it came to the crucial flashback showing a drag-out fight between Sandra (Sandra Hüller), an author on trial, and her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), who fell to his death off the […]
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‘Robot Dreams’ Director Pablo Berger on Why He Fell in Love With the Simplicity of the Characters and Their Friendship
“The only reason we are talking right now,” director Pablo Berger says over Zoom, “is because I fell in love with Robot and Dog and the story.” The Spanish director is speaking from L.A., where he recently attended the Oscar nominees luncheon for his feted feature animated film Robot Dreams, but, as he explains, the […]
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‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’: Wes Anderson and Collaborators on the Cinematic Language of Roald Dahl
Director Wes Anderson “wasn’t quite sure for some time” how to go about adapting Roald Dahl’s short story “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” he explains in a long voicemail message. But then he came upon a realization: If he wasn’t directly adhering to the original text, he didn’t really want to turn the piece […]
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‘A Thousand and One’ Director on Hollywood’s Diversity Gains: “Progress Is Happening, and This Is a Sign of It”
From the first moments of A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature, A Thousand and One, the audience is in the company of Teyana Taylor’s vivid portrayal of Inez, a woman in 1994 Harlem. She’s just out of Rikers and on a mission to rescue her son, Terry, out of the foster care system. As Terry grows older, […]
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‘The Holdovers’ Breakout Dominic Sessa Graduated From Boarding School to … Boarding School
When Dominic Sessa found out he had been cast in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, he was a high school senior at the prestigious boarding school Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and was in the middle of writing a paper about “Hamlet or something” for a teacher who rarely gave good grades and was “super hard to […]
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“Respect the Wrestling Ring”: Four Acting Consultants Share Their Expertise
Ferrari Robert Nagle • Stunt coordinator Robert Nagle, a veteran stunt coordinator and driver who has worked on the likes of Ford v Ferrari and Baby Driver, wanted Ferrari actors Gabriel Leone and Jack O’Connell, who were playing historical racers, to be as chill behind the wheel as possible. He admits he often developed their […]
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‘The Killer’ Costume Designer on Dressing Michael Fassbender’s Assassin Like a German Tourist
At the opening of David Fincher’s The Killer, Michael Fassbender’s unnamed assassin describes his look as based on a German tourist he saw in London. It’s a convenient disguise for blending in on the streets of Paris because, as he explains, no one wants to interact with a German tourist. But what does that look […]
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