Category: 5. Entertainment

EXCLUSIVE: After creating the John Wick and Nobody action franchises, screenwriter Derek Kolstad is at it again. Premiering last night in the Midnight Madness section at TIFF as an acquisition title – I’ll eat my hat if it doesn’t get a distribution deal as Kolstad already ponders a sequel – comes Normal. The star is Nobody protagonist and Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk, this time as a temp sheriff in a Fargo-like snowy town that turns out to be where the Yakuza keeps its stash of ill-gotten cash and gold. The Ben Wheatley-directed tongue in cheek actioner also stars Henry Winkler and Lena Headey, and a lot of shit gets blown up. I’m not sure the real Odenkirk could beat me up, but he’s once again ideal as the reluctant action hero ruining the white snowy streets with splashes of red. Kolstad here reveals the care and feeding that goes into creating these unlikely action hero franchises, starting with John Wick, who carries the name of his grandfather.

DEADLINE: You’ve done things different in creating two action franchises and you’re at TIFF with what might be the third. Start with your decision to kill John Wick’s puppy in the first film. I remember watching I Am Legend with my kids, and how upset they got when Will Smith’s dog got killed. I reminded them that every human being on earth also bought the farm, but they were unmoved. You made it even worse by killing a puppy given him by his dead wife. Explain.  

KOLSTAD: The dog? It’s funny because when I was a kid, the movie that really screwed me up was Old Yeller. Disney put out those white-bordered VHS tapes and it’s a really sweet movie until Old Yeller gets put down. And then of course reading Where the Red Fern Grows in fifth grade in school. I beat everyone to the end and just sat there crying. There was something special about that ultimate innocence of a puppy. I spent so much time on the world building of John Wick and what’s taking place in the background, and the texture. I thought that I knew I was doing something a little bit off kilter. My wife Sonia is the first line of defense, she reads the first draft of everything. I hear her in the other room, hitting page 11, 12, or whatever it was, and she just started going, Nope! Nope! I got the script back with a big X. It’s the one thing we disagreed on and it turned out the way it did. But also even you look at Nobody, you could say it was all about a kitty cat bracelet, but it’s not. It’s like you could say it’s about a puppy, but it’s not. But then again, sometimes the puppy and the bracelet, it becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

DEADLINE: So now you’ve evoked the image of a camel with a broken back. Were you pressured to change the dead puppy?  

KOLSTAD: The first cut of the movie, certain powerful people with notes come back and say, first thing we got to do is get rid of the dog. And you’re just like, wait, wait, wait, wait. To their credit, man, since day one, Chad [Stahelski] and Dave [Leitch] fought for that because they understood it. Keanu Reeves fought for it, he understood it, but ultimately it was a flash of negativity in the pan, and once they decided to go with it, everyone was behind it.

I think it helped because this is the way I put it. I have 8-year-old twins. They’re too young to see the movie. And about a year ago, I showed them one of the trailers, the general audience one, which is already too violent for them. ‘Did they kill the dog, daddy?’ I said, yes. And then, ‘well, what is he doing about it?’ And I said, ‘killing them all.’ And the response, in a very small voice was, ‘good.’ From the lips of a child.

DEADLINE: John Wick was the name of your grandfather. How many hundreds of people did your grandfather kill?

KOLSTAD: He’s nothing like that character. In fact, he never saw the movies. The last R-rated movie he ever saw, he took my grandma to see The Piano in the early nineties and was just like, yeah, I’m done with R-rated movies. There’s a lot of nudity there. I argued, there’s no nudity in John Wick. And he’s like, nah. But he was always so happy because I’d wanted to be a screenwriter since the age of eight or nine, I loved books, loved movies and was like, I’ll be that guy. And so for this to actually work out, man, we had a special connection there.

DEADLINE: When I watched Normal, I felt like I did with John Wick an Nobody. I am not a violent person, but I could watch it on a loop. I’ve talked about this with Chad, that I cannot even describe why I feel that way. It’s almost meditative, despite the carnage and body counts. Why are your creations so damn watchable?

KOLSTAD: It’s funny because half of the answer is there’s a catharsis at play, right? I would also argue that in talking with Bob and talking to Keanu and a lot of the other guys I’ve been working with, they recognize that a good fight sequence is a dance number.

You look at these two guys and these two franchises, and they already come in with a great deal of goodwill. They’re good people, both in the public eye and on set. John Wick is not an anti-hero, he’s a hero in who he was and who he is and who’s going to be. I think part of the reason is you sit down, you relax, and you enjoy. They’re not too long, they’re not too short. They feel the right amount of length, and you’re just like, that made me feel good. It’s one of the reasons I go back and I watch Long Kiss Goodnight or Die Hard or Hunt for Red October or Predator over the years. I love Cabin in the Woods. We all have our 20 movies that when we travel and turn on the TV and there’s that one movie on at two in the morning, you’re like, well, shit, I have to watch the rest of it. That’s kind the goal for me.

DEADLINE: I’ve got my go-to films, and always had that relationship with the Equalizer trilogy and with the movie Payback, the one that Mel Gibson was in. All he wanted was the $70,000 he’d been screwed out of?

KOLSTAD: Dude, my favorite line in both that and Point Blank, I think they had the same line. It was, I’ll pay you the $79,000 or whatever the number, and Mel goes, I don’t want your money. I want my money. And he realized, oh, this guy’s kind of insane. And it’s just a joy.

DEADLINE: What were your touchstones in creating John Wick, Nobody and Normal?  

KOLSTAD: I’m a big fan of Spencer Tracy, and so I went into this idea for Normal because I love Bad Day at Black Rock. I wrote out this treatment when I couldn’t sleep one night and Mark Provissiero, Bob’s manager and the producer on this, he had asked me what I was working on. I pitched him this thing and he’s like, that sounds awesome. Then we both got super busy and finally Bob calls me and said, what’s this thing you mentioned? I pitched him and got, that sounds awesome. It was just lightning in a bottle because the way I work with Bob is, I bring in my love of genre and he brings in his love of comedy and character. I build out the story, the world, build the action, I populate it. But he comes in and he spends just as much time with everybody else in the script. We have a shorthand. But mainly it’s a love letter to the stuff I loved as a kid.

DEADLINE: You killed something else lovable, not as bad as the puppy, but…

KOLSTAD: And every time I see that scene, it kills me because it is so funny.

DEADLINE: We’d seen Keanu in action films, but Odenkirk is an unlikely action hero. Then again, Liam Neeson was this serious actor known for Schindler’s List and Jason Statham was this fast talking funny guy in Guy Ritchie movies and they’ve made careers in action.  How did you know Bob would be good at this?

KOLSTAD: Bob says it best, and it’s that he came for the world of sketch comedy where the sketches are between two and a half to six minutes. And he said that’s what a fight is. And he’s right. A good fight scene is around that time and he’s like, it begins this dance. Both he and Keanu especially, they loved to say…pain is the wrong word, but they both put their bodies through the ringer. They’ll both be the first to say, I can’t really fight, but I can film fight. And they just get excited about it. The stunt crews love Bob and Keanu. They work hard, they love the craft, and they become friends with the crew. And when the crew wants to switch something up or Bob’s got an idea to make the scene a little funnier, or Keanu’s got an idea that is more of a character moment, it just becomes this perfectly oiled machine. But I also remember seeing Geena Davis in Long Kiss Goodnight and going, holy shit. And I think again, we said the same thing about comedians who go and do dramatic parts. They just see a new challenge that they haven’t done and they just embrace it.

DEADLINE: If Normal gets a Toronto deal and becomes a hit, do you want to do more as happened with John Wick and Normal?

KOLSTAD: That’s the hope in everything I do. I think back to Star Wars when I was a little kid, you hear the name Jabba the Hut and you’re like, what? And you expect to see him in Empire Strike back, and you don’t, but there he is in the third film. You plant these seeds and hope for a creative harvest. The weight you put on yourself is to make sure that the first one works. Then, if there’s only one, you’re happy, and if the studio or the investors come back and say, let’s do another, you have to make sure it’s about we got to make sure that it’s the character’s evolution. You can trust me with the action and the world building and cool bad guys and all that kind of stuff. But if your character doesn’t change, it’s the end of the franchise, right?

A few days before Shane Michael Boose—the 20-year-old musician known as Sombr—stole the show at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, performing his hits “Back to Friends” and “12 to 12” for his biggest—and most staggeringly starry—audience yet, he found himself in a stately room on the second floor of New York’s Nine Orchard hotel.

Enjoying some rare downtime between rehearsals, he was dressed in a navy blazer, a black T-shirt, and ripped jeans. Despite his high-pressure weekend, he’s in a cheery mood. “You’re getting happy Sombr today,” he tells me, pleasantly.

And why might that be? For one thing, he’s just met one of his rock idols at the hotel, which sits just around the corner from where Boose grew up, on New York’s Lower East Side. “It’s someone I get compared to a lot, and he said my name first,” Boose says, mimicking an English accent. “That’s one hint, but that’s all you get. I called my sister and she was like, ‘What?!’ And now I’m going to be happy all day.”

Such surreal moments have seemed to come one right after the other. Not so long ago, Boose was a LaGuardia dropout with a dream; now, in an era where guitar-driven acts are a dime a dozen, he’s managed to lodge three songs from I Barely Know Her, his recently released debut album, in the Hot 100. To celebrate the launch, he shut down the corner of Canal Street and Orchard for a free surprise show.

So, what’s it like when you suddenly get everything you want? Before Boose went back on the road for his Late Nights & Young Romance Tour, Vogue sat down with him to find out.

Vogue: You’ve had an incredible year so far. How have you been navigating it all?

Sombr: I remember a year and a half ago, I was feeling really low about the point I was at in my career. And even then, I was still so privileged—just being able to do it full-time and play shows. But at the time I made a video where I was just talking to myself and manifesting where I wanted to go. And watching that video back now, it’s so crazy, because the version of me in that video, if he found out I was anywhere near where I am today, he would fucking lose his mind. One thing I don’t understand is that artists will get to a certain point and all they’ll do is complain about how hard it is to be famous. It’s like, you are so privileged. Fucking be grateful. Obviously, every job has its hardships. Oh my God, someone recognizes you on the street—how brutal! So I try to remain super grateful, you know?

Having earned raves for bulking up to play the wrestler Mark Kerr in his MMA fighting prime for “The Smashing Machine,” Dwayne Johnson is about to undertake another radical transformation. He’s shedding pounds to portray a ” whimsical, eccentric 70-something year-old” called Chicken Man in “Lizard Music.”

The film, which will reunite Johnson with “The Smashing Machine” director Benny Safdie, is an acting challenge that the Rock jumped at the chance to pull off.

“Benny pitched me this after,” Johnson said during a career retrospective talk at the Toronto Film Festival on Monday where “The Smashing Machine” will screen. “And after about 45 minutes, this pitch ended and I said, ‘I am your Chicken Man.’”

Johnson, who had shed much of the 30 pounds of muscle he packed on as Kerr, still looked like he could benchpress a Humvee.

“I still have a long ways to go,” he acknowledged.

“I’m so excited to get a chance to hopefully transform again like I was able to do in ‘Smashing Machine,’” Johnson added. “[It means] eating less chicken.”

The film is an adaptation of a Daniel Pinkwater novel and tells the story of a septuagenarian whose best friend is a 70-year-old chicken. Like “The Smashing Machine,” which has earned Oscar buzz for Johnson, it’s an opportunity to subvert his action hero image. After starring in blockbusters like “Jumanji” and “Fast Five,” Johnson said he was ready to shake things up.

“I felt for a few years, I was pigeonholed because I allowed it to happen,” Johnson admitted. He added, “‘Smashing Machine’ is for me.”

The sports drama doesn’t shy away from showing the darker sides of Kerr’s story, including his toxic relationship with his girlfriend (Emily Blunt) and substance abuse struggles. It’s about as far removed from “Moana” as one can get.

“You hope it’s like, ‘Hey, we made this thing,’” Johnson said. “‘We love it. We hope you do too, and if you don’t, it’s OK. Maybe you’ll like the next thing.’”

Not that Johnson is abandoning big-budget crowdpleasers entirely. He revealed he’ll be re-teaming with Kevin Hart on “Jumanji 3,” which will start shooting in November.

“The films that I made in the past, I love them,” Johnson said. “I’ll go back to making them again.”

The Supertramp fan community was dealt a devastating blow over the weekend when news hit that co-founder Rick Davies has died after a long battle with multiple myeloma.

“As co-writer, along with partner Roger Hodgson, he was the voice and pianist behind Supertramp’s most iconic songs, leaving an indelible mark on rock music history,” the band wrote on Facebook. “His soulful vocals and unmistakable touch on the Wurlitzer became the heartbeat of the band’s sound.”

Supertramp enjoyed greater popularity in their native England than in America, even though hits like “Take the Long Way Home” and “The Logical Song” remain in heavy rotation on classic rock radio. Those two songs were written by Hodgson, and he sang them as well. But their 1979 classic “Goodbye Stranger” is a Davies tune, and it hit Number 15 on the Hot 100 here. (It stalled at Number 57 in the U.K.)

“Goodbye Stranger” was given new life in the season four Office finale, “Goodbye, Toby,” when Michael Scott sang a slightly modified version of the song at a farewell party for human resources rep Toby Flenderson. “The real reason we’re here is to say goodbye to a guy we’ll probably never, ever see again,” Scott says. “As a lot of you know, I’m an accomplished songwriter. I have done things like ‘Beers In Heaven’ or ‘Total Eclipse of the Fart.’ I’d love to be singing them, but I’m not going to be doing that today. I’m going to be doing something I wrote specifically for Toby.”

In truth, Rick Davies wrote “Goodbye Stranger.” The only change Michael makes is swapping out “stranger” for “Toby,” and adding in a manic “Toby’s going away!” scat section at the end. (We never got a chance to hear “Beers in Heaven” or “Total Eclipse of the Fart,” but we imagine they were a bit more inventive.)

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“Goodbye, Toby” is a key Office episode since it introduces Amy Ryan’s Holly Flax character, and wraps up the strike-shortened fourth season of the show. To many fans who feel that The Office began a gradual downhill climb in the fifth season, when showrunner Greg Daniels and writer Michael Schur left to launch Parks and Rec, this episode concludes the show’s golden age. (To be fair, there are many legendary episodes in season five, six, and seven. The heights just weren’t as consistently high as two, three, and four. And the less said about seasons eight and nine, the better.)

Like every episode of The Office, “Goodbye, Toby” is always playing somewhere. It did a lot to make one of Davies’ most successful songs even more memorable. But from the perspective of Michael Scott, it was a massive failure. His nemesis Toby returned nine episodes later.

Gigi Hadid was ready to take on the role of Rapunzel.

In her Vogue cover story alongside Kendall Jenner, the supermodel reflected on auditioning for the role of Rapunzel in the live-action remake of the animated film Tangled.

“What do we do in this job anymore that scares us?” Hadid posed the question to Jenner during their interview. Though Hadid did not get the part, she said, “I was really proud of my scene.”

Despite taking singing lessons during fashion month to prepare, Hadid said, “I knew they were going to go with a real singer.” She also told Jenner that she’d show her her audition scene.

Disney’s live-action reimagining of its 2010 animated film focused on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale heroine, has been put on pause, according to studio insiders. The project had been in active development, with The Greatest Showman helmer Michael Gracey on board to direct and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson penning the script.

However the decision to pause the film followed Disney’s underwhelming release of their live-action adaptation Snow White at the box office, from critics and followed by a myriad of controversies. It continues to remain uncertain whether the film will eventually move forward or be rethought creatively. Meanwhile, a live-action Moana is set to release on July 10, 2026.

In addition to Hadid, My Oxford Year star Corey Mylchreest revealed that he too had auditioned for the Tangled live-action for the role of Flynn Rider. In an interview with Seventeen, the actor seemed to not share the same sentiments Hadid did about the audition.

“We don’t have the footage anymore. I deleted it and then I burnt it and then I burnt the phone that I filmed on. And then I burnt the room that I did it in. And then I burnt myself,” he quipped of his audition. “No, it wasn’t very good. They then told me that they wanted someone with singing experience.”

A group show on an island a boat ride away from Manhattan is unlikely to attract the same attention as flashier happenings on the city’s busy fall art calendar, yet their work is no less deserving of it. The Works on Water (WoW) Triennial at the Arts Center at Governors Island, now in its third iteration, has been led since 2017 by a resourceful group of artists and curators (Emily Blumenfeld, Carolyn Hall, sTo Len, Clarinda Mac Low, Nancy Nowacek, and Sarah Cameron Sunde, at present). The collective remains oriented toward humble grassroots projects, such as performance artist Nora Almeida’s and videographer iki nakagawa’s collaborative multimedia explorations of Brooklyn’s Coney Island Creek.

This and other projects are compelling in their own right, but what stands out about their 2025 triennial is how many artists, and even artworks, have returned from the first two editions. This apparent repetitiveness may seem strange given that many bi- and triennials aspire to be cultural status updates. But WoW’s willingness to revisit projects indicates that it values art for its depth and persistence rather than how it sets or fits trends.

That commendable commitment is evident in “Walking the Edge” (2020–25), a preliminary version of which appeared in the previous WoW triennial and which here appears as a dense grid of shoreline photographs. The photos document an ambitious durational feat: From May to October 2025, in collaboration with Culture Push and NYC’s Department of City Planning, WoW members are leading walks covering the city’s entire 520 miles of coastline.

Video documentation of Sarah Cameron Sunde’s “36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea” (2013–22) — in which the artist and local participants stand in coastal waters for one full tidal cycle at sites around the world — also makes a repeat appearance. Sunde’s performance, oriented toward deep time, patiently bears witness to the accelerating rate of sea level rise. The horizon-long Great Lakes vistas in Jana Harper’s short video, “Song for Water” (2025), likewise operate in a pensive, almost oracular, register.

It’s not surprising that Water Art, as WoW calls it, would take the long view of things, given the philosophical depth associated with its subject. But this triennial’s design emphasizes contemplative aesthetic gestures over the nitty-gritty logistics of its community projects, from sTo Len’s 30-foot-long gomitaku — a Japanese portmanteau meaning “trash impression” — mono print that undulates across the gallery like an elegant serpent (“Impressions for Coastal Constellation Alignment: Potomac River, Virginia,” 2020), to the floor-to-ceiling netting and cotton saris that Elizabeth Velazquez and Monica Jahan Bose use, respectively, to demarcate circular spaces (“Calling Forth The Waters That Surround Us” and “Darchira River,” both 2025).

However counterintuitive emphasizing aesthetics over logistics might sound, it constitutes an effective solution to the problem of how to translate public and social practice art into a gallery setting. The triennial — especially the moody basement gallery suffused with a scent by perfume maker Frank Bloem (“Zeelucht (A Perfume from Forty Smells of the North Sea),” 2021) — reminded me of the dramatic installation environments in this summer’s inaugural Sky High Farm biennial, an eco-minded Hudson Valley show. But whereas the Sky High installations evince showmanship, WoW’s installations evince introspection. Nobody in the group has given up on doing the work — quite the contrary — but there’s an ambient sense that, given what has and hasn’t changed in the world since 2017, progress’s horizon might be further off than one would hope.

The Works on Water 2025 Triennial continues at the Arts Center of Governors Island (110 Andes Road, Manhattan) through October 26. The exhibition was curated by Emily Blumenfeld and Kendal Henry with the Works on Water team (Carolyn Hall, sTo Len, Clarinda Mac Low, Nancy Nowacek, and Sarah Cameron Sunde).

What does the morning after the VMAs feel like? A splitting headache for Van Toffler, producer of the 2025 show, which aired on CBS for the first time, in addition to MTV and Paramount Plus. The veteran television producer and former head of MTV has had a front-row seat to dozens of awards shows, and he knows the intricacies and complications involved with coordinating 13 performances.

Toffler spoke with Rolling Stone about the night’s standout moments, including Mariah Carey‘s hits medley, Sabrina Carpenter‘s rain-soaked “Tears,” Lady Gaga‘s rapid exit from Madison Square Garden, and the emotional tribute to Ozzy Osbourne featuring Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Yungblud, and Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt.

What are the challenges these days with award shows? You need to get the big-name talent, but you also need to showcase who’s coming up. And these productions are very expensive. How do you weigh all those things to get the best lineup?
The first thing is you have to be is rabid about researching and understanding who your audience is. And for this show, unlike others, it traversed multiple platforms with different demographics because you have MTV, CBS, and Paramount Plus. That really merited going from hit iconic artists with catalogs to brand-new artists.

You saw LL Cool J host in the first act, and then introduce Kenny G performing with Doja Cat into the expanded play stage with Lola Young. And you have Gaga in between winning an award. So that’s kind of a microcosm of what you’d like to do, where you bring out new acts with emerging songs. You don’t just spring them on the audience.

Talents like Sombr and Conan Gray and Megan Moroney are so wonderful that you want to expose them on the big stage. But you can’t just have a show of new acts, just like you can’t just have a show of established acts. It is a balance. Who’s got the biggest songs of the year, like Sabrina [Carpenter] and Tate [McRae], who are great performers, and who are some heritage acts that get these iconic awards? It definitely is a delicate dance.

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And also, where do you format them in the show? How you juxtapose one versus the other? It’s a mixture of art and science, because you also have to see the performances and rehearsals to understand. “Does this go next to this one?”

Were there people you wanted to get that you couldn’t get?
Oh, undoubtedly, absolutely.

Justin Bieber? Taylor Swift?
Beyoncé, Bieber… Taylor’s not in cycle, so, you know, she’s done so many MTV awards when she is in cycle. It just didn’t feel right. But Miley’s putting out new music, and… I’m trying to think of others that I would have loved to have had. I wanted to have Harry Styles and Stevie Nicks perform together. So, you know, you shoot for the moon. Some people are recording or out of cycle. You pull together the best show you can, and the best of the year.

With the Sabrina Carpenter performance, there seemed to be some messaging in her staging. Were you aware of that?
Oh, yeah, definitely. There was messaging and then there was a sexy performance with water. So I’m not sure it all got through, but I’m sure her fans will read well into it, accurately and inaccurately.

Was it intentional to cut away from the “trans rights” sign?
No, no, I think it’s just a director making choices. That’s all.

It was so interesting that therapy got so many shout-outs during the show. These kids who have so much pressure, I don’t know how they get through a day, never mind the VMAs.
We noticed it. It is generational that so many of these young artists would thank their therapists. So many of these artists are confronted with daily pressures to make their lives seem great. And they have to live on socials. There’s no real downtime. And we talked about it. I can imagine 20 years ago, artists thanking their therapist would be like, “You’re in therapy, dude? Are you kidding me?” So it is definitely generational.

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It was cool that Ariana Grande read out all the credits of her video. I’ve never seen that happen before.
I can honestly say in my memory, and I don’t have a good one, but that may be the only time craft services have been thanked.

That really meant a lot, actually, from an industry standpoint. It was very smart.
She doesn’t come out a lot. She really doesn’t do a lot of these things, and she’s filming a movie. I think obviously she was nominated a lot, but she’s got a warm spot for Mariah. I think that helped bring her out to this stage.

What was up with the microphone? It wasn’t one that drops into the stage and adjusts for height?
Not all productions go smoothly. I think that her mic was definitely too high. We used a lot of handheld mics. Those mics on stands tend to get in the way of a performer’s face. We don’t love them, but obviously we needed them for the award presentations. But it’s a lesson learned. We’ll have it come from the ceiling next time, if there is a next time.

It’s a legit situation. We did an article in Variety where we talked to stage hands about it. Sometimes you have a LeBron James and then Sabrina Carpenter. The height difference is massive.
Oh, my God. You really need to over-prepare for that stuff. The thing is, someone like Steven Tyler just keeps adjusting his mic, no matter where you put it. It’s never the right height, let’s put it that way.

You know who wasn’t good at holding a microphone? Meg Stalter. That microphone hit her entire face.
I think she maybe had an issue with her ankle beforehand and was having trouble walking. She had a rough evening. But she’s funny. She’s a funny woman.

Tell me about coordinating Gaga and getting her out to Long Island from Madison Square Garden.
God, what a shit show. She had to leave the Garden, come to our event. She literally got to the security door, I don’t know, three minutes before the show started.

And obviously, she had to glam up, get in that ensemble, and then and then get onstage when she won the award. Then she had to have a police escort take her back to the Garden. They delayed the start of her show at MSG the prior night. So it was a logistical situation.

How did you handle the singing live versus singing to a track with all the dancing? Mariah especially seemed to get some flak for that.
That’s a dealer’s choice in a way. In no way do we dictate what an artist should or can or can’t do. Quite often there’s tracks and they sing along to a track or a live band. It’s really what the artist thinks they’re capable of doing based on the dancing they’re doing and the physical movement they’re doing. Some are more comfortable with the tracks. Some are just more comfortable doing live because they tour a lot. That’s really on the artist.

Which performance took the longest to put together or was most challenging logistically?
Probably the most tender and rewarding one was the Ozzy tribute. You’ve got a family in mourning. You’ve got an iconic musician. You’ve got people that you may think are appropriate or disciples of Black Sabbath and Ozzy, but that’s not what Ozzy would have felt or the family would have felt. And so there was a lot of coordination with the family on the musicians and the songs that were selected. That probably was, again, the most rewarding and the most arduous one of the bunch.

Did you hear from the family in the last 12 hours?
No, but I know that Jack, on behalf of Sharon and the family, was really happy with the musicians and understanding what tracks they were doing. I haven’t heard from them after the fact, but they were all involved in the process.

I really thought that looked tremendous. There was this one shot of Yungblud where he was bending over that could not have been choreographed any better with the the lights and the guitars. It was incredible.
I may be completely off-base on this, but as a person who loves music and has been around music most of my life, people are yearning for a live rock moment. Look at the fervor around Oasis. I was around when we tried to break Oasis in the States and no one gave a crap. And now it’s euphoric.

What else was complicated or involved a lot of feedback from the artist creatively?
Tate McRae had a bunch of different elements, but the heavy use of water and cleaning the stage with Sabrina was a big, big lift. And Doja Cat’s set was kind of funky to turn around. And then particularly when we told everyone, “Oh, Kenny G’s going to be on the staircase.” They’re kind of like, “What?” That’s the way we felt too. But, hey, that’s just almost a perfect combo of artists, Doja Cat and Kenny G. That’s kind of what should happen every day.

I’m sure every time they’re like, “We’d like 22 dancers,” you’re like, “Stop with the dancers!”
Right. This may seem critical, but even for some of the younger artists, if you’ve got the chops and the songs and you can sing, just come on and sing, right? You don’t have to create a music video. When you perform, I think it’s good enough to show the world you’ve got the chops.

Did you hear from the people about the ICE commercials and the Department of Corrections ones?
Yeah, someone told me. Was it one that led right into the show?

It felt like almost every other break was an ICE commercial or Department of Corrections. It felt like the police state was here.
This is on CBS and local TV.

Yeah.
Obviously, I have no idea or nor do I control any of the commercials. But that doesn’t make me feel good.

What’s a successful VMAs to you? Is it ratings? Is it the feedback? What is it?
Where does it register in the cultural zeitgeist? Are there memorable performances? Are there moments people talk about? For me, what is maybe most important is, “Is it connecting to audiences?” And not just on linear TV. I think we’re probably gonna find out later today that there are over a billion views of VMA content. Let me say that again, one billion views. That is astronomical, maybe the biggest in history if that’s the case.

It’s hard to get a 15-year-old to watch linear television, no matter what you do. You can have a live execution. They’re not gonna watch it. They’re gonna watch what they wanna watch on the platforms that they connect with on their mobile or YouTube.

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I know we live in a business where things are measured a certain way. And people don’t always connect the dots, and they don’t always monetize these views, but typically, money follows eyeballs. But if the content is that meaningful and connects in that way in such a grand scale, that is a story to me. Regardless of whether you do 8 million or 10 million people on linear TV, if you’re getting over a billion views, then music still resonates, these performances resonate. And that was important to me in coming back to do the gig.

It was a big deal to have it on CBS.
Yeah, that’s right. They took a big swing as a company. It’s like, we’re the adults now.

Aziz Ansari’s feature directing debut, “Good Fortune,” wasn’t meant to be his first effort as a filmmaker: That would’ve been “Being Mortal,” called off mid-shoot in 2022 amid accusations of misconduct against Bill Murray. So it was inevitable that alongside the TIFF premiere of “Good Fortune,” a comedy starring Keanu Reeves and “Being Mortal” star Seth Rogen, he’d have to address the canceled film. And it turns out, they share thematic DNA.

The South Carolina-born Indian-American actor, writer, director, and stand-up comedian is known by audiences worldwide as serial entrepreneur Tom “Treat Yo Self” Haverford on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” and as the more somber, lovelorn Dev Shah on the Netflix hit series “Master of None.”

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Could “Good Fortune” and his should-have-been debut “Being Mortal” have swapped titles? After all, in the TIFF premiere, Keanu Reeves plays Gabriel, the Angel of Texting and Driving — in L.A., yes, the City of Angels, where in this comedy, angels exist — and finds himself demoted to human by his angel boss (Sandra Oh). Thus, he becomes mortal. “Whoa!” Ansari told IndieWire in Toronto. “I gotta process that,” when asked.

When the news of “Being Mortal’s” cancellation broke in April 2022, Ansari said he got a deluge of “I’m sooo sorry” texts. He recalled thinking, “I can’t deal with this. I don’t wanna be in this woe-is-me moment.” Ansari said he then called Seth Rogen, also a star of “Being Mortal.” He told Rogen, “Hey, I know you’re free and were supposed to work today. If you wanna make this day less shitty for me, can you read this script [for ‘Good Fortune’]? He said, yeah, and he called me in two hours and said, ‘I’m in, let’s do it.’”

That’s how “Good Fortune” began. Ansari had a basic version of the story ready, where he plays Arj, a down-on-his-luck documentary film editor living out of his car and forced to participate in the gig economy as a Taskrabbiter and home-improvement store worker. Through the latter, Arj meets a union organizer (Keke Palmer, also a “Being Mortal” star), whom he begins dating. Through the former, Arj meets Jeff (Seth Rogen), a venture-capitalist angel investor in tech companies. When Gabriel (Reeves) intervenes because he can’t help but take pity on Arj’s lost soul, Gabriel decides to swap Arj and Jeff’s lives. There you have it, a “Prince and the Pauper”-esque fable, touched by an angel, with a rebellious and playful streak of working-class consciousness.

Empathy for the working class indeed feels like a far cry from Tom Haverford and Dev Shah. When asked about shifting from narratives about the middle class — Ansari co-created “Master of None” with his longtime collaborator Alan Yang, also a producer on “Good Fortune” — and from TV to film, Ansari said, “’Master of None’ was almost the perfect training ground to get ready to do this film. There was an episode on Season 2 called ‘New York, I Love You’ and another episode in Season 3, where the character played by Naomi Ackie [goes] through IVF. For both of those episodes, I had to do a lot of work interviewing people, trying to understand experiences that were not my own… I hope for people [who] like ‘Master of None,’ [that] this is kind of what they hoped I would do with a movie. It has a lot of the same DNA as ‘Master.’ It’s about seeing things from other people’s perspectives.”

Anasri said, “So for ‘New York, I Love You,’ there was a segment about a cab driver, a doorman, and a woman who was Deaf. This guy Stefano and I did a DoorDash ride-along, and then I took over his account and did stuff for a day. That fueled the whole segment with Seth [in ‘Good Fortune’], where he ends up doing DoorDash. I also spoke with this guy, Vincent, who tried to unionize a Home Depot in Philadelphia. He was so inspiring. The Elena character that Keke Palmer plays [is based on him]. So we interviewed a lot of people that did those kinds of gigs. That process is something that helped me tremendously in doing ‘Good Fortune.’”

Ansari said the script’s conceit about angels really began to hit home once he pulled off a casting coup with Keanu Reeves. That Ansari is himself an actor and a stand-up comedian helped him figure out the comedy of “Good Fortune,” plus the fact that he was back in the familiar mode of acting and directing in equal measure, as he had in “Master of None.” (By contrast, in “Being Mortal,” Ansari said he had a much smaller role.)

“’Being Mortal’ is based on a book by Atul Gawande that’s about life (and death) issues,” said Ansari. “It was pretty heavy at times, and it was a heavy shoot. So I was excited to do something that was much more straightforward comedy. When Keanu’s name first came up, I started watching all his films like ‘Point Break’ and ‘Speed,’ but I went back to the comedies he had done, like ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ and ‘Parenthood’ in particular. You kind of see little bits of his comedy power. He’s very funny when he’s playing a guy that’s kind of naive, but at the same time so sweet. And that’s Gabriel, right? He’s so lovable. But he’s kind of dumb. [Laughs]“

In thinking about Reeves while looking at the script, Ansari said he could “just imagine him having this bright-eyed wonder about the internet, him being this angel that gets thrown into the deep end of being a human and struggling in L.A., but having the attitude he does. I just had a feeling it would work… He’s so great, he’s the soul of the movie.”

How the dating scenes between Arj (Ansari) and Elena (Ackie) are blocked brings to mind “Master of None’s” approach to the same, and Ansari agreed. He said while planning to shoot those romantic moments for “Good Fortune” that he and Alan Yang recognized this is their “bread and butter.”

Ansari also edited the film while he shot, which is a bold choice. “This notion of watching the rough cut is a nightmare. You’re so scared. If you edit as you go along, you minimize that a little bit,” Ansari said. “You just start feeling the rhythms of the movie, and you start understanding what’s working camera-wise in terms of the cinematic language. ‘Oh, these kinds of shots feel good,’ or ‘oh, let’s stay in these singles a little bit longer.’ Whatever it is, you just learn what your movie is, [and] you can kind of lean into things.” Ansari credited his editor, Daniel Haworth, with whom he worked on “Master” as well. Whenever Haworth was on set, Ansari would run in to take a look at the dailies and the evolving cut.

“Master of None” fans will be delighted to see the director’s father (Shoukath Ansari) show up in special appearances, though Ansari’s mother (Fatima Ansari) doesn’t feature in “Good Fortune” as she did in that Netflix show. Ansari said that his mom hates acting, but it was a lot of fun having his dad around, because a lot of the story is about the need for family in a place like L.A.

“Parks and Rec” fans will also notice Joe Mande, who played Morris for a few episodes on the NBC sitcom and served as a writer. In the film, Arj meets Joe’s character while Taskrabbiting in line at a Cinnabon. The casting of secondary and tertiary characters feels very intentional in this film, adding to the groundedness of a movie as much about Los Angeles as it is set there.

“We had an amazing cast director, Carmen Cuba. One role that was very fun to cast was Felipe [Felipe Garcia Martinez], who plays a dishwasher that Keanu works with,” Ansari said. “We’d been reading these people, and none of them really felt like the real guy that would be in the back of the kitchen with Keanu. So me and my producer Kelsey [Comeau] went down to his restaurant, and he came out, and we did some of the scenes.”

He added, “Then I called Keanu and said, ‘Hey, I have this idea for that character. Would it be cool if we used a real guy, because I think he would bring some authenticity to the role?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m down.’ So we use Felipe, and he shows up, and he’s the only person I met who doesn’t know who Keanu Reeves is! Months after we wrapped, I went down to the restaurant, and I was like, ‘Felipe!’ He was there. And I was like, ‘Did you tell all these people you’re a movie star now?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s been telling us all the time. He’s telling us about Keanu and everything.’ Yeah, Felipe’s great.”

If Ansari were an angel, what would his department be? Ansari said, “Maybe the Angel of Screenwriting Inspiration? I love to help writers out that are stuck in the jam.”

“Good Fortune” premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Lionsgate will release the film in theaters on Friday, October 17.

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Allen Blickle, the original drummer for the Grammy-nominated sludge metal band Baroness, has died at the age of 42.

“It breaks my heart to have to share the news that my dear friend, creative partner and former bandmate Allen Blickle passed away a few days ago,” Baroness frontman John Baizley said in a statement. “I’m still in shock that he’s gone. We ask for understanding as his family and this band process his passing and grieve his loss. Allen, I love you and miss you. I treasure every moment we shared.”

Though the cause of death has not been revealed, Laura Pleasants, of the Georgia metal band Kylesa, wrote in her Instagram tribute that “we all thought you had this thing beat. Fuck, we were supposed to hang out when i got back from tour…Gone too soon my friend. I’m glad you are at peace and no longer in pain. Much love to you.”

Blickle co-founded Baroness in Savannah, Georgia in 2003, alongside Baizley, bassist Summer Welch, and guitarist Tim Loose. He released three albums with the band: their 2007 debut Red Album, 2009’s Blue Record, and 2012’s Yellow & Green.

Following the band’s tour bus crash in the U.K. in August 2012 — in which the vehicle plunged 30 feet off a viaduct near Bath, England, in heavy rain — Blickle was hospitalized for two weeks with fractured vertebrae. He left the band the following year, alongside bassist Matt Maggioni.

“The accident was much more to me than just a near-death experience,” Blickle told The Fader in 2013. “It made me rethink a lot in my life and has been the most difficult time I’ve been through thus far. It was a horrible memory, but I’m trying not to let it define me or stop me from doing what I love. Let it be and keep moving.”

He also spoke about his relationship with his bandmates following his departure. “After the accident, there was space put between us that I regret to say was mostly my fault,” he said. “I was in some way pushing myself in another direction. I didn’t know how to handle the horrible situation we all went through, but who does? It’s not easy and continues to be somewhat difficult. I do miss playing with them and I have relayed to them that when the time is right, I would like to be on the road again. It’s not up to me at this point. I just don’t want any resentment to build between any of us. We are old friends and have worked really hard together for years. Friends first — that’s the most important thing to remember.”

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Baroness has since released three more LPs (2015’s Purple, 2019’s Gold & Grey, and 2023’s Stone), while Blickle went on to work with bands like Romantic Dividends, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Alpaca. When Pharoah Sanders died in 2022, Blickle wrote on Instagram that he helped record an interview with the legendary saxophonist for The New Yorker.

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In recent years, Blickle worked in film and TV as a composer and in sound design, including Netflix’s 2020 series We Are the Champions and Best of Stand-Up (2020 and 2022).

“Follow your gut,” Blickle told The Fader. “Take chances. Make sure to keep your friends close, even if things come between you. The music business is not an easy industry and people turn their backs on you really fast.”