Creative Space
How Many Showrunners Does It Take to Write a Hit Comedy?
In 2009, Lucia Aniello decided it was time to introduce her two comedy crushes. She’d recently started dating Paul W. Downs, now her husband, whom she met in an Upright Citizens Brigade class, and struck up a budding friendship with Jen Statsky, the only other woman in her sketch group. One fortuitous Gramercy Park coffee […]
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Conan O’Brien’s Excellent Adventure
When Conan O’Brien began looking for a new base of operations, he wanted a walkable neighborhood, a space that was cozy enough to entice younger staffers to actually come in and something big enough for events. Three years later, he’s yet to host a single party. “The amount of electricity we need for all of […]
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Alex Edelman Knows There’s Power in the Third Rail
Alex Edelman’s go-to order at Barney Greengrass is whitefish on an everything bagel with a side of scrambled eggs. The Upper West Side institution isn’t exactly his local haunt — he lives out of a blue Samsonite bag these days — but this New York deli is a magnet for the Boston-born comic. “It’s where […]
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Tig Notaro Still Isn’t Sure How She Got Here
Tig Notaro has never had to tell the same jokes for so long, but her latest comedy special, Hello Again, arrives March 26 on Prime Video — well over four years after she first started touring the material. “My God, it just would not end,” says Notaro. “I couldn’t wait to be home with my family, […]
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Chelsea Peretti Has Enough on Her Plate
Breakfast at Little Dom’s is doing nothing to assuage Chelsea Peretti’s current frustration with Los Angeles. We’re discussing how inescapable the entertainment industry can be in a booth branded with a dedicatory plaque to Jon Hamm. One table over, Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao is taking a meeting and, on the other side of the window, […]
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Rory Scovel, Stand-Up’s Unexpected Renaissance Man
Rory Scovel sweated his way through postproduction of his latest stand-up special. The night it taped, he’d been sure his Minneapolis set had killed. But the laughter was barely audible in the cuts he was watching. “I thought I bombed,” he says. “Here I am, entering year 20 in comedy, only to find out I’m […]
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Jenny Slate Is Nobody’s Clown
Jenny Slate is one of today’s most frenetic stand-ups. She begins her latest special, Seasoned Professional (Feb. 23 on Prime Video), like a bottle rocket, eventually sending her mic stand flying with wild gesticulation and delivering a primal scream of love for her therapist. Offstage, Slate seems downright Zen and reflective about a still-young career. […]
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How Gus Van Sant Earned His Rep as “The Mellowest Man in Hollywood”
Gus Van Sant has taken on a few superlatives over the course of his 40-year career: indie provocateur, Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker and, per the late Robin Williams, “mellowest man in Hollywood.” A label that long eluded the 71-year-old director, despite his line of work, was Angeleno. Van Sant built one of the more eclectic résumés in […]
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With Nicole Kidman’s ‘Expats,’ Creator Lulu Wang Finally Has a Project Her Mother Likes
Scribbled on a chalkboard in director Lulu Wang’s kitchen is a list of films and TV shows she and her partner, Barry Jenkins, have yet to see. As is tradition, their friends, many of them fellow filmmakers, come through their Silver Lake home and jot down suggestions for the pair. On this morning, the list […]
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Brad Falchuk Finally Goes Solo
When Brad Falchuk moved into wife Gwyneth Paltrow’s house in 2019, there was plenty to consider. For starters, they each came to the relationship with two children from previous marriages. So, in reconfiguring the Goop founder’s longtime Brentwood pad for a family of six, Falchuk’s home office became a bit of an afterthought. “If I’m […]
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Fran Drescher Weighs In on Bob Iger’s Charm, ‘The Nanny’s Future and Her Own “Take No Sh**” Ethos
“I’m an unlikely labor leader,” Fran Drescher acknowledges on a late November evening. Before this summer, Drescher long had been synonymous in the public imagination with her most iconic role, Fran Fine, in the popular ’90s CBS sitcom The Nanny, which she tailored to her comedic strengths, including her thick Queens accent. The sassy childcare […]
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Noah Hawley Has Been Offered the World, But ‘Fargo’ Keeps Calling
For the past 15 years or so, Noah Hawley has called Austin, Texas, home. Sure, he’s spent long stretches elsewhere — Calgary for FX’s Fargo, Bangkok for his forthcoming series Alien — but home, where his wife and two children (ages 16 and 11) reside, is 1,400 miles from Hollywood. And, as Hawley sees it, […]
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