Comic book Marvel fans showed up and showed out at a red carpet fan event in New York for the much-anticipated film "Black Widow". Actor David Harbour, who plays Alexei Shostakov, a.k.a. the Red Guardian, was on hand to greet fans, something he said he has been craving throughout the pandemic.

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Hadija Haruna-Oelker, a Black journalist, has just produced the German translation of Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” the poem about a “skinny Black girl” that for many people was the highlight of President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

So has Kübra Gümüsay, a German writer of Turkish descent.

As has Uda Strätling, a translator, who is white.

Literary translation is usually a solitary pursuit, but German publisher Hoffmann und Campe went for a team of writers to ensure the translation of Gorman’s poem — just 710 words — wasn’t just true to Gorman’s voice. The trio was also asked to make its political and social significance clear and to avoid anything that might exclude people of color, people with disabilities, women or other marginalized groups.

“It was a gamble,” Strätling said of the collaborative approach.

For nearly two weeks, the team debated word choices, occasionally emailing Gorman for clarifications. But as they worked, an argument was brewing elsewhere in Europe about who has the right to translate the poet’s work.

“This whole debate started,” Gümüsay said, with a sigh.

It began in February when Meulenhoff, a publisher in the Netherlands, said it had asked Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, a writer whose debut novel won last year’s Booker International Prize, to translate Gorman’s poem into Dutch.

Rijneveld was the “ideal candidate,” Meulenhoff said in a statement. But many social media users disagreed, asking why a white writer had been chosen when Gorman’s reading at the inauguration had been a significant cultural moment for Black people.

Three days later, Rijneveld quit. (Rijneveld declined an interview request for this article.)

In March, the debate reignited after Victor Obiols, another white translator, was dropped by the Catalan publisher Univers. Obiols said he was told his profile “was not suitable for the project.” (A Univers spokeswoman declined to comment.)

Literary figures and newspaper columnists across Europe have been arguing for weeks about what these decisions mean, turning Gorman’s poem into the latest flash point in debates about identity politics across the continent. The discussion has shone a light on the often unexamined world of literary translation and its lack of racial diversity.

“I can’t recall a translation controversy ever taking the world by storm like this,” Aaron Robertson, a Black Italian-to-English translator, said in a phone interview.

“This feels something of a watershed moment,” he added.

On Monday, the American Literary Translators Association waded into the furor. “The question of whether identity should be the deciding factor in who is allowed to translate whom is a false framing of the issues at play,” it said in a statement published on its website.

The real problem underlying the controversy was “the scarcity of Black translators,” it added. Last year, the association carried out a diversity survey. Only 2% of the 362 translators who responded were Black, a spokeswoman for the association said in an email.

In a video interview, the members of the German team said they, too, felt the debate had missed the point. “People are asking questions like, ‘Does color give you the right to translate?’” Haruna-Oelker said. “This is not about color.”

She added: “It’s about quality, it’s about the skills you have, and about perspectives.” Each member of the German team brought different things to the group, she said.

The team spent a long time discussing how to translate the word “skinny,” without conjuring images of an overly thin woman, Gümüsay said, and they debated how to bring a sense of the poem’s gender-inclusive language into German, in which many objects — and all people — are either masculine or feminine. “You’re constantly moving back and forth between the politics and the composition,” Strätling said.

“To me it felt like dancing,” Gümüsay said of the process. Haruna-Oelker added that the team tried hard to find words “which don’t hurt anyone.”

But whereas the German translators were happy to engage with the identity politics, others expressed frustration at the translator departures and their implications. Nuria Barrios, the translator of the poem’s Spanish edition, who is white, wrote in the newspaper El País that Rijneveld's stepping down from the project was “a catastrophe.”

“It is the victory of identity politics over creative freedom,” she wrote, adding: “To remove imagination from translation is to subject the craft to a lobotomy.”

Some Black academics and translators have also expressed concern. “There is a tacit idea that we are supposed to be especially concerned about the ‘appropriateness’ of a translator’s identity in the particular case of blackness,” John McWhorter, a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, said in an email.

Other differences between writers and their translators — such as wealth levels, or political views — were not sparking concern, McWhorter added. “Instead, our sense of ‘diversity’ is narrower than that word implies: It’s only about skin color,” he said.

Couching the discussion in terms of appropriateness was “really ridiculous,” said Janice Deul, a Black Dutch journalist and activist who on Feb. 25 wrote an opinion piece for De Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper, calling Rijneveld’s appointment “incomprehensible.” The following day, Rijneveld resigned.

“This is not about who can translate, it’s about who gets opportunities to translate,” Deul said. She listed 10 Black Dutch spoken-word artists who could have done the job in her article but said all of them had been overlooked.

The one opinion missing in all of this is, of course, Gorman’s. Viking is releasing “The Hill We Climb” in the United States on Tuesday. Apple TV Plus on Friday began streaming her interview with Oprah Winfrey, but she has not commented on the debate her work has spurred. Her spokeswoman didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Gorman, or her agent, Writers House, which represents the translation rights, appeared to have influence on who was selected. Aylin LaMorey-Salzmann, the editor of the German edition of “The Hill We Climb,” said that the rights owner had to agree to the choice, which had to be someone of similar profile to Gorman.

Irene Christopoulou, an editor at Psichogios, the poem’s Greek publisher, was still waiting for approval for its choice of translator. The translator was a white “emerging female poet,” Christopoulou said in an email. “Due to the racial profile of the Greek population, there are no translators/poets of color to choose from,” she added.

A spokeswoman for Tammi, the poem’s Finnish publisher, said in an email that “The negotiations are still going on with the agent and Amanda Gorman herself.”

Several European publishers named Black musicians as their translators. Timbuktu, a rapper, has completed a Swedish version, and Marie-Pierra Kakoma, a singer better known as Lous and the Yakuza, has translated the French edition, which will be published by Editions Fayard in May.

“I thought Lous’ writing skills, her sense of rhythm, her connection with spoken poetry would be tremendous assets,” Sophie de Closets, a publisher at Fayard, said in an email explaining why she chose a pop star.

Issues of identity “should definitely be considered” when hiring translators, de Closets added, but that went beyond race. “It is the publisher’s responsibility to look for the ideal combination between one given work and the person who will translate it,” she said.

Haruna-Oelker, one of the German translators, said one disappointing outcome of the debate in Europe was it had diverted attention from the message of Gorman’s poem. “The Hill We Climb” spoke about bringing people together, Haruna-Oelker said, just as the German publisher had done by assembling a team.

“We’ve tried a beautiful experiment here, and this is where the future lies,” Gümüsay said. “The future lies in trying to find new forms of collaboration, trying to bring together more voices, more sets of eyes, more perspectives to create something new.”

Hadija Haruna-Oelker, a Black journalist, has just produced the German translation of Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” the poem about a “skinny Black girl” that for many people was the highlight of President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Hadija Haruna-Oelker, a Black journalist, has just produced the German translation of Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” the poem about a “skinny Black girl” that for many people was the highlight of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. So has Kübra Gümüsay, a German writer of Turkish descent. As has Uda Strätling, a translator, who is white. Literary translation is usually a solitary pursuit, but German publisher Hoffmann und Campe went for a team of writers to ensure the translation of Gorman’s poem — just 710 words — wasn’t just true to Gorman’s voice. The trio was also asked to make its political and social significance clear and to avoid anything that might exclude people of color, people with disabilities, women or other marginalized groups. “It was a gamble,” Strätling said of the collaborative approach. For nearly two weeks, the team debated word choices, occasionally emailing Gorman for clarifications. But as they worked, an argument was brewing elsewhere in Europe about who has the right to translate the poet’s work. “This whole debate started,” Gümüsay said, with a sigh. It began in February when Meulenhoff, a publisher in the Netherlands, said it had asked Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, a writer whose debut novel won last year’s Booker International Prize, to translate Gorman’s poem into Dutch. Rijneveld was the “ideal candidate,” Meulenhoff said in a statement. But many social media users disagreed, asking why a white writer had been chosen when Gorman’s reading at the inauguration had been a significant cultural moment for Black people. Three days later, Rijneveld quit. (Rijneveld declined an interview request for this article.) In March, the debate reignited after Victor Obiols, another white translator, was dropped by the Catalan publisher Univers. Obiols said he was told his profile “was not suitable for the project.” (A Univers spokeswoman declined to comment.) Literary figures and newspaper columnists across Europe have been arguing for weeks about what these decisions mean, turning Gorman’s poem into the latest flash point in debates about identity politics across the continent. The discussion has shone a light on the often unexamined world of literary translation and its lack of racial diversity. “I can’t recall a translation controversy ever taking the world by storm like this,” Aaron Robertson, a Black Italian-to-English translator, said in a phone interview. “This feels something of a watershed moment,” he added. On Monday, the American Literary Translators Association waded into the furor. “The question of whether identity should be the deciding factor in who is allowed to translate whom is a false framing of the issues at play,” it said in a statement published on its website. The real problem underlying the controversy was “the scarcity of Black translators,” it added. Last year, the association carried out a diversity survey. Only 2% of the 362 translators who responded were Black, a spokeswoman for the association said in an email. In a video interview, the members of the German team said they, too, felt the debate had missed the point. “People are asking questions like, ‘Does color give you the right to translate?’” Haruna-Oelker said. “This is not about color.” She added: “It’s about quality, it’s about the skills you have, and about perspectives.” Each member of the German team brought different things to the group, she said. The team spent a long time discussing how to translate the word “skinny,” without conjuring images of an overly thin woman, Gümüsay said, and they debated how to bring a sense of the poem’s gender-inclusive language into German, in which many objects — and all people — are either masculine or feminine. “You’re constantly moving back and forth between the politics and the composition,” Strätling said. “To me it felt like dancing,” Gümüsay said of the process. Haruna-Oelker added that the team tried hard to find words “which don’t hurt anyone.” But whereas the German translators were happy to engage with the identity politics, others expressed frustration at the translator departures and their implications. Nuria Barrios, the translator of the poem’s Spanish edition, who is white, wrote in the newspaper El País that Rijneveld's stepping down from the project was “a catastrophe.” “It is the victory of identity politics over creative freedom,” she wrote, adding: “To remove imagination from translation is to subject the craft to a lobotomy.” Some Black academics and translators have also expressed concern. “There is a tacit idea that we are supposed to be especially concerned about the ‘appropriateness’ of a translator’s identity in the particular case of blackness,” John McWhorter, a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, said in an email. Other differences between writers and their translators — such as wealth levels, or political views — were not sparking concern, McWhorter added. “Instead, our sense of ‘diversity’ is narrower than that word implies: It’s only about skin color,” he said. Couching the discussion in terms of appropriateness was “really ridiculous,” said Janice Deul, a Black Dutch journalist and activist who on Feb. 25 wrote an opinion piece for De Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper, calling Rijneveld’s appointment “incomprehensible.” The following day, Rijneveld resigned. “This is not about who can translate, it’s about who gets opportunities to translate,” Deul said. She listed 10 Black Dutch spoken-word artists who could have done the job in her article but said all of them had been overlooked. The one opinion missing in all of this is, of course, Gorman’s. Viking is releasing “The Hill We Climb” in the United States on Tuesday. Apple TV Plus on Friday began streaming her interview with Oprah Winfrey, but she has not commented on the debate her work has spurred. Her spokeswoman didn’t respond to requests for comment. Gorman, or her agent, Writers House, which represents the translation rights, appeared to have influence on who was selected. Aylin LaMorey-Salzmann, the editor of the German edition of “The Hill We Climb,” said that the rights owner had to agree to the choice, which had to be someone of similar profile to Gorman. Irene Christopoulou, an editor at Psichogios, the poem’s Greek publisher, was still waiting for approval for its choice of translator. The translator was a white “emerging female poet,” Christopoulou said in an email. “Due to the racial profile of the Greek population, there are no translators/poets of color to choose from,” she added. A spokeswoman for Tammi, the poem’s Finnish publisher, said in an email that “The negotiations are still going on with the agent and Amanda Gorman herself.” Several European publishers named Black musicians as their translators. Timbuktu, a rapper, has completed a Swedish version, and Marie-Pierra Kakoma, a singer better known as Lous and the Yakuza, has translated the French edition, which will be published by Editions Fayard in May. “I thought Lous’ writing skills, her sense of rhythm, her connection with spoken poetry would be tremendous assets,” Sophie de Closets, a publisher at Fayard, said in an email explaining why she chose a pop star. Issues of identity “should definitely be considered” when hiring translators, de Closets added, but that went beyond race. “It is the publisher’s responsibility to look for the ideal combination between one given work and the person who will translate it,” she said. Haruna-Oelker, one of the German translators, said one disappointing outcome of the debate in Europe was it had diverted attention from the message of Gorman’s poem. “The Hill We Climb” spoke about bringing people together, Haruna-Oelker said, just as the German publisher had done by assembling a team. “We’ve tried a beautiful experiment here, and this is where the future lies,” Gümüsay said. “The future lies in trying to find new forms of collaboration, trying to bring together more voices, more sets of eyes, more perspectives to create something new.”

Amanda Gorman’s poetry united critics; it’s dividing translators

WION caught up with actor Adil Hussain about his new film 'The Illegal' which was in the running in the Best Picture category at the 2021 Oscars before the final nominations were announced.

Adil Hussain on his new film 'The Illegal', Indian films at Oscars and more

Zeytin likes to walk through the streets of Istanbul at night, Nazar easily befriends strangers while Kartal lives a construction site in the bustling Turkish city. The trio are the focus of new documentary "Stray" which depicts daily life in Istanbul through the eyes of three dogs that roam its streets, searching for food, wandering along the Bosphorus and stumbling upon a women's rights march.

Istanbul stray dogs get own starring roles in new film

Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon" topped the U.S. box office this weekend, earning an estimated $5,150,000 in 2,261 locations.

'Raya and the Last Dragon' leads US box office estimates

Disney+’s “WandaVision” began with a bold, disorienting move, taking viewers and depositing them without explanation into an unsettling bubble of 1950s television.

I am referring, of course, to the show’s practice of releasing new episodes only once every week.

Releasing TV installments on a schedule — “Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel,” as the show’s superhero predecessor “Batman” promised — was standard practice in the days of black-and-white TV, and still is on most traditional networks. But the age of Netflix has led accustomed streaming fans to getting full seasons all at once, and some WandaViewers did not care to wait for what an IndieWire review referred to as “inconvenient weekly installments.”

“WandaVision” is not the first streaming show to face complaints for not feeding its audience on the all-you-can-eat plan. Last year, Eric Kripke, showrunner of Amazon’s dystopian superhero drama “The Boys,” defended the decision to release Season 2’s episodes weekly, against some fans’ objections, “to have time to sort of slow down a little bit and have conversations about everything.” (“The Boys” did release its first three episodes on its premiere date, “WandaVision” its first two; Disney is also following the weekly model with its latest Marvel series, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”)

Slow down? We are not much of a slowdown society these days. If people can have something, they increasingly believe they should, in Costco-size portions, to be savored or swallowed anaconda-like as they see fit. Who the hell is anyone else to tell us to chew between bites? We’ll chew when we feel like it!

Fans’ increasing expectation of — and creators’ occasional pushback against — the binge model resonates with other tech-driven arguments over how art should properly be enjoyed. Should the audience or the artist decide how the work is best experienced? Are you violating the artistic intention of an album when you listen to it on shuffle? Are you a cretin for watching a movie on your phone when the director insisted it be viewed on a big screen?

Certainly, advocates of “I want it all, now” can sound entitled, like kids on the Wonka factory tour grousing that the gobstoppers aren’t coming fast enough. But there can also be a kind of high-handedness to the defense of weekly airings, as if the communal watercooler ritual were somehow more authentic, and as if viewers needed to be guided toward the correct choice lest they, like children failing the marshmallow test, make the wrong one.

Maybe a more useful way of looking at the weekly and binge models is that neither is inherently better. Instead, they’re one more set of storytelling tools — like shooting in front of a studio audience, or not — creatively suited to different kinds of stories.

Release schedules, like many aspects of TV, are a case of the creative format following the business model. In the days of rabbit ears TV, you watched a show when it was beamed at you or not at all. Weekly (or daily) schedules built habits and fan bases.

When Netflix entered the original-series business in the early 2010s, it could have followed some form of scheduling. Instead, dropping full seasons at once was a way of branding it as a forward-looking business — this ain’t your grandma’s TV! — and a way to find viewers where broadcast TV wasn’t. (By letting viewers watch at their leisure, Netflix laid claim to the vast stretches, like Fridays and Saturdays, when fans had a lot of time and less marquee scheduled programming.)

For an era — well, a few years — this defined streaming TV. And the different formats led to different creative forms. Traditional TV serials broke stories into structured units with tune-in-next-time endings. Binge series are often looser in episode structure, sometimes to the extent that whole seasons can feel like extended “episodes.” (Or extended movies, such as Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” whose season titles — “Stranger Things 2” and “Stranger Things 3”— recalled the film franchises that inspired the series.)

Eventually some competitors, including Hulu, Apple and Disney, separated themselves from Netflix with old-school weekly schedules, at least for some series. And Disney+, with its first streaming phenomena, showed that the traditional TV schedule works best for shows that play like traditional TV, with tight episode construction and careful maintenance of suspense.

Mystery, in particular, lends itself well to the waiting game. In “WandaVision,” part of the mystery was the show itself: What were these weekly “sitcoms,” really, and who was in charge? The effect wasn’t ruined by bingeing (I recently rewatched it with my wife, who caught up on it over a couple of days), but it really benefited from giving it a long-term lease in your head.

Disney+’s “Star Wars” western, “The Mandalorian,” was a different sort of mystery. Each episode arrived with little information about what it was or where it was going. (The existence of its pint-size breakout star, Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, wasn’t even revealed until the end of the first episode.) Every installment dropped you into a new world, on a new adventure, without warning; it felt like watching a serial short before the main feature at an old-timey movie parlor.

But “mystery” here doesn’t have to mean genre mystery. This was the case with “Mad Men,” whose creator, Matthew Weiner, has said, with justification, that it wouldn’t work if released a full season at a time. Its artfully withholding storytelling and its willingness to drop the viewer in unexplained circumstances made watching feel like allowing yourself to be blindfolded and kidnapped once a week. (Of course, that hasn’t stopped bingers from mainlining it during the pandemic.)

Bingeing, on the other hand, benefits certain kinds of immersive long-form TV that Netflix has gotten adept at: more straightforward miniseries, such as “The Queen’s Gambit,” and the visual equivalent of page-turner novels, such as “Bridgerton.” In some cases, a binge also helps gloss over weaknesses or repetitions that you might linger on with more time to dwell on them. (In general, I’m thinking of serial stories here; sitcoms, anthologies or procedurals with self-contained episodes feel less affected by the choice.)

There are also business dimensions to the debate, particularly the argument that spreading a season over months can allow a show to build word-of-mouth and grow, whereas binge-series just crash and recede, like waves on an endless content ocean. But business and artistic choices are two different things.

HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” for instance, might not have become the same mass phenomenon if it had dropped its seasons Netflix-style. But (unpopular opinion alert!) it plays better as a binge. All those slow-rolling character arcs are clearer, the ending feels better foreshadowed — even Daenerys’ years wandering Essos don’t seem quite so interminable.

NBC’s afterlife comedy “The Good Place,” likewise, always felt to me like a binge show trapped in weekly form, with the end of each episode igniting the storyline of the next, in the chain-smoking fashion of so many Netflix shows.

On the other hand, the first season of Amazon’s corporate mystery “Homecoming” might have built more suspense if it had been doled out over weeks. And on the other hand, Apple TV+’s alternative space-race drama “For All Mankind,” a slow burn of a series whose current season builds to two gripping final episodes, might have been better dropped all at once; I could see it losing viewers on the long, digressive journey before the payoff.

Regardless, it’s good to see streaming platforms experimenting with their schedules; hopefully, they’re starting to see “To binge or not to binge?” as one creative choice among many. It made sense for Netflix to prove that the binge model could work, which unlocked a form of TV storytelling whose rules creators are still figuring out.

But just because you can make TV a certain way now doesn’t mean you always should. Sometimes, good things come from those who make you wait.

Disney+’s “WandaVision” began with a bold, disorienting move, taking viewers and depositing them without explanation into an unsettling bubble of 1950s television.

Disney+’s “WandaVision” began with a bold, disorienting move, taking viewers and depositing them without explanation into an unsettling bubble of 1950s television. I am referring, of course, to the show’s practice of releasing new episodes only once every week. Releasing TV installments on a schedule — “Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel,” as the show’s superhero predecessor “Batman” promised — was standard practice in the days of black-and-white TV, and still is on most traditional networks. But the age of Netflix has led accustomed streaming fans to getting full seasons all at once, and some WandaViewers did not care to wait for what an IndieWire review referred to as “inconvenient weekly installments.” “WandaVision” is not the first streaming show to face complaints for not feeding its audience on the all-you-can-eat plan. Last year, Eric Kripke, showrunner of Amazon’s dystopian superhero drama “The Boys,” defended the decision to release Season 2’s episodes weekly, against some fans’ objections, “to have time to sort of slow down a little bit and have conversations about everything.” (“The Boys” did release its first three episodes on its premiere date, “WandaVision” its first two; Disney is also following the weekly model with its latest Marvel series, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”) Slow down? We are not much of a slowdown society these days. If people can have something, they increasingly believe they should, in Costco-size portions, to be savored or swallowed anaconda-like as they see fit. Who the hell is anyone else to tell us to chew between bites? We’ll chew when we feel like it! Fans’ increasing expectation of — and creators’ occasional pushback against — the binge model resonates with other tech-driven arguments over how art should properly be enjoyed. Should the audience or the artist decide how the work is best experienced? Are you violating the artistic intention of an album when you listen to it on shuffle? Are you a cretin for watching a movie on your phone when the director insisted it be viewed on a big screen? Certainly, advocates of “I want it all, now” can sound entitled, like kids on the Wonka factory tour grousing that the gobstoppers aren’t coming fast enough. But there can also be a kind of high-handedness to the defense of weekly airings, as if the communal watercooler ritual were somehow more authentic, and as if viewers needed to be guided toward the correct choice lest they, like children failing the marshmallow test, make the wrong one. Maybe a more useful way of looking at the weekly and binge models is that neither is inherently better. Instead, they’re one more set of storytelling tools — like shooting in front of a studio audience, or not — creatively suited to different kinds of stories. Release schedules, like many aspects of TV, are a case of the creative format following the business model. In the days of rabbit ears TV, you watched a show when it was beamed at you or not at all. Weekly (or daily) schedules built habits and fan bases. When Netflix entered the original-series business in the early 2010s, it could have followed some form of scheduling. Instead, dropping full seasons at once was a way of branding it as a forward-looking business — this ain’t your grandma’s TV! — and a way to find viewers where broadcast TV wasn’t. (By letting viewers watch at their leisure, Netflix laid claim to the vast stretches, like Fridays and Saturdays, when fans had a lot of time and less marquee scheduled programming.) For an era — well, a few years — this defined streaming TV. And the different formats led to different creative forms. Traditional TV serials broke stories into structured units with tune-in-next-time endings. Binge series are often looser in episode structure, sometimes to the extent that whole seasons can feel like extended “episodes.” (Or extended movies, such as Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” whose season titles — “Stranger Things 2” and “Stranger Things 3”— recalled the film franchises that inspired the series.) Eventually some competitors, including Hulu, Apple and Disney, separated themselves from Netflix with old-school weekly schedules, at least for some series. And Disney+, with its first streaming phenomena, showed that the traditional TV schedule works best for shows that play like traditional TV, with tight episode construction and careful maintenance of suspense. Mystery, in particular, lends itself well to the waiting game. In “WandaVision,” part of the mystery was the show itself: What were these weekly “sitcoms,” really, and who was in charge? The effect wasn’t ruined by bingeing (I recently rewatched it with my wife, who caught up on it over a couple of days), but it really benefited from giving it a long-term lease in your head. Disney+’s “Star Wars” western, “The Mandalorian,” was a different sort of mystery. Each episode arrived with little information about what it was or where it was going. (The existence of its pint-size breakout star, Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, wasn’t even revealed until the end of the first episode.) Every installment dropped you into a new world, on a new adventure, without warning; it felt like watching a serial short before the main feature at an old-timey movie parlor. But “mystery” here doesn’t have to mean genre mystery. This was the case with “Mad Men,” whose creator, Matthew Weiner, has said, with justification, that it wouldn’t work if released a full season at a time. Its artfully withholding storytelling and its willingness to drop the viewer in unexplained circumstances made watching feel like allowing yourself to be blindfolded and kidnapped once a week. (Of course, that hasn’t stopped bingers from mainlining it during the pandemic.) Bingeing, on the other hand, benefits certain kinds of immersive long-form TV that Netflix has gotten adept at: more straightforward miniseries, such as “The Queen’s Gambit,” and the visual equivalent of page-turner novels, such as “Bridgerton.” In some cases, a binge also helps gloss over weaknesses or repetitions that you might linger on with more time to dwell on them. (In general, I’m thinking of serial stories here; sitcoms, anthologies or procedurals with self-contained episodes feel less affected by the choice.) There are also business dimensions to the debate, particularly the argument that spreading a season over months can allow a show to build word-of-mouth and grow, whereas binge-series just crash and recede, like waves on an endless content ocean. But business and artistic choices are two different things. HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” for instance, might not have become the same mass phenomenon if it had dropped its seasons Netflix-style. But (unpopular opinion alert!) it plays better as a binge. All those slow-rolling character arcs are clearer, the ending feels better foreshadowed — even Daenerys’ years wandering Essos don’t seem quite so interminable. NBC’s afterlife comedy “The Good Place,” likewise, always felt to me like a binge show trapped in weekly form, with the end of each episode igniting the storyline of the next, in the chain-smoking fashion of so many Netflix shows. On the other hand, the first season of Amazon’s corporate mystery “Homecoming” might have built more suspense if it had been doled out over weeks. And on the other hand, Apple TV+’s alternative space-race drama “For All Mankind,” a slow burn of a series whose current season builds to two gripping final episodes, might have been better dropped all at once; I could see it losing viewers on the long, digressive journey before the payoff. Regardless, it’s good to see streaming platforms experimenting with their schedules; hopefully, they’re starting to see “To binge or not to binge?” as one creative choice among many. It made sense for Netflix to prove that the binge model could work, which unlocked a form of TV storytelling whose rules creators are still figuring out. But just because you can make TV a certain way now doesn’t mean you always should. Sometimes, good things come from those who make you wait.

TV's battle of the binge: Why the wait can be worth it

Urging the Metropolitan Opera to compensate its artists “appropriately,” the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sent a letter to leaders at the Met on Thursday saying that the many months its orchestra and chorus had gone without pay during the pandemic had become “increasingly unacceptable.”

He sent the letter as the Met’s musicians were scheduled to receive their first partial paychecks since they were furloughed in April. Before this week, they had been the last major ensemble in the country without a deal for at least some pay during the pandemic. In addressing the players’ nearly yearlong furlough — and hinting at the tough negotiations ahead, in which the Met is seeking long-term pay cuts from its unionized employees — Nézet-Séguin was doing something rare for a music director: weighing in on labor matters.

“Of course, I understand this is a complex situation,” Nézet-Séguin wrote, “but as the public face of the Met on a musical level, I am finding it increasingly hard to justify what has happened.”

The letter was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by its recipients, which included Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager; the leaders of the negotiating committees representing the chorus and orchestra; and members of the opera’s board of directors.

“We risk losing talent permanently,” Nézet-Séguin warned in the letter. “The orchestra and chorus are our crown jewels, and they must be protected. Their talent is the Met. The artists of the Met are the institution.”

The orchestra committee has said that 10 out of 97 members have retired during the pandemic as the ensemble has gone unpaid, a stark increase from the two to three who retire in an average year.

“Protecting the long-term future of the Met is inextricably linked with retaining these musicians, and with respecting their livelihoods, their income and their well-being,” Nézet-Séguin wrote.

The Met said in a statement that “we share Yannick’s frustration over the lengthy closure and the impact it has had on our employees,” and added that the company was pleased that its orchestra and chorus and others were now receiving bridge pay. The Met said all involved were “working together for new agreements that will ensure the sustainability of the Met into the future.”

The Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, has said that since the pandemic forced it to shut its doors it has lost an estimated $150 million in earned revenue, and that it was seeking pay cuts from its workers, as many arts institutions have. The Met has been trying to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30% — the change in take-home pay would be more like 20%, it has said — and has offered to restore half the cuts when ticket revenue and core donations return to prepandemic levels.

Months into the furlough, the Met offered partial paychecks to its workers if they agreed to those cuts, but the unions resisted. At the end of the year, the Met offered partial paychecks on a temporary basis for simply returning to the bargaining table. Members of the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents chorus members, dancers and others, accepted at the end of January and have been receiving paychecks for more than a month. The orchestra musicians voted to accept the offer this week. (The Met has locked out its stagehands, whose contract expired last year.)

Nézet-Séguin wrote in his letter that he was relieved that both the musicians and the chorus members are now being paid, but added that “this is just a start.” The deal allows for temporary payments of up to $1,543 a week, less than half of what the musicians are typically paid.

Nézet-Séguin was named the Met’s music director in 2016, when he was tapped to succeed James Levine, who led the company for four decades (Levine, who stepped down to an emeritus position because of health problems and was then fired two years later after an investigation into sexual abuse allegations, died this month.)

“I implore the fiduciaries of this incredible house to urgently help to find a solution to compensate our artists appropriately,” Nézet-Séguin wrote. “We all realize the challenges, economic and otherwise, that the Met is facing, and therefore I ask for empathy, honesty and open communication throughout this process.”

Urging the Metropolitan Opera to compensate its artists “appropriately,” the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sent a letter to leaders at the Met on Thursday saying that the many months its orchestra and chorus had gone without pay during the pandemic had become “increasingly unacceptable.

Urging the Metropolitan Opera to compensate its artists “appropriately,” the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sent a letter to leaders at the Met on Thursday saying that the many months its orchestra and chorus had gone without pay during the pandemic had become “increasingly unacceptable.” He sent the letter as the Met’s musicians were scheduled to receive their first partial paychecks since they were furloughed in April. Before this week, they had been the last major ensemble in the country without a deal for at least some pay during the pandemic. In addressing the players’ nearly yearlong furlough — and hinting at the tough negotiations ahead, in which the Met is seeking long-term pay cuts from its unionized employees — Nézet-Séguin was doing something rare for a music director: weighing in on labor matters. “Of course, I understand this is a complex situation,” Nézet-Séguin wrote, “but as the public face of the Met on a musical level, I am finding it increasingly hard to justify what has happened.” The letter was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by its recipients, which included Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager; the leaders of the negotiating committees representing the chorus and orchestra; and members of the opera’s board of directors. “We risk losing talent permanently,” Nézet-Séguin warned in the letter. “The orchestra and chorus are our crown jewels, and they must be protected. Their talent is the Met. The artists of the Met are the institution.” The orchestra committee has said that 10 out of 97 members have retired during the pandemic as the ensemble has gone unpaid, a stark increase from the two to three who retire in an average year. “Protecting the long-term future of the Met is inextricably linked with retaining these musicians, and with respecting their livelihoods, their income and their well-being,” Nézet-Séguin wrote. The Met said in a statement that “we share Yannick’s frustration over the lengthy closure and the impact it has had on our employees,” and added that the company was pleased that its orchestra and chorus and others were now receiving bridge pay. The Met said all involved were “working together for new agreements that will ensure the sustainability of the Met into the future.” The Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, has said that since the pandemic forced it to shut its doors it has lost an estimated $150 million in earned revenue, and that it was seeking pay cuts from its workers, as many arts institutions have. The Met has been trying to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30% — the change in take-home pay would be more like 20%, it has said — and has offered to restore half the cuts when ticket revenue and core donations return to prepandemic levels. Months into the furlough, the Met offered partial paychecks to its workers if they agreed to those cuts, but the unions resisted. At the end of the year, the Met offered partial paychecks on a temporary basis for simply returning to the bargaining table. Members of the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents chorus members, dancers and others, accepted at the end of January and have been receiving paychecks for more than a month. The orchestra musicians voted to accept the offer this week. (The Met has locked out its stagehands, whose contract expired last year.) Nézet-Séguin wrote in his letter that he was relieved that both the musicians and the chorus members are now being paid, but added that “this is just a start.” The deal allows for temporary payments of up to $1,543 a week, less than half of what the musicians are typically paid. Nézet-Séguin was named the Met’s music director in 2016, when he was tapped to succeed James Levine, who led the company for four decades (Levine, who stepped down to an emeritus position because of health problems and was then fired two years later after an investigation into sexual abuse allegations, died this month.) “I implore the fiduciaries of this incredible house to urgently help to find a solution to compensate our artists appropriately,” Nézet-Séguin wrote. “We all realize the challenges, economic and otherwise, that the Met is facing, and therefore I ask for empathy, honesty and open communication throughout this process.”

Met Opera’s music director decries musicians’ unpaid furlough

Hot off the heels of 'WandaVision' comes the next chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'.

Marvel's latest TV show 'Falcon and the Winter Soldier' dives deep into societal issues

An unlikely fusion of Irish dance and hip-hop music is flying high on the internet as a young dreadlocked African-American dancer blends her passions in viral videos of herself in quarantine.

Black American brings new face to Irish dancing

One year ago, the grim news that Broadway was shutting down was sweeping through the theater district. Performers were packing up their things and heading home; theater staff members were stationed in lobbies to intercept ticket holders and explain to them that the show was canceled.

As a return date was pushed further and further, performers and theater staff resigned themselves to finding work elsewhere.

But on Friday, the anniversary of the day their beloved industry shut its doors, Broadway singers, dancers, actors and front-of-house staffers gathered in Times Square, just across from the TKTS discount ticket booth, to perform live for a small audience of industry insiders and passersby.

The pop-up show was part concert, part rally. Broadway legend Chita Rivera spoke about the power of theater to heal a beleaguered society, and then André De Shields, decked out in a glittering gold suit and a transparent face shield, sang the opening song from “Pippin” along with an array of Broadway stars, backup singers and dancers.

“I’m just happy that we’re all trying to remind the world that we’re still here, and we will be back,” said Bre Jackson, a singer who belted out a solo in the “Pippin” number.

One year ago, Jackson, 29, was returning to New York from a national tour of “The Book of Mormon” and preparing for five auditions. Within 12 hours, she said, the auditions were all canceled, and suddenly she was thrust into a job market without much need for professional singers and actors. Jackson eventually found work as an office manager for a therapy practice, finding performing gigs every so often.

One of the main purposes of these pop-up performances — of which there have been dozens across the city — is to provide paying gigs for people in the industry who have lost their entire incomes during the pandemic, said Blake Ross, one of the event’s producers. The performance was funded by a collection of organizations, including nonprofits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and NYCNext.

Although perform inside theaters are unlikely until after Labor Day, the message of the show was that the end of the industry’s nightmare seemed to be getting closer. Last night, President Joe Biden asked states to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated by May 1, a hopeful sign that shows might be able to start rehearsals over the summer.

The performance landed on one of the first warm, springlike days of the year in New York City, adding a jolt of excitement. It felt like a reunion of sorts: After a long time working from home, some people shrieked when they saw each other, keeping their distance but air-hugging or elbow-bumping. To make sure that crowds didn’t form in Father Duffy Square, event planners made no public announcement of the performance, but passersby gathered on the edges of the makeshift stage and stood on elevated surfaces to get better views.

The cast started with a topical classic, George Benson’s “On Broadway,” with a group of high-energy, sneaker-clad and masked backup dancers. (There had been barely any time to rehearse beforehand, so just before showtime, the dancers ran through their choreography just offstage on the concrete.) Next, singers Lillias White, Nikki M. James, Peppermint and Solea Pfeiffer joined in “Home” from “The Wiz.” And a choir sang an original song written about the pandemic hiatus, “We Will Be Back,” by Allen René Louis. Costumes from shows like “Wicked” and “Phantom of the Opera” lined the stage edges, glittering and gleaming on mannequins.

During the pandemic, two musicals, “Mean Girls” and “Frozen,” announced that they would not be returning to Broadway, as well as two plays that were in previews, Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” On Friday, several shows promised that they would indeed be back, including “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which got through three performances before it was forced to close, and “Six,” which had been scheduled to open March 12, 2020.

That day, Judi Wilfore, house manager for the Imperial Theater, remembers standing in the lobby before the scheduled evening performance of “Ain’t Too Proud” and breaking the news to ticket holders. Even though Broadway shut down on a Thursday, Wilfore came to work that weekend, too, in case any audience members showed up.

Over the summer, Wilfore decided that she needed to find work elsewhere, so she took an online course at Health Education Services, to get certified as a COVID compliance officer. At Friday’s event in Times Square, it was her job to make sure people were following safety guidelines and to manage a team of front-of-house theater staffers who were hired to help run the event.

Wilfore has been a compliance officer for gigs here and there — including the load-out of the “Beetlejuice” set from the Winter Garden Theater — but like many in the industry, she yearns for the eventual return to indoor theater, where she oversaw the bustling movements of staffers and audience members.

“We love what we do,” she said, “and the fact that we haven’t been able to do it in a year is unfathomable.”

One year ago, the grim news that Broadway was shutting down was sweeping through the theater district. Performers were packing up their things and heading home; theater staff members were stationed in lobbies to intercept ticket holders and explain to them that the show was canceled.

One year ago, the grim news that Broadway was shutting down was sweeping through the theater district. Performers were packing up their things and heading home; theater staff members were stationed in lobbies to intercept ticket holders and explain to them that the show was canceled. As a return date was pushed further and further, performers and theater staff resigned themselves to finding work elsewhere. But on Friday, the anniversary of the day their beloved industry shut its doors, Broadway singers, dancers, actors and front-of-house staffers gathered in Times Square, just across from the TKTS discount ticket booth, to perform live for a small audience of industry insiders and passersby. The pop-up show was part concert, part rally. Broadway legend Chita Rivera spoke about the power of theater to heal a beleaguered society, and then André De Shields, decked out in a glittering gold suit and a transparent face shield, sang the opening song from “Pippin” along with an array of Broadway stars, backup singers and dancers. “I’m just happy that we’re all trying to remind the world that we’re still here, and we will be back,” said Bre Jackson, a singer who belted out a solo in the “Pippin” number. One year ago, Jackson, 29, was returning to New York from a national tour of “The Book of Mormon” and preparing for five auditions. Within 12 hours, she said, the auditions were all canceled, and suddenly she was thrust into a job market without much need for professional singers and actors. Jackson eventually found work as an office manager for a therapy practice, finding performing gigs every so often. One of the main purposes of these pop-up performances — of which there have been dozens across the city — is to provide paying gigs for people in the industry who have lost their entire incomes during the pandemic, said Blake Ross, one of the event’s producers. The performance was funded by a collection of organizations, including nonprofits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and NYCNext. Although perform inside theaters are unlikely until after Labor Day, the message of the show was that the end of the industry’s nightmare seemed to be getting closer. Last night, President Joe Biden asked states to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated by May 1, a hopeful sign that shows might be able to start rehearsals over the summer. The performance landed on one of the first warm, springlike days of the year in New York City, adding a jolt of excitement. It felt like a reunion of sorts: After a long time working from home, some people shrieked when they saw each other, keeping their distance but air-hugging or elbow-bumping. To make sure that crowds didn’t form in Father Duffy Square, event planners made no public announcement of the performance, but passersby gathered on the edges of the makeshift stage and stood on elevated surfaces to get better views. The cast started with a topical classic, George Benson’s “On Broadway,” with a group of high-energy, sneaker-clad and masked backup dancers. (There had been barely any time to rehearse beforehand, so just before showtime, the dancers ran through their choreography just offstage on the concrete.) Next, singers Lillias White, Nikki M. James, Peppermint and Solea Pfeiffer joined in “Home” from “The Wiz.” And a choir sang an original song written about the pandemic hiatus, “We Will Be Back,” by Allen René Louis. Costumes from shows like “Wicked” and “Phantom of the Opera” lined the stage edges, glittering and gleaming on mannequins. During the pandemic, two musicals, “Mean Girls” and “Frozen,” announced that they would not be returning to Broadway, as well as two plays that were in previews, Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” On Friday, several shows promised that they would indeed be back, including “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which got through three performances before it was forced to close, and “Six,” which had been scheduled to open March 12, 2020. That day, Judi Wilfore, house manager for the Imperial Theater, remembers standing in the lobby before the scheduled evening performance of “Ain’t Too Proud” and breaking the news to ticket holders. Even though Broadway shut down on a Thursday, Wilfore came to work that weekend, too, in case any audience members showed up. Over the summer, Wilfore decided that she needed to find work elsewhere, so she took an online course at Health Education Services, to get certified as a COVID compliance officer. At Friday’s event in Times Square, it was her job to make sure people were following safety guidelines and to manage a team of front-of-house theater staffers who were hired to help run the event. Wilfore has been a compliance officer for gigs here and there — including the load-out of the “Beetlejuice” set from the Winter Garden Theater — but like many in the industry, she yearns for the eventual return to indoor theater, where she oversaw the bustling movements of staffers and audience members. “We love what we do,” she said, “and the fact that we haven’t been able to do it in a year is unfathomable.”

‘We’ll be back,’ broadway says, on shutdown anniversary

Kate Walsh says her latest movie, "Sometime Other than Now," is a mature love story.

Kate Walsh's latest movie is a mature love story

The white Alba truffle is one of the most coveted and expensive ingredients in the world. The fungus grows only on the roots of tall oak trees in the forests of Piedmont, Italy. There's been no scientific method found to cultivate the truffle and the secret to their discovery lies solely with the locals, who are the subject of new documentary "The Truffle Hunters".

New documentary sniffs out dying Italian art of finding truffles

Drake takes viewers on a tour of Toronto in the music video for new single "What's Next".

Drake roams the streets of Toronto in 'What's Next' music video

Firecrackers lit up the skies on Friday (February 9) night as Taiwanese celebrated a cacophonous traditional festival in the island's south, pared back this year due to the coronavirus pandemic but still allowed to go ahead due to Taiwan's low case numbers.

Firecrackers fly as Taiwanese celebrate pared back festival

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This story contains spoilers for the seventh episode of 'WandaVision.'

If you are a fan of the Disney+ Marvel series “WandaVision,” there are five words that have been stuck in your head for the past week: “It was Agatha all along.”

The 62-second earworm appears in Episode 7, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” and its purpose is simple: It explains what Wanda and Vision’s nosy neighbor, Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), has been up to this entire time. It has also taken on a life of its own, having spawned numerous trap, rock and rap remixes in the days since the episode debuted Feb 19.

“None of us knew this was going to be the song,” said composer Robert Lopez, 46, who created the songs for the series with his wife of 17 years, Oscar and Grammy-winning lyricist Kristen Anderson-Lopez, 48. “We woke up that morning to find that it was all over the internet, and it was like, ‘This is awesome.’”

It isn’t the first time the songwriting power couple has created an infectious earworm, having written tunes such as the Oscar- and Grammy-winning song “Let It Go” for the Disney animated movie “Frozen” and the Oscar-winning ballad “Remember Me” for the Pixar animated film “Coco.” They’ve won a pile of Oscars, Emmys, Tonys and Grammys between them. (Lopez, who co-conceived and co-wrote the hit musicals “Avenue Q” and “The Book of Mormon,” is in rarefied air as the only double EGOT — someone who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, twice over.)

But it is a minute-long riff on “The Munsters” theme that has burned itself into the brains of the collective internet over the past week.

 
“It’s got an ‘Addams Family’ twist with an electric harpsichord,” Anderson-Lopez said. “It’s super-duper cool and feels like something you’d find in a haunted house.”

Sung by Hahn and a chorus of male backup singers (including Lopez), it delivers the dramatic revelation that Agnes is the powerful witch Agatha Harkness — and that it is she, not Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), who is behind all the oddities happening in sleepy little Westview. (Having killed a dog, she reveals, was among her dastardly deeds.)

When the song debuted on Spotify and iTunes on Tuesday, it leaped to the No. 1 slot on the iTunes soundtrack charts. (The trap remix created by hip-hop artist Leland Philpot is “the most glorious thing,” Anderson-Lopez said.) 
 
In a phone interview from Connecticut on Wednesday, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez shared how the track came together, their trick for getting their own songs out of their own heads and why Hahn’s character is “perfidious” rather than “hideous.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: Did you have any idea “Agatha All Along” was going to blow up like this?

ROBERT LOPEZ: No, not at all. We were sort of sad that we were winding down and we didn’t know if we’d have any hits come out of this thing. But my goodness.

Q: What part of the song came to you first?

LOPEZ: We have a theme — the “WandaVision” motif — that’s in every single song. So that was how we began with “Agatha.”

KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But, in a way, “Agatha All Along” was there all along. We’ve been spoon-feeding a tritone that’s called the devil’s interval — the&nbsp; 'duh-duh-duh'&nbsp;— throughout the series. And then ultimately, when the big reveal happens with the 'DUH! DUH! DUH!', everyone had been hearing it steadily, so it felt like an old friend.

Q: Where did you look for inspiration for the song?

LOPEZ: We started with a different idea for a version of the song more along the lines of “That Girl.”

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But it just wasn’t right; it just wasn’t churning my blood the way that I wanted it to. So then we thought: It’s a show about witches, right? So let’s embrace it. What other shows are about witches and Goth figures? “The Addams Family,” “The Munsters,” the “Monster Mash” — all these Halloween-y kind of songs that have this grinding, growling bari sax.

LOPEZ: We also have an electric harpsichord, which is what they use in “The Addams Family.” That’s the thing going dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit — the repeated chorus.

Q:Who does what when you’re writing a song?

LOPEZ: It changes with every song. Sometimes we’ll write it together in the same room, sometimes one of us will write the whole thing and the other one will take credit. In this case, Kristen wrote the full lyrics and gave them to me on a sheet of paper, and then I went to town with music.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: I would wake up in the morning, and sometimes I’d be so excited to write the songs that I would write them in the shower. Get out, get a towel, scribble them on a piece of paper with drips, blurring ink — and Bobby would compose them by 10 a.m., and we’d record them after lunch, and then get notes at like 5 p.m.

Q:“Perfidious” is quite the lyric! Where did that come from?

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: We knew we didn’t want to say "hideous," because Agatha is still hot. So I looked at a rhyming dictionary and was like: “'Perfidious!' It’s so great! It’s so perfect!”

LOPEZ: We always have an SAT word in the lyrics somewhere because people appreciate learning a word. And if they already know it, they appreciate being able to brag that they know it.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: Right! “Frozen fractals …” [from “Let It Go”]

Q: Your neighbors were not fans of one of your last hits, “Let It Go.” Has reaction been more favorable this time around?

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: It’s still early — they’ve had less than a week. But I’m starting to feel the trickles on Twitter. I’m getting messages saying, “Thank you so much for ‘Agatha All Along,’ now please remove it from my head!” and “It’s been five days, now take it back, please!”

Q: Do the songs you write get stuck in your head, too?

LOPEZ: Of course! You wake up in the middle of the night with it pounding in your ears. But having a song that gets in people’s heads is such an honor for us. It means what we created somehow magically connected across space and time and landed in another person’s neurons. It’s what was in our heads, and now it’s in their heads, and that’s something we now all share.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ:I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning with “She’s insidious / So perfidious” just going on a loop in my head. And so I replaced it with: “Don’t worry, / Ooh, ooh ooh ooh oo-ooh ooh oo-ooh, / be happy.”

LOPEZ: That’s how you get it out of your system …

ANDERSON-LOPEZ: … replace it with another thing that’s been stuck in your head before.

This story contains spoilers for the seventh episode of 'WandaVision.' If you are a fan of the Disney+ Marvel series “WandaVision,” there are five words that have been stuck in your head for the past week: “It was Agatha all along.

This story contains spoilers for the seventh episode of 'WandaVision.' If you are a fan of the Disney+ Marvel series “WandaVision,” there are five words that have been stuck in your head for the past week: “It was Agatha all along.” The 62-second earworm appears in Episode 7, “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” and its purpose is simple: It explains what Wanda and Vision’s nosy neighbor, Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), has been up to this entire time. It has also taken on a life of its own, having spawned numerous trap, rock and rap remixes in the days since the episode debuted Feb 19. “None of us knew this was going to be the song,” said composer Robert Lopez, 46, who created the songs for the series with his wife of 17 years, Oscar and Grammy-winning lyricist Kristen Anderson-Lopez, 48. “We woke up that morning to find that it was all over the internet, and it was like, ‘This is awesome.’” It isn’t the first time the songwriting power couple has created an infectious earworm, having written tunes such as the Oscar- and Grammy-winning song “Let It Go” for the Disney animated movie “Frozen” and the Oscar-winning ballad “Remember Me” for the Pixar animated film “Coco.” They’ve won a pile of Oscars, Emmys, Tonys and Grammys between them. (Lopez, who co-conceived and co-wrote the hit musicals “Avenue Q” and “The Book of Mormon,” is in rarefied air as the only double EGOT — someone who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, twice over.) But it is a minute-long riff on “The Munsters” theme that has burned itself into the brains of the collective internet over the past week. “It’s got an ‘Addams Family’ twist with an electric harpsichord,” Anderson-Lopez said. “It’s super-duper cool and feels like something you’d find in a haunted house.” Sung by Hahn and a chorus of male backup singers (including Lopez), it delivers the dramatic revelation that Agnes is the powerful witch Agatha Harkness — and that it is she, not Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), who is behind all the oddities happening in sleepy little Westview. (Having killed a dog, she reveals, was among her dastardly deeds.) When the song debuted on Spotify and iTunes on Tuesday, it leaped to the No. 1 slot on the iTunes soundtrack charts. (The trap remix created by hip-hop artist Leland Philpot is “the most glorious thing,” Anderson-Lopez said.) In a phone interview from Connecticut on Wednesday, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez shared how the track came together, their trick for getting their own songs out of their own heads and why Hahn’s character is “perfidious” rather than “hideous.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Q: Did you have any idea “Agatha All Along” was going to blow up like this? ROBERT LOPEZ: No, not at all. We were sort of sad that we were winding down and we didn’t know if we’d have any hits come out of this thing. But my goodness. Q: What part of the song came to you first? LOPEZ: We have a theme — the “WandaVision” motif — that’s in every single song. So that was how we began with “Agatha.” KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But, in a way, “Agatha All Along” was there all along. We’ve been spoon-feeding a tritone that’s called the devil’s interval — the 'duh-duh-duh' — throughout the series. And then ultimately, when the big reveal happens with the 'DUH! DUH! DUH!', everyone had been hearing it steadily, so it felt like an old friend. Q: Where did you look for inspiration for the song? LOPEZ: We started with a different idea for a version of the song more along the lines of “That Girl.” ANDERSON-LOPEZ: But it just wasn’t right; it just wasn’t churning my blood the way that I wanted it to. So then we thought: It’s a show about witches, right? So let’s embrace it. What other shows are about witches and Goth figures? “The Addams Family,” “The Munsters,” the “Monster Mash” — all these Halloween-y kind of songs that have this grinding, growling bari sax. LOPEZ: We also have an electric harpsichord, which is what they use in “The Addams Family.” That’s the thing going dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit — the repeated chorus. Q:Who does what when you’re writing a song? LOPEZ: It changes with every song. Sometimes we’ll write it together in the same room, sometimes one of us will write the whole thing and the other one will take credit. In this case, Kristen wrote the full lyrics and gave them to me on a sheet of paper, and then I went to town with music. ANDERSON-LOPEZ: I would wake up in the morning, and sometimes I’d be so excited to write the songs that I would write them in the shower. Get out, get a towel, scribble them on a piece of paper with drips, blurring ink — and Bobby would compose them by 10 a.m., and we’d record them after lunch, and then get notes at like 5 p.m. Q:“Perfidious” is quite the lyric! Where did that come from? ANDERSON-LOPEZ: We knew we didn’t want to say "hideous," because Agatha is still hot. So I looked at a rhyming dictionary and was like: “'Perfidious!' It’s so great! It’s so perfect!” LOPEZ: We always have an SAT word in the lyrics somewhere because people appreciate learning a word. And if they already know it, they appreciate being able to brag that they know it. ANDERSON-LOPEZ: Right! “Frozen fractals …” [from “Let It Go”] Q: Your neighbors were not fans of one of your last hits, “Let It Go.” Has reaction been more favorable this time around? ANDERSON-LOPEZ: It’s still early — they’ve had less than a week. But I’m starting to feel the trickles on Twitter. I’m getting messages saying, “Thank you so much for ‘Agatha All Along,’ now please remove it from my head!” and “It’s been five days, now take it back, please!” Q: Do the songs you write get stuck in your head, too? LOPEZ: Of course! You wake up in the middle of the night with it pounding in your ears. But having a song that gets in people’s heads is such an honor for us. It means what we created somehow magically connected across space and time and landed in another person’s neurons. It’s what was in our heads, and now it’s in their heads, and that’s something we now all share. ANDERSON-LOPEZ:I woke up at 3 a.m. this morning with “She’s insidious / So perfidious” just going on a loop in my head. And so I replaced it with: “Don’t worry, / Ooh, ooh ooh ooh oo-ooh ooh oo-ooh, / be happy.” LOPEZ: That’s how you get it out of your system … ANDERSON-LOPEZ: … replace it with another thing that’s been stuck in your head before.

Meet the songwriters behind the 'WandaVision' hit 'Agatha All Along'

Billie Holiday, considered one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, has long been remembered for her expressive voice as well as a history of drug and alcohol addiction and her untimely death at age 44.

New film aims to change the narrative around singer Billie Holiday's life

Shortly after the Palestinian Intifada in the 1990s, British-Palestinian filmmaker Farah Nabulsi ceased her visits the West Bank where her family hailed from. Twenty-five years later, she returned to find a new reality that inspired her film 'The Present' which has been shortlisted for an Oscar nomination recently.

Oscar short-listed movie offers glimpse of Palestinians' life under Israeli checkpoints

One of Jerusalem's main theatres reopened its doors to the public on Tuesday after six months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Khan Theatre welcomed visitors by staging Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit," directed by the theatre's Artistic Director, Udi Ben Moshe.

Jerusalem theatre reopens after pandemic hiatus

Shortly after the premiere of the first episode of “Allen v. Farrow,” an HBO documentary series that reexamines Dylan Farrow’s decades-old sexual abuse allegations against filmmaker Woody Allen, her adoptive father, a spokesperson for Allen released a statement Sunday night slamming the series, calling it a “shoddy hit piece.”

Letty Aronson, Allen’s sister, sent the statement — attributed to a spokesperson — shortly after the first episode aired, on behalf of Allen and Soon-Yi Previn, the filmmaker’s wife and the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow. In 1992, Farrow, Allen’s longtime girlfriend, learned of the relationship between Allen and Previn when Previn was a first-year college student. That relationship is also the subject of scrutiny in the four-part docuseries.

Neither Allen nor Previn participated in the series, but it does include audio excerpts from Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.”

“These documentarians had no interest in the truth,” the statement said. “Instead, they spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers to put together a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods.”

On Monday, the publisher of Allen’s memoir, Skyhorse, raised another objection to the series: that the filmmakers had used snippets from the audiobook without permission. In a statement, the president and publisher of Skyhorse, Tony Lyons, said that the “unauthorized” use of the audio in the first episode was “clear, willful infringement under existing legal precedent.” 
 
Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-after-woody-allen-publisher-threatens-lawsuit-allen-v-farrow-makers-respond-365556" hreflang="en">After Woody Allen publisher threatens lawsuit, 'Allen v. Farrow' makers respond</a>

Lyons said in the statement that the filmmakers did not request permission to use the excerpts and that the publisher learned late last week that the episodes make “extensive” use of the audiobook. The publisher’s lawyer notified HBO on Friday that “if the use of the audiobook were anywhere near what we were hearing, it would constitute copyright infringement,” he said.

The memoir was originally set to be published last year by Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group until dozens of Hachette employees staged a walkout in protest and the publisher reneged. About two weeks later, his book was published by Arcade Publishing, an imprint of the independent publisher Skyhorse.

In response to the publisher’s objections, an HBO spokesperson provided a statement from the filmmakers, saying, “The creators of ‘Allen v. Farrow’ legally used limited audio excerpts from Woody Allen’s memoir in the series under the Fair Use doctrine.” The doctrine has been invoked to allow artists and journalists — including documentary filmmakers — to use limited amounts of copyrighted works for certain purposes, including using the material to illustrate an argument or to serve as the subject of a critique. 
 
Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/mia-farrow-says-bringing-woody-allen-into-her-family-is-the-great-regret-of-her-life-365451">Mia Farrow says bringing Woody Allen into family is the 'great regret' of life</a>

Episode 1 includes extensive interviews with Mia Farrow and Dylan Farrow, who accused Allen of sexual assault when she was 7 years old. It also included interviews with family and friends who said that even before Aug. 4, 1992 — the day that Dylan Farrow says Allen assaulted her — they witnessed behavior from Allen toward his daughter that they saw as inappropriate.

Allen has long denied the abuse allegations, arguing that Mia Farrow had coached Dylan to make the allegations after learning about his relationship with Previn.

In Sunday’s statement, Allen continued to deny the claims.

“As has been known for decades, these allegations are categorically false,” the statement said. “Multiple agencies investigated them at the time and found that, whatever Dylan Farrow may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had ever taken place.”

In later episodes, the series raises questions about one of those investigations, in particular: a report issued by the Yale Child Sexual Abuse Clinic, at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, which found Dylan uncredible after interviewing the child nine times during a seven-month period. According to the series, all the contemporaneous interview notes from those sessions were destroyed when the final report was issued. 
 
Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/woody-allen-mia-farrow-soon-yi-previn-dylan-farrow-a-timeline-365343" hreflang="en">Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A Timeline</a>

Prosecutors in Connecticut, where Dylan Farrow says that Allen sexually assaulted her, declined to prosecute Allen in 1993. The state’s attorney said that he did so to spare Dylan the trauma of a trial but that he believed she had been molested.

The statement said that Allen and Previn were approached about the documentary less than two months ago and were “given only a matter of days” to respond to it. It also said it was “sadly unsurprising” that HBO was airing the series, considering a production deal it had made with Ronan Farrow, Dylan Farrow’s brother, who has spoken in support of his sister, including in the series. (Ronan Farrow, an investigative journalist who has reported extensively on sexual misconduct, has a deal with HBO to create investigative documentary specials, though he was not on the production team for “Allen v. Farrow.”)

Shortly after the premiere of the first episode of “Allen v. Farrow,” an HBO documentary series that reexamines Dylan Farrow’s decades-old sexual abuse allegations against filmmaker Woody Allen, her adoptive father, a spokesperson for Allen released a statement Sunday night slamming the series, calling it a “shoddy hit piece.

Shortly after the premiere of the first episode of “Allen v. Farrow,” an HBO documentary series that reexamines Dylan Farrow’s decades-old sexual abuse allegations against filmmaker Woody Allen, her adoptive father, a spokesperson for Allen released a statement Sunday night slamming the series, calling it a “shoddy hit piece.” Letty Aronson, Allen’s sister, sent the statement — attributed to a spokesperson — shortly after the first episode aired, on behalf of Allen and Soon-Yi Previn, the filmmaker’s wife and the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow. In 1992, Farrow, Allen’s longtime girlfriend, learned of the relationship between Allen and Previn when Previn was a first-year college student. That relationship is also the subject of scrutiny in the four-part docuseries. Neither Allen nor Previn participated in the series, but it does include audio excerpts from Allen’s recent memoir, “Apropos of Nothing.” “These documentarians had no interest in the truth,” the statement said. “Instead, they spent years surreptitiously collaborating with the Farrows and their enablers to put together a hatchet job riddled with falsehoods.” On Monday, the publisher of Allen’s memoir, Skyhorse, raised another objection to the series: that the filmmakers had used snippets from the audiobook without permission. In a statement, the president and publisher of Skyhorse, Tony Lyons, said that the “unauthorized” use of the audio in the first episode was “clear, willful infringement under existing legal precedent.” Also read: After Woody Allen publisher threatens lawsuit, 'Allen v. Farrow' makers respond Lyons said in the statement that the filmmakers did not request permission to use the excerpts and that the publisher learned late last week that the episodes make “extensive” use of the audiobook. The publisher’s lawyer notified HBO on Friday that “if the use of the audiobook were anywhere near what we were hearing, it would constitute copyright infringement,” he said. The memoir was originally set to be published last year by Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group until dozens of Hachette employees staged a walkout in protest and the publisher reneged. About two weeks later, his book was published by Arcade Publishing, an imprint of the independent publisher Skyhorse. In response to the publisher’s objections, an HBO spokesperson provided a statement from the filmmakers, saying, “The creators of ‘Allen v. Farrow’ legally used limited audio excerpts from Woody Allen’s memoir in the series under the Fair Use doctrine.” The doctrine has been invoked to allow artists and journalists — including documentary filmmakers — to use limited amounts of copyrighted works for certain purposes, including using the material to illustrate an argument or to serve as the subject of a critique. Also read: Mia Farrow says bringing Woody Allen into family is the 'great regret' of life Episode 1 includes extensive interviews with Mia Farrow and Dylan Farrow, who accused Allen of sexual assault when she was 7 years old. It also included interviews with family and friends who said that even before Aug. 4, 1992 — the day that Dylan Farrow says Allen assaulted her — they witnessed behavior from Allen toward his daughter that they saw as inappropriate. Allen has long denied the abuse allegations, arguing that Mia Farrow had coached Dylan to make the allegations after learning about his relationship with Previn. In Sunday’s statement, Allen continued to deny the claims. “As has been known for decades, these allegations are categorically false,” the statement said. “Multiple agencies investigated them at the time and found that, whatever Dylan Farrow may have been led to believe, absolutely no abuse had ever taken place.” In later episodes, the series raises questions about one of those investigations, in particular: a report issued by the Yale Child Sexual Abuse Clinic, at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, which found Dylan uncredible after interviewing the child nine times during a seven-month period. According to the series, all the contemporaneous interview notes from those sessions were destroyed when the final report was issued. Also read: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Soon-Yi Previn, Dylan Farrow: A Timeline Prosecutors in Connecticut, where Dylan Farrow says that Allen sexually assaulted her, declined to prosecute Allen in 1993. The state’s attorney said that he did so to spare Dylan the trauma of a trial but that he believed she had been molested. The statement said that Allen and Previn were approached about the documentary less than two months ago and were “given only a matter of days” to respond to it. It also said it was “sadly unsurprising” that HBO was airing the series, considering a production deal it had made with Ronan Farrow, Dylan Farrow’s brother, who has spoken in support of his sister, including in the series. (Ronan Farrow, an investigative journalist who has reported extensively on sexual misconduct, has a deal with HBO to create investigative documentary specials, though he was not on the production team for “Allen v. Farrow.”)

Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn call HBO docuseries a 'shoddy hit piece'

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed.

Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who &lt;em&gt;she &lt;/em&gt;was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline.

“It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?”

Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars.

This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know&lt;em&gt; her&lt;/em&gt; because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand.

Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show.

That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either.

That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.”

She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being&lt;em&gt; their&lt;/em&gt; movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.”

STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West.

“Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’”

Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too.

“Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.”

And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film.

But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.”

In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’”

“Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves.

In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California.

But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply &lt;em&gt;being&lt;/em&gt;. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.”

That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.”

Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight.

But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.”

FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend?

“I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me.

What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door.

“That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’”

She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.”

That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests.

“I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.”

To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.”

We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.”

As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome.

She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!”

It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea.

“Well, at what point?” she said. “&lt;em&gt;Is&lt;/em&gt; it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed. Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who she was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline. “It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?” Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars. This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know her because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand. Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show. That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either. That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.” She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being their movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.” STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West. “Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’” Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too. “Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.” And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film. But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.” In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’” “Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves. In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California. But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply being. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.” That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.” Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight. But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.” FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend? “I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me. What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door. “That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’” She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.” That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests. “I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.” To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.” We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.” As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome. She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!” It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea. “Well, at what point?” she said. “Is it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

What Frances McDormand would (and wouldn’t) give to 'Nomadland'

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