In the 2010 movie. Natalie Portman "was dancing for up to eight hours a day by the time shooting rolled around. During one significant scene, where the ballet director, Thomas, encourages Nina to push herself to the limit, Portman channels a lifetime of pressure." - Far Out Magazine
Pike: "This idea that it’s no longer enough to be healthy and we have to be 'well' is something that needs to be interrogated. Yet it’s so seductive because it’s in pursuit of things that people are ashamed to want, like youth, beauty and fitness." - The Observer (UK)
Michael Arden, best director for his revival of Parade, said he was often called "the F-word." (The NYT wouldn't print the word either.) Then "he drew raucous cheers as he reclaimed the slur, making clear that he was now one with a Tony." - The New York Times
After Shakespeare in Love, Weinstein pressured Fiennes to sign a five-movie contract. "The actor claimed he was effectively threatened by Weinstein that if he did not comply with the offered deal, he would not work in Hollywood again." - The Observer (UK)
Annecy's mayor: "The best response to this tragedy is to live even more forcefully and more intensely. ... With this conviction art and culture celebrates life, and enables us to change the world to make it a better place." - Variety
Alex Newell became the first out nonbinary actor to win a Tony, for their performance in Shucked - "and less than an hour later, Some Like It Hot star J. Harrison Ghee became the second for their lead performance as a musician on a journey of gender discovery." - Washington Post
For good reason. "The museum traces its origins back to when King Leopold II set up the International Exposition of 1897. As part of that, 267 Congolese men, women and children were taken by force to Belgium and exhibited to the public ... on the site where the museum stands." - BBC
Kimberly Akimbo for new musical, Leopoldstadt for play, and Topdog/Underdog for play revival. The whole list is at the link. And Ariana DeBose hosted it all without a script. "In the end the telecast aired without pickets, without scripted banter and without a hitch." - The New York Times
Corey Hawkins was nominated "for leading actor in a play alongside co-star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. The duo played brothers in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog. 'We had to trust each other implicitly, because there’s no other lifeline on that stage.'" - Variety
Indeed, the story is now, thanks to an LA Times investigation, famously ridiculous - which is completely unlike all the other "product" movies this summer, of course. - The New York Times
At least not to the U.S., where sincerity is important. "To make sense of this, allow me to explain the Australian cultural phenomenon that is the elegantly simple 'yeah, nah.'" - Slate
It's both exciting and worrying. Though "there are key differences between using R.A.V.E. to synthesize new versions of a collaborator’s voice and using A.I. to anonymously imitate a living musician," that difference will likely be blurred over time. And it's the same for composers. - The New York Times
One TV exec: "I think we were always thinking about a guy. If I'm being honest, I don't know why. But I think that's, you know, what we were conditioned to think." - Salon
Or so surveys of one Very Large Company (yes, the one that's always in the news for trying to bust unions and not cooling its warehouses, etc.) says. - Fast Company
