The Parting Shot with H. Alan Scott

Mikey Madison has been dreaming of a film like Anora since she started acting as a teenager on Better Things. “It’s been a dream of mine to have that kind of collaboration with a filmmaker like Sean [Baker].” That dream has come true in a big way, with the film and her performance picking up a lot of awards buzz. “I’m so happy that people are excited about the film because I’m so proud of it.” Madison plays Ani, a young sex worker who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch. But the Cinderella story quickly turns dark. Madison and Baker collaborated on creating the title role. “I did a lot of work to bring her to life, I knew everything about her, and I was able to just very easily slip into that character and feel all the things she was feeling.” Because of her careful preparation, when it came time to film, she just wanted to get it right. “I think any pressure was pressure that I put on myself, just because I’ve fallen in love with this character and really wanted to represent her in an honest way and just do her justice and the story.”

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Fresh off his Tony nomination for Mother Play, Jim Parsons is back on Broadway in Our Town. So, does he not like taking a break? "Until [Big Bang Theory] wrapped in 2019, I did not really know what it was to take a break that was not only extended, but also uncertain." The reason for back-to-back shows—besides theater being "more alive for me now as it...ever has been"—is that "within days of agreeing to one, another came," and, "I felt very strongly that I wanted to do both." Parsons plays the stage manager in Our Town, guiding the audience through "one of the better-known plays in the entire canon of theater, and with a cast of 28." "I said it to Kenny [Leon], the director, in rehearsal the other day, 'This is the first time in a long time that I've worked on something and I thought I could see not really getting tired of [it].'" Parsons knows many will always see Big Bang Theory's Sheldon in his performances, and he's fine with that, because the sitcom "undoubtedly offered me more opportunities as an actor and as a human than without it, there's just no doubt about it."

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It’s never fun to be the first one voted off a reality show, but that’s exactly what just happened to Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett on ‘Survivor.’ Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott recaps this wild week in reality TV (Anna Delvey on Dancing with the Stars was interesting) and chats with Jon about being the first one voted off.

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Bestselling author Rumaan Alam is happy to come out of hiding to promote his new novel Entitlement (September 17). “I spend all of my time here in this room hunched over this very computer, it's nice to have an opportunity to exist outside of that.” After the massive success of his last book, Leave the World Behind, Alam is once again focusing on class, but this time honing in on money. “We valorized the rich in this society, and by the same token, one must logically admit that we disregard the poor.” Entitlement follows Brooke as she navigates the sometimes-disturbing world of the megarich and the concerning impact it can have on regular people (whatever regular means anymore). “You can't help engaging or understanding yourself and your accomplishments in American life via money.” Set in the not-too-distant past, the novel says a lot about where we are now and how we got here. “[Michael] Bloomberg as mayor was a fascinating cultural turn. It was the point at which we accepted if you are rich, maybe you know how to do something better. Which is obviously, on the face of it, ridiculous...the end result of that is Donald Trump. Somebody who is not gifted at anything, but feels like he presents himself like he is by virtue of his wealth.”

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Aldis Hodge’s career has been busy since his debut as a child actor in the 1995 film Die Hard with a Vengeance, but he says all that work has culminated in Prime Video’s Cross (November 14). “It just feels like the work that I’ve done in the past 35 years of my career has led up to this.” Hodge plays Alex Cross, a detective who uses forensic psychology to capture serial killers. The character was made famous in the popular James Patterson novels and film adaptations starring Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry. “If I wasn’t on this show, I’d be watching it, because it’s the kind of show I’ve been waiting for for a long time.” And Hodge is going to have that chance, because before the first episode even aired, Prime Video announced that they were renewing it for a second season. “That’s a huge leap of faith for them to step out for us, but it also validates the work that our entire crew, our cast, our producers and writers [are doing]. And it is very rare that it happens, but it just lets us know how special this project actually is, and how lucky we are to be a part of it.”

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