Category: News

Candace Owens is familiar with controversy, and she is at the center of more of it today. This morning, both she and Harry Styles are trending on Twitter due to Owens’ criticism of Styles wearing dresses for his recent Vogue profile.

In response to the photos, Owens tweeted over the weekend, “There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this. In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. It is an outright attack. Bring back manly men.” This morning, she continued, “Since I’m trending I’d like to clarify what I meant when I said ‘bring back manly men’. I meant: Bring back manly men. Terms like ‘toxic masculinity’, were created by toxic females. Real women don’t do fake feminism. Sorry I’m not sorry.”

One Twitter user responded by sharing photos of other famous male musicians in dresses and wrote, “Candace Owens is 50 years behind on culture and education. Here’s Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Kurt Cobain all cross dressing. The list of other men in music doing the same is very long. The trend started around 1970 and went into other culture like sports. Welcome to 1970.” Owens responded, “PSA: Mining pictures on the internet of men in dresses is not going to suddenly make me attracted to men in dresses. I’m impervious to woke culture. Showing me 50 examples of something won’t make it any less stupid.”

The Vogue feature includes multiple photos of Styles dressed in clothing made with women in mind, and he spoke about his clothing preferences, saying, “Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with. What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away. When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play. I’ll go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the women’s clothes thinking they’re amazing. It’s like anything — anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself. There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I’ve never really thought too much about what it means — it just becomes this extended part of creating something.”

The one Twitter user above was far from the only one who had a response to Owens, so find some more reactions below.

The Fargo Frozen Five is Uproxx’s weekly collection of thoughts, observations, and goofball screencaps from each new episode of the FX limited series’ fourth season. We do not guarantee that there will be five items every week. There could be four, or six, or a dozen. Who knows? This show doesn’t follow the rules. We shouldn’t have to either.

Episode 9 — “East/West” (or “YO, TORNADO”)

5a. Fargo is a show where almost anything can happen. That’s the important thing to remember in all of this. The alien attack in season two is the best and most memorable example because, well, aliens, but weird stuff happens all the time on this show, often involving chaos in the sky. Spaceships, sure, but also the thing where fish rained down from the sky in season one and, to a lesser degree, Scoot McNairy getting killed by a falling air conditioner in season three. When you go back and think about all of it, about the show’s long history of devastation from the heavens, is it really all that strange that three characters got sucked up into a tornado in the middle of a gunfight in a black and white episode that loosely followed the structure of The Wizard of Oz? I mean, it is, yes, there’s no denying that on principle. That is not something that happens on most other shows. But… is it? For Fargo? You could make a pretty compelling argument that it’s par for the course, which is just about the best argument for this show I can think of.

5b. But let’s zoom in, from macro to micro. Rabbi Milligan and Satchel Cannon are running, from the Faddas and from Calamita and from anyone else who happens to be behind them. Their travels take them to Liberal, Kansas, a small town with a creepy hotel run by two wicked sisters (your witches of the East and West) and one filling station and a furniture/appliance store that used to be another establishment that once had a wall that had 5,000 of Rabbi Milligan’s dollars hidden behind it. Calamita and Omie Sparkman face off all the filling station. Satchel and the Rabbi meet a crew of characters at the boarding house: an old man getting medical care; a slick salesman named Hunk Swindell; a pastor named Roanoke and a creepy old man named Major Hamar. Satchel finds a neat little doggie. The action shifts from black and white to Technicolor. The Wizard of Oz of it all is undeniable.

4. How long did it take you to realize this is where things were headed? I’d like to lie and tell you I picked up on it all very quickly, but the truth is that I didn’t see it until some point between the discovery of the dog and the gangster-swallowing tornado at the end. I’m going to chalk that up to the thing I mentioned before about Fargo being weird enough for anything to happen, to the degree that I saw a black and white episode unfolding without most of the main cast and I was like “Hmm, cool” for a good 35-40 minutes before the hamster who runs on critical thinking wheel in my brain started limbering up.

3. If we are to assume, as I choose to believe, that young Satchel Cannon takes his dog and keeps running and one day becomes Mike Milligan, the seeds of a lot of that transformation are here in this episode. Start at the end and work backwards, with him and the world brightly colorized as he stares at that “THE FUTURE IS NOW” billboard, the one that vexed Rabbi Milligan when it was incomplete and that kept that sign worker employed right up until it was completed. Then look at young Satchel having a moment because he “just wanted one thing” for his birthday, a birthday no one remembered, not the father who traded him for power and now thinks he’s dead, not the guardian who ends up hoovered into the heavens while on a guilt-fueled cupcake hunt, not anyone. Have you ever seen anything so sad? I’m glad he has the dog now. I’m glad he’s free. I’m glad he — probably — ends up becoming a loquacious mobster who makes his own way in the world. I hope the dog lives a long and happy life full of running in fields and snacks from the dinner table and satisfying belly scratchies. It’s dawning on me now that I care about this dog more than I care about most of the human characters on the show. I feel okay about it.

2a. Speaking of the human characters… that’s where this gets interesting. The previous episode ended with a shootout in a train station that killed Deafy Wickware and Swanee Capps, and a shootout at the Fadda home that killed various henchmen and Mama Fadda. Oraetta was about to hit the road to escape potential felony charges related to her strychnine macaroons but discovered Ethelrida’s role in ratting her out and was staring out a window with murder in her eyes. There’s a war brewing back home that’s about to be fought on a number of fronts. Taking a literal and figurative detour down a blood-soaked yellow brick road made for a fun episode that gave some secondary characters a little room to breathe, and let the creators flash a little creative muscle, and sucked Calamita into a damn twister just a few episodes after he took a scalding gun barrel to the cheek (tough run for that guy, but fun for me at home), but it all also left a lot to deal with in the home stretch It makes me think this could all go in one of two directions: One, a little side-stepping, where not everything gets resolved and we all just have to learn to live with it, with some characters surviving but in a weird limbo regarding their future; two, non-stop violence until the end credits, blood flowing in the streets, as the Faddas seek revenge for the death of their mother and the Cannons continue their assault over Satchel’s “death” and Oraetta and Ethelrida circling each other like French-fluent cobras and Zelmare out for revenge against the entire world for taking Swanee away. And there are the ghosts. Again, a lot. It’ll be a fun experiment, if nothing else.

2b. Well, fine, I’ll just say it: I missed my hefty furious boy Gaetano very much this week. I bet he would have tried to punch the tornado. I also bet, if Fargo continues for many more seasons, there will be a character named Punch Tornado at some point.

1. Fish sticks for dinner at 5 p.m. every day is no way to live life, even if you are regaled with a critical analysis of the Goldilocks story that very justifiably points out what an unsatisfying end the story has, with Goldilocks left to continue roaming around homeless, probably burglarizing other homes in search of food and shelter, kind of like young Satchel Cannon is left to do now. It’s a whole thing. It ties back together. It’s a nice bit of storytelling in an episode that was very Coen-y from beginning to end, in a way that made for a great hour that might handcuff the remainder of the season. I suppose we’ll see. I cannot abide that many fish sticks, though. A line must be drawn somewhere.

Buffalo rapper Benny The Butcher appears to be in good health in a new video showing that he’s been discharged from the hospital after being shot in the leg over the weekend at a Walmart in Houston. According to TMZ, the rapper was accosted in the store’s parking lot by a group of men who wanted Benny and his crew’s chains. One of them fired a round into Benny’s leg to speed things along, prompting a mad dash by all parties until Benny and co. stopped to call the police. The recently-released video shows Bennie hobbling on crutches from a car to a private jet.

Before the shooting, Benny had recently released his album Burden Of Proof featuring Big Sean, Dom Kennedy, Freddie Gibbs, Lil Wayne, Queen Naija, Rick Ross, and the rest of his Griselda Records family. He also appeared on T.I.’s The L.I.B.R.A. album, appearing on the track “Make Amends” alongside fellow New Yorker Jadakiss. Before that, he helped lend a boost to Griselda “First Lady” Armani Caesar on her album’s DJ Premier-produced single “Simply Done.”

The shooting was the third high-profile shooting in the state of Texas in less than a week; Boosie was shot in the leg himself while sitting in a van, while Dallas rapper Mo3 was shot in the head while driving on the freeway.

The height of Tekashi 69’s legal drama has come and gone, but what a wild time it was. Now, Hulu has chronicled the rapper’s story in a surprise new documentary, 69: The Saga Of Danny Hernandez, which is available for streaming now.

Hulu’s synopsis of the film reads:

“Part investigative documentary, part real-life gangster movie, 69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez unpacks the life of polarizing rap sensation and internet troll Tekashi69. One of the most controversial figures in contemporary pop culture, 69 repeatedly broke the internet with his sensationalist music videos and social media beefs before infamously testifying against Brooklyn gang the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods in a landmark trial. Director Vikram Gandhi (KUMARÉ, BARRY) gets up close and personal with the neighborhood locals who knew 69 when he was still just Danny Hernandez–before the hard-core persona and the face tattoos–to chronicle his meteoric rise and fall from fame and probe the harsh extremes of addiction to fame in the digital era.”

Director Vikram Gandhi also says of the movie:

“What made him so fascinating were the contradictions built into his very existence: A Mexican kid with facial tattoos and rainbow hair shouting the N-word, flaunting gang affiliation, starting beef, and posting his own violent acts online. When I realized 69 lived near me in Brooklyn — and that I’d frequented the bodega he used to work at — I hit up his manager to talk about making this documentary. I never heard back. A few months later, Tekashi 69 was arrested on federal charges facing 47 years to life. Soon after, he started cooperating with the FBI to convict members of the very gang that had once supported him.

I strongly believe that the core of documentary filming is access, sitting down with people and really listening to them. As I moved further into the story, I met a motley crew of personalities who were integral to Tekashi 69’s development as an artist and celebrity. Danny Hernandez wanted to be famous so badly that he was devoured by his digital avatar, Tekashi 69.”

Watch the trailer above and find the full documentary on Hulu.

Of the 50 most-viewed Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube, 49 are from this century. The one exception: “Matt Foley: Van Down by the River.”

It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen Chris Farley hitch up his pants or smash through a table (at least 12 of those 16 million views are mine), it’s still funny. It was so funny, in fact, that both David Spade and Julia Sweeney had a hard time not breaking. “When Chris Farley did the ‘down by the river’ Matt Foley, I was in that. They had to cut around me because I was laughing,” Sweeney said during a “Women of SNL” panel with Cheri Oteri and Laraine Newman this weekend. “Because it was like I had the best seat in the house for the funniest friggin’ thing that was happening on the planet.”

Sweeney still feels “awful” about not keeping it together.

“Yeah, Spade was laughing too. But they were mad at me. They had to change camera angles and that’s terrible. That is terrible. I just feel awful about it actually… I don’t want to be like that.”

Arguably the two funniest SNL sketches ever — “Matt Foley” and “More Cowbell” — both have cast members breaking. I wonder if that’s a coincidence, or seeing Jimmy Fallon, in the case of “Cowbell,” and Spade and Sweeney, for “Matt Foley,” lose their sh*t gives us permission to laugh harder. Either way, it’s impressive that Sweeney didn’t break more. Imagine trying not to laugh while this madness is happening in front of you.

(Via EW)

On Friday, The War On Drugs will release Live Drugs, an old-school live album from a band known for faithfully adhering to old-school classic rock principles. Adam Granduciel has discussed using Bruce Springsteen’s Live 1975-85 — an expansive hodgepodge of recordings compiled over a decade and sequenced like a single show — as a template. Live Drugs takes that idea one step further by Frankenstein-ing several different versions of a song into a single super live track. It’s like The War On Drugs on steroids.

The result is a true rarity: an excellent live record by a contemporary rock band. It also feels like a capstone for their Lost In The Dream/A Deeper Understanding era, when The War On Drugs went from being a cult-ish indie act to one of the more popular and acclaimed mainstream rock bands of their generation. While the live versions don’t radically divert from their studio counterparts, the lushness and flat-out bigness of Live Drugs culminates the atmospheric and insistently anthemic heartland rock of the last two studio records. Granduciel set about to make grand music that could envelop the largest rooms, and Live Drugs shows that he achieved that goal. Whatever the band does after this will feel like the start of a new era, The War On Drugs 2.0.

Or perhaps it will be The War On Drugs 3.0. After all, this was a much different band before Lost In The Dream, which you can tell from records like 2008’s Wagonwheel Blues and 2011’s Slave Ambient, and also from their live bootlegs, of which there are dozens available online. If Live Drugs intends to tell a story about this band’s “popular” years, then the live bootlegs exist as a kind of parallel narrative, tracing a decade-plus of evolution and refinement. In that time, The War On Drugs grew from a glorified solo project for Granduciel to a formidable live rock band. Live Drugs presents them as a fully realized unit; the bootlegs reveal that getting there was a steady and frequently exciting process that took years.

Ahead of Live Drugs, here are eight shows that any War On Drugs fan will want to check out in order to fully appreciate the band’s arc up until now.

4/18/2009, KEXP Studios, Seattle

The 2009 edition of The War On Drugs is barely recognizable when placed next to Live Drugs. Granduciel is joined as always by stalwart bassist Dave Hartley, but the only other member is drummer Mike Zanghi. They had one full-length, Wagonwheel Blues, to their name, and it’s clear that Granduciel is still working out the War On Drugs aesthetic. He already had some solid tunes, including two songs — “Buenos Aires Beach” and “Arms Like Boulders” — that would remain staples of War On Drugs concerts in future years. But this radio station appearance holds primary interest for capturing The War On Drugs in an embryonic state, as well as offering a taste of obscurities like “Show Me The Coast” that would soon rapidly disappear from their setlists.

12/11/11, Bowery Ballroom, New York City

By the time of this fantastic Slave Ambient-era gig, The War On Drugs had expanded to include long-time keyboardist Robbie Bennett, which made them sound more majestic on stage. The material had also improved considerably; on songs like “Your Love Is Calling My Name” and “Come To The City,” which are rich with extended instrumental passages, you can hear Granduciel taking steps toward the guitar-hero posturing he’ll fully embrace by the time of Lost In The Dream. 2011 generally was a big development year for The War On Drugs, a period when you can hear them growing as a live act by leaps and bounds from the beginning of the year (when they were opening for bands like Destroyer, in support of Kaputt) to this show, which took place the night before a memorable appearance with The National at the Beacon Theatre. This gig is also noteworthy for Drugsheads because it includes the most memorable performance of the Grateful Dead’s “Touch Of Grey,” which regrettably exited their repertoire not long after.

4/8/12, Bowery Ballroom, New York City

If you notice a lot of NYC shows listed so far, that’s due mostly to the work of Dan Lynch of NYCTaper, an early Drugs partisan who dutifully recorded many of the band’s early gigs (as well as many great shows played after TWOD became indie-famous). The band’s return to the Bowery Ballroom just five months after the December show is looser and chattier, with Granduciel showing off the dry wit and rock-geek enthusiasm he normally reserves for interviews. While this recording shows that The War On Drugs were continuing to grow in confidence and instrumental prowess as the lengthy Slave Ambient tour progressed, the highlight here might be the between-song patter, which includes riffs about how Adam recently quit smoking, local musician Doug Keith, and Mike Scott of The Waterboys, one of TWOD’s biggest influences. The cover of “A Pagan Place” here is especially impassioned and magnificent.

4/4/2014, The Troubadour, Los Angeles

If I had to recommend just one recording from this list above all others, it would have to be this incredible show from early in the Lost In The Dream tour. Many of these songs — “Under The Pressure,” “Red Eyes,” “An Ocean Between The Waves,” “Eyes To The Wind,” “In Reverse” — have become constants in War On Drugs setlists, and appropriately form the core of Live Drugs. But this show might very well feature some of the greatest versions of those tunes; at the very least, it’s hard to imagine them being played any better than this. Lost In The Dream garnered The War On Drugs all sorts of “rock savior” hype, and you can feel that excitement carry over to this sold-out show at a historic rock venue. The lineup expanded again this tour, with guitarist Anthony LaMarca and saxophonist Jon Natchez finally stepping in to complete the modern Drugs lineup. (Drummer Charlie Hall also returned to the fold, bringing his bombastic musicianship and excitable stage presence.) But the highlight here is Granduciel fully cutting loose his guitar on especially long versions of “Under The Pressure,” “Come To The City,” and “Eyes To The Wind,” each of which tops 10 minutes. Absolutely essential.

9/4/14, Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh, N.C.

Not quite as epic as the Troubadour show, but that might very well be intentional. The raw early-tour energy of that gig has given way to the well-oiled assurance of a road-tested unit. The result is a performance that is a little more polished, with Granduciel not quite soloing as long as he did in Los Angeles. Depending on your perspective, that might not be a good thing. On the other hand, the power and focus of this lineup — which by now had seamlessly integrated the new members, to the point of making it difficult to remember what this band used to look like — really shines here. This is where The War On Drugs really starts to resemble the band you hear on Live Drugs.

8/12/17, Turf Club, St. Paul

About two weeks before the release of A Deeper Understanding, The War On Drugs played this special “micro show” for a Twin Cities radio station that functions as an almost “unplugged” performance. While still technically electric, this brief but exceedingly lovely set is about as stripped back as they ever get. (At one point, Granduciel promises that “we’ll have a few more pieces of gear” when the band returns to the area for a regular concert a few months later.) The vibe is mellow and introspective, a far cry from the “big rock” sound of the Deeper Understanding tour. But this proves ideal for that album’s ballads — the breathtaking take of “You Don’t Have To Go” is my all-time favorite version of that song — as well as their cover of Warren Zevon’s “Accidentally Like A Martyr,” which also appears on Live Drugs.

10/23/17, The Anthem, Washington D.C.

There’s nothing quite like the buzz you get from a band at the start of the tour, when the material is fresh and life on the road isn’t quite so exhausting. But there’s also something special about a tour closer, when you can feel a band exhaling and letting it rip one last time before heading home for a break. The latter is the case with this show, which concluded the initial leg of the Deeper Understanding tour. Fans of the jammier side of The War On Drugs will rejoice over long-ish versions of “Under The Pressure” and “Eyes To The Wind,” as well as a killer cover of Neil Young’s “Like A Hurricane” that concludes the encore with a mind-melting 13-minute take of “Thinking Of A Place.”

12/29/19, Union Transfer, Philadelphia

One of the last concerts before lockdown, and therefore one of last War On Drugs gigs for the foreseeable future. It’s tempting to analyze — perhaps overanalyze — the setlist for clues as to what the next studio album will sound like. For instance, is it significant that the first three songs are from Slave Ambient, including the greatly missed “Come To The City,” which disappeared during the Deeper Understanding era? Maybe … after all, the new song, “Ocean Of Darkness,” performed on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon did hearken to that period. But mostly, this is a pleasure to play because it’s the most recent snapshot we have of this band. Here’s hoping for many more great War On Drugs gigs in the near future.

Live Drugs is out November 20 via Super High Quality. Get it here.

Over the weekend, a plethora of worried stars begged fans to pray for R&B singer Jeremih, who had apparently been hospitalized with symptoms of COVID-19. Big Sean, Chance The Rapper, Hitmaka, and more took to social media to implore their followers to direct their thoughts to the Late Nights singer, who 50 Cent revealed was in the ICU. 50 also admonished fans to take COVID seriously. On Sunday, 50 gave fans a little good news, however; in a tweet, he said Jeremih is “responsive today, doing a little better.”

Jeremih is far from the first hip-hop star to require treatment for the deadly coronavirus. Kim Kardashian confirmed in October her husband Kanye West had a “scary” case of COVID-19 in March, while Houston rap legend Scarface, Griselda Records founder Westside Gunn, and incarcerated South Florida rapper YNW Melly all recovered from the virus. Unfortunately, New York underground rap mainstay Fred The Godson died at 35 after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

Precautions taken against the virus’ spread forced the closure of most live entertainment venues across the country and wiped out plans for dozens of festivals and tours, costing many musicians and technicians their livelihoods over the past year. While some festivals plan to attempt returns in 2021, the outlook isn’t good, with thousands of new cases per day and no plan in sight from the irresponsible leadership of the recently deposed Donald Trump, who reportedly infected over 130 of the Secret Service agents tasked with his protection.

Last week, John Oliver gave himself 30 seconds to party hard while celebrating Donald Trump’s reelection loss to Joe Biden. Now it’s season finale time, and the host did get to face off with Adam Driver (you can read about that confrontation here), but there was also an unavoidable subject to discuss. Not much has changed since last week because Trump still refuses to concede the election despite Biden’s 306 projected electoral votes next to his own 232. And despite his dwindling legal options, Trump’s still withholding all transition funds to Biden, so once again, Oliver needed to talk about “this a**hole.” (And again on Monday morning, Trump falsely claimed victory.)

Oliver wanted to make one thing very clear, which is that Trump’s constant ranting about election fraud “really is nothing,” and eventually, he’ll be forced out of the White House. Before that happens, though, Oliver’s aghast at the “absolutely unforgivable” way that Trump’s going out as president. “Trump lost this election, and he knows it,” declared the host, but he’s seemingly determined to spend his days tweeting voter fraud claims and conspiracy theories while letting the virus running rampant. As his “parting gift to the country, Trump is somehow managing to divide us even further while also hobbling his successor at the worse possible time.” And that, Oliver declares, is becoming “deadly serious,” not only because of the pandemic’s increasing death count but because of all the 2nd Amendment-enthusiast threats against city commissioners “for counting votes.”

Oliver does see light coming at some point in 2021, but he foresees much work ahead:

“The fact that Trump won’t be president next year is good. It’s really good, but there is a lot of work to do, and at least in the short term, things are gonna suck for awhile, but we have to try and repair this damage.”

The rest of the segment includes Oliver’s disbelief that Republicans are indulging Trump’s delusions for unknown reasons, and multiple Fox News hosts are giving air time to false conspiracies about dead voters “stealing” the election. That would include Tucker “Waiter’s Nightmare” Carlson and Laura Ingraham talking to a scrambled voice that’s like “Megan Mullally undergoing an exorcism.” Then there’s Jon Voight calling for the greatest uprising since the Civil War while likening Democrats to Satan. It’s nuts, and Trump’s coping with his misery by shouting out Scott Baio on Twitter.

Is it 2021 yet? As Oliver showed at the end of the episode, he is finished with 2020 to the point of blowing it up.

It has been an up-and-down year for Megan Thee Stallion. “WAP” is the biggest hit of her career, but Tory Lanez allegedly shot her. She has spoken out against him on multiple occasions in recent months, and now she has done so again in a new GQ profile.

In the story, Meg said that Lanez tried to pay her to keep quiet about the shooting:

“Like, I never put my hands on nobody. I barely even said anything to the man who shot me when I was walking away. We were literally like five minutes away from the house. […] [At this point] I’m really scared, because this is like right in the middle of all the protesting. Police are just killing everybody for no reason, and I’m thinking, ‘I can’t believe you even think I want to take some money. Like, you just shot me.’”

The piece then notes, “A lawyer for Lanez denied that the rapper offered Megan and her friend money.”

Last month, Lanez proclaimed his innocence on social media, and Meg offered a direct response, tweeting, “This n**** genuinely crazy.” Meg also previously claimed that Lanez tried to apologize to her over text after the shooting.

Read the full GQ feature here.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Dafne Keen has got a knack for playing the “feral child.” She stole screen time from Hugh Jackman as one in James Mangold’s Logan, and she hooked His Dark Materials fans in Season 1 with her portrayal of Lyra Belacqua, a scrappy orphan with a mysterious destiny. The show, based on the best-selling fantasy series from Philip Pullman, is gearing up for another installment, and Keen is shedding her patented wild child for a more grown-up look.

Lyra’s endured loss, pain, and betrayal. There’s a prophecy about her that has both witches and religious fanatics clamoring to find her. And she’s forced to trust a stranger in an even stranger world to survive in Season 2. It’s a weighty responsibility for an actress so young but holding her own with established talent on screen — the show also stars Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and James McAvoy — isn’t really anything new for Keen. We chatted with the star about being on her own in Season 2, how the show mirrors real life right now, and botched auditions with Hugh Jackman.

What’s your character’s mindset heading into this season?

I think it’s quite sad, actually. I mean, she’s grieving and it’s just, it’s much darker. I feel like she’s much less trusting. She really jumped into relationships and friendships and crazy stuff in Season 1. And she’s just much more vulnerable now as a character, I’d say.

Fans are introduced to probably the most important relationship of the series this season, the friendship between Lyra and Will. How did you and Amir Wilson go about forging that connection on and off-screen?

Amir and I got on pretty instantly. We became friends really quickly. We went out on walks. We went to the cinema. We went rock climbing. We basically were just very determined to get on. We had that chemistry, which was great, and when we were working as Lyra and Will, we just played a bit, we played in our characters and stuff. And by the end, we were so comfortable being Lyra and Will that it just flowed.

I heard pranks were involved, too.

[Laughs] We had a few pranks. There was this incredible woman, absolutely one of my favorite people out there, Claire, and she organized this entire thing where Amir’s mom sent us really embarrassing child photos of Amir dressed like a nurse. We printed them on t-shirts for Halloween and had everyone on set wear them. No one told him. Then we all started taking off our jackets, and everyone was wearing these really embarrassing pictures of his on a t-shirt. We also cling filmed his entire trailer. Like, everything, even the cutlery with recycled cling film, obviously. What else? It was so many pranks.

Did he ever get you back?

No.

Well, not yet.

[Now] I’m wondering why he didn’t …

It is a change for you, going from acting against Ruth Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, James McAvoy, to really shouldering the screen-time this season with just Amir. Anything you miss about season one?

I miss acting with Lin so much. I just miss Lin so much. We have so much in common. We’re both Latin, which meant we spoke in Spanish. We both love musicals, which meant we were singing constantly. He’s so talented. He’s so lovely. I get on with this family so well. He’s just, he’s such an incredible person, honestly.

You filmed Seasons 1 and 2 back-to-back though, so were you all in the same space?

It was the same studio but me and Amir were filming in this massive backlot. They built an entire town in the parking lot. I got lost there a few times, I’m not going to lie to you. And Lin was just in like a tiny hot air balloon, so it was quite different. He was on a different stage. I used to sneak off to see him. He used to sneak off to see me. We’d spend lunch together sometimes. So yeah, it wasn’t like we didn’t see each other.

So you get an entire city and Lin gets a hot air balloon.

But he got to be there with Andrew Scott, which is pretty cool.

Right, no room for complaining then. Season 2 is about these two teens trying to better the world despite the terrible adults around them. Does that mirror what’s going on in our own world right now?

Oh, 100%. I feel like that’s the best thing about His Dark Materials, is that it subtly throws shade at the world we’re living in right now. The whole Magisterium situation. The whole children are more mature than adults. At this point, it just feels so real.

There’s a theme of Season 2 about trust and questioning authority. Is that something that comes naturally to you as an actor, to be curious and ask questions?

I think I do. I think you can’t trust everything everyone tells you, especially when they’re human beings. Like we’re all humans, we all make mistakes. So, just question stuff before you’re told to do it. I’m not saying don’t listen. I’m just saying question it.

One of Lyra’s biggest internal struggles in Season 1 was her dysfunctional family dynamic. Does that get resolved this season or no?

She’s a child from a broken home. It’s honestly quite complicated to think about because you wonder, is it better for her to have parents that are psychopaths? Or, is it better for her to think she’s an orphan, but at least believe she has good parents, you know? I don’t know.

Your first major film role was in Logan, another fantasy/sci-fi set adventure with a committed fandom. Did that prepare you for this show in any way?

I think Logan was such a learning curve for me. It was such a big moment in my life. It was the reaction people had to it, also. It already had a massive fan base so it was quite similar to His Dark Materials. By the time His Dark Materials came around, I had Hugh [Jackman] who had taught me so much about [how to handle] fans and even acting. I feel like I went in much more prepared than if I hadn’t done Logan.

Word is that the audition process was a bit unconventional too.

[Laughs] Okay. So, this is actually quite embarrassing. So I did it and the first time was absolutely chaotic. I had a watch on, and it’s sounding my alarm during the audition. I didn’t know who the director was. I thought the director was like a technician and then he was like, “I’m the director,” and I was just really awkward after that. I was really awkward around Hugh. It just went all horribly. I got to my hotel and I went, “I can’t leave like that.” I just thought, “This is horrendous.” I went back and I was like, “I am so sorry. Can I do it again?” And they were like, “Sure.” So, I did it again and I said, “Can I please do an improvised scene?” And I did my improvised scene and I think they liked the improvised scene because I got the part.

So making Hugh Jackman put in some overtime was worth it then.

Exactly.

Did your audition for this show fare any better?

Oh gosh. My auditions are just so chaotic.

Is that a running theme? Like, if they go bad, you know you get the part?

Oh, yeah. No, I’ve definitely come to that conclusion by now. Every time something really bad goes down, I’m like, “I’m going to get the job.”

What happened?

I was on my holiday, right? I’d been filming all summer. I was on my three-day holiday and they were like, “We need you to audition right now.” And I said, “I’m going to take one quick dip in the ocean.” As you do in the Caribbean. I was just swimming tranquilly, and then this jellyfish, which I don’t see, you can’t see it, you just feel it… So I felt this sting on my face, and I screamed. We were on this tiny island, which had no hospital and it was 40 minutes away from the main island. So, either [the swelling] went down, or I was going to die, basically. Everyone in the hotel was like pitching aloe vera, vinegar, someone offered to piss on my face. I was like, “Please don’t pee on my face. I’m 12-years-old and I do not want somebody to be peeing on my face, at the moment.” Eventually, it didn’t get worse, so we just suspected it was going to get better. So, I did my audition and my face is so swollen and red and like disgusting. I did it in a tiny hotel room with terrible lighting at 2:00 AM. So, you know, very, very bad audition. But, I got it, so…

HBO’s ‘His Dark Materials’ returns on Monday, November 16.