2020 has been a huge year for Hamilton (though not without controversy) thanks to its premiere on Disney+. It was announced in February that Disney had acquired a filmed version of the Broadway show for $75 million, which resulted in a significant payday for creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda. He made so much from the sale, in fact, that for the first time, he is in the top 10 of Forbes‘ list of the highest-paid actors of the year.
For 2020, Miranda ranks at No. 7 thanks to $45.5 million in earnings. The publication notes that Miranda should expect another influx of cash in 2021 when the film adaptation of his musical In The Heights is released.
Some other music-related folks made the list as well: The rankings feature Mark Wahlberg (fka Marky Mark) comes in at third with $58 million and Will Smith places eighth with $44.5 million. Other folks who made it include Dwayne Johnson (No. 1, $87.5 million) Ryan Reynolds (No. 2, $71.5 million), Ben Affleck (No. 4, $55 million), Vin Diesel (No. 5, $54 million), Bollywood star Akshay Kumar (No. 6, $48.5 million), Adam Sandler (No. 9, $41 million), and Jackie Chan (No. 10, $40 million).
Aside from the Disney payday, Hamilton also performed quite well on the music charts: In July, the soundtrack album achieved a new peak at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, making it the highest-charting Broadcast cast album in over 50 years.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The Los Angeles Lakers have not looked their best in the NBA bubble, as they’re off to a sluggish 3-4 start to the seeding round that, admittedly, became mostly meaningless once they locked up the top seed in the West early on. That makes evaluating what’s going on with L.A. a bit difficult, because their struggles have been real but so has the general malaise of their top players being stuck in Orlando with nothing real to play for yet.
It’s possible all this is fixed by simply being dropped into playoff action, particularly the uneven playing of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, but the shooting woes from the rest of the Lakers are of serious note. Kyle Kuzma has been a bright spot of the supporting cast, as he’s hit 44.4 percent of his threes in the bubble, most notably drilling a game-winner over the outstretched arm of Bol Bol with 0.4 seconds to go against the Nuggets on Monday.
That led to Kuzma proclaiming he’d shoot the ball even if Jesus himself was guarding him — which led to some hysterics in the TNT NBA studio — and while LeBron James wasn’t too keen on addressing that comment, he did speak on the importance of Kuzma to L.A.’s title chances.
LeBron didn’t really want to engage Kuz’s comment that he’d shoot over Jesus, but made a strong statement about his role: “In order for us to win a championship, he has to be our third best player. … We can’t win a championship if Kuz doesn’t play well.” pic.twitter.com/1GvxIgCOyN
With their roster situation as it stands, there’s little debating this proclamation from James, but it does lay bare just how thin the margin is for the Lakers even with two of the NBA’s best players. LeBron is always capable of spectacular things in the postseason and Davis has shown in a couple massive scoring outbursts in the bubble what he can do to lift the team, but when defenses spend their energy trying to contain those two, the Lakers could use a third scorer and the most likely player on the roster to fill that role is Kuzma.
What remains to be seen is whether that’s a tenable situation deep in the playoffs against other top teams, but Kuzma’s play thus far in Orlando is encouraging. He has seemingly made some adjustments to shot selection, taking better shots and not forcing quite as much has he has in the past. This quote seems to be both LeBron encouraging Kuzma to continue to be aggressive (in a smart way) when he gets looks, but also applying a bit of pressure to the young forward by ensuring everyone knows what the internal expectations are for him. The next two months we’ll find out if Kuzma sinks or swims — and, by proxy, if the Lakers do too.
Without comic book movies in theaters right now, conspiracy-theory fuel is running low in the entertainment realm, but luckily, there’s still some leftover pop-culture craziness to soak up on occasion. Bryan Cranston loves to tease, too, like when addressing whether Walter White could pop up onBetter Call Saul, but there’s one inevitability that he cannot avoid: that Heisenberg is dead, man. Totally dead.
The subject (inevitably) arose when Cranston paid a Zoom visit to Jimmy Fallon on Monday night to discuss his Covid-19 diagnosis, which he said went down in early March, close to the time when Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced their positive statuses. Cranston said he didn’t go public because Hanks had already done so (“There’s no need for another celebrity to say, ‘Hey, I got it too.’ So I just kept it quiet”), but he did give Hanx a call. Cranston encouraged viewers who had recovered from the virus to donate plasma, and then Fallon switched to fan-theory territory. Specifically, he asked about the conspiracy that Walter White never died.
The theory holds that White somehow snuck away and forged a new identity, Hal Wilkerson from Malcolm In The Middle, which would in turn be an unofficial Breaking Bad sequel. Well, Cranston is “not at liberty” to confirm or deny this speculation, but he can say this: “Walter White is definitely dead. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead. He’s dead.” As Jesse Pinkman would probably say, case closed, “b*tches.”
Watch the relevant Cranston-Fallon chat moment after the 5:00 minute mark below.
Euphoria, HBO’s Emmy-nominated teen drama that makes 30-somethings (me) feel like they’re 700 years old (also me), doesn’t have dragons, or robots, or giant anthropomorphic polar bears, but it’s more “wildly expensive” than you might think.
Allure magazine spoke to actress Hunter Schafer (Jules) about all things Euphoria, including how creator Sam Levinson’s “point of view is so specifically lush that season one of Euphoria reportedly cost about as much to produce as season one of Westworld.” And considering Westworldreportedly had a $100 million price tag… Schafer wouldn’t confirm the rumor, but she did note that there’s a “magic” to Euphoria that “I think something like Westworld, which is sci-fi, requires the same amount of attention to detail and persistence, as far as making sure that vision comes across. So we can thank Sam and our wonderful producers for our wildly expensive TV show.”
How can this cost as much as this? The soundtrack probably didn’t come cheap — season one featured songs from Beyoncé, Fiona Apple, Madonna, Billie Eilish, Drake, Migos, and, uh, Andy Williams — and I’m assuming the makeup department spent as much on eyeliner as Westworld did on hats. Honestly? It was worth every penny.
Euphoria season two doesn’t have a return date, due to production being shut down. But the blooper reel is worth a watch.
Drake is, undoubtedly, one of the biggest recording artists of the past decade. He’s racked up accolades, attention, and awards and he puts the discourse in a stranglehold just about anytime he so much as sneezes in public. But where does he rank against some of the big names of yesteryear? According to Fat Joe, Drake’s pretty high up there; during a recent Instagram Live chat with Rick Ross, Joe compared to Drake to one of the biggest artists of all time: Michael Jackson.
While discussing Drake and Rick Ross’ longstanding and lucrative working relationship, Joe snuck in the commentary as almost an aside. “What’s this relationship between you and Drake?” he wondered, pointing out how anyone else getting ahold of the Canadian star is just about impossible. “Drake is possibly the hardest person to get in touch with and let’s be clear, every song he does goes No. 1 and he’s just like, the Michael Jackson of this time… What is the true relationship with Drake? He loves you!”
Ross opines that Drake’s love for him is genuine and that this stems from the fact Ross never “little homied the young n****s coming up. When Drake was just getting on the team being in Miami, needed a record… I move for him the same way I move for [Lil Wayne].”
Watch Fat Joe and Rick Ross discuss their relationships with Drake above.
More than half of the seeding games are in the rear view mirror and the 2020 NBA Playoffs are looming. To this point, all has gone well in the league’s Orlando bubble and, for the most part, the quality of play has been sky-high during the restart. Still, some teams are faring better than others and, while some of that was quite predictable, a few curve balls emerged in the first two weeks of play.
The Suns have enjoyed a bit of good fortune, and that might continue in their next game as they face a Sixers team without Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Josh Richardson on Tuesday. Still, there is one undefeated team in Orlando, and it Phoenix. They’ve earned the top spot, and Devin Booker has been unbelievable.
2. Toronto Raptors (5-1, Last week — 1st)
There wasn’t too much to take away from Monday’s Raptors-Bucks tilt, simply because both teams weren’t at full strength. Toronto prevailed, though, and Nick Nurse’s team has the best defense in the bubble by five (!) points per 100 possessions.
3. Houston Rockets (4-1, Last week — 8th)
The Rockets look pretty good to me. Even without Russell Westbrook for the last two games, Houston is playing well and that is on display with the third-best net rating in the bubble. Defensively, they are also doing enough to survive and, well, that’s all you need to do when you have this offense.
4. Boston Celtics (4-2, Last week — 15th)
It isn’t as if Boston has been thoroughly dominant but, when it comes to the bubble-only sample, the Celtics are No. 2 in net rating behind the Suns. The Celtics are rounding into form if nothing else, and they’ve won three straight games.
The Spurs just keep rolling along after back-to-back wins. Unfortunately, San Antonio just can’t afford to lose again but, regardless of what happens, there are positives to take away from the team’s showing in Orlando.
7. Miami Heat (3-3, Last week — 5th)
Jimmy Butler got the upper hand in a highly anticipated battle against T.J. Warren on Monday night. That gave the Heat the edge in pursuit of the No. 4 seed and, while that isn’t a huge deal without the benefit of home-court advantage, they sent a message to Indiana.
8. L.A. Clippers (3-3, Last week — 14th)
We haven’t seen the Clippers at full strength at all in Orlando, with Montrezl Harrell missing the entire run. In drilling down, there are quarters, halves or even full games when L.A. also wasn’t deploying optimal lineups and, honestly, there isn’t all that much to take away. Harrell has made his way back to Orlando, however, and the Clippers figure to arrive at full strength in the relatively near future.
9. Indiana Pacers (4-2, Last week — 3rd)
As noted above, the Pacers didn’t look great against the Heat on Monday, and that is at least somewhat alarming. Indy’s been more than fine in the bubble, though, and it helps to see T.J. Warren operating as a suddenly transcendent force. There has to be a bit of concern for the Pacers that their success has been so tied to Warren’s scalding play, because if he cools down they’ve not shown an ability to score much without his help.
10. Oklahoma City Thunder (3-3, Last week — 9th)
Yes, the Thunder have lost two of the last three games, but a quick look at the available rosters in those contests would tell you not to make much of either result. Oklahoma City is solid, but they do need all of their pieces healthy and in Orlando. Depth isn’t an overwhelming strength.
11. Brooklyn Nets (4-2, Last week — 11th)
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Shout-out to the Nets. Brooklyn is 4-2 on the strength of smoke and mirrors and they did what they needed to do to avoid a play-in tournament. In fact, the Nets are somehow going to avoid the Bucks in the first round, even with a highly compromised roster. Good on them.
12. Dallas Mavericks (3-3, Last week — 16th)
Luka Doncic had quite a night in a wildly entertaining victory over Milwaukee this week. The Mavs are still struggling on defense but, if we’re being honest, Dallas didn’t have all that much to play for in the seeding games. There have been moments when that was noticeable.
13. Milwaukee Bucks (2-4, Last week — 13th)
Speaking of teams with nothing to play for, the Bucks really didn’t have to care during the seeding games. Milwaukee did flash some of the same vulnerabilities that worry observers but, at the same time, there isn’t much to dissuade anyone that liked the Bucks before they arrived in Orlando. It’s going to be fine.
14. Philadelphia 76ers (3-2, Last week — 12th)
Ben Simmons is already on the shelf and now Joel Embiid is battling an ankle injury. The Sixers have a winning record in Orlando, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
15. Los Angeles Lakers (3-4, Last week — 4th)
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Kyle Kuzma knocked down a game-winner on Monday to save the Lakers from another loss, and it was fun. Overall, though, the Lakers really haven’t played well in the bubble. It would be too aggressive to worry about the No. 1 seed in the West, but it hasn’t been an optimal performance.
16. Denver Nuggets (3-3, Last week — 17th)
The Nuggets lost to the Lakers on Monday, so they fall behind them in these rankings. Denver didn’t exactly put their foot to the floor in that game, however, with a lot of Bol Bol, Keita Bates-Diop, and P.J. Dozier in the second half. Your guess is as good as mine with regard to the Nuggets, and Denver needs to be healthy sooner rather than later. Oh, and the Nuggets have easily the worst defense in the NBA since the restart. That’s not going to work.
17. Orlando Magic (2-4, Last week — 10th)
After a good start in their home away from home, the Magic have lost four in a row. Some of that is due to injury management, but the Magic aren’t exactly lighting the world on fire even when their roster looks how it is supposed to look.
18. Utah Jazz (2-5, Last week — 18th)
The Jazz have issues with availability and, with Monday as an example, it isn’t as if Quin Snyder is emptying the bag to try to win seeding games at the end. At the same time, Utah hasn’t been impressive overall and five losses paint that picture.
19. New Orleans Pelicans (2-4, Last week — 19th)
Oof. The expectations were sky-high and, with two games remaining, the Pelicans are already eliminated from playoff contention. It’s been covered ad nauseum, but New Orleans has been a giant disappointment.
20. Memphis Grizzlies (1-5, Last week — 20th)
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Because of their strong position prior to the break, the Grizzlies will still have a chance to make the playoffs in the play-in tournament. In Orlando specifically, Memphis has been (quite) bad, even if their net rating (-0.8) doesn’t look as bad as their record. Some of the issues can be tied to the absence of Jaren Jackson Jr. but, even before the talented big man went down, there were signs of trouble.
21. Sacramento Kings (1-5, Last week — 21st)
Before the restart, the Kings actually seemed to be undervalued, at least when compared to teams with a similar record. Then, Sacramento had all kinds of roster issues and, with few exceptions, performed at an underwhelming level in Orlando. They somehow aren’t the worst team, but a 1-5 record and defensive challenges lead to an ugly perch this week and any optimism about the future in Sacramento has been dampened.
22. Washington Wizards (0-6, Last week — 22nd)
It’s been predictably rough for the Wizards. Washington is the only win-less team in Orlando and, for good measure, the Wizards have the worst net rating (-11.6) since the restart. It would’ve been fun if Washington made a charge to create a play-in scenario but, quite honestly, this was expected given the roster the team brought to Disney.
Jimmy Kimmel is in the midst of some time off, so a roster of guests have been taking over hosting duties on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The latest to sit behind the desk is Dua Lipa, who grabbed the reigns for last night’s episode.
She began how most late-night hosts do: by giving a monologue. Got got some self-deprecating jokes in, like, “You know that song your kid listened to like 5,000 times while trying to perfect a dance on TikTok? That was me. You’re welcome, and I’m sorry.” She then reminisced about the time she pranked Kimmel in the middle of the night back in 2018. She also showed off some of her tattoos, addressed TikTok trends based on her music, and solicited opinions on her music from some older folks. They had no clue who she was, so naturally, hilarity ensued.
Elsewhere on the show, she also interviewed Gwen Stefani about their upcoming collaboration (Stefani is hopping on a remix of “Physical”). The song is part of Dua’s upcoming Club Future Nostalgia: The Remix Album, and Dua also revealed that each song on the album will get an animated visual.
Watch clips from Dua’s hosting gig above.
Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
However, what may have been a bit lost in all the debate about women’s empowerment and the Kardashian omnipresence is how vital Cardi’s symbolic passing of the torch has been for the women she chose to highlight in cameos in the “WAP” video.
While Kylie Jenner, Normani, and Rosalía are all stars in their own rights, newcomers Mulatto, Rubi Rose, and Sukihana received a huge boost in popularity thanks to Cardi’s co-sign, which we’ve already seen have a vitalizing effect on the careers of other women in rap like Chika, Kamiayah, Rico Nasty, and yes, even Megan herself.
It seems that the Highlander era for rap’s women is over; the unwritten rule among fans and industry execs is no longer “there can only be one,” but instead “there’s room for everyone.” Cardi herself even followed up to highlight each of her guest stars on her insanely popular Instagram. Now that the hype for “WAP’s” over-the-top video has somewhat died down, it’s the perfect opportunity to take a look at the three new rappers who appear in it and get to know the next wave of female rap stars taking the baton from Cardi.
Mulatto
Atlanta-bred Mulatto, despite being the youngest of the three guest rappers on “WAP” (by about two months, as her birthday is in December while Rubi’s is in October), is actually the longest-tenured by dint of her appearance on Jermaine Dupri’s Lifetime reality competition show The Rap Game when she was just 17 years old. Then known as Miss Mulatto, she became the series’ inaugural winner and spent the next few years grinding it out independently rather than taking the offered deal with So So Def. This may have turned out to be a smart decision; she signed to RCA Records this year after releasing a string of well-received EPs (which were somehow conveniently overlooked by JD when he made his infamous “stripper rap” comments).
Song You Should Know: “Muwop”
Although the song “B*tch From Da Souf” became her breakout hit and de facto calling card, her most recently released single “Muwop,” named for and featuring Gucci Mane, had an immaculate rollout earlier this month and showed that she could keep up with one of the best-known icons of Atlanta trap rap. For weeks, Mulatto teased the track with photos of herself reproducing some of Gucci’s most iconic looks and when it finally released, it more than lived up to the hype.
Rubi Rose
Hailing from Lexington, Kentucky, Rubi Rose may actually be a familiar face to those with keen eyes; she was the starring role in the video for Migos and Lil Uzi Vert’s 2016 runaway hit single “Bad And Boujee,” hopping out of the BMW at the start of the video and flanking the rappers throughout. She later appeared on Playboi Carti’s leaked 2018 throwaway “On Top,” accompanied by rumors that the two were dating. However, her big viral moment came a year later with 2019’s “Big Mouth,” when her unique, gritty voice received attention on Twitter. Cardi even notes in her Instagram post highlighting Rubi, “You need a unique tone of voice when you a female rapper.”
Song You Should Know: “Hit Yo Dance”
While that unique tone netted her a deal with LA Reid’s rebooted Hitco Entertainment, it was her first single for the label that truly showed the 21-year-old’s star potential. With Hitmaka’s beat borrowing a loop from Birdman’s 2002 hit “What Happened To That Boy?” Rubi coolly out-raps guest NLE Choppa and shows a gift for confident wordplay and switching up her flow at the drop of a dime. Don’t sleep on her recent collaboration with Compton’s Day Sulan, “Big,” either.
Sukihana
Like Cardi B, Sukihana got her start of the reality show Love & Hip-Hop, appearing on the Miami-based version earlier this year. While the show hasn’t been much of a launching pad for its stars’ careers — really only Cardi has ever achieved mainstream notice since the show’s premiere in 2011 — Suki has popped up in videos semi-regularly for the past two years. Like Cardi, Rubi, and Mulatto, she built her following on social media, showing off her rhyme skills in freestyles posted to Instagram as she put out her own, self-financed music videos. Her most successful appearance to date came in 2018 alongside Texas rapper Cuban Doll in the video for “Drug Dealer.”
Song You Should Know: “Pretty And Ratchet”
As Suki’s spent the last two years polishing her skills, her latest is naturally her best. She sounds more confident than ever, with an improved flow that shows the attention that she pays to her craft. While the single flew mostly under the radar, that was more likely due to the glut of new female rappers popping up than any lack of talent or marketing on Suki’s part. Even Cardi comments on her growth, the sort of noticeable effort that suggests she won’t simply rest on her laurels now that she’s “made it.” She also has a quirky and unapologetic sense of humor and authenticity which will not only endear her to fans, but also serve her well in brushing off her inevitable haters.
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Brave New World writer Grant Morrison recently adapted Aldous Huxley’s 1932 classic novel for NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock. This marks a new phase in the legendary comic book scribe’s career, following a streak that hails back to the 1980s Zenith and Animal Man titles. Those works led to him taking over the Doom Patrol comic book series, and although he isn’t involved with that DC Universe/HBO Max TV show, he created two of its most beloved characters — Crazy Jane (with her dozens of personalities) and Danny The Street (literally a living and sentient street that’s both gender non-conforming and superpowered) — within its wild ensemble of weirdos. Morrison has also carved out Batman, Wonder Woman, and Judge Dredd storylines, so let’s just say that adapting a sci-fi book was an unanticipated move but one that worked out splendidly.
We spoke with Morrison about wrapping up the first season of Brave New World, a show that’s dreamy and devilish and delightful, leaning into both pulpiness and eerily antiseptic gloss while reveling in hyperkinetic experimentation. It’s a daring update on what was already considered a prophetic work of literature, and Morrison’s version of the story introduces several new elements, including Indra, the computer connected to everyone’s minds, and the rewriting of the Savage Land as a literal theme park. Morrison was cool enough with also fielding some questions about HBO’s Watchmen and why Doom Patrol‘s Danny The Street can (finally) fully flourish in our current times.
Adaptations of other writers’ babies can be tricky. Does seeing your own work being adapted (with Doom Patrol, and so on) inform your process in adapting another writer’s work?
It’s quite unusual for me, but my process is the same as people who are adapting my work. You’re looking at something and basically trying to translate it from one medium to another, and television has very different demands and different pacing from a comic book, and it really is a translation. This is something that was created decades ago — with Brave New World, almost 100 years ago — and then you turn it into an almost contemporary theme and fit it more squarely in the world we live in now.
Prior to the show’s launch, you told Variety that you were looking to “escape from the comic book fandom that was kind of controlling my life.” Did it work?
[Laughs] It’s not so much “control,” but I’m always aware of my audience, and with the comic books, the audience is always on you and always checking you for little plot details. You’re under a lot of scrutiny, and I don’t mind that, but I’ve got to the point — where the secrecy of it and the sense of scrutiny and the fact that you’ve got monthly issues and have to hit your plot points — where I find it much more stressful. So what I liked about TV was the long process with multiple drafts and working with other people and the collaboration of it. It’s just a different dynamic, which I enjoyed a little bit more than the frantic pace of the monthly comic books.
We need to talk about the show’s disturbing use of contact lenses with, like, a brain probe or something. How did those get added to the story?
The idea was that to avoid the Elon Musk/Stephen Hawking CEO of AI taking over, but you could actually run a computer network on human brains. We’ve got so many neural connections, so all you would need was some kind of radio-telepathic link. There are no servers; it’s a purely distributed network of the minds of everyone, linked up to Indra. We also had to explain why there’s no automation, why everyone worked, and why they get jobs, because in a future society, we imagine automation, so that was the explanation. The computer needs everyone to be healthy and constantly active and engage in all kinds of physical pursuits. Huxley left a lot of stuff very vague, and we spent a lot of time in the writer’s room trying to find rationalizations for all those gaps. And out of that came the idea of how to link up to the computer and the contact lens — it’s quite visceral, and to join the society, you almost have to go through an initiation.
The show also got brutally visceral with the idea that monogamy is the root of most conflict in the world.
[Laughs] Yeah, Huxley also saw it as monogamy leading to the notion of family. And from the point of view of characters in the book, family is the root of all social problems. Whether we agree or not, it’s something to explore.
One big change you made was in retiring Huxley’s Native/Indigenous stereotypes with the Savage Reservation.
I actually lived with the Zuni Pueblo [tribe] in the 1990s, so I’m very familiar with that area and the people, and they’re far from the Savages presented in the book. For me, and aside from trying to get away from that kind of portrayal of Native people, what we were all more interested in was putting America itself in possession of the Savage Land, where the culture of the 20th and 21st century has now become degraded through 300 years where America refused to join the World State.
That’s a haunting reminder right about now.
Everyone else progressed to this “Brave New World,” and America has remained behind, and ultimately, it’s like any culture left behind for 300 years. Suddenly, they start to look weird. We had a lot of ideas that didn’t even make it to the screen, like with inflation suddenly being so bad that it took $3000 to buy a Mars bar. Or the fact that there’s six presidents in the past five months. And the place is kind of a mess because it’s a fallen, broken-down, last-gasp version of 20th century America. That seemed more interesting to put in the possession of the Savage Lands. It just seemed to expand the concept instead of looking down on a specific culture that was kind-of misunderstood and make it about American culture and how they’d respond to this new world.
The switch-up with the Savage Land reminds me of how Damon Lindelof recontextualized Watchmen on HBO. I’m assuming you watched it, especially given your previous commentary and feud with Alan Moore.
Oh yeah, I thought [the show] was fantastic.
There were a few possible Easter eggs (pointing to your comics) in Watchmen, like with the Zenith sign in the Looking Glass origin-story episode.
I think Zenith poster may have been just based on the popular television manufacturer, but I know there was a King Mob reference. In the trophy room, there was a gorilla mask that says “King Mob’s Gorilla Mask” under it. And King Mob was actually a radical group (in the 1960s), which Malcolm McLaren was part of, so I used the same name for my character in The Invisibles.
Speaking of references, with Brave New World, people are drawing comparisons to Black Mirror and Westworld.
Those are post-Brave New World ideas, and Westworld, in fact, is very much influenced by Brave New World, the novel. There are characters called Bernard and Ford, and it uses a lot of the ideas. As you know, people have been copying that book for so long that a lot of things are a little bit like it. But the difference between Brave New World and everything else like it is that this is not Marxist sci-fi about the exploited underclass rising up and seizing the reins of society. Brave New World is actually more chilling than that. No one can rise up because everyone is happy, and there’s no need to rise up, and when they do rise up, society puts them back in their place. So we’re not really doing the story that Westworld and everything else does, where they feel sorry for the downtrodden masses who then rise up. Usually, that ends up with civilization in ruins and nowhere else to go, so we didn’t really want to play those tropes again.
We gotta talk a little Doom Patrol. For Crazy Jane, the show has added a Karen to her gathering of personalities which is a loaded name these days.
It certainly is! And that’s good, it has to keep up with the world we’re living in, and I only named about 30 of those personalities, so there’s plenty of room to make up new ones.
And Danny The Street is also near-and-dear to the hearts of viewers.
I can understand because Danny The Street was always popular. Back in the day when he was created in the late 1980s, we didn’t have terms like “genderqueer” or “non-binary,” they just didn’t exist. There were no names, and I think that it’s really good now that characters like that can show up and be slotted into the world we live in. Suddenly, Danny’s genderqueer, and it makes more sense. It has something to say to the society that we’re living in now — where people in the margins have been able to get into the center of it more. I’m pleased with characters like that, which seemed really bizarre and were, in a lot of ways, seen as unacceptable back in the day, and we couldn’t even describe what we were doing. Those characters have come into a flourishing progression because of that. Danny was named after the famous drag actor, Danny La Rue, and his name (in French) actually translates into Danny The Street.
Doom Patrol was a pioneering comic for the idea of weird/atypical superheroes, who are everywhere now, like with Umbrella Academy and The Boys. Are you watching those shows or anything else in particular lately?
I watched the first season of The Boys, and that was great. The dysfunctional hero thing seems to be pretty popular. Another show that I’ve been watching lately is Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You. I watched the whole thing over two days. I was so impressed. It’s just beautiful and perfectly done. The dialogue, and it’s technically astounding and emotionally brilliant, so it’s hard to compare anything else to that.
Now that you’ve wet your feet adapting a classic novel, are there any others you’d like to tackle?
Oh, that’s an interesting question. Maybe another Huxley, since I feel quite bonded to him after all this. Some favorite books of mine, like The House of Leaves or Carter Beats the Devil, are a couple of things that would be fun to do.
You gave John the Savage a different fate than the book. Will we see him again?
All of the seeds are planted there, and we wanted to make sure there was an opening because John learns so much from his contact with this new world, and Lelina learns so much from her contact with the Savage Land. And because these characters are still in play, it seems like there are better ideas to explore when they essentially meet again. What do they represent, what do they stand for, and how do they deal with one another? So, the potential was there.
‘Brave New World’s first season is currently streaming on Peacock.
It was six years ago today that the world was stunned to learn that Robin Williams had committed suicide at 63 years old. The comedian’s daughter Zelda shared an emotional tribute to her dad on Twitter, where she wrote, “It’s hard for me on regular, good day to remain the person expected to graciously accept the world’s need to share their memories of him and express their condolences for his loss,” adding that while she’s “touched by all your boundless continued love for him, some days it can feel a bit like being seen as a roadside memorial — a place, not a person — where people drive past and leave their sentiments to then go about their days comforted their love for him was witnessed.” She also announced that she was taking today off Twitter (“It is simply too much”), although not before chastising Eric Trump for exploiting her father’s legacy.
Last week, one of the president’s two fail-sons shared a clip from a 2009 standup special of Williams mocking “rambling” Joe Biden. “Joe is like your uncle who is on a new drug and hasn’t got the dosage right,” Williams joked about the then-Vice President, now presumptive Democratic nominee running against Donald Trump. Like many before her, Zelda quickly hit back at Eric. “While we’re ‘reminiscing’ (to further your political agenda), you should look up what he said about your Dad. I did. Promise you, it’s much more ‘savage’. Gentle reminder that the dead can’t vote, but the living can,” she tweeted.
While we’re ‘reminiscing’ (to further your political agenda), you should look up what he said about your Dad. I did. Promise you, it’s much more ‘savage’.
During a 2012 performance, Williams compared Atlantic City to the mythical land of Oz, full of “druggies and pimps and pizza: oh my!” He continued, “And Donald Trump is the Wizard of Oz. He plays Monopoly with real f*cking buildings, this is a scary man. And he owns all these beauty pageants: Miss America, Miss Universe. Isn’t that a bit like Michael Vick owning pet stores? It’s a f*cking catch-and-release program for him. This is a man who said, ‘My daughter is hot.’ Even people in Arkansas went, ‘That’s f*cking wrong. That’s just way out of place.’ And that f*cking hair, my god!”
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