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Paparazzi pictures of Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles have all but confirmed the two are an item. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Styles revealed that he doesn’t feel he’s ever been in a public relationship in response to the interviewer noting that he’s only publicly been with women.

“I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone,” Styles said. “If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re choosing to have a public relationship or something.”

In an interview with Variety, Wilde explained why she and Styles have opted not to confirm their rumored relationship, despite the fact that the two have made several public appearances together.

“I’m not going to say anything about it because I’ve never seen a relationship benefit from being dragged into the public arena,” Wilde said. “We both go out of our way to protect our relationship; I think it’s out of experience, but also just out of deep love.”

Styles stars alongside Florence Pugh in Wilde’s upcoming film, Don’t Worry Darling, which arrives in theaters on September 23. When speaking on their on-set chemistry, Wilde said, “She was really a great supporter of his as someone who was newer to a film set. And he was such a great supporter of hers, as someone who understood it was her film.”

With a little over a week left before its premiere, the first reactions to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are storming in. Judging by what the majority of critics are saying, the Amazon series appears to be worth its massive price tag. (Each episode reportedly cost $50 million.) According to the reactions, the show captures the magic of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy realm while achieving its own visual style that delicately threads the needle between separating The Rings of Power from the Peter Jackson movies while still maintaining an epic look and feel that audiences have come to expect. That’s no easy task, but the Amazon series is ready to face the challenge.

“I have seen the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and they are a total joy,” Entertainment Weekly‘s Devan Coggan tweeted. “Watching it feels like stepping back into Middle-earth. I cannot wait to see where this story goes.”

“Good news, @FilmBayona directs the HELL out of the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: #RingsOfPower. Watch it on the biggest screen you can,” Gregory Ellwood of The Playlist wrote. “Markella Kavenagh, Robert Aramayo, and Owain Arthur are standouts. The whole series looks like a big win for Prime Video.”

“It’s a powerhouse of storytelling that reaffirms why I love LOTR and the kind of world building that empowers and inspires,” Fangirlish managing editor Lyra Hale wrote. “Also, badass women. Can’t forget about them!”

“I can say for certain you’re in for a treat,” Eric Francisco at Inverse tweeted. “Big, bold, and beautiful to behold. TBD if it’ll sit alongside Jackson’s films or deserve Tolkien’s name, but for now it’s all the maximalist pizazz one might expect from a historically expensive production.”

You can see more reactions to The Rings of Power below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.

The first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power start streaming September 1 on Amazon Prime Video with new episodes dropping every Thursday.

By now, you’ve probably already heard about the virtual rapper FN Meka, who was signed to Capitol Records a few weeks ago, and promptly dropped once folks on Twitter heard about it. Now, you may understand the backlash against the project. You might also be wondering what the fuss is about. Don’t worry; I’ll get into all that. But, besides recounting all the reasons that the project was so offensive and concerning for both Black activists on Twitter and real-life artists, I’m more interested in looking into just how we got here… and why this probably isn’t the last we hear from FN Meka or other projects like it.

Let’s get the “offensive” part out of the way. There are two parts here; one is the idea that creativity can be automated like so many other industries, forcing true artists to compete with digital facsimiles or become obsolete. The other part stems from just what FN Meka is, where it takes its inspiration from, and who seems to be getting mocked in the process.

As far as the automation thing goes, that’s pretty straightforward. We’ve already seen the harm to workers that new tech can cause and the greed that seemingly fuels its adoption. Why pay a living, breathing human being who might get sick, tired, or just not feel like doing their job on any given day when you can get a robot to do the same job as quickly, without complaining, sleeping, or taking breaks? Fun fact, the word “robot” literally means “slave.”

Record contracts are already onerous and difficult to wrangle for both record labels and artists. The idea of a virtual artist, whose songs are written by a machine learning algorithm, is probably attractive as a cost-cutting measure for people who see art as more of a commodity than a public good – and for what it’s worth, it does sort of feel like the end result could wind up being the same… if not now, than at some point in the future. It still seems like a slap in the face to artists who’ve been grinding for years.

Meanwhile, FN Meka itself is, well… to put it bluntly, it’s a racist caricature of a rapper based on controversial renegades like Tekashi 69. In a Twitter Space hosted by journalist Sowmya Krishnamurthy, rapper Dupree GOD called Meka an example of “digital blackface,” pointing out how its appearance seems stitched together out of the worst stereotypes of Black people. Furthermore, Factory New, the design group behind the character, seems to have fed only the worst of SoundCloud rap into its learning algorithm, generating lyrics that only reinforce the most reductive and toxic tropes in rap.

Those lyrics are then recited by a human, yes. But this entire process devalues and undermines the human element when those lyrics aren’t representative of anyone’s lived experience. It’s the sort of cultural appropriation I have been writing about for years on steroids. Instead of putting the words and culture of Black artists into the mouths of performers of different races – a recent, egregious example being “Pink Venom” from K-pop group Blackpink – a team of designers has created an avatar that can be used to regurgitate these tropes instead.

That Capitol signed FN Meka just two years after record labels collectively vowed to do better by Black people rubs salt in the wound. During Krishnamurthy’s Twitter Space, Billboard reporter Hero Mamo responded to the statement Capitol released announcing it had dropped FN Meka saying, “Two years later and labels are still sorry about how they treat Black people and depictions of Blackness.”

But FN Meka didn’t just appear from thin air one day. It’s the result of a longer process of both cultural and technological shifts that have already begun to change the face of the music business and there might not be any going back. Meka is the culmination of years of such baby steps in this direction, from the cultural appropriation within the gaming industry to machine learning experiments within the music industry as artists and labels try to take advantage of advances in AI to engage with fans – and potential consumers.

You might think FN Meka looks a lot like a character from Fortnite or League of Legends. That’s no accident. If you want to sell such a concept to an audience, you don’t start with fans whose tastes are cemented, who would naturally be wary of what appears to be a cartoon avatar version of a rabble-rousing goofball like Tekashi 69 (who is also, let’s not forget, very popular due almost entirely to his own commitment to controversy). You go to pre-teens, the folks whose music tastes are still being formed. And these days, you’d be hard pressed to find a 12-year-old whose face isn’t pressed into a screen playing these games for at least a couple of hours a day.

Some of those seeds have already been planted. Fortnite has had little kids engaging with hip-hop – or at least, a version of a small sliver of it – for years, from the dances appropriated from rappers to the guest appearances of performers like Travis Scott within the game. In fact, one of FN Meka’s first songs, “Florida Water,” was a collaboration between a popular entity within the gaming community, Clix, and Gunna, who was likely brought on board to lend an air of legitimacy to the proceedings. (That Gunna is currently in jail for the sort of lyrics that FN Meka apes without regard for the true meaning behind them is a cruel irony.)

Furthermore, the gaming industry could arguably be recognized as ground zero for the “virtual rapper” archetype. In League Of Legends, another team-oriented action game with a sizable fan community, there’s a band called True Damage. Its members have their own backstories and personal histories within the game, but they’re voiced by actual musicians from the real world, including a nascent Becky G, Keke Palmer, and K-pop rapper Soyeon. Now, this concept is a far cry from the offensive stereotyping that defines FN Meka, but it undoubtedly opened the door.

But Ground Zero for the “fictional performer” category might well be Gorillaz, the fictional band cooked up by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. FN Meka’s defenders – who mostly consist of its creator, Anthony Martini, a music impresario who’s worked with acts like Gym Class Heroes and Lil Dicky – have compared Meka to Gorillaz in an effort to justify its backstory, which includes a tone-deaf Instagram post of the character being brutalized by a police officer. The difference here is in execution; while Gorillaz are meant to be a whimsical cartoon band existing in their own universe, like Josie and the Pussycats, they still have real musicians behind them. Meka is clearly meant to represent someone’s idea of rappers and by association, Black people. And, they clearly don’t have a high opinion of either, as evidenced by just which rappers Meka’s algorithm synthesizes.

The comparison might be apt in another way, though. Gorillaz have had a successful, 20-year career despite not technically being a “real” band – and while FN Meka might have lost its shot at cultural relevance, there’s obviously interest in fictional or virtual artists. Gorillaz have a huge, heavily invested fanbase who love to dig into the lore behind them, as I learned at Demon Dayz Festival a couple of years ago. A version of FN Meka minus the racial caricature and with a rich backstory of its own would obviously appeal to generations of kids raised on Marvel movies and Fortnite dances.

And the technology behind projects like Meka gets more sophisticated by the day. There are machine learning bots that have imitated songs from the likes of Eminem and Travis Scott, and while the lyrics were mostly gibberish, you could argue that human artists have already devalued the importance of lyrics that make sense in the first place (driven, as always, by capitalistic motives – if the labels only sign nonsensical SoundCloud rappers, where is the incentive to be a J. Cole or Chance The Rapper-esque lyrical miracle?). Not to harp on K-pop’s seeming obsession with sampling bits of Black American culture stripped of their context, but I really need someone to explain what “Kick in the door, waving the coco” is supposed to mean.

Pop music has always been largely manufactured to stimulate the pleasure centers in the brain, regardless of depth or meaning. Likewise, hip-hop has always been as much about the beat as the lyrics. So having a “robot” writing the songs while a digital avatar does the performing seems an inevitable step in the evolution of music as both a pop culture artifact and as a commercial product. There will be more of these projects coming down the pipeline, and sooner than later.

Now that the genie is out of the bottle, the most important thing for fans and musicians who care about equity for performers is to remain vigilant and call out record labels and other companies when they eventually try to cross the boundaries of good taste and ethics. And as for those companies, they may not have the sense to avoid signing obviously bad products like FN Meka, but they can have the wherewithal to dump them when needed – and remember to empty the Recycle Bin, too.

Tom Brady is back in training camp for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which ends the strange saga of his leave of absence from the team. Brady disappeared from the Bucs for a little bit during camp for no explicitly stated reason, which led to internet sleuths doing some digging and coming up with a very entertaining theory that Brady left the team to appear on Fox’s The Masked Singer.

The general idea behind the theory is Brady signed a contract to join Fox when he retires and the filming dates lined up with when he was gone. Ultimately, Brady denied that he appeared on the show in a tweet. But guess what, folks: We have yet another update here, this time from TMZ Sports, which acquired a clip from the show in which Ken Jeong guesses that a contestant might be Brady or Peyton Manning. The show’s official Twitter account decided to have some fun with this, too.

If you want to watch the clip, you can click on that TMZ link and check it out, but I have some skepticism that this is Brady. My argument is this: A quick Google search tells me that Nick Cannon stands 6-feet tall. While conceding that the contestant is wearing a big ol costume, and that camera angles can be tricky and what not, it appears that the person in the contestant’s shoulders do not come up to Cannon’s. Brady, of course, stands 6’4.

All of this comes with the caveats that we do not know what the contestant sounded like, nor do we know the hints that were given for them before their performance. We’ll see what happens when The Masked Singer airs this month.

This story originally appeared on 03.08.22

Anyone who has lived in the U.S. with a nontraditionally American name knows how hard it can be to get some people to pronounce your name correctly.

My husband’s name is Javad, which is only two syllables and objectively not hard to say (juh-VAHD), but I’ve watched many people mutilate it over the years even after being given the correct pronunciation. I remember one time watching him introduce himself to a man clearly and slowly—twice—and the man still called him “Bob,” like he couldn’t even digest this name he’d never heard before, much less pronounce it.

As a kid, at the beginning of every school year or every time a substitute teacher came around, it was common for my husband to have to correct the pronunciation of his name. Not the end of the world, but annoying. I can’t imagine how much more annoying it is for people with longer names that aren’t familiar to many American ears.

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A video of a teacher mispronouncing every student’s name has gotten a huge response on Reddit, presumably for the humor of it. The names she reads off the attendance list are ones that are common enough in the U.S. that pronunciation normally wouldn’t be an issue—Luke, Jacob and Hunter, for example. But she manages to bungle them anyway—yes, even Luke—and it is genuinely funny.

But saying Luke as “Luck” and Hunter as “Hoonter” did more than just give her students a giggle. It also puts every student on the same playing field. If there were students in her class with less common names that might easily be mispronounced, they now find themselves in the same shoes as all of their classmates. They no longer stand out as “the kid with the name the teacher didn’t know how to pronounce.”

If every kid has to correct the teacher, then doing so is no big deal. No one is “othered” by it. It’s just a funny thing they all do. And it also gives the teacher a chance to hear each kid’s name from their own mouth instead of trying to read it off a list without ever hearing it.

The only risk here is accidentally pronouncing an unfamiliar name correctly the first time, but that seems unlikely. And it actually would probably just add another layer of humor to the already light atmosphere. Because a teacher mispronouncing a student’s name can have a lasting impact, it’s important to do what we can to keep it from happening.

The thing about unfamiliar names is that they usually aren’t as hard to pronounce as people make them out to be. They’re simply unfamiliar.

I mean, if we can pronounce Beethoven (which doesn’t look like it sounds), Tchaikovsky (which has all those consonants) and Dostoyevsky (which has four syllables) without even thinking about it, we can learn to pronounce any name. In fact, Nigerian actress Uzo Aduba illustrated this exact point in a story about how her last name always made her the first kid in roll call and she was concerned that no one knew how to pronounce her name right. Her mother reassured her, “If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka.”

It might take some practice, and we might have to ask people’s forgiveness if it takes us a while, but it’s not impossible.

Some people in the comments on Reddit pointed out that the teacher’s roll call was an innovative way of making every student feel equally welcomed in the classroom. But even more said it reminded them of a hilarious Key & Peele skit about a hard-nosed substitute teacher mispronouncing students’ names and getting angry when they corrected him.

A bit of a language warning in case you have little ones around, but it’s great if you haven’t seen it. You’ll never see the name “Blake” the same way again.

This story originally appeared on 05.07.22

In the 1988 Disney classic “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” the titular character is in an unlikely relationship with his voluptuous wife Jessica. Roger is a frantic, anxious rabbit with a penchant for mischief, while Jessica is a quintessential ’40s bombshell who stands about a foot and a half taller and isn’t “bad,” just “drawn that way.”

When private investigator Eddie Valiant asked Jessica what she sees in “that guy?” she replies, “He makes me laugh.”

This type of couple may seem like something we only see in the movies, but don’t underestimate the power of humor when it comes to attractiveness. A new study published in Evolutionary Psychology found that being humorous is the most effective way to flirt for both men and women.

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“People think that humour, or being able to make another person laugh, is most effective for men who are looking for a long-term relationship. It’s least effective for women who are looking for a one-night stand. But laughing or giggling at the other person’s jokes is an effective flirtation tactic for both sexes,” says Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Department of Psychology.

“It is not only effective to be funny, but for women, it is very important that you show your potential partner that you think they are funny,” Rebecca Burch, a co-author from SUNY Oswego in New York, added.

Unfortunately, this study was only conducted on heterosexual couples.

For men, showing off their sense of humor was found to be the most effective way to flirt whether they were looking for a short-term or a long-term relationship. For women, being funny was the most effective tactic when looking for a long-term relationship. For people looking for a short-term fling, appearing available was the most effective tactic.

According to the study, humor is effective regardless of one’s attractiveness. “Individual differences in age, religiosity, extroversion, personal attractiveness and preferences for short-term sexual relationships had little or no effect on how effective respondents considered the various flirting tactics to be,” says study co-author Prof. Mons Bendixen.

If you see someone you like but don’t think you’re good-looking enough for them, give it a shot. You may still have a chance if you can make ’em laugh.

The most effective tactics for those looking for a long-term relationship:

For women:

1. Makes him laugh

2. Shows interest in conversations

3. Spends time with him

4. Engages in deep conversations

5. Kisses on mouth

For men:

1. Makes her laugh

2. Spends time with her

3. Shows interest in conversations

4. Engages in deep conversations

5. Smiles

The study is proof that looks aren’t everything and shows that having a good sense of humor isn’t just about making someone laugh. A great sense of humor is evidence that someone is intelligent, wise, perceptive, confident, can see things from new perspectives and has good intuition. It also helps people quickly build bonds and share experiences, which is a great way to get close to someone in a fast and fun way.

So why wouldn’t Jessica be with Roger? The guy is hilarious.

This story originally appeared on 03.30.22

The first thing you need to know about Charlie the golden retriever is that he loves Mr. Quackers.

Mr. Quackers is Charlie’s stuffed yellow duck. Charlie carries him around everywhere, he loves him so.

@charliethegolden18

I always so happ to see my lil bro 😋 #dogsoftiktok #petsoftiktok #dogs #goldenretriever

Anyone who’s had a dog with a favorite stuffy knows that it’s a bit like a child with a favorite stuffy. As long as the stuffy is there, all is well. If stuffy goes missing, all hell breaks loose. Nobody take the stuffy away. Nobody lose the stuffy. Nobody mess with the stuffy.

Where they go, their stuffy goes.

Where Charlie goes, Mr. Quackers goes.

That’s just the way it is.

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@charliethegolden18

Happens every..single..time 😂🙈 #dogsoftiktok #petsoftiktok #dogs #goldenretriever

The attachment is real. Watch what happens when Charlie’s buddy Buddy tries to mess with Mr. Quackers.

@charliethegolden18

Ain’t nobody touching my Mr. Quackers 😋 #dogsoftiktok #petsoftiktok #dogs #goldenretriever

“There, see it!” Oh, Charlie. His love for Mr. Quackers is unrivaled, which is why his owner decided to pull an incredible pet prank and dress up as Mr. Quackers himself.

@charliethegolden18

When your husband finds a costume that looks identical to your dogs favorite duck toy 😂 #dogsoftiktok #petsoftiktok #dogs #goldenretriever

The things we do for our dogs, indeed.

And when Charlie got to meet the life-sized Mr. Quackers? So. Much. Joy.

@charliethegolden18

Dressed up as our dogs favorite duck toy. Full video on FB & YouTube. Link in bio. #dogsoftiktok #petsoftiktok #dogs #goldenretriever

Charlie practically wagged his tail right off his body. And he never let go of the original Mr. Quackers the whole time—at least on TikTok.

The extended video on YouTube shows Charlie dropping Mr. Quackers and trying to get a hold of Huge Mr. Quackers by the neck. Not in an aggressive way—more like in a “Hey, lemme carry you around like I do Mr. Quackers!” kind of way.

And then the slow discovery that Huge Mr. Quackers smells an awful lot like his hooman … just too precious.

Animals can bring such joy to our lives, especially when we take the time to play with them. Thanks, Charlie’s parents, for sharing this moment of adorable delight with us all.

Follow more of Charlie and Mr. Quackers’ adventures on TikTok and YouTube.

@charliethegolden18

Ain’t nobody touching my Mr. Quackers 😋 #dogsoftiktok #petsoftiktok #dogs #goldenretriever

So let’s get something straight about Diego Luna: my goodness, he loves playing Cassian Andor. Just talking to him, he just seems so excited to be returning to the role he originated six years ago in Rogue One. (And it’s, somehow, been six years since Rogue One came out.) Back in 2016 I had met Luna at the Disney offices here in New York City and, back then, he was almost bouncing off the walls with excitement. So, by this point I had assumed maybe this would be old hat for him and, now doing press for the new series, maybe he’d be going through the motions. I am happy to report, no, he is not going through any motions. He is still almost bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm. In fact, the only thing he doesn’t seem to totally like about Andor (streaming on Disney+ starting September 21st) is the fact it’s called Andor, since so many other characters are also involved and it delves into the beginning the the Rebel Alliance.

The first season of Andor takes place roughly five years before the events in Rogue One. When we meet Cassian, he’s not the dashing spy from the Rebel Alliance we met in Rogue One. He’s, well, kind of a fuck up. And he’s just got himself into some local trouble that is about to have bigger repercussions than he even imagined. The first couple of episodes we meet the people close to Cassian and they all basically tell him he’s a loser. Then a mysterious man (played by Stellan Skarsgård) shows up looking for Cassian because he sees potential in the young troublemaker and has an offer for Cassian that might lead to bigger and better things.

At the time I spoke to Luna I had seen four episodes of Andor. It’s a very different vibe than Rogue One. In that movie, because of the director situation, we had elements from Gareth Edwards and we had elements from Tony Gilroy that meshed into kind of a happy accident of a movie that worked. With Andor, this is completely Gilroy’s vision (it’s pretty cool we are getting 24 episodes of a Star Wars series from the director of Michael Clayton) from beginning to end that takes its time to set up where, exactly, this is all going. And as Luna explains, if Gilroy puts something in this series, you better believe it’s there for a reason.

Also, will Luna finally get his wish that Cassian Andor meets Jabba the Hutt? Well … Luna clarifies he doesn’t want Cassian to meet Jabba, he wants to meet Jabba.

I will say, after Rogue One, I was not expecting to see Cassian again.

It is exciting because, also, it’s not just about seeing Cassian again but having the chance to work with an amazing team and to even challenge ourselves in a more, ambitious, probably, in the good way of that word. In a more ambitious journey than the one we took on Rogue One, but it was ambitious already.

Well, it is ambitious. I’ve seen four episodes and we are going to get 24 episodes over two seasons and, from a live-action standpoint, between this and Rogue One, we are, I’m pretty sure, going to spend more time with Cassian Andor than any other Star Wars character. Even more than characters like Luke…

I never even thought of it like that.

It’s true though.

Yeah, it’s true. It’s true. And I mean, I hate that you brought it up because now I’m going to be thinking about it. But it’s true. And I’ll tell you what I feel. I mean, to be honest, if you’ve seen four episodes, you understand that it is quite unfair that the show is called Andor because it is about many characters.

It is, yes.

It is long format to get the chance to go deep into the story of all these people. And I believe we are so lucky to have Tony Gilroy writing this, because his writing is so specific. It’s so complex and so real. There’s not a single moment that happens because someone said like, “Oh, I like the grass. Let’s have that cartoon walking in the grass.” No. No. No. It’s grass because of something. There is an answer for every question in his writing and that, specificity, is beautiful. And this long format allows you to go deep into that specificity. It can still be the big action, whatever, action and adventure piece. And, at the same time, take time for the very intimate stuff that makes characters real. And if that’s going to take longer, well, I’m sorry: yes, it might take longer.

I’m curious what the difference is filming Rogue One and filming this series. Because in Rogue One you have Gareth Edwards’s vision and then Tony comes in later, it’s an interesting mashup because Tony and Gareth are very different filmmakers. But Andor seems like one person’s vision of what this story should be from the very first moment. And so I’m curious what the difference is for you between filming Rogue One and Andor.

No, it is very different. It is very different. This is a show that I received the call first, asking would you be interested in exploring this opportunity and this idea? And I said yes. And then the day I had the chat with Tony Gilroy on, in general, he taught me what he was envisioning and what he was thinking of and the possibilities. And when I listened to that I was like: that is a show I would like to make sure it gets done. Not just because I am the actor playing Cassian or because I did Rogue One, but because of the story you just taught me. It’s important that it matters as it is, by itself, the story. It happens to be part of this universe, which is amazing. It happens to be part of something that started with Rogue One. But by itself, it means so much. It’s a story about how someone transitions from being lost – in a very selfish moment of his life; in a very cynical moment – where he doesn’t know what he’s capable of and how life and the journey kind of transforms, or helps transform, this person into someone that feels useful. For a cost. I think that it’s a beautiful story to tell by itself.

I think that is something Tony brought from beginning to end this time that I really connected with. And that kind of everyone joined already knowing what the journey was going to be like. And I think we owe that freedom to Rogue One and what happened with Rogue One. Even though Rogue One was a very different process, we owe the freedom we have today to what that film was and what that film generated.

Last time we spoke, you gave a really interesting quote about Cassian in Rogue One. You said, “He’s been fighting all his life and obviously coming from a traumatic experience that makes him decide to go all the way and put his life aside and just fight for the cause.” Okay, how did you know that in 2016? Did you come up with that backstory yourself? Or did Tony tell you? Because that’s very similar to what I just saw in these four episodes.

Well, exactly. That is when I go like, “Shit. This has to happen.” When Tony explains to me the story he wants to tell, I go, “Well, that is really close. Really, really, really close to the story I had in my head when I was performing before.”

Okay, so that was your story.

Obviously, back then, it was like a back story that we would create in order to go to set and know what logic is behind the decisions the character is making. And so we decide many things on the process and then yourself, as an actor, you have to do a lot of work. So I created a whole back story that no one will know. Ever. Unless they get me very drunk and I end up telling it, but I promise myself not to tell anyone. But I know a story.

I created a backstory to the character in order to be able to play it. I do that with every role I play. Every answer that’s not in the script, you have to answer it yourself and that’s my job. But when Tony pitched me the story here, there’s a lot of, in essence, it’s kind of like the same struggle. And I tell you why, because I think our references are very real. Our references are very close to the reality we live in. And I think Star Wars has always been a tool for that.

Right…

A tool for a voice or a perspective to make comments on reality. That’s the beauty of science fiction. Yes, you can do something that is entertaining and exciting, is everything you are looking for. And, at the same time, you can be saying or raising a reflection that matters to you. Because when you start saying this happens in a galaxy far, far away, you have permission to say things that probably you want … if it wasn’t that way.

Last time we spoke, you said on Rogue One, when you first saw someone in the Darth Vader costume, you said, “Holy shit.” Because all these memories of your childhood came back. Did that happen at any moment during this series?

It happens. I would tell you, when we’re shooting, it happens every week or every day. It’s insane. It’s insane because it’s very little stuff. Suddenly you look at something and it connects with your childhood, or with a dream, or with a moment of one of the films that has been there. It’s been present forever. But I would tell you one thing that I, on this series, finally, I managed to switch from the little kid enjoying the ride to the actor that has to deliver. It was easier for me to switch from one to the other than in Rogue One.

I see. That makes sense.

Also, you know why? Because I was part of the process from scratch. So I was there talking to the designers, seeing everything when it was a sketch. Seeing the costumes and the props and the scenarios when they were a sketch. In Rogue One, I was dropped into something that was already happening. And here, I’ve been able to digest the process since I’ve been part from the beginning.

Well, we are all rooting for you to finally meet Jabba in this series. I hope that happens.

I don’t want Cassian to do it!

Oh, you want to do it.

I said I want to do it!

Right.

Because of the curiosity I have. Don’t blame Cassian!

‘Andor’ begins streaming via Disney+ on September 21st. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

A new course at University of Texas will examine the songwriting of Taylor Swift. The course, titled “The Taylor Swift Songbook,” opens this fall and will offer an analysis of Swift’s songwriting and storytelling craft.

According to University of Texas’ website, Swift’s work will be read and paired alongside that of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats and Sylvia Plath.

The course will be taught by Dr. Elizabeth Scala, who became fascinated with Swift’s craft after her daughter introduced her to her music. Scala spoke with Austin American-Statesman about the course, saying, “Swift is an intelligent and talented songwriter, and her writing skills are what made me focus on her,” Scala said. “For me, it’s all about form (not just or even primarily about content). We will study Swift’s songs as poems and literary structures.”

As for required course materials, students enrolled must acquire Swift’s albums, Folklore, Evermore, and Red (Taylor’s Version).

This is the second university course focusing on Swift’s songwriting. The first ran from January to March earlier this year at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute.

Over at Texas State University in San Marcos, a course called “Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet, and European Pop Culture,” will be offered beginning next spring.

TV history is being made this year, and it’s not just because of the massive amounts of new shows are entering the ring. For the first time ever, a three-hour Law & Order crossover event will kick off the fall TV season and feature Detective Cosgrove alongside Detective Shaw, Detective Benson, and Detective Stabler (who will be fully clothed) before meeting up with Jack McCoy, and Nolan Price. Who says the multiverse is just for superheroes?

The drama will begin with Law & Order: Organized Crime, jump on over to Law & Order: SVU before colluding on the original long-running series, Law & Order. The event will air Thursday, September 22nd at 8 pm on NBC, then stream on Peacock the next day.

Creator Dick Wolf says that this crossover was bound to happen sooner or later, as the case they are solving requires all hands on deck. The episode follows the crew as they begin to solve the murder of a young woman before realizing that it’s a part of a much larger crime ring. So very New York.

“Nothing demonstrates the power of the Law & Order brand more than an ambitious three-hour event with a story that is truly ripped from the headlines that starts on Organized Crime, then migrates to SVU and finally the trial on Law & Order,” Wolf said in a statement. “[Writers] Rick and Gwen did an amazing job writing a compelling script and I can’t think of a bigger and better way to launch the new season of Law & Order.”

Check out the teaser above.

(Via Deadline)