On the night of her 36th birthday, New York video game developer Nadia (played by the show’s co-creator Natasha Lyonne) stumbles out of a party in her honor and is killed by an oncoming car. Thus begins a cycle of “resets” in the new Netflix series Russian Doll, with each demise bringing Nadia right back to the same birthday party bathroom mirror on the same night. The Groundhog Day comparisons are unavoidable, yet as Russian Doll unfolds across its eight episodes it reveals layers of emotional complexity and existential angst that extend beyond that Bill Murray classic and its Christmas Carol-esque […]

Michael Mando is best known for his captivating portrayal of “Nacho” Varga on the hit AMC series Better Call Saul. You might also know him from Orphan Black, Spider-man: Homecoming, or Far Cry 3. In his latest film, The Hummingbird Project, he plays the chief engineer of a massive high frequency trading operation opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgård. In this half hour he talks about his interest in the metaphysical aspects of the craft, his beginnings as a hungry but happy acting student, and how he doesn’t let fame get to his head but he’s open to the changes […]

Subscription streaming services are dominating the independent film marketplace—in more ways than you think.  Yes, Amazon dropped nearly $50 million at Sundance to buy several movies, and Netflix spent another $25 million in the days and weeks that followed. Beyond inflating acquisition costs over industry norms, the outsized influence of the over-the-top new media giants are affecting all sectors of the distribution business. Some industry veterans suggest this isn’t so different from previous bullish markets when well-heeled specialty divisions like the Weinstein Company or Fox Searchlight drove up prices. “Sundance has been competitive for years, so I’m not sure it’s […]

I’ve wanted to sit down with Thomas Sadoski since the inception of Back To One. I had a “who is that guy?” experience while seeing him in Neil Labute’s play Reasons to Be Pretty and was positively delighted by his portrayal of the quick-witted Don Keefer in The Newsroom. He’s now part of an incredible ensemble of actors in Life In Pieces, one of the few network comedies worthy of your time. He talks about where he’s at one day before the first official performance of Suzan-Lori Park’s new play White Noise, which he stars in at the Public Theater […]

His portrayal of Lola, the drag queen in Kinky Boots, put Chiwetel Ejiofor on the map, then his astonishing performance in 12 Years A Slave made him a household name. Roles in The Martian, Doctor Strange, and the under-appreciated Z for Zachariah followed. Now he has written, directed and stars in The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, which is in select theaters and on Netflix. He talks about the art of wearing many hats, directing the extremely gifted young Maxwell Simba in his first film role, and the effort he took to not shortchange his own character. Back To One […]

Shea Whigham could easily be in the running for the hardest working actor in show business. In just this past year, he was in First Man, Beirut, Vice, and brilliantly played Thomas Carrasco, the Department of Defense bureaucrat tasked to investigate Julia Roberts’ character, in the series Homecoming. He’s worked with Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, David O. Russell, Terrence Malick, and is probably best known for playing corrupt mob brother Eli Thompson on Boardwalk Empire. In this half hour he talks extensively about his preparation process, what he’s learned from the greats, and much more. The constant room noise you […]

As Barry Alexander Brown toiled on the editing of School Daze, he was convinced that, at any moment, he’d be found out. That someone would inform director Spike Lee he was no longer working in the indie trenches of She’s Gotta Have It. That he was now working under the auspices of Columbia Pictures and could no longer simply hire his buddies to cut his movies. Recalls Brown, “I was sure somebody was going to come into the editing room and say, ‘What are you doing here?’” That never happened and, three decades later, Barry Alexander Brown is still cutting movies […]

I first took note of Ariel Kavoussi’s singular comedic talent in Onur Tukel’s Applesauce and then Catfight, where she hilariously played Ann Heche’s assistant and stole every scene she was in. She performed a similar theft this past year on the Netflix series Maniac, opposite Emma Stone. She also writes and directs her own work. Her new short film The Poet and The Professor was called a “truly absurdist, provocative, and contemporary feminist film” by Indiewire. We talk about the origins of her approach to comedy, how she works the audition rooms she suddenly finds herself in, and her relationship […]