Featured Voices
This Is How I Made That Crazy Prince Andrew Interview Happen
Picture the scene. It’s November 2019, and I’m sitting in Buckingham Palace in England. I’m on an ornate golden chair, pushed up against the wall of the south drawing room, staring nervously at the slightly frayed but elegant red-and-gold carpeted floor. The room is larger than most London flats, and I’m just 15 feet behind […]
- By
What I Learned From Doing a Broadway Show About Hate (Guest Column)
Until this year, I worried about Just for Us‘ timeliness. Just for Us, if you haven’t seen it, is a comedy show about a Jew — me — who attends a meeting of white nationalists in Queens. Eventually, they cotton on. The show has had a long and blessed life, having wound its way through […]
- By
From Grief to Leadership: Building a Movement in Mike Brown’s Memory (Guest Column)
I still have chunks of the bloodstained road from where my son was murdered. I have lumps of asphalt and crumples of the dirt that was under it. The city gave it to me in buckets when they decided to put a new blacktop over just that one section of Canfield Drive. It’s hard to […]
- By
Shelley Duvall and Me
Shelley Duvall and I crossed paths at the moment I needed her most. It was late 2020. COVID lockdowns, George Floyd, media layoffs — everything sucked, and it wasn’t getting better. I adopted a French bulldog puppy to help me cope and named him Otto. Otto would scream every night until I brought him into […]
- By
The Family Trauma That Went Into ‘3 Body Problem’ (Guest Column)
A few months before 3 Body Problem launched on Netflix, I did something I’d never done before. I showed the opening sequence to my mother. The scene depicts a “struggle session,” a public rally where a physics professor is murdered by a group of young students after refusing to renounce his teachings. These events were […]
- By
The Man Who Helps the Stars Come Out
I came of age in my personal and professional life at a time when AIDS, that other pandemic, also came of age. Those were scary times. You couldn’t be your true self back then and if you tried, chances are the virus would find you. Almost everyone I knew during my coming out process are […]
- By
How David Beckham Changed My Mind From Thinking, “This Guy’s Going to Be Brutal,” to Directing His Doc (Guest Column)
I actually wasn’t that interested in David Beckham. I mean, I knew he was this famous, branded guy and that Victoria was a Spice Girl. I loved football. My first documentary was about Pelé and [Franz] Beckenbauer coming to America to play for the New York Cosmos. Then one of my dearest friends ended up […]
- By
No Conflict. No Celebrities. Great Dating Show: ‘Love on the Spectrum’ Shows How Not Only Instagram Models Are Deserving of Love
Early in production on season one of Love on the Spectrum in the U.S., we were filming at Abbey’s house in L.A. Abbey (we use only first names on the show), an autistic woman living at home with her mom, Christine, was 23 at the time, and Christine was talking to me about some of […]
- By
Tony Spiridakis Reflects on Making ‘Ezra’ and Fatherhood: “What Strength Looks Like” (Guest Column)
A decade ago, I was asked to do a TedX Talk about being the father of an autistic son, and another who is neurodivergent. That talk helped me decide to write a film that would focus on a father and a son who is autistic. Ezra, in theaters now, was inspired by many of my […]
- By
Fredrika Newton, Widow of Black Panther Party Co-Founder, Reacts to ‘The Big Cigar’ (Guest Column)
My name is Fredrika Newton. I am the widow of Dr. Huey P. Newton, who co-founded the Black Panther Party in 1966 with Bobby Seale while they were both college students at Merritt College in Oakland, California. Huey and the Black Panther Party are featured in a new series now streaming on Apple TV+ titled […]
- By
Reena Virk Does Not Need to Earn Your Sympathy (Guest Column)
It’s a Thursday morning and I’m barely awake when my phone greets me with a disturbing response to the fourth episode of Under the Bridge: tweet after tweet expressing anger, even hatred, toward Reena Virk. Someone saying, “I’m not even mad she gets killed.” I’m upset, but I wish I could say that I’m surprised. […]
- By
‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Author Georgia Hunter on Entrusting Hollywood With Her Family’s Holocaust Experience Despite Reservations
As a kid, I adored my grandfather. I knew he loved chocolate (the dark kind) and hated ketchup. I knew he enjoyed a good pun and could speak seven languages — around the dinner table it was French. I knew his Steinway was his happy place, and that he made many of the things in his […]
- By