I mean zero shade to little-known character actors Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but I have to say: Austin Abrams has the best scene in their new film, Wolfs. The action-comedy, which debuts on Apple TV+ 27 September, stars Pitt and Clooney as duelling fixers who are hired to clean up the same mess. Of course, shit goes sideways, thanks to Abrams’s drug-slinging college kid with a heart of gold.
Anyway, back to the scene: Pitt’s and Clooney’s characters interrogate the poor kid in a shitty, jungle-themed motel room—and it seems like he won’t break!—until he does. Abrams promptly delivers a frantic, breathless, can’t-look-away monologue that tells the entire storey of his character, right in the face of two Mount Rushmore–level thespians. I’m still thinking about it.
When I Zoom with Abrams—who also stars on Euphoria as the kindhearted, surely Broadway-bound Ethan—I inform him of this fact. He’s clearly uncomfortable with stealing any sort of praise from Mr. Pitt and Mr. Clooney, so I ask what it was like to spend his 28th birthday at the Venice Film Festival’s Wolfs screening.
“So the movie played late—we got done after midnight, which was my birthday,” he says. “We were up on a roof, and Brad started singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ And then everyone’s singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Then we went to this after-party, where they brought out a cake and did it again. It was a super-sweet, really surreal experience.”
For the Florida native, it’s one of those birthdays that give you plenty to think about, like where he’s been and where he’s going. In his twenties, he has played everything from a charming Netflix rom-com hero (Dash & Lily) to an abusive boyfriend (This Is Us) to, yes, one of the only sane humans in a school full of batshit California kids (Euphoria).
Now his roles are coming nearly tailor-made for his talents. If you watched Abrams crush “Holding Out for a Hero”—a jaw-dropping but damn funny physical performance—on Euphoria and wanted more, Wolfs is for you. The film sees him darting around Manhattan in his tighty-whities while somehow holding his ground against Clooney and Pitt. At times, his performance is hilarious, tragic, and hilariously tragic.
Today, though, we’re still thinking about birthdays. Mine is a couple weeks after Abrams’, so he wants to know if I’m the kind of guy who dies a little inside when anyone sings “Happy Birthday” to me. The answer is yes—who doesn’t?!—so he gives me some guidance. “Really try to not hide,” he says. “Focus on your chest and try to just feel what’s happening. It’s just a great opportunity where people are giving you a lot of love. They’re here celebrating you. They love you. They want to celebrate you.”
Below, Abrams offers more sage advice and talks about acting alongside Clooney and Pitt, what he knows about Euphoria season 3, and his involvement in director Zach Cregger’s secretive Barbarian follow-up, Weapons. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
AUSTIN ABRAMS: What’s behind you?
ESQUIRE: I’m in Esquire’s archives room.
AA: Does anyone ever go in there and look at anything?
ESQ: Yeah, people love sifting through the old magazines. There’s a lot of funny stuff—I’m looking at a very old book called Things a Man Should Know About Work and Sex.
AA: Oh, hell yeah! Let’s bust that open! Figure it all out.
ESQ: I know everyone’s asking you different versions of What was it like to work with Pitt and Clooney? But I’m curious what you learned specifically from them that you’ll take to your next project.
AA: They’re geniuses at constructing a scene. I went into Wolfs being like, Okay, I really want to learn from these guys. And you do learn a lot—and you learn a lot from osmosis. But also something that I learned is: He’s just Brad Pitt and he’s amazing. And so it’s like, if you want to be like Brad Pitt, you just have to be Brad Pitt.
I wouldn’t say I was surprised, but I was very grateful when it turned out that they were so sweet and welcoming to me. It’s really impressive, because people in their positions, they don’t have to do that. They don’t have to be welcoming. I feel like I’ve heard so many [horror] stories. With these guys, it’s not the case at all.
ESQ: Wolfs is an action-comedy, but if you really peel back the curtain, your character is a pretty complicated guy. He’s this young, lonely, confused kid who’s idolizing these two traditional versions of masculinity. It feels very of the times.
AA: Totally. If you just go off of what he says, he talks about taking some classes at Pace. He’s still living with his dad. You don’t know if there’s a mom in the picture. Yeah, I feel like there is something about the character where he’s looking toward some sort of male role-model figure. You see it with Richard Kind, who plays my dad. There’s Sinatra [memorabilia] in his apartment—even my dad is looking toward other kinds of male figures. It seems like what you see is a lost son and a lost father when it comes to their identity or their masculinity. It seems like what a lot of young men seem to be struggling with.
ESQ: I have to admit: Dash & Lily was probably my favorite pandemic comfort watch. How do we get ten seasons of Emily in Paris and no more Dash?
AA: I’m not really sure what happened, but it’s lovely to hear something like that. It happens more around Christmastime or something. But if someone says something to me like, “I’ve seen that a bunch,” it’s lovely to hear that it brings someone comfort. We all have our things that we watch every year—and to think that something that I’m in is something that people watch every year, it’s a cool thought to be a part of that ritual.
ESQ: Is that what’s fulfilling about this work for you?
AA: It’s different every time—and you don’t know really what you’re going to get. I’m just thinking about the last thing I did. [I appreciate] getting to know a different part of life, or a way people live, more deeply. Doing the work, you get to know this aspect of life that you never would have known before....There are a lot of different things that can be really fulfilling about it. It’s always a nice thought to think about someone watching [my work] and questioning something in their life. That’s why I dig a lot of Shakespeare, because his work asks a lot of questions. He never tells you the answer.
ESQ: Was Weapons the last project you worked on?
AA: Yeah. Zach Cregger is amazing. I mean, the way that he works and writes—his stuff is so deep. All of this stuff feels like there’s a deeper element to it, and it’s why I really love this work. Also, his humor is just amazing, which also sets him apart.
ESQ: What else drew you to Weapons?
AA: It’s one of those scripts that I couldn’t stop reading—I was up way later than I should have been, finishing it. It’s just very exciting. A lot of really, really great actors. Inspired story. Inspired director. And a great, great character. That’s probably the most I can say, but I’m really excited for it.
ESQ: Okay, I have to move to “Holding Out for a Hero” then. I rewatched the scene this morning.
AA: Oh, you did?
ESQ: How many weeks of choreography did it take to pull it off?
AA: I don’t know where [Euphoria creator Sam Levinson] got the idea that I could do that. Maybe he saw something that I didn’t see. But I never really had any particular sort of dancing skills, so it took a while to even get to a place where I was able to do that.
ESQ: I get it. I don’t naturally have rhythm.
AA: Okay, so imagine being you. And being like, Oh, fuck, I have to do this in a couple months. You could do it. You would just have to figure it out how to do that....It was definitely a challenge. It was nerve-racking. When I first read that, I was like, Oh my God. Also, I didn’t know if I was going to have to sing—I just remember in the script it not being completely clear that it was lip-synced. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, because that would have been insane. But yeah, it was super daunting at first. But I love dance now.
ESQ: It feels like there’s a new report about Euphoria season 3 every month. What has your experience been? Have you been asked to return?
AA: I really have no idea. I mean, because it was being geared up to go—I mean, years ago, I think.
ESQ: There was one story that said the cast was locked in to start production in January.
AA: I think it was supposed to happen, and then the strike happened. Something like that. So I couldn’t tell you. I have absolutely no idea when they’ll do it, if I would be in it or not. I hope they make it, though. I mean, I love Sam. He always feels really inspirational to work with. The show is a very inspiring thing to work on.
ESQ: Do you have any hopes, dreams, or aspirations for Ethan?
AA: I couldn’t tell you. No idea. I wish him well. [Laughs.]
ESQ: What’s next for you?
AA: A dream is just to keep working with great people and great writing. It’s almost like you have to be careful of what you want or what you desire, because it’s just a desire. It’s just a dream. It’s not real yet, you know? As I’ve gotten older, there’s also an understanding of how you actually don’t know what [a dream will feel] like when it happens. It’s not true that you’ll feel the way you think you’re gonna feel in your head, you know?
ESQ: It’s sobering, yeah.
AA: You’ve gotta be careful of fantasies and what you want in life. I mean, life can be an adventure, hopefully....You have to really go moment by moment. You have to know that if that happens, it may not give you the feeling you thought it would.
ESQ: That’s the hard thing about this age—it’s when your childhood dreams collide with whatever’s happened to your older self.
AA: Yeah, all of those thoughts you had when you were younger—then you’re hit with, like, Oh, shit. It’s not like we’re old, necessarily. It’s just that that age that once seemed far off in the distance is now here. People reading this either get it or maybe they’re freaking out by what we’re saying.
ESQ: Anything you wish I had asked you?
AA: Why didn’t you ask me what I eat for breakfast? I’m a little bit pissed off about that. [Laughs.]
Originally published on Esquire US
We've barely recovered from the Marvel-branded bromance that is Deadpool & Wolverine (or rather, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman). Now, we're thrown this curveball of a team-up. A wordplay on two lone-wolves and not a grammatical error, Wolfs looks like it might just live up to expectations. Mainly because who doesn't want to watch Brad Pitt and George Clooney giving each other shit in matching leather jackets?
We've seen the co-stars share the spotlight before. First through Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean's franchise, and last in Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading (that was 2008! 16 years ago!). Yet this match up will see the A-listers go head to head, complete with indispensable zingers.
Filmmaker Jon Watts, who was on the director's chair for all three Tom Holland-fronted Spider-Man movies, also wrote the screenplay with the two leading men in mind, according to a chat with Empire. The film follows Jack (George Clooney) and Nick (Brad Pitt), two unacquainted professional fixers who are simultaneously called to cover up a high-profile crime.
Showing up in almost identical outfits and demeanours, the reluctant partners then set off on typical summer blockbuster action. While originally slated for a full theatrical release, Wolfs goes straight to streaming after a limited run. A strategic measure considering how poorly the star-studded Argylle fared. Still, with a sequel reportedly already approved, we're hopeful.
Hopeful not just because we're getting two big names and buddy banter in-between. More so that it would be interesting to observe how such genre and billing once a foolproof template for success pre-streaming, would perform in the current ever-evolving entertainment landscape.
This will be Pitt's pitstop (couldn't resist) ahead of his other Apple TV+ film that's unambiguously titled F1, premiering in 2025. Clooney's upcoming Netflix flick alongside Adam Sandler is likewise set to release next year.
Wolfs streams globally 27 September on Apple TV+.
Leave it to Severance to start posting mysterious images on social media. After Apple TV posted an image (scroll down) of Adam Scott's character, Mark S., some fans suspected that it meant we're on the cusp of some overdue Season Two news. So, is Season Two finally be around the corner? Well, it's complicated. Even with the new teaser from Apple, I'm sorry to report that 2022's breakout series has become, shall we say, severed from its work-half.
Following the WGA strike and rumors of drama behind the scenes, production on the show was halted indefinitely, according to Deadline—forcing audiences to sit with the first season's amazing cliffhanger. Luckily, according to producer Ben Stiller, production is finally back on. After a fan commented on the cryptic Apple teaser for Stiller to "give us a sign," the comedian responded, "We are working on it." Mark S., hold on, buddy.
Stiller also recently shut down rumors of drama surrounding the series creator Dan Erickson and co-executive producer Mark Friedman. The two "ended up hating each other on the first season, per multiple sources," according to The Town's Matthew Belloni, with AppleTV+ going through several rewrites for Season Two.
"No one’s going to the break room," Stiller responded on Twitter. "Love our fans and each other, and we all are just working to make the show as good as possible." Lumon Industries, I'm sure, is furious at the lack of efficiency. Those numbers aren't going to sort themselves! But Season Two is still very much in the cards for Severance.
Team Severance has been tight-lipped on potential Season Two plot reveals, but Patricia Arquette did issue a sinister warning. Speaking with Entertainment Tonight a year ago, Ms. Harmony Cobel herself joked, “Be scared, very scared." She continued, "I think these guys have been working really hard, and come up with a lot of really creative things. They have a whole world in their minds. They just let us in, piece by piece, into what’s going on, but I think it will be fun and beautiful.”
She also revealed that she loves to read fan theories, so if you've been trawling the Severance Reddit in the wee hours of the morning, just know—Arquette is watching. Now that talk around the Lumon water cooler is officially heating up, here's a quick rundown of everything we know about Season Two so far.
Well, when we talked to Tillman back in August, we had to ask him if there is any way he could top his defiant jazz performance in Season One. If you didn't know, Tillman is a massively accomplished theater actor, with a beautiful singing voice. So you know what we had to ask him: If Season One saw Mr. Milchick dance, Season Two has to see the man sing, right?
"Oh, you're going to get in trouble!" Tillman exclaimed. "You're going to get me in trouble. I have no idea. That's in all honesty. I am not trying to evade the question. I have no idea. Ben and Dan are working as we speak, and I know they're going to craft something that is incredible, genius, and funny. So we'll see."
Mr. Tillman, if you're reading this? If you end up singing a three-minute-long ballad to the severed floor next season, we're absolutely getting you on the phone again.
Considering that just about every major character was left in the lurch at the end of Season One, it's safe to assume that all your favorite stars will return, including Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, and Dichen Lachman. As for new faces, the series has added a stacked cast of new players, including Bob Balaban, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannante, Gwendoline Christie, John Noble, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Alia Shawkat, and Merritt Wever.
For Season Three and beyond? Severance's creative team is shooting for the moon, with Erickson saying that he hoped to pitch President Barack Obama on a guest role at the Emmys (where Obama was nominated for outstanding narration in the Netflix docuseries Our Great National Parks). “If he is [there] I’m going to see if he wants a role on this show,” Erickson said. “I think he’d be really good, he’d bring some gravitas.”
Jen Tullock, who plays Mark's sister Devin, joked, “If we could get Barbra Streisand to come around, I’d pretty much give you every American dollar I’ve got in my bank account.” Stiller, for his part, has more realistic expectations. “For me there are a lot of people like Christopher Guest; I kind of imagine, ‘Wow that would be amazing if someday he might be a part of the show,’” Stiller said. “It’s fun when you have a show like this where it allows for people to maybe come in for an episode or two but also fit into the world of Severance.”
We don’t know much about Season Two yet, but yes, Erickson offered some tantalizing hints in our interview with him. "There's definitely going to be some expansion of the world," he teased. "Within Lumon, we're going to see more of the building, and we’ll see more of the outside world, too." He went on to comment on the storytelling architecture of the entire narrative:
There's an overall plan for the show. I have an end point in mind, and I intentionally didn't plan it season by season, because I wanted it to be flexible enough that we could get there in two seasons or six seasons. I want to allow us to be surprised by where the show goes. There’s a sense of what Lumon is trying to do and the role that our main characters are going to play in that, and where it all will culminate. It's really exciting to think about taking the next step on that trip.
Season One ends with a spectacular cliffhanger when Mark, Irving, and Helly manage, with great difficulty, to bring their innies into the outside world. The consequences of their subterfuge are enormous: Mark learns that his supposedly dead wife is in fact his coworker, Irving discovers that his Lumon lover is married, and Helly learns her Eagan heritage, then announces to a gala of industry bigwigs that the severance procedure is torture. Dylan is apprehended by Mr. Milchick, but as Stiller pointed out in an interview with Deadline, Dylan has already seen the Matrix, back when his innie discovered that he has a child.
"Obviously, that’s a huge question and something that really is important to be dealt with because their whole perception of the world has been altered by having this glimpse," Stiller said. "That’s going to be a lot of what the second season has to deal with—a big part of the engine of the second season’s beginning." Similar conflict abounds for Mark, whose revelations will cause strife in his love life. "With Innie Mark, we’re starting to root for him and Helly, but now we also want to root for Outie Mark to find his wife," Stiller said. "That’s an interesting juxtaposition and conflict we’ll explore in the second season."
Though Season One centered on Mark and his perspective, meaning that we got scant few glimpses of his colleagues' outies, Erickson promises that everything is about to change. "In Season Two, we're going to be showing all of these people on the outside," he told EW. "Similar to Mark, they each had their own reason for getting this procedure, and they're all at some stage of a healing process for one thing or another... Being able to take what Adam did in the first season—with the differentiation between his innie and outie, and how they feel like the same person but with this vastly different lived experience—seeing the other three characters' version of that dichotomy is, I think, the most exciting part."
Mark's outie undergoes near-constant surveillance from his boss, Harmony Cobel, who moonlights as his kindly neighbor, Mrs. Selvig. Though Mark now knows the truth about Cobel's double life, Erickson teases that we haven't seen the last of her schemes. "I think that she does have some special attachment to Mark," he told Polygon. "And I don’t think it’s entirely Lumon-based, that’s what I’ll say. I think that she’s—without giving away too much of what we’ll see—there’s a professional interest for sure. And obviously, we’ve seen that there’s some sort of experiment or something happening with him and his wife, and sort of observing them. But I think that you can see it in her eyes that it’s become about more than the job."
If you really can't wait for Season Two, mosey on over to the Severance Reddit, where fans have already posted thousands of compelling theories. Many fans have latched onto a comment made by Helly's father ("One day, you will sit with me at my revolving"), postulating that the Eagan family members upload their consciousnesses to a computer and become part of the Board that so tormented Harmony Cobel. Could Kier Eagan still be alive in the ether, by that logic?
Another fan suggests that Irving, an ex-military man, may be an undercover operative who underwent the severance procedure to investigate Lumon, judging by his obsessive research and documentation about Lumon employees. "What if the severance procedure was initially developed for use in war?" one Redditor wonders.
"You have enlisted soldiers that are easily indoctrinated to do your will, and they have no recollection or PTSD after their tour is complete. Irving would have been involved with this severance program as a soldier, and it explains why his so interested in secretly tracking down other people." In a recent Reddit AMA, Erickson nodded at this theory, saying, "One of the nice things about opening up the world a bit is that we'll get to see other applications of the technology. Other ways society willingly 'segments' itself from unpleasant truths."
And what about those damn goats seen wandering around Lumon? Theories abound, with explanations ranging from cloning to brain experimentation. Erickson isn't saying much, but he assures viewers, "I don’t think we have seen our last goat on the show." In an interview with Variety, Stiller confirmed that we'll learn more about the goats in Season Two, saying, "There’s no way the goats are there for no reason." Things could get even stranger than random goats wandering the halls; when Esquire asked Tramell Tillman about the possibility of bringing his vocal chops to Season Two, the actor joked, "You're going to get me in trouble!"
Erickson's AMA confirmed some Season One mysteries and teased what's to come in Season Two. One thing's for sure: "The office is real," Erickson confirms. "It exists physically and everything we see there is actually happening (except the black goo, which is Irv's dream)." If your money was on the good old "it's all a simulation" theory, you've lost your bet. Erickson also hinted at another Season Two mystery—just why did Helena Eagan conceal her innie's suicide attempt from the Board? "Good question. I think more of that will reveal itself in Season Two!" he replied.
Alas, until Season Two makes its debut, there's not much we know for sure. As Erickson tells IndieWire, "It turns out it’s easier to ask interesting questions than answer them." We may not know much, but we do know one thing: trust in Ben Stiller. In an Esquire profile of Stiller, Severance star Patricia Arquette said, “He’s merciless. He never stops. He never stops rewriting, he never stops thinking. Weekends, holidays—you’d get phone calls late at night, you’d get phone calls early in the morning. Ideas. New things. He has incredibly intense focus on everything—every little set piece, every little wardrobe thing. I’ve never seen anybody so focused on everything.”
In Stiller and Erickson’s capable hands, no doubt Season Two will be another thrill ride of sci-fi goodness and corporate intrigue, though it's still a long way away, with no specified air date.
While we wait, there’s still a lot to chew on. Fans who want to delve even deeper can check out The Lexington Letter, a free, supposed “tell-all” book from former Lumon employee Peggy Kincaid, which Erickson confirms is, in fact, canon. We may soon have another book to enjoy, if his tease from the AMA is anything to go on; replying to a fan who asked if Ricken's The You You Are would ever make it into print, Erickson said, "I think the chances are pretty good it will happen..." Praise Kier!
Originally published on Esquire US
Killers of the Flower Moon took a while to be adapted. The rights to adapt David Grann's book started in 2016 but like any other project, the development of the film was halted due to the global pandemic. Still, the film was finally finished. It made its premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2023 and received a nine-minute standing ovation.
While we have to wait a few months to watch it, Apple TV+ unveils the trailer of Killers of the Flower Moon today.
With stirring Native American pow wow chants spliced with dubstep ("Stadium Pow Wow" by The Halluci Nation née A Tribe Called Red), the trailer brings across the palpable tension of a community gripped with terror.
The American Western crime drama (that's a mouthful) is based on the real-life murders that plagued the Osage Nation. Set in the 1920s, the epic is directed and co-produced by Martin Scorsese and stars an ensemble cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemons.
Given the subject matter, Scorsese involved the Osage Nation during the film's development. In a press release, Scorsese said, "We are thrilled to finally start production on Killers of the Flower Moon in Oklahoma. To be able to tell this story on the land where these events took place is incredibly important and critical to allowing us to portray an accurate depiction of the time and people. We're grateful to Apple, the Oklahoma Film and Music Office and The Osage Nation, especially all our Osage consultants and cultural advisors, as we prepare for this shoot."
In light of the current book bans and revisionisms in America, we are glad that someone made use of the medium to spotlight America's "hidden histories". (Another example was HBO's Watchmen which featured the Tulsa Race Massacre.)
America's history may not strike a chord with Singapore audiences but the cast and the dramatisation of a real-life event should be enough to get butts in seats.
Killers of the Flower Moon is tentatively slated to be in theatres on 6 October and later for online streaming on Apple TV+.
The Crowded Room will mark the actor's last project for the foreseeable future.
Tom Holland is taking a break from acting. Don’t worry, though—it’s only for a year. In a recent interview with Extra, the 27-year-old actor explained that filming his latest project, Apple TV+’s upcoming miniseries The Crowded Room, prompted the decision.
“I’m no stranger to hard work,” he explained. “I’ve lived by the idea that hard work is good work. Then again, the show did break me. There did come a time [when] I needed a break and disappeared and went to Mexico for a week and had time on a beach and laid low. I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was.”
Holland both produced and stars in The Crowded Room. The upcoming crime thriller follows Danny Sullivan, a man who is arrested in 1979 following a fatal shooting at Rockefeller Center. The series is inspired by Billy Milligan, a man convicted of many brutal crimes, who was eventually deemed innocent after he was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. His case sparked a debate about whether or not people with multiple personalities should be held accountable for their actions. In the first trailer for The Crowded Room, we see Holland's character grappling with similar circumstances. Check it out above.
Though the filming process was difficult, Holland said he’s excited to see the final product. “I feel like our hard work wasn’t in vain,” he said. This role is radically different from the blockbusters Holland is known for, like Marvel’s Spider-Man films, or the video game adaptation, Uncharted. According to the actor, he had to tap into a new psyche to pull it off, while also working on the business end of the production. “We were exploring certain emotions that I have definitely never experienced before,” he said. “And on top of that, being a producer, dealing with the day-to-day problems that come with any film set, just added that extra level of pressure.”
According to Variety, at one point during the filming, Holland nearly changed his appearance to shed the character. "I remember having a bit of a meltdown at home and thinking like, ‘I’m going to shave my head. I need to shave my head because I need to get rid of this character,’" he said. "And, obviously, we were mid-shooting, so I decided not to...It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.”
Now, with the production behind him, Holland says he’s learned to better manage his mental health. That is, in part, thanks to the research he did while filming the series. “Learning about mental health and the power of it, and speaking to psychiatrists about Danny and Billy's struggles, has been something that has been so informative to my own life,” Holland said.
Though Holland won’t be working on any more projects this year, you can see him in The Crowded Room, alongside Amanda Seyfried, Emmy Rossum, Sasha Lane, and Emma Laird, out now only on Apple TV+.
From: Esquire US
